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Just going over the whole thread I have to say I love the battle between Spyridon and Christian. It is actually pretty fun to read two people who actually have decently well thought out arguments for both sides (regardless of my personal opinion on the matter.) The side discussion on the numbers of the BroodLord between proto and unsa does not feel entertaining, helpful, or really relevant to the main point on of the thread, but at least it's not just 10yr olds whining because "I just lost to X nerf plox this game sux," -__-.
Even though the Spyri and Christian debate is very thought provoking and well constructed, (and well mannered despite the blatant insults  ) I also don't feel like your discussion on the balance of BroodLords and BroodLings is the main point of the thread.
On January 28 2013 03:59 HardlyNever wrote:So that wraps up why I think this trend in free units is bad. It creates boring gameplay, breaks the zerg paradigm of cost-inefficientness, and makes splash damage even more appealing than it already is. I know this probably won't change anything in HotS, but at least least I'm trying to do my part as a beta tester. Link to original threadI'm personally not too happy about having to constantly deal with waves of free units, and I explain why in the post. Do zerg players like all these free units? How does terran deal with it (siege tanks)? I'm concerned what this might mean for the game in the long term.
From trying to be as impartial to the thread as I can, I feel as though Thieving MagPie (awesome name btw  ) is closest on the core of the issue in that the way zerg's unit generators work, it doesn't FEEL as though you are playing the SWARM race. You are babysitting a few ultra expensive, slow, and extremely cost efficient units that can hold it's own against NEARLY any other composition thrown against it. The addition of Tempests has the POTENTIAL to create a similar situation for protoss, but as a race you are supposed to be babysitting a few ultra expensive and cost efficient units. Terrans have the most versatility in what they can do (mech vs bio vs biomech etc) because Blizzard had intended for Terrans to be the most versatile race since the beginning of SC2. They even mentioned that Terran's felt like "the most complete race" in terms of design, and they wanted Heart of the Swarm especially to help fill in some of the design gaps they felt that zerg had.
Zergs were meant to be inefficient, but so great in number and territory that losses didn't matter. I don't care one way or another about balance in so far as this thread is concerned, the OP point is that the DESIGN of zerg, (specifically the hyper efficient unit generators BroodLords and Infestors,) makes it so that it is not fun to play or watch the race that is supposed to overwhelm in numbers like a swarm of bugs play more like WarCraft heroes, where it is a few hero units (broodlords) and spellcasters (infestors) that do the heavy work.
Yeah there are some players (thank you Idra <3 <3) who tend to steer away from the hyper efficient, low expanding infestor spine broodlord with more aggressive mid-games like Roach Hydra Viper or Ling Bane Muta -> Ultra, but when the easiest AND safest way to play is the ultra efficient style that is completely opposite to how the design of the race was supposed to function, then we have a serious DESIGN flaw. (If its not fun to play, or fun to watch, what does it matter how well balanced it is? Tic Tac Toe is the most balanced real time game I can think of, but I don't watch casts of proffesional Tic Tac Toe players because ITS NOT FUN.)
'DB and co. wants zerg to be able to put pressure in a very "zergy" way. Well it's not "zergy," that all you do is babysit a few hyper efficient units, it only looks that way because the method of attack is a wave(SH) / stream(BL) / burst(Inf) of dispensable units.'
I can't help but recall the Lings of Liberty post where it suggests that Blizz wants foreigners to beat koreans, and the way to do that is to make a race easy enough and strong enough that they had a chance. Flashy and 'cool' looking eye candy makes more sales, so applied to this post they will be keeping the 'zergy' Hosts, Infestors, and Broodlords beacuse it LOOKS appealing... but we know that post was only satire doesn't apply to anything really right?.... Right???
As a side note:
+ Show Spoiler + I think that the StarBow solution to the BroodLords in particular is an interesting solution that is at least a step in the right direction. The SBow BLrd is essentially a Guardian, but instead of a basic attack or a constant stream of 'tokens,' each attack applies a parasite to the target unit that last for a small amount of time. If the unit dies with the parasite active, then the unit spawns broodlings (stackable on units with enough hp to tank more than a couple hits.) While this might not be the greatest for SC2, I feel like it is definitely a much more FUN and appealing way to design BroodLords while retaining the 'zergy' look. Now it just has a (more) 'zergy' FEEL to it as well.
Just my thoughts on the discussion so far. It's been enlightening and I hope to keep reading these types of debates, since the overall goal of most everybody is that WE WANT SC2 TO BE AS GOOD AS AND BETTER THAN BROODWAR, even if we can't quite agree on what exactly needs to happen.
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+ Show Spoiler [Long Quote] +On January 31 2013 21:32 Spyridon wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2013 19:02 ChristianS wrote:
There's no contradiction between saying "there could be imbalances" and "I think it's too soon to say Zerg as a race is underpowered in HotS." I haven't even seen any statistics on winrates in HotS; even if there were any, they would largely be meaningless, because the game changes pretty much every week. Blizzard is largely making changes based on what they think makes for better gameplay at the moment, because there really isn't a good way to measure global balance at this point.
Before I respond, I find it quite ironic that you say you actually agree with me and others here on some points, yet for some reason you are arguing some of the points you claim to agree with. In response, your quotes of your self... that's not what you said man. Your exact words were "If Zerg has something that is legitimately imbalanced it should be addressed". Then your next paragraph "It's way too early to HotS balance perspective accurately". Taking that in to consideration, you DID contradict yourself. Now your saying "its too soon to say Zerg as a race is underpowered". If that's the case, it should be too early to judge if something is imbalanced as well. Yet for some reason your talking about legitimate imbalance? Contradiction. Show nested quote +
Because we have to consider the lategame design during beta, and there's very little evidence so far as to what lategame HotS actually looks like, so we have to guess based on the more well-explored WoL lategame and what we know about the new units. For example, someone might have the concern that viper/broodlord would be a difficult composition to deal with because the vipers can blinding cloud anything that gets in range of the broodlords, thus preventing them or the vipers from ever being hit. That's a potentially legitimate concern, but we wouldn't have seen it much yet because lategame HotS games are rare. So we compare it to the existing WoL metagame and try to decide just how troublesome this new composition really would be.
How don't you see this is still contradicting your earlier comments? You say you can't judge HotS balance, you say right here that theres little evidence of endgame... So you try to guess from WoL and extrapolate what's going to happen in HotS? How about waiting until imbalance actually happens before complaining about it? You ask why I'm so offended? Because of exactly what you are doing here. People (including you) are straight up making guesses about what's going to happen, and claiming theres "legitimate imbalance". Right now, things are not imbalanced. And you tell me I'm paranoid?? I'm not the one talking about legitimate imbalance when the numbers don't show it... now THAT'S paranoid. Show nested quote +
While I'm unaware of any tank pushes that make it unsafe for zerg to ever leave their base from game start to hive tech, I'll take your word for it. Even if there are effective contain strategies against zerg, so what? If one player dedicates resources to containing the other, and then the other player is temporarily contained, that sounds like how the game is supposed to work to me. If you dedicate the resources to breaking out (say, building mutalisks), then you are no longer contained.
What strikes me as odd about this is that Zerg has BY FAR the easiest time maintaining map presence of any of the races. Protoss probably has the hardest time, unless you count observers (and that's not really map presence). In general map control usually goes to the player with the faster units, which is nearly always the zerg player. So you complaining about Zerg's many woes of being unable to move out on the map is, well... I don't know how else to describe it, other than patently untrue.
As I mentioned in the last message, there are situations you can leave, and theres situations you can't. And I don't really have a problem with that. I just find it ironic that other races act like Zerg is anywhere near the best race at turtling, when the other races do it better. The melodramatics are annoying. Show nested quote +
I didn't decide it. I observed it, based on playing and watching Starcraft. Broodlings have nice little advantages like forcing tanks to unsiege, but when it comes down to it, they're not that powerful and they have fairly little to do with why BL/infestor is so strong. I know broodlings aren't that important compared to fungal combined with siege range, because if the problem were the broodlings, it wouldn't be very difficult to deal with. If you've ever fought a BL/infestor army with 4-8 hellions in your own army, you know that the broodlings are virtually a non-issue. It's really easy to kill off the broodlings; but when you do, there's still a broodlord infestor army driving toward your base that you haven't done anything about, because the broodlings aren't that important.
In general Zerg is designed to be weak in small numbers but strong in overwhelming numbers, but broodlord infestor does not follow this rule. The infestor is one of the most cost-efficient units in the game, and if you manage broodlord infestor right, you can easily do it without losing a single broodlord, or at least force your opponent to trade 50+ supply to kill one or two broodlords that you immediately replace. That's not winning through strength by numbers; that's winning through having a more cost-efficient army than your opponent.
Again man... that's not what you said. Your exact words " Broodlings aren't really supposed to be the best part of getting broodlords; they're mostly just icing on the cake.".Where, exactly, did you "observe" Blizzard saying Broodlords were just supposed to be icing on the cake? . And once again, who are YOU to judge the intent of Broodlords? You didn't design them. If it wasn't their intent to be used how they are, why would they have nerfed infestors instead of Broodlords? They changed Guardians in to Broodlords for a reason... Obviously it fits Blizzards intent. You are just in denial. Also I agree Zerg in general is designed to be weak in small numbers and overwhelming in high numbers. And your right again, Broodlord/Infestor does not follow this rule. What you fail to realize is this is INTENDED. These units are designed to take the damage for the other units, basically functioning how a "defensive" unit would work for the other races. Except they do it in a swarmy way. Do you really think Roaches fit a swarmy defensive "tanking" role better than Broodlords or Swarm hosts? And you are still bringing WoL balance in to this. Straight up, WoL has no place in a discussion about HotS balance. Most of the playerbase has already admit BL/Infestor isn't a problem yet, except you. Show nested quote +I don't actually know why you disagree with me so strongly. I only stepped into this forum trying to clarify what the real issue with broodlord/infestor really is, since people seemed to think it was free units that make it difficult to deal with. I tried to make clear that this is not, in fact, the issue with broodlord/infestor, and that the Swarm Host doesn't really suffer from any of the problems broodlord/infestor does. I can ask you the same question - why are you disagreeing with me so strongly? The reason I'm disagreeing with you so strongly is you are arguing WoL balance in the HotS forum and saying silly things like Broodlords are the only air siege unit, when that's not the case in HotS, and we're on the HotS forum. Your comments about the Swarm Host that I just quoted... That's exactly my point. Show nested quote +How can you possibly judge the balance of a new game, when most people haven't even really stopped using the strategies from the old game yet? Actually, most people are experimenting with the new stuff, not playing the old game. But this comment shows the mentality that you are stuck in... playing the old game. Show nested quote +This is where balancing by comparison to WoL comes in. If the Warhound is significantly stronger than every WoL unit was, the Warhound is probably OP. If Swarm Host pushes are doing a lot more damage than Zerg pushes in WoL typically did, it might be that the Swarm Host is a little too strong. Except Warhound wasn't just removed for its strength - the numbers could have been rebalanced. They stated it was removed because it overlapped with too many units. Also, it was recognized that one of Zergs problems was no mid-game siege unit. It was designed so that Zerg midgame pushes were able to break the wall that was previously unbreakable. And it's far easier to counter than BL/Infestor was. So what's the problem? Show nested quote +Giving Terran more options and timings to attack Zerg before broodlord infestor comes out does not address the broodlord infestor issue, and let's not pretend for a second that it does. The problem isn't even exactly that the matchup's win rate is skewed, although it may be; the problem is that if the Terran's win condition is to kill Zerg before hive tech, and the Zerg's win condition is to reach hive tech, then that's bad game design, regardless of win rates. Some advice... Stop playing WoL Terran. Your the only Terran I've seen on here lately that's still acting like Broodlord/Infestor is a major problem. You said yourself that you think people are still playing like WoL, break that cycle. In response to your complaints about the game design, I can agree with you to a point, because you have to understand, the grass is always greener, and if that's how the balance ends up being in the end, don't think it's going to be fun for Zerg either. It's not fun to lose a game unless you manage to make it to Hive. I've said before I would love it if they gave Zerg some early game power, that way they would be able to loosen up on the late game power a bit. The problem is (which I was trying to explain to you before) any buffs they do to Zerg early game (such as burrow, which wasn't even a major buff to early game since you sacrifice economy or tech for it) and you have loads of people complaining "Now Zerg has it even easier to get to hive tech, omgwtf!". If they did that for just burrow, imagine what would happen if they did it with some stronger tech? That's exactly why it's never going to happen, and that's exactly why I'm annoyed by it. To stress that again to make the point clear. We're in agreement about a potential problem here if the balance ends up like that. But those changes are not going to happen specifically because of all the people complaining about any buff to Zerg early game. That's why I'm bothered by the complaints. It's bad feedback and stopping them from designing the balance better. And I'll be honest now, your complaints, especially when it comes to bringing up WoL balance in HotS, isn't helping the situation at all. Show nested quote +You've made quite clear that a) you think Zerg is probably UP in HotS, and b) you think the forum is systematically biased against Zerg. But actually, there was a thread complaining about the free siege upgrade. When the widow mine was buffed, there were complaints about it. When the caduceus reactor and emergency thrusters buffs came down, everyone was in an uproar about it. Just recently there was a thread built on the premise that Zerg, as a race, is underpowered (I didn't follow the thread, but I suspect you were somewhat in favor of the premise). I don't see any evidence that the community is especially biased against Zerg or any other race; it's just people giving feedback about the game, which is what a beta is for.
