Also, how bout units that are great/shouldn't be removed or only minorly tweaked at most
Terran: Marines: Staple, simple, easy to control, effective, get better with micro Hellions: Interesting harass unit Tanks: same as marines Thor: Goes well with the whole immobility of terran, good at holding a position as anit-air. Banshee: Interesting unit Raven: Awesome support unit. PDD is underrated battle cruiser: Although rarely seen, great in certain situations.
Zerg: Zergling: Baneling: Most fun unit in the game Hydra: Maybe needs more tweaks, but a good unit Infestor: Ok, too much tweak, but still good unit Broodlord: Great unit for lategame
Protoss: Zealot: Great unit Stalker: Awesome unit, blink is a fun ability Sentry: Makes the game super interesting positionally Phoenix: Has it's specific place in the game
On June 01 2011 06:48 Striding Strider wrote: Boring/Unintersting Units
Protoss - Collosus: Obviously not much to add here. Powerful unit to make up for crappy gateway units. Protect at all costs. - Carrier: Hard countered too easily. Marines shred interceptors to bits, and if they have a starport and a reacter handy (read: every game) you've just spend 20~ minutes wasting your time. - Immortal: All round useless. Only good against Ultralisks and sucks against everything else, even the 'supposed' units it counters. Also built out of the Robotics Facility, while the Dragoon wasn't, I guess current Protoss engineers aren't as good as their forefathers.
Terran - Viking: A 9 range no-upgrades-required flying unit which counters everything in the air and can be reactered out in a moments notice. Also kills Collosus. Nice. - Marine: Too good against everything. It costs 50 minerals, 1 supply and no tech. Pretty good. - Marauder: Kills everything with 'Armoured' in its description.. and you can't run away from it.
Zerg - Roach: 1a 1a 1a. Damaged? Burrow to heal. Splendid. - Overseer: Dumb unit. I mean, I can see why they removed detection from Overlords (to make cloaked units actually effective v Z) but I kind of like that -Zerg- trait. But on the other hand Corsairs were actually pretty mean. So.. - Infestor: Spawn Infested Terrans? Zzz. Fungal Growth? Well you see, I use this ability, click on your army, and not you can't move and take 100% guaranteed damage. Which also sets me up for the next click. Awesome.
*Stalkers/Marauders/Roaches, all tier 1.5, all armoured, all fast, high hp.. wait what race am I supposed to be playing here?
Most Bias post I have ever seen.
On the OP. Removal 1.Collosous- Everyone already listed. 2.Mothership-Add arbiter Tweaks. 1.Hellions- Make them fit better with Terran mech. 2.Carriers 3.Tanks in the sense to make them more useful TvP. 4.Hydralisk-Just plain sucks.
I will attempt to do some theory crafting here and not balance complaining. I can only hope people take this for what it is. Some thoughts and ideas, that's all. With HotS being produced, sweeping overhauls are a real possibility and we the community should try our best (and owe it to this great game) to put forth ideas that could help the game in the long term.
For PROTOSS (my race) I dislike FF's, they are too strong when abused, the protoss army is too weak without them, and overall protoss is too dependent on them for early game survival. I feel protoss is too vulnerable to cheese and all ins, in every match up (even with FF, it's hard to get enough gas early to have them and then have enough muscle in your army to push out, tech, and keep up on expansions) Colossus are just too expensive (especially after getting sentries), too strong, too predictable (blind countered often) and too necessary in almost every match up. Really, this also speaks to a more general problem with protoss, imo. The gateway armies are just too expensive and not cost effective without FF, and or Colossus. Immortals are good early and mid game, but they are too close to colossus in cost when compared with how strong they are for the mid to late game, Like many protoss units I feel that Immortals only counter 1 or 2 units effectively, don't have the range to be good in large armies, and are weak against the same units that smash zealot/stalker. (like hydras, MM, emp, for example). I feel protoss anti air is lacking too, protoss's longest AA is stalkers,(blink helps but their slow rate of fire hurts this role) and the only AA splash is archons or psi storm. HT's and archons are too slow to catch air units, and storm can be dodged pretty easily by muta's. Also, protoss harass needs some love, phoenix and dt are your only effective options (gateway units don't kill retreating workers fast enough to be very scary). Phoenix and DT both get shut down by the same thing, 1 well placed turret or spore crawler.
