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On August 22 2010 11:02 awesomoecalypse wrote:
On the more specific issue of roaches...
honestly, I think one change would dramatically boost their usefulness.
Tunneling claws should NOT require an upgrade, beyond unlocking burrow.
Simply put, 150/150 is WAY too expensive, and requiring two upgrades makes no sense.
By comparison, frikkin Stim, one of the most devastating abilities in the game, and one that applies to TWO units (which together can comprise a significant portion of your army), costs 100/100.
Burrow should need to be researched. But once it is, Roaches should be able to tunnel.
This would really turn them into a devastating early game harass unit, and could absolutely muck with a lot of builds by forcing the opponent to get fast detection.
Right now, Zerg harass is pretty limited. Wall-in effectively, and Zerg can't do anything to you in the early game. They can outexpand and beat you in the mid or late game. But that fear of an early push, which exists when fighting both terran and protoss, is just gone. When I play aginst zerg, I'm worried about killing him before he outexpands me and gets too much map control...but I'm NEVER worrying about him killing me in the early game.
If roaches could tunnel as soon as you had burrow, this would definitely change. Every Terran and Protoss would have to scout the *hell* out of their Zerg opponent, and if there was even a hint of early roaches, they'd have to invest in observers or start saving for scans. It would reintroduce the idea of Zerg as being really, really scary in the early game as well as later.
120% agree here. This is one of the changes I've suggested for a very long time. The roach has no utility. It did at the start of beta and it became increasingly blander. Burrow movement on roach is actually a great way to fight midgame armies. The problem is that it's too slow/expensive to get, and it's definitely too slow movement-wise. It takes a minute to get your army into position. Wtf.
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On August 22 2010 08:29 NicolBolas wrote:Show nested quote +The abilities in Starcraft 1 existed more for the sake of existing. This led to tricks that were completely overpowered, but I want to argue that this is precisely the reason Starcraft 1 was so balanced.
- Vultures were never meant to counter dragoons.
- Shuttles weren't designed to shoot scarabs.
- Mutalisks weren't supposed to cost 600/600 and one-shot workers. I find it curious that you brought up Shuttle/Reaver. Because Blizzard most certainly did nerf Shuttle/Reaver. They made it so that units dropped from transports need a full cooldown cycle before they can fire. In fact, I believe Blizzard's response to people being upset at the nerf was something along the line you use: Shuttles weren't designed to shoot scarabs. What you're not understanding is why Blizzard allowed some things and not others. Why they allowed Mutalisk stacking (not that they could possibly have fixed it) and yet nerfed Shuttle/Reaver.
They had to nerf shuttle / reaver because it was way too overpowered. With perfect shuttle reaver control back then u were almost untouchable, and don't even get me started on dealing with reaver drops as terran. Its the same reason they made the scarab AI dumber. That being said, their patch merely fixed balance. Shuttles werent meant to shoot scarabs, so they could easily have nerfed it into oblivion but they decided to allow players to do it, just not as effectively for the sake of game balance.
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On August 22 2010 09:18 awesomoecalypse wrote:
I agree that roaches aren't a great unit.
However, I really disagree that intentional depth is bad, whereas emergent depth is good. Why is it bad to build units to intentionally encourage micro, as opposed to building units without that intention but having it emerge naturally? Basically you're saying that if Mutas had been designed to stack, instead of it happening spontaneously, that would have been somehow inferior.
That just makes no sense to me. Depth is depth, whether it was built into the game or was "discovered" over the course of play.
And most of the examples you cite are actually really cool--Blink and Forcefield are fantastic abilities which allow for a lot of skill in their use. Even pros mistime their blinks from time to time, but when they get them right, its a beauty to behold. Cliffs are an overused map feature, but I don't think the units which can take advantage of them are a bad thing--Colossi are one of the coolest units in the game, and their ability to walk all over the map effortlessly is a big part of that.
I just don't get the idea that "if gamers discover it, its cool, but if Blizzard put it in there on purpose, it sucks". It sounds like pure BW nostalgia, tbh.
Nothing, but what is a problem is when blizzard decides "this is a units role" and nerfs any emergent depth for the sake of ensuring that unit maintains its specific niche.
