|
well.. all of the balance whine in this thread is tremendous fun.
units that need revamping:
collosus, thor, corruptor
(i'm a toss player)
collo is just a move, click back for micro. thor is just a move, have fun microing.. and corruptor, again, is just a move (but only for air).
honestly get rid of smart casting or smth as far as game mechanics go (the game is balanced around mbs smart casting and auto mining in a sense, so.. these obviously won't be implemented :/)
as far as units go, i have no clue. i don't feel like any race needs anything.. and it baffles me to see people claiming z doesn't have a placeholder (ehem... broodlords)
|
On June 01 2011 10:50 Spawkuring wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 01 2011 10:44 Carmine wrote:
You are not bad for having an opinion. You are bad at the game and your opinion makes it obvious. Good players have already figured out play styles to deal with these things..so crying about them at this point shows that you don't know what you are doing. A good way to illustrate this is that anyone complaining that spawn larva isn't forgiving enough isn't the kind of person who is using spawn larva well...and very likely isn't the kind of person who is doing a lot of other things well. It is people who think their uneducated opinions are good that I am talking about. Why do you keep talking from a balance and skill perspective? Balance is not the point of this thread and it never was. It's about the game design itself and making sure that it's incredibly skillful to play and entertaining to watch.
I didn't know that we were talking about single player. I thought we were talking about multiplayer. If we were talking about MP then I think the decision on how interesting a unit is should be based off of a person knowing how to use it.
I don't like the idea of balancing the MP based off of gold level players opinions. (I'm being frank, but I am not trying to be mean.)
...eh edited because I missed a point: I think that a balanced good game is interesting. That's why I said the above, but the most important thing is that a unit can seem uninteresting if you aren't using it right.
|
On June 01 2011 11:01 mordk wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 10:56 Jimbo77 wrote:On June 01 2011 10:47 mordk wrote:On June 01 2011 10:46 Jimbo77 wrote:
Agreed. VR is the most bad unit implemented in SC2, along with infestors.
It's all purpose just a-move unit. VR ground attack had better be Scout-like (from bw). So, it would be solid AA but pretty weak Anti-ground unit.
WTF??? The scout was THE worst unit in ALL of BW. So bad it served as a joke, since one time a korean beat a foreigner using scouts, and it was like, the worst humilliation ever. I didn't say it must be scout, but the way VR works makes no sense to have Carriers. VR serves all the purposes P can have. VRs and carriers are completely different. Carriers aren't used because they're fragile for cost and supply and because interceptors get killed making carriers useless, marines don't even need to kill carriers, just A-move and kill interceptors. It's not related at all to VRs.
You a wrong, sorry.
In BW there were absolutely the same interceptors(even less DPS) but i didn't hear that someone didn't build carriers because of marines. Carriers in a very big extent related to VR.
|
Hellions are boring, they should be replaced by Firebats :D
Corruptors are boring. Fix them or replace them with something.
And Collosi are boring. I want my Rivuuuuuuu!
And as a mostly zerg player, I want my LURKUUUUU
|
On June 01 2011 10:58 HiredGoonThug wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 10:47 mordk wrote:
It is popular because:
-It's easy to do
-It only requires 2 bases
-It works when facing really passive players
Voids are soft as crap, are super non cost-effective when uncharged, and are only useful in 6+ numbers, since they're so weak any decent player will focus them down and kill them before they charge up. If you charge up 3-4 VRs in a gateway/robo mix then your opponent just sucks horribly and made no units to counter VRs. If terran allows VRs to kill all their vikings they're just doing it wrong, and if zerg uses corruptors to counter VRs they're just doing it wrong, of course they rip them to shreds. These are the reasons why VRs are popular on ladder, but increasingly less popular on high-level tourneys and games.
