Terran 1. Redesign Thor ability/Raven seeker missile 2. Push early game Reaper a bit more 3. Hellbats better against melee units, not necessarily better vs. Ranged. 4. We'd really like to see more Medivac usage like we saw in Wings for a time in the past. Currently thinking on a cooldown based speed booster ability. 5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak. 6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory.
Zerg 1. Hydralisk movement speed upgrade to Lair 2. Mutalisk buff to speed and/or acceleration 3. Ultralisk changed to be good vs. all ground 4. Nerf Infestor quite heavily 5. Make it easier to unburrow and reposition Swarm Hosts
Protoss 1. Redesign Voidray - we're currently thinking of having the player choose when to activate the charge. 2. Oracle - pulsar beam would now overlap too much with the new Voidray, so we'd like to change the Oracle to be more of a worker harasser. 3. Buff DTs not necessarily for the DT rush case, but to have DTs more often in the late game. 4. Nerf Vortex - we don't like how all or nothing this ability is in Wings, and with new unit adds, we feel we can remove or phase out this ability. 5. Tempest doesn't counter all late tech Zerg. We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play. 6. Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall.
These are our current thoughts for each of the races. And please remember none of these changes are final. Our hope is to move into the more fine tuning stages if this major patch turns out well.
Overall really nice that they are looking into all of these things, seems like they've finally started to really look at WOL unit problems. The one major thing I would add to the list is to look at the corrupter as it's boring and too effective against capital ships.
Also nerf infestor quite heavily? I hope they don't mean IT eggs...XD
4. We'd really like to see more Medivac usage like we saw in Wings for a time in the past. Currently thinking on a cooldown based speed booster ability.
Fuck yea, for once i'am fucking happy with the direction the game is taking. FUCK YEAAA im so fucking pumped. hope infestor root is gone. Love that they are messing up with whole metagame. Now a buff to stim research,warpgate research and ling speed research to make early game more agressive and i'am happy
I really like the Terran changes going on here, especially the combining of upgrades for air and mech. Vikings will never hold a candle to how strong tempests are against Zerg T3, but this should definitely help with those annoying zerg T3 tech switches that are killing a lot of pro terrans.
On the other hand, widow mine is still an annoyance to both use and play against. I don't see the muta buffs or the DT buffs helping with making these key harassers better against Terran while the widow mine can basically shut down whole branches of tech trees.
Additionally, making Hellbats better against melee just does more to solidify the Zergling's death in the matchup. With infestors gone (hopefully), Hellbats will force Zerg even further into Roach play in order to handle a now much stronger bio force, which I'm going to guess and say that it will lead into a lot of MMM against Roach Hydra Viper even with the "general mech buffs." I'm not sure yet how I feel about this, actually.
I like it wish they would provide more info on how they plant to nerf the infestors, obviously the projectile to fungal. Need more info before I decide if I like that one. Especially love the vortex, thor/raven and hydra change.
5. Tempest doesn't counter all late tech Zerg. We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play.
I don't get what he's trying to say here, does he say it's not a counter to all late tech zerg and he wants it to be just that, or does he not like that zerg can't go air with tempest in play, which I think is not true, but I'm not a game designer.
Exciting stuff overall. These sound like pretty good changes as a whole. I'm a bit disappointed to see the carrier still isn't being addressed at this point but I guess there's still time to take a crack at it.
I'm a bit curious as to how they are going to design the void ray? It seems like it would be very powerful if you could just activate its high power beam willy nilly.
Oracle locking down workers instead of mineral patches might be a neat idea, I wonder if they will go in that direction?
On December 04 2012 03:12 spbelky wrote: O Dayvie, such good intentions. But does he have the tools and knowledge to pull it off?
He's a genious compared to 99% of the balance whiners on TL and he made sc2, so I guess its ezpzlsqz for him.
I like the changes alot!
What changes? DK posts ideas and thoughts about the game, not actual changes. This is what I mean. DK is much smarter and more qualified than just about everyone, but that doesn't mean he will succeed. Just because he compiles a list of logical ideas on how to fix the game, doesn't mean it will actually happen or actually work.
On the bright side, at least Blizzard is being a bit more open about the game's development. Hopefully we can see a PTR build in the coming days.
5. Tempest doesn't counter all late tech Zerg. We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play.
I don't get what he's trying to say here, does he say it's not a counter to all late tech zerg and he wants it to be just that, or does he not like that zerg can't go air with tempest in play, which I think is not true, but I'm not a game designer.
Ya that sentence is a little awkward, but I believe what he is saying is that they are looking into nerfing the effectiveness of Tempest against late game zerg tech (i.e ultra/broods).
I'm actually quite happy about this because late game templar tempest usage is actually insanely efficient.
5. Tempest doesn't counter all late tech Zerg. We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play.
I don't get what he's trying to say here, does he say it's not a counter to all late tech zerg and he wants it to be just that, or does he not like that zerg can't go air with tempest in play, which I think is not true, but I'm not a game designer.
If you've played beta you would recognize that most zergs are hesitant to go BL or Ultra due to the ease with with Protoss can swap to Tempests and hard-counter both. DK is suggesting that they want to modify the Tempest so it isn't SO good against BOTH Ultralisk AND Broodlord.
Terran 1 very good, hope they get something nice 2 i feel it is fine as it is, already quite good in tvt / tvz 3 what? hellbats already stomp zerglings too hard.. Don't screw over TvZ because of your stupid idea's to change TvP into mech wars 4 medivac usage is already pretty big but i guess this is fine 5 good idea but vague 6 combing the upgrades seems alright but makes mech too strong really, i don't get why they think mech is weak in HotS.. it's already rediculous except in TvP
missing a change to battlecruiser.. missing a radical change to widow mine, stupid unit now
zerg 1. very good, better yet just combine range and speed upgrade. 2. seems fine 3. definately needs a buff, the new ability is just terrible too. Way too slow, often doesn't work well and spreads the units while ultra's depend on splash.. 4. also ok with me, i'd like to see fungal back to longer duration again making it a nice tactical spell instead and only getting a few infestors instead of the spamfest it is now 5. ok i guess
protoss 1. voidray really needs a more drastic change then this to have some real use since it's so similar to the tempest. Something along the lines of a speed buff or build time buff i'd say 2 good idea, oracle is still crap now. Please give back detection to it. 3 good move, merge with templar archives please 4 very good, nerf the mothership so it's useless and just a newbie unit 5 haven't experienced this myself but must also admit haven't had many ZvP go beyond the lair swarm host stuff 6 fine as long as it doesn't always become the same combination (ie you always go void -> phoenix -> a few oracle). There should be differentation when to choose which unit
missing changes to the mothership core, i hate it's design now. Too strong of a deterrent against midgame terran/zerg pushes. "free" vision up the ramp is still breaking blink rushes as well which arguably makes it even harder to expand in PvP than before..
Overall many good motives but almost no good concrete idea's and he's missing out on some of the most important issues I think (Msc and widow mine). I have little confidence they fix many of these issues quickly, given how they've been doing so far..
Hyped for the Hydralisk and Ultra changes... Zerg might actually have a mid game thanks to the changes to Hydras and Swarm Hosts. Love the fact that I can use Ultras in ZvP without seeing them get shredded by Zealot/Archon.
I'm worried about ZvT bio. Vipers nor swarmhosts aren't good against bio. So if they want to nerf infestor, buff medivacs and biological hellbats, that all will make bio way way stronger in midgame than it's now.
I really love the Terran ideas. I would really like a buff to Ghosts for late Game. Also the Medivac-Boost would be nice so Terran is maybe not that coinflippy with Drops. Generally I really love those ideas and that they are going to make some drastic changes
On December 04 2012 03:24 Virid wrote: Zergling's death in the matchup. .
Yeah, this is the second time I've read this, and it makes sense, AND it bums me out. Zerglings should still have counterattack and tertiary squad capability, which doesn't seem to happen with widow mines. They just kill way too many of them with one widow mine.
I suppose vs. a stricly bio army they can still be good, or perhaps in small numbers.
On December 04 2012 03:43 Tuczniak wrote: I'm worried about ZvT bio. Vipers nor swarmhosts aren't good against bio. So if they want to nerf infestor, buff medivacs and biological hellbats, that all will make bio way way stronger in midgame than it's now.
Sorry, but you are the kind of person that drags the community down. This is the first time EVER Blizzard is really trying to change something really HUGE. What we're looking at here is a potential flip of the entire meta-game. This shit is exiting as fuck and all you have to say is some fucking preemptive balance whine.
Nothing to address carrier. really? Terran changes sound promising, especially the combined upgrades is huge imo - allows for a lot more late game tech switching, which is direly needed for T.
I want to believe... but something tells me these changes will largely be gimmicky with specific defense or attribute tags being the triggers for "balance" that make us all groan and facepalm.
On December 04 2012 03:24 Virid wrote: Zergling's death in the matchup. .
Yeah, this is the second time I've read this, and it makes sense, AND it bums me out. Zerglings should still have counterattack and tertiary squad capability, which doesn't seem to happen with widow mines. They just kill way too many of them with one widow mine.
I suppose vs. a stricly bio army they can still be good, or perhaps in small numbers.
You can send a single ling ahead of the harrassing pack to trigger the mine. They are also trying to revive muta harrassment.
I figured I will just post my question here. Is it a bad idea to change the Broodlord's attack from broodlings to acid spores like the Guardian in Brood War (but now we can't call it a Broodlord eh)? And for Infestors how bad would it be if the cost for Infested terrans get increased to 50 energy or more?
I'm only a casual diamond player and don't really pay deep attention to balance but to me it seems that Zergs just have too many "free" units. These questions probably have been asked before and I am curious what the answers were.
6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory.
Wow this is a huge huge buff and since it focuses on late game, I like it.
I disagree with Reaper become greater early game unit. Are they crazy? Wth they want us to go back 2.5 years ago with all stupid Reaper rushes? It's not even fun, it's annoying to play or watch.
5. Tempest doesn't counter all late tech Zerg. We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play.
I hope this mean Tempest will only hit Air or something
3. Buff DTs not necessarily for the DT rush case, but to have DTs more often in the late game.
lol blink DT anyone? Also I want to see them merge Dark Shine with TA
NO mention of rocks, I'm guessing dustin hasn't been in the loop about these changes and most of them won't make it because lets face it... most of them are actually good for the game.
5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak.
Interesting... I wonder if they'll go with +light or +armored route or just do a synergy upgrade with say.. medvacs like giving them 2 targets healed at once or something like that.
1. Hydralisk movement speed upgrade to Lair
About fucking time. Seriously why were they so afraid of having this unit actually participate in games?
1. Redesign Voidray - we're currently thinking of having the player choose when to activate the charge.
Interesting idea, they'll prolly still be awful in major battles without a damage type change though (kind of what they are trying to change with ultras)
3. Buff DTs not necessarily for the DT rush case, but to have DTs more often in the late game.
Been a while since I played protoss but isn't this the point in the game where DTs shine?
Zerg #4 makes me happy in the pants. The rest just make me happy. There is not one change that I feel shouldn't be there. It will be interesting to see what these changes are however.
I like the direction they're heading in general here. Very cool stuff. I still am hoping they'll change the colossus though, but perhaps they're too afraid to mess with such a crucial and established unit, even if it makes for poor gameplay and basically forces air as the only solution.
Regarding the Void Ray: at this point, I just feel it should go away. With the Tempest, P has enough air units and all the other ones are more interesting (they really need to implement the carrier changes). The original idea of the void ray was cute, and gave us things like charge juggling for a very brief time, but its uses are just way too limited outside of bad all-ins. Good bye Void Ray!
Actually everything he said is all that was planned,but never reached in the BETA for now after 3 months.I hope they finally REALLY implement all this changes and then I will buy HotS even if it cost 60€....
I like the changes,but only the reaper.Now it is too strong in TvT early...
I think the most obvious Tempest nerf is to make the anti-Massive bonus only work vs Air. Protoss have no Answer to Colossi and BLs in WoL. Tempest kills both quite efficiently. It doesn't need to counter Thors or ultras, Toss already have immortals for that.
Dark Templars should get a speed+Blink upgrade. It makes sense given their lore, and would greatly improve their ability to punish any lack of detection without making them a deathball unit like archons.
If Bliz is considering a true "heavy nerf" for infestors - just take away the ability to hit air with Fungal. (Like in old old WoL beta) Voila, they've suddenly fixed muta, VR/Phoenix, mass bio drop, and Banshee viability, while also increasing the role of the Hydralisk.
As a zerg player i agree that the infestor needs to be nerfed. But please don't overnerf it like you did the reaper and ghost. It should still be worth getting if that is what you want, but don't kill it.
And do mutas really need to be faster? they are already fast enough lol. if anything there should be a bit of a health buff to let them fight easier and not turn instantly into red mist if a marine looks at it lol.
In general, I think deathballs need to be harder to use. In bio vs mech, mech is supposedly stronger than bio, but it's hard to use mech and hard to get mech. Stuff like tempest deathballs or infestor broodlord are arguably even more powerful than mech, and are arguably easier to get and very easy to use.
On an unrelated note, what do you think about making it so that infestors have to build ITs the way reavers build scarabs?
On December 04 2012 03:09 MockHamill wrote: Terran 4. We'd really like to see more Medivac usage like we saw in Wings for a time in the past. Currently thinking on a cooldown based speed booster ability. 5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak.
Zerg 2. Mutalisk buff to speed and/or acceleration
Protoss 3. Buff DTs not necessarily for the DT rush case, but to have DTs more often in the late game. 4. Nerf Vortex - we don't like how all or nothing this ability is in Wings, and with new unit adds, we feel we can remove or phase out this ability. 6. Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall.
I feel like all of these goals could be accomplished just by readjusting the movement-denial aspect of fungal. They want units to be faster and more mobile, without considering why these already very mobile units are weak in the late game.
On December 04 2012 03:48 DeadByDawn wrote: Zerg/3 ("Ultralisk changed to be good vs. all ground") - Including against Thors and Marauders? What will the Terran counter be then?
He means that they'll do equal damage to all targets, rather than 15 + 20 to armoured, or at least something along those lines. Since thors and marauders already take full damage from their attacks it won't change anything.
On December 04 2012 03:48 DeadByDawn wrote: Zerg/3 ("Ultralisk changed to be good vs. all ground") - Including against Thors and Marauders? What will the Terran counter be then?
He means that they'll do equal damage to all targets, rather than 15 + 20 to armoured, or at least something along those lines. Since thors and marauders already take full damage from their attacks it won't change anything.
ever saw a round of warped in zealots hardcounter the expensive ultratech? will be much better now! same for 3 ultras chewing for 10 sec at 1 marine thats healed by a medivac. MUCH better and awesome change.
Terran 1. Redesign Thor ability/Raven seeker missile 2. Push early game Reaper a bit more 3. Hellbats better against melee units, not necessarily better vs. Ranged. 4. We'd really like to see more Medivac usage like we saw in Wings for a time in the past. Currently thinking on a cooldown based speed booster ability. 5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak. 6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory.
Zerg 1. Hydralisk movement speed upgrade to Lair 2. Mutalisk buff to speed and/or acceleration 3. Ultralisk changed to be good vs. all ground 4. Nerf Infestor quite heavily 5. Make it easier to unburrow and reposition Swarm Hosts
Protoss 1. Redesign Voidray - we're currently thinking of having the player choose when to activate the charge. 2. Oracle - pulsar beam would now overlap too much with the new Voidray, so we'd like to change the Oracle to be more of a worker harasser. 3. Buff DTs not necessarily for the DT rush case, but to have DTs more often in the late game. 4. Nerf Vortex - we don't like how all or nothing this ability is in Wings, and with new unit adds, we feel we can remove or phase out this ability. 5. Tempest doesn't counter all late tech Zerg. We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play. 6. Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall.
These are our current thoughts for each of the races. And please remember none of these changes are final. Our hope is to move into the more fine tuning stages if this major patch turns out well.
Terran: 1. Thor with energy bar sucks. Raven re-design? All the raven needs is more accessibility. Corvid reactor increases raven starting energy to 100 thanks. 2. Reaper...what? I hope they don't mean to mess up TvT even more. Maybe he meant TvZ/TvP reapers? Don't like this. Same mistake as wings of liberty design. Make a unit useful in one phase of the game then it completely sucks later on. "Push early game reaper more." BAD. 3. Revert ridiculous bio flag that made archons essentially do +10 damage vs battle hellions. edit: the mech+air upgrades combo means bio players now will end up with 3/3 mech as well which is good. But bio hellion still baaaaad. 4. Hmm...medivac speed upgrade? Bio needs some attention in HOTS too so this is good. Is this Caduceous reactor? :D 5. yeah...with all the stuff from the other two races, bio would be left behind. Medivac healing rate upgrade? :D Increases healing rate of medivacs but uses medivac energy twice as fast? Like stim for medivacs :D? Medivac heals two units at once? One can imagine... 6. Hmm...about time they start testing this shiot. Better now then it's March and they put out their thoughts "um we realize mech still sux" -_-
Zerg: 1. Good, sup hydras 2. Muta...dunno about that. Giving a buff like this to a unit that was already previously massable...well i guess they want things other than infestors in this game after all. 3. wat 4. LOL. I will believe it when I see it. I expect Taeja to win a single bo3 series and they say infestors are fine, winrates 50/50. 5. wat, make an easy unit easier ok.
Protoss: 1. Sounds terrible. 2. yeh, it does overlap. Voidray wants his mojo back. 3. Give DT lategame blink upgrade lulz. But seriously wat? DTS are fine. 4. Tempest > everything, vortex not needed. 5. What he means guys is, they don't like how in lategame when the game stabilizes and both players are maxing 200/200 protoss right now can literally mass tempests and if the Zerg opts for any broodlords whatsoever, they are at a disadvantage. There's almost no late game composition from both T and Z that can beat mass tempest + templar intermingled with standard protoss stuff to be honest. 6. Sounds like a gimmicky composition, don't think they should bother with something like that being "viable." Just make the units all good and people will figure things like that out for themselves.
combining vehicle and air...??? that will be VERY interesting, but I'm not sure I like that (it will help air and mech which is great, but I feel they should be able to have their own upgrades and still do well)
YES! Oracle worker harasser, building harass given back to Void Ray!
Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall.
I hope they're not going to make it viable to have 75%+ of your army supply in air units. I think it should be terran that can do that, to some weak degree. Though if they make air work for protoss, I think they should make air for zerg and terran slightly more viable too.
I'm guessing they mean that you should be able to open voidray/phoenix/oracle to do all kinds of interesting harass.
Hmm, no comment on the Tempest in regards to it being 4 supply and not needing a fleet beacon?
On December 04 2012 04:11 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: MORE UPDATES YES!
combining vehicle and air...??? that will be VERY interesting, but I'm not sure I like that (it will help air and mech which is great, but I feel they should be able to have their own upgrades and still do well)
YES! Oracle worker harasser, building harass given back to Void Ray!
Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall.
I hope they're not going to make it viable to have 75%+ of your army supply in air units. I think it should be terran that can do that, to some weak degree. Though if they make air work for protoss, I think they should make air for zerg and terran slightly more viable too.
I'm guessing they mean that you should be able to open voidray/phoenix/oracle to do all kinds of interesting harass.
Hmm, no comment on the Tempest in regards to it being 4 supply and not needing a fleet beacon?
Buff mech in general, yay!
Yeh, tempest is still > mech unless they are changing it to not be so good vs Zerg lategame, and not be so insta-win vs mech too. One would hope.
On December 04 2012 03:54 Doko wrote: NO mention of rocks, I'm guessing dustin hasn't been in the loop about these changes and most of them won't make it because lets face it... most of them are actually good for the game.
5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak.
Interesting... I wonder if they'll go with +light or +armored route or just do a synergy upgrade with say.. medvacs like giving them 2 targets healed at once or something like that.
Wow getting pretty hyped just reading that post! I think the VR change would be brilliant.
And those people whining about the carrier, David Kim already stated that the carrier clearly needs a buff of some kind, they just don't know how to do it yet.
The only thing I don't agree with is medivac/mutalisk speed buffs. The OPness of fungal is why you see less medivacs/mutalisk play. If they nerf the infestor by making funal only work on ground units you will see a lot more medivac and mutalisk usage in their respective match-ups.
having it NOT hit Air/Cloaked (since its, duh, and underground unit with no detection abilities) would be an easy fix, and take care of a LOT of problems HotS is having now
This might just be what HOTS needs. Right now it doesnt feel too different from WoL, especially as terran, but adding all these changes could really restart the metagame.
Sounds great! I play Zerg, and wholeheartedly approve of all the things under inspection. All that I ask is that during the infestor nerf, they don't take away the rooting aspect of fungal to ground units. Air units should be fine to move if fungaled, but removing the rooting aspect to ground would make bio balls nigh impenetrable. And don't say banelings because any semblence of micro at all from the terran reduces the efficiency of ling/bling trades quite heavily without fungal support. Any other nerf is encouraged however since the infestor definitely needs it. My recommendation would be an increase in IT energy requirement and taking away the ability of fungal to affect air units.
As for terran and Protoss, the changes are definitely in the right direction. Please remove thor energy completely though if the ability change isn't drastic. Also, widow mine. It requires change.
DT blink sounds like a great idea so cupcake to whomever proposed that.
On December 04 2012 03:43 Tuczniak wrote: I'm worried about ZvT bio. Vipers nor swarmhosts aren't good against bio. So if they want to nerf infestor, buff medivacs and biological hellbats, that all will make bio way way stronger in midgame than it's now.
As a Zerg I think theoretically pure bio can be beaten end-game without Infestor (well its been proven time and again anyway - at least at the current pro level). The real keys here are what are the new bio units they are adding and how effective are they vs. all things Zerg. I'm quite sure it will work out and hell I'll take this any day over the gimmicky Infestor. I can imagine things like a handful of Vipers pulling tanks or other units into the Zerg swarm to force engagements from the Terran. At that point even mass baneling seems quite strong.
On December 04 2012 04:50 TheLunatic wrote: Any idea on time line for implementation, seems like they are running out of test time with release just around the corner
Before the holidays, so in the comming 2 weeks i suppose.
On December 04 2012 03:09 MockHamill wrote: According to David Kim: Terran 1. Redesign Thor ability/Raven seeker missile 2. Push early game Reaper a bit more 3. Hellbats better against melee units, not necessarily better vs. Ranged. 4. We'd really like to see more Medivac usage like we saw in Wings for a time in the past. Currently thinking on a cooldown based speed booster ability. 5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak. 6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory.
Zerg 1. Hydralisk movement speed upgrade to Lair 2. Mutalisk buff to speed and/or acceleration 3. Ultralisk changed to be good vs. all ground 4. Nerf Infestor quite heavily 5. Make it easier to unburrow and reposition Swarm Hosts
Protoss 1. Redesign Voidray - we're currently thinking of having the player choose when to activate the charge. 2. Oracle - pulsar beam would now overlap too much with the new Voidray, so we'd like to change the Oracle to be more of a worker harasser. 3. Buff DTs not necessarily for the DT rush case, but to have DTs more often in the late game. 4. Nerf Vortex - we don't like how all or nothing this ability is in Wings, and with new unit adds, we feel we can remove or phase out this ability. 5. Tempest doesn't counter all late tech Zerg. We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play. 6. Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall.
These are our current thoughts for each of the races. And please remember none of these changes are final. Our hope is to move into the more fine tuning stages if this major patch turns out well.
1.1 Why only redesign the Thor ABILITY? 1.2 What for? 1.3 Something I came up with: What about a damage shield that burns everyone striking the Battle Hellion? 1.4 What is the point of MORE SPEED? Do you honestly think that casuals can control that adequately? 1.5 Hmmmm ... why not nerf the "other units"? 1.6 Combining the upgrades for air and mech doesnt buff mech ... it buffs airmech.
2.1 If Hydralisks get their speed buff you can remove the creep tumor to take away the map hack for Zerg. 2.2 WTF? Mutalisks are fast already ... and look at 1.4 More speed doesnt make the game better ... only less controlled. 2.3 Zerg needs more units with "bonus damage" OR that stupid concept needs to be removed because it is actually "limited damage" 2.4 How? 2.5 Why? A cloaked "free unit generator" isnt good enough and it has to be really mobile as well? Makes no sense at all.
3.1 When to activate the charge? ALWAYS! ASAP! ... If the charge can be kept up only for X seconds it is a nerf and not a buff. 3.2 Why not scrap the whole Oracle because it does jobs which other flying units (Phoenix) are already doing? 3.3 Easy ... just introduce a 12 unit selection limit and force units to spread out while moving. No need to fiddle around with unit stats or timings, just reduce the unit density from "ridiculously high" to "reasonably low and HARD TO INCREASE". 3.4 Wow ... all or nothing is bad? You are catching on fast! ... NOT. How about all the other "100% effects" like bonus damage, Blink, Forcefield, Fungal, Baneling-rightclick-on-a-Planetary-Fortress? 3.5 Sooo ... Tempest doesnt counter everything yet? Better buff it quick! 3.6 Why? As an excuse to not fix the Carrier problem?
On December 04 2012 04:01 Roth wrote: Somehow it is funny that they created good ways at deflecting harassement and now they want to buff things like Muta-, DT- and Bioharassement.
That's the best way to make the game skill heavy. Make nice easy niches for defending bullshitty mass harassment tactics but make well controlled drop/harass play good enough to bypass it.
I think they're hoping the Widow Mine sorts itself out too. Late game battlecruisers will be way, way stronger if they combine mech/air upgrades.
Also laughing at the usual doomsayers who are terrified of Blizzard messing up their build orders. Yes, Blizzard intended you to build more than one single scout Reaper. Deal with it.
On December 04 2012 04:17 leova wrote: DT and Muta buffs are UNNECESSARY....
JUST FIX THE FREAKIN WIDOW MINE
having it NOT hit Air/Cloaked (since its, duh, and underground unit with no detection abilities) would be an easy fix, and take care of a LOT of problems HotS is having now
The Widow Mine is fine. If you think the Widow Mine is a harsh drop defence you should play against Infestors in WoL. Now that is a comically imbalanced situation.
"Oh, hey, by the way. Here's a unit that's faster than your drop vehicle which can not only root your unit while doing damage, but prevent it from dropping entirely, nuke anything it actually dropped and if that wasn't enough, it can kill it off with spawned, free units BEFORE IT CAN EVEN LEAVE.
Terran 1. Redesign Thor ability/Raven seeker missile 2. Push early game Reaper a bit more
How about adding mid/lategame utility instead?
3. Hellbats better against melee units, not necessarily better vs. Ranged.
Can someone explain this one to me? Aren't they already brutal against melee?
4. We'd really like to see more Medivac usage like we saw in Wings for a time in the past. Currently thinking on a cooldown based speed booster ability.
...reverting the change to speed back in the early days. I'm not sure how the result differs.
5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak. 6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory.
Zerg 1. Hydralisk movement speed upgrade to Lair 2. Mutalisk buff to speed and/or acceleration 3. Ultralisk changed to be good vs. all ground 4. Nerf Infestor quite heavily 5. Make it easier to unburrow and reposition Swarm Hosts
Protoss 1. Redesign Voidray - we're currently thinking of having the player choose when to activate the charge.
Of all the obstacles to Stargate play, I don't see this as making real progress in changing that.
2. Oracle - pulsar beam would now overlap too much with the new Voidray, so we'd like to change the Oracle to be more of a worker harasser.
Raid unit, right...
3. Buff DTs not necessarily for the DT rush case, but to have DTs more often in the late game.
How about combining Dark Shrine with Templar Archives? It's been shown that the TA doesn't arrive in time to stop the common stim timings on its own (it relies on the Colossus transition, for the most part) - wouldn't having DTs in time for that make a huge difference in how the midgame unfolds? Detection has always been the sticking point, and they can (with Widow Mines) finally put that one to rest.
4. Nerf Vortex - we don't like how all or nothing this ability is in Wings, and with new unit adds, we feel we can remove or phase out this ability.
golf clap
5. Tempest doesn't counter all late tech Zerg. We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play.
How wedded are we to the damage boost against massive units?
6. Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall.
A good idea for the Void Ray redesign, already been said a few times, is to make it an anti-spell caster.
Move the damage bonus against massive to psionic. Make the unit under the VR attack unable to use spells or abilites. Think about it. No EMP, no Storm, no FF/GShield, no Infested terrans/Fungal, no blink, no phase shift mode, no burrow, no stim... maybe no heal? Carriers and Mommaship being immune ofc, because that would make it too much of a counter.
That sounds very promising. As a Mutalisk lover I'm expecting a hilarious acceleration buff.
I guess the infestor nerf is probably the biggest unknown at this point. I'm calling it now: they'll try something awful that no one else expected, people will hate it, and they will get it right after 2-3 tries.
On December 04 2012 04:17 leova wrote: DT and Muta buffs are UNNECESSARY....
JUST FIX THE FREAKIN WIDOW MINE
having it NOT hit Air/Cloaked (since its, duh, and underground unit with no detection abilities) would be an easy fix, and take care of a LOT of problems HotS is having now
The Widow Mine is fine. If you think the Widow Mine is a harsh drop defence you should play against Infestors in WoL. Now that is a comically imbalanced situation.
"Oh, hey, by the way. Here's a unit that's faster than your drop vehicle which can not only root your unit while doing damage, but prevent it from dropping entirely, nuke anything it actually dropped and if that wasn't enough, it can kill it off with spawned, free units BEFORE IT CAN EVEN LEAVE.
My biggest complaint about the widow mine is that it can attack cloaked units without detection. I just don't see how that makes any sense at all.
Sometimes I think of it like an amove version of a burrowed baneling. Doesn't require any micro to use, yet it does massive damage to anything that comes in it's path.
On December 04 2012 04:17 leova wrote: DT and Muta buffs are UNNECESSARY....
JUST FIX THE FREAKIN WIDOW MINE
having it NOT hit Air/Cloaked (since its, duh, and underground unit with no detection abilities) would be an easy fix, and take care of a LOT of problems HotS is having now
The Widow Mine is fine. If you think the Widow Mine is a harsh drop defence you should play against Infestors in WoL. Now that is a comically imbalanced situation.
"Oh, hey, by the way. Here's a unit that's faster than your drop vehicle which can not only root your unit while doing damage, but prevent it from dropping entirely, nuke anything it actually dropped and if that wasn't enough, it can kill it off with spawned, free units BEFORE IT CAN EVEN LEAVE.
Your post is garbage. You didn't even respond to him. No one here is arguing about Infestors being op or not. Take your whining elsewhere.
God speed. Looks like the current weeks with no changes to the game will be hit by a big wave. If the intended changes turn out the way they want it i might star sailing on the battle.net.
I am still partially shocked that they've kept (or at least not implied that they're getting rid of) the widow mines auto detection abilities and the MSC having such early detection. Besides that it seems like most of this is good, hopefully we see the patch notes soon
On December 04 2012 04:17 leova wrote: DT and Muta buffs are UNNECESSARY....
JUST FIX THE FREAKIN WIDOW MINE
having it NOT hit Air/Cloaked (since its, duh, and underground unit with no detection abilities) would be an easy fix, and take care of a LOT of problems HotS is having now
The Widow Mine is fine. If you think the Widow Mine is a harsh drop defence you should play against Infestors in WoL. Now that is a comically imbalanced situation.
"Oh, hey, by the way. Here's a unit that's faster than your drop vehicle which can not only root your unit while doing damage, but prevent it from dropping entirely, nuke anything it actually dropped and if that wasn't enough, it can kill it off with spawned, free units BEFORE IT CAN EVEN LEAVE.
Your post is garbage. You didn't even respond to him. No one here is arguing about Infestors being op or not. Take your whining elsewhere.
What exactly is the point of responding to someone who claims something is broken when it manifestly isn't? So you can't blindly harass a terran base by clicking A somewhere behind their mineral line anymore and expect to get away with it. Tough titties. A zerg in particular has no leaway in this argument because their overlord and creep spread when done well gives them TOTAL MAP VISION.
All of a sudden, when your flock of mutalisks can't just waltz into a base and snipe off four or five scvs before running away, this is a bad thing? Welcome to the life of every terran since 2010, when the "muta flock" timing which basically totally shut down drop play has been replaced by the "any number of infestors sat around a spine crawler" timing.
Note, I am only bringing this up in response to this idea that the Widow Mine in its current, useless past 12 minutes form is in any way "OP". This is a static defense which fires once every 40 seconds which I have to infest gas, minerals and SUPPLY into. It should pack a punch. It should punish lazy players.
If you die to it, that is what you are. Lazy. Stop being lazy and pay attention to your harassment instead of just clicking behind a mineral line and only paying attention when the computer screams at you about the hive cluster being under attack and you see a bit of red around your green. Even as a shitty Gold terran I still need to be careful about where I drop. The number of times I've seen a zerg or a protoss just take 10 supply of units and click somewhere behind the mineral line - well it's about bloody time you were punished for it.
On December 04 2012 04:17 leova wrote: DT and Muta buffs are UNNECESSARY....
JUST FIX THE FREAKIN WIDOW MINE
having it NOT hit Air/Cloaked (since its, duh, and underground unit with no detection abilities) would be an easy fix, and take care of a LOT of problems HotS is having now
The Widow Mine is fine. If you think the Widow Mine is a harsh drop defence you should play against Infestors in WoL. Now that is a comically imbalanced situation.
"Oh, hey, by the way. Here's a unit that's faster than your drop vehicle which can not only root your unit while doing damage, but prevent it from dropping entirely, nuke anything it actually dropped and if that wasn't enough, it can kill it off with spawned, free units BEFORE IT CAN EVEN LEAVE.
Your post is garbage. You didn't even respond to him. No one here is arguing about Infestors being op or not. Take your whining elsewhere.
What exactly is the point of responding to someone who claims something is broken when it manifestly isn't? So you can't blindly harass a terran base by clicking A somewhere behind their mineral line anymore and expect to get away with it. Tough titties. A zerg in particular has no leaway in this argument because their overlord and creep spread when done well gives them TOTAL MAP VISION.
All of a sudden, when your flock of mutalisks can't just waltz into a base and snipe off four or five scvs before running away, this is a bad thing? Welcome to the life of every terran since 2010, when the "muta flock" timing which basically totally shut down drop play has been replaced by the "any number of infestors sat around a spine crawler" timing.
Note, I am only bringing this up in response to this idea that the Widow Mine in its current, useless past 12 minutes form is in any way "OP". This is a static defense which fires once every 40 seconds which I have to infest gas, minerals and SUPPLY into. It should pack a punch. It should punish lazy players.
If you die to it, that is what you are. Lazy. Stop being lazy and pay attention to your harassment instead of just clicking behind a mineral line and only paying attention when the computer screams at you about the hive cluster being under attack and you see a bit of red around your green. Even as a shitty Gold terran I still need to be careful about where I drop. The number of times I've seen a zerg or a protoss just take 10 supply of units and click somewhere behind the mineral line - well it's about bloody time you were punished for it.
dont call people lazy and want a 0 apm safe vs everything mine. thats just...well just think before you post. but had to laugh that terran were struggling since 2010 vs zerg. 60% winrate at that times was really hard for terrans lol.
the mine cost too much supply but it shutting down all DT/banshee/muta/dropplay for basically free is retarded.
making ultras good vs all ground is music to my ears
Agreed. Rather than simply buffing ultra's against certain units or general stats I'd like them to utilize their new physics changes to do something similar to the following.
- Stampede: a charge-like ability that crushes opponents units (rather than pathing around) doing AOE damage to all units underneath and tossing them into the air (similar to death animation).
or
- Adding AOE damage to the current burrowed charge when the ultra emerges from the ground tossing the opponents units into air. Imagine an ultra unburrowing under a bunch of marines tossing them into the air causing some level of AOE damage.
This way even if we loose much or all of the AOE from infestors we get some back using much cooler more zergy mechanics. The charge mechanic or burrow mechanic likely shouldn't be a passive ability so that some level of micro is required so that it is not to strong and it is more interesting.
Just a thought on possible methods of Ultra buff that could add something interesting to the game rather than a simple stats buff against units.
On December 04 2012 04:17 leova wrote: DT and Muta buffs are UNNECESSARY....
JUST FIX THE FREAKIN WIDOW MINE
having it NOT hit Air/Cloaked (since its, duh, and underground unit with no detection abilities) would be an easy fix, and take care of a LOT of problems HotS is having now
HotS is having much more problem with Vipers and Tempests than Widow Mines. Yes they are strong in early game, but both Z and P have tools to handle it, if they are used offensively. They are good defensively, just like Queens, MSC etc. But they are not contributing anything to the lategame at all, they are only supply sink right now as the game progresses.
On December 04 2012 04:17 leova wrote: DT and Muta buffs are UNNECESSARY....
JUST FIX THE FREAKIN WIDOW MINE
having it NOT hit Air/Cloaked (since its, duh, and underground unit with no detection abilities) would be an easy fix, and take care of a LOT of problems HotS is having now
HotS is having much more problem with Vipers and Tempests than Widow Mines. Yes they are strong in early game, but both Z and P have tools to handle it, if they are used offensively. They are good defensively, just like Queens, MSC etc. But they are not contributing anything to the lategame at all, they are only supply sink right now as the game progresses.
Well it shouldn't hit air at minimum (cloaked to) it makes it so terran can defend against that harassment even easier. I think they would have to be buffed or something to compensate maybe, but they do need to lose AA because they make mutalisks not viable right now.
On December 04 2012 04:17 leova wrote: DT and Muta buffs are UNNECESSARY....
JUST FIX THE FREAKIN WIDOW MINE
having it NOT hit Air/Cloaked (since its, duh, and underground unit with no detection abilities) would be an easy fix, and take care of a LOT of problems HotS is having now
The Widow Mine is fine. If you think the Widow Mine is a harsh drop defence you should play against Infestors in WoL. Now that is a comically imbalanced situation.
"Oh, hey, by the way. Here's a unit that's faster than your drop vehicle which can not only root your unit while doing damage, but prevent it from dropping entirely, nuke anything it actually dropped and if that wasn't enough, it can kill it off with spawned, free units BEFORE IT CAN EVEN LEAVE.
Your post is garbage. You didn't even respond to him. No one here is arguing about Infestors being op or not. Take your whining elsewhere.
What exactly is the point of responding to someone who claims something is broken when it manifestly isn't? So you can't blindly harass a terran base by clicking A somewhere behind their mineral line anymore and expect to get away with it. Tough titties. A zerg in particular has no leaway in this argument because their overlord and creep spread when done well gives them TOTAL MAP VISION.
All of a sudden, when your flock of mutalisks can't just waltz into a base and snipe off four or five scvs before running away, this is a bad thing? Welcome to the life of every terran since 2010, when the "muta flock" timing which basically totally shut down drop play has been replaced by the "any number of infestors sat around a spine crawler" timing.
Note, I am only bringing this up in response to this idea that the Widow Mine in its current, useless past 12 minutes form is in any way "OP". This is a static defense which fires once every 40 seconds which I have to infest gas, minerals and SUPPLY into. It should pack a punch. It should punish lazy players.
If you die to it, that is what you are. Lazy. Stop being lazy and pay attention to your harassment instead of just clicking behind a mineral line and only paying attention when the computer screams at you about the hive cluster being under attack and you see a bit of red around your green. Even as a shitty Gold terran I still need to be careful about where I drop. The number of times I've seen a zerg or a protoss just take 10 supply of units and click somewhere behind the mineral line - well it's about bloody time you were punished for it.
dont call people lazy and want a 0 apm safe vs everything mine. thats just...well just think before you post. but had to laugh that terran were struggling since 2010 vs zerg. 60% winrate at that times was really hard for terrans lol.
the mine cost too much supply but it shutting down all DT/banshee/muta/dropplay for basically free is retarded.
It's not for "free". It costs supply. It costs minerals and gas. It costs the same supply as the bloody DT itself!
You tell me why I should have to put down detection everywhere my Widow Mines are so their range 5, 40s cooldown attack can actually do what they are supposed to do. "Oh, is there a turret in the middle of nowhere I see? I WONDER WHAT THAT IS."
I can maybe get some of the arguments that it makes early game defence at a ramp unnecessary against DTs, which I must admit I agree with. However, removing it altogether? Absolute nonsense. If you're committing supply to a harass and I've committed supply to a defence, then the onus is on you to avoid the defence. For protoss, there are no less than 3 or so different ways you can go about doing this, not to mention taking advantage of the fact that the bloody thing fires once every 40s. That's 40s of unmitigated harassment you have. Have fun with it.
On December 04 2012 05:35 Vague wrote: I think the medivac needs an ability to survive mines....or mines need to be nerfed...but something has to happen there....
Can you explain why? They are working as turrets, if you use them to defend banshees and medivacs. You have to be more careful and use much more scans in TvT, and encourages tactical and position play. Keep in mind they are 2 supply. I really dont know why does the mines induces this much hate. It makes this game much more enjoyable, mines force the enemy to be more careful and not just 1a.
Just keep in mind that this is for Heart of the Swarm so we'll need to hold onto our hats and put up with a couple more months of terrible infestation in WoL!
On December 04 2012 05:32 Breach_hu wrote: Before the holidays, just can wait!!!!!!
On December 04 2012 04:17 leova wrote: DT and Muta buffs are UNNECESSARY....
JUST FIX THE FREAKIN WIDOW MINE
having it NOT hit Air/Cloaked (since its, duh, and underground unit with no detection abilities) would be an easy fix, and take care of a LOT of problems HotS is having now
HotS is having much more problem with Vipers and Tempests than Widow Mines. Yes they are strong in early game, but both Z and P have tools to handle it, if they are used offensively. They are good defensively, just like Queens, MSC etc. But they are not contributing anything to the lategame at all, they are only supply sink right now as the game progresses.
Well it shouldn't hit air at minimum (cloaked to) it makes it so terran can defend against that harassment even easier. I think they would have to be buffed or something to compensate maybe, but they do need to lose AA because they make mutalisks not viable right now.
Mutas are viable, but not the way they were in WoL. Yes mine can defend mutas, but if the zergs learn how to play againts them, how to play mutas againts them it would be fun. They can split, and i think mutas with fast overseers and kill mines before they are charged.
And againts zerg, especially with mech you need some unit, which can be used as AA, when thor is really bad unit to use againts mutas, because they are just terrible by cost on the ground againts SwarmHosts, Roaches etc. especially when a couple of vipers/corruptors in the air. Name any other AA coming from the factory, which is good againts mutas. By cost.
On December 04 2012 03:09 MockHamill wrote: According to David Kim: Terran 1. Redesign Thor ability/Raven seeker missile 2. Push early game Reaper a bit more 3. Hellbats better against melee units, not necessarily better vs. Ranged. 4. We'd really like to see more Medivac usage like we saw in Wings for a time in the past. Currently thinking on a cooldown based speed booster ability. 5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak. 6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory.
Zerg 1. Hydralisk movement speed upgrade to Lair 2. Mutalisk buff to speed and/or acceleration 3. Ultralisk changed to be good vs. all ground 4. Nerf Infestor quite heavily 5. Make it easier to unburrow and reposition Swarm Hosts
Protoss 1. Redesign Voidray - we're currently thinking of having the player choose when to activate the charge. 2. Oracle - pulsar beam would now overlap too much with the new Voidray, so we'd like to change the Oracle to be more of a worker harasser. 3. Buff DTs not necessarily for the DT rush case, but to have DTs more often in the late game. 4. Nerf Vortex - we don't like how all or nothing this ability is in Wings, and with new unit adds, we feel we can remove or phase out this ability. 5. Tempest doesn't counter all late tech Zerg. We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play. 6. Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall.
These are our current thoughts for each of the races. And please remember none of these changes are final. Our hope is to move into the more fine tuning stages if this major patch turns out well.
1.1 Why only redesign the Thor ABILITY? 1.2 What for? 1.3 Something I came up with: What about a damage shield that burns everyone striking the Battle Hellion? 1.4 What is the point of MORE SPEED? Do you honestly think that casuals can control that adequately? 1.5 Hmmmm ... why not nerf the "other units"? 1.6 Combining the upgrades for air and mech doesnt buff mech ... it buffs airmech.
2.1 If Hydralisks get their speed buff you can remove the creep tumor to take away the map hack for Zerg. 2.2 WTF? Mutalisks are fast already ... and look at 1.4 More speed doesnt make the game better ... only less controlled. 2.3 Zerg needs more units with "bonus damage" OR that stupid concept needs to be removed because it is actually "limited damage" 2.4 How? 2.5 Why? A cloaked "free unit generator" isnt good enough and it has to be really mobile as well? Makes no sense at all.
3.1 When to activate the charge? ALWAYS! ASAP! ... If the charge can be kept up only for X seconds it is a nerf and not a buff. 3.2 Why not scrap the whole Oracle because it does jobs which other flying units (Phoenix) are already doing? 3.3 Easy ... just introduce a 12 unit selection limit and force units to spread out while moving. No need to fiddle around with unit stats or timings, just reduce the unit density from "ridiculously high" to "reasonably low and HARD TO INCREASE". 3.4 Wow ... all or nothing is bad? You are catching on fast! ... NOT. How about all the other "100% effects" like bonus damage, Blink, Forcefield, Fungal, Baneling-rightclick-on-a-Planetary-Fortress? 3.5 Sooo ... Tempest doesnt counter everything yet? Better buff it quick! 3.6 Why? As an excuse to not fix the Carrier problem?
