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On September 25 2010 13:02 noD wrote: After near 300 games today someone massed hydras against me man they srsly need some buff huh ? near every unit kills them =X slow, few hp, bad damage ....
One problem with them is how ranged units attack. The first ones attack and until they die, the others behind them do not attack. They have a weird ability to shoot where unless you move them forward quite a bit, most of the army wont attack properly. So what do range units do to compensate? Well if small enough, they tend to ballup and run in. Problem with the hydra is that, unless they are on the creep, the moving up and attack just is not quick enough. In Sc:Bw, they were able to be quick, micro'd back and forth to be useful in that manner. But now, they just cant.
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I notice that too. To be effective, the Hydras in front have to be at melee range, while the ones in back shoot the target. So I tend to stick with small groups, so they make that arc shape behind my melee units/Roaches.
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I noticed that doing the challenge of single player but thought it was dumb ia or something =x
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I disagree with IdrA, I feel ZvP has changed, not that drastically, but it has changed slightly to help Zerg, but TvP and TvZ were largely unaddressed with TvP being made worse for P. The longer zealot build time and increased time on warp gates gives zerg that tiny bit more breathing room, but I still feel once it gets to 2 base play for P/3base for zerg, advantage is still with P. Zerglings, roaches, mutas and marauders need changes imo. All the zerg units are really weak except in specialized situations and marauders are just too strong.
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On September 25 2010 13:18 Minigin wrote: im not sure about all this "overpowered/underpowered" i agree that races are better at certain things than other races, for example i love zergs ability to just summon an army out of thin air pretty much, im thinking the reason lots of people are struggling with zerg against other races is that maybe people arnt using enough hatches?
a few people ive been watching seem well able to support 3 hatch off 2 base, maybe if people stop limiting themselves to one hatch per base things might seem a little easier for zerg. Hmm, no, I don't think so.
Larvae are a relatively plentiful resource thanks to Queens, and really I think most Zergs struggle with defending the myriad ways they can be harassed or attacked in the early-mid stages of the game, not with macroing up large armies.
Agree that Hydras have problems. Its Zergs first proper range unit in the tech tree and they are really pretty garbage. Difficult to see how they can really rebalance them without doing anything too drastic...but maybe drastic is what is needed and thats why Blizzard is gonna take their sweet time.
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On September 25 2010 07:04 heishe wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 06:35 Rabiator wrote:On September 25 2010 05:38 Headshot wrote: Messing with damage/build time of certain units is not going to fix this game. There are serious problems with the Zerg infrastructure that only new units, and perhaps swapping the Roach and Hydralisk Den can fix. Scouting is also still going to be a problem. SC2 isn't any closer to being balanced than it was pre-1.1. New units will NOT solve the problem, because you still have to be able to afford them both in matters of minerals/gas AND larvae. That is not possible in the early game on the tiny Blizzard maps where early harrassment or pushes will cripple the Zerg economy. This usually ends with the Zerg losing if the opponent doesnt make a mistake. This systematic difference of the Zerg race is turned into a huge drawback by the faster development - compared to BW - of Terrans and Protoss. Sure the Queen gives extra larvae, but that doesnt really speed up the process compared to BW - where you got the extra larvae from more hatcheries - until after you have two hatcheries and two queens, but you still need to spend larvae on Drones. In any case you are at a disadvantage in your development. On September 25 2010 05:55 Jayrod wrote: Ive read through every post on this thread and not once have I heard anyone mention an army composition that included more than 2 unit types. This isn't SC:BW... its time to evolve. Even marine/tank diversifies. This isn't SC1, blizzard isn't going to ruin the balance by making unnecessary buffs... zergs just need to explore strategies or go back to playing WoW because im sure 90% of zerg players are WoW players that whine until heroics get nerfed. It isnt possible for Zerg to "evolve", simply because they are hamstrung by fast Terran harrassment (Reapers or Hellions) or run over by super fast Protoss proxy Gateway pushes. Blizzard needs to make systematic changes and these probably include slowing down the Warp Gate research and increasing the size of the maps. Both of these are necessary to give Zerg the time to "evolve". May I ask where this change in attitude comes from? For the past few weeks/months you were like the king crusader of the (at first) "ZvT / ZvP is not imbalanced" and then the "It might not be as imbalanced as you say it is, Zergs need to l2p" movements, and now this?^^ Did you switch to Zerg or something? I have NOT changed my attitude ... and attention to detail is the key to understanding. You say "ZvT / ZvP is not imbalanced", but that is NOT what I have said. I have said that TERRAN IS NOT OP, which is a totally different thing.
