Do the blizzard people nerf ultralisk on purpose or they just don't know what they are doing?
I am a 2100+ plat zerg before patch 13. Before patch 13 I used ultralisks a lot in ZvTs (nearly every game, many of my opponents are 2000+ terran) and I think they are pretty good. I think I know more about ultralisks in practice than anyone else in the US server.
Let me sum up everything happens on ultralisk in patch 13:
1) HP reduced by 25%. 2) DPS vs non-armored reduced by 40%. 3) DPS vs armored increased by 60%. 4) Slash damage reduced by 67%.
5) Slash ratio increased a little bit. 6) Head-attack is no longer a benefit. Now it does less damage than a normal attack. 7) Ultralisks now walk through FF. 8) In most situations, the frenzy spell from infesters is not worth it. (if you dont agree, ignore this one)
Obviously now ultralisk does much less damage vs light units. Even marines could be a good counter to ultralisks. And many experiments has shown that also it does less damage vs armored units, due to the reduction of slash damage.
In patch 12, it is difficult for ultras to get close to any mech terran army. Since the HP is reduced by 25%, now it is impossible for ultralisks to get close, i.e. they will be much more useless, unless you are using one ultra to attack one enemy unit.
So I assume everyone agrees that ultralisk is nerfed, rather than buffed.
My question is, do the blizzard people nerf ultralisk on purpose? Or they just don't know what they are doing? Because in the patch 13 notes they said they buffed ultralisk. And before that, they claimed they wanted to buff it.
Personally I really hope it is the case that blizzard think ultralisk in patch 12 was too good and they nerf it on purpose. But I have to admit it is more likely the other way, they have no idea what they are doing. I just feel too sad.
Another similar story happened on corrupters several patches ago. They changed the damage from 12+10 massive to 14+6 massive and claimed its a buff. I am a zerg player. I know it is a nerf, because corrupters are mainly used against collossuses. This change actually reduced the usefulness of corrupters. (also, I think the previous ability is much better, I used it together with mutalisks to attack the cannons, pretty good)
i think anyone who believes anybody is good in the beta or thinks they are good because of a rating dismisses anyhting they say. Go play dungeons and dragons
So you managed to get into the late game since the patch? Lucky you =P
I would say we should try first and speak up next but I'd be encline to believe that ultras are still garbage. I wouldn't say it's a nerf - I'm sure it can be better in some circumstances and worse in others so it's at the very least an ambiguous change. Quite possibly a nerf (in general) if it makes any sense.
Also, marines won't be a "good counter" to ultras. Just wanted to get that on the table.
They are just changing things around to see how they work. They don't know if it will be a nerf or a buff until we, the beta testers, test it.
Blizzard know's what they are doing. The fact that people seem to think they can balance the game better than a company who has made Starcraft, WC3, and WoW, baffles me.
On May 23 2010 13:23 Backpack wrote: The fact that people seem to think they can balance the game better than a company who has made Starcraft, WC3, and WoW, baffles me.
what makes u think many of us couldn't? we could certainly beat them at their games so...
On May 23 2010 13:21 peachsncream wrote: i think anyone who believes anybody is good in the beta or thinks they are good because of a rating dismisses anyhting they say. Go play dungeons and dragons
Thats fucking stupid.
On topic: I had originally thought that the changes to Ultras were a buff, but op makes a convincing argument. BLizzard did mention they had done in-house testing and found ultras to be good, but maybe their testers just suck.
For corruptors, the 20 percent damage increase spell compensates for the attack decrease against colossus somewhat. Although the casting time does translate into a damage reduction. But it also contributes to damage received by ground units. So really, whether it's a nerf to damage against the colossus is debatable and really kind of sketchy. I think the old corruption was more useful, though. I am skeptical about these Ultra changes but I haven't had much experience with them.. Keep in mind, though, zerg already has two great ways of killing light - banelings & fungal growth. I am pretty much certain Ultras do more damage to armored now .. not less. Where did you get this statistic they do less? Did you make it up? The Frenzy spell cost 25 energy. Let's pretend you have an infestor with 100 energy. It casts fungal growth. Now it has 25 energy left. What do you use it on? You use it on a frenzy.. There are situations where casting Frenzy is worth it. That is unavoidable.
hmm i think they know what they're doing. i mean it is the balance team. perhaps they have a specific goal envisioned for the ultralisk to fit into. its no longer BW, units are being fit into different parts in a composition.
still i do agree it's some of what of a nerf, though more like a change in the unit balance. though, would you prefer more health and armor or a faster ultralisk?
anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
it just doesn't matter enough to click one unit and tell it to cast a spell on another unit to make that other unit do 20% more damage or some shit. it just isn't important enough to bother. dunno why this isn't obvious.
maybe they could be made to fit into sc style play with auto cast or some shit but the fact that it didn't have that right away means that the people doing the balancing are clueless about this
Totally agree with most of the comments here. I just cancelled my SC2 preorder today and picked up Red Dead Redemption. Glad I did too, with the direction blizzard is taking the game with the past couple of patches, it can be said this game is going nowhere quick.
On May 23 2010 13:27 travis wrote: anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
it just doesn't matter enough to click one unit and tell it to cast a spell on another unit to make that other unit do 20% more damage or some shit. it just isn't important enough to bother. dunno why this isn't obvious.
well they make a lot of mistakes and dont fully understand what theyre doing but thats kind of ridiculous. making collosus, thors, capital ships take an extra 20% damage is well worth clicking on them and theres nothing inherently un-sc about it. there were single target spells aimed at knocking out powerful units in sc1, but you cant have something like lockdown in sc2 because smartcast would make it overpowered. so things like corruption are the middle ground.
that being said frenzy is retarded and will never be used over fungal.
reminds me of people saying getting a beard trim that shaves too much off the bottom is an improvement. but anyway, i think frenzy is good. but it sounds like ultralisk needs more. i think it was a case of giving the ultralisk a nerf and a buff at the same time.
On May 23 2010 13:29 cartoon]x wrote: The spells main purpose was to make the unit temporarily immune to 150mm cannons, fungal growth, & mind control...
was this shit ever an issue? 2 of these 3 things are zvz. no one uses ultras in zvz why would they
not to mention u would still have to have enough infestors to do this to all ur ultras. it just doesn't make sense
Oh.. yes king Idra. No one ever uses Ultras ZvZ - Why would they. Yes.. As the game is now, why would they? Why can't that be changed, though? If they were buffed right they could be a good transition in roach / hydra mirrors.
On May 23 2010 13:27 travis wrote: anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
it just doesn't matter enough to click one unit and tell it to cast a spell on another unit to make that other unit do 20% more damage or some shit. it just isn't important enough to bother. dunno why this isn't obvious.
well they make a lot of mistakes and dont fully understand what theyre doing but thats kind of ridiculous. making collosus, thors, capital ships take an extra 20% damage is well worth clicking on them and theres nothing inherently un-sc about it. there were single target spells aimed at knocking out powerful units in sc1, but you cant have something like lockdown in sc2 because smartcast would make it overpowered. so things like corruption are the middle ground.
that being said frenzy is retarded and will never be used over fungal.
I agree with you, but the thing is it's usually Terran or Protoss who have the single, powerful units that would truly benefit from spells like frenzy. Giving it to Zerg, who (usually) rely on masses of units rather than a single, powerful unit is kind of retarded imo.
Of course, there were spells like d-matrix which would be single-target and stuff and people found uses for them eventually, but putting frenzy on the infestor (Zerg) just seems kind of stupid.
On May 23 2010 13:27 travis wrote: anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
it just doesn't matter enough to click one unit and tell it to cast a spell on another unit to make that other unit do 20% more damage or some shit. it just isn't important enough to bother. dunno why this isn't obvious.
maybe they could be made to fit into sc style play with auto cast or some shit but the fact that it didn't have that right away means that the people doing the balancing are clueless about this
I totally agree this.
Starcraft is a game in which each action worths a lot. You will always have something more important to do rather than adding 25% damage to a single unit. Those actions could be on making more use of your larvae because nobody manages larvae perfectly, even the progamers. This is STARCRAFT!
On May 23 2010 13:27 travis wrote: anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
it just doesn't matter enough to click one unit and tell it to cast a spell on another unit to make that other unit do 20% more damage or some shit. it just isn't important enough to bother. dunno why this isn't obvious.
well they make a lot of mistakes and dont fully understand what theyre doing but thats kind of ridiculous. making collosus, thors, capital ships take an extra 20% damage is well worth clicking on them and theres nothing inherently un-sc about it. there were single target spells aimed at knocking out powerful units in sc1, but you cant have something like lockdown in sc2 because smartcast would make it overpowered. so things like corruption are the middle ground.
that being said frenzy is retarded and will never be used over fungal.
I agree with you, but the thing is it's usually Terran or Protoss who have the single, powerful units that would truly benefit from spells like frenzy. Giving it to Zerg, who (usually) rely on masses of units rather than a single, powerful unit is kind of retarded imo.
Of course, there were spells like d-matrix which would be single-target and stuff and people found uses for them eventually, but putting frenzy on the infestor (Zerg) just seems kind of stupid.
hence frenzy being retarded and never being used over fungal
anyway, if you look at it from a map maker's viewpoint, a spell like frenzy is going to be a lot of fun to work with probably. i'm really keen on finding out just how customizable everything is in sc2 with the spells. but yeah...sounds like ultralisk's hp got lowered way too much.
maybe they should leave the hp alone and increase the attack even more. btw, can you cast frenzy on burrowed units?
Let's say it's ZvZ. Both players have gone roach / hydra / infestor. Now you have added ultras. What would you do first - frenzy three ultras or cast fungal growth?
I still don't know what they were thinking when they lowered it's HP. The damage type change made me roll my eyes a bit but in a way it makes sense. I understand if they want to change the units role to make it a hard counter to armored type units, but with the HP nerf it makes no sense because they won't live enough to even get in range to hit the armored units.
Nevermind that frenzy in its current state is not worth the energy to cast over fungal growth or neural parasite.