But what about the 3-4 colossus behind the voids? Thats why the corrputor/viking are out in the first place. The colossus is the big target at the back, and the gateway units at the front (especially the chargelots) are distracting everything. The marines and hydras aren't gonna do anything about the voids. The mutalisks are gonna die to the stalkers (unless as you say, they have a huge cloud of them), and everything else that shoots air and can reach the voids is probably gonna be focusing on colossus or waiting for a better opportunity to focus on them. The only disadvantage to making the voids if you have the stargate open is you get a couple fewer warpgate units for each one. Other than that, I see no reason not to include voids in a standard ball.
You usually kill the voids first, since if, as you correctly say, you let them charge, they become insane. The thing is, as I stated before, these strategies are becoming quickly obsolete, because to gather that 4+ collossi, 4+ VR with enough stalkers and sentries ball, you need A TON of time, which good players are no longer giving, particularly zerg, who are going for bigger early game pressure, which means you can't deathball like that anymore. It only works against passive, bad players.
Which is why, ultimately, VRs are not versatile. They either rush in the early game, if unscouted, or go into a huge lategame ball which is not really that viable anymore. They don't harass, they don't give map control, they're not fast, they don't provide tactical advantages, they suck in any other composition different from the ones being discussed, they don't really have "utility". Mutalisks have WAY more uses and aspects than VRs, so do marines and stalkers, even zerglings are more versatile than VRs.
I'm not saying they're a bad unit and should be removed. I think protoss could use a well-rounded flyer, not overpowering, and not needing any special circumstances to be useful.
|
On June 01 2011 11:08 Jimbo77 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 11:01 mordk wrote:On June 01 2011 10:56 Jimbo77 wrote:On June 01 2011 10:47 mordk wrote:On June 01 2011 10:46 Jimbo77 wrote:
Agreed. VR is the most bad unit implemented in SC2, along with infestors.
It's all purpose just a-move unit. VR ground attack had better be Scout-like (from bw). So, it would be solid AA but pretty weak Anti-ground unit.
WTF??? The scout was THE worst unit in ALL of BW. So bad it served as a joke, since one time a korean beat a foreigner using scouts, and it was like, the worst humilliation ever. I didn't say it must be scout, but the way VR works makes no sense to have Carriers. VR serves all the purposes P can have. VRs and carriers are completely different. Carriers aren't used because they're fragile for cost and supply and because interceptors get killed making carriers useless, marines don't even need to kill carriers, just A-move and kill interceptors. It's not related at all to VRs. You a wrong, sorry. In BW there were absolutely the same interceptors(even less DPS) but i didn't hear that someone didn't build carriers because of marines. Carriers in a very big extent related to VR.
Wrong, sorry. BW interceptors recharged shields when returning to the carrier. Add to that the fact that marines didn't clump in a ball like SC2 ones do, and there you have it. Interceptors lived long enough to deal damage, you could also force interceptors back into the carrier to make them live longer, attacking in bursts. Because of graviton catapult, having this possibility in SC2 carriers would make them insanely powerful, combined with their awesome DPS. All of this makes SC2 carriers only useful for 1 shot, then interceptors die and that's it lol.
|
On June 01 2011 11:07 Carmine wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 10:50 Spawkuring wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 01 2011 10:44 Carmine wrote:
You are not bad for having an opinion. You are bad at the game and your opinion makes it obvious. Good players have already figured out play styles to deal with these things..so crying about them at this point shows that you don't know what you are doing. A good way to illustrate this is that anyone complaining that spawn larva isn't forgiving enough isn't the kind of person who is using spawn larva well...and very likely isn't the kind of person who is doing a lot of other things well. It is people who think their uneducated opinions are good that I am talking about. Why do you keep talking from a balance and skill perspective? Balance is not the point of this thread and it never was. It's about the game design itself and making sure that it's incredibly skillful to play and entertaining to watch. I didn't know that we were talking about single player. I thought we were talking about multiplayer. If we were talking about MP then I think the decision on how interesting a unit is should be based off of a person knowing how to use it.