1.4 Since when is balancing the game around casual players who can't control their units a good idea? 1.5 Buffing the one composition that doesn't work is much better than nerfing literally every other unit in the game. 3.5 That one was poorly worded, but he's saying that the change he's trying to make is that tempests will no longer counter all late game Zerg units, because he doesn't like it that they can't currently make T3 units because of the threat of the tempest.
On December 04 2012 04:17 leova wrote: DT and Muta buffs are UNNECESSARY....
JUST FIX THE FREAKIN WIDOW MINE
having it NOT hit Air/Cloaked (since its, duh, and underground unit with no detection abilities) would be an easy fix, and take care of a LOT of problems HotS is having now
The Widow Mine is fine. If you think the Widow Mine is a harsh drop defence you should play against Infestors in WoL. Now that is a comically imbalanced situation.
"Oh, hey, by the way. Here's a unit that's faster than your drop vehicle which can not only root your unit while doing damage, but prevent it from dropping entirely, nuke anything it actually dropped and if that wasn't enough, it can kill it off with spawned, free units BEFORE IT CAN EVEN LEAVE.
Your post is garbage. You didn't even respond to him. No one here is arguing about Infestors being op or not. Take your whining elsewhere.
What exactly is the point of responding to someone who claims something is broken when it manifestly isn't? So you can't blindly harass a terran base by clicking A somewhere behind their mineral line anymore and expect to get away with it. Tough titties. A zerg in particular has no leaway in this argument because their overlord and creep spread when done well gives them TOTAL MAP VISION.
All of a sudden, when your flock of mutalisks can't just waltz into a base and snipe off four or five scvs before running away, this is a bad thing? Welcome to the life of every terran since 2010, when the "muta flock" timing which basically totally shut down drop play has been replaced by the "any number of infestors sat around a spine crawler" timing.
Note, I am only bringing this up in response to this idea that the Widow Mine in its current, useless past 12 minutes form is in any way "OP". This is a static defense which fires once every 40 seconds which I have to infest gas, minerals and SUPPLY into. It should pack a punch. It should punish lazy players.
If you die to it, that is what you are. Lazy. Stop being lazy and pay attention to your harassment instead of just clicking behind a mineral line and only paying attention when the computer screams at you about the hive cluster being under attack and you see a bit of red around your green. Even as a shitty Gold terran I still need to be careful about where I drop. The number of times I've seen a zerg or a protoss just take 10 supply of units and click somewhere behind the mineral line - well it's about bloody time you were punished for it.
dont call people lazy and want a 0 apm safe vs everything mine. thats just...well just think before you post. but had to laugh that terran were struggling since 2010 vs zerg. 60% winrate at that times was really hard for terrans lol.
the mine cost too much supply but it shutting down all DT/banshee/muta/dropplay for basically free is retarded.
It's not for "free". It costs supply. It costs minerals and gas. It costs the same supply as the bloody DT itself!
You tell me why I should have to put down detection everywhere my Widow Mines are so their range 5, 40s cooldown attack can actually do what they are supposed to do. "Oh, is there a turret in the middle of nowhere I see? I WONDER WHAT THAT IS."
I can maybe get some of the arguments that it makes early game defence at a ramp unnecessary against DTs, which I must admit I agree with. However, removing it altogether? Absolute nonsense. If you're committing supply to a harass and I've committed supply to a defence, then the onus is on you to avoid the defence. For protoss, there are no less than 3 or so different ways you can go about doing this, not to mention taking advantage of the fact that the bloody thing fires once every 40s. That's 40s of unmitigated harassment you have. Have fun with it.
first of all: it kills at least 1 DT/muta/banshee/dropship which is retarded because it AT LEAST kills 4-5 times the gas your opponent invested. and that is the absolute minimum.
and lol: if you want to burrow your mines in the middle of nowhere to get off lucky hits thats your problem. at base defense its no problem to burrow the mine and build a turret beside of it.
you just want your easy good vs everything very cheap mine. that is the reason it has to cost 2 supply. and that is the reason it sucks lategame. so make it worse vs cloak and air and buff their supply to 1 or 0,5. easy fix.
Half of those ideas don't sound all that good even in theory. And I can't see the overall direction in which the game is heading. I hope Blizzard has a better overall plan than throwing random things out and seeing what sticks. The only good thing is that at least for now they haven't fallen for the widow mine hysteria.
On December 04 2012 05:54 Bahajinbo wrote: Sounds insanely good. But DON'T buff Mutalisks. They're already great as they are currently, I think, even in HotS.
lol wut
No, definetly not.
They are totally destroyed by stargate openers (oracle timewarp + phoenix range ? lol)
They cant do anything to a bio terran without doing a gimmickly opening
If infestors are being nerf, zerg needs other way of playing the game. And fast unit is what zerg players wants.
On December 04 2012 05:54 Bahajinbo wrote: Sounds insanely good. But DON'T buff Mutalisks. They're already great as they are currently, I think, even in HotS.
lol wut
No, definetly not.
They are totally destroyed by stargate openers (oracle timewarp + phoenix range ? lol)
They cant do anything to a bio terran without doing a gimmickly opening
If infestors are being nerf, zerg needs other way of playing the game. And fast unit is what zerg players wants.
Time-warp doesn't even affect air. What dose everyone make that mistake?
On December 04 2012 05:54 Bahajinbo wrote: Sounds insanely good. But DON'T buff Mutalisks. They're already great as they are currently, I think, even in HotS.
lol wut
No, definetly not.
They are totally destroyed by stargate openers (oracle timewarp + phoenix range ? lol)
They cant do anything to a bio terran without doing a gimmickly opening
If infestors are being nerf, zerg needs other way of playing the game. And fast unit is what zerg players wants.
Time-warp doesn't even affect air. What dose everyone make that mistake?
Probably because it's silly an unintuitive and time warp should affect air. Oh well.
On December 04 2012 03:36 Markwerf wrote: Terran 1 very good, hope they get something nice 2 i feel it is fine as it is, already quite good in tvt / tvz 3 what? hellbats already stomp zerglings too hard.. Don't screw over TvZ because of your stupid idea's to change TvP into mech wars 4 medivac usage is already pretty big but i guess this is fine 5 good idea but vague 6 combing the upgrades seems alright but makes mech too strong really, i don't get why they think mech is weak in HotS.. it's already rediculous except in TvP
missing a change to battlecruiser.. missing a radical change to widow mine, stupid unit now
zerg 1. very good, better yet just combine range and speed upgrade. 2. seems fine 3. definately needs a buff, the new ability is just terrible too. Way too slow, often doesn't work well and spreads the units while ultra's depend on splash.. 4. also ok with me, i'd like to see fungal back to longer duration again making it a nice tactical spell instead and only getting a few infestors instead of the spamfest it is now 5. ok i guess
protoss 1. voidray really needs a more drastic change then this to have some real use since it's so similar to the tempest. Something along the lines of a speed buff or build time buff i'd say 2 good idea, oracle is still crap now. Please give back detection to it. 3 good move, merge with templar archives please 4 very good, nerf the mothership so it's useless and just a newbie unit 5 haven't experienced this myself but must also admit haven't had many ZvP go beyond the lair swarm host stuff 6 fine as long as it doesn't always become the same combination (ie you always go void -> phoenix -> a few oracle). There should be differentation when to choose which unit
missing changes to the mothership core, i hate it's design now. Too strong of a deterrent against midgame terran/zerg pushes. "free" vision up the ramp is still breaking blink rushes as well which arguably makes it even harder to expand in PvP than before..
Overall many good motives but almost no good concrete idea's and he's missing out on some of the most important issues I think (Msc and widow mine). I have little confidence they fix many of these issues quickly, given how they've been doing so far..
Mech isn't good vs a Zerg that knows what they are doing... And Mech has no answer to Brood Lord/Infestor/Corruptor
I keep looking and hoping that Blizzard pulls their heads out of their asses and fixes the game, but they're just too damned committed to their bullshit, gimmicky units.
-I like that they're playing with the Thor/Raven, but why the fuck do they want Bio to be viable for late-game Terran? That shit is not pretty, it's not cute, it takes away all the beautiful things that made BW terran so good. The simplest way I can put it is that even in WoL, mech is fine. The biggest problem facing mech in WoL is bio, nothing else. If bio is viable, mech will never be viable, end of story. Why can't Blizzard understand this simple principle?
-Medivac speed burst... I just... I don't even know where to begin... Fucking horrible idea.
-Tie Reapers to Widow Mines and be done with it. This makes them important all game long in all Terran MUs and allows them to keep on with their harassment stats and not be OP in straight-up fights while being an important part of every Terran game.
I think that's about it for Terran. Stop worrying about bio and start worrying about the Tank for fuck's sake.
-Hydra speed is nice, but it doesn't solve the problems with the unit. They need more range, or lower cost, or both.
-Muta/Ultra changes are nice. Would be happy to see core Zerg units become core again.
-Nerf the shit out of Fungal plz. Give back a useful version of NP, that spell was a LOT more interesting all along.
-Swarm Host, don't care.
At least Blizz seems to have an idea of how to make Zerg more interesting. Let's see if they don't fuck the race in the ass like they did back in WoL beta.
Void Ray - Make VR attack add a stacking -1 armor to the target being attacked instead of it's stupid damage bonus it currently has, then re-balance stats to be decent per-cost at straight-up fighting without the OP charged bullshit. Problem solved.
-Get rid of the Colossus, make the Tempest the new Colossus if you really want, but please, for the love of god, get rid of the Colossus, even if it's just on principle.
-I don't think DT has a problem with viability in late-game outside of cost, but that has been a complaint since day 1. DTs should be 150/100. Problem solved.
Overall, these notes make me sad for the future of the game.
Blizzard builds up these issues like they're hard things. This is all shit we've been complaining about since the beginning of the game. This shit is not new, it's not hard to see, it's fucking obvious.
Worse yet, Blizzard remains willfully ignorant to other glaring issues like the sucky state of the Siege Tank in TvP, Colossus, Force Field and Warp Gate in general, and the general lack of brilliance in MOST of the HotS units.
When pre-orders went up last month, I didn't buy HotS, and this is making me think I made the right choice.
I will pour a beer tonight for the Blizzard of olde. A homie like that deserves better than to have it's name smashed into the ground like we're seeing today.
Good ideas overall I think. Can't wait to see which ones make it into the game and how well they work.
I think Widow Mines probably should get some kind of adjustment, just not as major as a lot of people are suggesting. I admit I'm using them quite a bit and they really do feel a little too strong.
I've been pretty happy with Blizzard's subtle change approach so far, so I'm a little nervous about them potentially shaking things up too much.
On December 04 2012 06:08 Jermstuddog wrote: I will pour a beer tonight for the Blizzard of olde. A homie like that deserves better than to have it's name smashed into the ground like we're seeing today.
If you really want to remember it that way I guess. Blizzard has always done things their own way. StarCraft 2 and to some extent WoW after a point have really been the only times they've actively listened to community feedback at all. Did you see that video about the changes to SC1 over the course of it's life? D2 and WC3 had the same issues. Blizzard did their thing, the community disagreed about what was the best solution, and in the end we just lived with what Blizzard gave us which usually turned out to be pretty good.
If anything Blizzard has changed for the better in regards to StarCraft at least. They acknowledge that they're listening and make changes that are at least somewhat in line with what the community says they want. The only things that I can really fault Blizzard for is that their games ship with a bit less polish though Blizzard does remain active and attentive at fixing/addressing concerns ... and their map team still sucks.
On December 04 2012 03:12 spbelky wrote: O Dayvie, such good intentions. But does he have the tools and knowledge to pull it off?
This is a good question to ask.
The next question I would ask: Why now? We have been asking for these things for SO LONG. I guess when Blizzard realizes that it stands to lose a bunch of Terran and Protoss players (I have no intention of buying HotS unless I see some dramatic changes), they ostensibly change their act.
On December 04 2012 06:08 Jermstuddog wrote: I keep looking and hoping that Blizzard pulls their heads out of their asses and fixes the game, but they're just too damned committed to their bullshit, gimmicky units.
-I like that they're playing with the Thor/Raven, but why the fuck do they want Bio to be viable for late-game Terran? That shit is not pretty, it's not cute, it takes away all the beautiful things that made BW terran so good. The simplest way I can put it is that even in WoL, mech is fine. The biggest problem facing mech in WoL is bio, nothing else. If bio is viable, mech will never be viable, end of story. Why can't Blizzard understand this simple principle?
-Medivac speed burst... I just... I don't even know where to begin... Fucking horrible idea.
-Tie Reapers to Widow Mines and be done with it. This makes them important all game long in all Terran MUs and allows them to keep on with their harassment stats and not be OP in straight-up fights while being an important part of every Terran game.
I think that's about it for Terran. Stop worrying about bio and start worrying about the Tank for fuck's sake.
-Hydra speed is nice, but it doesn't solve the problems with the unit. They need more range, or lower cost, or both.
-Muta/Ultra changes are nice. Would be happy to see core Zerg units become core again.
-Nerf the shit out of Fungal plz. Give back a useful version of NP, that spell was a LOT more interesting all along.
-Swarm Host, don't care.
At least Blizz seems to have an idea of how to make Zerg more interesting. Let's see if they don't fuck the race in the ass like they did back in WoL beta.
Void Ray - Make VR attack add a stacking -1 armor to the target being attacked instead of it's stupid damage bonus it currently has, then re-balance stats to be decent per-cost at straight-up fighting without the OP charged bullshit. Problem solved.
-Get rid of the Colossus, make the Tempest the new Colossus if you really want, but please, for the love of god, get rid of the Colossus, even if it's just on principle.
-I don't think DT has a problem with viability in late-game outside of cost, but that has been a complaint since day 1. DTs should be 150/100. Problem solved.
Overall, these notes make me sad for the future of the game.
Blizzard builds up these issues like they're hard things. This is all shit we've been complaining about since the beginning of the game. This shit is not new, it's not hard to see, it's fucking obvious.
Worse yet, Blizzard remains willfully ignorant to other glaring issues like the sucky state of the Siege Tank in TvP, Colossus, Force Field and Warp Gate in general, and the general lack of brilliance in MOST of the HotS units.
When pre-orders went up last month, I didn't buy HotS, and this is making me think I made the right choice.
I will pour a beer tonight for the Blizzard of olde. A homie like that deserves better than to have it's name smashed into the ground like we're seeing today.
I like your post for two reasons. 1) You are a zerg player that admits that fungal needs to be nerfed. 2) You observe that NP is a much more interesting spell than fungal and I agree with that assertion. That's one spell I honestly wish I saw more of...
On December 04 2012 06:15 intrigue wrote: why not just have medivac burn energy for a speed boost? makes it so drops for mech makes more sense too
This would be an EXCELLENT idea. And one that rewards high APM, skillful play. Once again, this is why Blizzard should pay more attention to the forums, the pros and other sources for balance suggestions.
On December 04 2012 06:15 intrigue wrote: why not just have medivac burn energy for a speed boost? makes it so drops for mech makes more sense too
And they can burn off the energy vs protoss to avoid the feedback damage as well. Then the play has to make the choice of how much they want to burn vs how much damage they are willing to risk.
Looks promising but I will hold my applause until I have seen it in action. And while I'm here, why not just make tempest attack air only + collosus ? Would that be a bad idea?
What the fuck is with all the negativity? The zerg changes are exactly what everyone's been asking for for the longest time. Same goes for half of the terran changes. Everyone has been saying how thors, reapers, mech in general, and ravens need to be retooled - now they're finally working on it. Nerfing vortex is a good way to shift protoss away from their gimmicky, coinflippy late game, and it SEEMS like blizz is finally working on making stargate tech actually good.
And i agree some of the other changes are dumb, like medivac speed burst. But jesus, at least they have finally acknowledged most of the main problems of starcraft: weak mech, fungal too good and other zerg shit not good enough, protoss too reliant on mothership. Now if they would just axe the colossus and make FF less micro-inhibiting, we would be on our way to a nearly perfect game.
On December 04 2012 03:09 MockHamill wrote: According to David Kim: Terran 1. Redesign Thor ability/Raven seeker missile 2. Push early game Reaper a bit more 3. Hellbats better against melee units, not necessarily better vs. Ranged. 4. We'd really like to see more Medivac usage like we saw in Wings for a time in the past. Currently thinking on a cooldown based speed booster ability. 5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak. 6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory.
Zerg 1. Hydralisk movement speed upgrade to Lair 2. Mutalisk buff to speed and/or acceleration 3. Ultralisk changed to be good vs. all ground 4. Nerf Infestor quite heavily 5. Make it easier to unburrow and reposition Swarm Hosts
Protoss 1. Redesign Voidray - we're currently thinking of having the player choose when to activate the charge. 2. Oracle - pulsar beam would now overlap too much with the new Voidray, so we'd like to change the Oracle to be more of a worker harasser. 3. Buff DTs not necessarily for the DT rush case, but to have DTs more often in the late game. 4. Nerf Vortex - we don't like how all or nothing this ability is in Wings, and with new unit adds, we feel we can remove or phase out this ability. 5. Tempest doesn't counter all late tech Zerg. We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play. 6. Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall.
These are our current thoughts for each of the races. And please remember none of these changes are final. Our hope is to move into the more fine tuning stages if this major patch turns out well.
1.1 Why only redesign the Thor ABILITY? Because the Thor doesn't need to be completely redone.
1.2 What for? So Reapers don't end up useless. In WoL beta, Reapers got overshadowed by Hellions. Reapers need a unique role which makes them useful for some situtations, and Hellions more useful for others.
1.3 Something I came up with: What about a damage shield that burns everyone striking the Battle Hellion? Sounds unique. Post it on BNet.
1.4 What is the point of MORE SPEED? Do you honestly think that casuals can control that adequately? It's not more speed. It's a temporary boost. And do you seriously think casuals are that terrible? Sounds like you think they're WoL Copper...
1.5 Hmmmm ... why not nerf the "other units"? Because nerfing "the other units" affects PvZ, while buffing Terran Bio affects TvZ. I think we can agree that if Protoss were nerfed even more than getting rid of Vortex, then PvZ would be lopsided.
1.6 Combining the upgrades for air and mech doesnt buff mech ... it buffs airmech. It's an indirect buff to Mech. You know how Zerg can switch from Ultras to BLs a bit more easily because Broodlings are affected by melee upgrades? It's kind of the same deal here, combining the upgrades allows a transition to BC/Viking/Raven/Thor to be easier.
2.1 If Hydralisks get their speed buff you can remove the creep tumor to take away the map hack for Zerg. I hear Obs and Ravens hard counter Creep Tumors. If you don't want Zerg to cover the entire map, don't turtle.
2.2 WTF? Mutalisks are fast already ... and look at 1.4 More speed doesnt make the game better ... only less controlled. I think they're actually looking into a real moving shot.
2.5 Why? A cloaked "free unit generator" isnt good enough and it has to be really mobile as well? Makes no sense at all. Mobility = Micro Potential, more or less
3.1 When to activate the charge? ALWAYS! ASAP! ... If the charge can be kept up only for X seconds it is a nerf and not a buff. No, it's definitely a buff. Think Stim and imagine if Marines had to charge. And it's not specifically intended to be a buff or a nerf either, just a redesign so the VR isn't overshadowed by other units.
3.2 Why not scrap the whole Oracle because it does jobs which other flying units (Phoenix) are already doing? The Phoenix hardly qualifies as a spellcaster.
3.3 Easy ... just introduce a 12 unit selection limit and force units to spread out while moving. No need to fiddle around with unit stats or timings, just reduce the unit density from "ridiculously high" to "reasonably low and HARD TO INCREASE". To the ignorant many things are simple. Play Starbow if you want these.
3.4 Wow ... all or nothing is bad? You are catching on fast! ... NOT. How about all the other "100% effects" like bonus damage, Blink, Forcefield, Fungal, Baneling-rightclick-on-a-Planetary-Fortress? I can't even comprehend the amount of idiocy here. Infestors are being nerfed, FF is trampled by Thors (Blizz is making TvP Mech viable, remember) and Colossi. ZvP early game is balanced around FF atm, and late game is air-based for Zerg, meaning FF just hinders Toss from killing the Infestors. Bane vs PF and Blink are hardly relevant because the pros heavily outweigh the cons for Blink, and that amount of Banes is a very costly suicide bomb which would be better spent on Marines.
3.5 Sooo ... Tempest doesnt counter everything yet? Better buff it quick! The "doesn't" was a typo. Read on to the "We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play" part.
3.6 Why? As an excuse to not fix the Carrier problem? Big difference. Carriers are late game units while VRs, Phoenix, and Oracles are midgame units. The intent is not to improve late game Air Toss, but to improve midgame Air Toss.
Please read more thoroughly and don't make split-second evaluations about DK's ideas.
On December 04 2012 03:36 Markwerf wrote: Terran 1 very good, hope they get something nice 2 i feel it is fine as it is, already quite good in tvt / tvz 3 what? hellbats already stomp zerglings too hard.. Don't screw over TvZ because of your stupid idea's to change TvP into mech wars 4 medivac usage is already pretty big but i guess this is fine 5 good idea but vague 6 combing the upgrades seems alright but makes mech too strong really, i don't get why they think mech is weak in HotS.. it's already rediculous except in TvP
missing a change to battlecruiser.. missing a radical change to widow mine, stupid unit now
zerg 1. very good, better yet just combine range and speed upgrade. 2. seems fine 3. definately needs a buff, the new ability is just terrible too. Way too slow, often doesn't work well and spreads the units while ultra's depend on splash.. 4. also ok with me, i'd like to see fungal back to longer duration again making it a nice tactical spell instead and only getting a few infestors instead of the spamfest it is now 5. ok i guess
protoss 1. voidray really needs a more drastic change then this to have some real use since it's so similar to the tempest. Something along the lines of a speed buff or build time buff i'd say 2 good idea, oracle is still crap now. Please give back detection to it. 3 good move, merge with templar archives please 4 very good, nerf the mothership so it's useless and just a newbie unit 5 haven't experienced this myself but must also admit haven't had many ZvP go beyond the lair swarm host stuff 6 fine as long as it doesn't always become the same combination (ie you always go void -> phoenix -> a few oracle). There should be differentation when to choose which unit
missing changes to the mothership core, i hate it's design now. Too strong of a deterrent against midgame terran/zerg pushes. "free" vision up the ramp is still breaking blink rushes as well which arguably makes it even harder to expand in PvP than before..
Overall many good motives but almost no good concrete idea's and he's missing out on some of the most important issues I think (Msc and widow mine). I have little confidence they fix many of these issues quickly, given how they've been doing so far..
Mech isn't good vs a Zerg that knows what they are doing... And Mech has no answer to Brood Lord/Infestor/Corruptor
have you played hots?? Mech is insane against zerg at the moment.. Lings are completely useless vs mech now and hellbats are fantastic frontline units against roach. Widow mines make muta a joke. Sure broodlord/infestor/corruptor is still strong against mech but you can beat that by hitting zerg before they get it or just having enough vikings, both are really easy now because zerg can't get there as easily. Plus you need less units to dominate the ground so you can hit earlier or just put more into vikings.. As it stands mech is just broken against zerg really.
"Make the oracle more of a worker harasser." O gawd, I hope a reincarnation of entombed isn't brought back in disguise. They need to hold a contest or something for coming up with new oracle abilities, or else it's just going to be that weird and annoying fixation on stopping workers from mining. The void ray charge modification sounds interesting, and the comments on the DT are peculiar, as cost/additional structures shouldn't really be stopping anyone from making dts late game. If dts end up having blink, I'm never going to doubt the implementation of any idea again.
On December 04 2012 06:15 intrigue wrote: why not just have medivac burn energy for a speed boost? makes it so drops for mech makes more sense too
That's a great idea. It would make medivacs more fun to use and make drops more viable in the mid-late game because medivacs could temporarily outrun muta or corruptor flocks.
On December 04 2012 06:26 playa wrote: "Make the oracle more of a worker harasser." O gawd, I hope a reincarnation of entombed isn't brought back in disguise. They need to hold a contest or something for coming up with new oracle abilities, or else it's just going to be that weird and annoying fixation on stopping workers from mining. The void ray charge modification sounds interesting, and the comments on the DT are peculiar, as cost/additional structures shouldn't really be stopping anyone from making dts late game. If dts end up having blink, I'm never going to doubt the implementation of any idea again.
I demand to be able to stasis workers, but only workers, with the beam. Unable to be harmed, move or mine for a set amount of time. It only targets one work at a time, so micro is required, but the result is hilarious. They can even block movement in this state, to further cause issues with mining.
On December 04 2012 03:36 Markwerf wrote: Terran 1 very good, hope they get something nice 2 i feel it is fine as it is, already quite good in tvt / tvz 3 what? hellbats already stomp zerglings too hard.. Don't screw over TvZ because of your stupid idea's to change TvP into mech wars 4 medivac usage is already pretty big but i guess this is fine 5 good idea but vague 6 combing the upgrades seems alright but makes mech too strong really, i don't get why they think mech is weak in HotS.. it's already rediculous except in TvP
missing a change to battlecruiser.. missing a radical change to widow mine, stupid unit now
zerg 1. very good, better yet just combine range and speed upgrade. 2. seems fine 3. definately needs a buff, the new ability is just terrible too. Way too slow, often doesn't work well and spreads the units while ultra's depend on splash.. 4. also ok with me, i'd like to see fungal back to longer duration again making it a nice tactical spell instead and only getting a few infestors instead of the spamfest it is now 5. ok i guess
protoss 1. voidray really needs a more drastic change then this to have some real use since it's so similar to the tempest. Something along the lines of a speed buff or build time buff i'd say 2 good idea, oracle is still crap now. Please give back detection to it. 3 good move, merge with templar archives please 4 very good, nerf the mothership so it's useless and just a newbie unit 5 haven't experienced this myself but must also admit haven't had many ZvP go beyond the lair swarm host stuff 6 fine as long as it doesn't always become the same combination (ie you always go void -> phoenix -> a few oracle). There should be differentation when to choose which unit
missing changes to the mothership core, i hate it's design now. Too strong of a deterrent against midgame terran/zerg pushes. "free" vision up the ramp is still breaking blink rushes as well which arguably makes it even harder to expand in PvP than before..
Overall many good motives but almost no good concrete idea's and he's missing out on some of the most important issues I think (Msc and widow mine). I have little confidence they fix many of these issues quickly, given how they've been doing so far..
Mech isn't good vs a Zerg that knows what they are doing... And Mech has no answer to Brood Lord/Infestor/Corruptor
have you played hots?? Mech is insane against zerg at the moment.. Lings are completely useless vs mech now and hellbats are fantastic frontline units against roach. Widow mines make muta a joke. Sure broodlord/infestor/corruptor is still strong against mech but you can beat that by hitting zerg before they get it or just having enough vikings, both are really easy now because zerg can't get there as easily. Plus you need less units to dominate the ground so you can hit earlier or just put more into vikings.. As it stands mech is just broken against zerg really.
and what about throwing in some hydras/vipers? the viper is very good at resurfacing the landscape of the position-reliant mech army - not only abduction but also blinding cloud.
also, mutas may have always had their place being "harassment" units, but people forget that since the 'magic box' method has been discovered, mutas can be a substantial threat vs mech. thors do not trade well with boxed mutas, and the amount of thors you'd need to combat a quick muta switch (in addition to their harassment threat) is inefficient. sure you say widow mine, but that works best when defending. I guess you could argue good offensive widow mine placement can also reduce muta viability, but who knows - i think this is one of the intentions of the 'buff to mutalisks' as well
On December 04 2012 06:10 MVega wrote: Good ideas overall I think. Can't wait to see which ones make it into the game and how well they work.
I think Widow Mines probably should get some kind of adjustment, just not as major as a lot of people are suggesting. I admit I'm using them quite a bit and they really do feel a little too strong.
I've been pretty happy with Blizzard's subtle change approach so far, so I'm a little nervous about them potentially shaking things up too much.
On December 04 2012 06:08 Jermstuddog wrote: I will pour a beer tonight for the Blizzard of olde. A homie like that deserves better than to have it's name smashed into the ground like we're seeing today.
If you really want to remember it that way I guess. Blizzard has always done things their own way. StarCraft 2 and to some extent WoW after a point have really been the only times they've actively listened to community feedback at all. Did you see that video about the changes to SC1 over the course of it's life? D2 and WC3 had the same issues. Blizzard did their thing, the community disagreed about what was the best solution, and in the end we just lived with what Blizzard gave us which usually turned out to be pretty good.
If anything Blizzard has changed for the better in regards to StarCraft at least. They acknowledge that they're listening and make changes that are at least somewhat in line with what the community says they want. The only things that I can really fault Blizzard for is that their games ship with a bit less polish though Blizzard does remain active and attentive at fixing/addressing concerns ... and their map team still sucks.
The thing is, at least from my perspective, when Blizzard would go off in their own direction, I could look at the change they were making and immediately see the merit in the direction they're taking things. I would often have the reaction of first being outraged that they're doing the WRONG thing, think about it, realize it's just a different way to solve the problem, then embrace it for being a good change, even if it's not the change I would make.
My issue with their changes and thoughts in dayvies post isn't anything like that because it's not even related to numbers or small differences in how to best fix a problem.
It's that I (and most of the community) see major issues in the way the game works and Blizzard doesn't even consider these things problems.
That's not just a difference of opinions on my armchair design vs their game-designer design, it's a difference in values down to the very core of "do I waste my money on their game or not?" and right now, the answer is "no".
I gave the example of the Colossus, pretty much any poll anywhere that people vote on whether or not the colossus is a good unit comes in at least 3:1 in the negatives.
If Blizzard wanted to show us how brilliant they were, they'd do something with the colossus that nobody was thinking about. Everybody wants to remove the unit, ye olde brilliant blizzard would fucking make it invisible or something of the sort and blow our minds.
This is not just me bitching because I don't control the game. This is me getting so disillusioned with the direction Blizzard has taken their game that I am not even going to buy it, let alone play it for hours and hours and hours.
On December 04 2012 06:56 archonOOid wrote: If air and mech upgrades were combined it would ease the transition from mech>air and hopefully give BC's a chance?
I think "hopefully give BCs a chance" an overstatement of the BC's unviability.
On December 04 2012 06:56 archonOOid wrote: If air and mech upgrades were combined it would ease the transition from mech>air and hopefully give BC's a chance?
it actually makes any transition WAY easier since for example getting air atack upgrades as a Bio Terran is standard in all matchups at some point. (vs colossi.vs mech in TvT, vs gglords...)
But now instead of basically only Vikings -all factory Units profit.
in wol a Terran playing Bio-tank vs Zerg often upgrades 3/3 Bio and 2/0 mech asap. after this patch he will react to gglords with 2+/0+ upgraded Vikings instead of 0/0
On December 04 2012 06:56 archonOOid wrote: If air and mech upgrades were combined it would ease the transition from mech>air and hopefully give BC's a chance?
To tell you the truth, I would like them to do this for some part of protoss as well. Nothing crazy, maybe just armor or something that would allow protoss to transfer between air and ground more naturally. Even if they discounted the air upgrades compared to ground, it would be majestic. They are not worth the same amount of resources.
A speed buff to mutas? Wtf? Is that so they can fly faster into the widow mines??
No one is ever gonna make them when a whole group can disappear in matter of milliseconds to a few invisible mass AoE mass single target damage unit. Even if they wait for the overseer (which makes the speed pointless) they still don't even have the darn range to take on the mines.
They are basically the reason why I haven't been using my beta key at all :/
They kill multitasking and any kind of fast - all over the place - zerg play...
Would like to see them burried in the fires of hell where they come from! :p
On December 04 2012 06:56 archonOOid wrote: If air and mech upgrades were combined it would ease the transition from mech>air and hopefully give BC's a chance?
Not only would it make the transition easier, it would allow for completely new compositions. For example, on 3 bases you could constantly produce 2 BCs, 1 Banshee, 1 Thor and 6 Hellions/Hellbats at a time. That's nasty 2/2 push especially if you pull SCVs.
On December 04 2012 06:56 archonOOid wrote: If air and mech upgrades were combined it would ease the transition from mech>air and hopefully give BC's a chance?
Not only would it make the transition easier, it would allow for completely new compositions. For example, on 3 bases you could constantly produce 2 BCs, 1 Banshee, 1 Thor and 6 Hellions/Hellbats at a time. That's nasty 2/2 push especially if you pull SCVs.
BC's are actually a really good unit, it's just the transitioning into it. The unit themselves are good.
On December 04 2012 06:08 Jermstuddog wrote: I keep looking and hoping that Blizzard pulls their heads out of their asses and fixes the game, but they're just too damned committed to their bullshit, gimmicky units.
-I like that they're playing with the Thor/Raven, but why the fuck do they want Bio to be viable for late-game Terran? That shit is not pretty, it's not cute, it takes away all the beautiful things that made BW terran so good. The simplest way I can put it is that even in WoL, mech is fine. The biggest problem facing mech in WoL is bio, nothing else. If bio is viable, mech will never be viable, end of story. Why can't Blizzard understand this simple principle?
-Medivac speed burst... I just... I don't even know where to begin... Fucking horrible idea.
-Tie Reapers to Widow Mines and be done with it. This makes them important all game long in all Terran MUs and allows them to keep on with their harassment stats and not be OP in straight-up fights while being an important part of every Terran game.
I think that's about it for Terran. Stop worrying about bio and start worrying about the Tank for fuck's sake.
-Hydra speed is nice, but it doesn't solve the problems with the unit. They need more range, or lower cost, or both.
-Muta/Ultra changes are nice. Would be happy to see core Zerg units become core again.
-Nerf the shit out of Fungal plz. Give back a useful version of NP, that spell was a LOT more interesting all along.
-Swarm Host, don't care.
At least Blizz seems to have an idea of how to make Zerg more interesting. Let's see if they don't fuck the race in the ass like they did back in WoL beta.
Void Ray - Make VR attack add a stacking -1 armor to the target being attacked instead of it's stupid damage bonus it currently has, then re-balance stats to be decent per-cost at straight-up fighting without the OP charged bullshit. Problem solved.
-Get rid of the Colossus, make the Tempest the new Colossus if you really want, but please, for the love of god, get rid of the Colossus, even if it's just on principle.
-I don't think DT has a problem with viability in late-game outside of cost, but that has been a complaint since day 1. DTs should be 150/100. Problem solved.
Overall, these notes make me sad for the future of the game.
Blizzard builds up these issues like they're hard things. This is all shit we've been complaining about since the beginning of the game. This shit is not new, it's not hard to see, it's fucking obvious.
Worse yet, Blizzard remains willfully ignorant to other glaring issues like the sucky state of the Siege Tank in TvP, Colossus, Force Field and Warp Gate in general, and the general lack of brilliance in MOST of the HotS units.
When pre-orders went up last month, I didn't buy HotS, and this is making me think I made the right choice.
I will pour a beer tonight for the Blizzard of olde. A homie like that deserves better than to have it's name smashed into the ground like we're seeing today.
I like your post for two reasons. 1) You are a zerg player that admits that fungal needs to be nerfed. 2) You observe that NP is a much more interesting spell than fungal and I agree with that assertion. That's one spell I honestly wish I saw more of...
Any "normal" person, Zerg or not, will tell you that Fungal is awfully designed spell, no question about that. And I am all for NP staying in the game, it is the only Infestor's spell that need good positioning and decision when to cast it, unlike Fungal and ITs that are just mindless spamming. But NP needs more love, 7 range is really bad, and you can't really do much. On the other hand, 9 range was OP, so maybe 8 range would be middle ground?
5. Tempest doesn't counter all late tech Zerg. We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play.
I don't get what he's trying to say here, does he say it's not a counter to all late tech zerg and he wants it to be just that, or does he not like that zerg can't go air with tempest in play, which I think is not true, but I'm not a game designer.
If you've played beta you would recognize that most zergs are hesitant to go BL or Ultra due to the ease with with Protoss can swap to Tempests and hard-counter both. DK is suggesting that they want to modify the Tempest so it isn't SO good against BOTH Ultralisk AND Broodlord.
On December 04 2012 06:56 archonOOid wrote: If air and mech upgrades were combined it would ease the transition from mech>air and hopefully give BC's a chance?
To tell you the truth, I would like them to do this for some part of protoss as well. Nothing crazy, maybe just armor or something that would allow protoss to transfer between air and ground more naturally. Even if they discounted the air upgrades compared to ground, it would be majestic. They are not worth the same amount of resources.
yeah thay could at least share shield upgrades,..oh wait :D
On December 04 2012 06:56 archonOOid wrote: If air and mech upgrades were combined it would ease the transition from mech>air and hopefully give BC's a chance?
Not only would it make the transition easier, it would allow for completely new compositions. For example, on 3 bases you could constantly produce 2 BCs, 1 Banshee, 1 Thor and 6 Hellions/Hellbats at a time. That's nasty 2/2 push especially if you pull SCVs.
BC's are actually a really good unit, it's just the transitioning into it. The unit themselves are good.
well, they are very easily countered by units Zerg and Protoss get anyway at the point of time, Terran would be able to build BC...
On December 04 2012 06:56 archonOOid wrote: If air and mech upgrades were combined it would ease the transition from mech>air and hopefully give BC's a chance?
Not only would it make the transition easier, it would allow for completely new compositions. For example, on 3 bases you could constantly produce 2 BCs, 1 Banshee, 1 Thor and 6 Hellions/Hellbats at a time. That's nasty 2/2 push especially if you pull SCVs.
BC's are actually a really good unit, it's just the transitioning into it. The unit themselves are good.
well, they are very easily countered by units Zerg and Protoss get anyway at the point of time, Terran would be able to build BC...
To his point, They ain't easily countered. If you manage to get like 8 BCs with the proper support army, they rape everything.
But often, when you want to do these transition, you don't have air upgrades at all. Just imagine with vehicule and air upgrades as one, you could just go Mech and right when you start making BC, they're 3/2 or 3/3 instead of 1/0 in the way to 2/0.
The difference is huuuuuuge in how powerfull the unit feel. Don't forget BC is one of these units who beneficit the most from upgrades with a lot of tiny fast shot, and a lot of base armor.
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.
On December 04 2012 07:31 Seiniyta wrote: I'm sitll a bit confused about the voidray, being able to charge or not? Why wouldn't you want the void ray to charge up?
Honestly, the wording is so vague that there isn't much to interpret from it.
Perhaps players can switch between a buffed normal attack that doesn't charge or the original charging attack that is weaker at the start and stronger at the end.
Perhaps the Void Ray still charges, but the attack doesn't become more powerful until the player chooses to use the stored charge.
I'm looking forward to see what they come up with.
To his point, They ain't easily countered. If you manage to get like 8 BCs with the proper support army, they rape everything.
They arent that good. Dont get me wrong, they are nice units and quite powerful, and these days I make them pretty often vs toss. But it really isnt a matter of getting 8 BCs and raping everything. I have often enough lost against toss after getting 8 BCs with proper support (not complaining, just saying it isnt as simple as you claim). Of course if you get 8 BCs, your opponent doesnt have a clue you are getting them and he has no counters, then yeah you pretty much won. But that isnt just the case for BCs.
You can say pretty much the same for carriers. If you get 8 carriers with upgrades you got a very nice army, but it wont single handed take out your opponent unless he hasnt scouted it. Tbh imo carriers are one of the most underrated units, and one of the problems with going mech against toss (besides the obvious ones). Marines shred them, which is the result of them having a bad reputation. However if you can make a bunch against a mech army, without him noticing your tech switch, you pretty much won.
I really like all of these ideas. It sounds like a step in the right direction for all three races. I especially like how the Oracle will become a worker harassment unit.
6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory. Air and mech armor must have been combined decade ago, that's good, needed and pretty obvious change.
2. Mutalisk buff to speed and/or acceleration How do they think protos should counter mass even-more-speedy muta harassing P economy when even now P hugely struggles on that? I can't understand this approach. 1. Hydralisk movement speed upgrade to Lair 4. Nerf Infestor quite heavily That's great only if infestors take really heavy nerf - won't be able hit air, IT cost 75 energy.
On December 04 2012 07:53 Sworm_MS wrote: 6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory. Air and mech armor must have been combined decade ago, that's good, needed and pretty obvious change.
2. Mutalisk buff to speed and/or acceleration How do they think protos should counter mass even-more-speedy muta harassing P economy when even now P hugely struggles on that? I can't understand this approach.
Not necessarily speedier. Just an acceleration buff could make them better to control, possibly even including a true moving shot from BW that would make them more effective when microed correctly.
I honestly dont really understand why they want to make "sky toss" a super viable strat. i would like it as an opening to harass but not as combat strategy. Air units in general are not very micro-able and if you want it to be a core army comp, usually requires heavy turtle play because of the high gas cost.
The medivac change i think is not necessary and while i think the bio idea is ok, i dont want blizzard to completly forget about mech vs protoss because i think that if seige tanks were improved in someway vs toss, a varitey of compositions would open up that are currently not viable right now.
all in all seems good. The mech upgrades seem good at first glance but it could be to strong vs a zerg who trys to go broodlord. imagine 33 vikings vs broodlord curropter with worse infestors. it might eliminate some units from the game.
To his point, They ain't easily countered. If you manage to get like 8 BCs with the proper support army, they rape everything.
They arent that good. Dont get me wrong, they are nice units and quite powerful, and these days I make them pretty often vs toss. But it really isnt a matter of getting 8 BCs and raping everything. I have often enough lost against toss after getting 8 BCs with proper support (not complaining, just saying it isnt as simple as you claim). Of course if you get 8 BCs, your opponent doesnt have a clue you are getting them and he has no counters, then yeah you pretty much won. But that isnt just the case for BCs.
You can say pretty much the same for carriers. If you get 8 carriers with upgrades you got a very nice army, but it wont single handed take out your opponent unless he hasnt scouted it. Tbh imo carriers are one of the most underrated units, and one of the problems with going mech against toss (besides the obvious ones). Marines shred them, which is the result of them having a bad reputation. However if you can make a bunch against a mech army, without him noticing your tech switch, you pretty much won.
Way to ignore everything else I said about them tho. If you can have 3/3 BCs at 20 to 25min instead of 40, it's just not the same unit. Even a few BCs force a massive reaction if they get this heavily upgraded this early
- the Raven ability that needs a redesign is probably the autoturret, seeker missile is fine design wise.
- don't know why they never considered to make the Reaper a T3 bio unit. Balancing it for the early game has always been a nightmare, so just redesign it to buff bio late game.
- buff to hellbats, please NO.
- mutalisk, medivac and DT: yeah they need a buff because you've implemented a lot of anti-harass in the game (mine, nexus cannon, spores with no evo chamber), so please fix this first. Mines especially. A buff to muta acceleration is welcome though.
- I don't think swarm hosts need to be "easier" in any way :D
On December 04 2012 07:53 Sworm_MS wrote: 6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory. Air and mech armor must have been combined decade ago, that's good, needed and pretty obvious change.
2. Mutalisk buff to speed and/or acceleration How do they think protos should counter mass even-more-speedy muta harassing P economy when even now P hugely struggles on that? I can't understand this approach.
Not necessarily speedier. Just an acceleration buff could make them better to control, possibly even including a true moving shot from BW that would make them more effective when microed correctly.
I can't understand why he's saying P struggles vs muta when they don't. How many times in high level zvp do you see mutas work so well that it looks like toss doesn't know what to do or anything? It's only when they don't see it coming that they get destroyed.
Again Evangelist, good fundamental design leads naturally into cool styles, great point.
Not sure, what I think about these. Most of them are 'buff something' but without expansion, so I guess I'll wait and see.
Protoss changes are great in the most part, there's a kind of clear idea behind most of them, with specific actual buffs that I can decide.
I always liked the charge mechanic conceptually, but it kind of didn't work. Creating the micro requirement to kind of balance this out is a great idea, nice creative design to solve potential problems while creating more decision making. First three even fit into a thread I wrote and the kind of ideas I wanted to see, but also the kind of other cool play that having a good stargate tech that transitions more smoothly into other styles would be good. As it is, yeah it's a good tech tree but too frequently leaves us stuck on the Collosus techpath.
Air Changes and the Possibilities a robust Stargate tree could open up, potentially Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall. Nice, maybe synergy wise? Redesign Voidray - Great idea to make better players with Voidrays get better results, but maybe buff it's potential to make it more versatile? Oracle - Depends how they want to do the harassment thing. Problem of overlap is acknowledged though. I'd still like to see its role as a kind of 1 or 2 per army auxilliary caster. That's assuming phoenix/void is still good. 3. Love the concept, wonder what form it will take. An upgrade at the Dark Shrine sounds massively expensive though, in terms of overall tech, if you get this new upgrade? 4. Nerf Vortex - Ah a fine decision, but again only going to sort the matchup out if Protoss have more viable other approaches unlocked in HoTS 5. Again, good. I liked the Tempest concept, really slow damage kind of long ranged siege tank equivalent sounds a bit OP when put like that. Really just figured a way to beat BL/Infestor by making the Protoss equivalent of BL/Infestor in T/T is kind of bad, at least imo
On December 04 2012 07:53 Sworm_MS wrote: 6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory. Air and mech armor must have been combined decade ago, that's good, needed and pretty obvious change.
2. Mutalisk buff to speed and/or acceleration How do they think protos should counter mass even-more-speedy muta harassing P economy when even now P hugely struggles on that? I can't understand this approach.
Not necessarily speedier. Just an acceleration buff could make them better to control, possibly even including a true moving shot from BW that would make them more effective when microed correctly.
I can't understand why he's saying P struggles vs muta when they don't. How many times in high level zvp do you see mutas work so well that it looks like toss doesn't know what to do or anything? It's only when they don't see it coming that they get destroyed.