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On August 22 2010 10:43 SlowBlink wrote:I hope you're trolling. I'm not sure where I stand in regards to the OP's post. Sure I'd like to see blizzard play hands off for a while, but if something obviously OP (fazing) shows up, I'm happy that they'll fix it.
Fazing was OP?
Rofl....
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Fazing was OP?
Rofl....
Honestly...yes. Void Rays rock against almost everything. As is, if a Protoss goes air, 90% of the time he just builds Void Rays, and the other 10% he builds void rays and some pheonixes--Carriers are downright pointless because Void Rays are so damn good, especially with the speed upgrade.
Fazing allowed them to be even MORE powerful. And not just a little bit. By a huge amount.
The issue wasn't one or two void rays. it was when you had a bunch, you could literally kill any T1 bio just by clicking on it once, with no cooldown to click on the next. In other words, you could kill entire armies almost instantly just by clicking on each unit.
It was broken. It was cool, admittedly, and fun. But it was also broken. And keeping it in without it being broken would require dramatically redesigning the void ray.
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On August 22 2010 11:16 SubtleArt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2010 09:18 awesomoecalypse wrote:
I agree that roaches aren't a great unit.
However, I really disagree that intentional depth is bad, whereas emergent depth is good. Why is it bad to build units to intentionally encourage micro, as opposed to building units without that intention but having it emerge naturally? Basically you're saying that if Mutas had been designed to stack, instead of it happening spontaneously, that would have been somehow inferior.
That just makes no sense to me. Depth is depth, whether it was built into the game or was "discovered" over the course of play.
And most of the examples you cite are actually really cool--Blink and Forcefield are fantastic abilities which allow for a lot of skill in their use. Even pros mistime their blinks from time to time, but when they get them right, its a beauty to behold. Cliffs are an overused map feature, but I don't think the units which can take advantage of them are a bad thing--Colossi are one of the coolest units in the game, and their ability to walk all over the map effortlessly is a big part of that.
I just don't get the idea that "if gamers discover it, its cool, but if Blizzard put it in there on purpose, it sucks". It sounds like pure BW nostalgia, tbh. Nothing, but what is a problem is when blizzard decides "this is a units role" and nerfs any emergent depth for the sake of ensuring that unit maintains its specific niche.
You'll have to trust that they have a plan for it both now and later on.
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ITT: Baseless speculations on Blizzard's motivations, with only a handful of beta changes to back up the claims.
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This is dumb. So you're saying Blizzard added arbitrary abilities to BW and it magically added glitches that people exploited that magically balanced? If so, then yes, the best way to go about approaching a 2010 game is to blindly give them bad skills and see how magically players will manipulate them into something cool instead of having a design plan. Yes, surely. Definitely.
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I think it's good that plain weird things like fazing is removed. It has its cool factor, but in the long run, I think it's better to be rid of it. Also I don't really see a problem with the roach's role now. I think it should go back to being 1 supply (maybe with a small nerf to make it balanced)... it's just that Z armies need to feel overwhelming in terms of numbers and they just don't right now
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I purchased SC2 knowing Full well that it would take an expansion to settle the score on balance and gameplay.
How can you stand that? Why is that okay? Blizzard can balance the current game, and they should.
I do think the Roach is a unit that doesn't work well in the Zerg lineup. The whole point of the unit is just that it has a lot of HP. It doesn't have good DPS, does not benefit from much micro due to slow move speed and short range. It's just an attack move unit that beats mass marines due to out-HPing them, but loses by a big margain against marauders and tanks and everything else (and against marines most people use banelings instead anyway). I understand they are better against Protoss though simply because they can stand up to zealots.
I also think the unit looks uninteresting visually but that's a side concern.
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On August 22 2010 11:32 Roe wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2010 11:16 SubtleArt wrote:On August 22 2010 09:18 awesomoecalypse wrote:
I agree that roaches aren't a great unit.
However, I really disagree that intentional depth is bad, whereas emergent depth is good. Why is it bad to build units to intentionally encourage micro, as opposed to building units without that intention but having it emerge naturally? Basically you're saying that if Mutas had been designed to stack, instead of it happening spontaneously, that would have been somehow inferior.
That just makes no sense to me. Depth is depth, whether it was built into the game or was "discovered" over the course of play.