On May 23 2010 13:27 travis wrote: anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
it just doesn't matter enough to click one unit and tell it to cast a spell on another unit to make that other unit do 20% more damage or some shit. it just isn't important enough to bother. dunno why this isn't obvious.
well they make a lot of mistakes and dont fully understand what theyre doing but thats kind of ridiculous. making collosus, thors, capital ships take an extra 20% damage is well worth clicking on them and theres nothing inherently un-sc about it. there were single target spells aimed at knocking out powerful units in sc1, but you cant have something like lockdown in sc2 because smartcast would make it overpowered. so things like corruption are the middle ground.
that being said frenzy is retarded and will never be used over fungal.
I agree with you, but the thing is it's usually Terran or Protoss who have the single, powerful units that would truly benefit from spells like frenzy. Giving it to Zerg, who (usually) rely on masses of units rather than a single, powerful unit is kind of retarded imo.
Of course, there were spells like d-matrix which would be single-target and stuff and people found uses for them eventually, but putting frenzy on the infestor (Zerg) just seems kind of stupid.
Compare stim and frenzy: stim gives every unit 2 times DPS and they move faster, on a single action, at a cost of less than 1/5 hp. Frenzy gives ONE unit 1.3 times DPS and immune to zerg spells mainly, at a cost of 25 energy.
I don't mean that frenzy should be as good as stim, but my point is that spells like stim are what is really considered useful.
On May 23 2010 13:27 travis wrote: anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
it just doesn't matter enough to click one unit and tell it to cast a spell on another unit to make that other unit do 20% more damage or some shit. it just isn't important enough to bother. dunno why this isn't obvious.
well they make a lot of mistakes and dont fully understand what theyre doing but thats kind of ridiculous. making collosus, thors, capital ships take an extra 20% damage is well worth clicking on them and theres nothing inherently un-sc about it. there were single target spells aimed at knocking out powerful units in sc1, but you cant have something like lockdown in sc2 because smartcast would make it overpowered. so things like corruption are the middle ground.
that being said frenzy is retarded and will never be used over fungal.
ok maybe not totally useless but u think the extra 20% damage spell is a good thing for sc? it's like the least creative, most bland, tiniest edge u can ever get.
every single other spell in sc1 had waaay more profound effects i guess smartcast is a problem but let me ask
your pretty quick if ur fighting another army and they don't have collosus, thor, mothership, carrier u have corruptors in your army do u ever bother using the corruption spell on any of their units
On May 23 2010 13:40 cartoon]x wrote: Let's say it's ZvZ. Both players have gone roach / hydra / infestor. Now you have added ultras. What would you do first - frenzy three ultras or cast fungal growth?
roach hydra is out dated, theyre going to have to make massive changes to z to get around the strength of banelings and the mobility of ling/muta that aside you would still cast fungal. zerg units simply arent powerful enough, even ultras, to be worth a single unit buff like that when its competing for mana with a spell a strong as fungal.
On May 23 2010 13:23 Backpack wrote: Blizzard know's what they are doing. The fact that people seem to think they can balance the game better than a company who has made Starcraft, WC3, and WoW, baffles me.
Sure, the "company." But the reality of it is that the development teams are very different from game to game. Most developers move on to different projects after a game goes retail. And in this case, SC1 dev team =/= SC2 dev team.
My bother is a game dev so I know a bit about the industry. From my personal experience, I would not jump at the opportunity of putting devs on a pedestal. There are many programmers hired to code that aren't necessarily into the particular video game series they are working on (or into video games in particular at all).
You don't need any experience coding in C to observe balance issues like the original implementation of the roach or the weakness of the thor's AA before it became aoe. Certainly the devs probably have a less biased view than most of the players, but that doesn't mean the players can't make suggestions and help.
Ideas are a dime a dozen in the gaming industry. I would be more concerned with devs wanting to create their own game with a disregard towards the playerbase's wants (see the entire MMO genre). And judging from Bnet 2.0, I don't think Blizzard is too focused on maintaining a close relationship with their customers. They really seem to be at the point where they believe they know best and don't give a shit about their vocal players. I thank WoW's success for that. I think many players are becoming disillusioned with Blizzard ever since the Burning Crusade was released.
On May 23 2010 13:25 cartoon]x wrote: For corruptors, the 20 percent damage increase spell compensates for the attack decrease against colossus somewhat. Although the casting time does translate into a damage reduction. But it also contributes to damage received by ground units. So really, whether it's a nerf to damage against the colossus is debatable and really kind of sketchy. I think the old corruption was more useful, though. I am skeptical about these Ultra changes but I haven't had much experience with them.. Keep in mind, though, zerg already has two great ways of killing light - banelings & fungal growth. I am pretty much certain Ultras do more damage to armored now .. not less. Where did you get this statistic they do less? Did you make it up? The Frenzy spell cost 25 energy. Let's pretend you have an infestor with 100 energy. It casts fungal growth. Now it has 25 energy left. What do you use it on? You use it on a frenzy.. There are situations where casting Frenzy is worth it. That is unavoidable.
3 ultras compared with 3 mind controlled ultras .. That's a big swing considering the damage they do to armored at this point. you're talking about losing 18 food then the opponent gaining 18 food. You're wrong .. It's better to cast the frenzy.
On May 23 2010 13:47 cartoon]x wrote: 3 ultras compared with 3 mind controlled ultras .. That's a big swing considering the damage they do to armored at this point. you're talking about losing 18 food then the opponent gaining 18 food. You're wrong .. It's better to cast the frenzy.
I dont understand why you will bother to make ultralisk against the army consist of the same number of infesters.
On May 23 2010 13:47 cartoon]x wrote: 3 ultras compared with 3 mind controlled ultras .. That's a big swing considering the damage they do to armored at this point. you're talking about losing 18 food then the opponent gaining 18 food. You're wrong .. It's better to cast the frenzy.
you are talking about one specific situation, ofc there are some situations where frenzy is better but its sooo rare. 99% of the time mind control or fungal are better.
On May 23 2010 13:27 travis wrote: anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
it just doesn't matter enough to click one unit and tell it to cast a spell on another unit to make that other unit do 20% more damage or some shit. it just isn't important enough to bother. dunno why this isn't obvious.
well they make a lot of mistakes and dont fully understand what theyre doing but thats kind of ridiculous. making collosus, thors, capital ships take an extra 20% damage is well worth clicking on them and theres nothing inherently un-sc about it. there were single target spells aimed at knocking out powerful units in sc1, but you cant have something like lockdown in sc2 because smartcast would make it overpowered. so things like corruption are the middle ground.
that being said frenzy is retarded and will never be used over fungal.
ok maybe not totally useless but u think the extra 20% damage spell is a good thing for sc? it's like the least creative, most bland, tiniest edge u can ever get.
every single other spell in sc1 had waaay more profound effects i guess smartcast is a problem but let me ask
your pretty quick if ur fighting another army and they don't have collosus, thor, mothership, carrier u have corruptors in your army do u ever bother using the corruption spell on any of their units
if they dont have colos or motherships i usually wouldnt have corruptors in the battle. ignoring that, it would be my lowest priority, unless they had temps around. but that doesnt mean its necessarily a bad thing. its a spell targeted at taking out big powerful units, and the corruptor in general is mostly designed for that purpose. its useful in some situations, not in others. i dont really see why that kind of specialization is a problem. hell, people bitch about zerg being bland and simple. all purpose spells and units are part of what cause that.
On May 23 2010 13:27 travis wrote: anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
it just doesn't matter enough to click one unit and tell it to cast a spell on another unit to make that other unit do 20% more damage or some shit. it just isn't important enough to bother. dunno why this isn't obvious.
well they make a lot of mistakes and dont fully understand what theyre doing but thats kind of ridiculous. making collosus, thors, capital ships take an extra 20% damage is well worth clicking on them and theres nothing inherently un-sc about it. there were single target spells aimed at knocking out powerful units in sc1, but you cant have something like lockdown in sc2 because smartcast would make it overpowered. so things like corruption are the middle ground.
that being said frenzy is retarded and will never be used over fungal.
ok maybe not totally useless but u think the extra 20% damage spell is a good thing for sc? it's like the least creative, most bland, tiniest edge u can ever get.
every single other spell in sc1 had waaay more profound effects i guess smartcast is a problem but let me ask
your pretty quick if ur fighting another army and they don't have collosus, thor, mothership, carrier u have corruptors in your army do u ever bother using the corruption spell on any of their units
if they dont have colos or motherships i usually wouldnt have corruptors in the battle. ignoring that, it would be my lowest priority, unless they had temps around. but that doesnt mean its necessarily a bad thing. its a spell targeted at taking out big powerful units, and the corruptor in general is mostly designed for that purpose. its useful in some situations, not in others. i dont really see why that kind of specialization is a problem. hell, people bitch about zerg being bland and simple. all purpose spells and units are part of what cause that.
alright well u clearly would know better than I would if it has a place in the game but I still do hate it, if only cuz im slow and it just feels like added actions to me
(I wouldn't complain if it added some sort of strategy element, but I really don't think it does)
On May 23 2010 13:25 cartoon]x wrote: For corruptors, the 20 percent damage increase spell compensates for the attack decrease against colossus somewhat. Although the casting time does translate into a damage reduction. But it also contributes to damage received by ground units. So really, whether it's a nerf to damage against the colossus is debatable and really kind of sketchy. I think the old corruption was more useful, though. I am skeptical about these Ultra changes but I haven't had much experience with them.. Keep in mind, though, zerg already has two great ways of killing light - banelings & fungal growth. I am pretty much certain Ultras do more damage to armored now .. not less. Where did you get this statistic they do less? Did you make it up? The Frenzy spell cost 25 energy. Let's pretend you have an infestor with 100 energy. It casts fungal growth. Now it has 25 energy left. What do you use it on? You use it on a frenzy.. There are situations where casting Frenzy is worth it. That is unavoidable.
No. You must not of read the entire thread. The first part of the analysis does not take into account the increased splash radius, which is designed to make the Ultras splash more effective against armored units which are typically more spread out. This is the final analysis:
On May 22 2010 11:11 phyvo wrote: Basically, the old ultra was better vs marines, hellions, 3 marauders, and 3 vikings. The new ultra is better vs everything else. Ultras should do about 2.5 X as much damage vs marauder balls, tank balls, thor balls, 2 X damage vs viking balls, 0.75 X damage vs marine balls.