Plus in HotS scouting will be easier with early access to a flying unit (MsC). I'm not even a Zerg player but if David Kim meant making mutas more microable ala moving shot then I am all for that. I miss the muta micro from BW days.
Wait, what? I mean, I always LOVE games where the match ends from a terran not having a scan available with no turrets up. You know, it's great to watch and really reflects skill. It really adds some depth. (sarcasm)
ah, I forgot to mention that merging vehicle and ship upgrades means a lot for bio play too. In late game you can have 2/0 upgrades for vikings AND hellbats (...healed by medivacs!!!!) which is huge against the current protoss and zerg compositions and tech switches. So I don't think that a straight buff to bio is needed.
There are only three things i dont like. 1. i really hope doesnt overnerf the infestor. We already saw this with the ghost. 2. Medivac buff is retarded. Medivac play is already viable. Why buff it? 3. FOR GODS SAKE DONT BUFF BIO. Jesus christ. For how long were we complaining about Bio? They already scale excelently in the late game. The whole point was that blizz wanted more mech in HoTS. Mass bio is already retarded. Its extremely cost efficient, and has massive DPS. And if you can micro, you will win. Especially with the medivac buff. For forever, people have been complaining that terran can spam t1 units all game long. Now that blizz has introduced more mech, why are they destroying not only the progress in HoTS, but returning to a meta issue that has already existed in WoL? And now, infestors are getting nerfed. That will make bio even more strong. With infestor nerf, bio already has had a massive buff. But to buff them again? Why dont they nerf stalkers and buff mutas, so mutas are even MORE viable in zvp? Oh... wait... They're already halfway done.
Why is it that toss cant go mass stalker against any race in the super late game? Hmm. If terran can mass marine, surely i can win every matchup with mass speedling. Yes. At the 35 min mark, i will win with pure speedling, without winfestors.
On December 04 2012 08:13 Blargh wrote: "Buffing DTs"
Wait, what? I mean, I always LOVE games where the match ends from a terran not having a scan available with no turrets up. You know, it's great to watch and really reflects skill. It really adds some depth. (sarcasm)
This won't be a problem - the cloak ability really can't be buffed, seeing as how it's already permanent. Most likely the buff would be in another area (HP/damage, or maybe an upgraded ability?)
I'm a little worried about the bio buff in late game, as it is Protoss can have a very hard time vs. a heavy ghost, pure bio composition in the late game. Medivacs also don't need a buff, they're used in every matchup quite consistently. It's going to be a nightmare defending against drops if this goes through.
I also don't like the VR change, it doesn't really solve the problem, and it makes the unit even sillier. It's not fast enough to be a decent harassing unit and isn't strong enough to be a serious unit in the army.
Mutalisks don't need a speed buff, the widow mine needs to be less absurd at instant killing them. Making mutas faster will make PvZ a bit of a nightmare, it's already fairly tough to defend against them well.
On December 04 2012 08:13 Blargh wrote: "Buffing DTs"
Wait, what? I mean, I always LOVE games where the match ends from a terran not having a scan available with no turrets up. You know, it's great to watch and really reflects skill. It really adds some depth. (sarcasm)
This won't be a problem - the cloak ability really can't be buffed, seeing as how it's already permanent. Most likely the buff would be in another area (HP/damage, or maybe an upgraded ability?)
Some kind of triggerable movespeed buff maybe? Nothing too ridiculous either, but maybe some way to say. if you have 3 DTs you could trigger it and split them to dodge fungals.
On December 04 2012 06:15 intrigue wrote: why not just have medivac burn energy for a speed boost? makes it so drops for mech makes more sense too
Yes I was thinking this would be a much better change. It already has energy, why add on a cooldown when your tools are right there? Besides adding depth and tension to the unit, you could even do cute things like burn off enough energy to survive feedbacks.
On December 04 2012 08:13 Blargh wrote: "Buffing DTs"
Wait, what? I mean, I always LOVE games where the match ends from a terran not having a scan available with no turrets up. You know, it's great to watch and really reflects skill. It really adds some depth. (sarcasm)
Which is why he said they wanted to buff DTs as a lategame harass unit rather than a gimmicky coinflip instant-win cheese unit.
On December 04 2012 06:15 intrigue wrote: why not just have medivac burn energy for a speed boost? makes it so drops for mech makes more sense too
Yes I was thinking this would be a much better change. It already has energy, why add on a cooldown when your tools are right there? Besides adding depth and tension to the unit, you could even do cute things like burn off enough energy to survive feedbacks.
Noooooo. Speed boost for DTs would be so much cooler Good idea though, applied to either units. DTs would get kind of a bigger offensive bonus as they could nip into gaps like unraised supply depots that otherwise maybe would have been raised, or you could split them faster between areas of the enemy base.
Terran changes are Great, we all would love to see that T are able to choose between Bio and Mech play in all Matchups. Would love to see Bio and Mach as choices of taste and not choices of balance. Medivac and Bio Buff not neccessary imo, MMM still owns everyhting, so why dont u foce Terran to get some high tier high cost units in their lategame composition like the other races need to
Zerg serious are u fucking kidding me? Buff Muta Speed wtf must be a joke. YOU CANT BUFF MUTASPEED WITHOUT GIVING TOSS BETTER ANTI AIR DEFENCE Hydras are way too strong now that Collossus are worthless because of the Viper abduct. u weaken Toss splashdamage vs ground u gotta nerf hydradps as well or otherwise roach/hydra/Viper will rape everything.
Toss making Toss air viable sounds like a great idea. But still, this is impossible if the corruptor is still such a hardcounter to every single toss air unit. Also like Vortex removal because its common sense that designing PvZ lategae around hitting a Vortex or getting MS neuraled is a bad design. However you really need to make sure that there is something Toss can do vs Broodload/Corruptor/Infestor.
Best solution would be to implement a new ground based anti air unit from the robotics. It will be able to deal with Broodloads and immune vs corruptor attacks
On December 04 2012 08:24 Whitewing wrote: I'm a little worried about the bio buff in late game, as it is Protoss can have a very hard time vs. a heavy ghost, pure bio composition in the late game. Medivacs also don't need a buff, they're used in every matchup quite consistently. It's going to be a nightmare defending against drops if this goes through.
I also don't like the VR change, it doesn't really solve the problem, and it makes the unit even sillier. It's not fast enough to be a decent harassing unit and isn't strong enough to be a serious unit in the army.
Mutalisks don't need a speed buff, the widow mine needs to be less absurd at instant killing them. Making mutas faster will make PvZ a bit of a nightmare, it's already fairly tough to defend against them well.
The rest of the changes sound pretty good though.
Seconded.
Mutalisks are already agile enough, how exactly does protoss counter them at all? Blink stalkers will get much fewer shots off at them, if phoenix speed advantage is negated, its not usable against them either. And if they do increase the speed AND acceleration, storms aren't going to do much if the zerg is paying attention.
Not understanding the medivac buff either, especially his reasoning of "not seeing it enough" - I mean, wtf?? If he thinks its not strong enough, thats his own opinion, but saying that not enough people use them is insane lol.
400/400 Upgrade at DT Shrine. Don't know upgrade time. The first attack from a Dark templar deals 150 damage. (Has a 20 second cooldown) This would make it late game, also make it not very strong if you got it early because its expensive and one snipe of 150 dmg isn't spectacular, but 10 dts could be immense. It also isn't op because after 10 strikes, especially if misplaced, they play their old role and its harder to get those hits off. They can snipe turrets, spores, tanks, swarm hosts, and can be the bad ass end game warp gate unit. Also, it sticks with the role of the assassin. AND most importantly, adds for some insaneee micro and death ball breaking (running dts in early to individually snipe colossi before the fight begins) I think itd be awesome.
Sigh ... having to make the Voidray charge on a button, because people are to lazy to actually spread fire to charge them, or use buildings hallucination. Another unit becoming easy to use.
Wonder if the Medivac change, will make people go for the energy upgrade. Still funny to see aggressive people run out of Medivac energy.
On December 04 2012 08:24 Whitewing wrote: I'm a little worried about the bio buff in late game, as it is Protoss can have a very hard time vs. a heavy ghost, pure bio composition in the late game. Medivacs also don't need a buff, they're used in every matchup quite consistently. It's going to be a nightmare defending against drops if this goes through.
I also don't like the VR change, it doesn't really solve the problem, and it makes the unit even sillier. It's not fast enough to be a decent harassing unit and isn't strong enough to be a serious unit in the army.
Mutalisks don't need a speed buff, the widow mine needs to be less absurd at instant killing them. Making mutas faster will make PvZ a bit of a nightmare, it's already fairly tough to defend against them well.
The rest of the changes sound pretty good though.
Seconded.
Mutalisks are already agile enough, how exactly does protoss counter them at all? Blink stalkers will get much fewer shots off at them, if phoenix speed advantage is negated, its not usable against them either. And if they do increase the speed AND acceleration, storms aren't going to do much if the zerg is paying attention.
Not understanding the medivac buff either, especially his reasoning of "not seeing it enough" - I mean, wtf?? If he thinks its not strong enough, thats his own opinion, but saying that not enough people use them is insane lol.
I don't like that change because of muta play in ZvP. I mean, it was hard enough to beat a good muta player when it was popular, even with slower mutas. Toss has such a hole between high DPS ground-to-air damage until storm and archons come up
I like muta play vs T, but not P. I guess Zerg, if they screw up vs a Terran get shredded by marines. Toss just don't have as good tools pre storm-archon.
To be honest, even if it makes playing my own race intolerable for a bit, I'd still like to encourage other stles just for their sake. It's a beta so let people test it
If this happens, this makes me so so happy as a Terran player, especially the Armory buff, altho I feel they will up the cost, hopefully not the research time tho.
Also been crying out for a medivac speed boost since it got nerfed. I could understand the accelleration nerf so you cant just fly out super fast at the first sign of trouble, but the fact stalkers can amove moving medivacs down across the map has always annoyed me.
On December 04 2012 08:48 FeyFey wrote: Sigh ... having to make the Voidray charge on a button, because people are to lazy to actually spread fire to charge them, or use buildings hallucination. Another unit becoming easy to use.
Wonder if the Medivac change, will make people go for the energy upgrade. Still funny to see aggressive people run out of Medivac energy.
It's hard to spread fire when you have a ton of Voids, because selecting them individually is hard due to clumpage. That said, I'll wait and see how these play out.
Actually liked the kind of fundamental way they were going around the Protoss changes this time, if they suck that's possible but at least things like airtoss are being subtly encouraged.
On December 04 2012 06:08 Jermstuddog wrote: -Tie Reapers to Widow Mines and be done with it. This makes them important all game long in all Terran MUs and allows them to keep on with their harassment stats and not be OP in straight-up fights while being an important part of every Terran game.
Why do people keep suggesting this as if it will make the unit good all game?!?!?
Anyone that has played the beta knows damn well that 1) Mine is useless vs anyone above Gold past 12 minutes. 2) Reaper is useless vs anyone not playing Terran
So, how does combining two shitty late game units make it a good late game unit?
On December 04 2012 06:08 Jermstuddog wrote: -Tie Reapers to Widow Mines and be done with it. This makes them important all game long in all Terran MUs and allows them to keep on with their harassment stats and not be OP in straight-up fights while being an important part of every Terran game.
Why do people keep suggesting this as if it will make the unit good all game?!?!?
Anyone that has played the beta knows damn well that 1) Mine is useless vs anyone above Gold past 12 minutes. 2) Reaper is useless vs anyone not playing Terran
So, how does combining two shitty late game units make it a good late game unit?
Someone, please explain this to me.... Please.
Not sure, I mean you could find a specific niche maybe? I know Thorzain and qxc had these reaper hitsquads in their TvP for a while, which seemed ok when I saw it but rarely employed
On December 04 2012 06:08 Jermstuddog wrote: -Tie Reapers to Widow Mines and be done with it. This makes them important all game long in all Terran MUs and allows them to keep on with their harassment stats and not be OP in straight-up fights while being an important part of every Terran game.
Why do people keep suggesting this as if it will make the unit good all game?!?!?
Anyone that has played the beta knows damn well that 1) Mine is useless vs anyone above Gold past 12 minutes. 2) Reaper is useless vs anyone not playing Terran
So, how does combining two shitty late game units make it a good late game unit?
Someone, please explain this to me.... Please.
Not sure, I mean you could find a specific niche maybe? I know Thorzain and qxc had these reaper hitsquads in their TvP for a while, which seemed ok when I saw it but rarely employed
With no D8 charge, add a cannon, add a spine. Good to go.
Edit: Not like every player doesn't already have one of those at their mineral lines to stop drops anyways. Or a queen...
Edit2: I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's highly improbable...
On December 04 2012 09:07 Drittschaden wrote: i actually think mines are too strong already. its kinda ridicolous that widow mine kills an observer which tries to detect it
Huh? Observer's vision and detection is much larger than range 5 (sight radius is 11). It just means you have to watch your observer a bit more carefully now, that's all..
On December 04 2012 08:24 Whitewing wrote: I'm a little worried about the bio buff in late game, as it is Protoss can have a very hard time vs. a heavy ghost, pure bio composition in the late game. Medivacs also don't need a buff, they're used in every matchup quite consistently. It's going to be a nightmare defending against drops if this goes through.
I also don't like the VR change, it doesn't really solve the problem, and it makes the unit even sillier. It's not fast enough to be a decent harassing unit and isn't strong enough to be a serious unit in the army.
Mutalisks don't need a speed buff, the widow mine needs to be less absurd at instant killing them. Making mutas faster will make PvZ a bit of a nightmare, it's already fairly tough to defend against them well.
The rest of the changes sound pretty good though.
Seconded.
Mutalisks are already agile enough, how exactly does protoss counter them at all? Blink stalkers will get much fewer shots off at them, if phoenix speed advantage is negated, its not usable against them either. And if they do increase the speed AND acceleration, storms aren't going to do much if the zerg is paying attention.
Not understanding the medivac buff either, especially his reasoning of "not seeing it enough" - I mean, wtf?? If he thinks its not strong enough, thats his own opinion, but saying that not enough people use them is insane lol.
I don't like that change because of muta play in ZvP. I mean, it was hard enough to beat a good muta player when it was popular, even with slower mutas. Toss has such a hole between high DPS ground-to-air damage until storm and archons come up
I like muta play vs T, but not P. I guess Zerg, if they screw up vs a Terran get shredded by marines. Toss just don't have as good tools pre storm-archon.
To be honest, even if it makes playing my own race intolerable for a bit, I'd still like to encourage other stles just for their sake. It's a beta so let people test it
hey I'm all for testing radical changes in a beta as well, but certain things you KNOW is going to be an issue. for instance, if they decided to nerf forcefields and buff gateway units to compensate, it could be an interesting test. I can't see how a straight up mutalisk mobility buff isn't going to break the matchup unless its an expensive hive tech upgrade or something.
After millions of people saying how Blizzard doesn't know how to balance the game, everything is broken, the world's gonna end etc... these changes look absolutely perfect.
I can't think of a single other change that I would like, he really hit the nail on the head with this one. I just REALLY hope they go through with it and don't just revert all this and say "well never mind, the numbers look good" like they've been doing with their other good ideas recently.
On December 04 2012 08:24 Whitewing wrote: I'm a little worried about the bio buff in late game, as it is Protoss can have a very hard time vs. a heavy ghost, pure bio composition in the late game. Medivacs also don't need a buff, they're used in every matchup quite consistently. It's going to be a nightmare defending against drops if this goes through.
I also don't like the VR change, it doesn't really solve the problem, and it makes the unit even sillier. It's not fast enough to be a decent harassing unit and isn't strong enough to be a serious unit in the army.
Mutalisks don't need a speed buff, the widow mine needs to be less absurd at instant killing them. Making mutas faster will make PvZ a bit of a nightmare, it's already fairly tough to defend against them well.
The rest of the changes sound pretty good though.
Seconded.
Mutalisks are already agile enough, how exactly does protoss counter them at all? Blink stalkers will get much fewer shots off at them, if phoenix speed advantage is negated, its not usable against them either. And if they do increase the speed AND acceleration, storms aren't going to do much if the zerg is paying attention.
Not understanding the medivac buff either, especially his reasoning of "not seeing it enough" - I mean, wtf?? If he thinks its not strong enough, thats his own opinion, but saying that not enough people use them is insane lol.
I don't like that change because of muta play in ZvP. I mean, it was hard enough to beat a good muta player when it was popular, even with slower mutas. Toss has such a hole between high DPS ground-to-air damage until storm and archons come up
I like muta play vs T, but not P. I guess Zerg, if they screw up vs a Terran get shredded by marines. Toss just don't have as good tools pre storm-archon.
To be honest, even if it makes playing my own race intolerable for a bit, I'd still like to encourage other stles just for their sake. It's a beta so let people test it
hey I'm all for testing radical changes in a beta as well, but certain things you KNOW is going to be an issue. for instance, if they decided to nerf forcefields and buff gateway units to compensate, it could be an interesting test. I can't see how a mutalisk mobility buff isn't going to break the matchup unless its an expensive hive tech upgrade or something.
Dude I've given up trying to explain that the mere ability of an incredibly mediocre player like me can think of reasons that something might be an issue, is indicative of an issue existing even before testing
I'll just go prepare my 'Wombat was right' banner that I show myself to cheer me up when I get disheartened on here
That said, I've been bitching about design, or indeed a coherent kind of link between intent, and what they're doing. The Protoss stuff actually looks pretty good, it's a mix of changes that sound like they could enable more actual variation in styles to come about.
On December 04 2012 08:46 Kiro21 wrote: DT Buff Idea:
400/400 Upgrade at DT Shrine. Don't know upgrade time. The first attack from a Dark templar deals 150 damage. (Has a 20 second cooldown) This would make it late game, also make it not very strong if you got it early because its expensive and one snipe of 150 dmg isn't spectacular, but 10 dts could be immense. It also isn't op because after 10 strikes, especially if misplaced, they play their old role and its harder to get those hits off. They can snipe turrets, spores, tanks, swarm hosts, and can be the bad ass end game warp gate unit. Also, it sticks with the role of the assassin. AND most importantly, adds for some insaneee micro and death ball breaking (running dts in early to individually snipe colossi before the fight begins) I think itd be awesome.
On December 04 2012 06:08 Jermstuddog wrote: -Tie Reapers to Widow Mines and be done with it. This makes them important all game long in all Terran MUs and allows them to keep on with their harassment stats and not be OP in straight-up fights while being an important part of every Terran game.
Why do people keep suggesting this as if it will make the unit good all game?!?!?
Anyone that has played the beta knows damn well that 1) Mine is useless vs anyone above Gold past 12 minutes. 2) Reaper is useless vs anyone not playing Terran
So, how does combining two shitty late game units make it a good late game unit?
Someone, please explain this to me.... Please.
If it's added onto the Reaper, it probably will be one-time-use and no supply like the Spider Mine, which is a huge change and probably really imbalanced when paired with the Reaper's cliff-jumping, so it's an unlikely change because it's ironically OP.
Everything's good except one raven buff is missing. I would exchange mediviac buff with Raven's since mediviac will automatically been used more often if bio is really gonna b buffed like what David said
On December 04 2012 09:25 gengka wrote: Everything's good except one raven buff is missing. I would exchange mediviac buff with Raven's since mediviac will automatically been used more often if bio is really gonna b buffed like what David said
On December 04 2012 08:24 Whitewing wrote: I'm a little worried about the bio buff in late game, as it is Protoss can have a very hard time vs. a heavy ghost, pure bio composition in the late game. Medivacs also don't need a buff, they're used in every matchup quite consistently. It's going to be a nightmare defending against drops if this goes through.
I also don't like the VR change, it doesn't really solve the problem, and it makes the unit even sillier. It's not fast enough to be a decent harassing unit and isn't strong enough to be a serious unit in the army.
Mutalisks don't need a speed buff, the widow mine needs to be less absurd at instant killing them. Making mutas faster will make PvZ a bit of a nightmare, it's already fairly tough to defend against them well.
The rest of the changes sound pretty good though.
Seconded.
Mutalisks are already agile enough, how exactly does protoss counter them at all? Blink stalkers will get much fewer shots off at them, if phoenix speed advantage is negated, its not usable against them either. And if they do increase the speed AND acceleration, storms aren't going to do much if the zerg is paying attention.
Not understanding the medivac buff either, especially his reasoning of "not seeing it enough" - I mean, wtf?? If he thinks its not strong enough, thats his own opinion, but saying that not enough people use them is insane lol.
I don't like that change because of muta play in ZvP. I mean, it was hard enough to beat a good muta player when it was popular, even with slower mutas. Toss has such a hole between high DPS ground-to-air damage until storm and archons come up
I like muta play vs T, but not P. I guess Zerg, if they screw up vs a Terran get shredded by marines. Toss just don't have as good tools pre storm-archon.
To be honest, even if it makes playing my own race intolerable for a bit, I'd still like to encourage other stles just for their sake. It's a beta so let people test it
hey I'm all for testing radical changes in a beta as well, but certain things you KNOW is going to be an issue. for instance, if they decided to nerf forcefields and buff gateway units to compensate, it could be an interesting test. I can't see how a mutalisk mobility buff isn't going to break the matchup unless its an expensive hive tech upgrade or something.
Dude I've given up trying to explain that the mere ability of an incredibly mediocre player like me can think of reasons that something might be an issue, is indicative of an issue existing even before testing
I'll just go prepare my 'Wombat was right' banner that I show myself to cheer me up when I get disheartened on here
That said, I've been bitching about design, or indeed a coherent kind of link between intent, and what they're doing. The Protoss stuff actually looks pretty good, it's a mix of changes that sound like they could enable more actual variation in styles to come about.
well to be fair, I do like a lot of the changes, but there are a couple which are a definite red flag for sure.
5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak. 6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory.
The problem with terran is that the siege tank is so weak in the late game. Vs Zerg it is easily overun...vs toss it is still a joke and even terran very late game we see the tank give way to air-superiority builds.
The fix is not to combine air/ground...that will not help the siege tank much at all. The siege tank needs a siege tank specific upgrade to do more damage in the late game. It's such an easy fix it is not even funny. We don't need more bio vs zerg and toss...the dependency on bio is the problem and not the solution.
On December 04 2012 08:24 Whitewing wrote: I'm a little worried about the bio buff in late game, as it is Protoss can have a very hard time vs. a heavy ghost, pure bio composition in the late game. Medivacs also don't need a buff, they're used in every matchup quite consistently. It's going to be a nightmare defending against drops if this goes through.
I also don't like the VR change, it doesn't really solve the problem, and it makes the unit even sillier. It's not fast enough to be a decent harassing unit and isn't strong enough to be a serious unit in the army.
Mutalisks don't need a speed buff, the widow mine needs to be less absurd at instant killing them. Making mutas faster will make PvZ a bit of a nightmare, it's already fairly tough to defend against them well.
The rest of the changes sound pretty good though.
Seconded.
Mutalisks are already agile enough, how exactly does protoss counter them at all? Blink stalkers will get much fewer shots off at them, if phoenix speed advantage is negated, its not usable against them either. And if they do increase the speed AND acceleration, storms aren't going to do much if the zerg is paying attention.
Not understanding the medivac buff either, especially his reasoning of "not seeing it enough" - I mean, wtf?? If he thinks its not strong enough, thats his own opinion, but saying that not enough people use them is insane lol.
I don't like that change because of muta play in ZvP. I mean, it was hard enough to beat a good muta player when it was popular, even with slower mutas. Toss has such a hole between high DPS ground-to-air damage until storm and archons come up
I like muta play vs T, but not P. I guess Zerg, if they screw up vs a Terran get shredded by marines. Toss just don't have as good tools pre storm-archon.
To be honest, even if it makes playing my own race intolerable for a bit, I'd still like to encourage other stles just for their sake. It's a beta so let people test it
hey I'm all for testing radical changes in a beta as well, but certain things you KNOW is going to be an issue. for instance, if they decided to nerf forcefields and buff gateway units to compensate, it could be an interesting test. I can't see how a mutalisk mobility buff isn't going to break the matchup unless its an expensive hive tech upgrade or something.
Dude I've given up trying to explain that the mere ability of an incredibly mediocre player like me can think of reasons that something might be an issue, is indicative of an issue existing even before testing
I'll just go prepare my 'Wombat was right' banner that I show myself to cheer me up when I get disheartened on here
That said, I've been bitching about design, or indeed a coherent kind of link between intent, and what they're doing. The Protoss stuff actually looks pretty good, it's a mix of changes that sound like they could enable more actual variation in styles to come about.
well to be fair, I do like a lot of the changes, but there are a couple which are a definite red flag for sure.
Look, as long as there's a vaguely coherent design philosophy being displayed man, at least you can sort of say with the Protoss changes 'here's what their rough idea is for the totality of the changes, here's the specifics'. That way you can kind of assess whether they do what's intended, either directly or indirectly.
I actually prefer the idea of indirectly buffing certain things to make entire styles viable. I mean ok it was maybe a bit much, but Blizzard buffing warp prisms enabled stuff like more prism heavy play, storm drops, immortal micro etc to be used more. You kind of fix the issue with a core unit or whatever, to enable people to figure out how to use it.
I think the idea of improving the viability of air, for example, will potentially enable Protoss to play a non-deathball style in a more consistent way far more than changing other 'direct' things about deathballs. Kind of weird, Dayvie is kind of implementing the general concept of my post, if not the specifics I believe.
On December 04 2012 09:36 Fungal Growth wrote: 5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak. 6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory.
The problem with terran is that the siege tank is so weak in the late game. Vs Zerg it is easily overun...vs toss it is still a joke and even terran very late game we see the tank give way to air-superiority builds.
The fix is not to combine air/ground...that will not help the siege tank much at all. The siege tank needs a siege tank specific upgrade to do more damage in the late game. It's such an easy fix it is not even funny. We don't need more bio vs zerg and toss...the dependency on bio is the problem and not the solution.
Got a crazy idea. How about they give the Warhound haywire missiles ability to the Siege Tank as a lategame upgrade? It would help to give an extra umph vs mechanical so greatly boost tvp mech, keeping tvz as is.
Lots of good thoughts, i like especially the starport-army, mechanic upgrade change and the hydra buff.
I wished they would tweak sentry+gateway+colossus/ht a bit to something more balanced out and buff the carrier a bit (although buffing vr and nerfing infestor might make the carrier either viable or outclassed by the vr or tempest), but apart from that these thoughts are really promising.
I hope they dont overdo it and the time will be enough. According to his ideas vr gets essentially 2 buffs (infestor change/nerf +buff), bio by the looks of it will get 2 buffs (medivac + not yet described) ultras will possibly get two buffs (all around-damage and tempest change/nerf) and while these are currently underused in the meta, taking care of not overbuffing them will take quite some time.
On December 04 2012 09:36 Fungal Growth wrote: 5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak. 6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory.
The problem with terran is that the siege tank is so weak in the late game. Vs Zerg it is easily overun...vs toss it is still a joke and even terran very late game we see the tank give way to air-superiority builds.
The fix is not to combine air/ground...that will not help the siege tank much at all. The siege tank needs a siege tank specific upgrade to do more damage in the late game. It's such an easy fix it is not even funny. We don't need more bio vs zerg and toss...the dependency on bio is the problem and not the solution.
Got a crazy idea. How about they give the Warhound haywire missiles ability to the Siege Tank as a lategame upgrade? It would help to give an extra umph vs mechanical so greatly boost tvp mech, keeping tvz as is.
i would prefer giving this to a unit that is not supposed to be countered by the immortal. Stripping armored from vikings and giving this to them might be interesting.
On December 04 2012 09:44 Blackfeather wrote: Lots of good thoughts, i like especially the starport-army, mechanic upgrade change and the hydra buff.
I wished they would tweak sentry+gateway+colossus/ht a bit to something more balanced out and buff the carrier a bit (although buffing vr and nerfing infestor might make the carrier either viable or outclassed by the vr or tempest), but apart from that these thoughts are really promising.
I hope they dont overdo it and the time will be enough. According to his ideas vr gets essentially 2 buffs (infestor change/nerf +buff), bio by the looks of it will get 2 buffs (medivac + not yet described) ultras will possibly get two buffs (all around-damage and tempest change/nerf) and while these are currently underused in the meta, taking care of not overbuffing them will take quite some time.
On December 04 2012 09:36 Fungal Growth wrote: 5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak. 6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory.
The problem with terran is that the siege tank is so weak in the late game. Vs Zerg it is easily overun...vs toss it is still a joke and even terran very late game we see the tank give way to air-superiority builds.
The fix is not to combine air/ground...that will not help the siege tank much at all. The siege tank needs a siege tank specific upgrade to do more damage in the late game. It's such an easy fix it is not even funny. We don't need more bio vs zerg and toss...the dependency on bio is the problem and not the solution.
Got a crazy idea. How about they give the Warhound haywire missiles ability to the Siege Tank as a lategame upgrade? It would help to give an extra umph vs mechanical so greatly boost tvp mech, keeping tvz as is.
i would prefer giving this to a unit that is not supposed to be countered by the immortal. Stripping armored from vikings and giving this to them might be interesting.
Nah I dont think immortals are the big problem in tvp mech. The problem is that mech just cant kill stuff quickly enough to diminish the very high dps of the protoss army (zealots, immortals, feedback, storms, colossus, blink stalkers). So the protoss army has time to deal its deadly damage, roflstomping the mech army.
Tanks fire slowly and do rubbish damage, vs archons + immortals they are almost worthless. Hellbats deal with the zealots yes, but get roflstomped by everything else. Thors get feedbacked to oblivion and get roflstomped by zealots and immortals. Plus they take a while to do the "lift weapon and fire" animation which allows even more dps from the protoss.
So essentially terran needs a way of killing stuff faster with the above units. Archons and immortals can get dealt with EMP, athough mass Archon is a huge pain. So if the siege tanks deal with the armored units much better, it allows the hellbats to have some worthwhile backup and they can both work in synergy. Of course backed by a handful of ghosts with emp for the immortals.
Which is why i think haywire missiles on tanks would be a good option to look into.
On December 04 2012 03:43 Tuczniak wrote: I'm worried about ZvT bio. Vipers nor swarmhosts aren't good against bio. So if they want to nerf infestor, buff medivacs and biological hellbats, that all will make bio way way stronger in midgame than it's now.
Sorry, but you are the kind of person that drags the community down. This is the first time EVER Blizzard is really trying to change something really HUGE. What we're looking at here is a potential flip of the entire meta-game. This shit is exiting as fuck and all you have to say is some fucking preemptive balance whine.
Lol, I wish he didn't take me so seriously.
When I see a new idea, I always look at things that might not work. I guess that's my bad. Anyway those aren't exactly surprising changes and "potential flip in the entire meta-game"?, hell even +2 range queen do that. No reason to get that excited, blizzard tries a lot of different stuff and might not implement everything, like we saw in the last balance test map.
Mine questions stands. I wish people wouldn't see balance whining everywhere. There is still long way ahead and I'm pretty sure blizz won't mess up big time. It's a concern and why do I post it? Because maybe some people know where blizz is heading and maybe there are already things that make it different from WoL, but I just don't play beta so I don't see it.
Good changes but Zerg gets to continue winning everything until Hots. So much undeserved money going to Patchzergs over this past year, really feel bad for those Terran and Protoss pro players.
Honestly it good to hear that we all are looking eye to eye here but he didnt go details, it like a politician saying-
"I will stop world hunger! I will fix the Economy! I will make eveyone live forever! I will ensure every children around the world get a free copy of starcraft 2!"
He just saying that is the plan which is good but he probably isnt 100% sure how to accomplish this. The only one that interests me heavily is the vechicle and air upgrade but that one wont go through and the infestor nerf was obvious.
Medivac and Mutalisk changes seem unnecessary. However, if Fungal is changed to a projectile on top of the Medivac's speed boost, drop play will be much more powerful against Zerg. And I wonder if the speed boost ability will require energy... Caduceus Reactor may become useful yet!
On December 04 2012 07:59 Big G wrote: - don't know why they never considered to make the Reaper a T3 bio unit. Balancing it for the early game has always been a nightmare, so just redesign it to buff bio late game.
I'm interested in this idea. How would you personally make reapers a T3 unit?
On December 04 2012 10:11 SheaR619 wrote: Honestly it good to hear that we all are looking eye to eye here but he didnt go details, it like a politician saying-
"I will stop world hunger! I will fix the Economy! I will make eveyone live forever! I will ensure every children around the world get a free copy of starcraft 2!"
He just saying that is the plan which is good but he probably isnt 100% sure how to accomplish this. The only one that interests me heavily is the vechicle and air upgrade but that one wont go through and the infestor nerf was obvious.
Problem is, prior to this point Blizzard hasn't even been doing that. They've oh-so-conservatively considered a couple of weird infestor changes and admitted that maybe, just maybe, there might be some teeeeensy-weensy issues with game balance but winrates are 50/50 guys so stop complaining. This is the first time I can remember that Blizz have come out and said that yes, balance is wickedy-wack, we're going to make a whole bunch of changes to fix it. Not only that, but most of the changes, in concept at least, seem pretty good.
On December 04 2012 10:11 SheaR619 wrote: Honestly it good to hear that we all are looking eye to eye here but he didnt go details, it like a politician saying-
"I will stop world hunger! I will fix the Economy! I will make eveyone live forever! I will ensure every children around the world get a free copy of starcraft 2!"
He just saying that is the plan which is good but he probably isnt 100% sure how to accomplish this. The only one that interests me heavily is the vechicle and air upgrade but that one wont go through and the infestor nerf was obvious.
I think your analogy is pretty unfair...the proper analogy would be David Kim saying "we're going to balance all the races, we're going to make PvT more varied and interesting, and we're going to make micro challenging but rewarding, as well as adding in a bunch of really new, groundbreaking units with great spells". *That's* vague. Maybe you'd be justified with comparing *that* to your "everyone will live forever" quote.
Here David Kim is specifically mentioning what units he wants to change, what abilities he wants to remove, and what upgrades he wants to have altered or even combined. Its as specific as is reasonably possible at this point.
I'm miffed that air and ground upgrades are merged. This upsets the lore and cultural balance of the races.
Terran was the race that HAS to specialize. Air-mechs-infantry simulating the RL branches of any country's military. The equipment needs for an Air Force are radically different with Army Rangers, for example.
The Terran player was well rewarded for 3/3 for in any two branches. 3/3 marine+tank, 3/3 Viking+siege tank, Thor+banshee, etc
They nerfed all these comps and now need to merge the major cultural backbone of the Terran race? Well-played DK, well played. Now we are playing Protoss with different skins (upgrade wise)
On December 04 2012 08:49 KovuTalli wrote: If this happens, this makes me so so happy as a Terran player, especially the Armory buff, altho I feel they will up the cost, hopefully not the research time tho.
Also been crying out for a medivac speed boost since it got nerfed. I could understand the accelleration nerf so you cant just fly out super fast at the first sign of trouble, but the fact stalkers can amove moving medivacs down across the map has always annoyed me.
stalkers don't chase down medivacs on a move, you need to stop and insta move again micro, and the medivac will eventually outrun them.
On December 04 2012 10:11 SheaR619 wrote: Honestly it good to hear that we all are looking eye to eye here but he didnt go details, it like a politician saying-
"I will stop world hunger! I will fix the Economy! I will make eveyone live forever! I will ensure every children around the world get a free copy of starcraft 2!"
He just saying that is the plan which is good but he probably isnt 100% sure how to accomplish this. The only one that interests me heavily is the vechicle and air upgrade but that one wont go through and the infestor nerf was obvious.
I think your analogy is pretty unfair...the proper analogy would be David Kim saying "we're going to balance all the races, we're going to make PvT more varied and interesting, and we're going to make micro challenging but rewarding, as well as adding in a bunch of really new, groundbreaking units with great spells". *That's* vague. Maybe you'd be justified with comparing *that* to your "everyone will live forever" quote.
Here David Kim is specifically mentioning what units he wants to change, what abilities he wants to remove, and what upgrades he wants to have altered or even combined. Its as specific as is reasonably possible at this point.
Yeah I mean, in the case of Terran changes it's all about 'buffs'. At least with the Protoss ones you can kind of see a theme, and I think making air play better will allow more flexibility in Protoss transitions which can only be good (if there's not some broken build that's possible now)
On December 04 2012 08:49 KovuTalli wrote: If this happens, this makes me so so happy as a Terran player, especially the Armory buff, altho I feel they will up the cost, hopefully not the research time tho.
Also been crying out for a medivac speed boost since it got nerfed. I could understand the accelleration nerf so you cant just fly out super fast at the first sign of trouble, but the fact stalkers can amove moving medivacs down across the map has always annoyed me.
stalkers don't chase down medivacs on a move, you need to stop and insta move again micro, and the medivac will eventually outrun them.
Nono, 'Protoss A-move' is what I get on ladder when I do that lol
On December 04 2012 10:07 Scila wrote: Good changes but Zerg gets to continue winning everything until Hots. So much undeserved money going to Patchzergs over this past year, really feel bad for those Terran and Protoss pro players.
Yeh it feels a little like zergs are just building up to the same late game army in all 3 matchups. If blizz can stop this being the case in HOTS it would be great.
On December 04 2012 10:24 Hattori_Hanzo wrote: I'm miffed that air and ground upgrades are merged. This upsets the lore and cultural balance of the races.
Terran was the race that HAS to specialize. Air-mechs-infantry simulating the RL branches of any country's military. The equipment needs for an Air Force are radically different with Army Rangers, for example.
The Terran player was well rewarded for 3/3 for in any two branches. 3/3 marine+tank, 3/3 Viking+siege tank, Thor+banshee, etc
They nerfed all these comps and now need to merge the major cultural backbone of the Terran race? Well-played DK, well played. Now we are playing Protoss with different skins (upgrade wise)
What's next, zealots that stim?
You can't keep the specialisation, which I like, but make certain Terran transitions smooth enough to make styles viable. Apparently according to others this is one of the issues with mech. It's not that you can't work out a really sick build with it all worked in, but you can't do some of this stuff reactively, on the fly in an efficient manner.
I mean Marine/Tank is a basic style, but has advantages inherent in its flow. Going Dual Engis for Bio upgrades, timing your armory for 2/2, and using the armoury just for tank attack kind of suits the overall style and gameplan.
Yeah you can refine all of this to a really high level, but there's a kind of basic pattern too that it's easy for a scrub to follow.
On December 04 2012 10:07 Scila wrote: Good changes but Zerg gets to continue winning everything until Hots. So much undeserved money going to Patchzergs over this past year, really feel bad for those Terran and Protoss pro players.
Yeh it feels a little like zergs are just building up to the same late game army in all 3 matchups. If blizz can stop this being the case in HOTS it would be great.
lol guess you guys missed the first 1.5+ years of domination by terran. Poo hoo don't dominate for 6 months and worst thing ever.
Again though blizzard did say they would mess with infestors first in hots and then put it in WoL. So WoL will get it eventually just not till blizzard is satisfied with how they feel in HoTs or w/e since nobody tests balance changes very much in WoL hots is the best thing for them.
On December 04 2012 10:07 Scila wrote: Good changes but Zerg gets to continue winning everything until Hots. So much undeserved money going to Patchzergs over this past year, really feel bad for those Terran and Protoss pro players.
Yeh it feels a little like zergs are just building up to the same late game army in all 3 matchups. If blizz can stop this being the case in HOTS it would be great.
lol guess you guys missed the first 1.5+ years of domination by terran. Poo hoo don't dominate for 6 months and worst thing ever.
Again though blizzard did say they would mess with infestors first in hots and then put it in WoL. So WoL will get it eventually just not till blizzard is satisfied with how they feel in HoTs or w/e since nobody tests balance changes very much in WoL hots is the best thing for them.
It's fucking retarded to balance things to make up for some supposed karmic injustice that was the period of Terran domination. It's making the game actually interesting, with stylistic divergence.
Was TvP in the 1/1/1 era better than now for anybody who isn't incredibly biased, I mean come on/
On December 04 2012 10:07 Scila wrote: Good changes but Zerg gets to continue winning everything until Hots. So much undeserved money going to Patchzergs over this past year, really feel bad for those Terran and Protoss pro players.
Yeh it feels a little like zergs are just building up to the same late game army in all 3 matchups. If blizz can stop this being the case in HOTS it would be great.
lol guess you guys missed the first 1.5+ years of domination by terran. Poo hoo don't dominate for 6 months and worst thing ever.
Again though blizzard did say they would mess with infestors first in hots and then put it in WoL. So WoL will get it eventually just not till blizzard is satisfied with how they feel in HoTs or w/e since nobody tests balance changes very much in WoL hots is the best thing for them.
It's fucking retarded to balance things to make up for some supposed karmic injustice that was the period of Terran domination. It's making the game actually interesting, with stylistic divergence.
Was TvP in the 1/1/1 era better than now for anybody who isn't incredibly biased, I mean come on/
This is quite possibly just me being horribly cynical, but does anyone else find the timing and presentation of this kind of lame?
There's an extremely high profile tournament that spawns tons of discontent about the current state of WoL, including a top level player typing "IMBA IMBA IMBA" in the semifinals of the world's most prestigious SC2 tournament. Right after the tournament ends a blue post appears that essentially says "Whoops! We forgot to write all these changes we were going to make, and then there's a list saying "we want to change the thor's ability, infestors need to be nerfed, voidray design is bad, vortex needs to be changed". In other words "yeah, WoL balance is terrible and the game design is poor, but look at how we're going to fix it in HoTS, please don't stop playing/wanting to buy our game".
Don't get me wrong, I love the ideas on this list, but to me it seems like damage control to some extent. Aside from a few ideas (such as the medivac abilities) most of the items in this list are quite unspecific (a lot of "we'd like to make this better" with no explanation of how they might go about it).
Maybe I'm just an extreme cynic, but I'm not convinced this thread means much until I see what they'll actually change. So far their attempts to "fix/alter" units they've already created have gone horribly wrong multiple times. I hope it works out for the better with HoTS.
And again, I really hope I'm just a negative Nancy, Debbie Downer, cynical bastard, and not right about this.
I don't know, I mean I'd rather see a more clear kind of, approach?
1. Here's the kind of play we want to make possible. 2. Here's how we want to fill in the gaps we think need filled in each of the races 3. Here's the specifics
Also I think giving the medivac speed boost to DTs is a better idea, kind of gives them a bit more of an ability to force mistakes and whatnot than relying on your opponents. One of the problems with DTs imo.
Oh dear, I didn't realise I had crossed swords with blade. I'm at that stage where I'm too tired to even see people's nicks, I just see walls of text at this stage
dislike how they're trying to buff the medivac/muta directly rather than try to make harass more desirable (anti-deathball, etc). aside from that, looks good.
Hydra speed upgrade should definitely be available in Lair tech. I love to see how this change zerg strats. Especially with nerfing infestors, will we see more roach/hydra combo in the mid game?
As for "Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall", it is interesting how Blizzard wants this combo to be more viable. I always thought the way units are design to be like sandbox and let the users design the best composition.
On December 04 2012 11:06 renlynn wrote: dislike how they're trying to buff the medivac/muta directly rather than try to make harass more desirable (anti-deathball, etc). aside from that, looks good.
My problem is they wont change moving shot to buff the muta, but just make it faster with the same awkward movement.
On December 04 2012 10:59 Swords wrote: This is quite possibly just me being horribly cynical, but does anyone else find the timing and presentation of this kind of lame?
There's an extremely high profile tournament that spawns tons of discontent about the current state of WoL, including a top level player typing "IMBA IMBA IMBA" in the semifinals of the world's most prestigious SC2 tournament. Right after the tournament ends a blue post appears that essentially says "Whoops! We forgot to write all these changes we were going to make, and then there's a list saying "we want to change the thor's ability, infestors need to be nerfed, voidray design is bad, vortex needs to be changed". In other words "yeah, WoL balance is terrible and the game design is poor, but look at how we're going to fix it in HoTS, please don't stop playing/wanting to buy our game".
Don't get me wrong, I love the ideas on this list, but to me it seems like damage control to some extent. Aside from a few ideas (such as the medivac abilities) most of the items in this list are quite unspecific (a lot of "we'd like to make this better" with no explanation of how they might go about it).
Maybe I'm just an extreme cynic, but I'm not convinced this thread means much until I see what they'll actually change. So far their attempts to "fix/alter" units they've already created have gone horribly wrong multiple times. I hope it works out for the better with HoTS.
And again, I really hope I'm just a negative Nancy, Debbie Downer, cynical bastard, and not right about this.
Blizz already expressed their desire to make most of these changes before BWC ended.
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not enough medivac play? Boost to fucking medivacS? Fuck my life hahahahaha
Im loving the Ultralisk good vs all ground, buff to hydra at lair, and big nerf to infestor.
When i started playing zerg, i expected to have the most mobile end game army in the game, made a big mistake. Ultralisk+hydra will be viable end game army, will be so god damn amazing...
Aye, good point. The most elegant solution is always the best, ideally. I mean, making a Muta better in its harassing capacity as a rule is grand, but the 'better' way to do this isn't to make it a speed machine but to make it more manouverable and have more finesse. Finesse units like Mutas or Marines also scale a hell of a lot more entertainingly the better the player controlling them.
Hm, might be wrong but aren't some aspects of old-school BW micro apparently not doable given the engine? Remember somebody said this on here once, something about sprites and 3D models rotating around their axis differently or something :S
I really hope these changes are implemented BEFORE the holiday break. I don't want to wait until end of January so we can only test such large changes too briefly. Seriously Blizzard, chop, chop.