As I posted above there are SYSTEMATIC PROBLEMS which are the real issue for the inability of Zerg to perform well. I have been a crusader for bigger maps for weeks if you might remember and most of the "whining" contained a "Terran is OP" due to feature XYZ (which is always totally negated by the TvP-kinda-balanced-state ... which people are arguing is favored one way or another, but which isnt nearly as bad as TvZ).
So arguing that "TvZ is badly balanced" is the right way and then you just look at a game from the beginning and have to notice that Zerg gets to lose a ton of Drones from either Reaper or Hellion harrass. Are the units themselves "unfair"? Not really, because Reapers die easily and you can block Hellions out with a few Roaches ... you just need the TIME to get them and this isnt possible on Blizzards tiny maps like Steppes of War, unless you screw up your own economy and then you kinda kill the Drones yourself. Easy solution: make maps bigger. Shouldnt be too hard to figure out, but there are too many idiots who have zero attention to detail as my above example of "Terran is OP" vs "TvZ is badly balanced" shows. EDIT: The same imbalance is true against Protoss, which can mass their forces very fast once the Warp Gate research is finished and usually succeed in taking out the first Zerg expansion. Slowing down Warp Gate research is the key here IMO, because the Protoss units can be proxied at the front and an increased rush distance doesnt matter.
EDIT: Part 2 There are some fears I have about larger maps, which will make Zerg (and maybe Protoss as well) totally dominate Terrans, because of the relative immobility of the Terrans. Protoss have Warp Gates to produce reinforcements right at the front (for most of their units) and Chrono Boost to focus their production on the important stuff. Zerg have Nydus Worms to almost instantly travel anywhere close to the front with their reinforcements, but Terrans really only have the Medivac to improve their movement speed and that is easily shot down by faster Mutas or Phoenixes. So on a really large map the Terrans will be "stuck on the field without reinforcements" and will probably die very easily in a war of attrition. Cutting off reinforcements should not be that hard with a bunch of very mobile Mutas or Speedlings.
If you take a larger map and try the good old "tank contain" on it you will notice that the siege tank nerf actually does matter, because you need to spread out your tanks quite a bit to cover a lot of ground. This makes them almost useless against a concentrated attack, because you could rush out and kill a few without losing an equal amount. The immobility of Thors doesnt help either and being able to protect the containing army against attacks from the air is going to be hard.
So larger maps will tilt the balance of the scale in quite a different direction and open up new problems, but a certain minimum ground rush distance is a requirement to give Zerg a fighting chance without having to totally revamp the starting balance of the entire game (which I would consider a major overhaul). Blizzard just needs to realize that Starcraft is a STRATEGY game and not an ACTION game.
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On September 25 2010 10:06 MoonfireSpam wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 08:07 lambnrice wrote:On September 25 2010 08:02 oxxo wrote:On September 25 2010 06:02 Fa1nT wrote: Because using 5 different zerg units means we have to research 10-15 different expensive upgrades for speed, range, energy, attack, defense, ect?
Just like every other race? Face it. Many zerg are sitting on 1-2 unit types while Terran and Protoss players are not. It's hard to feel sorry for the Zerg players that only do hydra/roach or ling/muta while T go MMM/tank/raven or P goes zealot/stalker/sentry/HT/collosus etc. etc. Well T and P only need a few different unit producing structures to make that nice composition. Zerg meanwhile needs to sac a drone/larva every time we want a different unit. Plus it takes twice as long to get the right unit comp. For example when we scout and see that we need roaches. We must do two things: Build a roach warren and then build roaches. Terran when they see that they need marauders only need to do one thing: Build mauraders. They already have barracks. Nothing is out of the way for them. Barrack Factory and Starport are just 3 buildings that contain the majority of the units that they need, ghost and BC are pretty auxiliary and not imperative to any unit composition. Tech labs are inexpensive and build fast without a worker and can be swapped. Lift and land easily fixes the need for a tech lab. Yeah the Zerg tech tree is more expensive (Z:1450/1050 VS T:1050 575 [1-1-1]) but you get with that quick production of all those unit types as needed which is pretty cool as demonstrated by Cool in GSL today when he puked out many Ultras asap. The price pretty much even once you raise that to 8 production buildings which you'll probably be sitting on at 2 base play. Its not like Terran or Toss can go "OH SNAP I NEED IMMORTALS / THORS" and puke out 5. I'm pretty sure the other races unites come with strings attached (i.e. research) before they become uber; Zealot legs, Blink, Stim, Shield, Conc nades, Infernal Preigniter, Extended thermal lance etc. Yeah Terran and Toss hit their later tech quicker and easier, but when Zerg tech it can churn it out in sustained numbers, Toss can warp in gateway units anywhere with a pylon and frontloads unit production so overall balance is much more complicated than "my tech tree is so expensive". Didn't really agree with Idras post, it was many words but didn't really offer much in the way of ideas and mostly amounted to "Everything Terran has is too strong, and stops my fast expand, Toss can stop my fast expand too easily". Yeah it was nice he expained the tank change didn't impact ZvT much, but everyone knew that anyway, yeah the pylon cannon contain is strong, thats not that new. T1 overlord speed and/or overseer keeping Contaminate / changling T2 would be reasonable though and probably help the scouting problems and help VS cloaked unit rushes.