And most of the examples you cite are actually really cool--Blink and Forcefield are fantastic abilities which allow for a lot of skill in their use. Even pros mistime their blinks from time to time, but when they get them right, its a beauty to behold. Cliffs are an overused map feature, but I don't think the units which can take advantage of them are a bad thing--Colossi are one of the coolest units in the game, and their ability to walk all over the map effortlessly is a big part of that.
I just don't get the idea that "if gamers discover it, its cool, but if Blizzard put it in there on purpose, it sucks". It sounds like pure BW nostalgia, tbh. Nothing, but what is a problem is when blizzard decides "this is a units role" and nerfs any emergent depth for the sake of ensuring that unit maintains its specific niche. You'll have to trust that they have a plan for it both now and later on.
No you don't
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On August 22 2010 08:44 FarbrorAbavna wrote:
Am not gonna touch on the roach since it's been done to death already. Fazing as well. But there's two points in your post that isnt quite true, namely:
- Creep spreading let Queens go on the offensive. Queens are "supposed" to be defensive, so Blizzard nerfed that.
- Spine crawlers are supposed to be defeinsive, so Blizzard nerfed them too when they became offensive.
Why blizzard nerfed the queens movement speed off creep, and the time it took for spine crawlers to root, was because of ridiculous queen + spine crawler rushes that korean players figuered out. Rushes that were basically impossible to survive for the opponent. What it did was brake the game. Not because the unit/building didnt do what it was intended to but because it just broke the game(which nothing in the game is intended to do ofc, so in a way you are right).
And.. following suit with the post you were angry about.. you are even more wrong.
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"Our intent is also to not apply knee jerk fixes based on the first few weeks as understanding of the game and strategies are still in flux." - Bashiok.
So the problem is that they did opposite in the beta, rushing for changes.
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On August 22 2010 06:56 N3rV[Green] wrote:
I love my roaches....Just need to get better at having something to snipe obs vs toss and roach burrow will be soooo much fun.
Plus I just think the little guys are cute xD So you like disgusting little whack-a-moles that burrow to hide from you, then puke green acid on you when you find them? Cool, I need a new baby sitter.....
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On August 22 2010 12:02 kingcomrade wrote:
It's just an attack move unit that beats mass marines due to out-HPing them, but loses by a big margain against marauders
Two marines cost less than a marauder, build faster (assuming reactor instead of tech lab, obviously) and deal more DPS (to armored targets, mind you) than one marauder, Please get your facts straight.
On August 22 2010 13:57 pechkin wrote:
"Our intent is also to not apply knee jerk fixes based on the first few weeks as understanding of the game and strategies are still in flux." - Bashiok.
So the problem is that they did opposite in the beta, rushing for changes.
They did the opposite in the beta because it's the beta. If there's an appropriate time to make lots of sweeping changes in a short amount of time, it's before the game is released.
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Good post by OP.
The roach completely messed up the zerg tiers. The reason why burrow and hydras got moved to tier 2 is because they wanted to introduce roach to tier 1. So stupid.
I like how they introduced multiple building selection, auto rally harvest, auto build interceptors, etc. But I hate the new micro layer gimmicks. It is so forced and not at all elegant.
Queen spawn lavae is just punishing players for not doing a repetitive action perfectly. As for corruption, acid spores was fine if they wanted corruptors to counter large units.
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I actually dont mind that making a bunch of roaches early game is all-in. If you think about it in SC1 making Hydras before lair and doing a hydra bust was an all-in vs Protoss.
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On August 22 2010 14:32 thezergk wrote:
I actually dont mind that making a bunch of roaches early game is all-in. If you think about it in SC1 making Hydras before lair and doing a hydra bust was an all-in vs Protoss.
And vs Terran. Remember game 3 of the last MSL finals, Flash vs JD?
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it seems like Op is on to something, they nerf stuff whenever it's unintended and use of units that was 'unintended' is by far the coolest thing in BW.
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I kind of agree and disagree. Talking about how the roach was OP and how it was bad, and then talking about how OPness made BW more interesting I think is the wrong approach. The difference is in the mechanics. BW had much deeper mechanics that were non-existent in other RTSs. It wasn't the obvious spell-casting and focus-firing, it was the intricacies of the core mechanics that existed in every unit that turned what looked like plain units, into really interesting ones. Such as the void ray.
The problem with the Roach I think is that it doesn't really fit with the paradigm of the zerg, it was basically like giving the Zerg a dragoon.
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EPT