If you think the world is against you, and they're actually not, that's paranoid. I'm not saying Zerg is UP, nor am I saying any of the other races are OP. What I am saying is there is no evidence to support Zerg being OP, the only (little bit) of evidence we have says otherwise, and with that in consideration, it's not the time to be discussing making Zerg weaker. As you said, and I agree, it's too early to tell balance for sure. So it strikes me as out of place that you are bringing up "legitimate imbalance" on the HotS forum with WoL info, when theres no evidence to back that up right now, and contrary to your belief Infestor/BL isn't unstoppable, nor is it even the best strategy to use in HotS. Responding to you talking about the threads, once again I explain that there is a clear difference, because the complaints about Zerg is the bad feedback making them reluctant from making Zerg early game stronger and lategame weaker. Let me try explaining it in a way you would understand. How would you feel if the general tone of feedback for Terran was saying how their early and mid game need to be nerfed, and their late game made stronger instead, knowing Terran as a race is designed with the most options for early game harassment in mind? Would you really want to give up the strengths Terran has, just to be in the same exact situation Zerg was in on WoL? That type of balance isnt fun for everyone, and the complaints I'm mentioning are the ones keeping it that way. In response to calling me paranoid, I say the same thing I said before. Your the one talking about "legitimate imbalance" when you have no evidence, not me. That's paranoid.
These are getting a little too lengthy, so I'll try to keep it brief.
-Local imbalance and global imbalance are very different things. People are complaining about local imbalances like "Swarm Host seems too strong now" or "The widow mine has no good counter." That's exactly what betas are for, and there's nothing wrong with this kind of feedback. If, on the other hand, someone says "Zerg is clearly UP until lategame because Zerg can never win unless they have hive" is stating a global imbalance, which is much, MUCH more difficult to measure; win rates are the only very effective measure, and I don't know if win rate statistics even exist yet. So me saying "it's too soon to judge balance for HotS" was in response to you saying "Zerg isn't exactly in the best place right now in HotS," which was a complaint of global imbalance. If, on the other hand, someone is just arguing that the Swarm Host is too strong or something, that's something we can judge based on what we've seen of the Swarm Host.
-I only brought up WoL balance in the context of Broodlord/Infestor because people were arguing about the problems Broodlord/Infestor had, and they were misrepresenting it. As for the issue about broodlings, it doesn't matter what Blizzard INTENDED two and a half years ago for whether the siege range or broodling was more valuable. Frankly they didn't intend anything on the matter; they just intended to revamp an old unit to make it cooler and more interesting for players and spectators. When I said broodlings aren't supposed to be the biggest benefit of getting broodlords, I was stating that they are not, in fact, the biggest part of what makes broodlords strong. Regardless of what Blizzard intended them to be, they simply aren't. Broodlord infestor isn't so strong because it has units to tank for it, or because broodlings do such incredible DPS that nothing can compete. They're strong because it's difficult to even reach a point where you're able to shoot at hte broodlords, because fungal zones you out.
-I never claimed there are balance issues in current HotS. Nor do I play a WoL style in current HotS. And if you don't think Zerg is UP in HotS, then I'm sorry for misrepresenting you; I thought you made pretty clear that you thought Zerg was in a bad place in HotS, and that Protoss and Terran complaints about Zerg were only stemming from a secret desire to gimp the Zerg race until it was completely ineffectual. I considered both those sentiments paranoid, since there's not enough evidence to claim global imbalance yet, and there's no reason to assume ulterior motives on the part of your fellow forumgoers.
-Early-game buffs to Zerg would not do anything to make late-game Zerg more balanced. Zerg actually has plenty of fairly strong early- and mid-game attacks; they just don't use them much because their lategame is so much better. I hear this dynamic has changed in PvZ, but in TvZ it definitely hasn't.
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On February 01 2013 10:27 Doominator10 wrote:Even though the Spyri and Christian debate is very thought provoking and well constructed, (and well mannered despite the blatant insults ) I also don't feel like your discussion on the balance of BroodLords and BroodLings is the main point of the thread.
lol.. I can agree that the conversation did get sidetracked a bit.
In response to what you said about efficiency... Zerg "in general" isn't about efficient units. But some people have the misconceptions about it.
First misconception: Zerg units are always inefficient. This isn't true, even for the most inefficient Zerg units in the game. In SC2, what is inefficient in small numbers becomes more and more efficient in big numbers. The more you have, the more efficient you are.
Second misconception: All Zerg units are designed to be efficient. This is not true, even in WoL. The majority of Zerg units are inefficient, but once you get to late game tech they are more efficient, and the spellcasters (even in WoL) are designed to make the other units more efficient.
When it comes to Broodlords and Swarm Hosts, this is kind of a different issue as well. Siege units, by design, are very efficient units. Also, Siege units, by design, have to be protected by other units.
Taking that in to consideration, either Zerg doesn't have a siege unit, or their siege unit is going to be efficient. Even Lurkers were super efficient. Every other races Siege units are efficient. Swarm Hosts are actually the least efficient of them all, which is why they are weak in small numbers. But going along with the Zerg ideal explained in the first misconception, they gain efficiency as they go in to large numbers.
If this is such a problem, how would anyone else solve the problem of both making a siege unit that's not efficient in low numbers, but is efficient in large numbers, and synergizes by providing protection to make other Zerg units more efficient, which is the ideal of Zerg as a race?
On February 01 2013 10:37 ChristianS wrote:
These are getting a little too lengthy, so I'll try to keep it brief.
Agreed there as well. I'll respond briefer too.
Sure, local and global imbalance are different things. But instead of actually responding to what I said, you are ignoring it and displacing the conversation back on to me. I already explained to you that by the results right now, Zerg isn't in the best spot. Yet even though that should have been understood by now, you keep putting on the act as if I was arguing about Zerg being underpowered - something I have stated I don't think is true.
The crazy part about this converation? You already have been quoted of talking about global imbalance multiple times, yet you keep ignoring that fact and displacing back on to me as if I was the one to do that. You said Zerg had a legitimate imbalance. I said by the results Zerg aren't in the best place right now. How could you act like I was the one arguing about balance, and denying that you did?
Back on the WoL discussion you mention, again you still are backtracking what you actually said. You specifically stated "Broodlings aren't supposed to be the best part of getting a Broodlord, they are only supposed to be icing on the cake". That's completely contradictory and a completely different conversation from what you just said. And this is still ignoring the fact that the discussion you brought up has nothing to do with HotS balance, which was my problem with it from the beginning. Instead of responding to what I've been saying with you, you are denying what you said, same as you have to other people in this post. Seems that whenever someone quotes what you say, you just respond and argue with them, rather than actually respond to the conversation at hand.
If you never claimed there are balance issues in current HotS, then why were you arguing in this very topic (a HotS topic)? Because you brought WoL balance issue in to here. And my point was that doesn't belong here, but instead of accepting it you keep denying you did it at all, when you DID claim "legitimate imbalance". And yes, I did say Zerg aren't in the best place, and when you inquired what I meant about that I mentioned by the current results.
I also explained the issue with Protoss and Terran complaints very clearly last time too. I even gave an example you would understand from a Terran perspective. The global tone of complaints about Zerg is negative feedback that is preventing Blizzard from changing the metagame from a situation that both you and I have said is not ideal. What are the motives of that? Who knows. All I know is you can look at any of the changes that have happened to Zerg, even the earliest game one (burrow) and see nothing but endless feedback of "Oh great now Zerg can get to late game even easier!". How is anyone supposed to force Blizzards hand to change things when that is the #1 feedback they get?
And responding to your last part, the problem with most the earlier game attacks is most fall along the line of all-ins, rather than timing attacks. Most of this problem (which has been discussed since WoL) is because there's not ways to break siege or break turtle walls until later game. That's one of the top reasons Zergs rushed to Broodlords, and it's still the top reason Zergs are rushing to Vipers or Swarm Hosts now.
But this brings us back to the siege problem discussed in my response to Doominator above. It seems people have an issue with Zerg having these efficient units that need to be "babysitted", but siege by nature is efficient, and Zerg by nature gains efficiency in bigger numbers. People have many complaints, but all the solutions provided either would not work with the Zerg design that needs the the new siege units to be A) A siege unit, B) Inefficient in low numbers but efficient in high numbers, and C) Offer the synergy of both needing to be protecting by other units as is sieges nature, as well as providing synergy of protecting the Zerg units to make them more efficient..... If you don't have a unit that answers for these 3 problems it won't fit in and work with the Zerg dynamic and would leave "holes" in the Zerg design.