I'd like to see FF's kill-able (if targeted maybe 50-100hp) but also some kind of buff to gateway units, (more damage for sentries and a better cool down for stalkers or better upgrade bonuses) I'd love to see immortals (or colossus if immortals had a +2 range upgrade) replaced by reavers (won't happen lol) this would give toss some scary harass, on par with zerg or terran drops, and muta or banshee harass. (or nydus) I'd like shield batteries to come back, (make them require 2 pylons so they don't get abused in 4gate or 3gate robo all ins at your front door) then protoss could actually defend all in's and harass early game, even with killable ff's. Batteries would also give protoss a mechanic to help taking 3rds and later bases (Terran has PF and sensor, zerg has creep and insane unit speed) toss has a slow army and warping in 5 units isn't going to save your expo! Batteries would also help protoss air play, carriers and motherships are very bad right now imo. If you win with them, you probably would have won without them. For upgrades I think shield upgrades should be put to 100/100 or 150/100 because of the fact that protoss units get half the armor benefit that zerg or terran gets (armor only helps half a toss unit's health) This would also make air units a little stronger to mix in. As well as cannons having shield upgrades would be a bit better vs marine drops or mutas (which I feel is needed) Stalkers should also get +2 per attack upgrade. Lastly, just fix motherships, they are horribly bad for what they cost. Either make them hard to kill so the cloaking makes them worth it, or cheaper (just to tech to them is costly!) or both.
For ZERG I think overseers are just bad. Roaches are too close to stalkers in strength (and get +2 for every +1 to stalkers) and for cost roaches can be made almost 2 to 1 against stalkers (they need to stay what they are vs terran IMO so this could be fixed with some buff for stalkers). Hydras are too slow to be good AA. Mass Muta is too strong in general. Spines take too long to build, creep spreads too far per tumor.
I'd make roaches morph into lurkers (upgrade available after lair) because zerg needs some better defense (spines), and using hydras for lurkers would put them too far up the tech tree. But going lurker roach would be risky (vs air). Overseers should just cost 50/50 (or 50/25) to morph and add detection,speed and drop (instead of lair upgrades to all overlords) would help the detection situation. Also, as soon as zerg gets lair, it would have a lot of options, good scouting, good defense, opportunities to punish a lack of detection or vision (lukers or drops or both!)
A speed upgrade should be available for hydras so they can actually be useful in more situations and be re-treatable. For the creep tumor thing, I just feel this is one of those things that makes zerg insane in the late game because of the amount of vision and the mobility it adds to an army that is already the fastest in the game. Fungal just needs to be reworked, maybe split into 2 spells (ensnare which slows units and cooldown and plague which does damage) right now having both with the dps it does, is ridiculous. Make zerg choose if they want to delay or reduce enemies dps (ensnare) or do damage (plaguuuu!). (but they will probably cast both with 2 infestors so I'm not sure if this would work or not) Right now, fungal growth is a soft counter to everything, and hard counter to many core units of all 3 races. There is also nothing you can do against it, in many situations, you just sit there staring at your army hoping for your opponent to mess up so you can retreat. Mass muta is only a problem imo because of magic box, thors are supposed to counter muta but flying over them and pressing h to reverse hard counter them is just wrong. Protoss AA is just too weak to handle them in larger numbers. (cannon dps is a joke compared to missile turrets) To hear people actually say that you just attack zerg when you see muta's and you win or loose depending, is just not good for the game imo. (Maybe increase thor AA splash, and giving stalkers +2 per attack upgrade and cheaper shield upgrade would fix this)