On December 04 2012 10:59 Swords wrote: This is quite possibly just me being horribly cynical, but does anyone else find the timing and presentation of this kind of lame?
There's an extremely high profile tournament that spawns tons of discontent about the current state of WoL, including a top level player typing "IMBA IMBA IMBA" in the semifinals of the world's most prestigious SC2 tournament. Right after the tournament ends a blue post appears that essentially says "Whoops! We forgot to write all these changes we were going to make, and then there's a list saying "we want to change the thor's ability, infestors need to be nerfed, voidray design is bad, vortex needs to be changed". In other words "yeah, WoL balance is terrible and the game design is poor, but look at how we're going to fix it in HoTS, please don't stop playing/wanting to buy our game".
Don't get me wrong, I love the ideas on this list, but to me it seems like damage control to some extent. Aside from a few ideas (such as the medivac abilities) most of the items in this list are quite unspecific (a lot of "we'd like to make this better" with no explanation of how they might go about it).
Maybe I'm just an extreme cynic, but I'm not convinced this thread means much until I see what they'll actually change. So far their attempts to "fix/alter" units they've already created have gone horribly wrong multiple times. I hope it works out for the better with HoTS.
And again, I really hope I'm just a negative Nancy, Debbie Downer, cynical bastard, and not right about this.
Blizz already expressed their desire to make most of these changes before BWC ended.
Yeah, that's kind of part of what I'm getting at. They're re-listing the same changes they've been talking about for months now, and without many specifics (we want to change the thor spell - Blizz has been saying this since before the beta). It seems like more of a PR move to me than anything, after the GSL and IPL 5 balance issues (whether you believe those exist or not is up to you).
On December 04 2012 10:59 Swords wrote: This is quite possibly just me being horribly cynical, but does anyone else find the timing and presentation of this kind of lame?
There's an extremely high profile tournament that spawns tons of discontent about the current state of WoL, including a top level player typing "IMBA IMBA IMBA" in the semifinals of the world's most prestigious SC2 tournament. Right after the tournament ends a blue post appears that essentially says "Whoops! We forgot to write all these changes we were going to make, and then there's a list saying "we want to change the thor's ability, infestors need to be nerfed, voidray design is bad, vortex needs to be changed". In other words "yeah, WoL balance is terrible and the game design is poor, but look at how we're going to fix it in HoTS, please don't stop playing/wanting to buy our game".
Don't get me wrong, I love the ideas on this list, but to me it seems like damage control to some extent. Aside from a few ideas (such as the medivac abilities) most of the items in this list are quite unspecific (a lot of "we'd like to make this better" with no explanation of how they might go about it).
Maybe I'm just an extreme cynic, but I'm not convinced this thread means much until I see what they'll actually change. So far their attempts to "fix/alter" units they've already created have gone horribly wrong multiple times. I hope it works out for the better with HoTS.
And again, I really hope I'm just a negative Nancy, Debbie Downer, cynical bastard, and not right about this.
Blizz already expressed their desire to make most of these changes before BWC ended.
Yeah, that's kind of part of what I'm getting at. They're re-listing the same changes they've been talking about for months now, and without many specifics (we want to change the thor spell - Blizz has been saying this since before the beta). It seems like more of a PR move to me than anything, after the GSL and IPL 5 balance issues (whether you believe those exist or not is up to you).
I think you're thinking too much about a conspiracy that probably doesn't exist. Dayvie's post would have been posted regardless of tournament results, possibly even earlier had they been on top of things more. Their resources aren't unlimited, and they're sometimes not too transparent with some of the things that they are testing internally, some of which probably don't work well enough to talk about publicly.
And they specifically said a month ago that they would slow down patching to see how the game would develop, and it seems that whatever changes they will make will be based how things progressed last month.
On December 04 2012 08:24 Whitewing wrote: I'm a little worried about the bio buff in late game, as it is Protoss can have a very hard time vs. a heavy ghost, pure bio composition in the late game. Medivacs also don't need a buff, they're used in every matchup quite consistently. It's going to be a nightmare defending against drops if this goes through.
I also don't like the VR change, it doesn't really solve the problem, and it makes the unit even sillier. It's not fast enough to be a decent harassing unit and isn't strong enough to be a serious unit in the army.
Mutalisks don't need a speed buff, the widow mine needs to be less absurd at instant killing them. Making mutas faster will make PvZ a bit of a nightmare, it's already fairly tough to defend against them well.
The rest of the changes sound pretty good though.
All of this.
In particular, the widow mine vs. muta bit. I really feel like the widow mine has done a lot of damage to a lot of the unit interactions. Instead of modifying one unit, they've given all races free detection by the five minute mark and are currently trying to buff flying harass around it. Seems kind of insane to me when there's obvious solutions.
Considering that zerg can remaz from BL/Corr into Ultras instantly, i dont see an issue with the tempest hard countering both. Why should zerg get to do a complete air to ground switch, or vice versa, but others cannot and cant counter it without sacking now useless units.
Because Zerg's design is fucking broken lol? It's not Zerg being imba, they're getting better at figuring out these advantages, challenging previous misconceptions and also benefitting from patch changes to other race. All the factors in combination are what are making Zergs perform so well atm.
The basic idea is great, Zerg's macro works more in bursts than the others. Part of racial identity Their production works from one structure as well, so you have to prioritise drones (econ) or army (aggression or safety) The Queen is a kind of macro-augmenter, and a defensive unit. It's too good in those combined roles because you go Queens anyway because you need them for injects, but, by going for example a heavy Queen opener, you profit from the additional defensive/creep benefits. Yeah, you might have good defense and creepspread as a result, but it's not necessarily because you made any kind of good decision. Infestor is a catch-all Infestor transitions to brood.
Basically, Zergs production and ability to flood eco, plus a really un-reactive
I mean if Zerg was tweaked it could get its racial identity back, at least in terms of how it plays as the reactive/trading race. It shouldn't be viable to rush straight to Hive as quick as you can get away with, not because it's bad inherently, but because everything is balanced around a metagame where that used to be a difficult transition
The 'reactive' race, and the Protoss and Terran metagame now is to kill them before they get broodlord/infestor. That or drop everywhere when their out, or get their own god comp.
As I see it, in terms of Zerg playstyle it's 100% fair there being the expectation of Protoss and Terran to work hard, but it should be to slow economy, stop Zergs getting 5/6 bases and overwhelming them. You can slow an economy/trade approach down, but can't slow down Bl/Infestor when it's already out.
On December 04 2012 08:46 Kiro21 wrote: DT Buff Idea:
400/400 Upgrade at DT Shrine. Don't know upgrade time. The first attack from a Dark templar deals 150 damage. (Has a 20 second cooldown) This would make it late game, also make it not very strong if you got it early because its expensive and one snipe of 150 dmg isn't spectacular, but 10 dts could be immense. It also isn't op because after 10 strikes, especially if misplaced, they play their old role and its harder to get those hits off. They can snipe turrets, spores, tanks, swarm hosts, and can be the bad ass end game warp gate unit. Also, it sticks with the role of the assassin. AND most importantly, adds for some insaneee micro and death ball breaking (running dts in early to individually snipe colossi before the fight begins) I think itd be awesome.
On December 04 2012 08:46 Kiro21 wrote: DT Buff Idea:
400/400 Upgrade at DT Shrine. Don't know upgrade time. The first attack from a Dark templar deals 150 damage. (Has a 20 second cooldown) This would make it late game, also make it not very strong if you got it early because its expensive and one snipe of 150 dmg isn't spectacular, but 10 dts could be immense. It also isn't op because after 10 strikes, especially if misplaced, they play their old role and its harder to get those hits off. They can snipe turrets, spores, tanks, swarm hosts, and can be the bad ass end game warp gate unit. Also, it sticks with the role of the assassin. AND most importantly, adds for some insaneee micro and death ball breaking (running dts in early to individually snipe colossi before the fight begins) I think itd be awesome.
What you guys think?
Nah, I don't like this idea. It's not very exciting imho. However, the Dark Shrine should bring an upgrade as it's currently very expensive for nothing... What about bringing Dark Archon back, and the Dark Shrine lists some upgrades. They may totally be fresh and not like BW's. Also, make that unit viable against.... blords/infestors I guess? There shouldn't be only 1 option to deal with them (tempest).
Or..even better! Make protoss suck less in mid game.
On December 04 2012 08:46 Kiro21 wrote: DT Buff Idea:
400/400 Upgrade at DT Shrine. Don't know upgrade time. The first attack from a Dark templar deals 150 damage. (Has a 20 second cooldown) This would make it late game, also make it not very strong if you got it early because its expensive and one snipe of 150 dmg isn't spectacular, but 10 dts could be immense. It also isn't op because after 10 strikes, especially if misplaced, they play their old role and its harder to get those hits off. They can snipe turrets, spores, tanks, swarm hosts, and can be the bad ass end game warp gate unit. Also, it sticks with the role of the assassin. AND most importantly, adds for some insaneee micro and death ball breaking (running dts in early to individually snipe colossi before the fight begins) I think itd be awesome.
On December 04 2012 10:59 Swords wrote: This is quite possibly just me being horribly cynical, but does anyone else find the timing and presentation of this kind of lame?
There's an extremely high profile tournament that spawns tons of discontent about the current state of WoL, including a top level player typing "IMBA IMBA IMBA" in the semifinals of the world's most prestigious SC2 tournament. Right after the tournament ends a blue post appears that essentially says "Whoops! We forgot to write all these changes we were going to make, and then there's a list saying "we want to change the thor's ability, infestors need to be nerfed, voidray design is bad, vortex needs to be changed". In other words "yeah, WoL balance is terrible and the game design is poor, but look at how we're going to fix it in HoTS, please don't stop playing/wanting to buy our game".
Don't get me wrong, I love the ideas on this list, but to me it seems like damage control to some extent. Aside from a few ideas (such as the medivac abilities) most of the items in this list are quite unspecific (a lot of "we'd like to make this better" with no explanation of how they might go about it).
Maybe I'm just an extreme cynic, but I'm not convinced this thread means much until I see what they'll actually change. So far their attempts to "fix/alter" units they've already created have gone horribly wrong multiple times. I hope it works out for the better with HoTS.
And again, I really hope I'm just a negative Nancy, Debbie Downer, cynical bastard, and not right about this.
Blizz already expressed their desire to make most of these changes before BWC ended.
They've probably had plans to fix this shit sitting on some high, dusty shelf for a long time, but the level of negativity in the community at this point is likely prompting them to ditch their 'sit and watch and just try to keep matchups 50/50, to hell with strategic diversity or interesting gameplay' approach. Which is good. Not only HOTS, but WoL need some drastic game play altering changes because fans as well as players are overall kind of pissed.
On December 04 2012 11:33 Wombat_NI wrote: Aye, good point. The most elegant solution is always the best, ideally. I mean, making a Muta better in its harassing capacity as a rule is grand, but the 'better' way to do this isn't to make it a speed machine but to make it more manouverable and have more finesse. Finesse units like Mutas or Marines also scale a hell of a lot more entertainingly the better the player controlling them.
Hm, might be wrong but aren't some aspects of old-school BW micro apparently not doable given the engine? Remember somebody said this on here once, something about sprites and 3D models rotating around their axis differently or something :S
Precise, deadly muta micro was one of the few they absolutely had to NOT fuck up in starcraft 2. Watching stacked mutas tear through defenses like a knife through butter was one of the very best spectating/playing experiences Broodwar had to offer.
On December 04 2012 08:46 Kiro21 wrote: DT Buff Idea:
400/400 Upgrade at DT Shrine. Don't know upgrade time. The first attack from a Dark templar deals 150 damage. (Has a 20 second cooldown) This would make it late game, also make it not very strong if you got it early because its expensive and one snipe of 150 dmg isn't spectacular, but 10 dts could be immense. It also isn't op because after 10 strikes, especially if misplaced, they play their old role and its harder to get those hits off. They can snipe turrets, spores, tanks, swarm hosts, and can be the bad ass end game warp gate unit. Also, it sticks with the role of the assassin. AND most importantly, adds for some insaneee micro and death ball breaking (running dts in early to individually snipe colossi before the fight begins) I think itd be awesome.
What you guys think?
can you stop reposting your ideas? it's annoying.
150 damage is not spectacular? a tank is 160hp
That's the point, one attack from one dt insta kills a bunch of units, but it only works once every 20 seconds. Its a quick slash if the opposing team doesnt have detection. The strength comes from investing in a bunch of dts. But thats a huge investment late game and its easily stopped and can be poorly micro'd to not be that effective. Killing 10 marines instantly and than losing 10 dts is not a wortwhile trade. But killing 10 tanks? Not easy to do but very worthwhile.
its taking them so long to nerf the obviously overpowered infestor. infestor/bl is so boring and zerg rushes to it every game now, this is so wrong and if anything zerg should have a massive ground army with some air support like in broodwar, zerg having this really slow moving air army that dominates almost every composition while also having the best late game production is just way too much, cant have massive production and the best army in the game....
6. Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall.
Why? What's so appealing about this strategy besides existing for the sake of diversity?
Maybe because it doesn't get surrounded by lings and roaches. But really, I think the idea is that they are changing the Void Ray to make it useful again, so they need to change the Oracle to avoid overlap, and therefore they have a chance at making Toss air openers more sustainable. Obviously you will never have Sky Toss simply because all their air units cost so much damn gas. You will always have the basic toss gateway units as the majority of your army. But they can create some diverse air units, leading to harassment combos that over the course of the midgame can build into viable alternatives to the already powerful robo and templar tech routes.
On December 04 2012 03:24 Virid wrote: Zergling's death in the matchup. .
Yeah, this is the second time I've read this, and it makes sense, AND it bums me out. Zerglings should still have counterattack and tertiary squad capability, which doesn't seem to happen with widow mines. They just kill way too many of them with one widow mine.
I suppose vs. a stricly bio army they can still be good, or perhaps in small numbers.
Widow mines are gimmicky, and this will be recognized with time. Good micro can make widow mines all but worthless when you're talking about zergling counter-harass.
Click group of zerglings to harass spot, shift click one away, click back, repeat until you're sending a few solo zerglings. They'll trip any mines on the way. Sending out these 'mine clearing lings' will be a cool mechanical requirement, and this is certainly something the current Zerg design needs to narrow the mechanics gap between the two races.
6. Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall.
Why? What's so appealing about this strategy besides existing for the sake of diversity?
Maybe because it doesn't get surrounded by lings and roaches. But really, I think the idea is that they are changing the Void Ray to make it useful again, so they need to change the Oracle to avoid overlap, and therefore they have a chance at making Toss air openers more sustainable. Obviously you will never have Sky Toss simply because all their air units cost so much damn gas. You will always have the basic toss gateway units as the majority of your army. But they can create some diverse air units, leading to harassment combos that over the course of the midgame can build into viable alternatives to the already powerful robo and templar tech routes.
Here's the logical extension of that idea. It's not so you can go Skytoss, it's potentially that you can mitigate the downside of going Stargate a la WoL, depending on other factors in HoTs too. The downside is the period between getting map control with your Stargate units, and infestors popping and them being useful. It's not that long and a lot of utility of the units is lost as soon as Infestors are out and about. It's about making a map control-centric strat like Stargate, not have to necessarily tend to transition to Robo/Collosus as it usually does. Bear in mind I made this post before we had any idea of how they intended to change the void it was just 'maybe going to change'
On December 04 2012 13:10 EleanorRIgby wrote: its taking them so long to nerf the obviously overpowered infestor. infestor/bl is so boring and zerg rushes to it every game now, this is so wrong and if anything zerg should have a massive ground army with some air support like in broodwar, zerg having this really slow moving air army that dominates almost every composition while also having the best late game production is just way too much, cant have massive production and the best army in the game....
Easier said than done without overnerfing Zerg or accidentally overbuffing when trying to compensate for the nerfs.
On December 04 2012 12:29 grapedog wrote: Considering that zerg can remaz from BL/Corr into Ultras instantly, i dont see an issue with the tempest hard countering both. Why should zerg get to do a complete air to ground switch, or vice versa, but others cannot and cant counter it without sacking now useless units.
Okay I will try not to break into circular logic here. Zerg is a race that is designed to have amazing production, we can accept that as just how the game is yes? That's what makes Zerg Zerg-like, unique fundamental differences in the races makes the game interesting. But as you have pointed out it creates a tricky situation for Protoss and Terran: How do they deal with two attacks subsequently from compositions that are fundamentally different (like Ultralisk > Brood Lord based compositions)?
Well there are two solutions, design wise, for P and T to solve this problem (perhaps more but they aren't very relevant):
Either give them each units that, like the Tempest in it's current form, defends from both of these late-game compositions of Ultra/BL and so the Zerg tech switching isn't a scary proposition. Maybe they favor one composition because of the map, or because of the pace of the game, but their opponents composition doesn't really factor into their decision on which composition to use. And so maybe once their opponent that gets these units out - the Tempest in this case - they can no longer justify making their T3 units and must revert back to a lower tier composition to be effective, and this lower teir composition is so effective it can deal with the opponents late game army if it has some of these Tempests in it. And so Zerg's switch between tiers of their compositions based on seeing whether or not the Protoss has above or below X Tempest counter. And so the match-up sort of revolves around this one unit and how many the Protoss has.
The other solution is to make both units - BL and Ultra - less supply efficient/cost efficient than the opponents counters to those units. In this way, the P or T can potentially create a composition that "hard counters" one of the Zerg's tech choices, and will crush it. But if he does this, the Zerg can tech switch and abuse the P or T for this "hard counter". But if the P or T creates a more balanced composition, that doesn't hard-counter one unit composition but is comprised of counters to both of them, the Zerg can trade better against him with one unit composition, but his tech switches aren't so strong.
This creates a situation where in Z vs P/T, both races possess a sort of "finishing move", where-in if the Z is out of money and loses this tech switch ability, than the P or T can simply hard-counter the Z's composition and crush it one last time, knowing the Z doesn't have the money to tech switch (or production perhaps?). And conversely, the Zerg can do a similar "finishing move", where-in if the P/T is lacking in money (or production perhaps?) they might be forced to hard-counter the Z's composition (or what they assume that composition might be), and if the Zerg is ahead in funds enough they can tech switch and finish off the P/T who doesn't have the funds to prepare.
This creates a lot of dynamics where both players are trying to scout each other's compositions and production to see which composition they want to make. And where one player might be trying to force an engagement with the other: In Z's case they might want to force an engagement before the opponent can improve their composition. In P or T's case they might be trying to force an engagement before the Z can build up enough bank to remax and counter the opponents composition, or simply when they have a composition-ally superior army and they can fight near the Zerg's bases and take one or more out after the won engagement.
It also creates awesome tactics where players can try and hurt the tech/production of the other in order to gain an advantage in this compositional battle, or where a player might outsmart the other through either mis-information or simply by just hiding their tech, and then surprise them with a composition they didn't expect. This allows players to come-back from games where they might be behind economically, through clever tactics or simply playing smarter.
I think it's fairly obvious which way of solving the problem is better game design.
On December 04 2012 13:10 EleanorRIgby wrote: its taking them so long to nerf the obviously overpowered infestor. infestor/bl is so boring and zerg rushes to it every game now, this is so wrong and if anything zerg should have a massive ground army with some air support like in broodwar, zerg having this really slow moving air army that dominates almost every composition while also having the best late game production is just way too much, cant have massive production and the best army in the game....
Easier said than done without overnerfing Zerg or accidentally overbuffing when trying to compensate for the nerfs.
Ideally, keep its 'peak' potential intact, i.e the potential ability of a perfect Zerg player in terms of what they can do. Nerf it backwards from that point in terms of achievability in various other ways.
On December 04 2012 12:29 grapedog wrote: Considering that zerg can remaz from BL/Corr into Ultras instantly, i dont see an issue with the tempest hard countering both. Why should zerg get to do a complete air to ground switch, or vice versa, but others cannot and cant counter it without sacking now useless units.
Okay I will try not to break into circular logic here. Zerg is a race that is designed to have amazing production, we can accept that as just how the game is yes? That's what makes Zerg Zerg-like, unique fundamental differences in the races makes the game interesting. But as you have pointed out it creates a tricky situation for Protoss and Terran: How do they deal with two attacks subsequently from compositions that are fundamentally different (like Ultralisk > Brood Lord based compositions)?
Well there are two solutions, design wise, for P and T to solve this problem (perhaps more but they aren't very relevant):
Either give them each units that, like the Tempest in it's current form, defends from both of these late-game compositions of Ultra/BL and so the Zerg tech switching isn't a scary proposition. Maybe they favor one composition because of the map, or because of the pace of the game, but their opponents composition doesn't really factor into their decision on which composition to use. And so maybe once their opponent that gets these units out - the Tempest in this case - they can no longer justify making their T3 units and must revert back to a lower tier composition to be effective, and this lower teir composition is so effective it can deal with the opponents late game army if it has some of these Tempests in it. And so Zerg's switch between tiers of their compositions based on seeing whether or not the Protoss has above or below X Tempest counter. And so the match-up sort of revolves around this one unit and how many the Protoss has.
The other solution is to make both units - BL and Ultra - less supply efficient/cost efficient than the opponents counters to those units. In this way, the P or T can potentially create a composition that "hard counters" one of the Zerg's tech choices, and will crush it. But if he does this, the Zerg can tech switch and abuse the P or T for this "hard counter". But if the P or T creates a more balanced composition, that doesn't hard-counter one unit composition but is comprised of counters to both of them, the Zerg can trade better against him with one unit composition, but his tech switches aren't so strong.
This creates a situation where in Z vs P/T, both races possess a sort of "finishing move", where-in if the Z is out of money and loses this tech switch ability, than the P or T can simply hard-counter the Z's composition and crush it one last time, knowing the Z doesn't have the money to tech switch (or production perhaps?). And conversely, the Zerg can do a similar "finishing move", where-in if the P/T is lacking in money (or production perhaps?) they might be forced to hard-counter the Z's composition (or what they assume that composition might be), and if the Zerg is ahead in funds enough they can tech switch and finish off the P/T who doesn't have the funds to prepare.
This creates a lot of dynamics where both players are trying to scout each other's compositions and production to see which composition they want to make. And where one player might be trying to force an engagement with the other: In Z's case they might want to force an engagement before the opponent can improve their composition. In P or T's case they might be trying to force an engagement before the Z can build up enough bank to remax and counter the opponents composition, or simply when they have a composition-ally superior army and they can fight near the Zerg's bases and take one or more out after the won engagement.
It also creates awesome tactics where players can try and hurt the tech/production of the other in order to gain an advantage in this compositional battle, or where a player might outsmart the other through either mis-information or simply by just hiding their tech, and then surprise them with a composition they didn't expect. This allows players to come-back from games where they might be behind economically, through clever tactics or simply playing smarter.
I think it's fairly obvious which way of solving the problem is better game design.
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
6. Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall.
Why? What's so appealing about this strategy besides existing for the sake of diversity?
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.
Just hoped they could had changed the widow mine, and made it an ability to the hellion(I rather see warhound reapperances with nerfed damaged and mines and an air attck), in its current form it is too good against drops/harassment and noone I've played against and seen has used them as a board control unit.
The medivac and muta buff I have no real appreciation for, I just wish I had scourge .
this sounds really exciting. Except for late game DT's...... omg I think I may be institutionalized if I have to deal with late game DT's every game. Almost 3 years deep into WoL (counting beta time) late game DT's to this day make me completely crumble and fall apart.
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;;;;
On December 04 2012 12:29 grapedog wrote: Considering that zerg can remaz from BL/Corr into Ultras instantly, i dont see an issue with the tempest hard countering both. Why should zerg get to do a complete air to ground switch, or vice versa, but others cannot and cant counter it without sacking now useless units.
Okay I will try not to break into circular logic here. Zerg is a race that is designed to have amazing production, we can accept that as just how the game is yes? That's what makes Zerg Zerg-like, unique fundamental differences in the races makes the game interesting. But as you have pointed out it creates a tricky situation for Protoss and Terran: How do they deal with two attacks subsequently from compositions that are fundamentally different (like Ultralisk > Brood Lord based compositions)?
Well there are two solutions, design wise, for P and T to solve this problem (perhaps more but they aren't very relevant):
Either give them each units that, like the Tempest in it's current form, defends from both of these late-game compositions of Ultra/BL and so the Zerg tech switching isn't a scary proposition. Maybe they favor one composition because of the map, or because of the pace of the game, but their opponents composition doesn't really factor into their decision on which composition to use. And so maybe once their opponent that gets these units out - the Tempest in this case - they can no longer justify making their T3 units and must revert back to a lower tier composition to be effective, and this lower teir composition is so effective it can deal with the opponents late game army if it has some of these Tempests in it. And so Zerg's switch between tiers of their compositions based on seeing whether or not the Protoss has above or below X Tempest counter. And so the match-up sort of revolves around this one unit and how many the Protoss has.
The other solution is to make both units - BL and Ultra - less supply efficient/cost efficient than the opponents counters to those units. In this way, the P or T can potentially create a composition that "hard counters" one of the Zerg's tech choices, and will crush it. But if he does this, the Zerg can tech switch and abuse the P or T for this "hard counter". But if the P or T creates a more balanced composition, that doesn't hard-counter one unit composition but is comprised of counters to both of them, the Zerg can trade better against him with one unit composition, but his tech switches aren't so strong.
This creates a situation where in Z vs P/T, both races possess a sort of "finishing move", where-in if the Z is out of money and loses this tech switch ability, than the P or T can simply hard-counter the Z's composition and crush it one last time, knowing the Z doesn't have the money to tech switch (or production perhaps?). And conversely, the Zerg can do a similar "finishing move", where-in if the P/T is lacking in money (or production perhaps?) they might be forced to hard-counter the Z's composition (or what they assume that composition might be), and if the Zerg is ahead in funds enough they can tech switch and finish off the P/T who doesn't have the funds to prepare.
This creates a lot of dynamics where both players are trying to scout each other's compositions and production to see which composition they want to make. And where one player might be trying to force an engagement with the other: In Z's case they might want to force an engagement before the opponent can improve their composition. In P or T's case they might be trying to force an engagement before the Z can build up enough bank to remax and counter the opponents composition, or simply when they have a composition-ally superior army and they can fight near the Zerg's bases and take one or more out after the won engagement.
It also creates awesome tactics where players can try and hurt the tech/production of the other in order to gain an advantage in this compositional battle, or where a player might outsmart the other through either mis-information or simply by just hiding their tech, and then surprise them with a composition they didn't expect. This allows players to come-back from games where they might be behind economically, through clever tactics or simply playing smarter.
I think it's fairly obvious which way of solving the problem is better game design.
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.
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.
6. Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall.
Why? What's so appealing about this strategy besides existing for the sake of diversity?
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.
They should really just combine all Templar tech into one building--with detection so prevalent, putting DT tech on its own building no longer makers any sense.
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.
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.
On December 04 2012 12:29 grapedog wrote: Considering that zerg can remaz from BL/Corr into Ultras instantly, i dont see an issue with the tempest hard countering both. Why should zerg get to do a complete air to ground switch, or vice versa, but others cannot and cant counter it without sacking now useless units.
Okay I will try not to break into circular logic here. Zerg is a race that is designed to have amazing production, we can accept that as just how the game is yes? That's what makes Zerg Zerg-like, unique fundamental differences in the races makes the game interesting. But as you have pointed out it creates a tricky situation for Protoss and Terran: How do they deal with two attacks subsequently from compositions that are fundamentally different (like Ultralisk > Brood Lord based compositions)?
Well there are two solutions, design wise, for P and T to solve this problem (perhaps more but they aren't very relevant):
Either give them each units that, like the Tempest in it's current form, defends from both of these late-game compositions of Ultra/BL and so the Zerg tech switching isn't a scary proposition. Maybe they favor one composition because of the map, or because of the pace of the game, but their opponents composition doesn't really factor into their decision on which composition to use. And so maybe once their opponent that gets these units out - the Tempest in this case - they can no longer justify making their T3 units and must revert back to a lower tier composition to be effective, and this lower teir composition is so effective it can deal with the opponents late game army if it has some of these Tempests in it. And so Zerg's switch between tiers of their compositions based on seeing whether or not the Protoss has above or below X Tempest counter. And so the match-up sort of revolves around this one unit and how many the Protoss has.
The other solution is to make both units - BL and Ultra - less supply efficient/cost efficient than the opponents counters to those units. In this way, the P or T can potentially create a composition that "hard counters" one of the Zerg's tech choices, and will crush it. But if he does this, the Zerg can tech switch and abuse the P or T for this "hard counter". But if the P or T creates a more balanced composition, that doesn't hard-counter one unit composition but is comprised of counters to both of them, the Zerg can trade better against him with one unit composition, but his tech switches aren't so strong.
This creates a situation where in Z vs P/T, both races possess a sort of "finishing move", where-in if the Z is out of money and loses this tech switch ability, than the P or T can simply hard-counter the Z's composition and crush it one last time, knowing the Z doesn't have the money to tech switch (or production perhaps?). And conversely, the Zerg can do a similar "finishing move", where-in if the P/T is lacking in money (or production perhaps?) they might be forced to hard-counter the Z's composition (or what they assume that composition might be), and if the Zerg is ahead in funds enough they can tech switch and finish off the P/T who doesn't have the funds to prepare.
This creates a lot of dynamics where both players are trying to scout each other's compositions and production to see which composition they want to make. And where one player might be trying to force an engagement with the other: In Z's case they might want to force an engagement before the opponent can improve their composition. In P or T's case they might be trying to force an engagement before the Z can build up enough bank to remax and counter the opponents composition, or simply when they have a composition-ally superior army and they can fight near the Zerg's bases and take one or more out after the won engagement.
It also creates awesome tactics where players can try and hurt the tech/production of the other in order to gain an advantage in this compositional battle, or where a player might outsmart the other through either mis-information or simply by just hiding their tech, and then surprise them with a composition they didn't expect. This allows players to come-back from games where they might be behind economically, through clever tactics or simply playing smarter.
I think it's fairly obvious which way of solving the problem is better game design.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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 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
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.
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 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
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.
all sounds good superficially. we'll see how specifically they choose to implement these ideas. it's looking like the first few weeks or months of HotS post-release will be an extension of beta cos i can't imagine players will figure out how to utilize all this plus the new units in the time we have left. they should do it soon though so they can weed out the disasters from the stuff that has potential. and for god's sake blizz please make the oracle not gay. just borrow spells from brood war if you can't think of anything new!
It seems to me that Blizzard, and indeed most of the community, massively underestimates the ability of the player base to adapt to changes. Any change will inflict a disruption in the game, however I don't think the magnitude of the change really has any bearing on the difficulty of adjustment for the player base.
Large changes that cause a rough-grade overhaul of the way players approach the game actually get figured out very fast. Even adding a whole new unit will be, in broad strokes, "figured out" in only a matter of days. It's the subtle aspects of the game that take a long time to figure out. In this respect, changing a unit wholesale (or adding or removing something entirely) and changing a unit slightly don't actually have that much of a difference in impact.
Consequently, I think Blizzard has been far too conservative with their changes during the beta, and I think many players would agree. Big changes don't really cause the kind of catastrophic ecosystem breakdown that many people suspect is possible. They get figured out, and the game gets shaken out into a new equilibrium very quickly, with months of subtle refinement possible after that point, but the big-picture will remain.
On December 04 2012 15:06 ledarsi wrote: It seems to me that Blizzard, and indeed most of the community, massively underestimates the ability of the player base to adapt to changes. Any change will inflict a disruption in the game, however I don't think the magnitude of the change really has any bearing on the difficulty of adjustment for the player base.
Large changes that cause a rough-grade overhaul of the way players approach the game actually get figured out very fast. Even adding a whole new unit will be, in broad strokes, "figured out" in only a matter of days. It's the subtle aspects of the game that take a long time to figure out. In this respect, changing a unit wholesale (or adding or removing something entirely) and changing a unit slightly don't actually have that much of a difference in impact.
Consequently, I think Blizzard has been far too conservative with their changes during the beta, and I think many players would agree. Big changes don't really cause the kind of catastrophic ecosystem breakdown that many people suspect is possible. They get figured out, and the game gets shaken out into a new equilibrium very quickly, with months of subtle refinement possible after that point, but the big-picture will remain.
Did you see my post on HerO? It's not far back mind. It's an example of a change enabling exploration of the warp prism. HerO actually figured a way to use the prism and zealots, but with the overarching aim of playing strategically differently than other Protoss players.
It's my personal interpretation of the guy's play I guess, but it's an example of Blizzard trying to encourage harassment subtly,
I think a similar example would be say, give DTs an upgrade to allow a temporary speed boost, that you activate. It wouldn't even have to be massive numerically to fix some of their lategame issues (as a unit). For example, you could drop in with your warp prism hidden further back, but not necessarily risk saccing your DTs if they used the speed boost. You'd make a choice to try and retain the units but warpin futher back, vs saccing DTs and trading for say, drone kills. As it is, DT's are kind of 'get them into their base and leave them there'. It would also allow DTs to say, skirt out of a scan radius or whatever and add to their longevity.
Not sure why mutas or ultras need a buff, but the rest seems good. Combining terran upgrades would be absolutely crazy, but so helpful. Glad they are starting to focus on fixing up the old units that are not working out.
Overall good changes, but some I just really don't understand
Mutalisk buff to speed and/or acceleration
I can sort of get this since mutas are rarely used in TvZ in WoL these days and now with the widow mine they may be useless in that MU. I don't think the speed would help that much for TvZ, and would also make it very difficult for protoss and lead to more silly base trade situations.
We'd really like to see more Medivac usage like we saw in Wings for a time in the past. Currently thinking on a cooldown based speed booster ability.
The medivac is stil being used I don't see why this is necessary
Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall
Uh, Why?
we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory.
We'd really like to see more Medivac usage like we saw in Wings for a time in the past. Currently thinking on a cooldown based speed booster ability.
The medivac is stil being used I don't see why this is necessary
It seems interesting though, Perhaps the "afterburner" will allow them to outrun mutalisks/vikings for a short time (with cooldown or using energy or both.) Maybe it will have some other effect on the game. Its a change that makes me go...Hmm...its not needed, but hell, lets see how its implemented and used. Maybe it could add something interesting to the game. Its not a game breaking change and it is still beta after all, If it doesn't work out they could just remove it.
I think the Oracle should get an auto-attack, this autoattack will not do any damage but is just strong enough to make workers drop the minerals/gas they are carrying. If used well the Oracle can aim for every worker in a mineral line that has just picked up a load of mins or gas, thus completely crippling the enemy's farming, but if not controlled well it will just hurt his income a bit. This would differentiate good players from bad players to a large extent.
I realy hate the idea that every unit needs an ability, why give the Voidray, the ultralisk and the Medivac abilitys? these are good solid units who just need tweeks. we are not at WC3 this is Starcraft. where units are made to fight not use gimicks :/
On December 04 2012 15:43 SolidMoose wrote: Not sure why mutas or ultras need a buff, but the rest seems good. Combining terran upgrades would be absolutely crazy, but so helpful. Glad they are starting to focus on fixing up the old units that are not working out.
Something needs to be buffed when the Infestor is heavily nerfed. Mutas, Ultras, and Hydras seem to be good choices, especially since the latter two aren't exactly cost-efficient in many situations, especially without Infestor support.
On December 04 2012 17:08 Tumor wrote: I realy hate the idea that every unit needs an ability, why give the Voidray, the ultralisk and the Medivac abilitys? these are good solid units who just need tweeks. we are not at WC3 this is Starcraft. where units are made to fight not use gimicks :/
It can similarly be compared to a powerful skill like Stim.
Stim is activateable and drains some HP but gives you a temporary buff. What if this upgrade were passive...? You lose HP very slowly over time, but they still have the same buff. Now, there is less skill/strategy involved because you have less control over your units (can't decide when to stop the HP drain).
So while I don't think medivacs should have a speed boost (but it might be interesting, I think I would just like its speed to be unnerfed), it can add more strategy.
I think they just need to be careful that too many skills are necessary at the very start of the battles, which creates a lot of stress. Having spells be used before and maybe towards the ends of battles could be nice, but I think we have enough positioning/spells to deal with in engagements right now.
I like the idea of mech and air sharing upgrades. It will allow Terran to have an easier time reacting to tech switches without being OP because you can't really have tons of factories and starports until very late in the game.
What you are seeing are design goals, not implementations. Blizzard's design goals have always been to make an amazingly dynamic, balanced game. They have fallen short in a lot of ways. The actual implementation of the HotS units and mechanics leave me wondering if some of the design team took a big pay cut in best case scenarios, suffered a mild frontal lobotomy. From showcasing things like the replicant to their 'solution' for the reaper, I don't know what they've been smoking. Whatever it is it's put a severe dent in my trust in blizzard's design studio. Frankly, they don't know what they're doing. I don't know why, I don't know what's gone wrong, but something has.
I just hope they hit on something decent throwing blind darts.
On December 04 2012 03:58 Piousflea wrote: These changes all sound awesome
I think the most obvious Tempest nerf is to make the anti-Massive bonus only work vs Air. Protoss have no Answer to Colossi and BLs in WoL. Tempest kills both quite efficiently. It doesn't need to counter Thors or ultras, Toss already have immortals for that.
Dark Templars should get a speed+Blink upgrade. It makes sense given their lore, and would greatly improve their ability to punish any lack of detection without making them a deathball unit like archons.
If Bliz is considering a true "heavy nerf" for infestors - just take away the ability to hit air with Fungal. (Like in old old WoL beta) Voila, they've suddenly fixed muta, VR/Phoenix, mass bio drop, and Banshee viability, while also increasing the role of the Hydralisk.
Dark Templars with blink would seriously be the shit.
I wonder how dose Blizzard hope to reconcile hellbat becoming good against all melee units with ultralisks becoming good against all ground. I'm not sure if they given those deign goals much thought.
AND still no news about the carrier. Blizzard has left it untouched since WoL beta, looks like they want to keep it that way. Other than that I like what I saw. The fast nimble air toss army seems cool, and it' good to know the they're encouraging mobile swarm host play.
It seems quite apparent that Blizzard can't figure out what's wrong with the game, and are starting to target tried and true units with clearly established roles instead of actually coming out with good ideas. They're suggesting that speeding up a bunch of mid-tier units will somehow increase their late-game viability, when in fact many of these things will offset one another and not have an effect on balance at all. Buffing mech while simultaneously buffing ultralisk viability vs ground is a zero-change scenario. Lowering tech level of hydralisk movement speed and giving mutalisks a speed boost offsets any buff that they give to protoss air viability or medivac movement speed. Nerfing infestors too heavily will reduce their viability vs everything, slowing down the building of the structure and therefore the progression to tier 3, whcih they're supposedly trying to encourage even more. Repositioning of swarm-hosts is hardly relevant because their attack is so slow, you already have plenty of time to reposition them. Nothing about an alternative to the warhound, which was a terrible idea to begin with. Pushing reaper even harder in the early game will further trash the greatness of TvT and could lead to more volatility in all matchups due to the potential of overuse. I'm starting to see an unsettling lack of progression in their unit design philosophy that I find to be deeply disturbing.
EDIT: Not to take anything away from DK, who really is the sharpest tool in the Blizzard SC2 kit. He's just working in circles to the point where it's almost a waste of talent.
On December 04 2012 18:42 dUTtrOACh wrote: I see problems but not a lot of solutions.
It seems quite apparent that Blizzard can't figure out what's wrong with the game, and are starting to target tried and true units with clearly established roles instead of actually coming out with good ideas. They're suggesting that speeding up a bunch of mid-tier units will somehow increase their late-game viability, when in fact many of these things will offset one another and not have an effect on balance at all. Buffing mech while simultaneously buffing ultralisk viability vs ground is a zero-change scenario. Lowering tech level of hydralisk movement speed and giving mutalisks a speed boost offsets any buff that they give to protoss air viability or medivac movement speed. Nerfing infestors too heavily will reduce their viability vs everything, slowing down the building of the structure and therefore the progression to tier 3, whcih they're supposedly trying to encourage even more. Repositioning of swarm-hosts is hardly relevant because their attack is so slow, you already have plenty of time to reposition them. Nothing about an alternative to the warhound, which was a terrible idea to begin with. Pushing reaper even harder in the early game will further trash the greatness of TvT and could lead to more volatility in all matchups due to the potential of overuse. I'm starting to see an unsettling lack of progression in their unit design philosophy that I find to be deeply disturbing.
EDIT: Not to take anything away from DK, who really is the sharpest tool in the Blizzard SC2 kit. He's just working in circles to the point where it's almost a waste of talent.
I'm not sure what you're even going on about. Most reasonable people will agree that Zerg doesn't need any buffs period, and that hopefully these "harsh infestor nerfs" will be actual nerfs and not tickles like "20 hp from egg thing".
On December 04 2012 18:42 dUTtrOACh wrote: I see problems but not a lot of solutions.
It seems quite apparent that Blizzard can't figure out what's wrong with the game, and are starting to target tried and true units with clearly established roles instead of actually coming out with good ideas. They're suggesting that speeding up a bunch of mid-tier units will somehow increase their late-game viability, when in fact many of these things will offset one another and not have an effect on balance at all. Buffing mech while simultaneously buffing ultralisk viability vs ground is a zero-change scenario. Lowering tech level of hydralisk movement speed and giving mutalisks a speed boost offsets any buff that they give to protoss air viability or medivac movement speed. Nerfing infestors too heavily will reduce their viability vs everything, slowing down the building of the structure and therefore the progression to tier 3, whcih they're supposedly trying to encourage even more. Repositioning of swarm-hosts is hardly relevant because their attack is so slow, you already have plenty of time to reposition them. Nothing about an alternative to the warhound, which was a terrible idea to begin with. Pushing reaper even harder in the early game will further trash the greatness of TvT and could lead to more volatility in all matchups due to the potential of overuse. I'm starting to see an unsettling lack of progression in their unit design philosophy that I find to be deeply disturbing.
EDIT: Not to take anything away from DK, who really is the sharpest tool in the Blizzard SC2 kit. He's just working in circles to the point where it's almost a waste of talent.
I'm not sure what you're even going on about. Most reasonable people will agree that Zerg doesn't need any buffs period, and that hopefully these "harsh infestor nerfs" will be actual nerfs and not tickles like "20 hp from egg thing".
so you dont play HOTS and refer to WoL.
in HOTS zerg definetly needs changes, especially if infestor gets hard nerfs. the problem will still be that hydras are way too weak to become a T2 coreunit. lairtechspeed (which makes them offcreep still slower than oncreep) is a step in the right direction but they still suck and lose to marauder, blinkstalker, immortals, voidrays and 100 other units supplywise. they really need more range and better upgradescaling = +2 attack per upgrade to be viable in later game stages.
the patch is a very nice step in the right direction. some units are missing (BC, carrier, nydus worm etc.) and some units like hydras still get too few love but overall its important and awesome to see blizzard realizes the most problems and is willing to solve them. there will be numerous patches until that is done but its 3,5 months until the game is out so enough time to fix the most problems. the finetuning balance patching will come some months after HOTS anyway since you cant balance the game with almost no pros and no toplevel pro at all playing HOTS.
I see a lot negative comments that seem to come from people not actually playing the Beta. If you are not playing HOTS, these changes would seem dumb if you base your opinion on current WOL units and metagame.
Those design goals are spot on if you are actually playing HOTS right now. It wont be fixing any of the old WOL problems, but these changes will actually let the metagame settle down a bit. Maybe make HOTS balance tournament worthy at least.
On December 04 2012 14:55 DemigodcelpH wrote: It's questionable if Zerg needs any buffs at all. Just flat-out harsh nerfs.
The Protoss and Terran changes are <3 and much needed though.
there are enough zerg units, which could use a buff. the infestor is overshadowing the whole zerg race atm, as it is the most used unit in every matchup. (which is sad) I'd really like seeing more diversity in zerg armies.
Well if that happens, to me HOTS will finally be a "new game" because that changes alot of the game we are all seeing. Might finally get people to play HOTS alot more heavily.
Also props to Blizzard for "finally" nerfing Infestor, but thinking well we can't just nerf it and hope Zerg use this one other ability. They decided to buff alot of the old units. Hydra and Muti buffs look quite cool and i hope to see them used alot.
On December 04 2012 18:42 dUTtrOACh wrote: I see problems but not a lot of solutions.
It seems quite apparent that Blizzard can't figure out what's wrong with the game, and are starting to target tried and true units with clearly established roles instead of actually coming out with good ideas. They're suggesting that speeding up a bunch of mid-tier units will somehow increase their late-game viability, when in fact many of these things will offset one another and not have an effect on balance at all. Buffing mech while simultaneously buffing ultralisk viability vs ground is a zero-change scenario. Lowering tech level of hydralisk movement speed and giving mutalisks a speed boost offsets any buff that they give to protoss air viability or medivac movement speed. Nerfing infestors too heavily will reduce their viability vs everything, slowing down the building of the structure and therefore the progression to tier 3, whcih they're supposedly trying to encourage even more. Repositioning of swarm-hosts is hardly relevant because their attack is so slow, you already have plenty of time to reposition them. Nothing about an alternative to the warhound, which was a terrible idea to begin with. Pushing reaper even harder in the early game will further trash the greatness of TvT and could lead to more volatility in all matchups due to the potential of overuse. I'm starting to see an unsettling lack of progression in their unit design philosophy that I find to be deeply disturbing.