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+ Show Spoiler [Long Quote] +On February 01 2013 13:14 Spyridon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 10:27 Doominator10 wrote:Even though the Spyri and Christian debate is very thought provoking and well constructed, (and well mannered despite the blatant insults ) I also don't feel like your discussion on the balance of BroodLords and BroodLings is the main point of the thread. lol.. I can agree that the conversation did get sidetracked a bit. In response to what you said about efficiency... Zerg "in general" isn't about efficient units. But some people have the misconceptions about it. First misconception: Zerg units are always inefficient. This isn't true, even for the most inefficient Zerg units in the game. In SC2, what is inefficient in small numbers becomes more and more efficient in big numbers. The more you have, the more efficient you are. Second misconception: All Zerg units are designed to be efficient. This is not true, even in WoL. The majority of Zerg units are inefficient, but once you get to late game tech they are more efficient, and the spellcasters (even in WoL) are designed to make the other units more efficient. When it comes to Broodlords and Swarm Hosts, this is kind of a different issue as well. Siege units, by design, are very efficient units. Also, Siege units, by design, have to be protected by other units. Taking that in to consideration, either Zerg doesn't have a siege unit, or their siege unit is going to be efficient. Even Lurkers were super efficient. Every other races Siege units are efficient. Swarm Hosts are actually the least efficient of them all, which is why they are weak in small numbers. But going along with the Zerg ideal explained in the first misconception, they gain efficiency as they go in to large numbers. If this is such a problem, how would anyone else solve the problem of both making a siege unit that's not efficient in low numbers, but is efficient in large numbers, and synergizes by providing protection to make other Zerg units more efficient, which is the ideal of Zerg as a race? Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 10:37 ChristianS wrote:
These are getting a little too lengthy, so I'll try to keep it brief.
Agreed there as well. I'll respond briefer too. Sure, local and global imbalance are different things. But instead of actually responding to what I said, you are ignoring it and displacing the conversation back on to me. I already explained to you that by the results right now, Zerg isn't in the best spot. Yet even though that should have been understood by now, you keep putting on the act as if I was arguing about Zerg being underpowered - something I have stated I don't think is true. The crazy part about this converation? You already have been quoted of talking about global imbalance multiple times, yet you keep ignoring that fact and displacing back on to me as if I was the one to do that. You said Zerg had a legitimate imbalance. I said by the results Zerg aren't in the best place right now. How could you act like I was the one arguing about balance, and denying that you did? Back on the WoL discussion you mention, again you still are backtracking what you actually said. You specifically stated "Broodlings aren't supposed to be the best part of getting a Broodlord, they are only supposed to be icing on the cake". That's completely contradictory and a completely different conversation from what you just said. And this is still ignoring the fact that the discussion you brought up has nothing to do with HotS balance, which was my problem with it from the beginning. Instead of responding to what I've been saying with you, you are denying what you said, same as you have to other people in this post. Seems that whenever someone quotes what you say, you just respond and argue with them, rather than actually respond to the conversation at hand. If you never claimed there are balance issues in current HotS, then why were you arguing in this very topic (a HotS topic)? Because you brought WoL balance issue in to here. And my point was that doesn't belong here, but instead of accepting it you keep denying you did it at all, when you DID claim "legitimate imbalance". And yes, I did say Zerg aren't in the best place, and when you inquired what I meant about that I mentioned by the current results. I also explained the issue with Protoss and Terran complaints very clearly last time too. I even gave an example you would understand from a Terran perspective. The global tone of complaints about Zerg is negative feedback that is preventing Blizzard from changing the metagame from a situation that both you and I have said is not ideal. What are the motives of that? Who knows. All I know is you can look at any of the changes that have happened to Zerg, even the earliest game one (burrow) and see nothing but endless feedback of "Oh great now Zerg can get to late game even easier!". How is anyone supposed to force Blizzards hand to change things when that is the #1 feedback they get? And responding to your last part, the problem with most the earlier game attacks is most fall along the line of all-ins, rather than timing attacks. Most of this problem (which has been discussed since WoL) is because there's not ways to break siege or break turtle walls until later game. That's one of the top reasons Zergs rushed to Broodlords, and it's still the top reason Zergs are rushing to Vipers or Swarm Hosts now. But this brings us back to the siege problem discussed in my response to Doominator above. It seems people have an issue with Zerg having these efficient units that need to be "babysitted", but siege by nature is efficient, and Zerg by nature gains efficiency in bigger numbers. People have many complaints, but all the solutions provided either would not work with the Zerg design that needs the the new siege units to be A) A siege unit, B) Inefficient in low numbers but efficient in high numbers, and C) Offer the synergy of both needing to be protecting by other units as is sieges nature, as well as providing synergy of protecting the Zerg units to make them more efficient..... If you don't have a unit that answers for these 3 problems it won't fit in and work with the Zerg dynamic and would leave "holes" in the Zerg design.
Is "Zerg isn't in the best spot right now" not meant to hint at imbalance? If not I've been consistently reading that entirely wrong; but I don't really know what else it could mean. It sounds like you're looking at something like race distribution in HotS GM league and arguing from there that Zerg must be underperforming, to which I would say that's an atrocious measure of balance (not entirely unlike when people would try to argue balance based on the race distribution in Code S). As for myself asserting global imbalances, I'm certain either I misspoke or you misunderstood me; I'm not even convinced they're OP as a race in WoL, and as for HotS, I wouldn't even begin to guess which race is strongest under the current rules. I certainly was, however, trying to clarify the situation regarding Zerg's alleged imbalance WoL, since it seemed to me that a few people were misunderstanding it.
As for that quote from me about broodlings not "supposed" to be this or that, I'll try to be as clear as I possibly can this time: I do not claim, and never intended to claim, that I have some magical knowledge of Blizzard's intentions in authoring the unit. I suspect their intentions were never even specific enough to have a firm stance on how important the broodlings should be compared to the normal attack. But Blizzard's intention aside, my intention in writing that sentence was to convey that when broodlord/infestor is actually used, the broodlings are a fairly small part of what makes it so powerful. They're certainly annoying, but it's not all that difficult to take measures to negate the broodlings, and when you do, you're still hardly any closer to dealing with the broodlord/infestor army. If I inadvertently conveyed anything else by that statement, I assure you it was only a miscommunication.
The connection to HotS, since this has been often questioned:
-The original thread complains about the concept of free units (not free in the sense of having no opportunity cost, but free in the sense of being replenishable without spending minerals or gas), saying this concept is inherently flawed, and the Swarm Host is an example of this problem.
-Some people made connections to the often-discussed broodlord infestor problem from WoL, saying that free units are what make broodlord infestor so powerful, allegedly to an imbalanced degree. They use this as support for the original claim that free units are inherently flawed, and the Swarm Host is therefore bad design.
-I comment in the thread, arguing against this claim by saying that free units (whether they are inherently bad design or not) are not the reason broodlord infestor was so powerful. I argue that the broodlord infestor combination is powerful mostly because the broodlord, by nature of its design, cannot be engaged until the enemy first approaches it, while the infestor, by nature of its design, is ideally equipped to prevent any kind of approach. This combination is what makes broodlord infestor so powerful; free units have got fairly little to do with it.
-Argument ensues.
+ Show Spoiler [Probably Not Relevant to Thread] +If I'm understanding correctly, your solution to the perceived problem with Zerg lategame is a two step plan of
a) buff Zerg early game so they have more aggressive options earlier in the game, and
b) nerf Zerg lategame now that they have more alternatives.
I have my doubts about this plan, though, because I don't think the reason Zerg early aggression is always all-in has to do with the strength of the units. Early attacks, no matter their strength, suffer from the essential problem that unlike the other races, Zerg attacks unavoidably come at the cost of drones. This means that any early attack from Zerg inherently comes at the cost of economy. This could be acceptable if the attack is meant to damage the opponent's economy without necessarily killing them outright; but in most cases in order to kill the economy you have to kill the army first. That means most attacks have one of two outcomes:
1) The Terran or Protoss is killed outright by the Zerg attack, and the game ends.
2) The Terran or Protoss defends, and the Zerg is economically behind.
In other words, most attacks are inherently all-in. The only exceptions would be if the attack either enables the Zerg to make an economic investment they otherwise couldn't make, or puts a dent in the opponent's economy to make up for the economic sacrifice Zerg made in order to attack. Pretty much all non-all-in Zerg attacks fall into one of these two categories, or both. 2-base mutalisks were designed to harass the opponent, keep them holed up in their base defending, and enable Zerg to take more expansions while the opponent defends. Zergling runbys are designed to delay opponents' attacks, scout the enemy composition, and do economic damage to make up for the larvae spent on zerglings.
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On February 01 2013 08:26 Unsane wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 07:45 Ghanburighan wrote:On February 01 2013 01:34 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Thread starts suggesting unit generating units should be redesigned to be more fun--defensive zerg players whine that we're trying to nerf Broodlords...
My understanding of this thread has been a discussion on the mechanics of the Zerg race--specifically it's ability to spawn temporary units. I don't know what this sudden surge of "don't nerf BL please, Zerg so weak!" came from...
The problem is not that Broodfestor is too strong, the problem people are having is that Zerg acts more like a mech player than Terran does. And I'm not talking about efficiency, I'm talking game style. Broodfestor players literally leapfrog spines like tanks, they're literally playing mech. Instead of tanks they use infestors, instead of minefields they use spine walls, instead of bunkers/vultures they use broodlings to defend they're tankfestors. Blizzard made mech work--they just gave it to the wrong race.
Why? Because token generation is slow and requires a buildup in order to be powerful. They're efficiency comes from longevity, not from kills/second. So giving Zerg that mechanic forces them to do exactly what Terran in BW did when they were given efficient free units (Spidermines) they turtle and spawn as many free units as possible.
This is not about balance or whether Zerg would be weak or not--this is gameplay, and how Zerg is playing too much like Terran and Terran playing too much like Zerg. So can we please stop trying to protect broodlords from nerfs that aren't even talked about! Could we not misunderstand "bring back old style ZvX" as needing broodlords and instead see it as a request to change the units so that they play more like how Zerg played in 2011 when sc2 was at its strongest. I very much like this post. It's in stark contrast to the many posts that followed arguing that X is too strong, or Y is too weak. Even though it's correct, as was later pointed out, that terran might have a mineral mining advantage at certain stages of the game due to mules, and a good mineral dump (marines), the fact that terran has less map control and slower units on the one hand, and slower saturation of bases on the other, does not allow the roles of zerg and terran to be fully reversed. Nor do I think they should be. And I think it's clear that current HotS or WoL zerg and terran don't play the way zerg played in 2011 in the heyday of DRG (who was a beast before the turtle composition came about and remains a beast now without it). But HotS zerg is on the knife's edge. IdrA seems to make roach hydra viper work quite well which plays much more akin to 2011 zerg. On the other hand, the development team has not been focusing on a roach, hydra, viper composition; leaving those units relatively untouched for a while. So, this discussion will hopefully demonstrate that there are a number of people that prefer a different design choice than the one they are currently making, and if we believe LR over the past months threads, it's a sizeable part of the community that wants zerg to play different. I for one fear that the swarm host will be a grave mistake, one that come release, blizz will refuse to change. Lurkers were so much cooler, funner, niche-er, loveable, zergy....etc... i can see the design intent of swarm hosts, but how they're used doesnt sit comfortably with me. I think blizz intends it to be a unit that you use to tank siege tank fire for hydras to poke at the wall with but ATM it appears like players just start spamming them until they have 40 of them.
Take a look at this thread.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=396251¤tpage=2
I agree, players were just massing them at the start. But better players(GM and Pros) started to use them differently, and don't commit to them too much while being constantly active with them. Watch all of those replays, they are very good and against some well-known players like LG.IM-Seed, TT1 etc.