No shit sherlock. That's why this thread is here. What I don't understand is why you're trying to disregard our arguments because you believe we aren't skilled. Nobody here is arguing based on just our personal experiences, but also what we see and hear from high-level play. Keep in mind that even pro players share many of our complaints. Jinro for example dislikes colossus for the same reason that we've been saying all along: the unit is boring to use and watch.
In fact, most of our complaints come from the fact that there are plenty of units and abilities that are boring to watch even in the hands of pros. Crowds go wild over a good reaver shot, or a baneling bomb. You'll never see anyone get excited over colossus A-move or marauders using concussive shells. This thread is made in the hopes that Blizzard will possibly make units MORE exciting to watch and play.
|
On June 01 2011 10:57 Rococo wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 01 2011 10:44 Carmine wrote:
You are not bad for having an opinion. You are bad at the game and your opinion makes it obvious.
..
I think your other biases (not the reasons you state) are the reason you say things. So in short, people you disagree with are either bad or they have "biases".
I think I have explained my opinions enough. People giving bad (imo) suggestions probably got their butt kicked one too many times by Marauders. Now they think they are a bad unit. I cannot take every whiner on TL at face value. I must just cut my losses and not argue with them (assuming their opinions are influenced by something other than the crap reasons they bring up in an argument.)
On June 01 2011 10:55 Ezekyle wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 01 2011 10:44 Carmine wrote:
Because choosing an area to throw down a storm is SO much more interesting. I think your other biases (not the reasons you state) are the reason you say things. Every unit doesn't need a gimmick to be a useful or interesting unit. The cliff walking and synergy with blink stalkers (give high ground sight and both cross cliffs) makes for interesting confrontations in my opinion. Because I totally said HT were an interesting unit, didn't I. Collosus are a stupid unit that does everything without requiring the slightest bit of skill. HT are a meh unit that is incredibly powerful but has noticable drawbacks and requires a small amount of skill. I agree completely about gimmicks being unnecessary and irritating. Cliff walking and standing on top of allies is a gimmick, and the collosus would be at least vaguely interesting without them. EDIT: Before you start screaming BIAS at me, roaches are a stupid unit that don't require the slightest bit of skill. Hydralisks are a stupid unit that don't require the slightest bit of skill. Ultralisks are a stupid unit that don't require the slightest bit of skill. Corruptors are a stupid unit that don't require the slightest bit of skill. Broodlords are a stupid unit that don't require the slightest bit of skill. Those units are all bad, they just aren't as bad as the collosus because they lack retarded gimmicks like 'can do everything'.
Wow you really don't like units that can attack without having to target and activate an ability. Cliff walking could be considered gimmicky, but I think it makes the unit much more interesting than otherwise. I meant that the fact that it can still be an interesting unit with its current attack method instead of having to charge laser and play a guitar hero minigame.
|
I wish they would change around the sounds. Before in BW your units just sounded... powerful. Like zerglings sounded like some crazed beast throwing itself on a door. Zealots and hydras sounded so manly. Now lings and hydras, and everything else just doesn't give the feeling that it's a unit that's made to kill.
Also i hate the balled up, A move army clumps we always see. Leads to less exciting battles and gimps the spectator excitement.
|
Collosi (boring....)
Mothership (Useless?)
Raven (HSM please fix...)
Very interesting perspective from David Kim on explaining how the game did not turn out how they wanted to. Especially how immortal turned out to be a DPSer instead of a tanker.
|
i bet half of the things they wanted to have happen were ruined by the insane dps of marines.
|
Top units I find needing changes.
Zerg: Either marines need a nerf or zerglings need a buff, though I think that the latter would be better. Marines are too good against zerglings imo, such that early game terran has SO MUCH POWER
Hydralisks need a speed increase or SOMETHING to give them a better hand in any of the matchups. Sometimes you see them in ZvZ and you see them as a counter to stargate or a 6-WG timing push in TvP.