On May 23 2010 13:27 travis wrote: anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
it just doesn't matter enough to click one unit and tell it to cast a spell on another unit to make that other unit do 20% more damage or some shit. it just isn't important enough to bother. dunno why this isn't obvious.
well they make a lot of mistakes and dont fully understand what theyre doing but thats kind of ridiculous. making collosus, thors, capital ships take an extra 20% damage is well worth clicking on them and theres nothing inherently un-sc about it. there were single target spells aimed at knocking out powerful units in sc1, but you cant have something like lockdown in sc2 because smartcast would make it overpowered. so things like corruption are the middle ground.
that being said frenzy is retarded and will never be used over fungal.
I agree with you, but the thing is it's usually Terran or Protoss who have the single, powerful units that would truly benefit from spells like frenzy. Giving it to Zerg, who (usually) rely on masses of units rather than a single, powerful unit is kind of retarded imo.
Of course, there were spells like d-matrix which would be single-target and stuff and people found uses for them eventually, but putting frenzy on the infestor (Zerg) just seems kind of stupid.
The power of D-matrix didn't depend heavily on which unit you put it on - it was the same number of +HP regardless. You wanted it on whatever unit the opponent would be attacking first, which could be a marine/firebat just as easily as a siege tank or battlecruiser.
Maybe making frenzy a researched Ultra ability that had some specs changed would make the unit more useful all around, but who knows, I don't play zerg, but from what it looks like Frenzy gets cast on only one unit, Ultras, and if people aren't building them what the hell is the point of putting it in? They definitely need to take another approach to how they balance things.
I am surprised that Frenzy is not like Defensive Matrix. Give the Ultralisk a damage shield and protect it from effects that could stop it dead in its track. Reapply the shield as it takes more damage.
On May 23 2010 13:25 cartoon]x wrote: For corruptors, the 20 percent damage increase spell compensates for the attack decrease against colossus somewhat. Although the casting time does translate into a damage reduction. But it also contributes to damage received by ground units. So really, whether it's a nerf to damage against the colossus is debatable and really kind of sketchy. I think the old corruption was more useful, though. I am skeptical about these Ultra changes but I haven't had much experience with them.. Keep in mind, though, zerg already has two great ways of killing light - banelings & fungal growth. I am pretty much certain Ultras do more damage to armored now .. not less. Where did you get this statistic they do less? Did you make it up? The Frenzy spell cost 25 energy. Let's pretend you have an infestor with 100 energy. It casts fungal growth. Now it has 25 energy left. What do you use it on? You use it on a frenzy.. There are situations where casting Frenzy is worth it. That is unavoidable.
No. You must not of read the entire thread. The first part of the analysis does not take into account the increased splash radius, which is designed to make the Ultras splash more effective against armored units which are typically more spread out. This is the final analysis:
On May 22 2010 11:11 phyvo wrote: Basically, the old ultra was better vs marines, hellions, 3 marauders, and 3 vikings. The new ultra is better vs everything else. Ultras should do about 2.5 X as much damage vs marauder balls, tank balls, thor balls, 2 X damage vs viking balls, 0.75 X damage vs marine balls.
Do not spread lies and cause alarm.
Where do you get the result? I doubt "Ultras should do about 2.5 X as much damage vs marauder balls".
Another fact is that in the previous patch, the ultralisk can 5 shots kill a ball of marauders. Now it takes 10 shots to kill them. Even with large balls you deal more damage, the enemy die much slower, which means you die much faster.
On May 23 2010 13:47 cartoon]x wrote: 3 ultras compared with 3 mind controlled ultras .. That's a big swing considering the damage they do to armored at this point. you're talking about losing 18 food then the opponent gaining 18 food. You're wrong .. It's better to cast the frenzy.
Best decision would have been not making ultras. Then you never have to waste infestor mana on frenzy, instead use it on more useful ZvZ spell fungal growth hth.
If frenzy were self cast from the ultralisk even if it had a greatly increased energy cost to duration ratio it only has to last about 15 seconds to have 100% uptime during combat since fights involving ultras tend to be over that fast one way or another and if that's the case why not just have those things be passive, which would be dumb. I have much the same problem with the new corruption. If you're only making corrupters to fight massive units and you're mostly only bothering to cast corruption on those massive units what's the point of having it be a spell and not a passive effect? At least in this cast there's always the off chance that you make corrupters to fight, say, vikings and then after that's done you can spit up on a thor or 2 to make things easier on your hydras but ultimately these spells feel like placeholders rather then important pieces of the zerg puzzle.
They did the hp nerf because there testers are good enough to bring queens to the battle and transfuse the Ultras while giving them the Frenzy ability. This was suppose to make the game more micro intensive for zerg as many players had complaints about how little micro was required. Now it requires quite a bit of micro and macro to pull it off.
Thats my opinion for why they lowered the hp and gave the infestor a new ability that costs very little energy.
The problem is that people at MOST(often it is one queen at base and 2 at natural imo) will make 2 queens at each base depending on the situation and will keep them there as a sort of static defense/ keep the larva count up. Rarely do they make more then that unless they are trying to defend against an early air push. If players keep spawning queens or spawn a large number before a battle to heal there tanking unit and give it the infestor's frenzy ability (Ultra) they could just keep transfusing every time a unit is at low health, unless the player decides to target fire each ultra so they die instantly which will allow other units to actually reach the fight making ultras viable. They gave the queen a heal ability for a reason >.>, not for just defending pushes, but being on the offensive as well.
Thats my opinion why it doesn't work by most players standards. They don't use the queens transfusion ability to its full extent.
I bet first post against this will be a flame or a argument against me.
when i 1st heard blizzard say that they were re-arranging the zerg spells a bit I got really excited. I was a bit optimistic about frenzy but now I just hate it. So disapointed that Zerg spellcasting is still so lame. Personally I'll be happy if they replace frenzy with something that isnt so stupid and maybe just a LITTLE creative (JUST A LITTLE FFS), and replace infested terrans on the overseer lol.
maybe if frenzy also made the unit affected by it immune to bonus damages...
I agree that with the nerf, and the addition to ZERG of all races, of all these single target buff/debuff spells... tells me that they have no idea what they are doing. They seem confused.
On May 23 2010 13:23 Backpack wrote: The fact that people seem to think they can balance the game better than a company who has made Starcraft, WC3, and WoW, baffles me.
what makes u think many of us couldn't? we could certainly beat them at their games so...
We are all inherently biased.
Contrary to popular belief, Blizzard knows what they're doing, whether you agree with them or not. None of us are SC developers, so lets stop pretending like we are.
On May 23 2010 14:13 Jibba wrote: What are your thoughts on giving Ultras the armor upgrade by default?
People need to realize that giving units traits by "default" is not a solution to a problem -.-
The whole reason for the ultra nerf in stats is because without it frenzy would make it too OP. But, no one's using frenzy, so now the ultra looks nerfed in comparison. Personally I'm really with the "1 spell does not make the game" camp. Sure you have great spells like storm and fungal but lately I've just seen so much tinkering with 1 spell aimed at 1 unit and it's really frustrating because SC is suppose to be an rts, not a rpg. Things like fine tuning neural parasite and the whole ordeal with corruption and all the mothership madness and now this frenzy thing makes sc2 much less like its predecessor in the way it's played.
I guess my point is at this point the intended buff backfired. I can't see anyone getting spending resources to buff a unit that prior to this patch had no really good use, and post patch is even more useless unless you get the spell.
The best solution I believe would be to make it an ability (researchable or not thats a different discussion) that comes with the ultra. I think that not only exemplifies what Blizz wants to see but also solves the problem of the lack of frenzy usage due to fungal dominance.
On May 23 2010 14:41 cursor wrote: I agree that with the nerf, and the addition to ZERG of all races, of all these single target buff/debuff spells... tells me that they have no idea what they are doing. They seem confused.
They also seem not to have any creativity or imagination anymore. Last 4 spells added to zerg :
- Corrupter +20% dommage ability - Fenzy for infestor - Overseer who instead of getting new spell get some old one (infested terran who is even more useless than before and corruption from corruptor)
They seem to be totally unable to find cool spell anymore and they give us shit spell. I can't wait to see the next spell they invented: maybe some thing giving +2,34 strengh, +54 hp and +65 agility to the target unit ?
On May 23 2010 14:33 Twinweapon wrote: They did the hp nerf because there testers are good enough to bring queens to the battle and transfuse the Ultras while giving them the Frenzy ability. This was suppose to make the game more micro intensive for zerg as many players had complaints about how little micro was required. Now it requires quite a bit of micro and macro to pull it off.
Thats my opinion for why they lowered the hp and gave the infestor a new ability that costs very little energy.
The problem is that people at MOST(often it is one queen at base and 2 at natural imo) will make 2 queens at each base depending on the situation and will keep them there as a sort of static defense/ keep the larva count up. Rarely do they make more then that unless they are trying to defend against an early air push. If players keep spawning queens or spawn a large number before a battle to heal there tanking unit and give it the infestor's frenzy ability (Ultra) they could just keep transfusing every time a unit is at low health, unless the player decides to target fire each ultra so they die instantly which will allow other units to actually reach the fight making ultras viable. They gave the queen a heal ability for a reason >.>, not for just defending pushes, but being on the offensive as well.
Thats my opinion why it doesn't work by most players standards. They don't use the queens transfusion ability to its full extent.
I bet first post against this will be a flame or a argument against me.
Yeah, because you're wrong. I brought up the idea of infusion + ultra about a month ago, and it turned out to be terrible. Infusion costs 50 energy for 150 hp (which is actually not a great deal) and has a very small casting range. There's no way you can have a slow queen chasing down an ultra to infuse it during battle. The ultra will outrun it and go pop, just the same as it does now. Keeping the ultra near the queen means it'll take longer to get to its target, so then the ultra and the queen go pop before they reach the target.
On May 23 2010 14:13 Jibba wrote: What are your thoughts on giving Ultras the armor upgrade by default?