I also was afraid that players will just use them mindlessly, but vs. good players, you have to be active with them, otherwise, they will die, or he will just drop the hell out of you if you just stand there and throw locusts on him.
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+ Show Spoiler +On February 01 2013 13:14 Spyridon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 10:27 Doominator10 wrote:Even though the Spyri and Christian debate is very thought provoking and well constructed, (and well mannered despite the blatant insults ) I also don't feel like your discussion on the balance of BroodLords and BroodLings is the main point of the thread. lol.. I can agree that the conversation did get sidetracked a bit. In response to what you said about efficiency... Zerg "in general" isn't about efficient units. But some people have the misconceptions about it. First misconception: Zerg units are always inefficient. This isn't true, even for the most inefficient Zerg units in the game. In SC2, what is inefficient in small numbers becomes more and more efficient in big numbers. The more you have, the more efficient you are. Second misconception: All Zerg units are designed to be efficient. This is not true, even in WoL. The majority of Zerg units are inefficient, but once you get to late game tech they are more efficient, and the spellcasters (even in WoL) are designed to make the other units more efficient. When it comes to Broodlords and Swarm Hosts, this is kind of a different issue as well. Siege units, by design, are very efficient units. Also, Siege units, by design, have to be protected by other units. Taking that in to consideration, either Zerg doesn't have a siege unit, or their siege unit is going to be efficient. Even Lurkers were super efficient. Every other races Siege units are efficient. Swarm Hosts are actually the least efficient of them all, which is why they are weak in small numbers. But going along with the Zerg ideal explained in the first misconception, they gain efficiency as they go in to large numbers. If this is such a problem, how would anyone else solve the problem of both making a siege unit that's not efficient in low numbers, but is efficient in large numbers, and synergizes by providing protection to make other Zerg units more efficient, which is the ideal of Zerg as a race? Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 10:37 ChristianS wrote:
These are getting a little too lengthy, so I'll try to keep it brief.
Agreed there as well. I'll respond briefer too. Sure, local and global imbalance are different things. But instead of actually responding to what I said, you are ignoring it and displacing the conversation back on to me. I already explained to you that by the results right now, Zerg isn't in the best spot. Yet even though that should have been understood by now, you keep putting on the act as if I was arguing about Zerg being underpowered - something I have stated I don't think is true. The crazy part about this converation? You already have been quoted of talking about global imbalance multiple times, yet you keep ignoring that fact and displacing back on to me as if I was the one to do that. You said Zerg had a legitimate imbalance. I said by the results Zerg aren't in the best place right now. How could you act like I was the one arguing about balance, and denying that you did? Back on the WoL discussion you mention, again you still are backtracking what you actually said. You specifically stated "Broodlings aren't supposed to be the best part of getting a Broodlord, they are only supposed to be icing on the cake". That's completely contradictory and a completely different conversation from what you just said. And this is still ignoring the fact that the discussion you brought up has nothing to do with HotS balance, which was my problem with it from the beginning. Instead of responding to what I've been saying with you, you are denying what you said, same as you have to other people in this post. Seems that whenever someone quotes what you say, you just respond and argue with them, rather than actually respond to the conversation at hand. If you never claimed there are balance issues in current HotS, then why were you arguing in this very topic (a HotS topic)? Because you brought WoL balance issue in to here. And my point was that doesn't belong here, but instead of accepting it you keep denying you did it at all, when you DID claim "legitimate imbalance". And yes, I did say Zerg aren't in the best place, and when you inquired what I meant about that I mentioned by the current results. I also explained the issue with Protoss and Terran complaints very clearly last time too. I even gave an example you would understand from a Terran perspective. The global tone of complaints about Zerg is negative feedback that is preventing Blizzard from changing the metagame from a situation that both you and I have said is not ideal. What are the motives of that? Who knows. All I know is you can look at any of the changes that have happened to Zerg, even the earliest game one (burrow) and see nothing but endless feedback of "Oh great now Zerg can get to late game even easier!". How is anyone supposed to force Blizzards hand to change things when that is the #1 feedback they get? And responding to your last part, the problem with most the earlier game attacks is most fall along the line of all-ins, rather than timing attacks. Most of this problem (which has been discussed since WoL) is because there's not ways to break siege or break turtle walls until later game. That's one of the top reasons Zergs rushed to Broodlords, and it's still the top reason Zergs are rushing to Vipers or Swarm Hosts now. But this brings us back to the siege problem discussed in my response to Doominator above. It seems people have an issue with Zerg having these efficient units that need to be "babysitted", but siege by nature is efficient, and Zerg by nature gains efficiency in bigger numbers. People have many complaints, but all the solutions provided either would not work with the Zerg design that needs the the new siege units to be A) A siege unit, B) Inefficient in low numbers but efficient in high numbers, and C) Offer the synergy of both needing to be protecting by other units as is sieges nature, as well as providing synergy of protecting the Zerg units to make them more efficient..... If you don't have a unit that answers for these 3 problems it won't fit in and work with the Zerg dynamic and would leave "holes" in the Zerg design.
I don't see how anything in this post is thought provoking.
Playing Red Alert 2 when I was 11, I knew that spending 200 credits on 1 GDI was a very inefficient decision. The GDI wouldn't do any damage and would just die. However, spending 2000 credits on 10 GDI's and sandbagging them or bunkering them throws cost-inefficiency out of the window when they are busy wrecking whole armies and getting promoted.
Everyone knows this, why would you write a long wall of text to explain basic RTS mechanics?
Zerglings won't do shit 1-on-1 with most units in the game. But give them metabolic boost, Adrenal Glands and a few other Zergling friends and they tear through anything that doesn't have AoE. Everybody knows this.
In fact, I don't think cost-efficiency is a valid argument in any sense when talking about SC2 seeing as it has elements of mass production.
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I like the swarm host, not because it is swarmy, but because it isnt. Either I can go ling bane with infestors, melee ups and keeping lings on the map. Or I envision myself playing a zerg race with focus on the "hive" (as in the nest, not "tier 2"). With spine crawlers moving around on the ever spreading creep, mobile crawlers who spew forth more unit to assault opponents defences and small groups of unit ready to bolster the defences when opponents engage to try to kill my swarm hosts. What I like is that he styles are so different. What I like is that swarm host is not easy to transition to, they cost much and dont do much only themselves and I would love to see new and clever ways to transition into them in the pro scene. They "should" discourage turtling, since they are godawful to move out with if the opponent have units out on the map. They should encourage completely new styles of play since their mechanic is completely different from previous zerg styles. They (can) require good crisis management from the opponent and Im sure there are many ingenious ways to hunt them (ive used baneling autoexplode in swarmhost fields before detection, that was cool). If zerg can choose a clumsy static army, then the opponent can split up his army into smaller pieces and move around more freely (since less fast ling bane groups to hunt them).
I say diversity is good.
Any theorycrafting argument for why it is too good or not is just silly. Is it crushing opposition in GM league? I havn't heard of any such claims. Any argument about balance must be based on the state of the game, not some 4 line reasoning based on how zerg is supposed to be played in BW.
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On February 01 2013 15:02 ChristianS wrote:
Is "Zerg isn't in the best spot right now" not meant to hint at imbalance? If not I've been consistently reading that entirely wrong; but I don't really know what else it could mean.
I've explained that a few times already. I'm not complaining about balance, just hinting that due to performance there's no reason that Blizz should be considering nerfs for Zerg. It's not like a few patches ago when Protoss were all of a sudden moving up in droves and dominating every matchup using the same strategy - that's indicative of a problem. At the moment Zerg aren't dominant.
It sounds like you're looking at something like race distribution in HotS GM league and arguing from there that Zerg must be underperforming, to which I would say that's an atrocious measure of balance (not entirely unlike when people would try to argue balance based on the race distribution in Code S). As for myself asserting global imbalances, I'm certain either I misspoke or you misunderstood me; I'm not even convinced they're OP as a race in WoL, and as for HotS, I wouldn't even begin to guess which race is strongest under the current rules. I certainly was, however, trying to clarify the situation regarding Zerg's alleged imbalance WoL, since it seemed to me that a few people were misunderstanding it.
Of course it's not an accurate measure of balance if your just taking it as a static leaderboard. But it's good to show the current trends. For example, as I mentioned a few patches ago Protoss were moving up in droves and wiping all the other races out - that trend (rightfully) indicated a problem in that case.
Then after the patch that tweaked Terran timings for Siege etc, the new trend was Terrans were all of a sudden evening out with Protoss. Which showed the balance state was at least somewhat better between the 2, but Zerg was nearly missing.
And actually, recently, Zergs are starting to make more of an appearance. Right now there's 7 Protoss, 5 Zerg, and 4 Terran. This indicates balance is actually somewhat decent right now. If it were up to me, I wouldn't say any race was overpowered at the moment, especially since things are moving.
You can tell a lot from the trend. If Terrans continue to start disappearing, they may need some help. If Zergs happen to keep moving up and wiping the other races off the leaderboards then yes, Zerg may be overpowered.
But my point is, with what little statistics we're provided (of the massive amounts of Blizzard has on their own game) it doesn't seem that we should be discussing nerfs for any race atm.
The above posters last paragraph is exactly what I'm saying.
-I comment in the thread, arguing against this claim by saying that free units (whether they are inherently bad design or not) are not the reason broodlord infestor was so powerful. I argue that the broodlord infestor combination is powerful mostly because the broodlord, by nature of its design, cannot be engaged until the enemy first approaches it, while the infestor, by nature of its design, is ideally equipped to prevent any kind of approach. This combination is what makes broodlord infestor so powerful; free units have got fairly little to do with it.
That's something I can agree with, and it seems Blizzard would agree too, considering what they targeted when nerfing infestor/BL.
+ Show Spoiler [Irrelevant to thread] + Good idea putting this inside a spoiler btw.
Well, that somewhat described the perceived problem imo, but not my proposed solution.
The problem in my opinion, and many others opinion that I have seen on these forums (if I remember correctly you may have mentioned something similar at some point in this convo?), have stated that if the balance comes to "Kill Zerg before lategame tech, or else late game they are near unstoppable" (which is similar to the situation many have described when facing WoL infestor/BL, or many people have said similar about Viper/Ultra so far in HotS).
If the balance comes to that, it's not fun for anyone. Not the Zerg player, or the one fighting Zerg. And honestly, since WoL beta Zerg players have been wishing for some options of early aggression that aren't all-in. Even Blizzard has stated they are aware of Zerg not having very many options for early aggression that aren't all in, and mentioned it as their reason for considering removing Burrow upgrades.
But it's not just the actual state of SC2, but many long-time Zerg players just feel Zerg (more than the other races) does not play like its SC1/BW incarnation. Zerg used to have one of the strongest early games in BW. But in SC2 early game options for Terran skyrocketed from BW and now the timing windows of early game are in Terrans favor. Early windows in Protoss isn't very different from an offensive perspective for Zerg, but defending was a bit more problematic at the start of WoL with the addition of warpgates and cannon pushes being harder to handle (although not as bad now). But overall the other races early games vs Zerg were similar with some upgrades. While Zerg only lost ground with early aggression. Which kept long time Zerg players wishing for BW style early game.