I think banelings should move at the same speed as stimmed marines and marauders to make it so they are actually the counter they should be. Lots of people will disagree with me on that, but it would make a marine nerf not needed imo. (And yes... as people say, fight on creep. because you can so clearly ALWAYS fight on creep since T will usually marine tank push and kill creep tumors along the way.)
Terran: Reapers need a tweak. Something to make them interesting. at this point in the game they are similar to the overseer. a glorified scout with a little bit of versatility, in this case doing damage or being put in a bunker to take down zerg hatcheries.
Raven... Yeah. I don't understand why more terrans dont use PDD against P, it's such an amazing ability. But HSM REALLY needs to be usable or changed to something equal or better, and auto-turrets shouldn't last as long as they do. to be able to use them to deny expansions for until someone brings an army over, or to force an entire army out of position to save a mineral line because they would be there for a ridiculous amount of time is OP imo. Also doesn't see as much use, but because of the incapability of getting the raven there I understand why. the rest of terran I don't see too much of a problem or uninteresting ability with.
Protoss: Carrier. need I say more? I've never seen a pro-game that showcases this unit having ANY PURPOSE. seriously. Needs to change.
Colossi are uninteresting. I think they could at least make it better by giving them something like half damage or 3/4 unless they use an ability which gives them more damage than normal. that way they aren't ALWAYS the death-machine they are and would give TvP a much more interesting poke and run and poke and run game.
Warp prisms need a change of some kind. They have their power because of the warp-in future. but maybe P needs a unit that can act as just a drop-ship, one that has actual health to make it more useful.
Yeah, that's about it. HT are fine. warp-in storms were too powerful without a doubt, and P haven't been practicing to get them in before timings at all because of how powerful colossi are. make collosi less of a win button and HT will start seeing more use.
What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
I think the zerg larva mechanic needs a tweak. Yes, it is great that zergs can instant remake their entire army and everything, and can choose to just get an all-in timing at XX drones, but the fact that if they make any small mistake early game they HAVE to stop droning COMPLETELY to compensate for it and thus put them behind on equal bases? It makes particularly the ZvT matchup a bit ridiculous imo. (of course, I think ZvP is stupid too. generally just mass up a shit ton of roaches, maybe with hydras and corruptors or just corruptors and attack unless you do some early all-in kinda thing from either side.)
Zerg needs some kind of tweak to prevent terran from taking space. Yeah, we have creep and banelings. but if the terran gets a raven or scans to kill creep tumors and just slowly encroaches, they have to wait for broodlords to get rid of them without taking heavy damage. and they can't get broodlords early enough sometimes.
Also, I think BW had the right idea when it had dropships being ONLY dropships. Terran medivac dropship options are EXTREMELY powerful. Granted, I don't necessarily think I would tweak this, because it is VERY interesting to watch for games, but there is something about the mechanic that makes it too powerful. That the terran can have a dropship waiting near 1 or 2 expansions, and unless someone has static defenses or an army there, the terran can lose his entire main army but take out almost all of the opponents economy and thus rebuild at his main and win anyways with the greater economy (Note, with the current ZvP style this doesn't really work since T usually wants EVERYTHING in the main engagement because of the power of the colossus.)
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
I almost want to see zergs have two sets of larva for the hatcheries, one for drones and one for units. wouldn't change TOO much about the game, but it would get rid of 6-pools, make ZvZ more interesting (less all-in at the beginnings) and force zergs to play less holy-shit macro-ey and more standard-ish. Would lead to less of the 300 food army and more of the "I'm going to pressure you BACK now." which I don't think we see enough out of pro zergs.
I think Zerg needs its own kind of siege unit, get rid of the broodlord and give us something faster, something that doesn't essentially require 15-20 minutes into the game to get, and something to make a contain against zerg not near game-ending.
Terran mule's should require you having one or two scv's to use them. ;~; but that's just a base-trading zerg whining and wouldn't really make too much of a difference anywhere.