People need to realize that giving units traits by "default" is not a solution to a problem -.-
The ultra's primary problem in this case is survivability and composition. The damage is completely overblown; the change in damage pales in comparison to the change in hp. Ultras were never the primary DDs in BW armies. They kind of increased the damage at the cost of survivability, which just exacerbates one of the major problems with using ultralisks.
The 2 upgrades are slow as hell, and no one is going to build 2 caverns for it, yet you basically need both of them for the unit to be viable.
I'm not saying that's the solution, I'm just asking if the op thinks it'd work, since he probably has more experience with ultras than anyone else.
On May 23 2010 14:33 Twinweapon wrote: They did the hp nerf because there testers are good enough to bring queens to the battle and transfuse the Ultras while giving them the Frenzy ability. This was suppose to make the game more micro intensive for zerg as many players had complaints about how little micro was required. Now it requires quite a bit of micro and macro to pull it off.
Thats my opinion for why they lowered the hp and gave the infestor a new ability that costs very little energy.
The problem is that people at MOST(often it is one queen at base and 2 at natural imo) will make 2 queens at each base depending on the situation and will keep them there as a sort of static defense/ keep the larva count up. Rarely do they make more then that unless they are trying to defend against an early air push. If players keep spawning queens or spawn a large number before a battle to heal there tanking unit and give it the infestor's frenzy ability (Ultra) they could just keep transfusing every time a unit is at low health, unless the player decides to target fire each ultra so they die instantly which will allow other units to actually reach the fight making ultras viable. They gave the queen a heal ability for a reason >.>, not for just defending pushes, but being on the offensive as well.
Thats my opinion why it doesn't work by most players standards. They don't use the queens transfusion ability to its full extent.
I bet first post against this will be a flame or a argument against me.
Yeah, because you're wrong. I brought up the idea of infusion + ultra about a month ago, and it turned out to be terrible. Infusion costs 50 energy for 150 hp (which is actually not a great deal) and has a very small casting range. There's no way you can have a slow queen chasing down an ultra to infuse it during battle. The ultra will outrun it and go pop, just the same as it does now. Keeping the ultra near the queen means it'll take longer to get to its target, so then the ultra and the queen go pop before they reach the target.
sounds like infusion should be given to the infestor over frenzy lol
actually, -I don't really play zerg any more so it's just speculation-, but has anyone tried researching overlord drop and just carrying around 2-4 queens in overlord (how many can fit in an overlord btw?) so you can have them stay with your army better shuttle/reaver style and use them to transfusion ultras/provide more AA? seems like it could work moderately well...
edit- I mean theoretically, 150 minerals for potentially 600 more HP on an ultra sounds like a pretty good deal (especially in the late game).
Clearly Blizzard needs to get a clue and hire real pro-level players to do in-house testing.
They were smart enough to hire Nick Plott for Blizzcon casting, so why can't they get it for players? David Kim and Matt "cowgomoo" Cooper are great, but not top level.
On May 23 2010 14:33 Twinweapon wrote: They did the hp nerf because there testers are good enough to bring queens to the battle and transfuse the Ultras while giving them the Frenzy ability. This was suppose to make the game more micro intensive for zerg as many players had complaints about how little micro was required. Now it requires quite a bit of micro and macro to pull it off.
Thats my opinion for why they lowered the hp and gave the infestor a new ability that costs very little energy.
The problem is that people at MOST(often it is one queen at base and 2 at natural imo) will make 2 queens at each base depending on the situation and will keep them there as a sort of static defense/ keep the larva count up. Rarely do they make more then that unless they are trying to defend against an early air push. If players keep spawning queens or spawn a large number before a battle to heal there tanking unit and give it the infestor's frenzy ability (Ultra) they could just keep transfusing every time a unit is at low health, unless the player decides to target fire each ultra so they die instantly which will allow other units to actually reach the fight making ultras viable. They gave the queen a heal ability for a reason >.>, not for just defending pushes, but being on the offensive as well.
Thats my opinion why it doesn't work by most players standards. They don't use the queens transfusion ability to its full extent.
I bet first post against this will be a flame or a argument against me.
Yeah, because you're wrong. I brought up the idea of infusion + ultra about a month ago, and it turned out to be terrible. Infusion costs 50 energy for 150 hp (which is actually not a great deal) and has a very small casting range. There's no way you can have a slow queen chasing down an ultra to infuse it during battle. The ultra will outrun it and go pop, just the same as it does now. Keeping the ultra near the queen means it'll take longer to get to its target, so then the ultra and the queen go pop before they reach the target.
sounds like infusion should be given to the infestor over frenzy lol
actually, -I don't really play zerg any more so it's just speculation-, but has anyone tried researching overlord drop and just carrying around 2-4 queens in overlord (how many can fit in an overlord btw?) so you can have them stay with your army better shuttle/reaver style and use them to transfusion ultras/provide more AA? seems like it could work moderately well...
edit- I mean theoretically, 150 minerals for potentially 600 more HP on an ultra sounds like a pretty good deal (especially in the late game).
I don't remember if it has a cast time or not, but part of the problem when I tried it is just that 150 hp drops very quickly and you've got other things to do. If it were preemptive like D-matrix, that might make it more helpful.
On May 23 2010 14:33 Twinweapon wrote: They did the hp nerf because there testers are good enough to bring queens to the battle and transfuse the Ultras while giving them the Frenzy ability. This was suppose to make the game more micro intensive for zerg as many players had complaints about how little micro was required. Now it requires quite a bit of micro and macro to pull it off.
This requires an awful lot of creep and queen energy buildup as well as infestor energy...that's an interesting idea, but the practicality of it (build queens, get lots of energy on lots of queens, getting queens to the ultras) seems situational at best. Transfusion isn't exactly cheap and you would need A LOT of queens and I can't think of many situations that this would be useful in that better use of pop/resources would be advisable.
[/QUOTE] Yeah, because you're wrong. I brought up the idea of infusion + ultra about a month ago, and it turned out to be terrible. Infusion costs 50 energy for 150 hp (which is actually not a great deal) and has a very small casting range. There's no way you can have a slow queen chasing down an ultra to infuse it during battle. The ultra will outrun it and go pop, just the same as it does now. Keeping the ultra near the queen means it'll take longer to get to its target, so then the ultra and the queen go pop before they reach the target.[/QUOTE]
When you attempted this did you have your queens on creep? hence why the queen is also given the ability to spread creep with creep tumors and overlords which are the zergs supply unit(So you will always have them) and if morphed into overseer harass unit. Spreading the creep allows for a faster movement which most players do across the map as zerg anyways so why not do it all the way to your enemy's base or use the hatchery trick and build creep right in front of his base where you need it most, on the offensive. And when I mean have queens use infusion, I mean have QUEENS as if you were massing them(8+ for the offensive).
Of coarse tho you would need to harass with muta/overseer to slow down the production of certain units for units that your opponent will need to survive the harass and prevent it. Morphing a few overseers to slow down production of factories(as I assume it is mostly Terran zerg players are talking about) and other critical buildings that are required to fight zerg effectively as that will also throw off timings and will force the other player to make static defense around his production buildings.
Just need to use all the abilities that are given to you as best as possible and I'm sure you will fine. Their PROFESSIONAL TESTERS obviously found a way to make use of ultra's or else they wouldn't have nerf'ed the hp. Now all you have to do is find out what they did to make them so effective that they would throw the balance of the game off in favor of the zerg. Meh, I'm tired. GL and HF.
On May 23 2010 14:41 cursor wrote: I agree that with the nerf, and the addition to ZERG of all races, of all these single target buff/debuff spells... tells me that they have no idea what they are doing. They seem confused.
They also seem not to have any creativity or imagination anymore. Last 4 spells added to zerg :
- Corrupter +20% dommage ability - Fenzy for infestor - Overseer who instead of getting new spell get some old one (infested terran who is even more useless than before and corruption from corruptor)
They seem to be totally unable to find cool spell anymore and they give us shit spell. I can't wait to see the next spell they invented: maybe some thing giving +2,34 strengh, +54 hp and +65 agility to the target unit ?
I wouldn't say its lack of creativity -- more like lack of time. Theres 2 months before the game's release and the dev team doesn't have the time to create new animations or funky abilities. There's a whole lot of bug testing and quality assurance that still needs to be done. They're opting for the easiest abilities/spells that they can think of by using (1) Spells they already have (2) Assets in the game that are easily alterable.
I wouldn't be surprised if frenzy's aura came from a scrapped dark swarm spell
Not saying its the right thing to do, but I just don't think we should expect huge changes with the release date around the corner.
On May 23 2010 16:03 mousepad wrote: ... Not saying its the right thing to do, but I just don't think we should expect huge changes with the release date around the corner.
Point is well made... adding new animations/models could ruin the stability of the game even more than Bnet2 is managing to. It just really concerns me that the game seems to have gotten worse over the last 4 patches.
Definitely the absolutely wrong direction for the Ultralisk to go. It's a tank, not a DPS dealer so don't reduce its HP. It can't get to the enemy units before dying so don't reduce its HP.
On May 23 2010 13:43 MasterAsia wrote: Compare stim and frenzy: stim gives every unit 2 times DPS and they move faster, on a single action, at a cost of less than 1/5 hp. Frenzy gives ONE unit 1.3 times DPS and immune to zerg spells mainly, at a cost of 25 energy.
I don't mean that frenzy should be as good as stim, but my point is that spells like stim are what is really considered useful.
On May 23 2010 15:03 0neder wrote: Clearly Blizzard needs to get a clue and hire real pro-level players to do in-house testing.
They were smart enough to hire Nick Plott for Blizzcon casting, so why can't they get it for players? David Kim and Matt "cowgomoo" Cooper are great, but not top level.
If Matt Cooper actually was CowGoMoo, you might be on to something!