In WoL at release, Zergs was in a pretty bad state of balance overall. No mid game siege unit, and late game was actually a lot weaker than the BW incarnation as well. But in time with Blizz's balance changes, the only way they could fix it is they eventually made things like they did in late WoL - where Zerg was rushing to Infestor/BL and was near unstoppable lategame. The only reason they had to make the late-game so strong like this was because there wasn't many options lategame.
I know you argued against this earlier, but just refer back to some of the posts about the "Zerg Deathball" and you'll see many people complaining about the same thing. That was the only way they could "fix" Zerg by tweaking the numbers without any major changes (and of course Blizz only does the major changes in expansions).
Now for my proposed solution? Buffing early game, nerfing lategame is somewhat of a dumbed down version. But as I just explained, the only reason late-game had to be buffed to be so powerful was due to the early game being relatively weak. They made it so Zergs units were inefficient "until a point", and then once you reached that point they were super efficient.
My proposed solution isn't just "buff X unit though"... It's to use what was learned from SC BW. Let's think back to ZvT in BW. It's more about the timings rather than just "buff X unit". Early game, mid game, to late game, both races had an awesome dynamic where the timings consistently went back and forth.
Early game Zerg was actually the stronger one, at least until Terran started teching, then Terran was stronger until midgame, where Zerg was stronger once they got Mutas out, then Terran had a chance to push back, then back to Zerg, then the final push for Lategame, at which point Zerg was pretty damn scary once they got defilers/lurker/Ultras out.
If you compare the SC2 HotS timings to that... It's more like Terran have advantage in timings until Mutas, then Terran has a chance to strike back again, then once the Hive is finished Zerg's game is even stronger than before. This is much less dynamic than the timings of BW, and the biggest difference is in the early game.
On the bright side... HotS requires a lot more micro to be successful in the late-game, and this is more along the lines of BW. Micro is always a good thing. But earlygame is the big thing missing.
I feel the actual timings should be tweaked a bit, to more resemble the timings of BW. Both players should have vulnerable timings at early game, mid game, and late game.... Rather than having to skip past entire phases of the game as quick as possible.
In ZvT in particular, this means some offensive options that are not all-in or leaving themselves super vulnerable. This is actually really hard compared to BW. Because of A) The economy favoring later hatchery/pools, B) The reliance on Queens for economy and early defense, C) being reliant on Lair tech for anti air AND detection, and D) Roaches not transitioning in to more useful late game compositions like Hydras did in to Lurkers.
About ZvP... Well this match was always slow early game. I also feel this match is the most boring Zerg matchup in both WoL and HotS. Timings are even worse in this matchup than they are in ZvT. I've always felt more dynamic timings for this match would be more healthy for the game as a whole, but Protoss in general seems to be focused on somewhat safely building their chosen timing attack as soon as possible, and their HotS additions just reinforce this.
I'm not sure if you played BW much, but if you look in to it a bit (or refresh your memory) you will find that your statements about all attacks being all-in isn't necessarily true, assuming the timings are dynamic enough. In BW, each stage of the game could leave one player or the other after each stage of the game, and usually both players went back and forth doing as much damage as they could in the process. But if one stage of the game failed, unless you failed miserably or got outplayed, it didn't end the game.
HotS goes a long way in making SC2 a lot more like BW (especially for Zerg), but the timings still need work - particularly in the early game. Now mid-game and late-game timings both resemble BW for Zerg, and they both require micro to succeed. But early game is the only missing part.
This, btw is one reason I'm against discussions like this one about Swarm Host being bad for the game. No siege unit was a big downfall in Zerg timings and gave no way to break the walls that cause so many problems to Zerg for more than the first half of the game. It also makes things more similar to BW in the sense that you can now transition from Muta to Siege + Casters, same as you transitioned from Muta to Lurker + Defilers in BW. This fixes one of the major problems holding back Zerg timings from BW-SC2. If they were to remove that they would be taking a step back again.
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On February 01 2013 19:32 Spyridon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 15:02 ChristianS wrote:
Is "Zerg isn't in the best spot right now" not meant to hint at imbalance? If not I've been consistently reading that entirely wrong; but I don't really know what else it could mean. I've explained that a few times already. I'm not complaining about balance, just hinting that due to performance there's no reason that Blizz should be considering nerfs for Zerg. It's not like a few patches ago when Protoss were all of a sudden moving up in droves and dominating every matchup using the same strategy - that's indicative of a problem. At the moment Zerg aren't dominant.
The problem isnt balance or nerfing Zerg but rather that "free units" is a bad design concept. The worst two examples are the Broodlord and the Infestor. The Infestor for their ability to "create up to eight stimmed Marines" for a short time, which is a lot of concentrated firepower for a 2 supply unit. The Broodlord is problematic for creating a constant stream of Broodlings which block any ground forces from engaging them and thus making them somewhat "invulnerable". Alone this might be ok, but Zerg also has the lockdown of Fungal Growth to "patch up holes in the Broodling screen". Thus it would be better to get rid of all those free unit generation abilities, because it just provides too much "blocking power" ... just as Forcefields and Fungal can.
Its not about nerfing Zerg but rather about allowing more things - like Marines / Hydras - to be viable against Broodlords. The tennisball-chucking Guardians in BW didnt block any ground based units and was still deadly ...
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On February 01 2013 20:08 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 19:32 Spyridon wrote:On February 01 2013 15:02 ChristianS wrote:
Is "Zerg isn't in the best spot right now" not meant to hint at imbalance? If not I've been consistently reading that entirely wrong; but I don't really know what else it could mean. I've explained that a few times already. I'm not complaining about balance, just hinting that due to performance there's no reason that Blizz should be considering nerfs for Zerg. It's not like a few patches ago when Protoss were all of a sudden moving up in droves and dominating every matchup using the same strategy - that's indicative of a problem. At the moment Zerg aren't dominant. The problem isnt balance or nerfing Zerg but rather that "free units" is a bad design concept. The worst two examples are the Broodlord and the Infestor. The Infestor for their ability to "create up to eight stimmed Marines" for a short time, which is a lot of concentrated firepower for a 2 supply unit. The Broodlord is problematic for creating a constant stream of Broodlings which block any ground forces from engaging them and thus making them somewhat "invulnerable". Alone this might be ok, but Zerg also has the lockdown of Fungal Growth to "patch up holes in the Broodling screen". Thus it would be better to get rid of all those free unit generation abilities, because it just provides too much "blocking power" ... just as Forcefields and Fungal can. Its not about nerfing Zerg but rather about allowing more things - like Marines / Hydras - to be viable against Broodlords. The tennisball-chucking Guardians in BW didnt block any ground based units and was still deadly ...
So you think the units that are intended to provide protection for the Zerg army, specifically naming 2 of the only 3 Zerg units that are actually somewhat efficient, should be removed? Even though Infestors "ability to create eight stimmed marines" already has an easy micro counter (unlike the other races spells) and even though Broodlords are one of the least mobile units in the game?
And you think that won't harm Zergs design?
I could give many examples of the other races having a lot of concentrated firepower in low supply, it's all dependent on situation. As well I could explain to you how Guardians didn't need a mechanic to help defend the other units for synergy since the BW Zerg army as a whole was much more efficient than the SC2 incarnation.
What your saying goes beyond "free units being bad design". Considering Zerg is reliant on these units for protection and efficiency, your basically saying the design of Zerg as a whole is bad design. With that said, your solution would do
nothing but make Zergs design even worse.
Each race has their own mechanics for holding the line and "zoning" the enemy. Removing the "free unit" (as you call it) mechanic would be a bad idea without doing a complete redesign of Zerg. In which case you might as well just take all the huge amounts of Terran AoE that helps them stand their ground in the process. Because that's what Terran is intended to do as a race as well, and removing Zergs little bit of efficiency and protection would be just as harmful to Zerg as removing Terrans frontloaded AoE.
Spells in general are very efficient if you don't micro to counter them anyway, a couple well placed seeker missiles could be basically undodgeable if you use your army to block the enemies movement properly and are capable of doing thousands of resources worth of double with just a couple missiles - far more than u'll see any infested terrans doing. Protoss shields and hallucination straight up destroys their ability to micro and surround which shuts down the opponent if used properly as well.
What your proposing isn't fair to the Zerg army, as you want to remove their strength with zoning, but keep the other races...
Guardians may have worked in BW, but that's becuase Zerg was designed completely differently, if you tried getting close to the Guardians youd be sucking up a lot of frontloaded AoE (lurkers if you were attacking ground, scourge if you were attacking air) almost similar to current Terran mechanics. Without that, Zerg needs something to both provide some protection and zoning ability. And Zerg as a whole was far stronger in early-mid game then they are now, which is one of the reasons they need those efficient units to provide protection, as that's how the race as a whole was designed.
If we're going to remove Zergs "free units", then how about we remove Terrans frontloaded AoE since that's their version of zoning and protection - no moreseeker missiles, tanks, widow mines. Then we take Protoss's shields and hallucinations. Even then, it still wouldn't be a fair trade (at least for Protoss, since that's not nearly as big of a loss for how the race plays). I could be of the opinion that all those things are bad design too... But even if I felt that way, I would never propose for them to be removed, considering the races are reliant on those mechanics for success.
And if any race had a complete redesign, I would say Protoss would need it most. If you wonder why, the XvP matchups in general aren't nearly as dynamic as the others, and refer to the Protoss Deathball post on this forum to see how many Protoss feel their race in incredible boring.
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On February 02 2013 05:35 Spyridon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 20:08 Rabiator wrote:On February 01 2013 19:32 Spyridon wrote:On February 01 2013 15:02 ChristianS wrote:
Is "Zerg isn't in the best spot right now" not meant to hint at imbalance? If not I've been consistently reading that entirely wrong; but I don't really know what else it could mean. I've explained that a few times already. I'm not complaining about balance, just hinting that due to performance there's no reason that Blizz should be considering nerfs for Zerg. It's not like a few patches ago when Protoss were all of a sudden moving up in droves and dominating every matchup using the same strategy - that's indicative of a problem. At the moment Zerg aren't dominant. The problem isnt balance or nerfing Zerg but rather that "free units" is a bad design concept. The worst two examples are the Broodlord and the Infestor. The Infestor for their ability to "create up to eight stimmed Marines" for a short time, which is a lot of concentrated firepower for a 2 supply unit. The Broodlord is problematic for creating a constant stream of Broodlings which block any ground forces from engaging them and thus making them somewhat "invulnerable". Alone this might be ok, but Zerg also has the lockdown of Fungal Growth to "patch up holes in the Broodling screen". Thus it would be better to get rid of all those free unit generation abilities, because it just provides too much "blocking power" ... just as Forcefields and Fungal can. Its not about nerfing Zerg but rather about allowing more things - like Marines / Hydras - to be viable against Broodlords. The tennisball-chucking Guardians in BW didnt block any ground based units and was still deadly ... So you think the units that are intended to provide protection for the Zerg army, specifically naming 2 of the only 3 Zerg units that are actually somewhat efficient, should be removed? Even though Infestors "ability to create eight stimmed marines" already has an easy micro counter (unlike the other races spells) and even though Broodlords are one of the least mobile units in the game? And you think that won't harm Zergs design? I could give many examples of the other races having a lot of concentrated firepower in low supply, it's all dependent on situation. As well I could explain to you how Guardians didn't need a mechanic to help defend the other units for synergy since the BW Zerg army as a whole was much more efficient than the SC2 incarnation. Each race has their own mechanics for holding the line and "zoning" the enemy. Removing the "free unit" (as you call it) mechanic would be a bad idea without doing a complete redesign of Zerg. In which case you might as well just take all the huge amounts of Terran AoE that helps them stand their ground in the process. Because that's what Terran is intended to do as a race as well, and removing Zergs little bit of efficiency and protection would be just as harmful to Zerg as removing Terrans frontloaded AoE. What your proposing isn't fair to the Zerg army, as you want to remove their strength with zoning, but keep the other races... Guardians may have worked in BW, but that's becuase Zerg was designed completely differently, if you tried getting close to the Guardians youd be sucking up a lot of frontloaded AoE (lurkers if you were attacking ground, scourge if you were attacking air) almost similar to current Terran mechanics. Without that, Zerg needs something to both provide some protection and zoning ability. And Zerg as a whole was far stronger in early-mid game then they are now, which is one of the reasons they need those efficient units to provide protection, as that's how the race as a whole was designed. If we're going to remove Zergs "free units", then how about we remove Terrans frontloaded AoE since that's their version of zoning and protection - no moreseeker missiles, tanks, widow mines. Then we take Protoss's shields and hallucinations. Even then, it still wouldn't be a fair trade (at least for Protoss, since that's not nearly as big of a loss for how the race plays). I could be of the opinion that all those things are bad design too... But even if I felt that way, I would never propose for them to be removed, considering the races are reliant on those mechanics for success. And if any race had a complete redesign, I would say Protoss would need it most. If you wonder why, the XvP matchups in general aren't nearly as dynamic as the others, and refer to the Protoss Deathball post on this forum to see how many Protoss feel their race in incredible boring.