Yeah, if you couldn't tell I'm a zerg, and fully believe that some of my ideas MAY turn out to be overpowered, but that's what playtesting would be for anyways.
P.S. Just for the lols, make a terran whose only base is floating be revealed anyways until he lands. 
|
- What 3 units in the game need to go into the redesign list?
Corrupter, colossus, hydra
- What mechanics do you find needing tweaks? or badly designed.
Would like to see zerg stronger earlier and weaker later. At the moment feeling zerg feels like 'surivive to hive then rollover the enemy'. Needs a way to bust a position other than ultras/broods
Move observer away from the robo so it opens up more tech paths for protoss. Could maybe be built from the cyber core for an increased cost
In general, I think battles are too fast, I'd like to see in general unit hp increased or dps decreased
- What graphic/misc tweaks do you want to see?
More variety in terrain, eg the beach map is great for something different to look at.
- What type of new units/buildings would you like to see?
Would like to see more emphasis on position. Examples:
- either neutral or player built building that gives units within x radius a buff. Could possibly be movable with something similar to root/uproot time
- building that gives passive income (like the oil wells in c&c). This might need removal of Xel'naga towers though to avoid too many points of interest on the map
|
On June 01 2011 11:07 DuckS wrote:
well.. all of the balance whine in this thread is tremendous fun.
units that need revamping:
collosus, thor, corruptor
(i'm a toss player)
collo is just a move, click back for micro. thor is just a move, have fun microing.. and corruptor, again, is just a move (but only for air).
honestly get rid of smart casting or smth as far as game mechanics go (the game is balanced around mbs smart casting and auto mining in a sense, so.. these obviously won't be implemented :/)
as far as units go, i have no clue. i don't feel like any race needs anything.. and it baffles me to see people claiming z doesn't have a placeholder (ehem... broodlords)
Yeah, a placeholder that you can't get until hive tech at 15 minutes at the earliest probably.
Whereas terrans have a bunker 2 minutes into the game and protoss have force fields from a tier one gateway unit.
|
On June 01 2011 09:58 Rococo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 09:34 Carmine wrote:I would like to preface this post by saying that I believe there is two very vocal groups of people who are pushing their opinions. I believe their biases are making their suggestions bad. - Brood War Regressives - They want the lurker and they want T1 hyralisks so bad it hurts.
- Bad people - Think concussive shells and force fields are OP or "boring".
I'd be more interested in hearing why you think their suggestions are bad than the disparaging labels you've come up with to describe them. I second Rococo on this.
To just expand on the subject, I think what people mean by "boring" in most cases is really: a battle happens, player A has unit X, and player B doesn't have unit Y (or infinity unit Y) hence player B just loses his whole frikin' army, in exchange for 3 units for player A. More or less it's no different then very very extended cheeze, since it all boils down to the one battle that makes or breaks everything, instead of multiple (committed) attacks, probably happening in multiple areas in multiple stages of the game.
The infester is probably the most problematic I would say. The problem is not that it doesn't have counters! (it actually has plenty for T & P) It's that countering it doesn't really put you at an advantage. I'll ignore zerg in the discussion since according to blizzard the way to counter infestor is with infestors or infinity ultralisks. :-)
If you counter infestor, what did you gain? You gained nothing, the zerg still has it's big army. The only thing you counter is actually "gg in the next minute" because zerg just killed all your army for free.