EDIT: Not to take anything away from DK, who really is the sharpest tool in the Blizzard SC2 kit. He's just working in circles to the point where it's almost a waste of talent.
I'm not sure what you're even going on about. Most reasonable people will agree that Zerg doesn't need any buffs period, and that hopefully these "harsh infestor nerfs" will be actual nerfs and not tickles like "20 hp from egg thing".
so you dont play HOTS and refer to WoL.
in HOTS zerg definetly needs changes, especially if infestor gets hard nerfs. the problem will still be that hydras are way too weak to become a T2 coreunit. lairtechspeed (which makes them offcreep still slower than oncreep) is a step in the right direction but they still suck and lose to marauder, blinkstalker, immortals, voidrays and 100 other units supplywise. they really need more range and better upgradescaling = +2 attack per upgrade to be viable in later game stages.
the patch is a very nice step in the right direction. some units are missing (BC, carrier, nydus worm etc.) and some units like hydras still get too few love but overall its important and awesome to see blizzard realizes the most problems and is willing to solve them. there will be numerous patches until that is done but its 3,5 months until the game is out so enough time to fix the most problems. the finetuning balance patching will come some months after HOTS anyway since you cant balance the game with almost no pros and no toplevel pro at all playing HOTS.
You CANNOT buff hydra damage even more, especially with upgrades, due to how fast their rate of fire is. Personally, I think the best buff they could get would be +10 health. That would bring their 1-on-1 stats a lot closer to on par with the units you mentioned.
On December 04 2012 18:42 dUTtrOACh wrote: I see problems but not a lot of solutions.
It seems quite apparent that Blizzard can't figure out what's wrong with the game, and are starting to target tried and true units with clearly established roles instead of actually coming out with good ideas. They're suggesting that speeding up a bunch of mid-tier units will somehow increase their late-game viability, when in fact many of these things will offset one another and not have an effect on balance at all. Buffing mech while simultaneously buffing ultralisk viability vs ground is a zero-change scenario. Lowering tech level of hydralisk movement speed and giving mutalisks a speed boost offsets any buff that they give to protoss air viability or medivac movement speed. Nerfing infestors too heavily will reduce their viability vs everything, slowing down the building of the structure and therefore the progression to tier 3, whcih they're supposedly trying to encourage even more. Repositioning of swarm-hosts is hardly relevant because their attack is so slow, you already have plenty of time to reposition them. Nothing about an alternative to the warhound, which was a terrible idea to begin with. Pushing reaper even harder in the early game will further trash the greatness of TvT and could lead to more volatility in all matchups due to the potential of overuse. I'm starting to see an unsettling lack of progression in their unit design philosophy that I find to be deeply disturbing.
EDIT: Not to take anything away from DK, who really is the sharpest tool in the Blizzard SC2 kit. He's just working in circles to the point where it's almost a waste of talent.
I'm not sure what you're even going on about. Most reasonable people will agree that Zerg doesn't need any buffs period, and that hopefully these "harsh infestor nerfs" will be actual nerfs and not tickles like "20 hp from egg thing".
so you dont play HOTS and refer to WoL.
in HOTS zerg definetly needs changes, especially if infestor gets hard nerfs. the problem will still be that hydras are way too weak to become a T2 coreunit. lairtechspeed (which makes them offcreep still slower than oncreep) is a step in the right direction but they still suck and lose to marauder, blinkstalker, immortals, voidrays and 100 other units supplywise. they really need more range and better upgradescaling = +2 attack per upgrade to be viable in later game stages.
the patch is a very nice step in the right direction. some units are missing (BC, carrier, nydus worm etc.) and some units like hydras still get too few love but overall its important and awesome to see blizzard realizes the most problems and is willing to solve them. there will be numerous patches until that is done but its 3,5 months until the game is out so enough time to fix the most problems. the finetuning balance patching will come some months after HOTS anyway since you cant balance the game with almost no pros and no toplevel pro at all playing HOTS.
You CANNOT buff hydra damage even more, especially with upgrades, due to how fast their rate of fire is. Personally, I think the best buff they could get would be +10 health. That would bring their 1-on-1 stats a lot closer to on par with the units you mentioned.
their DPS isnt as insane as people think. even marauder do more DPS!! with stim they do 15 DPS, while hydra 14,3 or so. and their upgrades are very bad. as bad as stalker upgrades (but they have blink).
i like it that hydras die pretty fast so they are the DPS supporter but then blizzard has to give them that role and give them better ugprade scaling and better range. or make their damage 12 + 3 to armored and give them +1/+1 per upgrade. something like that.
buff UP stuff, nerf OP stuff. sounds good for a strat but will need alot of finetuning. like if you buff bio it will be really strong early to mid once medivac (who get another buff?!?!?) come out.
i still would like to have more units for terra, just the mine... i dont know.
On December 04 2012 18:42 dUTtrOACh wrote: I see problems but not a lot of solutions.
It seems quite apparent that Blizzard can't figure out what's wrong with the game, and are starting to target tried and true units with clearly established roles instead of actually coming out with good ideas. They're suggesting that speeding up a bunch of mid-tier units will somehow increase their late-game viability, when in fact many of these things will offset one another and not have an effect on balance at all. Buffing mech while simultaneously buffing ultralisk viability vs ground is a zero-change scenario. Lowering tech level of hydralisk movement speed and giving mutalisks a speed boost offsets any buff that they give to protoss air viability or medivac movement speed. Nerfing infestors too heavily will reduce their viability vs everything, slowing down the building of the structure and therefore the progression to tier 3, whcih they're supposedly trying to encourage even more. Repositioning of swarm-hosts is hardly relevant because their attack is so slow, you already have plenty of time to reposition them. Nothing about an alternative to the warhound, which was a terrible idea to begin with. Pushing reaper even harder in the early game will further trash the greatness of TvT and could lead to more volatility in all matchups due to the potential of overuse. I'm starting to see an unsettling lack of progression in their unit design philosophy that I find to be deeply disturbing.
EDIT: Not to take anything away from DK, who really is the sharpest tool in the Blizzard SC2 kit. He's just working in circles to the point where it's almost a waste of talent.
I'm not sure what you're even going on about. Most reasonable people will agree that Zerg doesn't need any buffs period, and that hopefully these "harsh infestor nerfs" will be actual nerfs and not tickles like "20 hp from egg thing".
so you dont play HOTS and refer to WoL.
in HOTS zerg definetly needs changes, especially if infestor gets hard nerfs. the problem will still be that hydras are way too weak to become a T2 coreunit. lairtechspeed (which makes them offcreep still slower than oncreep) is a step in the right direction but they still suck and lose to marauder, blinkstalker, immortals, voidrays and 100 other units supplywise. they really need more range and better upgradescaling = +2 attack per upgrade to be viable in later game stages.
the patch is a very nice step in the right direction. some units are missing (BC, carrier, nydus worm etc.) and some units like hydras still get too few love but overall its important and awesome to see blizzard realizes the most problems and is willing to solve them. there will be numerous patches until that is done but its 3,5 months until the game is out so enough time to fix the most problems. the finetuning balance patching will come some months after HOTS anyway since you cant balance the game with almost no pros and no toplevel pro at all playing HOTS.
You CANNOT buff hydra damage even more, especially with upgrades, due to how fast their rate of fire is. Personally, I think the best buff they could get would be +10 health. That would bring their 1-on-1 stats a lot closer to on par with the units you mentioned.
their DPS isnt as insane as people think. even marauder do more DPS!! with stim they do 15 DPS, while hydra 14,3 or so. and their upgrades are very bad. as bad as stalker upgrades (but they have blink).
i like it that hydras die pretty fast so they are the DPS supporter but then blizzard has to give them that role and give them better ugprade scaling and better range. or make their damage 12 + 3 to armored and give them +1/+1 per upgrade. something like that.
Stimmed marauders have 10 DPS. 13 if upgraded +3. Hydras have 14.5 DPS, 18,1 if upgraded +3.
So no. Health and movement speed should be the hydra buffs and/or reduced vespene cost.
On December 04 2012 18:42 dUTtrOACh wrote: I see problems but not a lot of solutions.
It seems quite apparent that Blizzard can't figure out what's wrong with the game, and are starting to target tried and true units with clearly established roles instead of actually coming out with good ideas. They're suggesting that speeding up a bunch of mid-tier units will somehow increase their late-game viability, when in fact many of these things will offset one another and not have an effect on balance at all. Buffing mech while simultaneously buffing ultralisk viability vs ground is a zero-change scenario. Lowering tech level of hydralisk movement speed and giving mutalisks a speed boost offsets any buff that they give to protoss air viability or medivac movement speed. Nerfing infestors too heavily will reduce their viability vs everything, slowing down the building of the structure and therefore the progression to tier 3, whcih they're supposedly trying to encourage even more. Repositioning of swarm-hosts is hardly relevant because their attack is so slow, you already have plenty of time to reposition them. Nothing about an alternative to the warhound, which was a terrible idea to begin with. Pushing reaper even harder in the early game will further trash the greatness of TvT and could lead to more volatility in all matchups due to the potential of overuse. I'm starting to see an unsettling lack of progression in their unit design philosophy that I find to be deeply disturbing.
EDIT: Not to take anything away from DK, who really is the sharpest tool in the Blizzard SC2 kit. He's just working in circles to the point where it's almost a waste of talent.
I'm not sure what you're even going on about. Most reasonable people will agree that Zerg doesn't need any buffs period, and that hopefully these "harsh infestor nerfs" will be actual nerfs and not tickles like "20 hp from egg thing".
so you dont play HOTS and refer to WoL.
in HOTS zerg definetly needs changes, especially if infestor gets hard nerfs. the problem will still be that hydras are way too weak to become a T2 coreunit. lairtechspeed (which makes them offcreep still slower than oncreep) is a step in the right direction but they still suck and lose to marauder, blinkstalker, immortals, voidrays and 100 other units supplywise. they really need more range and better upgradescaling = +2 attack per upgrade to be viable in later game stages.
the patch is a very nice step in the right direction. some units are missing (BC, carrier, nydus worm etc.) and some units like hydras still get too few love but overall its important and awesome to see blizzard realizes the most problems and is willing to solve them. there will be numerous patches until that is done but its 3,5 months until the game is out so enough time to fix the most problems. the finetuning balance patching will come some months after HOTS anyway since you cant balance the game with almost no pros and no toplevel pro at all playing HOTS.
You CANNOT buff hydra damage even more, especially with upgrades, due to how fast their rate of fire is. Personally, I think the best buff they could get would be +10 health. That would bring their 1-on-1 stats a lot closer to on par with the units you mentioned.
their DPS isnt as insane as people think. even marauder do more DPS!! with stim they do 15 DPS, while hydra 14,3 or so. and their upgrades are very bad. as bad as stalker upgrades (but they have blink).
i like it that hydras die pretty fast so they are the DPS supporter but then blizzard has to give them that role and give them better ugprade scaling and better range. or make their damage 12 + 3 to armored and give them +1/+1 per upgrade. something like that.
Stimmed marauders have 10 DPS. 13 if upgraded +3. Hydras have 14.5 DPS, 18,1 if upgraded +3.
So no. Health and movement speed should be the hydra buffs and/or reduced vespene cost.
lol? get your numbers right. they do 10 DPS and 20 DPS to armored. since half of the ground units are armored its about 15 DPS and 19,5 DPS with +3. also they perform better vs carapace upgrade of the opponent because they gain +1,5 per upgrade while hydras get +1. so hydras attack upgrades are 100% negated by carapace upgrades of the opponents, marauders arent.
btw: make them 75 25 and 1 supply would also be a nice change but that wont happen i guess...maybe in LotV.
On December 04 2012 18:42 dUTtrOACh wrote: I see problems but not a lot of solutions.
It seems quite apparent that Blizzard can't figure out what's wrong with the game, and are starting to target tried and true units with clearly established roles instead of actually coming out with good ideas. They're suggesting that speeding up a bunch of mid-tier units will somehow increase their late-game viability, when in fact many of these things will offset one another and not have an effect on balance at all. Buffing mech while simultaneously buffing ultralisk viability vs ground is a zero-change scenario. Lowering tech level of hydralisk movement speed and giving mutalisks a speed boost offsets any buff that they give to protoss air viability or medivac movement speed. Nerfing infestors too heavily will reduce their viability vs everything, slowing down the building of the structure and therefore the progression to tier 3, whcih they're supposedly trying to encourage even more. Repositioning of swarm-hosts is hardly relevant because their attack is so slow, you already have plenty of time to reposition them. Nothing about an alternative to the warhound, which was a terrible idea to begin with. Pushing reaper even harder in the early game will further trash the greatness of TvT and could lead to more volatility in all matchups due to the potential of overuse. I'm starting to see an unsettling lack of progression in their unit design philosophy that I find to be deeply disturbing.
EDIT: Not to take anything away from DK, who really is the sharpest tool in the Blizzard SC2 kit. He's just working in circles to the point where it's almost a waste of talent.
I'm not sure what you're even going on about. Most reasonable people will agree that Zerg doesn't need any buffs period, and that hopefully these "harsh infestor nerfs" will be actual nerfs and not tickles like "20 hp from egg thing".
so you dont play HOTS and refer to WoL.
in HOTS zerg definetly needs changes, especially if infestor gets hard nerfs. the problem will still be that hydras are way too weak to become a T2 coreunit. lairtechspeed (which makes them offcreep still slower than oncreep) is a step in the right direction but they still suck and lose to marauder, blinkstalker, immortals, voidrays and 100 other units supplywise. they really need more range and better upgradescaling = +2 attack per upgrade to be viable in later game stages.
the patch is a very nice step in the right direction. some units are missing (BC, carrier, nydus worm etc.) and some units like hydras still get too few love but overall its important and awesome to see blizzard realizes the most problems and is willing to solve them. there will be numerous patches until that is done but its 3,5 months until the game is out so enough time to fix the most problems. the finetuning balance patching will come some months after HOTS anyway since you cant balance the game with almost no pros and no toplevel pro at all playing HOTS.
You CANNOT buff hydra damage even more, especially with upgrades, due to how fast their rate of fire is. Personally, I think the best buff they could get would be +10 health. That would bring their 1-on-1 stats a lot closer to on par with the units you mentioned.
their DPS isnt as insane as people think. even marauder do more DPS!! with stim they do 15 DPS, while hydra 14,3 or so. and their upgrades are very bad. as bad as stalker upgrades (but they have blink).
i like it that hydras die pretty fast so they are the DPS supporter but then blizzard has to give them that role and give them better ugprade scaling and better range. or make their damage 12 + 3 to armored and give them +1/+1 per upgrade. something like that.
Stimmed marauders have 10 DPS. 13 if upgraded +3. Hydras have 14.5 DPS, 18,1 if upgraded +3.
So no. Health and movement speed should be the hydra buffs and/or reduced vespene cost.
lol? get your numbers right. they do 10 DPS and 20 DPS to armored. since half of the ground units are armored its about 15 DPS.
For fuck sake, don't use terrible logic to try to back up your argument. So let's add a 50% more damage to hydras because they can shoot air ? Hydras are all rounders, their problem has always been not being cost efficient, slow and squishy, fixing one of several of that issues is the way to go, not making more damage.
On December 04 2012 18:42 dUTtrOACh wrote: I see problems but not a lot of solutions.
It seems quite apparent that Blizzard can't figure out what's wrong with the game, and are starting to target tried and true units with clearly established roles instead of actually coming out with good ideas. They're suggesting that speeding up a bunch of mid-tier units will somehow increase their late-game viability, when in fact many of these things will offset one another and not have an effect on balance at all. Buffing mech while simultaneously buffing ultralisk viability vs ground is a zero-change scenario. Lowering tech level of hydralisk movement speed and giving mutalisks a speed boost offsets any buff that they give to protoss air viability or medivac movement speed. Nerfing infestors too heavily will reduce their viability vs everything, slowing down the building of the structure and therefore the progression to tier 3, whcih they're supposedly trying to encourage even more. Repositioning of swarm-hosts is hardly relevant because their attack is so slow, you already have plenty of time to reposition them. Nothing about an alternative to the warhound, which was a terrible idea to begin with. Pushing reaper even harder in the early game will further trash the greatness of TvT and could lead to more volatility in all matchups due to the potential of overuse. I'm starting to see an unsettling lack of progression in their unit design philosophy that I find to be deeply disturbing.
EDIT: Not to take anything away from DK, who really is the sharpest tool in the Blizzard SC2 kit. He's just working in circles to the point where it's almost a waste of talent.
I'm not sure what you're even going on about. Most reasonable people will agree that Zerg doesn't need any buffs period, and that hopefully these "harsh infestor nerfs" will be actual nerfs and not tickles like "20 hp from egg thing".
so you dont play HOTS and refer to WoL.
in HOTS zerg definetly needs changes, especially if infestor gets hard nerfs. the problem will still be that hydras are way too weak to become a T2 coreunit. lairtechspeed (which makes them offcreep still slower than oncreep) is a step in the right direction but they still suck and lose to marauder, blinkstalker, immortals, voidrays and 100 other units supplywise. they really need more range and better upgradescaling = +2 attack per upgrade to be viable in later game stages.
the patch is a very nice step in the right direction. some units are missing (BC, carrier, nydus worm etc.) and some units like hydras still get too few love but overall its important and awesome to see blizzard realizes the most problems and is willing to solve them. there will be numerous patches until that is done but its 3,5 months until the game is out so enough time to fix the most problems. the finetuning balance patching will come some months after HOTS anyway since you cant balance the game with almost no pros and no toplevel pro at all playing HOTS.
You CANNOT buff hydra damage even more, especially with upgrades, due to how fast their rate of fire is. Personally, I think the best buff they could get would be +10 health. That would bring their 1-on-1 stats a lot closer to on par with the units you mentioned.
their DPS isnt as insane as people think. even marauder do more DPS!! with stim they do 15 DPS, while hydra 14,3 or so. and their upgrades are very bad. as bad as stalker upgrades (but they have blink).
i like it that hydras die pretty fast so they are the DPS supporter but then blizzard has to give them that role and give them better ugprade scaling and better range. or make their damage 12 + 3 to armored and give them +1/+1 per upgrade. something like that.
Stimmed marauders have 10 DPS. 13 if upgraded +3. Hydras have 14.5 DPS, 18,1 if upgraded +3.
So no. Health and movement speed should be the hydra buffs and/or reduced vespene cost.
lol? get your numbers right. they do 10 DPS and 20 DPS to armored. since half of the ground units are armored its about 15 DPS.
For fuck sake, don't use terrible logic to try to back up your argument. So let's add a 50% more damage to hydras because they can shoot air ? Hydras are all rounders, their problem has always been not being cost efficient, slow and squishy, fixing one of several of that issues is the way to go, not making more damage.
depends on what role you want to give them. if you want to give them a role as a DPS support unit: increase range and damage (direct or with better upgrades). if you want to make them stalker #2 increase their health.
FINALLY! This is like the best shit I've ever read from Blizzard balance wise, I was seriously thinking this game was hopeless. If this stuff actually goes through I'll tottaly start playing again, and I'm sure many of my Terran buddies will too.
Also, I called the armory upgrade merging back when HOTS beta was announced, I can't believe they haven't done that in WOL beta actually, that would fix so many problems Terran has with the lategame, I think a mech and Raven buff might not even be necessary with that change, we'll see.
I wanna see some large changes, just to see what happens. It's in beta, they should be willing to see what moving around some units and upgrades will do.
On December 04 2012 20:20 Zealos wrote: I wanna see some large changes, just to see what happens. It's in beta, they should be willing to see what moving around some units and upgrades will do.
These are some pretty big changes, ala BW 1.08 patch, and overall the proposed (possible) changes are very reasonable, these changes are definitely a step in the right direction.
On December 04 2012 18:42 dUTtrOACh wrote: I see problems but not a lot of solutions.
It seems quite apparent that Blizzard can't figure out what's wrong with the game, and are starting to target tried and true units with clearly established roles instead of actually coming out with good ideas. They're suggesting that speeding up a bunch of mid-tier units will somehow increase their late-game viability, when in fact many of these things will offset one another and not have an effect on balance at all. Buffing mech while simultaneously buffing ultralisk viability vs ground is a zero-change scenario. Lowering tech level of hydralisk movement speed and giving mutalisks a speed boost offsets any buff that they give to protoss air viability or medivac movement speed. Nerfing infestors too heavily will reduce their viability vs everything, slowing down the building of the structure and therefore the progression to tier 3, whcih they're supposedly trying to encourage even more. Repositioning of swarm-hosts is hardly relevant because their attack is so slow, you already have plenty of time to reposition them. Nothing about an alternative to the warhound, which was a terrible idea to begin with. Pushing reaper even harder in the early game will further trash the greatness of TvT and could lead to more volatility in all matchups due to the potential of overuse. I'm starting to see an unsettling lack of progression in their unit design philosophy that I find to be deeply disturbing.
EDIT: Not to take anything away from DK, who really is the sharpest tool in the Blizzard SC2 kit. He's just working in circles to the point where it's almost a waste of talent.
I'm not sure what you're even going on about. Most reasonable people will agree that Zerg doesn't need any buffs period, and that hopefully these "harsh infestor nerfs" will be actual nerfs and not tickles like "20 hp from egg thing".
so you dont play HOTS and refer to WoL.
in HOTS zerg definetly needs changes, especially if infestor gets hard nerfs. the problem will still be that hydras are way too weak to become a T2 coreunit. lairtechspeed (which makes them offcreep still slower than oncreep) is a step in the right direction but they still suck and lose to marauder, blinkstalker, immortals, voidrays and 100 other units supplywise. they really need more range and better upgradescaling = +2 attack per upgrade to be viable in later game stages.
the patch is a very nice step in the right direction. some units are missing (BC, carrier, nydus worm etc.) and some units like hydras still get too few love but overall its important and awesome to see blizzard realizes the most problems and is willing to solve them. there will be numerous patches until that is done but its 3,5 months until the game is out so enough time to fix the most problems. the finetuning balance patching will come some months after HOTS anyway since you cant balance the game with almost no pros and no toplevel pro at all playing HOTS.
Hydras backed up with Roaches and Vipers later on are doing really fine in all matchups.
I like how they mention that Pulsar Beam would overlap with Void Rays too much and that they want to turn the Oracle into more of a worker harasser. Now they will overlap with the Phoenix, as they are used extensively to reduce worker counts and control the game flow with constant threat of a fly-by.
On December 04 2012 03:12 spbelky wrote: O Dayvie, such good intentions. But does he have the tools and knowledge to pull it off?
Excacly what is was thinking. Im not too sure how much DB and DK understands about sc2. More than me for sure, but i just dont really trust them anymore.... :/ Hope everythings works out, so that sc2 will be fun once again...
On December 04 2012 20:43 Masayume wrote: I like how they mention that Pulsar Beam would overlap with Void Rays too much and that they want to turn the Oracle into more of a worker harasser. Now they will overlap with the Phoenix, as they are used extensively to reduce worker counts and control the game flow with constant threat of a fly-by.
I do like most of the other ideas though.
I'm hoping they change the phoenix to be honest, it's really only useful for a brief timing in PvZ and in PvP. Only time you ever see phoenix after the initial tech opener is in PvP when both players went for phoenix and are forced to keep making them.
I like the intentions, but you need to make sure that th infestor still is bearable, ofc it is imbalanced te way it is right now, but the infestor still needs to be an option for the midgame. The way dayvie intends the changes here is great but still very vague i would like to know the way they want to buff terran at all. Anyway right intentions :D !!
Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak.
fungal.Storm.Colossis. 2000 Free Marines for energy. Yes...its the new units that will make Bio look weak.
I love how you manage to, in a thread about HoTS change thats sound really awsome still manage to imply Imbalance in WoL :p. such a pointless post dude.
The changes truly look in the right direction. If such things as these gets implemented Ill once again get excited about HoTS! Mech ground and Air combined sounds like a good idea. although I think they should Limit it to either attack or armor so that all races have 5 upgrades to focus on. Not that it needs to be the same but it might aswell be. I think air and ground weapons for mech should be the same and armor seperate.
I am interested to see if they are actually doing anything with mech or if they are still clueless. The combination of mech/air upgrades they were supposedly thinking about ages before this, but really what that affects most are vikings in the air and on the ground.
What else changes with mech? It seems they have no idea what to do. Guess we wait and see now.
On December 04 2012 22:02 -Archangel- wrote: So, corrupters and overseers stay their boring selves No changes to Colossi
I actually think corruptor are the most boring thing in this planet and yet they play important role in zerg army. It would be better if they are boring but also useless.
On December 04 2012 22:02 -Archangel- wrote: So, corrupters and overseers stay their boring selves No changes to Colossi
I actually think corruptor are the most boring thing in this planet and yet they play important role in zerg army. It would be better if they are boring but also useless.
I'd go the other way. If they were more interesting (as in, more versatile), it would make a more gradual transition to broodlords much more viable.
In WoL there's this window of a few minutes where you don't want to fight because you're either banking money for a huge BL switch, or you're massing corruptors, or you're morphing BLs, and if you fight you'll just lose.
If that window coincides with your opponent having to be passive (because you have a ton of infestors, or their army isn't maxed yet), the transition works and you probably win. If it coincides with your opponent being aggressive (because you made a bunch of roaches or mutas and your transition is delayed, or they harass and slow you down), the transition falls apart and they win. And if you don't transition, they usually win.
It's rubbish because the part of the game that's supposed to be the epic finale is more often than not just a formality, playing out a result decided several minutes earlier. It would be much better if slowly adding in corruptors actually strengthened the Zerg army, rather than weakening it, so there wasn't this mad rush to transition while nobody's looking.
On December 04 2012 22:02 -Archangel- wrote: So, corrupters and overseers stay their boring selves No changes to Colossi
I actually think corruptor are the most boring thing in this planet and yet they play important role in zerg army. It would be better if they are boring but also useless.
I'd go the other way. If they were more interesting (as in, more versatile), it would make a more gradual transition to broodlords much more viable.
In WoL there's this window of a few minutes where you don't want to fight because you're either banking money for a huge BL switch, or you're massing corruptors, or you're morphing BLs, and if you fight you'll just lose.
If that window coincides with your opponent having to be passive (because you have a ton of infestors, or their army isn't maxed yet), the transition works and you probably win. If it coincides with your opponent being aggressive (because you made a bunch of roaches or mutas and your transition is delayed, or they harass and slow you down), the transition falls apart and they win. And if you don't transition, they usually win.
It's rubbish because the part of the game that's supposed to be the epic finale is more often than not just a formality, playing out a result decided several minutes earlier. It would be much better if slowly adding in corruptors actually strengthened the Zerg army, rather than weakening it, so there wasn't this mad rush to transition while nobody's looking.
yeah qxc talked about this. he suggested to give the corruptor a new ability that also hits ground units so you could use your leftover corruptors or pre BL corruptors to hit ground units. of course this wouldnt be a very strong attack/spell vs ground but at least somewhat useful like phoenix lift or ground vikings.
On December 04 2012 22:02 -Archangel- wrote: So, corrupters and overseers stay their boring selves No changes to Colossi
This is only their first wave of changes remember.
This comment at the end - "These are our current thoughts for each of the races. And please remember none of these changes are final. Our hope is to move into the more fine tuning stages if this major patch turns out well." - sound like this might be the only wave. After this they want to move into fine tuning.
On December 04 2012 22:02 -Archangel- wrote: So, corrupters and overseers stay their boring selves No changes to Colossi
I actually think corruptor are the most boring thing in this planet and yet they play important role in zerg army. It would be better if they are boring but also useless.
I'd go the other way. If they were more interesting (as in, more versatile), it would make a more gradual transition to broodlords much more viable.
In WoL there's this window of a few minutes where you don't want to fight because you're either banking money for a huge BL switch, or you're massing corruptors, or you're morphing BLs, and if you fight you'll just lose.
If that window coincides with your opponent having to be passive (because you have a ton of infestors, or their army isn't maxed yet), the transition works and you probably win. If it coincides with your opponent being aggressive (because you made a bunch of roaches or mutas and your transition is delayed, or they harass and slow you down), the transition falls apart and they win. And if you don't transition, they usually win.
It's rubbish because the part of the game that's supposed to be the epic finale is more often than not just a formality, playing out a result decided several minutes earlier. It would be much better if slowly adding in corruptors actually strengthened the Zerg army, rather than weakening it, so there wasn't this mad rush to transition while nobody's looking.
Personally I think "interesting" is a matter of perspective and expectation. Just look at the BW units: Many of them didnt have nifty abilities (i.e. boring) and yet they were still fun to use. I would fully agree that they are boring though, because you can do NOTHING with them without an air target and evolving from Mutalisks as in BW was the much better solution. Sadly there are lots of "boring" units in SC2 because they HAD TO create new units for SC2 instead of keeping the old ones which worked ... Viking, Banshee, Thor, ... all pretty boring compared to their predecessors due to their limitations.
On December 04 2012 03:09 MockHamill wrote: According to David Kim: Terran 1. Redesign Thor ability/Raven seeker missile 2. Push early game Reaper a bit more 3. Hellbats better against melee units, not necessarily better vs. Ranged. 4. We'd really like to see more Medivac usage like we saw in Wings for a time in the past. Currently thinking on a cooldown based speed booster ability. 5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak. 6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory.
Zerg 1. Hydralisk movement speed upgrade to Lair 2. Mutalisk buff to speed and/or acceleration 3. Ultralisk changed to be good vs. all ground 4. Nerf Infestor quite heavily 5. Make it easier to unburrow and reposition Swarm Hosts
Protoss 1. Redesign Voidray - we're currently thinking of having the player choose when to activate the charge. 2. Oracle - pulsar beam would now overlap too much with the new Voidray, so we'd like to change the Oracle to be more of a worker harasser. 3. Buff DTs not necessarily for the DT rush case, but to have DTs more often in the late game. 4. Nerf Vortex - we don't like how all or nothing this ability is in Wings, and with new unit adds, we feel we can remove or phase out this ability. 5. Tempest doesn't counter all late tech Zerg. We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play. 6. Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall.
These are our current thoughts for each of the races. And please remember none of these changes are final. Our hope is to move into the more fine tuning stages if this major patch turns out well.
1.1 Why only redesign the Thor ABILITY? 1.2 What for? 1.3 Something I came up with: What about a damage shield that burns everyone striking the Battle Hellion? 1.4 What is the point of MORE SPEED? Do you honestly think that casuals can control that adequately? 1.5 Hmmmm ... why not nerf the "other units"? 1.6 Combining the upgrades for air and mech doesnt buff mech ... it buffs airmech.
2.1 If Hydralisks get their speed buff you can remove the creep tumor to take away the map hack for Zerg. 2.2 WTF? Mutalisks are fast already ... and look at 1.4 More speed doesnt make the game better ... only less controlled. 2.3 Zerg needs more units with "bonus damage" OR that stupid concept needs to be removed because it is actually "limited damage" 2.4 How? 2.5 Why? A cloaked "free unit generator" isnt good enough and it has to be really mobile as well? Makes no sense at all.
3.1 When to activate the charge? ALWAYS! ASAP! ... If the charge can be kept up only for X seconds it is a nerf and not a buff. 3.2 Why not scrap the whole Oracle because it does jobs which other flying units (Phoenix) are already doing? 3.3 Easy ... just introduce a 12 unit selection limit and force units to spread out while moving. No need to fiddle around with unit stats or timings, just reduce the unit density from "ridiculously high" to "reasonably low and HARD TO INCREASE". 3.4 Wow ... all or nothing is bad? You are catching on fast! ... NOT. How about all the other "100% effects" like bonus damage, Blink, Forcefield, Fungal, Baneling-rightclick-on-a-Planetary-Fortress? 3.5 Sooo ... Tempest doesnt counter everything yet? Better buff it quick! 3.6 Why? As an excuse to not fix the Carrier problem?
1.4 Since when is balancing the game around casual players who can't control their units a good idea? 1.5 Buffing the one composition that doesn't work is much better than nerfing literally every other unit in the game. 3.5 That one was poorly worded, but he's saying that the change he's trying to make is that tempests will no longer counter all late game Zerg units, because he doesn't like it that they can't currently make T3 units because of the threat of the tempest.
1.4 ... because casuals are the majority of people who will buy and play the game. 1.5 Thats not what David Kim said ... he said due to the NEW UNITS ... not EVERY OTHER UNIT as you claim. 3.5 Yeah ... clearly shows how much "quality control" they have for their "publications" (the announcement): NONE AT ALL and this shows how serious they are about it.
On December 04 2012 03:09 MockHamill wrote: According to David Kim: Terran 1. Redesign Thor ability/Raven seeker missile 2. Push early game Reaper a bit more 3. Hellbats better against melee units, not necessarily better vs. Ranged. 4. We'd really like to see more Medivac usage like we saw in Wings for a time in the past. Currently thinking on a cooldown based speed booster ability. 5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak. 6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory.
Zerg 1. Hydralisk movement speed upgrade to Lair 2. Mutalisk buff to speed and/or acceleration 3. Ultralisk changed to be good vs. all ground 4. Nerf Infestor quite heavily 5. Make it easier to unburrow and reposition Swarm Hosts
Protoss 1. Redesign Voidray - we're currently thinking of having the player choose when to activate the charge. 2. Oracle - pulsar beam would now overlap too much with the new Voidray, so we'd like to change the Oracle to be more of a worker harasser. 3. Buff DTs not necessarily for the DT rush case, but to have DTs more often in the late game. 4. Nerf Vortex - we don't like how all or nothing this ability is in Wings, and with new unit adds, we feel we can remove or phase out this ability. 5. Tempest doesn't counter all late tech Zerg. We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play. 6. Make Voidray + Phoenix + Oracle combo a viable strat overall.
These are our current thoughts for each of the races. And please remember none of these changes are final. Our hope is to move into the more fine tuning stages if this major patch turns out well.
1.1 Why only redesign the Thor ABILITY? 1.2 What for? 1.3 Something I came up with: What about a damage shield that burns everyone striking the Battle Hellion? 1.4 What is the point of MORE SPEED? Do you honestly think that casuals can control that adequately? 1.5 Hmmmm ... why not nerf the "other units"? 1.6 Combining the upgrades for air and mech doesnt buff mech ... it buffs airmech.
2.1 If Hydralisks get their speed buff you can remove the creep tumor to take away the map hack for Zerg. 2.2 WTF? Mutalisks are fast already ... and look at 1.4 More speed doesnt make the game better ... only less controlled. 2.3 Zerg needs more units with "bonus damage" OR that stupid concept needs to be removed because it is actually "limited damage" 2.4 How? 2.5 Why? A cloaked "free unit generator" isnt good enough and it has to be really mobile as well? Makes no sense at all.
3.1 When to activate the charge? ALWAYS! ASAP! ... If the charge can be kept up only for X seconds it is a nerf and not a buff. 3.2 Why not scrap the whole Oracle because it does jobs which other flying units (Phoenix) are already doing? 3.3 Easy ... just introduce a 12 unit selection limit and force units to spread out while moving. No need to fiddle around with unit stats or timings, just reduce the unit density from "ridiculously high" to "reasonably low and HARD TO INCREASE". 3.4 Wow ... all or nothing is bad? You are catching on fast! ... NOT. How about all the other "100% effects" like bonus damage, Blink, Forcefield, Fungal, Baneling-rightclick-on-a-Planetary-Fortress? 3.5 Sooo ... Tempest doesnt counter everything yet? Better buff it quick! 3.6 Why? As an excuse to not fix the Carrier problem?
1.4 Since when is balancing the game around casual players who can't control their units a good idea? 1.5 Buffing the one composition that doesn't work is much better than nerfing literally every other unit in the game. 3.5 That one was poorly worded, but he's saying that the change he's trying to make is that tempests will no longer counter all late game Zerg units, because he doesn't like it that they can't currently make T3 units because of the threat of the tempest.
1.4 ... because casuals are the majority of people who will buy and play the game. 1.5 Thats not what David Kim said ... he said due to the NEW UNITS ... not EVERY OTHER UNIT as you claim. 3.5 Yeah ... clearly shows how much "quality control" they have for their "publications" (the announcement): NONE AT ALL and this shows how serious they are about it.
Clearly shows how much "quality control" you have for your comments, not even being able to check the source and reading "5. Fix Tempests to not counter all late tech Zerg. We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play." before hopping onto every chance to mock Blizzard for mistakes they never made. Think a little more before posting.
On December 04 2012 22:02 -Archangel- wrote: So, corrupters and overseers stay their boring selves No changes to Colossi
I actually think corruptor are the most boring thing in this planet and yet they play important role in zerg army. It would be better if they are boring but also useless.
I'd go the other way. If they were more interesting (as in, more versatile), it would make a more gradual transition to broodlords much more viable.
In WoL there's this window of a few minutes where you don't want to fight because you're either banking money for a huge BL switch, or you're massing corruptors, or you're morphing BLs, and if you fight you'll just lose.
If that window coincides with your opponent having to be passive (because you have a ton of infestors, or their army isn't maxed yet), the transition works and you probably win. If it coincides with your opponent being aggressive (because you made a bunch of roaches or mutas and your transition is delayed, or they harass and slow you down), the transition falls apart and they win. And if you don't transition, they usually win.
It's rubbish because the part of the game that's supposed to be the epic finale is more often than not just a formality, playing out a result decided several minutes earlier. It would be much better if slowly adding in corruptors actually strengthened the Zerg army, rather than weakening it, so there wasn't this mad rush to transition while nobody's looking.
yeah qxc talked about this. he suggested to give the corruptor a new ability that also hits ground units so you could use your leftover corruptors or pre BL corruptors to hit ground units. of course this wouldnt be a very strong attack/spell vs ground but at least somewhat useful like phoenix lift or ground vikings.
Yeah, they could do all kinds of stuff like giving corruptors the burrow ability and letting it attack enemies from underground, or attaching a corruptor to a unit, similar to the "Giant Squid" from Red Alert. I'm sure many of us have ideas about such "cool" abilities. I'm not sure how they'd all work out ingame, though.
On December 04 2012 12:29 grapedog wrote: Considering that zerg can remaz from BL/Corr into Ultras instantly, i dont see an issue with the tempest hard countering both. Why should zerg get to do a complete air to ground switch, or vice versa, but others cannot and cant counter it without sacking now useless units.
Okay I will try not to break into circular logic here. Zerg is a race that is designed to have amazing production, we can accept that as just how the game is yes? That's what makes Zerg Zerg-like, unique fundamental differences in the races makes the game interesting. But as you have pointed out it creates a tricky situation for Protoss and Terran: How do they deal with two attacks subsequently from compositions that are fundamentally different (like Ultralisk > Brood Lord based compositions)?
Well there are two solutions, design wise, for P and T to solve this problem (perhaps more but they aren't very relevant):
Either give them each units that, like the Tempest in it's current form,
I can give you the name of "the devil" responsible here: BONUS damage. If Thors didnt have bonus damage and instead had higher damage all around they would not be useless against Corruptor/Broodlord AND could deal nice damage against Ultralisks too ...
Bonus damage limits units in which other units they are good against as the Thor clearly shows. It is a rock-paper-scissors concept which should be scrapped and replaced by the "splash damage concept" of BW to make units good against everything and to take out unnecessary complexity.
----
For the sarcasm section here I found out how they will make Reapers and mech work in the late game: + Show Spoiler +
On December 04 2012 12:29 grapedog wrote: Considering that zerg can remaz from BL/Corr into Ultras instantly, i dont see an issue with the tempest hard countering both. Why should zerg get to do a complete air to ground switch, or vice versa, but others cannot and cant counter it without sacking now useless units.
Okay I will try not to break into circular logic here. Zerg is a race that is designed to have amazing production, we can accept that as just how the game is yes? That's what makes Zerg Zerg-like, unique fundamental differences in the races makes the game interesting. But as you have pointed out it creates a tricky situation for Protoss and Terran: How do they deal with two attacks subsequently from compositions that are fundamentally different (like Ultralisk > Brood Lord based compositions)?
Well there are two solutions, design wise, for P and T to solve this problem (perhaps more but they aren't very relevant):
Either give them each units that, like the Tempest in it's current form,
I can give you the name of "the devil" responsible here: BONUS damage. If Thors didnt have bonus damage and instead had higher damage all around they would not be useless against Corruptor/Broodlord AND could deal nice damage against Ultralisks too ...
Bonus damage limits units in which other units they are good against as the Thor clearly shows. It is a rock-paper-scissors concept which should be scrapped and replaced by the "splash damage concept" of BW to make units good against everything and to take out unnecessary complexity.
----
For the sarcasm section here I found out how they will make Reapers and mech work in the late game: + Show Spoiler +
On December 04 2012 22:02 -Archangel- wrote: So, corrupters and overseers stay their boring selves No changes to Colossi
I actually think corruptor are the most boring thing in this planet and yet they play important role in zerg army. It would be better if they are boring but also useless.
I'd go the other way. If they were more interesting (as in, more versatile), it would make a more gradual transition to broodlords much more viable.
In WoL there's this window of a few minutes where you don't want to fight because you're either banking money for a huge BL switch, or you're massing corruptors, or you're morphing BLs, and if you fight you'll just lose.
If that window coincides with your opponent having to be passive (because you have a ton of infestors, or their army isn't maxed yet), the transition works and you probably win. If it coincides with your opponent being aggressive (because you made a bunch of roaches or mutas and your transition is delayed, or they harass and slow you down), the transition falls apart and they win. And if you don't transition, they usually win.
It's rubbish because the part of the game that's supposed to be the epic finale is more often than not just a formality, playing out a result decided several minutes earlier. It would be much better if slowly adding in corruptors actually strengthened the Zerg army, rather than weakening it, so there wasn't this mad rush to transition while nobody's looking.
Personally I think "interesting" is a matter of perspective and expectation. Just look at the BW units: Many of them didnt have nifty abilities (i.e. boring) and yet they were still fun to use. I would fully agree that they are boring though, because you can do NOTHING with them without an air target and evolving from Mutalisks as in BW was the much better solution. Sadly there are lots of "boring" units in SC2 because they HAD TO create new units for SC2 instead of keeping the old ones which worked ... Viking, Banshee, Thor, ... all pretty boring compared to their predecessors due to their limitations.
I think vikings are very interesting, able to switch from anti air to light ground harass, and limited by the time it takes for them to transform. Banshee is just a more powerful anti ground version of wraith without anti air ability, and Thor are just too big and slow to be used correctly.
Raven is another interesting unit I think and I really like its design, too bad it only has 1 useful ability, PDD. Speaking of which whoever came up with the idea for PDD should work for the U.S. military, we need more people like him.
On December 04 2012 12:29 grapedog wrote: Considering that zerg can remaz from BL/Corr into Ultras instantly, i dont see an issue with the tempest hard countering both. Why should zerg get to do a complete air to ground switch, or vice versa, but others cannot and cant counter it without sacking now useless units.
Okay I will try not to break into circular logic here. Zerg is a race that is designed to have amazing production, we can accept that as just how the game is yes? That's what makes Zerg Zerg-like, unique fundamental differences in the races makes the game interesting. But as you have pointed out it creates a tricky situation for Protoss and Terran: How do they deal with two attacks subsequently from compositions that are fundamentally different (like Ultralisk > Brood Lord based compositions)?
Well there are two solutions, design wise, for P and T to solve this problem (perhaps more but they aren't very relevant):
Either give them each units that, like the Tempest in it's current form,
I can give you the name of "the devil" responsible here: BONUS damage. If Thors didnt have bonus damage and instead had higher damage all around they would not be useless against Corruptor/Broodlord AND could deal nice damage against Ultralisks too ...
Bonus damage limits units in which other units they are good against as the Thor clearly shows. It is a rock-paper-scissors concept which should be scrapped and replaced by the "splash damage concept" of BW to make units good against everything and to take out unnecessary complexity.
----
For the sarcasm section here I found out how they will make Reapers and mech work in the late game: + Show Spoiler +
BW had bonus damage (essentially, damage reduction). SC2 just made it visibile. It's not the problem.
Exactly, in fact the damage system in BW was even less flexible because it was % based instead of fixed arbitrary values, this also made it more complicated to beginners.
IE: The Vulture did 20 concussive damage. A Vulture attacking a Dragoon would do 20damage to it's shields but only 4 (5 - 1armor) to it's health.
I think it's funny that Blizzard "forgot" that protoss shields always took full damage in BW to make up for their huge health, seeing as this doesn't exist in SC2 but Protoss units have 1 million health anyway (and fast shield regenaration out of combat).
Exactly, in fact the damage system in BW was even less flexible because it was % based instead of fixed arbitrary values, this also made it more complicated to beginners.
IE: The Vulture did 20 concussive damage. A Vulture attacking a Dragoon would do 20damage to it's shields but only 4 (5 - 1armor) to it's health.
I think it's funny that Blizzard "forgot" that protoss shields always took full damage in BW to make up for their huge health, seeing as this doesn't exist in SC2 but Protoss units have 1 million health anyway (and fast shield regenaration out of combat).
no, you are incorrect
protoss units had much more HP compared to terran/zerg in BW. in sc2, protoss units do not generally have more HP or even damage than their counterparts.
On December 04 2012 22:02 -Archangel- wrote: So, corrupters and overseers stay their boring selves No changes to Colossi
I actually think corruptor are the most boring thing in this planet and yet they play important role in zerg army. It would be better if they are boring but also useless.
I'd go the other way. If they were more interesting (as in, more versatile), it would make a more gradual transition to broodlords much more viable.
In WoL there's this window of a few minutes where you don't want to fight because you're either banking money for a huge BL switch, or you're massing corruptors, or you're morphing BLs, and if you fight you'll just lose.