-Just because they're intended to do that (this time actually by Blizzard) doesn't mean the game wouldn't be better without them.
-Zerg's zoning, fungal growth in particular, is A LOT stronger than the other races'. I don't really even know what zoning you're referring to from Terran, other than constructing buildings or trying to position your army to be able to fire well before the enemy reaches you. The widow mine could kind of be called zoning — but only kind of, since it doesn't actually block the opponent from moving there, it just does some damage if they do. Protoss, of course, has force field, which is certainly very strong zoning; but for the price of one fungal, you can stop a clump of units from either advancing or retreating; A similar task from Protoss will take several force fields to prevent advancement, and several more to prevent retreat, not to mention it (unlike fungal) doesn't work on massive units, and it (unlike fungal) cannot target air.
Despite those points, I don't really think Infested Terrans or broodlings should be removed, nor do I think Blizzard has any intention of doing so. I understand infested terrans are more of a problem in ZvP than they are in TvZ; but my experience has always been that I'm overjoyed if I can make the Zerg use up his fungal energy on infested Terrans. I suppose they're somewhat obnoxious when you have a raven/viking army to fight the broodlords, and then you keep losing point defense drones to infested terrans, but all things considered, I don't really think infested Terrans are all that overpowered. In PvZ as well as TvZ, they promote good positioning and army mobility against the Zerg; kind of like Zergs try to burn Protoss forcefields by engaging across the map and retreating, similar effects can be achieved against Zergs who depend too heavily on infested terrans in the final battle. And as I've discussed before, I don't think broodlings are terribly problematic, either.
I don't think Blizzard has any intention of removing these units, both because they already worked hard to balance them, and because they're not especially problematic; and in this case, I think that analysis from Blizzard would be entirely accurate.
Edit: Had to include Spyri's edit in my quote
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On February 02 2013 06:07 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2013 05:35 Spyridon wrote:On February 01 2013 20:08 Rabiator wrote:On February 01 2013 19:32 Spyridon wrote:On February 01 2013 15:02 ChristianS wrote:
Is "Zerg isn't in the best spot right now" not meant to hint at imbalance? If not I've been consistently reading that entirely wrong; but I don't really know what else it could mean. I've explained that a few times already. I'm not complaining about balance, just hinting that due to performance there's no reason that Blizz should be considering nerfs for Zerg. It's not like a few patches ago when Protoss were all of a sudden moving up in droves and dominating every matchup using the same strategy - that's indicative of a problem. At the moment Zerg aren't dominant. The problem isnt balance or nerfing Zerg but rather that "free units" is a bad design concept. The worst two examples are the Broodlord and the Infestor. The Infestor for their ability to "create up to eight stimmed Marines" for a short time, which is a lot of concentrated firepower for a 2 supply unit. The Broodlord is problematic for creating a constant stream of Broodlings which block any ground forces from engaging them and thus making them somewhat "invulnerable". Alone this might be ok, but Zerg also has the lockdown of Fungal Growth to "patch up holes in the Broodling screen". Thus it would be better to get rid of all those free unit generation abilities, because it just provides too much "blocking power" ... just as Forcefields and Fungal can. Its not about nerfing Zerg but rather about allowing more things - like Marines / Hydras - to be viable against Broodlords. The tennisball-chucking Guardians in BW didnt block any ground based units and was still deadly ... So you think the units that are intended to provide protection for the Zerg army, specifically naming 2 of the only 3 Zerg units that are actually somewhat efficient, should be removed? Even though Infestors "ability to create eight stimmed marines" already has an easy micro counter (unlike the other races spells) and even though Broodlords are one of the least mobile units in the game? And you think that won't harm Zergs design? I could give many examples of the other races having a lot of concentrated firepower in low supply, it's all dependent on situation. As well I could explain to you how Guardians didn't need a mechanic to help defend the other units for synergy since the BW Zerg army as a whole was much more efficient than the SC2 incarnation. Each race has their own mechanics for holding the line and "zoning" the enemy. Removing the "free unit" (as you call it) mechanic would be a bad idea without doing a complete redesign of Zerg. In which case you might as well just take all the huge amounts of Terran AoE that helps them stand their ground in the process. Because that's what Terran is intended to do as a race as well, and removing Zergs little bit of efficiency and protection would be just as harmful to Zerg as removing Terrans frontloaded AoE. What your proposing isn't fair to the Zerg army, as you want to remove their strength with zoning, but keep the other races... Guardians may have worked in BW, but that's becuase Zerg was designed completely differently, if you tried getting close to the Guardians youd be sucking up a lot of frontloaded AoE (lurkers if you were attacking ground, scourge if you were attacking air) almost similar to current Terran mechanics. Without that, Zerg needs something to both provide some protection and zoning ability. And Zerg as a whole was far stronger in early-mid game then they are now, which is one of the reasons they need those efficient units to provide protection, as that's how the race as a whole was designed. If we're going to remove Zergs "free units", then how about we remove Terrans frontloaded AoE since that's their version of zoning and protection - no moreseeker missiles, tanks, widow mines. Then we take Protoss's shields and hallucinations. Even then, it still wouldn't be a fair trade (at least for Protoss, since that's not nearly as big of a loss for how the race plays). I could be of the opinion that all those things are bad design too... But even if I felt that way, I would never propose for them to be removed, considering the races are reliant on those mechanics for success. And if any race had a complete redesign, I would say Protoss would need it most. If you wonder why, the XvP matchups in general aren't nearly as dynamic as the others, and refer to the Protoss Deathball post on this forum to see how many Protoss feel their race in incredible boring. -Just because they're intended to do that (this time actually by Blizzard) doesn't mean the game wouldn't be better without them. -Zerg's zoning, fungal growth in particular, is A LOT stronger than the other races'. I don't really even know what zoning you're referring to from Terran, other than constructing buildings or trying to position your army to be able to fire well before the enemy reaches you. The widow mine could kind of be called zoning — but only kind of, since it doesn't actually block the opponent from moving there, it just does some damage if they do. Protoss, of course, has force field, which is certainly very strong zoning; but for the price of one fungal, you can stop a clump of units from either advancing or retreating; A similar task from Protoss will take several force fields to prevent advancement, and several more to prevent retreat, not to mention it (unlike fungal) doesn't work on massive units, and it (unlike fungal) cannot target air.
Sure the game may or may not be better without them, but to remove them would require a redesign of the race as a whole is my point.
About the zoning, zoning probably isn't the best term, since it's more than just that. More along the lines of "space control and defensive mechanics" would be a better term. Each race has their own way of controlling space to keep themselves alive.
For Terran, they control space with their huge amounts of ranged damage + AoE damage, and if you go inside their range you will be taking huge amounts of frontloaded damage. Meaning your getting hit with siege tanks, widow mines, on top of the MMM ball. Even their primary spellcaster atm (Raven) provides huge AoE damage. Terran basically goes along the lines of "the best defense is a good offense" with their space control. Even Stim follows this rule to a point, since they can stay away while doing bigger damage. Zoning probably wasn't the best term to describe this since they don't actually alter the movement of the enemies.
Protoss's version of this is mostly their sentry shield, psionic storms, blink, their shields, as well as hallucination toys with the opponents micro therefore reducing damage. This is more along the lines of blocking their paths to restrict their movement, rather than the direct damage of Terran. But Protoss also share the highest HP/shield units as well, and as a race as designed to safely build up a strong push, so once you do catch up to them they are relatively quite survivable.
Zerg used to be more similar to Terran in SC1, but their combat units were made far less efficient in SC2. That's why they are reliant on fungal + their "free units" + creep to protect them, block enemies path, and prevent the enemy from catching up. They don't have the damage to control space like Terran do, nor do they block the path and have high HP like Protoss do. Whether we like it or not, Zerg is reliant on this mechanic, and it would take a redesign of the race as a whole to change this reliance.