The price is pretty much even because we can spit out an army thanks to the equal number of production buildings that a T can have. I understand the point you are trying to make, but the problem is not once the production building is done for zerg.
The difference lies in the fact that if I need roaches, it takes twice as long to be able to get to roaches. Meanwhile a Terran have the access to building marauders should they need them in half the time.
Sure zerg can build 2, 3, 4, times as many once the production building is complete. The argument I'm making is that you lose before you can even capitalize on having the ability to produce them. But terran can produce what they need prior to this happening.
Will terran have enough in time? That's a different question. That's a question answered by if they can macro fast enough, not if they fundamentally have enough time. Zerg just fundamentally doesn't have enough time to appropriately respond. This is why I'm advocating that they need better scouting mechanics.
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I think hydralisks could be used efficiently if every zerg starts focusing on spreading creep as fast as possible (tumors, overlords)
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On September 25 2010 16:08 DarkspearTribe wrote: I think hydralisks could be used efficiently if every zerg starts focusing on spreading creep as fast as possible (tumors, overlords)
There are many Zergs who have done that already, and Hydras are still not really very viable.
ZvT - Hydra are simply overshadowed by the more effective and cheaper marines. 2 Marines equal the damage of a single hydra WITHOUT stim.
ZvP - Hydras work great on defense against Robo, but are weak on offense due to the incredible speed of stalkers. Use of mass amounts of Hydras forces you in to a defensive position without mobility, and leaves you open to colossi/ht. They are pretty much the unit you make "when you have to" to counteract certain unit mixes - not because they are going to win you the game, but you are forced due to the nature of needing to hard-counter Protoss..
ZvZ - they will already have made a baneling den 90% of the time. In which case mass amounts of hydras explode.
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The problem I see with Zerg now is this; the mindset behind creep and zerg is as follows. The zerg move quicker when on the creep. This I think is wrong, if that were the case, it would not a benefit and not a necessity to have creep everywhere. But that is simply not the case, units are slowed down when not on the creep. This way of thinking only shows that the area for which Zerg can move properly is far smaller then any other race. Creep is only enlarging an area that allows for your units to move properly. To me, that was one the most damage aspects of Sc II comapreably to that of Sc:Bw. Having Hydra move so bloody slow when not on the creep. It is pretty much saying; you have no choice but to have creep everywhere, otherwise your hydralisk are gimped beyond belief, and compared to some units, are nearly useless.
What I think happened was this. Blizzard had in their minds that units should move quicker when on creep. The problem with this is that, hydralisk would be moving at an incredible speed if left alone. Since having a normal (or upgradeable hydralisk) would be quick, but having it on creep would be insanely quick. With this mindset, the way to remedy the problem would be to have the Hydralisk move at upgraded (quick) speed only when on creep, while allowing all other units to move quicker on the creep. I get it, Hydralisk are to be more tankish, slower, with damage. But because of the gimped speed, they are not able to fully utilize their attacks. It is only a theory, but it makes sense to me. Don't you all love the idea that the only anti-air ground units for zerg are utterly gimped when moved off the creep (Meaning queen and hydralisk).
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On September 25 2010 18:39 Nilrem wrote: The problem I see with Zerg now is this; the mindset behind creep and zerg is as follows. The zerg move quicker when on the creep. This I think is wrong, if that were the case, it would not a benefit and not a necessity to have creep everywhere. But that is simply not the case, units are slowed down when not on the creep. This way of thinking only shows that the area for which Zerg can move properly is far smaller then any other race. Creep is only enlarging an area that allows for your units to move properly. To me, that was one the most damage aspects of Sc II comapreably to that of Sc:Bw. Having Hydra move so bloody slow when not on the creep. It is pretty much saying; you have no choice but to have creep everywhere, otherwise your hydralisk are gimped beyond belief, and compared to some units, are nearly useless.