I don't like DPS ultra, + spells copy pasted from WC3 don't really have a place in SC2 imo as frenzy just doesn't cut it...that said, more testing and mathcraft is definitely eneded
imo the logic behind frenzy buff is obvious and justified.
infestor is for FG + NP.
however, if your infestors are idle sitting around defending your expo with 200 energy the 25 energy spammable spell giving +25% damage would see some use... why the hell would anyone NOT use it?
don't be rediculous with the area of effect frenzy idea, that would HAVE to be balanced with 150+ energy cost, which would be crap compared to fungal.
frenzy is irrefutably more useful than infested terran, so why the hell do people complain?
i can already see the swing in matchups where the zerg has a few corruptors & infestors on the field and he can quite easily make the front line of enemies take 20% more damage and make a group of zerg units deal 25% more damage.
back on the ultralisk topic, the hp is undoubtedly a massive nerf. but they now have the highest dps versus armored in the entire game - without even considering upgrades or frenzy. blizzard want banelings to own light units, therefore it was broken that the ultralisk did the same as banelings except he had 600 hp.
with the recent change, the ultralisk is basically a beefed up immortal. therefore you should use the ultralisk like a beefed up immortal, instead of this 'tank' idea which has carried over from broodwar.
immortals get owned by marauders, ultralisks get owned by marauders, how many noobs does it take to upload a movie to youtube demonstrating this before people start to understand?
On May 23 2010 16:31 tarsier wrote: imo the logic behind frenzy buff is obvious and justified.
infestor is for FG + NP.
however, if your infestors are idle sitting around defending your expo with 200 energy the 25 energy spammable spell giving +25% damage would see some use... why the hell would anyone NOT use it?
don't be rediculous with the area of effect frenzy idea, that would HAVE to be balanced with 150+ energy cost, which would be crap compared to fungal.
frenzy is irrefutably more useful than infested terran, so why the hell do people complain?
i can already see the swing in matchups where the zerg has a few corruptors & infestors on the field and he can quite easily make the front line of enemies take 20% more damage and make a group of zerg units deal 25% more damage.
back on the ultralisk topic, the hp is undoubtedly a massive nerf. but they now have the highest dps versus armored in the entire game - without even considering upgrades or frenzy. blizzard want banelings to own light units, therefore it was broken that the ultralisk did the same as banelings except he had 600 hp.
with the recent change, the ultralisk is basically a beefed up immortal. therefore you should use the ultralisk like a beefed up immortal, instead of this 'tank' idea which has carried over from broodwar.
immortals get owned by marauders, ultralisks get owned by marauders, how many noobs does it take to upload a movie to youtube demonstrating this before people start to understand?
First post I hate and love, I can see what your going at and I personally think this is kinda spot on. I can be wrong in saying that though :S
On May 23 2010 16:47 Noise wrote: So if Ultras are good against armored, why do they get raped by Marauders? Why should they? And what should they be good against?
Exactly... HOW bout we give Mutalisks +25 damage vs thor derrr..... since they dont just melt instantly. OR do they?.. lets ask blizzard they seem to understand the game. not.
Frenzy does not belong in SC either. Altho I think blizzard was right in realizing that ultras need something to be able to deal with Thor cannon ability. Because its an instant win nothing you can do against it before. Meanwhile thors Dont need anything against NP because tanks can snipe Infestor .. and you could make ghosts which would be a really good idea with mass thor. So Terran has all these options and counters set up right... but Zerg really got left with no smart way to deal with anything other than these guidelines for every fight basically:
1. Outmass weee! 2. abuse the mobility of zerg units 3. dont get caught fighting in bad positions
Obviously Frenzy is not the answer. It does not give any more creative options other than still doing 1. 2. and 3. Instead they should have just made Thor cannon ability cause your thor to have to recharge a little before doing anything so at least our ultras can die as meat while burrowed roaches can get in a few free hits first.
Make Ultra T2 and cheaper with how useless it is. and switch infestor to T3 and make it have one more really good spell. or a consume .. maybe a darkswarm that can only be cast over itself with 0 range. then there would be a reason to use burrow movement on infestors... but right now i see none
On May 23 2010 14:33 Twinweapon wrote: They did the hp nerf because there testers are good enough to bring queens to the battle and transfuse the Ultras while giving them the Frenzy ability. This was suppose to make the game more micro intensive for zerg as many players had complaints about how little micro was required. Now it requires quite a bit of micro and macro to pull it off.
Let's play a game. How many support units does the Ultralisk need before it becomes a useful unit?
Hey guys, I don't know if you know this but 3 zealots actually take out and ultra lol.
Ultras are totally useful, now the protoss just need to make zealots instead of sentrys. I'm not saying "hey guys look ultras don't counter tier 1 light units anymore". All I'm saying is, every protoss player has the means to build zealots, and if just a few zealots are enough to counter X ultras cost efficiently, why bother going for TIER 3 ultra at all?
The terran... Well I guess I don't even have to call that.
On May 23 2010 13:27 travis wrote: anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
Defense Matrix and Shield Battery are two examples of buffs from the original. Think of Frenzy as a Defense Matrix and maybe you won't have to stress out about nothing so much
Blizzard know's what they are doing. The fact that people seem to think they can balance the game better than a company who has made Starcraft, WC3, and WoW, baffles me.
WC3 is not balanced after 8 years. Undead is useless vs Orc at top level. From what I here, WoW has awful balance (its a mmorpg so who cares). SC:BW is balanced because of Korean map design, not because of Blizzard.
On May 23 2010 13:23 Backpack wrote: They are just changing things around to see how they work. They don't know if it will be a nerf or a buff until we, the beta testers, test it.
Blizzard know's what they are doing. The fact that people seem to think they can balance the game better than a company who has made Starcraft, WC3, and WoW, baffles me.
Lol WC3 and WoW , what terrible games to reference in terms of balance.
On May 23 2010 19:48 Stationary wrote: Hey guys, I don't know if you know this but 3 zealots actually take out and ultra lol.
Ultras are totally useful, now the protoss just need to make zealots instead of sentrys. I'm not saying "hey guys look ultras don't counter tier 1 light units anymore". All I'm saying is, every protoss player has the means to build zealots, and if just a few zealots are enough to counter X ultras cost efficiently, why bother going for TIER 3 ultra at all?
The terran... Well I guess I don't even have to call that.
Only if you assume zealots will be perfectly surrounding the ultra. In a realistic situation, where splash hits at least one other, the ultra comes out at about 40% hp.
On May 23 2010 19:48 Stationary wrote: Hey guys, I don't know if you know this but 3 zealots actually take out and ultra lol.
Ultras are totally useful, now the protoss just need to make zealots instead of sentrys. I'm not saying "hey guys look ultras don't counter tier 1 light units anymore". All I'm saying is, every protoss player has the means to build zealots, and if just a few zealots are enough to counter X ultras cost efficiently, why bother going for TIER 3 ultra at all?
The terran... Well I guess I don't even have to call that.
Only if you assume zealots will be perfectly surrounding the ultra. In a realistic situation, where splash hits at least one other, the ultra comes out at about 40% hp.
Add in multiple ultras hitting multiple zealots, I'm pretty sure that the advantage scales up as the ultralisks numbers increase as opposed to the zealots.
Ultras are totally useful, now the protoss just need to make zealots instead of sentrys. I'm not saying "hey guys look ultras don't counter tier 1 light units anymore". All I'm saying is, every protoss player has the means to build zealots, and if just a few zealots are enough to counter X ultras cost efficiently, why bother going for TIER 3 ultra at all?
The terran... Well I guess I don't even have to call that.
What this also shows is that with some unit micro lesser units can take out seemingly impossible units(given the composition). If I remember correctly this is something that everyone loved about sc1 and have been clamoring for to have in sc2. Mission accomplished. So I see this as a good thing although in some ways it seems kind of ridic but in the same way three marines properly microed could take out one lurker in sc1 which also was kind of ridiculous, although very nice to watch.
guys stop following the really typical 'westerner' logic.
the reason the asian's are so far ahead is because they look at a unit stat/abilities laterally.
asian's DO NOT go "WTF NOW ULTRA IS EVEN WORSE AGAINST MARAUDER WTF BLIZZ!!!! I ALWAYS MASS ULTRAS IN ORDER TO BEAT MARAUDER BECAUSE I THINK THAT IF I MAKE ENOUGH I WILL EVENTUALLY WIN, BUT IT NEVER WORKS!!!!! WTFFFFFF!".
if terran is massing marauder/marine then you need a force composing primarily of banelings and hydras.
btw 2-3 stimmed marauders can own an immortal (depends on who gets the first shot), so immortal is not a counter to marauder either. it's more complex than "that guy does bonus against armor. therefore i should be able to A-move and beat other armored guys for same resource cost full stop".
if the findings are that ultra is still underused, then blizzard will change it again.
just remember that making ultra own marauders just because the zerg player is too stubborn to use the tried & tested hydralisks would likely make TvZ almost impossible for terran the player.
anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
Yeah, I certainly hope they don't put in a debuff spell on the Raven that only affects biological targets and causes them to take ~300 damage over time and spread this damage over to nearby biological targets. I hope they don't put a Buff spell that gives +250 hp onto a friendly unit and decreases all incoming damage to 1. I hope they don't put a debuff on the Overseer that, when cast on an enemy unit gives you LoS of their location. I hope they don't put in a Mind Control ability that permanently gave you control of the unit instead of that pusscake ability Neural Parasite. I hope they don't give the medivac two abilities, one that removed any negative debuff on a friendly unit, and one that would debuff an enemy unit so that it had no line of sight and depending on nearby friendly units for LoS.
@iaguz - you're sort of arguing against yourself. Only irradiate is actually used consistently at any high level (and D-matrix from time to time, to break lurker lines). The rest are gimmicks, and you forgot broodlings.
I personally have the sneaking suspicion that Blizzard is content to pander to their larger customer base - the casual silver/bronze players, etc (void ray nerf unnecessary if you look at high level play, for example?). Unfortunately, I don't think you can make a gaming experience that is equally balanced at all levels and a spectator sport. Look at sc - at D levels people complained about protoss being 1a2a3a easyrace, and terran mech was nearly invincible. Those complaints didn't deserve rebalances.
That being said - Ultras had problems against anti-armored units before. Forcing them to be used against armored units (most of which are anti-armored), coupled with an HP nerf just seems ill thought out? I'd like to see frenzy as a cooldown ability on the ultra - no dmg buff, just make it immune to stun and increase its speed for 5s or so? Just so they can initiate, maybe flank a bit more easily without being cut down before reaching the battle.