- colosus with stalker? MC on colosus, fungal on stalkers, maybe some infested marines
- bioball? fangal
- thors? MC
- heavy air? fungal + infested marines. BCs, Cariers? MC infested marines
- immortals? MC + fungals on other stuff
- cloaked units? fungal (de-cloakes them for your army)
- hellions, repears? fungal
- mutalisk? fungal
- benaling? fungal
- rape enemy expantion/buildings? marines
- (enemy) base defenses? throw some marines around
- drops? fungal
- tanks? infested marines on his army, or MC on tanks, +fungal
- thors? MC
- thors with cannons? MC + cannons
- raven + HSM? (official counter to Inferstor from Blizzard), MC Raven + HSM his army
(HSM used to have range 9, sadly it was nerfed to range 6)
- need harass? burrow + fungal his mineral line
etc. (there isn't anything it doesn't do "terrible terrible damage" to; excepting Ultra :-) )
Now lets look at counters:
(1) blink stalkers (blink into the mass of infestors) -- provided he conveniently keeps them unburrowed and all in one place so you can blink into them.
(2) ghosts -- ideally you should be sniping them (1 ghost @ 200/200 can kill 4 infestors) or otherwise if he has them hidden with other units like maybe burrowed (probably with some decoys), scan + emp
(3) high templar -- feedback or storm.
For (1) fungal hits your stalkers, they can't blink no more. If he has the infestors clump with his army, and/or burrowed, good luck targeting. In the time you took to target fire or even if you got perfect spread fire with the stalkers so the infestors died in record time, if the zerg had good army positioning your stalkers took a good punch to the face in return; and if fungals went off before all died, some stalkers are probably dead.
(2) If infestors are spread out emp isn't so viable, and if you accidentally target a burrowed roach instead of a burrowed infestor it's pretty bad. Equally it takes only one infestor MC a ghost to drain your entire ghost army of energy, or throw 3 snipes off to kill another ghost and have the MC one emp himself (assuming 200/200).
(3) It takes 2 storms to kill 1 infestor (roughly 5.5s) so if you go for storm your probably going to get MC and feedbacked; probably get your army fungal/stormed too. So you probably always want to go for feedback. The problem of burrowed infestors comes into play again. You need detection; and incidentally infestor have fungal to counter detection. You have to get all the infestors, but it takes only 1 infestor to mess you up, and any micro exchange where zerg is still left with some infestors results in your army getting raped.
But what happens if you do kill the infestors? Zerg is usually on more bases then you so they have a ton of larva, and also more gas then you (ideally). So all those infestors that got killed could in theory pop up straight back out if the zerg player has the gas for them. If not it's now up to your army to kill his army. In some cases this might mean zerg loses, but that's not necessarily the case. If you have high templar you might be able to storm once or twice, but your energy is probably drained severly at this point.
So bascially the end result is two armies meet and in a few seconds the game is decided. And that's if the other side tried to counter, ie. "avoid death".
I'm not trying to say it's OP or anything, but having the infestor make or break it is pretty uninteresting and the balance between casters like the infestor and "anti-caster" isn't really very risk/reward from my POV. At least from the player "countering" there's not much reward involved other then not-dieing. It may be "balanced" and depending on which side you're on "fun", but from a spectator standpoint, or from a design standpoint, it's not the greatest balance ever.
Same goes for Colosus vs it's counters: Mass Viking/Corrupter. The difference there is the colosus has things like production strain and you can't just instantly re-produce 9 colusus. The advantage of the player who supposedly countered it is also very iffy (ie. you overcounter = you lost) and even when done properly you don't win because because you're in a better position (viking/corruptor aren't the most useful units ever), but mostly because the protoss is now in a really bad position.
|
On June 01 2011 11:29 Silverfoxx wrote:
...
Yeah, if you couldn't tell I'm a zerg, and fully believe that some of my ideas MAY turn out to be overpowered, but that's what playtesting would be for anyways.
How about we avoid making posts like this. If we're going to have a thinly veiled balance whine thread, how about people actually think their ideas through and try to sketch out the larger consequences of the changes they are proposing.
|
For new units cannot think of any except Lurkers.