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On February 02 2013 06:50 Spyridon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2013 06:07 ChristianS wrote:On February 02 2013 05:35 Spyridon wrote:On February 01 2013 20:08 Rabiator wrote:On February 01 2013 19:32 Spyridon wrote:On February 01 2013 15:02 ChristianS wrote:
Is "Zerg isn't in the best spot right now" not meant to hint at imbalance? If not I've been consistently reading that entirely wrong; but I don't really know what else it could mean. I've explained that a few times already. I'm not complaining about balance, just hinting that due to performance there's no reason that Blizz should be considering nerfs for Zerg. It's not like a few patches ago when Protoss were all of a sudden moving up in droves and dominating every matchup using the same strategy - that's indicative of a problem. At the moment Zerg aren't dominant. The problem isnt balance or nerfing Zerg but rather that "free units" is a bad design concept. The worst two examples are the Broodlord and the Infestor. The Infestor for their ability to "create up to eight stimmed Marines" for a short time, which is a lot of concentrated firepower for a 2 supply unit. The Broodlord is problematic for creating a constant stream of Broodlings which block any ground forces from engaging them and thus making them somewhat "invulnerable". Alone this might be ok, but Zerg also has the lockdown of Fungal Growth to "patch up holes in the Broodling screen". Thus it would be better to get rid of all those free unit generation abilities, because it just provides too much "blocking power" ... just as Forcefields and Fungal can. Its not about nerfing Zerg but rather about allowing more things - like Marines / Hydras - to be viable against Broodlords. The tennisball-chucking Guardians in BW didnt block any ground based units and was still deadly ... So you think the units that are intended to provide protection for the Zerg army, specifically naming 2 of the only 3 Zerg units that are actually somewhat efficient, should be removed? Even though Infestors "ability to create eight stimmed marines" already has an easy micro counter (unlike the other races spells) and even though Broodlords are one of the least mobile units in the game? And you think that won't harm Zergs design? I could give many examples of the other races having a lot of concentrated firepower in low supply, it's all dependent on situation. As well I could explain to you how Guardians didn't need a mechanic to help defend the other units for synergy since the BW Zerg army as a whole was much more efficient than the SC2 incarnation. Each race has their own mechanics for holding the line and "zoning" the enemy. Removing the "free unit" (as you call it) mechanic would be a bad idea without doing a complete redesign of Zerg. In which case you might as well just take all the huge amounts of Terran AoE that helps them stand their ground in the process. Because that's what Terran is intended to do as a race as well, and removing Zergs little bit of efficiency and protection would be just as harmful to Zerg as removing Terrans frontloaded AoE. What your proposing isn't fair to the Zerg army, as you want to remove their strength with zoning, but keep the other races... Guardians may have worked in BW, but that's becuase Zerg was designed completely differently, if you tried getting close to the Guardians youd be sucking up a lot of frontloaded AoE (lurkers if you were attacking ground, scourge if you were attacking air) almost similar to current Terran mechanics. Without that, Zerg needs something to both provide some protection and zoning ability. And Zerg as a whole was far stronger in early-mid game then they are now, which is one of the reasons they need those efficient units to provide protection, as that's how the race as a whole was designed. If we're going to remove Zergs "free units", then how about we remove Terrans frontloaded AoE since that's their version of zoning and protection - no moreseeker missiles, tanks, widow mines. Then we take Protoss's shields and hallucinations. Even then, it still wouldn't be a fair trade (at least for Protoss, since that's not nearly as big of a loss for how the race plays). I could be of the opinion that all those things are bad design too... But even if I felt that way, I would never propose for them to be removed, considering the races are reliant on those mechanics for success. And if any race had a complete redesign, I would say Protoss would need it most. If you wonder why, the XvP matchups in general aren't nearly as dynamic as the others, and refer to the Protoss Deathball post on this forum to see how many Protoss feel their race in incredible boring. -Just because they're intended to do that (this time actually by Blizzard) doesn't mean the game wouldn't be better without them. -Zerg's zoning, fungal growth in particular, is A LOT stronger than the other races'. I don't really even know what zoning you're referring to from Terran, other than constructing buildings or trying to position your army to be able to fire well before the enemy reaches you. The widow mine could kind of be called zoning — but only kind of, since it doesn't actually block the opponent from moving there, it just does some damage if they do. Protoss, of course, has force field, which is certainly very strong zoning; but for the price of one fungal, you can stop a clump of units from either advancing or retreating; A similar task from Protoss will take several force fields to prevent advancement, and several more to prevent retreat, not to mention it (unlike fungal) doesn't work on massive units, and it (unlike fungal) cannot target air. Sure the game may or may not be better without them, but to remove them would require a redesign of the race as a whole is my point. About the zoning, zoning probably isn't the best term, since it's more than just that. More along the lines of "space control and defensive mechanics" would be a better term. Each race has their own way of controlling space to keep themselves alive. For Terran, they control space with their huge amounts of ranged damage + AoE damage, and if you go inside their range you will be taking huge amounts of frontloaded damage. Meaning your getting hit with siege tanks, widow mines, on top of the MMM ball. Even their primary spellcaster atm (Raven) provides huge AoE damage. Terran basically goes along the lines of "the best defense is a good offense" with their space control. Even Stim follows this rule to a point, since they can stay away while doing bigger damage. Zoning probably wasn't the best term to describe this since they don't actually alter the movement of the enemies. Protoss's version of this is mostly their sentry shield, psionic storms, blink, their shields, as well as hallucination toys with the opponents micro therefore reducing damage. This is more along the lines of blocking their paths to restrict their movement, rather than the direct damage of Terran. But Protoss also share the highest HP/shield units as well, and as a race as designed to safely build up a strong push, so once you do catch up to them they are relatively quite survivable. Zerg used to be more similar to Terran in SC1, but their combat units were made far less efficient in SC2. That's why they are reliant on fungal + their "free units" + creep to protect them, block enemies path, and prevent the enemy from catching up. They don't have the damage to control space like Terran do, nor do they block the path and have high HP like Protoss do. Whether we like it or not, Zerg is reliant on this mechanic, and it would take a redesign of the race as a whole to change this reliance.
Wait, designing by comparison to BW is okay, but it's not okay to make WoL comparisons?
Most of the dynamics you're talking about aren't actually all that essential to the WoL races. Terran has easily the worst AoE in WoL; tanks are obviously AoE, but not as strong an AoE as colossus, baneling+fungal, psi storm, etc. Terran in WoL is defined by a) maintaining a range advantage, and b) massive DPS. Even maintaining constant aggression isn't really all that essential; mech, for instance, is a much more defensive style, and marine tank favors slow, concentrated, deliberate pushes rather than constant aggression all around the map. It's only additions like the widow mine or the new raven that make Terran more AoE-focused, and one of the main reasons the AoE additions were necessary was to give some reasonable Terran response to, for example, large numbers of locusts.
And WoL zerg doesn't depend on free units almost at all. Broodlings and infested terrans are the only real examples (unless you're trying to call creep tumors "free units," which is a bit of a stretch). Broodlings don't even enter the equation until broodlords are out, so for 90% of the game Zerg gets by fine without them. And infested terrans are usually only used as additional DPS in the final engagement; if you were just trying to zone out your opponent, you'd probably use fungal rather than IT's. Even in HotS, Zerg only really depends on free units if they're getting a bunch of Swarm Hosts. If they favor mutas, or infestors, or vipers, or even hydras, there's no real need for free units in Zerg strategy. There's no "reliance."
The reason the Swarm Host, broodling, and infested terran should stay is because it's an interesting unit and the design isn't so atrocious as a lot of people in this thread would argue, NOT because Zerg is so incredibly dependent on them that the race would fall apart without them.
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On February 02 2013 07:41 ChristianS wrote:
Wait, designing by comparison to BW is okay, but it's not okay to make WoL comparisons?
lol, your really reaching now and just trying to argue. My mentioning how Zerg were more more similar to Terran in SC1 isn't trying to judge SC2's balance, only pointing out differences in the design. You really want to argue, huh?
Most of the dynamics you're talking about aren't actually all that essential to the WoL races. Terran has easily the worst AoE in WoL; tanks are obviously AoE, but not as strong an AoE as colossus, baneling+fungal, psi storm, etc. Terran in WoL is defined by a) maintaining a range advantage, and b) massive DPS. Even maintaining constant aggression isn't really all that essential; mech, for instance, is a much more defensive style, and marine tank favors slow, concentrated, deliberate pushes rather than constant aggression all around the map.
You say it's the "worst AoE" but at the end of the paragraph gave a great example of the strength of a "slow Terran push". That's an exact example of the space control style I was talking about. Yeah they move slow, but if you move in to their radius you take a large amount of frontloaded damage. Colossus don't instagib large amounts of units as soon as you come in to range of them, especailly since their AoE is a line rather than a circular radius.
And WoL zerg doesn't depend on free units almost at all. Broodlings and infested terrans are the only real examples (unless you're trying to call creep tumors "free units," which is a bit of a stretch). Broodlings don't even enter the equation until broodlords are out, so for 90% of the game Zerg gets by fine without them. And infested terrans are usually only used as additional DPS in the final engagement; if you were just trying to zone out your opponent, you'd probably use fungal rather than IT's. Even in HotS, Zerg only really depends on free units if they're getting a bunch of Swarm Hosts. If they favor mutas, or infestors, or vipers, or even hydras, there's no real need for free units in Zerg strategy. There's no "reliance."
The reason the Swarm Host, broodling, and infested terran should stay is because it's an interesting unit and the design isn't so atrocious as a lot of people in this thread would argue, NOT because Zerg is so incredibly dependent on them that the race would fall apart without them.
It's really getting redundant that your saying a lot of things in agreement with me, but still arguing with me for some reason. If your really in agreement that the free units aren't an issue, as you have said many times, why do you keep arguing with everyone who is saying the same thing?
You can say they aren't reliant on those units all you want. But if a Terran was turtled up in their base and Zerg wasn't drastically ahead, when was the next point of the game that you seen the Zerg push out? When they got BL. Why do you think the reason for that was?
All of Zergs siege, in WoL or HotS, is all the "free units". Their siege mechanics are dependent on it. Hydra/Infestor wasn't a successful composition for a reason.
Without those units, Zerg has to fight the other armies on the field to win, rather than being able to push their base.
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Since beginning of the beta i think its not fair at all that zerg can use tree units to spawn free units.
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On February 02 2013 05:35 Spyridon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2013 20:08 Rabiator wrote:On February 01 2013 19:32 Spyridon wrote:On February 01 2013 15:02 ChristianS wrote:
Is "Zerg isn't in the best spot right now" not meant to hint at imbalance? If not I've been consistently reading that entirely wrong; but I don't really know what else it could mean. I've explained that a few times already. I'm not complaining about balance, just hinting that due to performance there's no reason that Blizz should be considering nerfs for Zerg. It's not like a few patches ago when Protoss were all of a sudden moving up in droves and dominating every matchup using the same strategy - that's indicative of a problem. At the moment Zerg aren't dominant. The problem isnt balance or nerfing Zerg but rather that "free units" is a bad design concept. The worst two examples are the Broodlord and the Infestor. The Infestor for their ability to "create up to eight stimmed Marines" for a short time, which is a lot of concentrated firepower for a 2 supply unit. The Broodlord is problematic for creating a constant stream of Broodlings which block any ground forces from engaging them and thus making them somewhat "invulnerable". Alone this might be ok, but Zerg also has the lockdown of Fungal Growth to "patch up holes in the Broodling screen". Thus it would be better to get rid of all those free unit generation abilities, because it just provides too much "blocking power" ... just as Forcefields and Fungal can. Its not about nerfing Zerg but rather about allowing more things - like Marines / Hydras - to be viable against Broodlords. The tennisball-chucking Guardians in BW didnt block any ground based units and was still deadly ... So you think the units that are intended to provide protection for the Zerg army, specifically naming 2 of the only 3 Zerg units that are actually somewhat efficient, should be removed? Even though Infestors "ability to create eight stimmed marines" already has an easy micro counter (unlike the other races spells) and even though Broodlords are one of the least mobile units in the game? + Show Spoiler +And you think that won't harm Zergs design?
I could give many examples of the other races having a lot of concentrated firepower in low supply, it's all dependent on situation. As well I could explain to you how Guardians didn't need a mechanic to help defend the other units for synergy since the BW Zerg army as a whole was much more efficient than the SC2 incarnation.
What your saying goes beyond "free units being bad design". Considering Zerg is reliant on these units for protection and efficiency, your basically saying the design of Zerg as a whole is bad design. With that said, your solution would do
nothing but make Zergs design even worse.
Each race has their own mechanics for holding the line and "zoning" the enemy. Removing the "free unit" (as you call it) mechanic would be a bad idea without doing a complete redesign of Zerg. In which case you might as well just take all the huge amounts of Terran AoE that helps them stand their ground in the process. Because that's what Terran is intended to do as a race as well, and removing Zergs little bit of efficiency and protection would be just as harmful to Zerg as removing Terrans frontloaded AoE.