So? That's not important, he stated that 'sc style gameplay absolutely has no place for single target buff/debuffs' and I showed how full of shit that comment is. Yes, frenzy and corruption are 'boring' in that they don't change the game majorly once you cast them and don't have much use other then their one role (ie, killing colosi and buffing some unit I don't use anymore) and I agree that these abilities are boring and too narrow and should definitely be improved but that's not what I'm getting at here.
And what does competitive play have to do with it anyway? Blizzard made those abilities because they were fun, completely original and made the game cooler to play (and make cool puzzle levels like the Dalyrian shipyards and that first Zerg level in BW). SC style gameplay is what Blizzard said it should be, not what a bunch of insane Koreans teenagers decided it should be.
On May 23 2010 13:27 travis wrote: anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
it just doesn't matter enough to click one unit and tell it to cast a spell on another unit to make that other unit do 20% more damage or some shit. it just isn't important enough to bother. dunno why this isn't obvious.
well they make a lot of mistakes and dont fully understand what theyre doing but thats kind of ridiculous. making collosus, thors, capital ships take an extra 20% damage is well worth clicking on them and theres nothing inherently un-sc about it. there were single target spells aimed at knocking out powerful units in sc1, but you cant have something like lockdown in sc2 because smartcast would make it overpowered. so things like corruption are the middle ground.
that being said frenzy is retarded and will never be used over fungal.
lol, really gotta agree here.
and to the OP: I've thought the same since I saw the patch notes
On May 23 2010 23:43 iaguz wrote: So? That's not important, he stated that 'sc style gameplay absolutely has no place for single target buff/debuffs' and I showed how full of shit that comment is. Yes, frenzy and corruption are 'boring' in that they don't change the game majorly once you cast them and don't have much use other then their one role (ie, killing colosi and buffing some unit I don't use anymore) and I agree that these abilities are boring and too narrow and should definitely be improved but that's not what I'm getting at here.
And what does competitive play have to do with it anyway? Blizzard made those abilities because they were fun, completely original and made the game cooler to play (and make cool puzzle levels like the Dalyrian shipyards and that first Zerg level in BW). SC style gameplay is what Blizzard said it should be, not what a bunch of insane Koreans teenagers decided it should be.
Irradiate isn't a debuff... Its a damage over time spell. D-matrix is a buff, but I think its more of an sc style buff. It adds a set amount of hp to a unit, not this percentage over this period of time. So you're saying, Blizzard should make SC style gameplay whatever they want it to be and throw away what made it so popular. Competitive play is the most important thing to prolong a game's lifespan. If there was no competitive scene, do you think brood war would be played so much after all those years?
Ultras are totally useful, now the protoss just need to make zealots instead of sentrys. I'm not saying "hey guys look ultras don't counter tier 1 light units anymore". All I'm saying is, every protoss player has the means to build zealots, and if just a few zealots are enough to counter X ultras cost efficiently, why bother going for TIER 3 ultra at all?
The terran... Well I guess I don't even have to call that.
This is an ultralisk in a situation where it cannot use it's splash damage and, I think, does not have any upgrades. Now I'm rather a terran than a zerg player but when I went ultralisks (what I sometimes did for fun before patch) I always had at least 1-1 tech and ultralisk extra armor when engaging. In lategame when there are ultralisks, this situation that ultralisks cannot use their splash is very very unlikely. Also, there are many high tier units that will not come out cost efficiently against low tier units because they have a certain situation they need to be in. For new ultralisks, this would be: - have techs - have frenzy - use them either against armored targets or many small AoEable targets
Also, they now have this value that cannot be put in numbers, which is that it will help alot against forcefields. Btw consider to use them as drops and not in bad situations like a widespread group of tanks or in front of a 20-marauder-group without supporting it.
Frenzy is purely an attempt to make Ultralisks more viable by nullifiying the biggest counters to them, while the damage is just a small bonus on top of that. It's pretty much useless to cast it just for the bonus damage and again ultras benefit from that the most with a gain of 11.6 DPS against armored targets + splash(hydras are in second place with a gain of 3.6 DPS, which is a waste of infestor energy).
The problem of ultralisk is not that they are hard countered by spell (thor's stun and mind control). The problem is that they hard counter nothing which is standart, they have no role in this game.
What's the point of those spells if they can't be used?
On May 24 2010 02:08 marshmallow wrote: Blizz is trying to give the ultra survivability and the infestor a good spell but without using dark swarm. GL with that.
Blizz is giving the ultra survivability by reducing its hp by 25%
On May 23 2010 13:23 Backpack wrote: They are just changing things around to see how they work. They don't know if it will be a nerf or a buff until we, the beta testers, test it.
Blizzard know's what they are doing. The fact that people seem to think they can balance the game better than a company who has made Starcraft, WC3, and WoW, baffles me.
Lol WC3 and WoW , what terrible games to reference in terms of balance.
On May 23 2010 13:23 Backpack wrote: They are just changing things around to see how they work. They don't know if it will be a nerf or a buff until we, the beta testers, test it.
Blizzard know's what they are doing. The fact that people seem to think they can balance the game better than a company who has made Starcraft, WC3, and WoW, baffles me.
Lol WC3 and WoW , what terrible games to reference in terms of balance.
Yet, they are all successful e-sports. Amazing!
Define successful. The Blizzard devs have all but said Arena is a failure because the game wasn't originally designed for competitive play. They are even moving away from Arena in the next expansion and into rated bgs because it sucks so much. Just because a small minority of players play it at a competitive level in blizzard sponsored tournaments doesn't make it a success. In fact it has no sustainability without Blizzard events
WC3 is a success in my opinion, it's just overshadowed by SC so often that people don't realize it has/had a big scene
Actually come to think of it wow arena is a pretty good example of why Blizzard shouldn't try to exert too much control of SC2 competitive play. They pushed really hard to make arena an esport and it has for all intents failed
Here is how to fix frenzy and the ultralisk- replace frenzy with defensive matrix (call it something stupid though, as all new spells apparently need to be.) Gives the ultra survivablility so it can actually be used lategame instead of roaches (which is how it needs to fit in, only blizzard is too stupid to see this). In addition, dmatrix on some roaches mid game could allow zerg to actually break a terran mech push.
There- I just solved 3 things- the ultra, frenzy, and zvt. Thank me later.
On May 23 2010 13:27 travis wrote: anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
it just doesn't matter enough to click one unit and tell it to cast a spell on another unit to make that other unit do 20% more damage or some shit. it just isn't important enough to bother. dunno why this isn't obvious.
well they make a lot of mistakes and dont fully understand what theyre doing but thats kind of ridiculous. making collosus, thors, capital ships take an extra 20% damage is well worth clicking on them and theres nothing inherently un-sc about it. there were single target spells aimed at knocking out powerful units in sc1, but you cant have something like lockdown in sc2 because smartcast would make it overpowered. so things like corruption are the middle ground.
that being said frenzy is retarded and will never be used over fungal.
ok maybe not totally useless but u think the extra 20% damage spell is a good thing for sc? it's like the least creative, most bland, tiniest edge u can ever get.
every single other spell in sc1 had waaay more profound effects i guess smartcast is a problem but let me ask
your pretty quick if ur fighting another army and they don't have collosus, thor, mothership, carrier u have corruptors in your army do u ever bother using the corruption spell on any of their units
if they dont have colos or motherships i usually wouldnt have corruptors in the battle. ignoring that, it would be my lowest priority, unless they had temps around. but that doesnt mean its necessarily a bad thing. its a spell targeted at taking out big powerful units, and the corruptor in general is mostly designed for that purpose. its useful in some situations, not in others. i dont really see why that kind of specialization is a problem. hell, people bitch about zerg being bland and simple. all purpose spells and units are part of what cause that.
alright well u clearly would know better than I would if it has a place in the game but I still do hate it, if only cuz im slow and it just feels like added actions to me
(I wouldn't complain if it added some sort of strategy element, but I really don't think it does)
I agree with idra that there's nothing un-sc1-like about single unit spells in general, and also about corruption being useful vs colossi, but I absolutely agree with you that the spell is just really stupid because it's incredibly boring. There's nothing original or exciting about it.
Think about defense matrix, it's not the most original spell in the world but It causes lots of excitement when it's casted on a marine and causes you to take out several lurkers with a small force. Or think about that Jaedong vs Firebathero game on I believe destination, where FBH casted def matrix on his battlecruiser a split second before tons of scourge hit it.
Def matrix was used way less than irradiate and EMP but was still an interesting spell.
There will never be anything exciting ever about the new corruption spell.
what really concerns me about blizzard, despite the ultralisk stat changes, is the frenzy spell. they're concerned about neural/250 mm/fungal as a problem for ultralisks when just regular low tier units do extremely well vs ultralisks..why would anyone need to try to get these spells to counter ultras? it's sad, previously ultras did well against marines/zealots/zerglings but now theyre weak vs all of them and even weaker to the next marauder/roach/stalker (the fact that they do more damage now hardly matters with how fast they already died before and that they die even faster now. plus the radius is nerfed too
It is a beta! How many years has it taken to get to the point where SC1 was that perfectly balanced game? Many years. SC2 isnt even launched! It is NOT a reason to not try to balance it, but have a little bit more patience before puking on blizzard.
On May 23 2010 13:23 Backpack wrote: The fact that people seem to think they can balance the game better than a company who has made Starcraft, WC3, and WoW, baffles me.
what makes u think many of us couldn't? we could certainly beat them at their games so...
Its especially the community that gives Blizzard input on how to balance the game. People should always keep in mind that a company like Blizzard, as awesome as they are - would be nothing without the community.
On May 24 2010 02:30 Roggay wrote: It is a beta! How many years has it taken to get to the point where SC1 was that perfectly balanced game? Many years. SC2 isnt even launched! It is NOT a reason to not try to balance it, but have a little bit more patience before puking on blizzard.
Except for the team of blizzard that made SC:BW is gone and so are all the magic.
On May 23 2010 13:23 Backpack wrote: They are just changing things around to see how they work. They don't know if it will be a nerf or a buff until we, the beta testers, test it.
Blizzard know's what they are doing. The fact that people seem to think they can balance the game better than a company who has made Starcraft, WC3, and WoW, baffles me.