Zerg needs positional play rather than just moving in a big ball.
|
As a Brotoss, I'd love to see a redesign on the Sentry...but that means a redesign on Zealots and Stalkers too (and maybe the rest of the Protoss army). Unfortunately, I have no idea how it would/could be done since Toss are so dependent on FFs.
|
On June 01 2011 11:07 DuckS wrote:
well.. all of the balance whine in this thread is tremendous fun.
units that need revamping:
collosus, thor, corruptor
(i'm a toss player)
collo is just a move, click back for micro. thor is just a move, have fun microing.. and corruptor, again, is just a move (but only for air).
honestly get rid of smart casting or smth as far as game mechanics go (the game is balanced around mbs smart casting and auto mining in a sense, so.. these obviously won't be implemented :/)
as far as units go, i have no clue. i don't feel like any race needs anything.. and it baffles me to see people claiming z doesn't have a placeholder (ehem... broodlords)
The problem I have with colossi is that their mere existence makes lategame toss air incredibly bad. To deal with colossi, T and Z need to have air dominance, generally in the form of units that have either a long range and the ability to be easily massed(vikings), or significant bonus damage to massive/armored(corruptors).
In all honesty, I'd be happy with colossi being removed if and only if there's a significant storm buff(100-120 damage, maybe) and/or an immortal upgrade on the robo bay(possibly either armor, range, or minor splash damage).
|
+ Show Spoiler +On June 01 2011 11:47 Black Octopi wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2011 09:58 Rococo wrote:On June 01 2011 09:34 Carmine wrote:I would like to preface this post by saying that I believe there is two very vocal groups of people who are pushing their opinions. I believe their biases are making their suggestions bad. - Brood War Regressives - They want the lurker and they want T1 hyralisks so bad it hurts.
- Bad people - Think concussive shells and force fields are OP or "boring".
I'd be more interested in hearing why you think their suggestions are bad than the disparaging labels you've come up with to describe them. I second Rococo on this. To just expand on the subject, I think what people mean by "boring" in most cases is really: a battle happens, player A has unit X, and player B doesn't have unit Y (or infinity unit Y) hence player B just loses his whole frikin' army, in exchange for 3 units for player A. More or less it's no different then very very extended cheeze, since it all boils down to the one battle that makes or breaks everything, instead of multiple (committed) attacks, probably happening in multiple areas in multiple stages of the game. The infester is probably the most problematic I would say. The problem is not that it doesn't have counters! (it actually has plenty for T & P) It's that countering it doesn't really put you at an advantage. I'll ignore zerg in the discussion since according to blizzard the way to counter infestor is with infestors or infinity ultralisks. :-) If you counter infestor, what did you gain? You gained nothing, the zerg still has it's big army. The only thing you counter is actually "gg in the next minute" because zerg just killed all your army for free. - colosus with stalker? MC on colosus, fungal on stalkers, maybe some infested marines - bioball? fangal - thors? MC - heavy air? fungal + infested marines. BCs, Cariers? MC infested marines - immortals? MC + fungals on other stuff - cloaked units? fungal (de-cloakes them for your army) - hellions, repears? fungal - mutalisk? fungal - benaling? fungal - rape enemy expantion/buildings? marines - (enemy) base defenses? throw some marines around - drops? fungal - tanks? infested marines on his army, or MC on tanks, +fungal - thors? MC - thors with cannons? MC + cannons - raven + HSM? (official counter to Inferstor from Blizzard), MC Raven + HSM his army (HSM used to have range 9, sadly it was nerfed to range 6) - need harass? burrow + fungal his mineral line etc. (there isn't anything it doesn't do "terrible terrible damage" to; excepting Ultra :-) ) Now lets look at counters: (1) blink stalkers (blink into the mass of infestors) -- provided he conveniently keeps them unburrowed and all in one place so you can blink into them. (2) ghosts -- ideally you should be sniping them (1 ghost @ 200/200 can kill 4 infestors) or otherwise if he has them hidden with other units like maybe burrowed (probably with some decoys), scan + emp (3) high templar -- feedback or storm. For (1) fungal hits your stalkers, they can't blink no more. If he has the infestors clump with his army, and/or burrowed, good luck targeting. In the time you took to target fire or even if you got perfect spread fire with the