(Best for last lol) TERRAN: I have a lot of issues with terran. ( I actually play T quite often for fun) With terran I feel like marauders step on the role of siege tanks, and because of stim + concussive it is impossible to retreat from them (without loosing half your army). Which I don't like. I'd like to see a cooldown nerf to stim and a slight buff for siege tanks. (maybe make the stim bonus to attack speed half of what it is now, make the research a little faster and give tanks a 5 or 10 dmg increase at least in siege mode) This would also make it slightly easier to retreat from concussive. I think terran has problems with going anything that doesn't include lots of marines because thors AA doesn't work well vs muta, broodlords or voids/carriers and vikings take too long to get out in mass. I think putting vikings at factories instead of starports could fix this, just require armory to produce them (or required to switch to air mode) and allow for reactor production of them from factories. Start them in walker mode. They share upgrades with the other factory units. This alone could revive mech and change the way bio is so strong early, so weak late and nearly impossible to transition out of. Move emp to ravens, this would make them good vs toss, and with vikings at factories, starports and ravens would become necessary vs toss. But if emp gets removed from ghosts, than cloak and snipe would have to be cheaper for research and usage. I feel emp comes out too fast and is too good vs toss especially with the dependence on FF early game. 1 good emp + stim/concussive bio can too easily be GG. I think mules need their income reduced, you loose the production of 3 scvs for OC, yet 1 mule is equal to twice that in income and they actually overlap ( a mules lasts slightly longer than it takes to get energy for them) Mules don't keep terrans even on income, they put them slightly ahead and a terran who expands inside his main and double mules/scv pumps gets way ahead unless protoss expands. Which means terran takes much less risk in trying for an economic advantage. Mules on gold bases is a problem too. Terrans put a PF at gold and drop mules and instantly have double their opponents income which is sustainable >50% of the time. Maybe make mules only dropable within a certain distance of an orbital. Get rid of calldown supply, terran should be punished for missing supply just like toss or zerg or make the energy cost of supply calldown a little higher. PDD is just way too strong against toss, it should have half as much energy and not stay around forever recharging energy. Protoss has weak AA as it is, PDD blocks phoenix, stalker and cannon fire. (Which I find weird that it blocks energy weapons with a laser but not projectile weapons like marine and tank fire, would love to hear the lore on this!). Unfortunately, I think ravens would be crap without them. Seeker missile needs to be more available/useful and maybe replace turret with emp for ravens to still be worth getting.
Overall, I'd like to point out I am perfectly open to anything that would help some of what I feel are problematic areas of sc2. It's not like I am saying this is broken or this must be changed in this way to fix it. The game is pretty damn balanced but I really feel it's more gameplay factors that hurt sc2. I just feel there are some things that make the game less fun,interesting, and competitive than it could be. I know plenty of people are going to read this and think "go play BW" and actually I've played over 50 games of BW this week with my brother. I play all 3 races, he always plays toss. It's not really units that I miss in BW but the gameplay. I've been thinking about this a lot recently and I feel I can finally articulate some insight into the two games and how they play out.
It's not anything super specific (like units or abilities) that makes bw play out better but basically the way the races play. In BW Toss's army is very strong and can apply that strength anywhere, this gives them the best mobility even though their army isn't the fastest or much faster. However,in sc2 toss's army has to back itself into a corner or choke to be strong (FF, colossus, storm) which greatly constrains its mobility. Also, the harass of reavers compared to the much weaker protoss harass in sc2 means that in bw, zerg and terran have to put serious thought into defending every base they take and has to scout toss constantly to know what he's going. Reavers are by no means a necessity. In sc2 this is not the case, you often scout toss to know 1 thing, 'did he go colossus or something else?" place 1 turret at each base and your army can just react as needed. In BW, protoss's strength and mobility is compensated by the fact that zerg and terran armies would get crushed if they got caught out of position or on the move, but if set up zerg and terran armies are 3x stronger. Like when a zerg gets Dark swarm and lurkers, or a terran gets siege tanks backed by mines, missile turrets, bunkers, and depot walls. This is what created those awesome army dances and struggles for positioning. Which made BW so beautiful to watch at high levels. Think of how important those high platforms are on Match point in bw for example.