I agree that they made a great job with SC and WC3, but why wouldn't they? They've had 10 years balancing those games. However they totally failed with WoW when they added the first expansion, TBC. Balance is something that comes with time, and the question is how much time are we suppose to give them?
can't they just give the ultra some hp back and make it walk above lings. I don't think any other changes were needed. Maybe some less dmg from the +dmg vs armored but that's another problem.
On May 23 2010 13:23 Backpack wrote: They are just changing things around to see how they work. They don't know if it will be a nerf or a buff until we, the beta testers, test it.
Blizzard know's what they are doing. The fact that people seem to think they can balance the game better than a company who has made Starcraft, WC3, and WoW, baffles me.
I agree that they made a great job with SC and WC3, but why wouldn't they? They've had 10 years balancing those games. However they totally failed with WoW when they added the first expansion, TBC. Balance is something that comes with time, and the question is how much time are we suppose to give them?
If things still suck after a few months after beta, then people have the right to be upset. Now it's the time to give constructive feedback instead of all the childish rants that are going on right now. (Not specifically this thread). They have still time to turn things around in the right direction.
As to the 3 zealot 1 ultra video. Ultras have always worked on a critical mass basis, and that really has not changed in Sc2. Get like 5 ultras using their actual splash damage you can take out a shit ton of zealots.
That video to me is like putting up a 3 zealot to a siege tank. When the zealots kills the tank its like bull shit imbaimbaimba. When really, if you get say 5 tanks vs like 10 zealots, its kind of hard for the zealots to win.
On May 23 2010 13:23 Backpack wrote: They are just changing things around to see how they work. They don't know if it will be a nerf or a buff until we, the beta testers, test it.
Blizzard know's what they are doing. The fact that people seem to think they can balance the game better than a company who has made Starcraft, WC3, and WoW, baffles me.
I agree that they made a great job with SC and WC3, but why wouldn't they? They've had 10 years balancing those games. However they totally failed with WoW when they added the first expansion, TBC. Balance is something that comes with time, and the question is how much time are we suppose to give them?
If things still suck after a few months after beta, then people have the right to be upset. Now it's the time to give constructive feedback instead of all the childish rants that are going on right now. (Not specifically this thread). They have still time to turn things around in the right direction.
Things still suck? Did you play two months ago? It was just roach wars.
On May 23 2010 13:27 travis wrote: anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
it just doesn't matter enough to click one unit and tell it to cast a spell on another unit to make that other unit do 20% more damage or some shit. it just isn't important enough to bother. dunno why this isn't obvious.
well they make a lot of mistakes and dont fully understand what theyre doing but thats kind of ridiculous. making collosus, thors, capital ships take an extra 20% damage is well worth clicking on them and theres nothing inherently un-sc about it. there were single target spells aimed at knocking out powerful units in sc1, but you cant have something like lockdown in sc2 because smartcast would make it overpowered. so things like corruption are the middle ground.
that being said frenzy is retarded and will never be used over fungal.
Something like lockdown could be nerfed in many ways. To me it seems like between mana, duration, and projectile speed changes, plus possible upgrade/tech changes it could be balanced. Heck, the ghost costs more than twice as much as it used to, so right there you got far less potential for lockdown already without even changing the ability at all. Heck, if it really poses problems make it not effect massive units.
Not that I'm advocating for adding lockdown or arguing that 20% more damage can't be useful. It's just that all the single target abilities in SC1, if mostly useless, were at least interesting. 20 or 25% more damage dealt is simply the most boring ability that you can possibly add to any unit. It's kind of spell designers add when they don't have any good ideas. It's just so abstract.
Thor Strike Cannons: VERY YES Frenzy/Corruption: No.
On May 23 2010 13:23 Backpack wrote: They are just changing things around to see how they work. They don't know if it will be a nerf or a buff until we, the beta testers, test it.
Blizzard know's what they are doing. The fact that people seem to think they can balance the game better than a company who has made Starcraft, WC3, and WoW, baffles me.
I agree that they made a great job with SC and WC3, but why wouldn't they? They've had 10 years balancing those games. However they totally failed with WoW when they added the first expansion, TBC. Balance is something that comes with time, and the question is how much time are we suppose to give them?
If things still suck after a few months after beta, then people have the right to be upset. Now it's the time to give constructive feedback instead of all the childish rants that are going on right now. (Not specifically this thread). They have still time to turn things around in the right direction.
Things still suck? Did you play two months ago? It was just roach wars.
So? There were problems 2 months ago and there are problems now. And I didn't mean everything suck, but would you be happy if the game stayed in the current shape? If yes, then I don't know what to say...
when thinking about this problem blizzard needs to decide what the ultralisk does, is it good against lots of light units (patch 12)? Or good against armored units (patch 13)? they switched the role of the ultra quite a bit when they gave it a bonus against armored.
sorry pal, noone is interested.... they want ultra to steamroll stimmed marauders.
luckily blizzard are balancing the game based on in game data and not silly theorycraft whining on a forum.
What's so interesting about ultras being able to kill unmicroed stalkers and colossi? Stalkers are low dps unit that excel in kiting situations, colossi are long range AoE units that can abuse cliffs to avoid melee units. None of which are used in that scenario. I agree that they are more effective against this unit composition now because of the force field crush though, but throw in some zealots and you'll soak up a ton of potential damage.
Ultras vs immortals in a scenario that is made for the ultra to shine, yet the immortals only need to focus down one ultra at a time to win. Even though both units are of the resilient anti-armor role, where immortals are early t2 without needing any upgrades, while ultras are hive tech (comparable to t3.5 I believe) and require two upgrades to start to become powerful.
Seriously though, I am a pre-patch 2000 zerg player as well and this is such an obvious ultralisk nerf. I think they only really effective way to use them is to either use them w/ infestors so the enemy cant move, or to burrow them and unborrow as they are in the middle of the opponents army. The HP nerf was really unnecessary imo.
The biggest problem I have is terran mech. There is really no option other than brood lords vs a tank/thor/upgraded helion mix. And once you start to get brood lords.. You can't make any little mistake as vikings will rape you in a second if you slip up. I have no problem w/ MMM or vs. toss, its just terran mech that seems a bit too much.
If you are on a map like incineration zone with small chokes, you better win w/ a baneling bust because once terran starts to pump tanks / thors your chances just get worse and worse as the game gos on
On May 24 2010 04:58 CrunkOwns wrote: Ah yes those zerg forcefields are tough!
Seriously though, I am a pre-patch 2000 zerg player as well and this is such an obvious ultralisk nerf. I think they only really effective way to use them is to either use them w/ infestors so the enemy cant move, or to burrow them and unborrow as they are in the middle of the opponents army. The HP nerf was really unnecessary imo.
The biggest problem I have is terran mech. There is really no option other than brood lords vs a tank/thor/upgraded helion mix. And once you start to get brood lords.. You can't make any little mistake as vikings will rape you in a second if you slip up. I have no problem w/ MMM or vs. toss, its just terran mech that seems a bit too much.
If you are on a map like incineration zone with small chokes, you better win w/ a baneling bust because once terran starts to pump tanks / thors your chances just get worse and worse as the game gos on
-As many have stated, the more ultras you have, the more useful and viable they are. -In order to fix Ultras, I suggest 1 of 2 things:
1) Fix the damage "ratio" and make it consistent. Bring their health back up to 600. If you're going to make their normal attack weaker (15 against non-armored), then atleast give them health so that they can do the same amount of damage pre-patch 13. What I mean by that is:
Pre-Patch 13: Ultra Attack = 25 25*Time = X Damage Post-Patch 13: Ultra Attack = 15 (40 vs. armored) 15*Time = Y Damage
Try and make X and Y be as close as possible. In order to do so, you can increase the Ultra's health and/or make it's attacking speed faster.
2) Bring old Ultra damage back and keep the new Ultra damage. Make the Ultra a viable unit. For the amount of resources it costs, it should be worth it. Therefore, I suggest making it do 25 (40 vs armored). This way, Ultras aren't only used against Armored composition Units.
I think the Ultra will soon become a unit that is feared and utilized but we'll have to wait for Blizzard to get them to that point.
*Kanye West voice* Blizzard doesn't care about Zerg Players!
But seriously, Nerfs and Buffs happen, it is part of playing Blizzard games, for better or for worse they are constantly tweaking and trying to improve their games.
On May 23 2010 13:21 peachsncream wrote: i think anyone who believes anybody is good in the beta or thinks they are good because of a rating dismisses anyhting they say. Go play dungeons and dragons
Thats fucking stupid.
On topic: I had originally thought that the changes to Ultras were a buff, but op makes a convincing argument. BLizzard did mention they had done in-house testing and found ultras to be good, but maybe their testers just suck.
Considering they are claiming that ultralisks were getting >MINDCONTROLLED< and were countered too easy by roaches and stuff kinda tells the quality of their testers imo.
Anyone else having these ZvZ games where they get into lategame? I can understand it maybe happening in some 2v2's, 3v3's, 4v4's, and FFA but I really can't see it as a balance issue.
On May 23 2010 13:21 peachsncream wrote: i think anyone who believes anybody is good in the beta or thinks they are good because of a rating dismisses anyhting they say. Go play dungeons and dragons
Thats fucking stupid.
On topic: I had originally thought that the changes to Ultras were a buff, but op makes a convincing argument. BLizzard did mention they had done in-house testing and found ultras to be good, but maybe their testers just suck.
Considering they are claiming that ultralisks were getting >MINDCONTROLLED< and were countered too easy by roaches and stuff kinda tells the quality of their testers imo.
Anyone else having these ZvZ games where they get into lategame? I can understand it maybe happening in some 2v2's, 3v3's, 4v4's, and FFA but I really can't see it as a balance issue.
blizzard base the balance changes on data gathered from accross the board, and consult celebrity ex-broodwar pro players and their own team of legendary RTS experts/designers.
zerg are not underpowered, therefore buffing the ultralisk will require either buffing protoss/terran or nerfing zerg.
after playing with the new ultralisks in the Unit Tester map for a couple of hours i have to say that they're much better than before. they kick groundlocked ass. but they do get beaten up quite badly by marauder, immortal and thor. i think they'll be just right if blizzard remove the building attack - or increase the dps - because at the moment your dps goes down vs buildings which is stupid.