What I think happened was this. Blizzard had in their minds that units should move quicker when on creep. The problem with this is that, hydralisk would be moving at an incredible speed if left alone. Since having a normal (or upgradeable hydralisk) would be quick, but having it on creep would be insanely quick. With this mindset, the way to remedy the problem would be to have the Hydralisk move at upgraded (quick) speed only when on creep, while allowing all other units to move quicker on the creep. I get it, Hydralisk are to be more tankish, slower, with damage. But because of the gimped speed, they are not able to fully utilize their attacks. It is only a theory, but it makes sense to me. Don't you all love the idea that the only anti-air ground units for zerg are utterly gimped when moved off the creep (Meaning queen and hydralisk).
I totally agree about the 'reward on creep > penalty off creep' thing, definitely. But queens are deliberately slow, to keep them as a defensive, production supporting unit. Pretty sure they got slowed due to queen rushes in the beta. I'm totally agreeing with that also.
Hydras on the other hand are just too slow off creep, and there is not really a valid reason for it imo. They are quite expensive at lair tech and 100/50, they offer the same dps as 2 marines (yes, without the marines getting killed ofc) and have very low HP. The creep bonus for hydras is a whooping 50%, which is higher than the regular 30% that lings, roaches and most other units get. To me this tells a bit about the design philosophy, which seems to be that hydras are supposed to be a defensive unit. That leads to both our ground-to-air units being defensive, which forces us to go spire if we want to have an offense that can deal with air as well.
Zerg doesn't feel very zergy if we just have to sit around and wait until spire, since we can't really move out before that if there's a threat from above, or if we're up against a mobile army (I won't go into the topic of terran drops, that's another huge issue though). Creep should imo be something that the opponent have to worry about. It is easy to prevent creep spread as t or p, but most people don't really have to bother about it. They do it anyway in the later stages of the game (late-mid to late), but I'd love to see a more active approach towards stopping creep.
Hydras definitely need a speed increase off creep. Perhaps even keep the on-creep bonus as it is as well.
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Allow banelings the burrow-move capacity that upgraded roaches have. Imagine that
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I wish Idra would make some propositions to Blizzard on how to balance ZvP and ZvT... He tells us how insufficient the patch is and doesn't make any suggestions to improve...
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On September 25 2010 19:28 rexyrex wrote: I wish Idra would make some propositions to Blizzard on how to balance ZvP and ZvT... He tells us how insufficient the patch is and doesn't make any suggestions to improve...
He did just that in this thread...
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On September 25 2010 16:08 DarkspearTribe wrote: I think hydralisks could be used efficiently if every zerg starts focusing on spreading creep as fast as possible (tumors, overlords) Its not worth it, someone walks around with an ob/raven or simply a scan and there goes all your work in a matter of seconds... And even if you have the creep, I think hydra's die way too fast.
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Pretty much the same Cooler what said: " Its impossible for Zerg to win vs Terran on specific maps."
i agree with him
He actually just wrote down whats commonly known.and every statistic ever since release proof him right.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On September 25 2010 19:54 Keula wrote: Pretty much the same Cooler what said: " Its impossible for Zerg to win vs Terran on specific maps."
i agree with him
He actually just wrote down whats commonly known.and every statistic ever since release proof him right.
Nothing is impossible, yes it's very, very hard, but it's not impossible.
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It's indeed possible. The Terran can just throw you the game, as we saw in Top vs Fruit Dealer Game 3.
What's possible is not under discussion - what's reasonable is.
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On September 25 2010 19:31 biskit wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2010 19:28 rexyrex wrote: I wish Idra would make some propositions to Blizzard on how to balance ZvP and ZvT... He tells us how insufficient the patch is and doesn't make any suggestions to improve... He did just that in this thread...
Which page did he add comments? Maybe I missed it.
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So here are the changes I think need to happen to balance things out: 1) Maurader loses stim - they dont have it in the campaign, i dont know why they need to have it in multiplayer I thought marines were the dps units for Terran and mauraders were designed for support. 2) Concussive Shells require Engineering Bay - the idea here is to slow the bio ball from reaching its full potential so early in the game. It would allow for better scouting by speed zerglings as well. 3) Roach Speed to Tier 1 - just trying to make roaches more effective against hellion rushes and mass mauraders in a bio ball early in the game. 4) Hydralisks - obviously some major changes needed a) Bring their hp to 100 - to help against everything really but particularly against Thor allins w/repair, banshees, tanks as Idra suggested. b) Speed Upgrade - with this Zerg can add another damn good unit to their arsenal and its long overdue tbh
From that point Blizzard will just have to see how the Hydralisk gets used in games since it would become a viable option for the Zerg.
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