Sc2 just lacks this positional, strategic play in the vast majority of situations. Too many games come down to, whose army counters who's, who's army has better dps, who has aoe like fungal, emp, colossus/storm. The strategy is too focused on whats in your base and not how your army is setup or positioned on the field. TvT is the only matchup in sc2 I feel achieves this up to par with bw. Yet just like in bw it is possible for one player in TvT to try and sidestep this kind of positional game, in which case it all comes down to execution. These last 3 paragraphs are the essence of where most of my ideas in this post come from.
No TLDR for you here, I think this post all needs to be taken as a whole to really understand my points and ideas. I realize I didn't answer the op's questions directly, I think the complexity and interactions in the game are really to much to be perfected from those answers. I hope this isn't seen as being off topic or an inappropriate response to the op.
In closing I am cautiously optimistic for the future of Sc2, even though I am utterly dismayed at some of the answers given at interviews by members of the Sc2 design team. Once the shock wares off I realize that because just one member of the design team has an opinion on one unit or concept that I disagree with, isn't enough for me to doubt all the people on their team on every issue.
It is entirely too much the focus of everything about Protoss's matchups. In PvP its a race to see who gets more. In PvT its about very fragile micro from both players to either kill/protect the Colossus. PvZ is much the same, perhaps with an even larger emphasis on avoiding Colossus in combination with Forcefield. I play Protoss at the low Master's level for reference.
In my opinion, creates many of the same effects the Colossus does but for Terran, albeit in a different way. Even in the matchup where they are rarely seen, PvT, they help create the degenerate state that its in because if you don't get Colossus, the Marines just destroy pretty much everything (I guess storm qualifies too but it has its own problems). It also leads to TvZ and TvT lategames that are essentially something along the lines of "Marine Tank Medivac into... Marine Tank Medivac." Not unlike the Colossus, if they aren't handled properly, their dps makes most things irrelevant. They serve as a deterrent to other strategies.
In the case of the Hydra, I think it needs to be redesigned not because it useful in too many situations, like the above, but simply not good enough in a wide variety. Hydralisks suffer immensely off creep which creates a certain fragility to map size. Too small and zerg dies due to its fundamental mechanics, too big and you just can't use hydras aggressively. They're also probably too good in the situations where they are useful, perhaps to compensate for their narrow usefulness. Their glass cannon dps and anti air capabilities are absurd and keep the zerg from getting other varieties of units to potentially fill those gaps.
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. 1) The damage spell trio (Fungal, Storm, EMP) + Show Spoiler +
They all feel a bit too hit or miss. They all have their difficulties in actually being delivered but in the event they are delivered well are probably too good. It again creates this feeling of fragility and perhaps randomness as to whether a given spell will connect and end the game, or cost you one. I think all of them should be more consistent but be compensated by some reduction in potency, e.g. increasing range at the cost of damage.
I like how they function in the early game, as a deterrent against Zealots and the like but late game, combined with Stim and Medivacs, make retreating from an engagement with a bio ball not only costly, but effectively impossible. Stim's speed increase serves as a sufficient deterrent from running but is not so back breaking that any sizable fight with a Marauder ball must necessarily decide the game. Again, fragility bad.
The only macro mechanic that actively and critically punishes a player for not using it. Not having an upgrade finish 10 seconds earlier can occasionally be costsly, but losing 4 Larva, perhaps indefinitely, is often straight up game ending. It creates a disparity in the Zerg talent pool I believe, leading to the difficulty in balancing that race. That is, the race ends up feeling abnormally fragile (broken record, I know) so their representation gets minimized and reduces the amount of development that can occur. Also just straight up makes people not wanna play the race.
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see? 1) Make it easier to tell what does or does not create a hard wall (zealot blocks, etc). 2) Make it impossible to tell what is building from a Stargate. 3) Provide a visual indication of when Stim is researched.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? 1) The Lurker. Zerg could really use a more reliable form of AoE damage than Banelings and need an actual detection threat, burrow doesn't do it enough. Will also help Zergs actually control space.