If that window coincides with your opponent having to be passive (because you have a ton of infestors, or their army isn't maxed yet), the transition works and you probably win. If it coincides with your opponent being aggressive (because you made a bunch of roaches or mutas and your transition is delayed, or they harass and slow you down), the transition falls apart and they win. And if you don't transition, they usually win.
It's rubbish because the part of the game that's supposed to be the epic finale is more often than not just a formality, playing out a result decided several minutes earlier. It would be much better if slowly adding in corruptors actually strengthened the Zerg army, rather than weakening it, so there wasn't this mad rush to transition while nobody's looking.
Personally I think "interesting" is a matter of perspective and expectation. Just look at the BW units: Many of them didnt have nifty abilities (i.e. boring) and yet they were still fun to use. I would fully agree that they are boring though, because you can do NOTHING with them without an air target and evolving from Mutalisks as in BW was the much better solution. Sadly there are lots of "boring" units in SC2 because they HAD TO create new units for SC2 instead of keeping the old ones which worked ... Viking, Banshee, Thor, ... all pretty boring compared to their predecessors due to their limitations.
I actually think Viking and Banshee are an improvement over BW especially Banshee. There're many useless units in BW that rarely get used. I kinda hope that if Blizzard can't make corruptor interesting then just fade it away from gameplay is a good option. It will never happen anyway because corruptor is too important right now.
Heh, I wish Banshees were as fast as Wraiths (same as mutalisk speed I think).
On December 05 2012 01:05 summerloud wrote: no, you are incorrect
protoss units had much more HP compared to terran/zerg in BW. in sc2, protoss units do not generally have more HP or even damage than their counterparts.
Protoss units still have the overall highest health, the problem is that everything also does 1 million damage in SC2.
On December 05 2012 01:05 summerloud wrote: no, you are incorrect
protoss units had much more HP compared to terran/zerg in BW. in sc2, protoss units do not generally have more HP or even damage than their counterparts.
Protoss units still have the overall highest health, the problem is that everything also does 1 million damage in SC2.
Well it is true in bw protoss was good cause they had the strongest standart units, with dragoon and zealot and this was the basic of all armys of protoss. In sc2 the basic of a protoss is in the early game the sentry and in mid/lategame collossi, high templar and archons, really nothing for the big battlefield, more like for fights at tiny chokes. And i think the only change mutas need is the stack they had in bw, so you can make them super effective with micro.
One question: when? At 10:00 a.m. PDT there will be hour mainterance, but without patch-notes it looks like there will be no balance changes or patch at all
On December 05 2012 01:46 SpikeStarcraft wrote: this balance patch convinces me to wait for hots since i dont feel like playing wol in the current state anyhow. where can i get a beta key?
perorder from amazon.de
at least i got mine that way you dont need to buy the game if you dont want to, you can still cancel.
On December 05 2012 01:46 SpikeStarcraft wrote: this balance patch convinces me to wait for hots since i dont feel like playing wol in the current state anyhow. where can i get a beta key?
perorder from amazon.de
at least i got mine that way you dont need to buy the game if you dont want to, you can still cancel.
thx, i just tried that. Downloading client right now. Preorder already canceled ^^
On December 05 2012 01:32 mannerless wrote: Heh, I wish Banshees were as fast as Wraiths (same as mutalisk speed I think).
On December 05 2012 01:05 summerloud wrote: no, you are incorrect
protoss units had much more HP compared to terran/zerg in BW. in sc2, protoss units do not generally have more HP or even damage than their counterparts.
Protoss units still have the overall highest health, the problem is that everything also does 1 million damage in SC2.
Well it is true in bw protoss was good cause they had the strongest standart units, with dragoon and zealot and this was the basic of all armys of protoss. In sc2 the basic of a protoss is in the early game the sentry and in mid/lategame collossi, high templar and archons, really nothing for the big battlefield, more like for fights at tiny chokes. And i think the only change mutas need is the stack they had in bw, so you can make them super effective with micro.
Protoss workers also mined faster than the other races' workers mined faster than the other races' workers in BW, and they generally had the most workers of any race. Comparing to BW is really pointless, because BW balance only exists because of massive coincidence and the heroic efforts of map makers.
On December 05 2012 01:32 mannerless wrote: Heh, I wish Banshees were as fast as Wraiths (same as mutalisk speed I think).
On December 05 2012 01:05 summerloud wrote: no, you are incorrect
protoss units had much more HP compared to terran/zerg in BW. in sc2, protoss units do not generally have more HP or even damage than their counterparts.
Protoss units still have the overall highest health, the problem is that everything also does 1 million damage in SC2.
Well it is true in bw protoss was good cause they had the strongest standart units, with dragoon and zealot and this was the basic of all armys of protoss. In sc2 the basic of a protoss is in the early game the sentry and in mid/lategame collossi, high templar and archons, really nothing for the big battlefield, more like for fights at tiny chokes. And i think the only change mutas need is the stack they had in bw, so you can make them super effective with micro.
Protoss workers also mined faster than the other races' workers mined faster than the other races' workers in BW, and they generally had the most workers of any race. Comparing to BW is really pointless, because BW balance only exists because of massive coincidence and the heroic efforts of map makers.
The heroic map makers are also what gave BW so much variety as not many of the maps, if any at all ever really played out exactly the same due to map features.
Apologies if this has been brought up already, but...
I remember when they first announced new units, Tempest was supposed to be like the "anti-muta" thing. Obviously it's phased away since then and that's fine.
What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate? Storms will do less damage and they're one of the principle damage dealers against mutas in WoL. What is Protoss' answer to an even faster muta?
God sake just remove the oracle!!!!!!!! It had bad design concepts from the beginning. If you want to make Protoss air harass better then buff/improve the Phoenix!!!! Give the pheonix another ability or something
On December 05 2012 02:27 marvellosity wrote: Apologies if this has been brought up already, but...
I remember when they first announced new units, Tempest was supposed to be like the "anti-muta" thing. Obviously it's phased away since then and that's fine.
What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate? Storms will do less damage and they're one of the principle damage dealers against mutas in WoL. What is Protoss' answer to an even faster muta?
I'm guessing "2-base Immortal Timing" was probably not the answer you were looking for.
On December 05 2012 02:27 marvellosity wrote: Apologies if this has been brought up already, but...
I remember when they first announced new units, Tempest was supposed to be like the "anti-muta" thing. Obviously it's phased away since then and that's fine.
What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate? Storms will do less damage and they're one of the principle damage dealers against mutas in WoL. What is Protoss' answer to an even faster muta?
I'm guessing "2-base Immortal Timing" was probably not the answer you were looking for.
Not quite
I'm genuinely curious, because in WoL the "answer" is blink stalkers and storm, broadly speaking. Stalkers can scoot and shoot and blink to catch up, obviously that's negated by speed/accel boost. Ditto storm doing markedly less damage. I'm missing something somewhere ^^
On December 05 2012 02:27 marvellosity wrote: Apologies if this has been brought up already, but...
I remember when they first announced new units, Tempest was supposed to be like the "anti-muta" thing. Obviously it's phased away since then and that's fine.
What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate? Storms will do less damage and they're one of the principle damage dealers against mutas in WoL. What is Protoss' answer to an even faster muta?
I'm guessing "2-base Immortal Timing" was probably not the answer you were looking for.
The muta speed increase is likely going to be an upgrade, so zerg will have a rough time opening up with super speed mutas. Also, all the stargate changes will make stargate openings more common/better.
And that whole immortal time with recall thing, thats also pretty awesome.
On December 05 2012 02:27 marvellosity wrote: Apologies if this has been brought up already, but...
I remember when they first announced new units, Tempest was supposed to be like the "anti-muta" thing. Obviously it's phased away since then and that's fine.
What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate? Storms will do less damage and they're one of the principle damage dealers against mutas in WoL. What is Protoss' answer to an even faster muta?
I'm guessing "2-base Immortal Timing" was probably not the answer you were looking for.
The muta speed increase is likely going to be an upgrade, so zerg will have a rough time opening up with super speed mutas. Also, all the stargate changes will make stargate openings more common/better.
And that whole immortal time with recall thing, thats also pretty awesome.
On December 05 2012 02:27 marvellosity wrote: Apologies if this has been brought up already, but...
I remember when they first announced new units, Tempest was supposed to be like the "anti-muta" thing. Obviously it's phased away since then and that's fine.
What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate? Storms will do less damage and they're one of the principle damage dealers against mutas in WoL. What is Protoss' answer to an even faster muta?
I'm guessing "2-base Immortal Timing" was probably not the answer you were looking for.
The muta speed increase is likely going to be an upgrade, so zerg will have a rough time opening up with super speed mutas. Also, all the stargate changes will make stargate openings more common/better.
And that whole immortal time with recall thing, thats also pretty awesome.
but if i don't go stargate opener?
Hold out until you can get three bases to transition into stargate if they invest in Mutas that hard? Hit with agression before the standard muta timing to cripple them and ride that out until the late game?
On December 05 2012 02:27 marvellosity wrote: Apologies if this has been brought up already, but...
I remember when they first announced new units, Tempest was supposed to be like the "anti-muta" thing. Obviously it's phased away since then and that's fine.
What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate? Storms will do less damage and they're one of the principle damage dealers against mutas in WoL. What is Protoss' answer to an even faster muta?
Im a zerg and i dont like that mutas are very useful as long as no phoenix are out, but when phoenix are out, the zerg obv has to shut down his muta play altogether. Why these super hard counters? Blizzard should make it so that more units are acceptable vs most stuff, not really good or really terrible depending on things you might not even be able to scout.
I got an idea just now as i thought about it, the phoenix anti-air is so awful (so easy to use and even looks real ugly the way they autoshoot while flying), i would like it much more if protoss got an anti-air tower in addition to the cannon, which would be the same size and mb cost half the price, and do decent dmg. Keep the phoenix but remove its awful autoshoot while rightclick move command abillity. This way phoenix could still be usefull vs mutalisk but not shut them down altogether, and p could dump overmins into these anti-air towers. This whay p would be able to deal with mutalisk play in an efficient way without relying on phoenix.
Personally what I would like to see is the Swarm Host to be a Morph of the Roach. Right now I hate that and infestation pit can mean either:
1) Infestors 2) Swarm Hosts 3) Or Fast Hive Tech
Each of which have a distinct required response. Roach Warren should mutate into Swarm Warren, which allows the research of the creation of Swarm Host (Swarm Aspect) and has Swarm Host specific upgrades. But, I guess this will probably looked over once the big issues are figured out, like those addressed in DKs post, which I look very forward to.
Now lets just see when they implement this. I have a feeling the "soon" might mean January. Or they just might say they tried it internally and it didn't work.
Im a zerg and i dont like that mutas are very useful as long as no phoenix are out, but when phoenix are out, the zerg obv has to shut down his muta play alltogether. Why these super hard counters?
On December 05 2012 02:27 marvellosity wrote: Apologies if this has been brought up already, but...
I remember when they first announced new units, Tempest was supposed to be like the "anti-muta" thing. Obviously it's phased away since then and that's fine.
What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate? Storms will do less damage and they're one of the principle damage dealers against mutas in WoL. What is Protoss' answer to an even faster muta?
Im a zerg and i dont like that mutas are very useful as long as no phoenix are out, but when phoenix are out, the zerg obv has to shut down his muta play alltogether. Why these super hard counters? Blizzard should make it so that more units are acceptable vs most stuff, not really good or really terrible depening on things you might not even be able to scout.
I got an idea just now as i thought about it, the phoenix anti-air is so awful (so easy to use and even looks real ugly the way they autoshoot while flying), i would like it much more if protoss got an anti-air tower in addition to the cannon, which would be the same size and mb cost half the price, and do decent dmg. Keep the phoenix but remove its awfull autoshoot while rightclick move command abillity. This way phoenix could still be usefull vs mutalisk but not shut them down alltogether, and p could dump overmins into these anti-air towers, and more importantly p would be able to deal with mutalisk play in an efficient way without being forced to open stargate.
stargate opener completely deny mutas. if you open blink you will still be fine. only problem i see is opening robo BUT: recall is the strongest thing toss gets in HOTS. its no more baserace with mutas! he baseraces? well kill 2 bases, recall and defend. recall is so powerful (not many people work with it yet) that i even think it will get nerfed or become an upgrade or less radius so you can only use it in early and early midgame.
Protoss 2. Oracle - pulsar beam would now overlap too much with the new Voidray, so we'd like to change the Oracle to be more of a worker harasser.
New channeled ability: Health and Safety Seminar. Prevents any useful work. Some workers commit suicide.
This was really funny and therefore has no place in TL. I want more whining about balance, the infestor, David Kim, Dustin Browder and how Blizzard just doesn't get it (in that order). Your suggested changes to the infestor were hilarious btw.
Im a zerg and i dont like that mutas are very useful as long as no phoenix are out, but when phoenix are out, the zerg obv has to shut down his muta play alltogether. Why these super hard counters?
Zerg can bring corruptors with mutalisks
Yea, that is also why we are seing all zergs going muta adding a lot of corruptos once the p counters z with phoenix and then keeps harassing with mass muta + corruptors.
Oh w8, that never happens. Its not effecient, and when z has a lot of corruptors out to deal with phoenix the timing window for when mutalisk should have done dmg has somewhat already passed.
My post also was about how p could deal with mutas without relying on phoenix. Im saying i would prefer it if p wouldnt have to rely on phoenix vs muta. Obv there are other ways to deal with it (like blinkstalkers together with cannons), but protosses are saying those methods arent efficient enough.
On December 05 2012 02:27 marvellosity wrote: Apologies if this has been brought up already, but...
I remember when they first announced new units, Tempest was supposed to be like the "anti-muta" thing. Obviously it's phased away since then and that's fine.
What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate? Storms will do less damage and they're one of the principle damage dealers against mutas in WoL. What is Protoss' answer to an even faster muta?
Which top level protoss are having trouble against mutas anymore? Muta builds are used once in a while to mix things up but I can't think of any zergs whose go to build is mutas. If you go mutas all of the time you just lose.
Im a zerg and i dont like that mutas are very useful as long as no phoenix are out, but when phoenix are out, the zerg obv has to shut down his muta play alltogether. Why these super hard counters?
Zerg can bring corruptors with mutalisks
Yea, that is also why we are seing all zergs going muta, then adding a lot of corruptos once the p counters z with phoenix and then the z keeps harassing with mass muta + corruptors.
Oh w8, that never happens. Its not effecient, and when z has a lot of corruptors out to deal with phoenix the timing window for when mutalisk should have done dmg has somewhat already passed.
My post also was about how p could deal with mutas without relying on phoenix. Im saying i would prefer it if p wouldnt have to rely on phoenix vs muta. Obv there are other ways to deal with it (like blinkstalkers together with cannons), but protosses are saying those methods arent efficient enough.
Sen did it agaisnt protoss in GSL all the time. He went directly to spire and used the corruptors as support, even vs stargate openings. This was before the era of the 12-14 minute 200/200 roach push that killed every stargate opener that was worth talking about. After that, mutas have been overshadowed by fungle and the late game death army.
On December 05 2012 02:27 marvellosity wrote: Apologies if this has been brought up already, but...
I remember when they first announced new units, Tempest was supposed to be like the "anti-muta" thing. Obviously it's phased away since then and that's fine.
What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate? Storms will do less damage and they're one of the principle damage dealers against mutas in WoL. What is Protoss' answer to an even faster muta?
Im a zerg and i dont like that mutas are very useful as long as no phoenix are out, but when phoenix are out, the zerg obv has to shut down his muta play altogether. Why these super hard counters? Blizzard should make it so that more units are acceptable vs most stuff, not really good or really terrible depening on things you might not even be able to scout.
I got an idea just now as i thought about it, the phoenix anti-air is so awful (so easy to use and even looks real ugly the way they autoshoot while flying), i would like it much more if protoss got an anti-air tower in addition to the cannon, which would be the same size and mb cost half the price, and do decent dmg. Keep the phoenix but remove its awfull autoshoot while rightclick move command abillity. This way phoenix could still be usefull vs mutalisk but not shut them down alltogether, and p could dump overmins into these anti-air towers, and more importantly p would be able to deal with mutalisk play in an efficient way without being forced to open stargate.
Are you talking about your own experiences or those of pros? Are you asking Blizzard to balance the game around the problems of plat./diamond/masters level zerg? Watch how pros handle it. Mass muta really isn't a viable build at the top levels of play, and thank god that it's not. If you want to deal with a hard phoenix counter you build infestors and fungal the phoenix and kill them with your mutas, or you just transition to tier 3. Thus zerg has a counter to the counter; I think the protoss - zerg dynamic with respect to mutas is pretty well designed.
On December 05 2012 02:27 marvellosity wrote: Apologies if this has been brought up already, but...
I remember when they first announced new units, Tempest was supposed to be like the "anti-muta" thing. Obviously it's phased away since then and that's fine.
What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate? Storms will do less damage and they're one of the principle damage dealers against mutas in WoL. What is Protoss' answer to an even faster muta?
Im a zerg and i dont like that mutas are very useful as long as no phoenix are out, but when phoenix are out, the zerg obv has to shut down his muta play altogether. Why these super hard counters? Blizzard should make it so that more units are acceptable vs most stuff, not really good or really terrible depening on things you might not even be able to scout.
I got an idea just now as i thought about it, the phoenix anti-air is so awful (so easy to use and even looks real ugly the way they autoshoot while flying), i would like it much more if protoss got an anti-air tower in addition to the cannon, which would be the same size and mb cost half the price, and do decent dmg. Keep the phoenix but remove its awfull autoshoot while rightclick move command abillity. This way phoenix could still be usefull vs mutalisk but not shut them down alltogether, and p could dump overmins into these anti-air towers, and more importantly p would be able to deal with mutalisk play in an efficient way without being forced to open stargate.
Are you talking about your own experiences or those of pros? Are you asking Blizzard to balance the game around the problems of plat./diamond/masters level zerg? Watch how pros handle it. Mass muta really isn't a viable build at the top levels of play, and thank god that it's not. If you want to deal with a hard phoenix counter you build infestors and fungal the phoenix and kill them with your mutas, or you just transition to tier 3. Thus zerg has a counter to the counter; I think the protoss - zerg dynamic with respect to mutas is pretty well designed.
"I think the protoss - zerg dynamic with respect to mutas is pretty well designed". I dont think everyone, including some of the very best protosses, agree with you.
"Are you talking about your own experiences or those of pros?". When talking about balance the only level that is relevant is the highest one.
"Mass muta really isn't a viable build at the top levels of play". Mutalisk harassment with a potentiall followup (given the right circumstances) by going into straight brute force mutalisk balls together with lings/banelings on the ground is, in contradiction to what you claim, very viable. If there wasnt a threat of phoenix i would think a lot more zergs would open straight into spire builds more often.
In any case, like i wrote in my post, i dont like the phoenix - muta dynamic.
Im a zerg and i dont like that mutas are very useful as long as no phoenix are out, but when phoenix are out, the zerg obv has to shut down his muta play alltogether. Why these super hard counters?
Zerg can bring corruptors with mutalisks
Yea, that is also why we are seing all zergs going muta, then adding a lot of corruptos once the p counters z with phoenix and then the z keeps harassing with mass muta + corruptors.
Oh w8, that never happens. Its not effecient, and when z has a lot of corruptors out to deal with phoenix the timing window for when mutalisk should have done dmg has somewhat already passed.
My post also was about how p could deal with mutas without relying on phoenix. Im saying i would prefer it if p wouldnt have to rely on phoenix vs muta. Obv there are other ways to deal with it (like blinkstalkers together with cannons), but protosses are saying those methods arent efficient enough.
Sen did it agaisnt protoss in GSL all the time. He went directly to spire and used the corruptors as support, even vs stargate openings. This was before the era of the 12-14 minute 200/200 roach push that killed every stargate opener that was worth talking about. After that, mutas have been overshadowed by fungle and the late game death army.
I know Sen had some good zvp success lately in big evens, i did not see any of the games though. Did he perhaps play mass muta + corruptor in any of his games (given that the p went phoenix)?
Im a zerg and i dont like that mutas are very useful as long as no phoenix are out, but when phoenix are out, the zerg obv has to shut down his muta play alltogether. Why these super hard counters?
Zerg can bring corruptors with mutalisks
Yea, that is also why we are seing all zergs going muta, then adding a lot of corruptos once the p counters z with phoenix and then the z keeps harassing with mass muta + corruptors.
Oh w8, that never happens. Its not effecient, and when z has a lot of corruptors out to deal with phoenix the timing window for when mutalisk should have done dmg has somewhat already passed.
My post also was about how p could deal with mutas without relying on phoenix. Im saying i would prefer it if p wouldnt have to rely on phoenix vs muta. Obv there are other ways to deal with it (like blinkstalkers together with cannons), but protosses are saying those methods arent efficient enough.
Sen did it agaisnt protoss in GSL all the time. He went directly to spire and used the corruptors as support, even vs stargate openings. This was before the era of the 12-14 minute 200/200 roach push that killed every stargate opener that was worth talking about. After that, mutas have been overshadowed by fungle and the late game death army.
I know Sen had some good zvp success lately in big evens, i did not see any of the games though. Did he perhaps play mass muta + corruptor in any of his games (given that the p went phoenix)?
He used them as support for the mutas so they could fall back when the protoss tried to engage with phoenixs and forced horrible trades with the protoss. The game never got to 200/200. It was shockingly effective and he was able to keep lings is reserve for when the protoss moved out. He used it mostly on TalDarim, which is a great map for mutas, but some other maps as well.
On December 05 2012 02:27 marvellosity wrote: Apologies if this has been brought up already, but...
I remember when they first announced new units, Tempest was supposed to be like the "anti-muta" thing. Obviously it's phased away since then and that's fine.
What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate? Storms will do less damage and they're one of the principle damage dealers against mutas in WoL. What is Protoss' answer to an even faster muta?
Im a zerg and i dont like that mutas are very useful as long as no phoenix are out, but when phoenix are out, the zerg obv has to shut down his muta play altogether. Why these super hard counters? Blizzard should make it so that more units are acceptable vs most stuff, not really good or really terrible depening on things you might not even be able to scout.
I got an idea just now as i thought about it, the phoenix anti-air is so awful (so easy to use and even looks real ugly the way they autoshoot while flying), i would like it much more if protoss got an anti-air tower in addition to the cannon, which would be the same size and mb cost half the price, and do decent dmg. Keep the phoenix but remove its awfull autoshoot while rightclick move command abillity. This way phoenix could still be usefull vs mutalisk but not shut them down alltogether, and p could dump overmins into these anti-air towers, and more importantly p would be able to deal with mutalisk play in an efficient way without being forced to open stargate.
Are you talking about your own experiences or those of pros? Are you asking Blizzard to balance the game around the problems of plat./diamond/masters level zerg? Watch how pros handle it. Mass muta really isn't a viable build at the top levels of play, and thank god that it's not. If you want to deal with a hard phoenix counter you build infestors and fungal the phoenix and kill them with your mutas, or you just transition to tier 3. Thus zerg has a counter to the counter; I think the protoss - zerg dynamic with respect to mutas is pretty well designed.
"I think the protoss - zerg dynamic with respect to mutas is pretty well designed". I dont think everyone, including some of the very best protosses, agree with you.
"Are you talking about your own experiences or those of pros?". When talking about balance the only level that is relevant is the highest one.
"Mass muta really isn't a viable build at the top levels of play". Mutalisk harassment with a potentiall followup (given the right circumstances) by going into straight brute force mutalisk balls together with lings/banelings on the ground is, in contradiction to what you claim, very viable. If there wasnt a threat of phoenix i would think a lot more zergs would open straight into spire builds more often.
In any case, like i wrote in my post, i dont like the phoenix - muta dynamic.
Again, which pros are having trouble against this build since we're talking about the highest levels of play? Korean protosses are not struggling against muta at all so why did you write "What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate"? Try doing what they're doing now. Watch Creator or Hero play; they're got it figured out. A little acceleration might empower mutas in HoTS but MSC will give Protoss more options not to have to engage in a base race with mutas. I take everything I just said back: Since you probably can tell, from DK's post alone, exactly what changes will be made to mutas and exactly what impact that will have on the game (and have determined that Protoss will now have no idea how to deal with mutas even though they have figured out how to defend against mutas in WOL even without stargate), I think you should save Blizzard the trouble of making the change and then having to undo it by writing DK a letter explaining how Protoss, even though the build is fairly easily dealt iwth now (unless the protoss is caught completely off guard), will not be able to deal with mutas because of the to be determined acceleration or speed or whatever boost that they might give to mutas.
In all seriousness, zergs can beat protoss going muta ling bane but most of the time Protoss (by Protoss I mean top tier Protoss) can defend that rather easily and I would guess, if someone complied stats, that the build is something like 60-40 at worst Protoss favored, which means the build hardly is a problem from the P prospective. If they do some insane buff then it may become a problem, but it's obviously way too early to tell and it's not currently a problem so why worry about it at all?
On December 05 2012 01:46 SpikeStarcraft wrote: this balance patch convinces me to wait for hots since i dont feel like playing wol in the current state anyhow. where can i get a beta key?
perorder from amazon.de
at least i got mine that way you dont need to buy the game if you dont want to, you can still cancel.
awesome, i didnt know they did that.
just ordered and looking forward to playing the beta for half a year
Not a big fan of combining mech and air upgrades. One of the uniquenesses of mech play is that you committed to it and it was actually a significant investment to go mass air. The transition to air has already been eased by the medic -->> medivac switch combined with Reactors. Combining mech and air upgrades? meh.
On December 05 2012 02:27 marvellosity wrote: Apologies if this has been brought up already, but...
I remember when they first announced new units, Tempest was supposed to be like the "anti-muta" thing. Obviously it's phased away since then and that's fine.
What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate? Storms will do less damage and they're one of the principle damage dealers against mutas in WoL. What is Protoss' answer to an even faster muta?
Im a zerg and i dont like that mutas are very useful as long as no phoenix are out, but when phoenix are out, the zerg obv has to shut down his muta play altogether. Why these super hard counters? Blizzard should make it so that more units are acceptable vs most stuff, not really good or really terrible depening on things you might not even be able to scout.
I got an idea just now as i thought about it, the phoenix anti-air is so awful (so easy to use and even looks real ugly the way they autoshoot while flying), i would like it much more if protoss got an anti-air tower in addition to the cannon, which would be the same size and mb cost half the price, and do decent dmg. Keep the phoenix but remove its awfull autoshoot while rightclick move command abillity. This way phoenix could still be usefull vs mutalisk but not shut them down alltogether, and p could dump overmins into these anti-air towers, and more importantly p would be able to deal with mutalisk play in an efficient way without being forced to open stargate.
Are you talking about your own experiences or those of pros? Are you asking Blizzard to balance the game around the problems of plat./diamond/masters level zerg? Watch how pros handle it. Mass muta really isn't a viable build at the top levels of play, and thank god that it's not. If you want to deal with a hard phoenix counter you build infestors and fungal the phoenix and kill them with your mutas, or you just transition to tier 3. Thus zerg has a counter to the counter; I think the protoss - zerg dynamic with respect to mutas is pretty well designed.
"I think the protoss - zerg dynamic with respect to mutas is pretty well designed". I dont think everyone, including some of the very best protosses, agree with you.
"Are you talking about your own experiences or those of pros?". When talking about balance the only level that is relevant is the highest one.
"Mass muta really isn't a viable build at the top levels of play". Mutalisk harassment with a potentiall followup (given the right circumstances) by going into straight brute force mutalisk balls together with lings/banelings on the ground is, in contradiction to what you claim, very viable. If there wasnt a threat of phoenix i would think a lot more zergs would open straight into spire builds more often.
In any case, like i wrote in my post, i dont like the phoenix - muta dynamic.
Again, which pros are having trouble against this build since we're talking about the highest levels of play? Korean protosses are not struggling against muta at all so why did you write "What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate"? Try doing what they're doing now. Watch Creator or Hero play; they're got it figured out. A little acceleration might empower mutas in HoTS but MSC will give Protoss more options not to have to engage in a base race with mutas. I take everything I just said back: Since you probably can tell, from DK's post alone, exactly what changes will be made to mutas and exactly what impact that will have on the game (and have determined that Protoss will now have no idea how to deal with mutas even though they have figured out how to defend against mutas in WOL even without stargate), I think you should save Blizzard the trouble of making the change and then having to undo it by writing DK a letter explaining how Protoss, even though the build is fairly easily dealt iwth now (unless the protoss is caught completely off guard), will not be able to deal with mutas because of the to be determined acceleration or speed or whatever boost that they might give to mutas.
In all seriousness, zergs can beat protoss going muta ling bane but most of the time Protoss (by Protoss I mean top tier Protoss) can defend that rather easily and I would guess, if someone complied stats, that the build is something like 60-40 at worst Protoss favored, which means the build hardly is a problem from the P prospective. If they do some insane buff then it may become a problem, but it's obviously way too early to tell and it's not currently a problem so why worry about it at all?
Are you for real? I have not written "What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate", that is some other guy. I play zerg and i think mutalisk are really strong given the right circumstances in ZvP. Read my posts.
What i am saying is, i would prefer if the consequences by choosing to go mutalisk were more even, i think the mutalisk choice is really strong in certain situations but way worse in other situations. The game has some hard counters i think we are all very aware of this fact by now. I would like to see the game go slightly in the different direciton, less hard counters, and i dont like the phoenix - muta dynamic.
On December 05 2012 03:51 Falling wrote: Not a big fan of combining mech and air upgrades. One of the uniquenesses of mech play is that you committed to it and it was actually a significant investment to go mass air. The transition to air has already been eased by the medic -->> medivac switch combined with Reactors. Combining mech and air upgrades? meh.
It can be sami-combined like Protoss upgrades (shared shields, but separate weapons and armors)
Something like shared weapon upgrade, but separate Armor upgrades.
Protoss is pretty horrid against mutas, especially compared to the other races. Mutas beat pure stalker, and that's not even as strong as the muta/baneling composition that relies on having sentries that you aren't allowed to build up. If storm is hurting you, you really need to check your mouse. Maybe try changing the batteries or something. If storm is still hurting your mutas after a speed increase, maybe get your keyboard checked. Maybe unplugged.
A phoenix with a range upgrade has the same range as a corrutper. Yeah, it's incredibly freaking surprising that a muta, corrupter composition would fare well against anything phoenix. About as surprising as seeing 10 colossi against a handful of hydras. It's always bewildering.
Honestly, I don't even really have a problem with mutas. I just think the game is weird. It's a game full of hard counters: immortals versus roach; colossi against hydras; archons versus lings, and etc, etc. But, when it comes to mutas, there is no hard counter. If someone can make 1 corrupter with their initial muta flock, phoenixes are not a hard counter. It's very weird. They gave the phoenixes a range upgrade for a reason. There's a reason no one gets it, too. There's a reason they initially designed the tempest to deal with mutas. The discrepancy between hard counters and soft counters is weird.
As for HotS, I don't know why players are using their mothershipcore with their army. If you can't snipe that, then your army is looking hopeless to begin with. And, if they do recall, well I guess they aren't attacking you. Enjoy your expansions. It seems a lot more sensible to use the mothership core's purifier ability. It's like a freaking super cannon that can't be killed. Now that helps out against mutas. If it weren't for that, and that alone, it would be asinine to consider any kinda buff to the muta.
Finally a patch to look forward to. Terran getting mech+air upgrades combined is huge for mech play. Hopefully they remove the tech lab for barracks for an academy. Barracks are already the slowest building and slowest producing tier 1 due to tech labs being a major nuisance. It'd save space, time and money to allow better late game bio production. The reactor should be marines only due to balance reasons.
On December 05 2012 02:27 marvellosity wrote: Apologies if this has been brought up already, but...
I remember when they first announced new units, Tempest was supposed to be like the "anti-muta" thing. Obviously it's phased away since then and that's fine.
What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate? Storms will do less damage and they're one of the principle damage dealers against mutas in WoL. What is Protoss' answer to an even faster muta?
Im a zerg and i dont like that mutas are very useful as long as no phoenix are out, but when phoenix are out, the zerg obv has to shut down his muta play altogether. Why these super hard counters? Blizzard should make it so that more units are acceptable vs most stuff, not really good or really terrible depening on things you might not even be able to scout.
I got an idea just now as i thought about it, the phoenix anti-air is so awful (so easy to use and even looks real ugly the way they autoshoot while flying), i would like it much more if protoss got an anti-air tower in addition to the cannon, which would be the same size and mb cost half the price, and do decent dmg. Keep the phoenix but remove its awfull autoshoot while rightclick move command abillity. This way phoenix could still be usefull vs mutalisk but not shut them down alltogether, and p could dump overmins into these anti-air towers, and more importantly p would be able to deal with mutalisk play in an efficient way without being forced to open stargate.
Are you talking about your own experiences or those of pros? Are you asking Blizzard to balance the game around the problems of plat./diamond/masters level zerg? Watch how pros handle it. Mass muta really isn't a viable build at the top levels of play, and thank god that it's not. If you want to deal with a hard phoenix counter you build infestors and fungal the phoenix and kill them with your mutas, or you just transition to tier 3. Thus zerg has a counter to the counter; I think the protoss - zerg dynamic with respect to mutas is pretty well designed.
"I think the protoss - zerg dynamic with respect to mutas is pretty well designed". I dont think everyone, including some of the very best protosses, agree with you.
"Are you talking about your own experiences or those of pros?". When talking about balance the only level that is relevant is the highest one.
"Mass muta really isn't a viable build at the top levels of play". Mutalisk harassment with a potentiall followup (given the right circumstances) by going into straight brute force mutalisk balls together with lings/banelings on the ground is, in contradiction to what you claim, very viable. If there wasnt a threat of phoenix i would think a lot more zergs would open straight into spire builds more often.
In any case, like i wrote in my post, i dont like the phoenix - muta dynamic.
Again, which pros are having trouble against this build since we're talking about the highest levels of play? Korean protosses are not struggling against muta at all so why did you write "What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate"? Try doing what they're doing now. Watch Creator or Hero play; they're got it figured out. A little acceleration might empower mutas in HoTS but MSC will give Protoss more options not to have to engage in a base race with mutas. I take everything I just said back: Since you probably can tell, from DK's post alone, exactly what changes will be made to mutas and exactly what impact that will have on the game (and have determined that Protoss will now have no idea how to deal with mutas even though they have figured out how to defend against mutas in WOL even without stargate), I think you should save Blizzard the trouble of making the change and then having to undo it by writing DK a letter explaining how Protoss, even though the build is fairly easily dealt iwth now (unless the protoss is caught completely off guard), will not be able to deal with mutas because of the to be determined acceleration or speed or whatever boost that they might give to mutas.
In all seriousness, zergs can beat protoss going muta ling bane but most of the time Protoss (by Protoss I mean top tier Protoss) can defend that rather easily and I would guess, if someone complied stats, that the build is something like 60-40 at worst Protoss favored, which means the build hardly is a problem from the P prospective. If they do some insane buff then it may become a problem, but it's obviously way too early to tell and it's not currently a problem so why worry about it at all?
Are you for real? I have not written "What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate", that is some other guy. I play zerg and i think mutalisk are really strong given the right circumstances in ZvP. Read my posts.
What i am saying is, i would prefer if the consequences by choosing to go mutalisk were more even, i think the mutalisk choice is really strong in certain situations but way worse in other situations. The game has some hard counters i think we are all very aware of this fact by now. I would like to see the game go slightly in the different direciton, less hard counters, and i dont like the phoenix - muta dynamic.
Sorry, it was the other guy I was quoting not you. Apologies. Back to your post then: Who cares what your expierences are? Why even mention them since your experiences are irrelevant to balance discussions? Also, when you say "more even", for whom are you saying it should be more even? At the pro level it seems like both sides have pretty good options and the game is back and forth if zerg goes mutas, with Protoss being favored because mutas it turns out aren't that good. If you're really good at defending and with blink stalkers and army positioning you should win if you're protoss once you're maxed. If you use mutas to transition into blord infestor efficiently and can inflict at least some damage because the Protoss was caught off guard you have a chance to win as zerg. It doesn't seem like anything is broken here. You keep saying that phoenix hard counter mutas but that doesn't mean you can't go mutas if they build phoenixes since you can still build infestors to stop the phoenixes, something Stephano, e.g., is good at doing. It's not easy to do, but why should it be?
So I'm confused by your point since mutas are most certainly not an auto win for zerg. Also just because a build is strong in certain instances doesn't mean it's a problem. DT builds are very strong when your opponent does not have detection. No one is fretting about DT usage. Protoss have more than one option to counter mutas and Zerg can fight back with mutas (if for some ungodly reason a zerg wants to go mutas in zvp) so long as some infestors join the fight. (Corruptors are an option too but Zerg almost always lose when I see them go corruptors to fight the phoenix.) So I don't see where the problem lies except that you stopped watching pro games 6 to 9 months ago when mutas were still a thing in zvp and you think it may be a problem in HoTS.
I hate to pick on you but a preposterous amount of discussion in these forums is substantially off base and helps nothing. If there is one thing no one needs to worry about now it's mutas in zvp. Also I would guess that protoss would take a slight resurgence in muta usage over more blord infestor deathball play.
5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak. 6. Buff mech in general - we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory.
I love you kim.
These seem like broad changes, I cannot fricking wait.
Hydras don't need a damage or HP buff guys... Blizzard is trying to design them to synergize with Viper's blinding cloud and abduct... Trying to think of Hydras as a standalone core attacking unit is not the intentions of Blizzard. Its with Vipers that Hydras will become a strong core unit for the Zerg. That being said, tier 3 will basically still be a requirement for Hydras to be viable damage dealers.
On December 05 2012 02:27 marvellosity wrote: Apologies if this has been brought up already, but...
I remember when they first announced new units, Tempest was supposed to be like the "anti-muta" thing. Obviously it's phased away since then and that's fine.
What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate? Storms will do less damage and they're one of the principle damage dealers against mutas in WoL. What is Protoss' answer to an even faster muta?
Im a zerg and i dont like that mutas are very useful as long as no phoenix are out, but when phoenix are out, the zerg obv has to shut down his muta play alltogether. Why these super hard counters? Blizzard should make it so that more units are acceptable vs most stuff, not really good or really terrible depening on things you might not even be able to scout.
I got an idea just now as i thought about it, the phoenix anti-air is so awful (so easy to use and even looks real ugly the way they autoshoot while flying), i would like it much more if protoss got an anti-air tower in addition to the cannon, which would be the same size and mb cost half the price, and do decent dmg. Keep the phoenix but remove its awfull autoshoot while rightclick move command abillity. This way phoenix could still be usefull vs mutalisk but not shut them down alltogether, and p could dump overmins into these anti-air towers, and more importantly p would be able to deal with mutalisk play in an efficient way without being forced to open stargate.
stargate opener completely deny mutas. if you open blink you will still be fine. only problem i see is opening robo BUT: recall is the strongest thing toss gets in HOTS. its no more baserace with mutas! he baseraces? well kill 2 bases, recall and defend. recall is so powerful (not many people work with it yet) that i even think it will get nerfed or become an upgrade or less radius so you can only use it in early and early midgame.
I just hate that its on 1 unit. I makes it so that its a coin flip. Does Zerg snipe the MSC? A better scenario would be a support spell caster who has to choose between recall, thus forcing it to base defend, or support the offence. Much like the BW Recall. But, yeah base races in PvZ are stupid, and the only thing stoping it in BW was the Cosair.
On December 05 2012 02:27 marvellosity wrote: Apologies if this has been brought up already, but...
I remember when they first announced new units, Tempest was supposed to be like the "anti-muta" thing. Obviously it's phased away since then and that's fine.
What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate? Storms will do less damage and they're one of the principle damage dealers against mutas in WoL. What is Protoss' answer to an even faster muta?
I'm guessing "2-base Immortal Timing" was probably not the answer you were looking for.
Not quite
I'm genuinely curious, because in WoL the "answer" is blink stalkers and storm, broadly speaking. Stalkers can scoot and shoot and blink to catch up, obviously that's negated by speed/accel boost. Ditto storm doing markedly less damage. I'm missing something somewhere ^^
On December 05 2012 05:13 sagefreke wrote: Hydras don't need a damage or HP buff guys... Blizzard is trying to design them to synergize with Viper's blinding cloud and abduct... Trying to think of Hydras as a standalone core attacking unit is not the intentions of Blizzard. Its with Vipers that Hydras will become a strong core unit for the Zerg. That being said, tier 3 will basically still be a requirement for Hydras to be viable damage dealers.
+1. Yep Hydra/Roach works vs Mech now with good Viper usage. I've used them successfully to back-up Swarm Hosts too. Run them in while the roaches are tanking damage.
Increased speed at Lair is a good one... we can finally see some mid-game strategies with Hydras. But yea I think with the new units in HOTS Hydras become useful without a damage or HP buff.
On December 05 2012 04:59 KimJongChill wrote: seems like zerg is just getting worse.
Apparently you have not seen infestor viper. Viper is pretty good. And by pretty good I mean: blatantly imbalanced* as it f's up the AI in the game so bad that you can't control your own units if you choose to engage in an area a viper has used a spell. It's actually laughably broken.
That said, hopefully these changes help some of the issues present. I can say for sure some do look quite good. On the other hand, some seem to still be dancing around some blatant issues in HotS... :/
On December 04 2012 03:12 spbelky wrote: O Dayvie, such good intentions. But does he have the tools and knowledge to pull it off?
I just laughed at this
Very promising changed indeed, I think some more radical stuff is what the game needs. Just let it happen and balance from there. It should spice up things a bit and should lead to a new and possibly better metagame.
On December 05 2012 02:27 marvellosity wrote: Apologies if this has been brought up already, but...
I remember when they first announced new units, Tempest was supposed to be like the "anti-muta" thing. Obviously it's phased away since then and that's fine.
What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate? Storms will do less damage and they're one of the principle damage dealers against mutas in WoL. What is Protoss' answer to an even faster muta?
Im a zerg and i dont like that mutas are very useful as long as no phoenix are out, but when phoenix are out, the zerg obv has to shut down his muta play altogether. Why these super hard counters? Blizzard should make it so that more units are acceptable vs most stuff, not really good or really terrible depening on things you might not even be able to scout.
I got an idea just now as i thought about it, the phoenix anti-air is so awful (so easy to use and even looks real ugly the way they autoshoot while flying), i would like it much more if protoss got an anti-air tower in addition to the cannon, which would be the same size and mb cost half the price, and do decent dmg. Keep the phoenix but remove its awfull autoshoot while rightclick move command abillity. This way phoenix could still be usefull vs mutalisk but not shut them down alltogether, and p could dump overmins into these anti-air towers, and more importantly p would be able to deal with mutalisk play in an efficient way without being forced to open stargate.
Are you talking about your own experiences or those of pros? Are you asking Blizzard to balance the game around the problems of plat./diamond/masters level zerg? Watch how pros handle it. Mass muta really isn't a viable build at the top levels of play, and thank god that it's not. If you want to deal with a hard phoenix counter you build infestors and fungal the phoenix and kill them with your mutas, or you just transition to tier 3. Thus zerg has a counter to the counter; I think the protoss - zerg dynamic with respect to mutas is pretty well designed.
"I think the protoss - zerg dynamic with respect to mutas is pretty well designed". I dont think everyone, including some of the very best protosses, agree with you.
"Are you talking about your own experiences or those of pros?". When talking about balance the only level that is relevant is the highest one.
"Mass muta really isn't a viable build at the top levels of play". Mutalisk harassment with a potentiall followup (given the right circumstances) by going into straight brute force mutalisk balls together with lings/banelings on the ground is, in contradiction to what you claim, very viable. If there wasnt a threat of phoenix i would think a lot more zergs would open straight into spire builds more often.
In any case, like i wrote in my post, i dont like the phoenix - muta dynamic.
Again, which pros are having trouble against this build since we're talking about the highest levels of play? Korean protosses are not struggling against muta at all so why did you write "What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate"? Try doing what they're doing now. Watch Creator or Hero play; they're got it figured out. A little acceleration might empower mutas in HoTS but MSC will give Protoss more options not to have to engage in a base race with mutas. I take everything I just said back: Since you probably can tell, from DK's post alone, exactly what changes will be made to mutas and exactly what impact that will have on the game (and have determined that Protoss will now have no idea how to deal with mutas even though they have figured out how to defend against mutas in WOL even without stargate), I think you should save Blizzard the trouble of making the change and then having to undo it by writing DK a letter explaining how Protoss, even though the build is fairly easily dealt iwth now (unless the protoss is caught completely off guard), will not be able to deal with mutas because of the to be determined acceleration or speed or whatever boost that they might give to mutas.
In all seriousness, zergs can beat protoss going muta ling bane but most of the time Protoss (by Protoss I mean top tier Protoss) can defend that rather easily and I would guess, if someone complied stats, that the build is something like 60-40 at worst Protoss favored, which means the build hardly is a problem from the P prospective. If they do some insane buff then it may become a problem, but it's obviously way too early to tell and it's not currently a problem so why worry about it at all?
Are you for real? I have not written "What are Protoss supposed to do against mutalisks in HotS if they get speedier/better acceleration and toss didn't open stargate", that is some other guy. I play zerg and i think mutalisk are really strong given the right circumstances in ZvP. Read my posts.