stalkers so the infestors died in record time, if the zerg had good army positioning your stalkers took a good punch to the face in return; and if fungals went off before all died, some stalkers are probably dead. (2) If infestors are spread out emp isn't so viable, and if you accidentally target a burrowed roach instead of a burrowed infestor it's pretty bad. Equally it takes only one infestor MC a ghost to drain your entire ghost army of energy, or throw 3 snipes off to kill another ghost and have the MC one emp himself (assuming 200/200). (3) It takes 2 storms to kill 1 infestor (roughly 5.5s) so if you go for storm your probably going to get MC and feedbacked; probably get your army fungal/stormed too. So you probably always want to go for feedback. The problem of burrowed infestors comes into play again. You need detection; and incidentally infestor have fungal to counter detection. You have to get all the infestors, but it takes only 1 infestor to mess you up, and any micro exchange where zerg is still left with some infestors results in your army getting raped. But what happens if you do kill the infestors? Zerg is usually on more bases then you so they have a ton of larva, and also more gas then you (ideally). So all those infestors that got killed could in theory pop up straight back out if the zerg player has the gas for them. If not it's now up to your army to kill his army. In some cases this might mean zerg loses, but that's not necessarily the case. If you have high templar you might be able to storm once or twice, but your energy is probably drained severly at this point. So bascially the end result is two armies meet and in a few seconds the game is decided. And that's if the other side tried to counter, ie. "avoid death". I'm not trying to say it's OP or anything, but having the infestor make or break it is pretty uninteresting and the balance between casters like the infestor and "anti-caster" isn't really very risk/reward from my POV. At least from the player "countering" there's not much reward involved other then not-dieing. It may be "balanced" and depending on which side you're on "fun", but from a spectator standpoint, or from a design standpoint, it's not the greatest balance ever. Same goes for Colosus vs it's counters: Mass Viking/Corrupter. The difference there is the colosus has things like production strain and you can't just instantly re-produce 9 colusus. The advantage of the player who supposedly countered it is also very iffy (ie. you overcounter = you lost) and even when done properly you don't win because because you're in a better position (viking/corruptor aren't the most useful units ever), but mostly because the protoss is now in a really bad position.
I appreciate your post. I think you had many good points. I will address your comment regarding me.
1. Throughout this thread I have made it relatively clear why I said the things I said. Brood war regressive's ideas my not be inherently bad but they are clearly motivated by nostalgia. Players who are not skilled at the game (bad players) opinions are often based off of things that don't happen in real games. (because of crazy differences in macro.)
I used to be in bronze. SC2 is the first RTS I have played competitively. (not professionally because I am still relatively noob but competitively). I used to think Stalkers were OP because someone massed them against me and beat me even though I had banshees and marines and marauders. Their macro was so much better than mine that even a weakish all purpose unit could beat me in mass. I was the example of the kind of people I am talking about. Not just bronze but even people in diamond have beliefs that are heavily influenced by misconceptions.
2. My original post was not about balance, but about the game being interesting (which is imo is heavily correlated with balance). In that post I talked about a slight nerf to make the Colossus less powerful, specifically in large numbers. This would make several matchups more interesting to me (all matchups involving protoss lol)
Now about your general comment about the infestors:
I Think that you are missing something in your reasoning. You said that in a Ghost vs Infestor matchup that if you neutralize (in one way or another) the infestors you don't gain anything, because the Zerg still has a big army, and multiple bases...
This is wrong. Infestors are an investment. If you are able to keep him from profiting on that investment, especially by doing it in a way that it costs you less than it cost him to invest, then you are gaining an advantage. (of some size)
If he invests 1000 resource into a strategy and you shut it down for 700 resources then you are not back to square one...you are 300 resources ahead.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