2) Protoss drop threat. Perhaps not the Reaver for obvious reasons but something between Storm drops (huge investment, huge payoff) and Zealots (low investment, small payoff). Perhaps a unit that does some AoE damage upon Warp In but is otherwise cost inefficient?
3) For symmetry's sake I was attempting to think of a Terran unit to suggest, but I honestly don't see a whole lot of holes in Terran's gameplay, so I have no idea.
Zerg should have scourge. I don't see how it could hurt the game at all; would help defend medivac drops and I'd say if scourge could hit collosi that would help a lot too. There is nothing the scourge could do that would shut down current air balances (phoenix easily can outmicro them, banshees are supposed to be getting damage dealt before lair/overseer is out and certainly before spire, probably not too bad against voidrays, etc) while helping zerg deal with protoss death ball and protect expansions from drops on large maps zvt.
Props if we could get some observer sniping like in broodwar; could help zerg slow down protoss from just walking all over zerg's creep and killing all of zerg's creep tumors. Maybe even let zerg "run away" from protoss army if you snipe observer and burrow roaches instead of getting trapped and killed by forcefield.
edit- current uninteresting units: hydra (slow, as someone said no micro, etc), corruptor, thor (just a big beefy unit with nothing conceptually interesting and complete lack of micro). Other terran mech you do build up a ball, but siege tanks have positioning and hellions are definitely micro-intensive if you open with them. A weaker/cheaper/faster build time thor with more mobility/micro capabilities would be a help imo (not down to a goliath's level, but cheaper/less strong than current thor).
Terran needs more drop possibilities... when you said terran, did you mean protoss? I feel that terrans drop more than the other two races by far. That being said.
Protoss Archon - Bigger Splash radius and/or damage a flock of mutas or a swarm of zerglings should not be able to crush archons as easily as they do.
Zerg Lurker - I don't even think you need to do much more than port the unit and adjust the stats, restrictions like being a building and staying on creep are cool ideas, but they seem sort of redundant as far as space control options go, spine crawler
Terran The WaterBat - FireFighters on Stim ain't nothing to mess with. Tasteless is brilliant
What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
Corruptors - Only real reason to use them are for brood lords or to snipe colossus, If you make too many you loose the ground war, Make too little you still lose the ground war also I find their spell a bit boring and costs too much energy
Colossus - Force your opponent to go air which then prevents you from tech switching in to star gate at all while forcing boring 1a battles on the ground
Thor - Amazing vs mutalisks in T v Z but since the energy Nerf they lost their usefulness vs Toss and lack a role for use in TvT
What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
Forcefields are great defensively but rather overpowered when using them on the offence I can really think of a fix besides only being able to construct force fields on pylons or something allowing it to keep it's defensive use. That change could also possibly promote warp prism use but I still think that would not be a good fix.
What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see?
Not fussed about this
What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
Protoss and zerg need a unit that can control areas like the siege tank, Possibly bringing back the Reaver / Lurker
On June 01 2011 06:59 N.geNuity wrote: Zerg should have scourge. I don't see how it could hurt the game at all; would help defend medivac drops and I'd say if scourge could hit collosi that would help a lot too. There is nothing the scourge could do that would shut down current air balances (phoenix easily can outmicro them, banshees are supposed to be getting damage dealt before lair/overseer is out and certainly before spire, probably not too bad against voidrays, etc) while helping zerg deal with protoss death ball and protect expansions from drops on large maps zvt.
What, you think zerg is particularly suffering on large maps zvt?