What i am saying is, i would prefer if the consequences by choosing to go mutalisk were more even, i think the mutalisk choice is really strong in certain situations but way worse in other situations. The game has some hard counters i think we are all very aware of this fact by now. I would like to see the game go slightly in the different direciton, less hard counters, and i dont like the phoenix - muta dynamic.
Sorry, it was the other guy I was quoting not you. Apologies. Back to your post then: Who cares what your expierences are? Why even mention them since your experiences are irrelevant to balance discussions? Also, when you say "more even", for whom are you saying it should be more even? At the pro level it seems like both sides have pretty good options and the game is back and forth if zerg goes mutas, with Protoss being favored because mutas it turns out aren't that good. If you're really good at defending and with blink stalkers and army positioning you should win if you're protoss once you're maxed. If you use mutas to transition into blord infestor efficiently and can inflict at least some damage because the Protoss was caught off guard you have a chance to win as zerg. It doesn't seem like anything is broken here. You keep saying that phoenix hard counter mutas but that doesn't mean you can't go mutas if they build phoenixes since you can still build infestors to stop the phoenixes, something Stephano, e.g., is good at doing. It's not easy to do, but why should it be?
So I'm confused by your point since mutas are most certainly not an auto win for zerg. Also just because a build is strong in certain instances doesn't mean it's a problem. DT builds are very strong when your opponent does not have detection. No one is fretting about DT usage. Protoss have more than one option to counter mutas and Zerg can fight back with mutas (if for some ungodly reason a zerg wants to go mutas in zvp) so long as some infestors join the fight. (Corruptors are an option too but Zerg almost always lose when I see them go corruptors to fight the phoenix.) So I don't see where the problem lies except that you stopped watching pro games 6 to 9 months ago when mutas were still a thing in zvp and you think it may be a problem in HoTS.
I hate to pick on you but a preposterous amount of discussion in these forums is substantially off base and helps nothing. If there is one thing no one needs to worry about now it's mutas in zvp. Also I would guess that protoss would take a slight resurgence in muta usage over more blord infestor deathball play.
I have not said that there is a balance issue regarding mutas or phoenix, and i have not said that my reasoning is based solely on my own experiences. I have only said that i think its too big a difference in how the muta play turns out depending on if p plays phoenix or not. I dont like hard counters in general and phoenix vs muta might just be the biggest hard counter in the game when having tech patterns and resources etc in mind. If a zerg makes 15 mutas thats a pretty big investment/commitment, and 5-6 phoenix can pretty much deny those mutas from being useful during the timing window they need to be useful. The zerg can in that situation fall back on infestors or some other anti-air yes, but i simply dont like how the mutas all of a sudden go from a big threat to nothing and how the zerg with intentions of being agressive now have to be passive with his mutas. Hard counters doesnt encourage micro, yet the game can obv still be perfectly balanced no matter how many hard counters there are in a match up.
The ZvP matchup is pretty balanced (according to the latest statisticsis and given this infestor nerf) and things are pretty fine indeed, i have not claimed anything else. And i have not argued for any change to mutas, i feel like you are a bit off in understanding what ive been talking about. If i am to wish for my optimal game though, it would be a game with less hard counters and less booring easy micro units the way phoenix right move click autoattack works. Surely you can think off certain aspects of the game that would be better (or just more fun) if more micro/less gambling were involved? To sum up, i dont like gambling and hard counters. If p got some other effective alternative to deal with mutas and phoenix still were able to deal with mutas, but not as well as they do right now, i would prefer that, like i stated in my first post.
On December 05 2012 03:51 Falling wrote: Not a big fan of combining mech and air upgrades. One of the uniquenesses of mech play is that you committed to it and it was actually a significant investment to go mass air. The transition to air has already been eased by the medic -->> medivac switch combined with Reactors. Combining mech and air upgrades? meh.
I think the main reasoning behind it is the viking is pretty much mechs anti air and since oftentimes you need to get attack and plating on mech first, then your vikings just get destroyed by their air they've already upgraded or don't do enough damage to help you against whatever comes at you.
I like these changes so far. I think HotS will be a lot more than people have been suspecting. It may not be radically different, but I'm beginning to like SC2 a lot more just watching it. There are more options, Protoss is really looking mighty again instead of just dominating at lategame, and the game simply looks more complete.
On December 05 2012 03:51 Falling wrote: Not a big fan of combining mech and air upgrades. One of the uniquenesses of mech play is that you committed to it and it was actually a significant investment to go mass air. The transition to air has already been eased by the medic -->> medivac switch combined with Reactors. Combining mech and air upgrades? meh.
I think it works well with the fact that Mech Anti Air is awful. And the fact that Terran has the most necessary upgrades by far (Protoss has shields to upgrade but can pretty much just play on the ground)
anyone think that with the addition of blinding cloud, fungal growth can be changed to deal no damage and have a duration of eight seconds like it used to except instead of rooting it slowed? they could also play with making it castable while burrowed.
DTs late game isn't even that bad in this current state, it's not used enough though. But if they were to just simply buff DT in ANY way without nerfing it in another, then the unit would just make for even more bad games. They should be able to blink around (like stalker), but only have 5-10 seconds of cloak on a CD, that way, you can still do tons of damage, but it isn't an auto-win assuming they had JUST used mules and don't have a turret up. It isn't a terran's fault for not being able to scout what the protoss is doing. If a scan misses the twilight/DT shrine, it is practically wasted, which is a big deal since mules are what keep terran economy up with P and Z. Not to mention that DTs already REQUIRE the a scan (1 less mule) just to be seen =/
On December 05 2012 07:47 syroz wrote: Warp ability can be fun for DT, late game (unlockable in a tiers 3 building). When will this amazing patch be released?
On December 05 2012 07:51 Blargh wrote: DTs late game isn't even that bad in this current state, it's not used enough though. But if they were to just simply buff DT in ANY way without nerfing it in another, then the unit would just make for even more bad games. They should be able to blink around (like stalker), but only have 5-10 seconds of cloak on a CD, that way, you can still do tons of damage, but it isn't an auto-win assuming they had JUST used mules and don't have a turret up. It isn't a terran's fault for not being able to scout what the protoss is doing. If a scan misses the twilight/DT shrine, it is practically wasted, which is a big deal since mules are what keep terran economy up with P and Z. Not to mention that DTs already REQUIRE the a scan (1 less mule) just to be seen =/
I think it should be an autowin if the terran is cached off-guad. Like it is now with cloak banshee if the toss just used the msc to recall and dont have energy to detect the banshee.
On December 05 2012 07:51 Blargh wrote: DTs late game isn't even that bad in this current state, it's not used enough though. But if they were to just simply buff DT in ANY way without nerfing it in another, then the unit would just make for even more bad games. They should be able to blink around (like stalker), but only have 5-10 seconds of cloak on a CD, that way, you can still do tons of damage, but it isn't an auto-win assuming they had JUST used mules and don't have a turret up. It isn't a terran's fault for not being able to scout what the protoss is doing. If a scan misses the twilight/DT shrine, it is practically wasted, which is a big deal since mules are what keep terran economy up with P and Z. Not to mention that DTs already REQUIRE the a scan (1 less mule) just to be seen =/
however, at high levels of play, seeing the dark shrine isnt the only way of suspecting DTs. If you know your opponent is missing some sentries or tech, making a turret for 100/0 isn't the biggest investment. Or save a scan. Added to that you also get the advantage of beeing able to spot DTs without detection.
I agree however that DTs cant be made much stronger in the lategame, they are fairly strong already. Adding blink would be complete overkill and even with a 5 sec Cd cloak cooldown, Dts would be completely imbalanced
On December 05 2012 07:51 Blargh wrote: DTs late game isn't even that bad in this current state, it's not used enough though. But if they were to just simply buff DT in ANY way without nerfing it in another, then the unit would just make for even more bad games. They should be able to blink around (like stalker), but only have 5-10 seconds of cloak on a CD, that way, you can still do tons of damage, but it isn't an auto-win assuming they had JUST used mules and don't have a turret up. It isn't a terran's fault for not being able to scout what the protoss is doing. If a scan misses the twilight/DT shrine, it is practically wasted, which is a big deal since mules are what keep terran economy up with P and Z. Not to mention that DTs already REQUIRE the a scan (1 less mule) just to be seen =/
however, at high levels of play, seeing the dark shrine isnt the only way of suspecting DTs. If you know your opponent is missing some sentries or tech, making a turret for 100/0 isn't the biggest investment. Or save a scan. Added to that you also get the advantage of beeing able to spot DTs without detection.
I agree however that DTs cant be made much stronger in the lategame, they are fairly strong already. Adding blink would be complete overkill and even with a 5 sec Cd cloak cooldown, Dts would be completely imbalanced
Lategame speed boost, adds variety but doesn't break anything. Give the DT the speed boost that medivacs have, would be awesome.
LOL man mutas are already OP in WOL toss shouldnt remove the vortex or the mothership will be completely useless..... Bio ball is already OP as it is Terran Thors own almost every zerg unit 1 widow mines owns a ton of banes...
On December 05 2012 11:43 aka_star wrote: My number 1 request is to Fix death ball play please!
lol thats funny because fixing death ball you should be able to fix it yourself by constantly on the aggression side so you minimize their army. deathball only occurs when you let them get a deathball and 100% of the time if they have a huge deathball you have one as well just saying
For the last time- a deathball isn't just having a lot of units. The deathball is when you have all your units in one place. As opposed to, say, having 1/3 of your army defending your natural, 1/3 of your army spread over the map covering ramps and positions of interest, and 1/3 of your army attacking an enemy base.
Blizzard needs to create incentives to split your forces and gain combat power from doing so. Otherwise, if you split your army you are asking to get defeated in detail by an opponent's deathball. Which will crush each piece of your forces with minimal casualties.
On December 05 2012 11:58 ledarsi wrote: For the last time- a deathball isn't just having a lot of units. The deathball is when you have all your units in one place. As opposed to, say, having 1/3 of your army defending your natural, 1/3 of your army spread over the map covering ramps and positions of interest, and 1/3 of your army attacking an enemy base.
Blizzard needs to create incentives to split your forces and gain combat power from doing so. Otherwise, if you split your army you are asking to get defeated in detail by an opponent's deathball. Which will crush each piece of your forces with minimal casualties.
100% agreed! Deathball annoying people is a combination of a number basic factors. Not sure if you've read my 'design philosophy' thread which deals with the Blizzard/community interaction. It's WHY they make design decisions that are bad, despite knowing that, for example we don't tend to like deathballs.
Why people don't like deathballs 1. Terrible, terrible damage at a base level. 2. The feeling that a guy who is deathballing you isn't working as hard to get tangible benefits. 3. The feeling that your race is balanced around deathballs, so you don't get benefits from say, micro. 4. Deathball play being too effective so that other styles are ignored.
You have to address deathballs on these terms, otherwise you cannot improve the game. Simply nerfing the units will not do this, you have to think laterally sometimes.
How I would approach deathballs, with reference to Protoss vs Terran to address EVERYONE's concerns 1. Wouldn't touch the general concept because I haven't figured out how/Blizz apparently like it 2. Make the Protoss deathball harder to control, but not weaker if it is well controlled. This will remove a small amount of T frustration, he'll see the difference between a Protoss who has good control and positioning and a Protoss who is bad at those aspects. 3. Protoss players get rewarded for good micro, so the Protoss player doesn't feel as limited. 4. Protoss have more microable base units, so that multipronged, non-deathball styles have an actual benefit to employ, especially in the hands of a Code S Protoss.
On December 05 2012 12:03 DaNkS wrote: lol well whos fault is that? if you cant regroup your units? I think that is called catching your army out of position
Read my post, I think me and led are somewhat talking about the same thing. It's not a matter of 'fault' when we're talking about deathballs, but a problem in design philosophy and how it's being employed.
Deathballs are a product of forces increasing in strength exponentially as the number of local units increases. Whether this is Colossus' reliable area of effect dps effectively protecting the Colossi from being killed, or Broodlords creating free units that allow broodlord armies to win battles against smaller armies with zero, or at least minimal, losses.
Fixing deathballs is really not that complicated. The problem is, Blizzard secretly likes deathballs. They claim to dislike how it plays, however they deliberately make changes to try and encourage players to do things that inevitably lead to deathballs. Such as "we don't want players making lots of reapers for harass" and "we don't want players to make lots of tanks and defend." Or, my favorite "unit X counters unit Y. If the enemy is making Y, then you should just make X, and then you will win!"
For starters, Blizzard seems to think big units, with higher supply costs, are "cool." They are not- they are boring, there are fewer pieces on the board, and they encourage deathballs. Battles between small units have fewer deathball problems. For example, zerglings, marines, or any other inexpensive unit with little combat power that dies easily. Having a tremendously large force of these units is less advantageous than having a smaller presence in multiple locations. Not so for big units like Colossi and Thors. A big enough army of big units will crush smaller armies with minimal casualties, as the threshold required for them to lose a single unit is much higher. Consequently, the supply costs of lots of units should be lowered, with their power lowered to match. This means 1 supply marauders, roaches, hydras, etc. And 2 supply tanks, swarm hosts, etc. as well as 4 supply ultralisks, perhaps thors, colossi, etc., with stats adjusted to suit. More actual units will create a bigger incentive to split your forces.
Secondly, powerful positional units and abilities. Spells like Dark Swarm discourage deathballs because a smaller army which has access to such an ability can hold off, or even defeat, a much larger army. These types of spells exist in SC2, but are much, much weaker; i.e. Guardian Shield and Point Defense Drone. These spells don't have the raw power needed to change the landscape of the battlefield. You can't position a few tanks and a PDD the way you can put a few lurkers and a dark swarm down to hold a position in BW. In SC2, having a few units out on their own is just asking to get them killed for nothing.
And lastly, less deterministic combat. This is a big can of worms, but essentially it boils down to how predictable is a given battle? How much can player micro, positioning, use of abilities, etc. actually change the outcome of a fight? If the fight is very deterministic (largely about composition only), as SC2 is presently, players have no incentive to split their armies. In fact, the bigger army has a large advantage by default. However if units become much more effective when individual, skilled attention is paid to them, then a player who is confident in their skills will deliberately split their forces into multiple, smaller groups and try to eke out extra advantage from each. Even if they are engaging a larger army, they will still perform better overall than if they just balled up and threw their forces into battle if you add together the multiple, smaller engagements.
edit: One more thought. Back to my point above about how Blizzard secretly likes deathballs- their fixation on unit counters is a massive contributor. If you just get enough of a counter unit in a given location, you can almost guarantee a win in a fight. It is important to note that the absolute amount of the counter unit is the important metric- you can have lots of other units as well and still win that fight due to the presence of that counter unit. Logically, the best way to win any fight is to get nicely rounded composition-blob of units in one place and smash them into your opponent's blob, and rely on your composition to win the fight, with micro helping a little. It needs to be a legitimate thing to tell a new player when they say "how do I beat X" you should just be able to say "Learn to micro your units better. You don't need a different composition." The idea that unit X counters unit Y leads to deathballs. If you can have unit Y and still beat unit X because of superior micro, that counteracts deathballs substantially.
On December 05 2012 12:32 ledarsi wrote: It appears DakNkS is trolling, if I had to guess.
Deathballs are a product of forces increasing in strength exponentially as the number of local units increases. Whether this is Colossus' reliable area of effect dps effectively protecting the Colossi from being killed, or Broodlords creating free units that allow broodlord armies to win battles against smaller armies with zero, or at least minimal, losses.
Fixing deathballs is really not that complicated. The problem is, Blizzard secretly likes deathballs. They claim to dislike how it plays, however they deliberately make changes to try and encourage players to do things that inevitably lead to deathballs. Such as "we don't want players making lots of reapers for harass" and "we don't want players to make lots of tanks and defend."
For starters, Blizzard seems to think big units, with higher supply costs, are "cool." They are not- they are boring, there are fewer pieces on the board, and they encourage deathballs. Battles between small units have fewer deathball problems. For example, zerglings, marines, or any other inexpensive unit with little combat power that dies easily. Having a tremendously large force of these units is less advantageous than having a smaller presence in multiple locations. Not so for big units like Colossi and Thors. A big enough army of big units will crush smaller armies with minimal casualties, as the threshold required for them to lose a single unit is much higher. Consequently, the supply costs of lots of units should be lowered, with their power lowered to match. This means 1 supply marauders, roaches, hydras, etc. And 2 supply tanks, swarm hosts, etc. as well as 4 supply ultralisks, perhaps thors, colossi, etc., with stats adjusted to suit. More actual units will create a bigger incentive to split your forces.
Secondly, powerful positional units and abilities. Spells like Dark Swarm discourage deathballs because a smaller army which has access to such an ability can hold off, or even defeat, a much larger army. These types of spells exist in SC2, but are much, much weaker; i.e. Guardian Shield and Point Defense Drone. These spells don't have the raw power needed to change the landscape of the battlefield. You can't position a few tanks and a PDD the way you can put a few lurkers and a dark swarm down to hold a position in BW. In SC2, having a few units out on their own is just asking to get them killed for nothing.
And lastly, less deterministic combat. This is a big can of worms, but essentially it boils down to how predictable is a given battle? How much can player micro, positioning, use of abilities, etc. actually change the outcome of a fight? If the fight is very deterministic (largely about composition only), as SC2 is presently, players have no incentive to split their armies. In fact, the bigger army has a large advantage by default. However if units become much more effective when individual, skilled attention is paid to them, then a player who is confident in their skills will deliberately split their forces into multiple, smaller groups and try to eke out extra advantage from each. Even if they are engaging a larger army, they will still perform better overall than if they just balled up and threw their forces into battle if you add together the multiple, smaller engagements.
Perhaps he was, perhaps not.
With reference to my post, can you find anything wrong, other than additional variables, with that post. I mean as an actual approach to balance in and of itself?
Regardless of specifics, which are irrelevant. TLDR deathballs are bad not just because terrible terrible damage is bad, but because they don't have the necessary risk/reward balance, or difficulty of execution/success in application balance.
On December 05 2012 12:38 Wombat_NI wrote: With reference to my post, can you find anything wrong, other than additional variables, with that post. I mean as an actual approach to balance in and of itself?
Regardless of specifics, which are irrelevant. TLDR deathballs are bad not just because terrible terrible damage is bad, but because they don't have the necessary risk/reward balance, or difficulty of execution/success in application balance.
I don't think you're wrong, I was just elaborating more on why your numbered list works out the way it does, in the abstract.
As you said, the design of the game makes deathballs optimal from a strategic perspective. That is why players do it- not because it is easy. There are examples of "deathballs" that are actually very difficult to execute, such as MMMVG against Colossus+HT in TvP. Both sides are using deathballs- only one of them has to EMP the High Templar and kill the Colossi in a hurry, before their infantry army gets too badly murdered by those units.
A non-deathball game would look quite different. If large armies were actually less efficient than the same units split into multiple smaller groups, both sides would play very differently. Small groups of bio would engage small groups of gateway units in multiple locations on the map simultaneously. Because Colossi are such big units as now designed, it makes no strategic sense for a Protoss to have just one to accompany a small group of gateway units, as it would be likely to die, but if there were some smaller Colossus-analogue which can be counteracted without a deathball then that is what would likely happen.
Deathballs aren't bad because they are inherently skill-less, or that they lead to passive games. They are bad because the real meat of strategy games is about decisions of where to put your forces, not rock-paper-scissors about what counters what. Putting all your troops in one location makes for a very strong army in that spot, but the enemy might have artillery or some other big weapon they can use to obliterate that entire force, or they can simply attack with smaller armies in ten other locations you aren't adequately defending, while your deathball is busy massively overkilling a single squad defending one location. Deathballs are a weak strategy in more interesting games of strategy.
Putting two tanks over here, and two tanks and a few infantry units over there, and four tanks and two vikings over here, etc. etc. creates much more texture on the board, and creates vastly more possible decisions for both players. I could send six zealots to go attack the two tanks, or I could gamble and send the same units to that other place and try to fight the infantry too. Or I could send a seventh or eighth zealot, but that would weaken my force over there... etc.
You can have a vastly interesting strategy game with only a single type of piece by relying purely on positioning. See: Go (board game). It makes no sense to forego this entire dimension of gameplay in favor of a more complex version of rock-paper-scissors (where you field a whole lot of each all at once, and the battle determines who wins, rather like a very complex single game of rock-paper-scissors).
On December 04 2012 03:09 MockHamill wrote: According to David Kim: Protoss 5. Tempest doesn't counter all late tech Zerg. We currently don't like how Zerg can't go Tier 3 units if Tempests are in play.
Huh?? Tempest are not that amazing late game I would like something better at fighting Mass muta switches.
It's also why I think PvT is the only current functional non-mirror matchup, at a base level. It still works despite being asymmetrically balanced around both skill and Protoss having the better lategame, because it also fits into the patterns of deeper RTS theory.
It's not always the most fun matchup to watch, but in those terms, it's why it's a 'good' matchup, in fact the ONLY good one at the moment.
I can expand on the reasons why if you so desire, but they're forming part of my article/thesis about Blizzard's approach to balance by neglecting design, in terms of RTS concepts.
On December 05 2012 13:03 SigmaoctanusIV wrote: Huh?? Tempest are not that amazing late game I would like something better at fighting Mass muta switches.
Just like most other units in the game, they are amazing at a specific role, which includes the annihilation of both T3 Zerg units (does the Viper count as a T3 unit?). It's definitely a problem for Ultralisks, which were already unpopular in the matchup. I'm a little worried about the implications for BLs, but with the Infestor being "heavily nerfed" and the Void Ray being buffed, I think that Protoss players will find a way without Vortex.
On December 05 2012 13:03 SigmaoctanusIV wrote: Huh?? Tempest are not that amazing late game I would like something better at fighting Mass muta switches.
Just like most other units in the game, they are amazing at a specific role, which includes the annihilation of both T3 Zerg units (does the Viper count as a T3 unit?). It's definitely a problem for Ultralisks, which were already unpopular in the matchup. I'm a little worried about the implications for BLs, but with the Infestor being "heavily nerfed" and the Void Ray being buffed, I think that Protoss players will find a way without Vortex.
The Tempest merely lets us deal with Inf/BL deathballs, by building another form of deathball.
On December 05 2012 13:03 SigmaoctanusIV wrote: Huh?? Tempest are not that amazing late game I would like something better at fighting Mass muta switches.
Just like most other units in the game, they are amazing at a specific role, which includes the annihilation of both T3 Zerg units (does the Viper count as a T3 unit?). It's definitely a problem for Ultralisks, which were already unpopular in the matchup. I'm a little worried about the implications for BLs, but with the Infestor being "heavily nerfed" and the Void Ray being buffed, I think that Protoss players will find a way without Vortex.
The Tempest merely lets us deal with Inf/BL deathballs, by building another form of deathball.
Well it's not like you need many, 2 tempests will 1 shot a broodlord (unless I am mistaken they do 60 vs massive and broods have 120 health iirc or is it 150?). So not like you have to mass tempests.
On December 05 2012 13:03 SigmaoctanusIV wrote: Huh?? Tempest are not that amazing late game I would like something better at fighting Mass muta switches.
Just like most other units in the game, they are amazing at a specific role, which includes the annihilation of both T3 Zerg units (does the Viper count as a T3 unit?). It's definitely a problem for Ultralisks, which were already unpopular in the matchup. I'm a little worried about the implications for BLs, but with the Infestor being "heavily nerfed" and the Void Ray being buffed, I think that Protoss players will find a way without Vortex.
The Tempest merely lets us deal with Inf/BL deathballs, by building another form of deathball.
Well it's not like you need many, 2 tempests will 1 shot a broodlord (unless I am mistaken they do 60 vs massive and broods have 120 health iirc or is it 150?). So not like you have to mass tempests.
Is it as little as that?
Anyway, regardless I suppose it's not really that they're a 'deathball' but the frustrating aspect of BL/Infestor is just swapped over. It's incredibly hard to play against BL/Infestor because they zone you out, you can't chip away at the holes really. Tempest/Templar with the range of the Tempest enable Protoss to hit BL/Infestor from an entrenched position at very little risk that is what annoys Protoss in WoL about Infestor/BL.
On December 05 2012 14:36 blade55555 wrote: Well it's not like you need many, 2 tempests will 1 shot a broodlord (unless I am mistaken they do 60 vs massive and broods have 120 health iirc or is it 150?). So not like you have to mass tempests.
Lolwut? BLs have 225 health, it takes four Tempests to one-shot a BL.
On December 05 2012 11:43 aka_star wrote: My number 1 request is to Fix death ball play please!
lol thats funny because fixing death ball you should be able to fix it yourself by constantly on the aggression side so you minimize their army. deathball only occurs when you let them get a deathball and 100% of the time if they have a huge deathball you have one as well just saying
So true.The way you minimize Death Balls is through aggression and constant trading. Now the real question is how do we stimulate the use of aggression. Force the opponent to invest in units that they already have the tech for, and as a result we deley the ultimate death ball.
The issue were having is that some maps are much to big. MUCH TO BIG. And alot allow you to easily turtle on 3 bases.
On December 05 2012 11:43 aka_star wrote: My number 1 request is to Fix death ball play please!
lol thats funny because fixing death ball you should be able to fix it yourself by constantly on the aggression side so you minimize their army. deathball only occurs when you let them get a deathball and 100% of the time if they have a huge deathball you have one as well just saying
So true.The way you minimize Death Balls is through aggression and constant trading. Now the real question is how do we stimulate the use of aggression. Force the opponent to invest in units that they already have the tech for, and as a result we deley the ultimate death ball.
The issue were having is that some maps are much to big. MUCH TO BIG. And alot allow you to easily turtle on 3 bases.
Big maps aren't a problem, by themselves.
If that was the case, Ryung's TvZ games on Whirlwind, one of the biggest maps, by dropping and trading wouldn't have occurred.
He saw the downside of Inf/BL (mobility) and also that this could be used to his advantage because of the map design. On a map like Daybreak, you cannot employ the same kind of approach because there's a lot less options in this regard due to how its laid out.
On December 05 2012 11:43 aka_star wrote: My number 1 request is to Fix death ball play please!
lol thats funny because fixing death ball you should be able to fix it yourself by constantly on the aggression side so you minimize their army. deathball only occurs when you let them get a deathball and 100% of the time if they have a huge deathball you have one as well just saying
So true.The way you minimize Death Balls is through aggression and constant trading. Now the real question is how do we stimulate the use of aggression. Force the opponent to invest in units that they already have the tech for, and as a result we deley the ultimate death ball.
The issue were having is that some maps are much to big. MUCH TO BIG. And alot allow you to easily turtle on 3 bases.
If you want to force aggression, you increase the number of bases on the map by 1.5x, but decrease the number of resources (patches of minerals, not necessarily how many minerals that patch contains) at each base, and you stop using maps like the current tournament pools, which basically concede three bases to each player. Forcing a player to spread themselves over the map increases the vulnerability of each base, but rewards the player who expands anyway. Then you have to actively deny bases from your opponent (or perform other, effective harass) and Boom, you have aggression.
It is a symptom of how strongly the game's internal structure favors deathballs that even on the largest maps, you still keep your army together rather than split it up. As maps get bigger, the potential gains from splitting your forces increase, as the amount of time it takes for a deathball to get from place to place increases.
Making maps smaller will NOT discourage deathballs. It just hides the fact that they are deathballs because they have more of a footprint on the entire map, and need less time to travel.
You don't fix deathballs by FORCING players to split up their armies. You make there be incentives to do so, because it's better play strategically.
You create a balance between the risk/reward aspects of deathball play, and the risk/reward aspects of multitask focused play
Why would say, HerO use warp prisms so much in a time that most Protoss players deathball? Because he's found an actual advantage to doing so, strategically, but also has the ability to execute his style. He's not doing it do be cute, or to please the fans, he's doing it because it can work.
This approach to fixing deathballs also enables more styles to be viable, for more races in different matchups.
This is amazing news to me. First of all I want to say that I agree with nearly all of the ideas DK is talking about. What I have been observing with the beta up until this point was disappointing and frustrating. This post has single-handedly re-affirmed my belief that Blizzard knows what it is doing.
On December 05 2012 11:58 ledarsi wrote: For the last time- a deathball isn't just having a lot of units. The deathball is when you have all your units in one place. As opposed to, say, having 1/3 of your army defending your natural, 1/3 of your army spread over the map covering ramps and positions of interest, and 1/3 of your army attacking an enemy base.
Blizzard needs to create incentives to split your forces and gain combat power from doing so. Otherwise, if you split your army you are asking to get defeated in detail by an opponent's deathball. Which will crush each piece of your forces with minimal casualties.
There`s not enough supply to go around splitting it into 1/3`rds. Even a roach max can at its most get up to just about 50 roaches (100 supply). What can 16 roaches do against anything?
Reduce supply of all units or increase maximum supply and then you can talk about increasing the map sizes and splitting units up.
Am I the only one thinking that mech with some battlecruisers mixed in with their free 3/3 upgrades is going to be massively overpowered?
Basically, since you're upgrading your ground army you'll have 1/0 corruptors fighting versus 3/3 vikings and 3/3 battlecruisers.
Yes, you can upgrade air upgrades as well, but they take a massive amount of time and planning and will require to forfeit ALL ground upgrades, basically ensuring you'll get roflstomped by tanks and thors.
I'm not liking that change at all.. I agree that vikings are rather weak currently, but I don't think this is the right way to go at things. Honestly, the easiest thing would be to give MECH decent anti air à la Goliath or the original Warhound, so the anti air shares upgrades without making other stuff too strong or reducing the costs of other strategies vastly.
I mean, bcs just got a 1200 minerals and 1200 gas requirement (total air upgrade cost) to be viable completely removed.
No, I don't want bcs to be useless, but this is just a buff of VAST proportions that people haven't realised yet.
On December 05 2012 11:58 ledarsi wrote: For the last time- a deathball isn't just having a lot of units. The deathball is when you have all your units in one place. As opposed to, say, having 1/3 of your army defending your natural, 1/3 of your army spread over the map covering ramps and positions of interest, and 1/3 of your army attacking an enemy base.
Blizzard needs to create incentives to split your forces and gain combat power from doing so. Otherwise, if you split your army you are asking to get defeated in detail by an opponent's deathball. Which will crush each piece of your forces with minimal casualties.
There`s not enough supply to go around splitting it into 1/3`rds. Even a roach max can at its most get up to just about 50 roaches (100 supply). What can 16 roaches do against anything?
Reduce supply of all units or increase maximum supply and then you can talk about increasing the map sizes and splitting units up.
You can split Roaches up doing Stephano style pushes. They hit at such a time that Protoss don't have the numbers to be everywhere at once, so you can exploit that. Stephano also made this approach so good because he was good enough to micro his roaches on multiple fronts.
Even though it was a bit annoying, even Stephano roach made for better games than the current turtling to Bl/Infestor
There`s not enough supply to go around splitting it into 1/3`rds. Even a roach max can at its most get up to just about 50 roaches (100 supply). What can 16 roaches do against anything?
Reduce supply of all units or increase maximum supply and then you can talk about increasing the map sizes and splitting units up.
This is precisely my point. One third of your army is useless by itself. The game should be better designed so that this does not happen. At a certain size threshold, a force should become reasonably stable regardless of opposition, much as in BW. In SC2, small forces being completely annihilated with zero damage done to the enemy will mean you should never use forces of that size or smaller.
Reducing supply costs across the board is an excellent step in the right direction to effect exactly that- 16 two-supply roaches could be 32 one-supply roaches. And 32 little roaches will perform much better in isolation against a deathball of little roaches than 16 big roaches will against a deathball of big roaches.
On December 05 2012 13:03 SigmaoctanusIV wrote: Huh?? Tempest are not that amazing late game I would like something better at fighting Mass muta switches.
Just like most other units in the game, they are amazing at a specific role, which includes the annihilation of both T3 Zerg units (does the Viper count as a T3 unit?). It's definitely a problem for Ultralisks, which were already unpopular in the matchup. I'm a little worried about the implications for BLs, but with the Infestor being "heavily nerfed" and the Void Ray being buffed, I think that Protoss players will find a way without Vortex.
The Tempest merely lets us deal with Inf/BL deathballs, by building another form of deathball.
Well it's not like you need many, 2 tempests will 1 shot a broodlord (unless I am mistaken they do 60 vs massive and broods have 120 health iirc or is it 150?). So not like you have to mass tempests.
Please blade, tell me that you are trolling.
Brood Lords with 120 hp would be hardly strong, even with Infestors. They are massive, have 225 HP, and 1 armor. Vipers have 120 hp, and they are not massive, so Tempests do 30 damage to them. So, either way, you need 4 shots from Tempests to kill those units.
On December 05 2012 17:52 Grendel wrote: Am I the only one thinking that mech with some battlecruisers mixed in with their free 3/3 upgrades is going to be massively overpowered?
Basically, since you're upgrading your ground army you'll have 1/0 corruptors fighting versus 3/3 vikings and 3/3 battlecruisers.
Yes, you can upgrade air upgrades as well, but they take a massive amount of time and planning and will require to forfeit ALL ground upgrades, basically ensuring you'll get roflstomped by tanks and thors.
I'm not liking that change at all.. I agree that vikings are rather weak currently, but I don't think this is the right way to go at things. Honestly, the easiest thing would be to give MECH decent anti air à la Goliath or the original Warhound, so the anti air shares upgrades without making other stuff too strong or reducing the costs of other strategies vastly.
I mean, bcs just got a 1200 minerals and 1200 gas requirement (total air upgrade cost) to be viable completely removed.
No, I don't want bcs to be useless, but this is just a buff of VAST proportions that people haven't realised yet.
Yes, not to whine before we even test things, but it seems it would be really good and really hard to stop.
On December 05 2012 13:03 SigmaoctanusIV wrote: Huh?? Tempest are not that amazing late game I would like something better at fighting Mass muta switches.
Just like most other units in the game, they are amazing at a specific role, which includes the annihilation of both T3 Zerg units (does the Viper count as a T3 unit?). It's definitely a problem for Ultralisks, which were already unpopular in the matchup. I'm a little worried about the implications for BLs, but with the Infestor being "heavily nerfed" and the Void Ray being buffed, I think that Protoss players will find a way without Vortex.
The Tempest merely lets us deal with Inf/BL deathballs, by building another form of deathball.
Well it's not like you need many, 2 tempests will 1 shot a broodlord (unless I am mistaken they do 60 vs massive and broods have 120 health iirc or is it 150?). So not like you have to mass tempests.
Please blade, tell me that you are trolling.
Brood Lords with 120 hp would be hardly strong, even with Infestors. They are massive, have 225 HP, and 1 armor. Vipers have 120 hp, and they are not massive, so Tempests do 30 damage to them. So, either way, you need 4 shots from Tempests to kill those units.
which is more than fine dont you think? 12 tempest kill 15 BLs in 16,5 seconds with focus fire. the first 3 BLs will be dead before they get off one shot. so effectively its 15 BLs in 13,2 seconds. 15 (!!) BLs and/or viper dead in 13,2 ingame seconds! and not only that. you also forced 20-30 corruptor to kill the 12 tempest which in combinateion with the BL/viper killing is insane. thats 100-120 supply. so basically the whole zerg army rofl.
they really need to do something so tempest counters BLs but not viper and ultras. for example: let the overall damage to massive the same, but make it lower to non-massive and make it hit air-to-air only. so tempest counter BLs, carrier, BCs but not every massive unit in the game and even high-gas-non-massive units like vipers, infestors or HT.
if that is not enough, take down hp to 300 or 350 since right now it has the best hp/supply ratio of ALL UNIT IN THE GAME...and that is on a range 15 unit lol.
There`s not enough supply to go around splitting it into 1/3`rds. Even a roach max can at its most get up to just about 50 roaches (100 supply). What can 16 roaches do against anything?
Reduce supply of all units or increase maximum supply and then you can talk about increasing the map sizes and splitting units up.
This is precisely my point. One third of your army is useless by itself. The game should be better designed so that this does not happen. At a certain size threshold, a force should become reasonably stable regardless of opposition, much as in BW. In SC2, small forces being completely annihilated with zero damage done to the enemy will mean you should never use forces of that size or smaller.
Reducing supply costs across the board is an excellent step in the right direction to effect exactly that- 16 two-supply roaches could be 32 one-supply roaches. And 32 little roaches will perform much better in isolation against a deathball of little roaches than 16 big roaches will against a deathball of big roaches.
In terms of max v max engagements you're right I guess. I don't feel that Starcraft 2 doesn't entirely neglect the idea of splitting your army for strategic gain though, it just doesn't do so frequently enough.
1. Bio scaling quite linearly, small groups of bio are still beneficial to use in multi-task intensive, aggressive ways. 2. Protoss not scaling in this way, but that's due being more reliant on tech units. 3. Stephano style Roach styles benefiting from splitting, hitting at a timing in which Protoss have to split against it very prudently. 4. Protoss not really having the ability to split their armies and gain a benefit vs Zerg.
In this case, the phenomenon you described, I agree with, but I don't believe it's 100% a core problem with SC2's entire design at the core. It's more prevalent in certain matchups than others, so is also a problem with racial interaction.
On December 05 2012 13:03 SigmaoctanusIV wrote: Huh?? Tempest are not that amazing late game I would like something better at fighting Mass muta switches.
Just like most other units in the game, they are amazing at a specific role, which includes the annihilation of both T3 Zerg units (does the Viper count as a T3 unit?). It's definitely a problem for Ultralisks, which were already unpopular in the matchup. I'm a little worried about the implications for BLs, but with the Infestor being "heavily nerfed" and the Void Ray being buffed, I think that Protoss players will find a way without Vortex.
The Tempest merely lets us deal with Inf/BL deathballs, by building another form of deathball.
Well it's not like you need many, 2 tempests will 1 shot a broodlord (unless I am mistaken they do 60 vs massive and broods have 120 health iirc or is it 150?). So not like you have to mass tempests.
Please blade, tell me that you are trolling.
Brood Lords with 120 hp would be hardly strong, even with Infestors. They are massive, have 225 HP, and 1 armor. Vipers have 120 hp, and they are not massive, so Tempests do 30 damage to them. So, either way, you need 4 shots from Tempests to kill those units.
which is more than fine dont you think? 12 tempest kill 15 BLs in 16,5 seconds with focus fire. the first 3 BLs will be dead before they get off one shot. so effectively its 15 BLs in 13,2 seconds. 15 (!!) BLs and/or viper dead in 13,2 ingame seconds! and not only that. you also forced 20-30 corruptor to kill the 12 tempest which in combinateion with the BL/viper killing is insane. thats 100-120 supply. so basically the whole zerg army rofl.
they really need to do something so tempest counters BLs but not viper and ultras. for example: let the overall damage to massive the same, but make it lower to non-massive and make it hit air-to-air only. so tempest counter BLs, carrier, BCs but not every massive unit in the game and even high-gas-non-massive units like vipers, infestors or HT.
if that is not enough, take down hp to 300 or 350 since right now it has the best hp/supply ratio of ALL UNIT IN THE GAME...and that is on a range 15 unit lol.
Sure, not saying they are bad, just talking about the mistake. I agree with the Tempest problem, and I am looking forward to the way of fixing it.
On December 05 2012 11:58 ledarsi wrote: For the last time- a deathball isn't just having a lot of units. The deathball is when you have all your units in one place. As opposed to, say, having 1/3 of your army defending your natural, 1/3 of your army spread over the map covering ramps and positions of interest, and 1/3 of your army attacking an enemy base.
Blizzard needs to create incentives to split your forces and gain combat power from doing so. Otherwise, if you split your army you are asking to get defeated in detail by an opponent's deathball. Which will crush each piece of your forces with minimal casualties.
There`s not enough supply to go around splitting it into 1/3`rds. Even a roach max can at its most get up to just about 50 roaches (100 supply). What can 16 roaches do against anything?
Reduce supply of all units or increase maximum supply and then you can talk about increasing the map sizes and splitting units up.
The point is that "16 Roaches can do A LOT with proper micro against 16 Roaches" ... thus the goal must be to get rid of the deathball through OTHER MEANS than making "1/3rd strategies" efficient. The only way to do it is to fiddle around with unit pathing and unit selection limits.
Forcing the deathball to be disbanded by buffing units like the Siege Tank will backfire wildly, because those Siege Tanks will be totally OP when they first come out of the production line ... because the opponent wont have enough to deal with them yet. General mechanics is the only answer that will work without making the game hopelessly overcomplicated.
There`s not enough supply to go around splitting it into 1/3`rds. Even a roach max can at its most get up to just about 50 roaches (100 supply). What can 16 roaches do against anything?
Reduce supply of all units or increase maximum supply and then you can talk about increasing the map sizes and splitting units up.
This is precisely my point. One third of your army is useless by itself. The game should be better designed so that this does not happen. At a certain size threshold, a force should become reasonably stable regardless of opposition, much as in BW. In SC2, small forces being completely annihilated with zero damage done to the enemy will mean you should never use forces of that size or smaller.
Reducing supply costs across the board is an excellent step in the right direction to effect exactly that- 16 two-supply roaches could be 32 one-supply roaches. And 32 little roaches will perform much better in isolation against a deathball of little roaches than 16 big roaches will against a deathball of big roaches.
In terms of max v max engagements you're right I guess. I don't feel that Starcraft 2 doesn't entirely neglect the idea of splitting your army for strategic gain though, it just doesn't do so frequently enough.
1. Bio scaling quite linearly, small groups of bio are still beneficial to use in multi-task intensive, aggressive ways. 2. Protoss not scaling in this way, but that's due being more reliant on tech units. 3. Stephano style Roach styles benefiting from splitting, hitting at a timing in which Protoss have to split against it very prudently. 4. Protoss not really having the ability to split their armies and gain a benefit vs Zerg.
In this case, the phenomenon you described, I agree with, but I don't believe it's 100% a core problem with SC2's entire design at the core. It's more prevalent in certain matchups than others, so is also a problem with racial interaction.
As with every "critical number unit" bio doesnt scale in a linear fashion, but rather skyrockets in efficiency once they have large enough numbers to only take 1 shot from a Siege Tank for example before killing it. Those numbers are appallingly small btw. Roaches can do the same with Stalkers from pretty low numbers and I have seen a game where the Roaches were fleeing but stopped to shoot one volley at the pursuing Stalkers to kill one of them and then returning to run away. The key efficiency is "eliminating one big opposing unit in one shot as a group" and that is something which didnt exist in BW due to the movement mechanics and I doubt "critical numbers" is a good thing for SC2.
siege tank is a bad example i think because a siege tank buff could just be available with an upgrade so 1-1-1 or timing pushes dont become OP simply because the upgrade cant be finished at that time. and later in the game the opponent has things like tempest and viper which punish mass tank play.
On December 05 2012 11:43 aka_star wrote: My number 1 request is to Fix death ball play please!
lol thats funny because fixing death ball you should be able to fix it yourself by constantly on the aggression side so you minimize their army. deathball only occurs when you let them get a deathball and 100% of the time if they have a huge deathball you have one as well just saying
So true.The way you minimize Death Balls is through aggression and constant trading. Now the real question is how do we stimulate the use of aggression. Force the opponent to invest in units that they already have the tech for, and as a result we deley the ultimate death ball.
The issue were having is that some maps are much to big. MUCH TO BIG. And alot allow you to easily turtle on 3 bases.
If you want to force aggression, you increase the number of bases on the map by 1.5x, but decrease the number of resources (patches of minerals, not necessarily how many minerals that patch contains) at each base, and you stop using maps like the current tournament pools, which basically concede three bases to each player. Forcing a player to spread themselves over the map increases the vulnerability of each base, but rewards the player who expands anyway. Then you have to actively deny bases from your opponent (or perform other, effective harass) and Boom, you have aggression.
Such a form of aggression is good for more interesting gameplay, but it is terrible as an attempt to balance Zerg, where the answer to Broodlord/Infestor mostly is "dont let him get there". There should still be units which can go head to head with a full BL/Infestor army and win - for all races and strategies - and this isnt the case.
Forcing the deathball to disband through spread out aggression only works against immobile deathballs and Roach-Infestor can be very mobile on any map size due to Nydus worms. Terrans might be somewhat mobile with Medivacs, but that means taking risks as well. Its not a good solution for the deathball syndrome ...
On December 05 2012 11:58 ledarsi wrote: For the last time- a deathball isn't just having a lot of units. The deathball is when you have all your units in one place. As opposed to, say, having 1/3 of your army defending your natural, 1/3 of your army spread over the map covering ramps and positions of interest, and 1/3 of your army attacking an enemy base.
Blizzard needs to create incentives to split your forces and gain combat power from doing so. Otherwise, if you split your army you are asking to get defeated in detail by an opponent's deathball. Which will crush each piece of your forces with minimal casualties.
There`s not enough supply to go around splitting it into 1/3`rds. Even a roach max can at its most get up to just about 50 roaches (100 supply). What can 16 roaches do against anything?
Reduce supply of all units or increase maximum supply and then you can talk about increasing the map sizes and splitting units up.
i really wish supply cap was raised a little bit. even 230 might help make a 4th base more desirable
On December 05 2012 17:52 Grendel wrote: Am I the only one thinking that mech with some battlecruisers mixed in with their free 3/3 upgrades is going to be massively overpowered?
Basically, since you're upgrading your ground army you'll have 1/0 corruptors fighting versus 3/3 vikings and 3/3 battlecruisers.
Yes, you can upgrade air upgrades as well, but they take a massive amount of time and planning and will require to forfeit ALL ground upgrades, basically ensuring you'll get roflstomped by tanks and thors.