Spells in general are very efficient if you don't micro to counter them anyway, a couple well placed seeker missiles could be basically undodgeable if you use your army to block the enemies movement properly and are capable of doing thousands of resources worth of double with just a couple missiles - far more than u'll see any infested terrans doing. Protoss shields and hallucination straight up destroys their ability to micro and surround which shuts down the opponent if used properly as well.
What your proposing isn't fair to the Zerg army, as you want to remove their strength with zoning, but keep the other races...
Guardians may have worked in BW, but that's becuase Zerg was designed completely differently, if you tried getting close to the Guardians youd be sucking up a lot of frontloaded AoE (lurkers if you were attacking ground, scourge if you were attacking air) almost similar to current Terran mechanics. Without that, Zerg needs something to both provide some protection and zoning ability. And Zerg as a whole was far stronger in early-mid game then they are now, which is one of the reasons they need those efficient units to provide protection, as that's how the race as a whole was designed.
If we're going to remove Zergs "free units", then how about we remove Terrans frontloaded AoE since that's their version of zoning and protection - no moreseeker missiles, tanks, widow mines. Then we take Protoss's shields and hallucinations. Even then, it still wouldn't be a fair trade (at least for Protoss, since that's not nearly as big of a loss for how the race plays). I could be of the opinion that all those things are bad design too... But even if I felt that way, I would never propose for them to be removed, considering the races are reliant on those mechanics for success.
And if any race had a complete redesign, I would say Protoss would need it most. If you wonder why, the XvP matchups in general aren't nearly as dynamic as the others, and refer to the Protoss Deathball post on this forum to see how many Protoss feel their race in incredible boring.
The whole problem of giving one race a huge number of "free hit points" is the same as with Forcefield and the lockdown component of Fungal. This gives some races (Zerg and Protoss mainly) the ability to control the battlefield ... and that is a really bad thing in a strategy game which should be about the ability to CONTROL your own units. Denying the opposing player the ability to use his units as well as he could is BAD and that can be seen easily in WoW PvP, which had any lockdown ability seriously nerfed because it was neither fair nor fun.
In an "us against the NPCs" game like Everquest the Enchanter (a class based around stuns and dealing the lowest damage of them all) really worked well and was an absolute blast to play, but in WoW - which had PvP in its core goals - that was not something you would want to have. The same is true for Starcraft ... but Blizzard doesnt seem to have learned.
Obviously Zerg (and Protoss) would need a really serious redesign, but I would say the game would be better off without any "battlefield shaping abilities". This wont happen, but it would still be a good thing from a common sense perspective. Its not about nerfing Zerg but rather getting rid of stuff that is "anti-fun" and "anti-skill".
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On February 02 2013 20:19 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2013 05:35 Spyridon wrote:On February 01 2013 20:08 Rabiator wrote:On February 01 2013 19:32 Spyridon wrote:On February 01 2013 15:02 ChristianS wrote:
Is "Zerg isn't in the best spot right now" not meant to hint at imbalance? If not I've been consistently reading that entirely wrong; but I don't really know what else it could mean. I've explained that a few times already. I'm not complaining about balance, just hinting that due to performance there's no reason that Blizz should be considering nerfs for Zerg. It's not like a few patches ago when Protoss were all of a sudden moving up in droves and dominating every matchup using the same strategy - that's indicative of a problem. At the moment Zerg aren't dominant. The problem isnt balance or nerfing Zerg but rather that "free units" is a bad design concept. The worst two examples are the Broodlord and the Infestor. The Infestor for their ability to "create up to eight stimmed Marines" for a short time, which is a lot of concentrated firepower for a 2 supply unit. The Broodlord is problematic for creating a constant stream of Broodlings which block any ground forces from engaging them and thus making them somewhat "invulnerable". Alone this might be ok, but Zerg also has the lockdown of Fungal Growth to "patch up holes in the Broodling screen". Thus it would be better to get rid of all those free unit generation abilities, because it just provides too much "blocking power" ... just as Forcefields and Fungal can. Its not about nerfing Zerg but rather about allowing more things - like Marines / Hydras - to be viable against Broodlords. The tennisball-chucking Guardians in BW didnt block any ground based units and was still deadly ... So you think the units that are intended to provide protection for the Zerg army, specifically naming 2 of the only 3 Zerg units that are actually somewhat efficient, should be removed? Even though Infestors "ability to create eight stimmed marines" already has an easy micro counter (unlike the other races spells) and even though Broodlords are one of the least mobile units in the game? + Show Spoiler +And you think that won't harm Zergs design?
I could give many examples of the other races having a lot of concentrated firepower in low supply, it's all dependent on situation. As well I could explain to you how Guardians didn't need a mechanic to help defend the other units for synergy since the BW Zerg army as a whole was much more efficient than the SC2 incarnation.
What your saying goes beyond "free units being bad design". Considering Zerg is reliant on these units for protection and efficiency, your basically saying the design of Zerg as a whole is bad design. With that said, your solution would do
nothing but make Zergs design even worse.
Each race has their own mechanics for holding the line and "zoning" the enemy. Removing the "free unit" (as you call it) mechanic would be a bad idea without doing a complete redesign of Zerg. In which case you might as well just take all the huge amounts of Terran AoE that helps them stand their ground in the process. Because that's what Terran is intended to do as a race as well, and removing Zergs little bit of efficiency and protection would be just as harmful to Zerg as removing Terrans frontloaded AoE.
Spells in general are very efficient if you don't micro to counter them anyway, a couple well placed seeker missiles could be basically undodgeable if you use your army to block the enemies movement properly and are capable of doing thousands of resources worth of double with just a couple missiles - far more than u'll see any infested terrans doing. Protoss shields and hallucination straight up destroys their ability to micro and surround which shuts down the opponent if used properly as well.
What your proposing isn't fair to the Zerg army, as you want to remove their strength with zoning, but keep the other races...
Guardians may have worked in BW, but that's becuase Zerg was designed completely differently, if you tried getting close to the Guardians youd be sucking up a lot of frontloaded AoE (lurkers if you were attacking ground, scourge if you were attacking air) almost similar to current Terran mechanics. Without that, Zerg needs something to both provide some protection and zoning ability. And Zerg as a whole was far stronger in early-mid game then they are now, which is one of the reasons they need those efficient units to provide protection, as that's how the race as a whole was designed.
If we're going to remove Zergs "free units", then how about we remove Terrans frontloaded AoE since that's their version of zoning and protection - no moreseeker missiles, tanks, widow mines. Then we take Protoss's shields and hallucinations. Even then, it still wouldn't be a fair trade (at least for Protoss, since that's not nearly as big of a loss for how the race plays). I could be of the opinion that all those things are bad design too... But even if I felt that way, I would never propose for them to be removed, considering the races are reliant on those mechanics for success.
And if any race had a complete redesign, I would say Protoss would need it most. If you wonder why, the XvP matchups in general aren't nearly as dynamic as the others, and refer to the Protoss Deathball post on this forum to see how many Protoss feel their race in incredible boring. The whole problem of giving one race a huge number of "free hit points" is the same as with Forcefield and the lockdown component of Fungal. This gives some races (Zerg and Protoss mainly) the ability to control the battlefield ... and that is a really bad thing in a strategy game which should be about the ability to CONTROL your own units. Denying the opposing player the ability to use his units as well as he could is BAD and that can be seen easily in WoW PvP, which had any lockdown ability seriously nerfed because it was neither fair nor fun. In an "us against the NPCs" game like Everquest the Enchanter (a class based around stuns and dealing the lowest damage of them all) really worked well and was an absolute blast to play, but in WoW - which had PvP in its core goals - that was not something you would want to have. The same is true for Starcraft ... but Blizzard doesnt seem to have learned. Obviously Zerg (and Protoss) would need a really serious redesign, but I would say the game would be better off without any "battlefield shaping abilities". This wont happen, but it would still be a good thing from a common sense perspective. Its not about nerfing Zerg but rather getting rid of stuff that is "anti-fun" and "anti-skill".
i dont really get your point here. it sounds like you argue that zerg and protoss have the ability to control the battlefield and how the battle will take place rather than controlling their own units. now i can agree with you that Z and P have abilities to control a battle, but so do terrans. i mean siege tanks and widow mines do exactely that. the widow mine (guess its the redesigned shredder) were specifically created to give terrans the posibility to control the battlefield (the ability to zone out stuff). so if you keep in mind that all three races basically have the ability to control how a battle will take place, i dont see your point of it beeing a problem that Z and P can do this. as of now i'd actually agrue, that terrans have the best units to zone out space and control the battlefield.
i also dont really get the WoW comparison. in WoW the fundamental problem with stuns, snares and roots is that it completely locks down your ability to do ANYTHING at all (espacially stuns) since you control only ONE single unit. in SC2 you have control over an entire army. there is nothing that prevents you from controlling your troops, it might just get harder. it requires more skill to engage a protoss who has FF, than just A-moving into a protoss army that has no FF. so i dont really see how removing those abilities would increase the skill lvl required to play SC2
edit: added the second paragraph.
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Zerg has to have near EQUAL efficiency when it reaches end game anyways. SC2 mining mechanics do no give the side with more bases significantly more mineral income per worker, due to pathing changes, so a end game Zerg will only reach near parity mineral income with Protoss and worst then a Terran. The faster remax. more gas with tech switches is the only thing that allows zerg to have any less efficiency and the gap is far smaller then SCBW.
As for battlefield shaping abilities, I thought those were very well liked AS LONG AS is it does not impede enemy's control of his own units, especially on retreat? Defensive/blocking abilities like Vulture Mines, Lurkers have been desirable features, and no one ever complained about wall ins and likes. It is lockdown abilities like force field, fungal and concussive shell that is annoying because the remove the option to retreat and give the attacker the advantage that is annoying.
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On February 02 2013 21:47 SWPIGWANG wrote:
As for battlefield shaping abilities, I thought those were very well liked AS LONG AS is it does not impede enemy's control of his own units, especially on retreat? Defensive/blocking abilities like Vulture Mines, Lurkers have been desirable features, and no one ever complained about wall ins and likes. It is lockdown abilities like force field, fungal and concussive shell that is annoying because the remove the option to retreat and give the attacker the advantage that is annoying.
Spider Mines and Lurkers do NOT shape the battlefield like Forcefield, Fungal and a "nearly endless" supply of Broodlings or Infested Terrans can. Thus there is a complete difference between "scare the enemy zone-control units" [which are fine] and "lockdown / blocking abilities" [which are terrible]. The BW stuff you mention are units which can be killed and they arent blocking the whole path of a big chunk of your army.
"Free units" would be fine ... if they were far and few between, but in SC2 everything comes in HUGE NUMBERS. That is the reason why the free units are actually terrible, because they wouldnt fall into the terrible "battlefield shaping category" if there were just 3-4 on a screen every time.
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the swarmhost spawns two broodlings (or locus or whatever) at a time. you need quite a high number of SH to actually have a huge number of "free" units. so the units are not acutally free, but they become cheaper the more waves of broodlings the SH can generate (which i guess was alrady said in this thread).
BL are pretty much dead in the ZvP match up at the moment and infested terrans have been nerfed quite severly, as has fungal. so again, i cant really agree with you.
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