Drops are among the last things terran has to gain an advantage against zerg. You can't just expect to outmacro and beat the zerg player without dealing some economical damage, especially after the infestor buff.
banshee, way too strong, encourages gimmicky, all-in plays, i would like to see its damage nerfed or removed/replaced by another unit VR, see banshee marines, stutter micro? is it good for the game or not? 2 rax + scv against hatch first zerg is in my eyes is a game of chance (slow lings are really inefficient against marines being stutter micro'ed maruders, one of the core unit of every match up, im not sure how it should be changed, even a slight change can cause a big difference in the match ups... but this unit just doesnt feel right thors, i would like to see some changes to 250mm, its animation setup is way too long right now, making them horrible in large battles, but then again removing animation makes thors imba, 250mm removed in compensation for a faster movement speed? helions, does not fit in the terran mech play, should provide some sort of zoning ability that allows terran mech play (ie, spider mines) tanks, remove smart fire, buff damage hydralisks, needs to be fixed/buffed, its roles in SC2 is way too small, (lurker maybe?) roaches, way too cost efficient, its just such a well rounded unit for every situation, i would like to see units that have their own specific roles take over roaches banelings should be removed, 1/2 base all-in b-bust is way too strong, yeah terran can wall off with 2 rax, sacrificing 10-15banelings to bust it ends the terran production, defending against a well executed baneling bust is like tossing a coin, bad for the game sentry, ff too much of a game changer? added with map choke points, is this ability too good? collolol this doom unit def needs to be fixed, IMO, protosses only doom unit should be the HT
The Roach is Zergs biggest problem imo. I would like to see it get taken out back and shot, and then tweak the Hydra to take its place. Add the Lurker in the Hydra's current spot, and nail (very gently) a pair of wings on the baneling and call it a Scourge. Tell the new Scourge to go kill the Corruptor.
As for Protoss I want to se something done to the Colossus just as everyone else. And add a unit that can hold help hold a position aswell as do good in drops.
I think that somewhere in development of WoL someone got drunk and mixed up the weapons of the firebat and the vulture and then they just rolled with it. Should be corrected it imo.
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? + Show Spoiler +
Colossus: it really looks like this unit was made to work in a deathball situation, seeing a toss army of stalkers hiding between the legs of 6 colossus is the most boring thing in this game... problem is that it is almost the standard lategame army for toss :s. Marauder: concussive shell looks fun, but it's some one sided micro , there is not much you can do. sentry: FF are stupid , they need to change that Err... when i start to think about it a bit more , roaches are absolutely boring , especially in zvz , the corruptors/viking dynamic against colossus is kind of dumb , void rays as well ( shitty in low number , unkillable when they reach a critical mass), battlecruisers are still not really good , reapers are useless, hydra die to any aoe and you can't micro them...
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. + Show Spoiler +
warpgate , negates defender advantage and in late game making a lot of gates means that if your opponent doesn't win the fight decisively you will be able to kill him before he can make any reinforcement . The pathing need to be changed , the ball mechanic makes for a terrible spectator game. I mean , just compare it to bw. Force field is also a bad mechanic , it denies any kind of surround/positional play from the opponent ,it encourages ball play ( easier to protect with forcefield) , and makes battle completely one sided: if you have good forcefield you will almost not loose anything, otherwise your army will die to marauders or roaches in the blink of an eye
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see? Don't know, I don't think there is anything you can do to really make the game better if you don't get rid of the "ball" effect and the "go 200/200 , see who wins the big fight and we will have our winner" [/spoiler]
Why I think units should be changed or why I think they should not be changed.
Roaches: How can you guys say Roaches after witnessing Mondragon play with them, I was once of the same opinion as you guys, but Mondragon proved me (in my eyes) wrong.
Hydralisks: I think Hydralisks being weak is a biproduct of how strong Colossi and Marines are. Marines I think would suffer from an introduction of dynamic movement. Would not mind seeing them gone, but Protoss would need something to make up for that loss.
Corruptors:[ Would love to see a melee AtA unit, (in my mind it) fits the Zerg style.
Colossi: Colossi and silly, silly units, and the fact that you rarely see a game where a Protoss doesn't get it really depresses me.
Warp Prisms: Give origamiplane some shields, PLEASE!
Marauders: Marauders are the epitome of a-move. They make for very boring games too, as you can't really "poke" them, due to the Concussive Shells. Would not mind seeing them go, as they really do not fill any role other than "not being fried instantly by Colossi".