On May 23 2010 13:23 Backpack wrote: They are just changing things around to see how they work. They don't know if it will be a nerf or a buff until we, the beta testers, test it.
Blizzard know's what they are doing. The fact that people seem to think they can balance the game better than a company who has made Starcraft, WC3, and WoW, baffles me.
Lol WC3 and WoW , what terrible games to reference in terms of balance.
Yet, they are all successful e-sports. Amazing!
Define successful. The Blizzard devs have all but said Arena is a failure because the game wasn't originally designed for competitive play. They are even moving away from Arena in the next expansion and into rated bgs because it sucks so much. Just because a small minority of players play it at a competitive level in blizzard sponsored tournaments doesn't make it a success. In fact it has no sustainability without Blizzard events
WC3 is a success in my opinion, it's just overshadowed by SC so often that people don't realize it has/had a big scene
Actually come to think of it wow arena is a pretty good example of why Blizzard shouldn't try to exert too much control of SC2 competitive play. They pushed really hard to make arena an esport and it has for all intents failed
I'll agree that arena wasn't as good as it could be, but wow itself has 11+ million players so they must be doing something right.
As for defining successful, Blizzard IS esports. They may not have perfect games with perfect balance, but who does? They produce the best of the best in the RTS genre and nobody else rivals them. Considering the fact that they are pioneering a new age of professional gaming, you have to give them at least *some* credit.
On May 24 2010 06:34 tarsier wrote: blizzard base the balance changes on data gathered from accross the board, and consult celebrity ex-broodwar pro players and their own team of legendary RTS experts/designers.
On May 23 2010 13:19 MasterAsia wrote: Do the blizzard people nerf ultralisk on purpose or they just don't know what they are doing?
What do you think?
I would've preferred you posting VODs of your extensive usage of Ultralisks since you are proud enough to assert you have the most extensive experience with them and compare contrast them with games post 13.
On May 23 2010 13:23 Backpack wrote: They are just changing things around to see how they work. They don't know if it will be a nerf or a buff until we, the beta testers, test it.
Blizzard know's what they are doing. The fact that people seem to think they can balance the game better than a company who has made Starcraft, WC3, and WoW, baffles me.
Lol WC3 and WoW , what terrible games to reference in terms of balance.
Yet, they are all successful e-sports. Amazing!
Define successful. The Blizzard devs have all but said Arena is a failure because the game wasn't originally designed for competitive play. They are even moving away from Arena in the next expansion and into rated bgs because it sucks so much. Just because a small minority of players play it at a competitive level in blizzard sponsored tournaments doesn't make it a success. In fact it has no sustainability without Blizzard events
WC3 is a success in my opinion, it's just overshadowed by SC so often that people don't realize it has/had a big scene
Actually come to think of it wow arena is a pretty good example of why Blizzard shouldn't try to exert too much control of SC2 competitive play. They pushed really hard to make arena an esport and it has for all intents failed
I'll agree that arena wasn't as good as it could be, but wow itself has 11+ million players so they must be doing something right.
As for defining successful, Blizzard IS esports. They may not have perfect games with perfect balance, but who does? They produce the best of the best in the RTS genre and nobody else rivals them. Considering the fact that they are pioneering a new age of professional gaming, you have to give them at least *some* credit.
wow has 11million players because of the PvE content. Not because of the pvp content. Blizzard caters to their casual gamers because in terms of business and growth thats what majority of gamers are and thats what will bring them the most money.
I'm an ex-pro Wow player that played for Check Six. Take it from me the arena niche is tiny and every competitive/hardcore/pro arena player thinks that wow arena is bullshit and not balanced very well. In fact, all we used to do was play arena and bitch about how bad the game sucks and how certain classes were so extremely overpowered while others were ridiculously bad. I hope sc2 doesnt turn out like that.
On May 23 2010 13:29 StayFrosty wrote: Totally agree with most of the comments here. I just cancelled my SC2 preorder today and picked up Red Dead Redemption. Glad I did too, with the direction blizzard is taking the game with the past couple of patches, it can be said this game is going nowhere quick.
I think you clicked the wrong link, this isn't the "i canceled my wow subscription because x race/character got nerfed" thread. It's a beta and changes are supposed to be tested. I'm a zerg player (1800 platinum pre-patch not that im braging) and I know that they are bs, but I'm still going to give them a shot. Most probably they will fail, and when they do, Blizzard will come up with a better idea.
i have only been in two late game situations ever, and i never use third tier units. I am top 5 in my silver league, but are there more late game situations at higher levels?
You have team devoted to balancing the game that has a mean skill of something like D+ in BW lingo. This balance team probably has a lot of statistical gizmos. They're probably, on average, much more clear-sighted than the average player of D+ skill. At the end of the day, though, these people are not gonna be as good at designing the mechanical aspects of an RTS game as a similarly gifted person who has put 10,000+ hours into Starcraft: Brood War.
While it is certainly true that you can be good at RTS games without really understanding the game, it is at least equally clear that top-rated players are much more likely to understand the game than your average D+ player. I would have significantly more faith in a balance team composed of Nazgul, Nony, FrozenArbiter, and Day9 than I do in the Blizzard balance team. And it's not even close.
I think it's more or less a fact that most people suck not only at playing RTS games, but also at analyzing RTS games. RTS games are not intuitive to most people. An experienced player looks at the proposed balance changes on these forums and is absolutely dumbfounded - and TL is better than most RTS forums. Not to be overly critical of Blizzard, but they should have reached out and hired, at least as consultants, some of the best members of the Starcraft community. Even if language barriers prevent Korean pros from being good choices, there are still great players available who have a depth of understanding far beyond most if not all of the Blizzard game testers and balance designers. I doubt many serious SC:BW players would have turned down something like $100k and an opportunity to play a serious balancing role in SC2. Even more, I doubt if they wouldn't have put in a great deal more effort than virtually anyone else on the progress. I feel confident saying that for half a million Blizzard could have a balance team that dramatically increased the quality of their product. Why they didn't take advantage of this resource is beyond me. The quality increase would more than offset the additional cost of production because it would make the multiple proposed expansions much more lucrative as well as improving Blizzard's reputation as a developer of great games.
On May 24 2010 06:34 tarsier wrote: blizzard base the balance changes on data gathered from accross the board, and consult celebrity ex-broodwar pro players and their own team of legendary RTS experts/designers.
I really don't think that the skill of the designers has anything to do with it. Guess what, the designers of the original starcraft would be what, F-- on ICCUP? Good players are not necessarily good game designers, and vice versa.
On May 24 2010 11:15 Redmark wrote: I really don't think that the skill of the designers has anything to do with it. Guess what, the designers of the original starcraft would be what, F-- on ICCUP? Good players are not necessarily good game designers, and vice versa.
most people agree although starcraft was well designed the balence was so largely based on luck, a bunch of the glitches which make the game balenced were clearly not inteneded and the game would not be balenced with out them
On May 23 2010 13:40 cartoon]x wrote: Let's say it's ZvZ. Both players have gone roach / hydra / infestor. Now you have added ultras. What would you do first - frenzy three ultras or cast fungal growth?
I'd never get ultras in that situation, because more infestors and hydras would be more useful than ultras.
The fact that Blizzard ever claimed that the changes to ultras represent a buff is pretty much a laughable f*ck up on their part. Maybe they forgot that they nerfed the cleave damage or something, but if they knew that was going in along with the other stuff and they still thought that what they were doing was buffing ultras then they're retarded. About the only thing they did for ultras that's any kind of a buff is allowing them to stomp over force fields.
I suppose that if I had ultras and I had infestors, that I would use frenzy on the ultras, but that still doesn't answer the question of why I got ultras in the first place.
They could have literally ported zerg directly from SC to SC2 and they'd be more varied, interesting, and probably more balanced. I never thought zerg could be so unsatisfying to play, they are. This beta has taken me from "Will buy SC2 at the mid night release" to "might buy SC2 when I get around to it."
On May 23 2010 13:19 MasterAsia wrote: Do the blizzard people nerf ultralisk on purpose or they just don't know what they are doing?
What do you think?
I would've preferred you posting VODs of your extensive usage of Ultralisks since you are proud enough to assert you have the most extensive experience with them and compare contrast them with games post 13.
here's a VOD of masterasia/iris using ultras in patch 12 vs terran to pretty good effect:
Having read alot of posts saying that the ultra doesn't have enough hp to actually reach eg a tightly clumped up ball of MnM or whatnot ranged units, I have a question: is it viable then to actually burrow your ultralisks at a choke and have them surprise-unburrow when the MnM ball passes through?
Make ultralisks less massable, make them more beastly like motherships. Give them an interesting ability to push units and give them 1000 hp while keeping their damage the same.
On May 23 2010 13:27 travis wrote: anyone who defends all the changes has no clue at sc, these single target buff/debuff spells have absolutely no place in SC style gameplay
it just doesn't matter enough to click one unit and tell it to cast a spell on another unit to make that other unit do 20% more damage or some shit. it just isn't important enough to bother. dunno why this isn't obvious.
maybe they could be made to fit into sc style play with auto cast or some shit but the fact that it didn't have that right away means that the people doing the balancing are clueless about this
There were plenty of single cast spells in BW. Lockdown, D Matrix, blind, restoration. Most were used back in the day when micro ruled by they were still used and D matrix was always used.
And auto cast is not a good idea in SC. Auto cast was needed in WC because there were spells like heal and spells that gave slight buffs or debuffs that were impossible to have enough APM to make them worth clicking. Frenzy doesn't require super high APM and thus doesn't need an auto cast.
That said Ults are definitely less valuable then they once were. And that's coming from someone who was excited about this patch at first.
There is still no scenario where I would get Ults over BLs. Ults need a role that's is distinguishable from BLs. I just don't see one. Ults are not useless even still. They are just not BLs. BLs > Ults in ANY situation.
Maybe someone with high enough APM can drop them on FF but other then that I'd much rather spend the cash on a unit that basically shoots zerglings.
EPT