I'm not liking that change at all.. I agree that vikings are rather weak currently, but I don't think this is the right way to go at things. Honestly, the easiest thing would be to give MECH decent anti air à la Goliath or the original Warhound, so the anti air shares upgrades without making other stuff too strong or reducing the costs of other strategies vastly.
I mean, bcs just got a 1200 minerals and 1200 gas requirement (total air upgrade cost) to be viable completely removed.
No, I don't want bcs to be useless, but this is just a buff of VAST proportions that people haven't realised yet.
1. If Terran techs to battle cruisers after 3/3 mech upgrades then we are talking ULTRA late game ~+30 mins or so which will only occur in a very small percentage of games where Terran currently is currently forced into a single viable build (which is mass raven (wtf?)) anyway. 2. Cattlebruisers are gas heavy and the most recent explorations within WOL are making it more and more apparent that the most effective counter to mech is mass expansion from the zerg. If the zerg is to exploit the immobility of mech they should be forced to use that advantage and secure additional bases earlier and thus starve the Terran of gas (again we are talking super late game here.) 3. This is exactly the way I feel when I see fully upgraded Colossus coming at me as a Terran when the protoss doesn't even have to upgrade them. Also this goes for all units coming out of the Robo for Protoss. Also fungal growth ignores upgrades so it's not like Z can't just blanket/chain fungal anyway. 4. Everyone knows that late game Terran needs a significant buff since during all matchups the dominant strategy from opponents is to turtle to tier 3 and "A move" to victory.
On December 05 2012 20:32 Zaurus wrote: Why will you split your army if there is only one attack path?
Exactly.
The reason people don't split there armies is bases are so close together that youj never need to split your army to defend. In Ohana you literally sit in one choke with your whole army and your entire three bases are defended.
Map design is what's causing deathballs, not the game.
EDIT: I realise the game doesn't help, but look at Fantasy vs CrazyHydra on Arkanoid from the KT/T1 showmatch and tell me that they deathballed.
On December 05 2012 20:32 Zaurus wrote: Why will you split your army if there is only one attack path?
Exactly.
The reason people don't split there armies is bases are so close together that youj never need to split your army to defend. In Ohana you literally sit in one choke with your whole army and your entire three bases are defended.
Map design is what's causing deathballs, not the game.
EDIT: I realise the game doesn't help, but look at Fantasy vs CrazyHydra on Arkanoid from the KT/T1 showmatch and tell me that they deathballed.
I love how this has turned into a another deathball debate :-P Why don't the Koreans make some maps that have bases more spread out like bw for tournaments? Then blizzard can copy like they did destructible rocks..
I like almost all the ideas for balance update.. What happened to carrier change? And please do something with the collosus.. It promotes Protoss deathball and is too powerful for its ease of use and mobility. It is also a crutch for Protoss like the infestor is for zerg wol..
On December 05 2012 20:32 Zaurus wrote: Why will you split your army if there is only one attack path?
Exactly.
The reason people don't split there armies is bases are so close together that youj never need to split your army to defend. In Ohana you literally sit in one choke with your whole army and your entire three bases are defended.
Map design is what's causing deathballs, not the game.
EDIT: I realise the game doesn't help, but look at Fantasy vs CrazyHydra on Arkanoid from the KT/T1 showmatch and tell me that they deathballed.
I love how this has turned into a another deathball debate :-P Why don't the Koreans make some maps that have bases more spread out like bw for tournaments? Then blizzard can copy like they did destructible rocks..
I like almost all the ideas for balance update.. What happened to carrier change? And please do something with the collosus.. It promotes Protoss deathball and is too powerful for its ease of use and mobility. It is also a crutch for Protoss like the infestor is for zerg wol..
Korean are playing on spread base maps : - Whirlmwind - Entombed - Belshir ...
And the HOTS maps have spread bases, and they are pretty cool actually. Maybe they just need more attack paths.
Daybreak would be obviously better without the rocks in the middle of the map. And without the xel nagas, too. They give too much map vision.
On December 05 2012 20:32 Zaurus wrote: Why will you split your army if there is only one attack path?
Exactly.
The reason people don't split there armies is bases are so close together that youj never need to split your army to defend. In Ohana you literally sit in one choke with your whole army and your entire three bases are defended.
Map design is what's causing deathballs, not the game.
EDIT: I realise the game doesn't help, but look at Fantasy vs CrazyHydra on Arkanoid from the KT/T1 showmatch and tell me that they deathballed.
I love how this has turned into a another deathball debate :-P Why don't the Koreans make some maps that have bases more spread out like bw for tournaments? Then blizzard can copy like they did destructible rocks..
I like almost all the ideas for balance update.. What happened to carrier change? And please do something with the collosus.. It promotes Protoss deathball and is too powerful for its ease of use and mobility. It is also a crutch for Protoss like the infestor is for zerg wol..
The map design is limited by maps being somewhat balanced and actually having multiple options.
Suggestions like spreading bases more, putting less minerals per base etc. are stupid because they don't work... They simply unbalance the game and force the race weakened by it (usually protoss) to do all-ins or die..
Just look at all the maps that were more open, smaller or had bases further apart etc. They just led to protoss doing two base all-ins vs zerg non stop because they could never take a third safely. Maps with less minerals per base doesn't work either because it inherently screws over one race more than another too. Zerg and terran reach saturation on their minerals MUCH slower than protoss does, zerg because they have more bases and terran because they have orbitals, use scv's for building and just build workers the slowest. Protoss doesn't have any of that and must chrono it's workers to compete. If you would make a map with anything less than 8 patches on the first two bases protoss just wouldn't stand a chance...
Promoting interesting play by map design is good but those different styles you promote have to be viable in the first place. There are simply some restrictions in place for some matches not to be screwed, maps can't be too small or TvZ and PvZ are screwed too much for zerg. Maps can't be too open or PvZ is screwed for protoss (TvP also a bit by the way).
HotS should first tackle the issue of protoss being so stupidly reliant on forcefields against zerg because that is the biggest letdown for map variety and thus play variety at the moment. Forcefield leads to deathball play because they work best if you clump up your army and defend till you have a deathball plus they only work if the first three bases are close enough and have some natural choke leading to them. Protoss is forced to use them though because stalker/sentry/immortal is the only composition that can deal with both zerglings and a roach spam. Zealots are not good enough in ZvP because of roaches so no other style is really viable..
The two things that promote deathball play are pathing and clumping, not map sizes or unit effectiveness (unit effectiveness can be traced back to these problems). Pathing automatically clumps units as they move; this should be changed so that units roughly stay in formation as they move. Furthermore, units are basically able to dry-hump each other, meaning that ranged units can cram into a small space. Both of these significantly increase their damage output for the space they occupy, nullifying the power of melee units in melee by reducing the amount of surface area they can be attacked on by melee units. They need to be changed in tandem (you can't just change one or another) or else players will just be encouraged to manually clump their units instead of the AI doing it for them. Finally, splash damage (specifically, Siege Tanks and Psi Storm) don't do enough damage; these were nerfed pretty hard early in the game's development. Without high splash damage to deter clumping, you get incentives for deathballs.
To fix this, you need to introduce collision boxes to keep units away from each other, introduce formation moving, and increase splash damage/radius. This will make the gains of deathball play far worse than the risks you take by doing so, meaning that marching a 200/200 army through a small choke will be useless (and usually incredibly detrimental).This will then lead players to maximize the use of their armies, so they will split up armies more often.
Not only this, it will increase defender's advantage by reducing the effectiveness of clumps of units going through a choke and increasing the effectiveness of splash damage. Increasing defender's advantage will then lead to more aggressive play; part of the reason that you don't see that much aggressive play is because losing one's army is almost a sure loss because you simply can't defend without a roughly even army (this is partly due to macro mechanics, especially for T, not allowing for re-maxing as fast as the other races). However, with more powerful splash, one can run the risk of losing a large chunk of his units early on, but by having strategically placed units at a choke point, he can still defend with fewer units against a counter-attack, so there is hope, and thus a good incentive to be aggressive.
The best part is that this has all been done in the editor; nothing about the game engine needs to be changed. All of these pathing/clumping/damage/radius things are simply number values in SC2's map editor, so they are easily changeable. That said, Blizzard will, of course, never do it, since it will take some noticeable re-balancing efforts, but hey, that's what you get when you design a game terribly.
Another issue with this is Protoss design. The entire race is so horribly designed that the very nature of how it must be played works against non-deathball play and interesting spectating. The power of Warpgates necessitates weak Gateway units and overly-powerful Forcefields, leading to deathball play, and this would also need to be changed if we ended up changing the way pathing, clumping, and splash works.
Oh, and this has all been said a dozen times before, I'm just repeating myself and others.
On December 05 2012 17:52 Grendel wrote: Am I the only one thinking that mech with some battlecruisers mixed in with their free 3/3 upgrades is going to be massively overpowered?
Basically, since you're upgrading your ground army you'll have 1/0 corruptors fighting versus 3/3 vikings and 3/3 battlecruisers.
Yes, you can upgrade air upgrades as well, but they take a massive amount of time and planning and will require to forfeit ALL ground upgrades, basically ensuring you'll get roflstomped by tanks and thors.
I'm not liking that change at all.. I agree that vikings are rather weak currently, but I don't think this is the right way to go at things. Honestly, the easiest thing would be to give MECH decent anti air à la Goliath or the original Warhound, so the anti air shares upgrades without making other stuff too strong or reducing the costs of other strategies vastly.
I mean, bcs just got a 1200 minerals and 1200 gas requirement (total air upgrade cost) to be viable completely removed.
No, I don't want bcs to be useless, but this is just a buff of VAST proportions that people haven't realised yet.
Who says they won't/can't increase the upgrade cost of the new vehicle/air combined upgrades?
I really hope a muta speed/acceleration doesn't go through. The whole point of the song and dance between mutas and phenixes is that Toss has a slight edge in the movement department vs slow unit production.
On December 05 2012 23:38 wangstra wrote: I really hope a muta speed/acceleration doesn't go through. The whole point of the song and dance between mutas and phenixes is that Toss has a slight edge in the movement department vs slow unit production.
This is a good point that I didn't even think about. I was merely thinking that Mutalisks are already incredibly effective, especially in large groups, but it's true that the ONLY thing that Phoenixes have on the unit that they were specifically designed to counter is speed and range; when Mutas reach a certain number, they crush equal number of Phoenixes.
Just look at all the maps that were more open, smaller or had bases further apart etc. They just led to protoss doing two base all-ins vs zerg non stop because they could never take a third safely. Maps with less minerals per base doesn't work either because it inherently screws over one race more than another too. Zerg and terran reach saturation on their minerals MUCH slower than protoss does, zerg because they have more bases and terran because they have orbitals, use scv's for building and just build workers the slowest. Protoss doesn't have any of that and must chrono it's workers to compete. If you would make a map with anything less than 8 patches on the first two bases protoss just wouldn't stand a chance...
I'm sorry I don't agree with this at all.
The maps where bases were spread out early in SC2 were like Steppes of War and Crossfire, incredibly small maps with wide open chokes to the third. Crossfire never lasted very long in the map rotation and games rarely got past 2 bases no matter what races were playing as Agression was so powerful due to all the chokes.
There's an easy, easy way to spread out bases and it be balanced, look at Whirlwind for example, it's not super far away, but it's not super close either and Protoss are fine without having to 2 base all in every game. There's never been enough experementation to even check all this stuff and that's led us to having Cloud Kingdom, Entomed Valley and Ohana which are god awful maps leading to really boring games as Defense is far too easy.
You can't look at this game as WoL anymore and HoTS will hopefully changed part of the early agression things, but I don't even think it's an issue.
If you had Fighting Spirit in the Pool right now, it would be perfectly fine although the third is quite far because to get into the base you have a 1 wide ramp. You could have 2-3 sentries with max energy or even less and 2-3 forcefields would keep the army out long enough to get your army over there. I honestly think the whining that goes on about how hard it is for a protoss to take a third base that's far away is simply ridiculous in PvX, ZvX. It's only hard due to bad map design and the maps where it's easy to take a third base are incredibly boring.
A map for example where the third base was far away PROMOTES A MIDGAME. It forces people to have an army (especially zergs!) to actually either defend or attack to secure your third base and leads to much more interesting games. Don't you think it's wrong that due to maps like Ohana, zerg players rarely build units until they're at 80 drones and are stillk super safe on 3 bases? It's crazy and it's all down to map design.
On December 05 2012 17:52 Grendel wrote: Am I the only one thinking that mech with some battlecruisers mixed in with their free 3/3 upgrades is going to be massively overpowered?
Basically, since you're upgrading your ground army you'll have 1/0 corruptors fighting versus 3/3 vikings and 3/3 battlecruisers.
Yes, you can upgrade air upgrades as well, but they take a massive amount of time and planning and will require to forfeit ALL ground upgrades, basically ensuring you'll get roflstomped by tanks and thors.
I'm not liking that change at all.. I agree that vikings are rather weak currently, but I don't think this is the right way to go at things. Honestly, the easiest thing would be to give MECH decent anti air à la Goliath or the original Warhound, so the anti air shares upgrades without making other stuff too strong or reducing the costs of other strategies vastly.
I mean, bcs just got a 1200 minerals and 1200 gas requirement (total air upgrade cost) to be viable completely removed.
No, I don't want bcs to be useless, but this is just a buff of VAST proportions that people haven't realised yet.
Who says they won't/can't increase the upgrade cost of the new vehicle/air combined upgrades?
So to fix X, they do Y, making issue Z. Doesn't seem like the best solution to me..
Just look at all the maps that were more open, smaller or had bases further apart etc. They just led to protoss doing two base all-ins vs zerg non stop because they could never take a third safely. Maps with less minerals per base doesn't work either because it inherently screws over one race more than another too. Zerg and terran reach saturation on their minerals MUCH slower than protoss does, zerg because they have more bases and terran because they have orbitals, use scv's for building and just build workers the slowest. Protoss doesn't have any of that and must chrono it's workers to compete. If you would make a map with anything less than 8 patches on the first two bases protoss just wouldn't stand a chance...
I'm sorry I don't agree with this at all.
The maps where bases were spread out early in SC2 were like Steppes of War and Crossfire, incredibly small maps with wide open chokes to the third. Crossfire never lasted very long in the map rotation and games rarely got past 2 bases no matter what races were playing as Agression was so powerful due to all the chokes.
There's an easy, easy way to spread out bases and it be balanced, look at Whirlwind for example, it's not super far away, but it's not super close either and Protoss are fine without having to 2 base all in every game. There's never been enough experementation to even check all this stuff and that's led us to having Cloud Kingdom, Entomed Valley and Ohana which are god awful maps leading to really boring games as Defense is far too easy.
You can't look at this game as WoL anymore and HoTS will hopefully changed part of the early agression things, but I don't even think it's an issue.
If you had Fighting Spirit in the Pool right now, it would be perfectly fine although the third is quite far because to get into the base you have a 1 wide ramp. You could have 2-3 sentries with max energy or even less and 2-3 forcefields would keep the army out long enough to get your army over there. I honestly think the whining that goes on about how hard it is for a protoss to take a third base that's far away is simply ridiculous in PvX, ZvX. It's only hard due to bad map design and the maps where it's easy to take a third base are incredibly boring.
A map for example where the third base was far away PROMOTES A MIDGAME. It forces people to have an army (especially zergs!) to actually either defend or attack to secure your third base and leads to much more interesting games. Don't you think it's wrong that due to maps like Ohana, zerg players rarely build units until they're at 80 drones and are stillk super safe on 3 bases? It's crazy and it's all down to map design.
Very interesting read. I mean I'm a guy who I think understands a lot of the game quite well, but you clearly understand approaches to map design on a level beyond me.
nice post qikz. i think maps where main, natural and 3rd base are far away from each other (while still having pretty small chokes so P can defend) would make for much better gameplay and harrass options. you could even attack into the small chokes but you would have to thin out the defends first by doing a WP/medivac drop/mutaharrass in the main while attacking the 3rd or things like that. would love to see more spread out bases and a lot more attack paths on maps.
On December 06 2012 00:22 Decendos wrote: nice post qikz. i think maps where main, natural and 3rd base are far away from each other (while still having pretty small chokes so P can defend) would make for much better gameplay and harrass options. you could even attack into the small chokes but you would have to thin out the defends first by doing a WP/medivac drop/mutaharrass in the main while attacking the 3rd or things like that. would love to see more spread out bases and a lot more attack paths on maps.
Calm Before the Storm is the best example of an approach to map design that leads to bad NR games.
A Protoss player had both pretty small chokes for both the natural and third, and they were pretty close together. There was also not the kind of other exploitable Terran in terms of a lot of good airspace for say, Terrans to exploit to balance out those strengths that enabled Protoss to take safe naturals and subsequently safe thirds.
Hence Calm Before the Storm kind of became the ultimate 'Protoss' map for a while.
On December 05 2012 17:52 Grendel wrote: Am I the only one thinking that mech with some battlecruisers mixed in with their free 3/3 upgrades is going to be massively overpowered?
Basically, since you're upgrading your ground army you'll have 1/0 corruptors fighting versus 3/3 vikings and 3/3 battlecruisers.
Yes, you can upgrade air upgrades as well, but they take a massive amount of time and planning and will require to forfeit ALL ground upgrades, basically ensuring you'll get roflstomped by tanks and thors.
I'm not liking that change at all.. I agree that vikings are rather weak currently, but I don't think this is the right way to go at things. Honestly, the easiest thing would be to give MECH decent anti air à la Goliath or the original Warhound, so the anti air shares upgrades without making other stuff too strong or reducing the costs of other strategies vastly.
I mean, bcs just got a 1200 minerals and 1200 gas requirement (total air upgrade cost) to be viable completely removed.
No, I don't want bcs to be useless, but this is just a buff of VAST proportions that people haven't realised yet.
Who says they won't/can't increase the upgrade cost of the new vehicle/air combined upgrades?
So to fix X, they do Y, making issue Z. Doesn't seem like the best solution to me..
You can't go pure anything anyways. Mechers' banshees/ravens/vikings will benefit, so it won't make more problems.
On December 05 2012 11:58 ledarsi wrote: For the last time- a deathball isn't just having a lot of units. The deathball is when you have all your units in one place. As opposed to, say, having 1/3 of your army defending your natural, 1/3 of your army spread over the map covering ramps and positions of interest, and 1/3 of your army attacking an enemy base.
Blizzard needs to create incentives to split your forces and gain combat power from doing so. Otherwise, if you split your army you are asking to get defeated in detail by an opponent's deathball. Which will crush each piece of your forces with minimal casualties.
There`s not enough supply to go around splitting it into 1/3`rds. Even a roach max can at its most get up to just about 50 roaches (100 supply). What can 16 roaches do against anything?
Reduce supply of all units or increase maximum supply and then you can talk about increasing the map sizes and splitting units up.
i really wish supply cap was raised a little bit. even 230 might help make a 4th base more desirable
Maybe. I think supply max need to be upped, and units need to get their supply reduced to the point where the amount of units on the screen take up at least two screens of width, and tanks can properly leapfrog. It just looks like so few units overall when we talk about a deathbal. :<
On December 05 2012 20:32 Zaurus wrote: Why will you split your army if there is only one attack path?
Exactly.
The reason people don't split there armies is bases are so close together that youj never need to split your army to defend. In Ohana you literally sit in one choke with your whole army and your entire three bases are defended.
Map design is what's causing deathballs, not the game.
EDIT: I realise the game doesn't help, but look at Fantasy vs CrazyHydra on Arkanoid from the KT/T1 showmatch and tell me that they deathballed.
I love how this has turned into a another deathball debate :-P Why don't the Koreans make some maps that have bases more spread out like bw for tournaments? Then blizzard can copy like they did destructible rocks..
I like almost all the ideas for balance update.. What happened to carrier change? And please do something with the collosus.. It promotes Protoss deathball and is too powerful for its ease of use and mobility. It is also a crutch for Protoss like the infestor is for zerg wol..
The map design is limited by maps being somewhat balanced and actually having multiple options.
Suggestions like spreading bases more, putting less minerals per base etc. are stupid because they don't work... They simply unbalance the game and force the race weakened by it (usually protoss) to do all-ins or die..
Just look at all the maps that were more open, smaller or had bases further apart etc. They just led to protoss doing two base all-ins vs zerg non stop because they could never take a third safely. Maps with less minerals per base doesn't work either because it inherently screws over one race more than another too. Zerg and terran reach saturation on their minerals MUCH slower than protoss does, zerg because they have more bases and terran because they have orbitals, use scv's for building and just build workers the slowest. Protoss doesn't have any of that and must chrono it's workers to compete. If you would make a map with anything less than 8 patches on the first two bases protoss just wouldn't stand a chance...
Promoting interesting play by map design is good but those different styles you promote have to be viable in the first place. There are simply some restrictions in place for some matches not to be screwed, maps can't be too small or TvZ and PvZ are screwed too much for zerg. Maps can't be too open or PvZ is screwed for protoss (TvP also a bit by the way).
HotS should first tackle the issue of protoss being so stupidly reliant on forcefields against zerg because that is the biggest letdown for map variety and thus play variety at the moment. Forcefield leads to deathball play because they work best if you clump up your army and defend till you have a deathball plus they only work if the first three bases are close enough and have some natural choke leading to them. Protoss is forced to use them though because stalker/sentry/immortal is the only composition that can deal with both zerglings and a roach spam. Zealots are not good enough in ZvP because of roaches so no other style is really viable..
They should never have tried to balance things by altering how close or easy the third is to hold.. They should have tried to balance it instead by making Protoss strong enough unit-wise to hold a third independent of map design or force-fields.
I'm not sure if the hellbat changes is warranted, since the hellbat's effectiveness vs Zerglings is astounding with the blue flame upgrade. I can see why they're buffing them against melee - specifically Zealots, as they're not as effective as they should be. This will probably be a fine line for them. Alternatively, could they be thinking of increase the base armour to 1 instead?
On December 06 2012 01:57 Novacute wrote: I'm not sure if the hellbat changes is warranted, since the hellbat's effectiveness vs Zerglings is astounding with the blue flame upgrade. I can see why they're buffing them against melee - specifically Zealots, as they're not as effective as they should be. This will probably be a fine line for them. Alternatively, could they be thinking of increase the base armour to 1 instead?
It's probably another drastic attempt to get mech to work vs protoss, since chargelot/archon/immortal still beats a well set up mech army if you don't manage to cover the entire protoss army with EMPs. It is however a very stupid change, hellbats already dominate zerglings way too hard and fixing mech is a completely futile attempt that seems to be destroying the rest of the game while they try it.
Just look at all the maps that were more open, smaller or had bases further apart etc. They just led to protoss doing two base all-ins vs zerg non stop because they could never take a third safely. Maps with less minerals per base doesn't work either because it inherently screws over one race more than another too. Zerg and terran reach saturation on their minerals MUCH slower than protoss does, zerg because they have more bases and terran because they have orbitals, use scv's for building and just build workers the slowest. Protoss doesn't have any of that and must chrono it's workers to compete. If you would make a map with anything less than 8 patches on the first two bases protoss just wouldn't stand a chance...
I'm sorry I don't agree with this at all.
The maps where bases were spread out early in SC2 were like Steppes of War and Crossfire, incredibly small maps with wide open chokes to the third. Crossfire never lasted very long in the map rotation and games rarely got past 2 bases no matter what races were playing as Agression was so powerful due to all the chokes.
There's an easy, easy way to spread out bases and it be balanced, look at Whirlwind for example, it's not super far away, but it's not super close either and Protoss are fine without having to 2 base all in every game. There's never been enough experementation to even check all this stuff and that's led us to having Cloud Kingdom, Entomed Valley and Ohana which are god awful maps leading to really boring games as Defense is far too easy.
You can't look at this game as WoL anymore and HoTS will hopefully changed part of the early agression things, but I don't even think it's an issue.
If you had Fighting Spirit in the Pool right now, it would be perfectly fine although the third is quite far because to get into the base you have a 1 wide ramp. You could have 2-3 sentries with max energy or even less and 2-3 forcefields would keep the army out long enough to get your army over there. I honestly think the whining that goes on about how hard it is for a protoss to take a third base that's far away is simply ridiculous in PvX, ZvX. It's only hard due to bad map design and the maps where it's easy to take a third base are incredibly boring.
A map for example where the third base was far away PROMOTES A MIDGAME. It forces people to have an army (especially zergs!) to actually either defend or attack to secure your third base and leads to much more interesting games. Don't you think it's wrong that due to maps like Ohana, zerg players rarely build units until they're at 80 drones and are stillk super safe on 3 bases? It's crazy and it's all down to map design.
Agreed and the promoting a mid game is the best way to have a robust end game.
I would also like to point out that most "amateur" players(myself included) on terrible multitaskers. This means that the idea using 2 or 3 sentries, separate from your main army, to defend a third base is terrifying to them. Missing one forcefield or failing to repair a bunker quickly could cost them a game a group of attack-moved units. Naturally, they look at maps designed like that and immediately voice their displeasure and claim the map favors “not the race I am playing”.
It’s a problem that Blizzard is going to have. Challenging your player base is hard, because there will always be a group that feels they are “top players” the game is the reason for the loss, rather than a hole is their skill-set.
On December 06 2012 01:57 Novacute wrote: I'm not sure if the hellbat changes is warranted, since the hellbat's effectiveness vs Zerglings is astounding with the blue flame upgrade. I can see why they're buffing them against melee - specifically Zealots, as they're not as effective as they should be. This will probably be a fine line for them. Alternatively, could they be thinking of increase the base armour to 1 instead?
It's probably another drastic attempt to get mech to work vs protoss, since chargelot/archon/immortal still beats a well set up mech army if you don't manage to cover the entire protoss army with EMPs. It is however a very stupid change, hellbats already dominate zerglings way too hard and fixing mech is a completely futile attempt that seems to be destroying the rest of the game while they try it.
Lol, seems like it to me too. Why don't they just introduce the warhound back in a weaker form, or better yet, let viking attack air units in it's ground form. This will boost the overall effectiveness of mech. While they're at it, increasing siege tank damage through upgrade improvements will also make it ALOT more viable. I don't get why they fail to see such obvious areas of improvements. It seems like HOTS should be renamed to The Mech Killer instead.
On December 06 2012 01:57 Novacute wrote: I'm not sure if the hellbat changes is warranted, since the hellbat's effectiveness vs Zerglings is astounding with the blue flame upgrade. I can see why they're buffing them against melee - specifically Zealots, as they're not as effective as they should be. This will probably be a fine line for them. Alternatively, could they be thinking of increase the base armour to 1 instead?
It's probably another drastic attempt to get mech to work vs protoss, since chargelot/archon/immortal still beats a well set up mech army if you don't manage to cover the entire protoss army with EMPs. It is however a very stupid change, hellbats already dominate zerglings way too hard and fixing mech is a completely futile attempt that seems to be destroying the rest of the game while they try it.
Yeah, you can't do what they've done, which is essentially base 2 entire games on Countering Siege Tanks, and then expect Siege Tanks to be the backbone of any army.
You CANNOT buff Siege Tanks enough to actually survive against their long list of hard-counters, because by the time they're that good, you look down and realize they do 80 damage a shot, and everything not on that list is just instant mincemeat.
So they try to just make every other Factory unit into a Godawful high powered mess, to kind of "make up for the fact" that you made some Siege Tanks. Warhound was unbeatable on the ground, Widow Mine has insane damage, and now they want to make the Battle Hellion better against melee units- but they already destroy essentially infinite Zerglings... so unless that's some kind of janky spell we're talking about, making them viable against Zealots is going to make them plain embarrassing versus Zerglings.
Here are some BAD IDEAS if you really really needed to make Tanks work:
No Immortals/hardened Shield Phoenix redesigned until it isn't a Phoenix Slower Chargelots No Viper No Tempest No Blink TERRIBLE TERRIBLE DAMAGE
Yeah... doesn't sound good at all. You'd have to gut the whole game pretty bad.
I can connect just as usual, so don't get too exited. Would be strange to patch on wednesday anyway, usually they come on friday so we can play it during the weekend.
On December 06 2012 03:33 Qgelfich wrote: I can connect just as usual, so dont get exited. Would be strage to patch on wednesday anyway, usually they come on friday so we can play it during the weekend.
Still can't connect, my internet is fine, just downloaded huge LoL patch, I'm on TL obv, parents upstairs on internet is fine too. Can get WiFi on phone. So it's definitely not from my end.
On December 06 2012 04:27 {ToT}ColmA wrote: i doubt its the balance patch, would be too good to be true
I doubt it is either, but then again lately they've been giving less notice for each patch/update. For example, the patch for WoL yesterday was quite sudden, as was the announcement for the HotS new UI.
I think so too. Maybe hydraspeed or some basic stuff that doesnt need too much to change (every decent mapmaker could move hydraspeed to lairtech in a few seconds)
On December 05 2012 23:31 Stratos_speAr wrote: The two things that promote deathball play are pathing and clumping, not map sizes or unit effectiveness (unit effectiveness can be traced back to these problems). Pathing automatically clumps units as they move; this should be changed so that units roughly stay in formation as they move. Furthermore, units are basically able to dry-hump each other, meaning that ranged units can cram into a small space. Both of these significantly increase their damage output for the space they occupy, nullifying the power of melee units in melee by reducing the amount of surface area they can be attacked on by melee units. They need to be changed in tandem (you can't just change one or another) or else players will just be encouraged to manually clump their units instead of the AI doing it for them. Finally, splash damage (specifically, Siege Tanks and Psi Storm) don't do enough damage; these were nerfed pretty hard early in the game's development. Without high splash damage to deter clumping, you get incentives for deathballs.
To fix this, you need to introduce collision boxes to keep units away from each other, introduce formation moving, and increase splash damage/radius. This will make the gains of deathball play far worse than the risks you take by doing so, meaning that marching a 200/200 army through a small choke will be useless (and usually incredibly detrimental).This will then lead players to maximize the use of their armies, so they will split up armies more often.
Not only this, it will increase defender's advantage by reducing the effectiveness of clumps of units going through a choke and increasing the effectiveness of splash damage. Increasing defender's advantage will then lead to more aggressive play; part of the reason that you don't see that much aggressive play is because losing one's army is almost a sure loss because you simply can't defend without a roughly even army (this is partly due to macro mechanics, especially for T, not allowing for re-maxing as fast as the other races). However, with more powerful splash, one can run the risk of losing a large chunk of his units early on, but by having strategically placed units at a choke point, he can still defend with fewer units against a counter-attack, so there is hope, and thus a good incentive to be aggressive.
The best part is that this has all been done in the editor; nothing about the game engine needs to be changed. All of these pathing/clumping/damage/radius things are simply number values in SC2's map editor, so they are easily changeable. That said, Blizzard will, of course, never do it, since it will take some noticeable re-balancing efforts, but hey, that's what you get when you design a game terribly.
Another issue with this is Protoss design. The entire race is so horribly designed that the very nature of how it must be played works against non-deathball play and interesting spectating. The power of Warpgates necessitates weak Gateway units and overly-powerful Forcefields, leading to deathball play, and this would also need to be changed if we ended up changing the way pathing, clumping, and splash works.
Oh, and this has all been said a dozen times before, I'm just repeating myself and others.
one thing to add: because units clump so much the dps is very high for balls. so to fight the enemy ball you need you own deathball otherwise he just will run you over. in bw you could hold a bigger army back with fewer units because of the pathing, the dps was not so concentrated in one big ball in which all units shoot together. because of that in bw there was a much bigger defenders advantage (and because of better zone control units). because you don't need all you units to defend the enemy ball, you can harras with some units. that's one of the reasons, i think, why in bw they are often many little skirmishes all over the map and in sc2 it is often one big ball vs ball fight. also harrasing is more valuable in bw because you are way more dependent on you worker count (don't have eight orbitals with mules, chroning probes or lava inject's).
we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory This is potentially a huge, huge change. It can fix the mech anti air problem and having 3-3 banshees along with Tanks and Hellions...might even be to strong.
On December 06 2012 05:41 Sapphire.lux wrote: we'd like to maybe test combining the vehicle and air upgrades at the armory This is potentially a huge, huge change. It can fix the mech anti air problem and having 3-3 banshees along with Tanks and Hellions...might even be to strong.
If it is too strong, I would like to see a middle point like shared plating but not weapons. Plating is already the least upgraded upgrade among all of them, so having that shared might be an interesting change. It sort of mimicks ground carapace for zerg, and leaves 5 upgrades total like the other races.
We've got a ridiculous amount of changes coming at you with this one, both on the feature side and on the balance side. We will be posting very detailed notes shortly here, but at the highest level you can expect the following:
Groups.Turning on 2v2 queues (with some new maps)Fixing the clan invite spam (Hurray, eSports is saved!)Massive balance changes. If you want a peak at those you can check DK's post over on the EU forums from earlier this week.
We've got a ridiculous amount of changes coming at you with this one, both on the feature side and on the balance side. We will be posting very detailed notes shortly here, but at the highest level you can expect the following:
Groups. Turning on 2v2 queues (with some new maps) Fixing the clan invite spam (Hurray, eSports is saved!) Massive balance changes. If you want a peak at those you can check DK's post over on the EU forums from earlier this week.
On December 06 2012 06:46 stichtom wrote: IT IS TODAY: "Fair enough!
We've got a ridiculous amount of changes coming at you with this one, both on the feature side and on the balance side. We will be posting very detailed notes shortly here, but at the highest level you can expect the following:
Groups. Turning on 2v2 queues (with some new maps) Fixing the clan invite spam (Hurray, eSports is saved!) Massive balance changes. If you want a peak at those you can check DK's post over on the EU forums from earlier this week.
On December 06 2012 06:46 stichtom wrote: IT IS TODAY: "Fair enough!
We've got a ridiculous amount of changes coming at you with this one, both on the feature side and on the balance side. We will be posting very detailed notes shortly here, but at the highest level you can expect the following:
Groups. Turning on 2v2 queues (with some new maps) Fixing the clan invite spam (Hurray, eSports is saved!) Massive balance changes. If you want a peak at those you can check DK's post over on the EU forums from earlier this week.
I'm generally impressed, as a zerg i'm sad about the infestor, but hopefully it wont be useless. I do like the other zerg things, especially hydra speed at lair is going to be fun, and the swarm host buff. (and mutas too!) and meh, ultras buff, sure why not :p
And I like making terran have 2 sets of ups, since zerg and toss arguably only have 2 sets as well (though we see shields for toss, and melee/range separation for zerg...) Idk, interesting to see how it pans out.
As for toss air changes, I agree, as oracle and voidray are overlapping a bit, but entomb felt too strong. Maybe heavily nerf entomb, or make it cast only individual mineral fields at a time, unless its now going to shoot everything, units and buildings, which then it feels like a void again, but we shall see :p Still sad toss had replicator removed, and they cant find a place for the warhound...
On December 06 2012 06:56 DuncanIdaho wrote: I'm generally impressed, as a zerg i'm sad about the infestor, but hopefully it wont be useless. I do like the other zerg things, especially hydra speed at lair is going to be fun, and the swarm host buff. (and mutas too!) and meh, ultras buff, sure why not :p
And I like making terran have 2 sets of ups, since zerg and toss arguably only have 2 sets as well (though we see shields for toss, and melee/range separation for zerg...) Idk, interesting to see how it pans out.
As for toss air changes, I agree, as oracle and voidray are overlapping a bit, but entomb felt too strong. Maybe heavily nerf entomb, or make it cast only individual mineral fields at a time, unless its now going to shoot everything, units and buildings, which then it feels like a void again, but we shall see :p Still sad toss had replicator removed, and they cant find a place for the warhound...
I'm very excited to see how ZvP works out with infesters getting a hardcore nerf while other units get a good buff and with Vortex getting the same. We might finally have a fun time in that match up :D
On December 06 2012 06:59 SarcasmMonster wrote: I hate being teased... now I can't wait
This is my problem. It's going to be later today Blizzard time so it probably won't be ready in the UK until tommorow, but I really don't want to wait now :p
On December 06 2012 06:59 SarcasmMonster wrote: I hate being teased... now I can't wait
This is my problem. It's going to be later today Blizzard time so it probably won't be ready in the UK until tommorow, but I really don't want to wait now :p
I hope their servers won't explode like when they did the last big update with the clans and leveling.
On December 06 2012 07:05 Crawdad wrote: I'm going to a doctor's appointment in two hours, that will take a very long time...
I hope to god that the patch notes are released before then.
You know what, for once, I don't want patch notes. Just tell me what you made awesome, but don't give me stats. Just "the firebat, now more awesome. Go check out how." Keep the theory crafters guessing.
AI Communication -Players can now issue orders to AI partners. -This is a preliminary implementation of this feature, and we will be adding to it over the coming weeks. Please keep an eye on our Heart of the Swarm Beta Discussion forum for further updates.
Reminds me of Red Alert 3, which supported co-op for its entire campaign but allowed you to give simple orders to your AI partner if you didn't have a human one, although I'm sure a similar feature can be found in another RTS.
On December 06 2012 07:20 Terranist wrote: they really should just remove the infestor entirely and buff the zerg units that make the game exciting like mutalisks.
Eh no thank you, I want a spell caster other than the viper.
On December 06 2012 07:20 Terranist wrote: they really should just remove the infestor entirely and buff the zerg units that make the game exciting like mutalisks.
Nah they should rather make a couple of minor changes such as...
Removing fungal growth...... and infested terrans ...... and neutral parasite is kinda stupid as well. Also wouldn't mine a new look for the infestor... ...... But I like the name.
''A new set of balance changes have been included with the release of Patch 2.0.2. For more info, please visit the Balance Update threads in the Beta Discussion forum.''
To accompany the deployment of Heart of the Swarm Beta patch 2.0.2, we’ve compiled a list of all of the balance changes made to the beta since our previous update.
Terran
Medivac New ability: Emergency Thrusters Speed boost that increases movement speed and acceleration to 4.25 for 8 seconds. 20 second cooldown. The Medivac’s Caduceus Reactor upgrade at the Starport Tech Lab: Health restored per second from 9 to 15. Energy cost reduced from 3 health per 1 energy to 5 health per 1 energy. Cost increased from 100/100 and 80 seconds to 150/150 and 110 seconds.
Reaper Base speed increased from 2.95 to 3.375 Upgraded speed increased from 3.84 to 4.25.
Widow Mine No longer hits cloaked units. New upgrade: Drilling Claws Decreases burrow time from 3 to 1 second. Requires Tech Lab and Armory. Costs 150/150, 110 second research time.
Thor 250mm Strike Cannons has been removed. The Thor can now switch between two modes: High-Impact Payload and Explosive Payload. The mode shift takes 4 seconds. When in High-Impact Payload mode, the Thor switches to a different anti-air gun (250mm Punisher Cannons) that has 10 range and deals 24 flat damage. Thor radius, inner radius, and separation radius increased from 0.8215 to 1.
Raven Seeker Missile has been redesigned: Can now fire from 10 range. Missile comes out and stays immobile in front of the Raven for 3 seconds while charging up, then rapidly moves (it’s not dodgeable at this point) and explodes at the target for 300 single target damage. Targeted unit lights up red when targeted. If the unit moves 13 range out of where the Seeker Missile is, the Missile fizzles.
Hellbat Splash damage radius increased from 90 to 110.
Armory The Armory now only has one weapon and one armor upgrade for both air and ground upgrades for both Factory and Starport units.
Protoss
Mothership Recall now functions as it does with the Mothership Core. Vortex now kills a single target. Vortex does not affect massive units.
Mothership Core is no longer massive. Oracle Pulsar Beam Now called “Activate Pulsar Beam” and “Deactivate Pulsar Beam”. When activated, the Oracle’s Pulsar Beam is enabled. Weapon deals 15+10 light. Weapon period changed to 0.86, down from 1. Weapon range reduced to 4.
Build time increased to 50, up from 35. Energy drain is now 4 per second.
Phoenix Range increased from 4 to 5. Upgrade still grants +2 range.
Dark Shrine cost is now 100/100, down from 100/250. Tempest Now requires Fleet Beacon. Attacks with two weapons. The primary weapon, Kinetic Overload, hits air units and remains unchanged. The secondary weapon, Resonance Coil, hits ground units, and does not deal bonus damage to massive units. Build time is now 60, down from 75.
Void Ray Prismatic Beam: No longer charges up. Weapon period decreased from 0.6 to 0.5. No longer does passive +massive damage.
Prismatic Alignment (new ability) increases damage to armored units by 6 for 20 seconds, with a 1 minute cooldown. This does not scale with upgrades.
Zerg
Hydralisk speed upgrade now requires Lair tech. Mutalisk Speed increased from 3.75 to 4. Acceleration stays at 3.5.
Swarm Host health increased from 120 to 160. Infestor Fungal Growth: Is now a projectile. Speed of the projectile is 10. Range down to 8.
Infested Terrans no longer gain weapon and armor upgrades. Infested Terran egg health down to 70.
Ultralisk Burrow Charge has been removed. Damage changed from 15+20 armored to 35 flat damage.
I loved almost every single one, but the one that hurts is the dark shrine change. What in the actual fuck. DT expand every game with a chance for autowin
Health restored per second from 9 to 15.Energy cost reduced from 3 health per 1 energy to 5 health per 1 energy. Cost increased from 100/100 and 80 seconds to 150/150 and 110 seconds.
whoaaa, I understand it's more expensive, but I don't see early lings having any chance against drops that put marines in corners/tight spaces. Have to get roach/banes.
Health restored per second from 9 to 15.Energy cost reduced from 3 health per 1 energy to 5 health per 1 energy. Cost increased from 100/100 and 80 seconds to 150/150 and 110 seconds.
whoaaa, I understand it's more expensive, but I don't see early lings having any chance against drops that put marines in corners/tight spaces. Have to get roach/banes.
It's not exactly a cheap upgrade. Does hardly anything vs banes. Worth a try.
Health restored per second from 9 to 15.Energy cost reduced from 3 health per 1 energy to 5 health per 1 energy. Cost increased from 100/100 and 80 seconds to 150/150 and 110 seconds.
whoaaa, I understand it's more expensive, but I don't see early lings having any chance against drops that put marines in corners/tight spaces. Have to get roach/banes.
Zerg don't have to create tight corners if they are careful about their building placement.
Cherish this moment of global happiness, for it soon will turn to endless whining by at least one of the three races, once the new state of balance is uncovered
I hate this approach, really. It's radical, but it's just adding gimmickry. TRULY being radical would be 'ok we goofed up with certain design concepts'. They'd fix those and if necessary add kind of cool things.
It's not the changes, it's the lack of a visible coherent philosophy. Please somebody tell me what Blizzard is trying to do with this? Other than a 'goal' like promoting say, harass-based play. Tell me how Blizzard are actually approaching the specifics with a clear overall philosophy of making the game better, come on, if I'm wrong tell me why I'm wrong.
There are good changes, and bad.
At least the Protoss changes you can look at, address and they all make sense, kind of. That doesn't apply to Terran or Zerg changes, at all.
I can do this, if necessary on a case-by-case look at each change, and try to explain this concept of an overarching philosophy not applying, at all. It's not consistent in terms of RTS fundamentals, AT ALL.
On December 06 2012 09:57 Wombat_NI wrote: I hate this approach, really. It's radical, but it's just adding gimmickry. TRULY being radical would be 'ok we goofed up with certain design concepts'. They'd fix those and if necessary add kind of cool things.
It's not the changes, it's the lack of a visible coherent philosophy. Please somebody tell me what Blizzard is trying to do with this? Other than a 'goal' like promoting say, harass-based play. Tell me how Blizzard are actually approaching the specifics with a clear overall philosophy of making the game better, come on, if I'm wrong tell me why I'm wrong.
There are good changes, and bad.
At least the Protoss changes you can look at, address and they all make sense, kind of. That doesn't apply to Terran or Zerg changes, at all.
I can do this, if necessary on a case-by-case look at each change, and try to explain this concept of an overarching philosophy not applying, at all. It's not consistent in terms of RTS fundamentals, AT ALL.
It might be radical changes, but what it sounds like to me is Blizzard has there head on straight now with this balance approach, it sounds like they got Flash, Bisu, and Jaedong to sit in a room and balance HOTS untill they see fit, and now we have this wonderful good given thing that is going to be a great successor to BW. I hope.
On December 04 2012 03:12 spbelky wrote: O Dayvie, such good intentions. But does he have the tools and knowledge to pull it off?
He's a genious compared to 99% of the balance whiners on TL and he made sc2, so I guess its ezpzlsqz for him.
I like the changes alot!
What changes? DK posts ideas and thoughts about the game
The "ideas and thoughts" concerns possible future changes. You aren't seriously wondering what he means though? Please restrain that smug part of yourself, please.
On December 06 2012 09:27 Morphs wrote: Cherish this moment of global happiness, for it soon will turn to endless whining by at least one of the three races, once the new state of balance is uncovered
What's important is that the design is now great! Balance problems can be fixed via tuning the numbers. I however agree that lots of whine will be incoming soon
The design being great is a massive overstatement. The vast majority of the problems with the game's design remain unfixed. But props to Blizzard for fixing some of them.
Exactly ledarsi, I mean yeah they might lead to a better game for sure, and they showcase some balls on Blizzard's part!
Most Terrans are happy because they will be having an easier time against Zerg, judging from their comments. It's like the opposite of the Queen patch, although it is a lot larger in scope and may lead to other cool things
EPT
![[image loading]](http://postmediaprovince.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/slow-clap.gif)
![[image loading]](http://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/blog_header/ELSSN7XUHBTG1354652374090.jpg)