Reapers: I would like to see some of the Reaper nerfs reverted, and maybe they should be granted something to be useful as the game progresses past the early-game.
Vikings: I love Vikings, but I do think the ground mode needs some love.
Thors: Simply not interesting, their spell is boring too. Would like to see how Terrans would do with this unit simply being removed.
Ravens: Do not like how the PDD was given to Terran in such a (in my opinion) boring fashion. Would love to see it get an ability that can protect you from melee units rather than ranged. Also Seeker Missile (again, in my opinion) needs to properly blow shit up, have more range, and be impossible to kite forever. The unit targeted should suffer damage no matter what, but it should be possible to micro the targeted unit away from your "deathball". + Show Spoiler +
Being a zerg, and given zerg will probably be the most modified race, I focus mostly on that. Things have to be tweaked balance wise ofc, but I think there are some fundamentals wrong things with the race.
A) bit faster default overlord or B) a new scouting unit, f ex a summoned scourge-like flying unit spawned by the queen from energy (think hallu pheonix). So imo, change either queen, overlord or something else to improve early game (opponent 1base) scouting. Possibly even make overlord speed hatch-tech and 100/50 or something...
- Corruptor, boring unit that doesnt really do its role very well. Doesnt have any flash, slow, boring abilities, very low dps. No real need for a strong tank air to air.
- Hydralisk, needs to be faster.
- Queen, PLEASE TO GOD dont punish me for being good with larvae inject. the fact that 23 energy is regenerated in 1 cycle instead of 25 is so insanely annoying and a huge flaw... Nothing is more annoying than spending 2sek on injecting instead of half a second, just because you were "too good" at keeping energy low... I'd even settle for larvae popup lasting 1sek longer if that was the fix required.
Also. Colossus, the unit is dull, too strong in numbers, hard to balance, makes for boring games from a spectators point of view.
Forcefields, once you hit a certain number, this spell becomes a bit too good, and more importantly, bad game mechanics. It hinder micro, impossible to play w/o almost and is too excessive at times... I propose having a cooldown on the spell, so if you want to cast 8 forcefields at once, you better damn well at least have 8 sentries.
Concussive marauders, hinders micro and can punish too hard in the early game compared to its cost.
What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed. Warpgates. The ability to remove defender's advantage regardless of map design or size is a really bad design imo, and is main reason why protoss timing attacks seem ridiculously strong at times.
If Day9 heard everyone here bashing Overseers he'd probably go kill a Kitten.
The Overseer is actually a really good potential unit, what needs to happen is - time, time for strategies to revolve around contaminate timings and so on. I would be really upset if they removed it, the unit has so much potential.
Immortal needs to be more unique...maybe reduce their hp but increase their hardened shield effect to say 5. For being the 'tank unit' the opposition loves to prioritize them for focus fire.
Roach...needs to have their range nerfed back. As they are right now, they are too cost effective, too boring and lack any particular weaknesses. Their short range before was what made them unique and this should come back.
Marauder...it's an A attack unit with no unique weaknesses and is more cost effective then its higher tech sibling units at the factory. Worst unit in the game. Would love to see it's hp nerfed and/or a stronger stim damage. Close 2nd place goes to the marine...right now they are essential to fend off mutas, so I say nerf muta speed so you can nerf marine hp's (as T1 units they should not be as strong as they are).
Graphics?
Get rid of the stupid purple creep...it offers very poor contrast and can make it difficult to see what is going on top of creep.
Less polygon art please and more art with rounded corners. Less unit art that looks like anorexic demon elves with exaggerated body parts/weapons like from W3 and more art that resembles the amazing sci-fi art we saw from SC BW.
Game design?
Many things need changed here. You just have to do too much APM busywork to stay competitive and that's not fun.
High level pro's largely lose chrono-boost energy after roughly the 12 minute mark because it is too APM intensive to use (eg Huk and he has amazing APM). CB needs either an auto-assignment cast option or an option to super dump all CB energy into one building for a super boost (so say 150 energy increases production speed by +150% of 20 seconds.
Warpgate mechanics are also messed up as again even pro's miss warpgate cycles because it is too APM intensive. We need to be able to warp in on the mini-map, have auto-assignments to hotkey grounds and/or a warp in rally point.
Zerg by far needs the most overhauling as far as mechanics go. Shouldn't have to waste keystrokes doing boring stuff that doesn't have to do with the strategies in the game. We need overlord rally points (separate from resource/military rally points), auto-inject (maybe compensate by slowing down the injection process) and auto-creep tumors (click a spot on the map and the tumors automatically extend themselves in that direction...would probably need to nerf tumor speed though).
Many more things need to be able to be done from the mini-map or wireframe selection. You should also not be able to cast a spell on a unit that can't receive the effect. eg CB'ing an already CB'ed Nexus, feedbacking an already drained ghost, or having a queen heal an already full hp utlralisk (these things happen in battle when things get hectic which Blizzard can fix).
The hotkey system has to be dramatically improved. The toggle keys (ctl and shift) need to be assignable ANYWHERE but they aren't. This is a huge design problem as these toggle keys should be controlled by the thumb to better enable APM (spacebar/alt/super key are in much better locations then ctrl/shift).
Much has to be done to fix SC2, but there is very little hope that any of this will be
What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list? Colossus, Colossus, Colossus
Seriously though, Colossus, Thor, and Corruptor are the most uninteresting units in the game.
Colossus: Colossus is basically a tank that can walk up and down cliffs, has no mobility disadvantage, and can walk over armies, creating a kind of super death ball synergy with other units which is very unfun to watch and play. (I just hate using Colossi). The only Colossi micro I ever see is after big battles when there are no units left or mid game pvp. They're a good enough meat shield themselves that they don't need to be microd, just box+a-move them them into the enemy army and they're cost effective enough before aa can take them out that you can just let them sit there and absorb air attacks with no micro and just let them do their insanely long ranged splash damage. I'm definitely not saying it's over powered, because in relation to the rest of the Protoss army, it's not, but it's just too good of a unit by itself and is too much of a crux for the Protoss army.
Thor: It's just a giant slow and lumbering unit. It has a lot of hit points, but because it's so slow people tend not to micro it. It has a completely different mobility disadvantage from the Tank. The tank is one of the most interesting units in the game because it goes from being severely cost-effective but completely immobile to being very mobile but inefficient, which creates a very interesting dynamic for engaging tanks. Thors on the other hand are just so lumbering and slow that Blizzard had to give them an extremely effective and very long ranged ground and air attack and pad them with way too many hit points. The dynamic this creates is that when you mass them with tanks and hellions it just creates a massive snail of an army that barely crawls across the map that the other player can't engage, so invariably, more often then not, mech play turns into base races which I think makes for incredibly dull games, and much like the colossus based Protoss army, it becomes a unengagable death ball which is a-moved into the opposing player's base. It requirs much more micro than a Protoss death ball, because you still have to pay attention to which units are in the front and leapfrogging your tanks, but that doesn't make it any more fun to watch. (I'm sure the Goody fans will disagree with me, but whatevs, he's one of the most boring SC2 pros to watch) Remember how interesting mech was to watch and play in BW? I'm thinking I wish that the Thor was a much faster, smaller, and less powerful version of what it is now. Goliaths anyone?
Corruprtors: What else can be said that hasn't already been said about this worthless unit? The only time you ever see them get built is when Colossi are out or Zerg is about to go Brood Lord, which I actually think creates a huge weak timing in which Zerg is nearly defenseless (in which so much of the Zerg supply is wrapped up into useless Corruptors and slow-morphing brood lords) that the other player can easily exploit if they see it.
I actually think Immortal is one of the best designed 'new' units in SC2. What makes it seem uninteresting is that it is rarely seen used extensively. Whenever it is used it is in few numbers and then either with good success or total failure. It could need to be altered so that its damage is less dependent on the target being Armored.
EPT
