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I really don't like all this data-based balancing. Somehow it assumes that the players measured are of equal level, which they are not, or that they are all equally good in every matchup (which they are not either).
In the current state of the game, you can easily make the case that the better players participating in a tournament will make it to the ro4, unless they are not on top of their game that day.
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On December 15 2014 20:11 Swisslink wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2014 20:07 TheDwf wrote:On December 15 2014 20:05 Swisslink wrote:On December 15 2014 20:02 SC2Toastie wrote:On December 15 2014 20:01 mCon.Hephaistas wrote:On December 15 2014 19:56 SC2Toastie wrote:It's slightly worrysome Zerg manages to BARELY not get to the top all the time. Most qualified locations are Rank 2 for Zerg, and they have the most players at number 3. Whilst Top 3 balance looks good, Zerg is in the bottom of that. Problem is, how (if we want to) could we adjust this? We're talking about the tiniest of tiny margins. Should we just wait it out a little bit for the new map pool? On December 15 2014 19:52 Karpfen wrote:What are those? If I recall correctly, that is Code S racial distribution of 2014 S2, 2014 S3 and 2015 S1. What he is saying is that things aren't as bad as they were when Terran was underpowered. I personally disagree with the sentiment "Protoss and Zerg was OP early 2014 so now its our turn NAH NAH!", but well, that seems to be what he's aiming at. EDITED you edited the post  You realise in most of those qualifier groups there are only 3/4 decent players that can actually compete for a code S spot? Yes, I do. I haven't looked at specifics, but it's notable that Zerg has performed a tiny margin below the other races in a couple of qualifiers and for quite a while. Dreampool obviously did nothing to help us in this, so it's something to keep an eye out on for sure. "wait and see" is normally a bad idea if the first season of the two biggest tournaments of the year are played with the current mappool. (Or won't they? Maybe the tournament organizers want to see some Zerg in Ro8 and adhust the mappool themselves? During #Dreampool that should be allowed?) The map pool for WCS 2015 Season 1 is yet to be announced I know, but GSL/SSL start before WCS 2015. I assume that Blizzard's gonna start the new ladder season at the same time (and therefore with the same map pool) as WCS S1. But what about the tournaments that happen before that (-> during "offseason", or #Dreampool)? Are they forced to use the 2014 S3 map pool or are they allowed to come up with their own maps? And since SSL starts... the day after tomorrow... So... which map pool will they use there? xD
Same as qualificaiton, probably.On December 15 2014 20:13 Clonester wrote: They are allowed to use whatever Maps they want. Sadly most teams use S3 Pool. Those are the tried and tested maps. I doubt any players would be happy with an entirely new set of maps to learn for just one round of a tournament.
A lot of the problems come down to Blizzard forcing this Dreampool bullshit down our throats...
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16 Brackets 1 Win for Zerg Yieeah T_T
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On December 15 2014 20:17 maartendq wrote: I really don't like all this data-based balancing. Somehow it assumes that the players measured are of equal level, which they are not, or that they are all equally good in every matchup (which they are not either).
In the current state of the game, you can easily make the case that the better players participating in a tournament will make it to the ro4, unless they are not on top of their game that day. The problem is, following that logic, we can never estimate balance...
It's jsut rough estimations, that is why we use balance over a longer period of time, because there is so much variance possible in player skill etc. By taking a longer area, at least there is more data that should even those things somewhat out.
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On December 15 2014 20:18 SC2Toastie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 15 2014 20:11 Swisslink wrote:On December 15 2014 20:07 TheDwf wrote:On December 15 2014 20:05 Swisslink wrote:On December 15 2014 20:02 SC2Toastie wrote:On December 15 2014 20:01 mCon.Hephaistas wrote:On December 15 2014 19:56 SC2Toastie wrote:It's slightly worrysome Zerg manages to BARELY not get to the top all the time. Most qualified locations are Rank 2 for Zerg, and they have the most players at number 3. Whilst Top 3 balance looks good, Zerg is in the bottom of that. Problem is, how (if we want to) could we adjust this? We're talking about the tiniest of tiny margins. Should we just wait it out a little bit for the new map pool? On December 15 2014 19:52 Karpfen wrote:What are those? If I recall correctly, that is Code S racial distribution of 2014 S2, 2014 S3 and 2015 S1. What he is saying is that things aren't as bad as they were when Terran was underpowered. I personally disagree with the sentiment "Protoss and Zerg was OP early 2014 so now its our turn NAH NAH!", but well, that seems to be what he's aiming at. EDITED you edited the post  You realise in most of those qualifier groups there are only 3/4 decent players that can actually compete for a code S spot? Yes, I do. I haven't looked at specifics, but it's notable that Zerg has performed a tiny margin below the other races in a couple of qualifiers and for quite a while. Dreampool obviously did nothing to help us in this, so it's something to keep an eye out on for sure. "wait and see" is normally a bad idea if the first season of the two biggest tournaments of the year are played with the current mappool. (Or won't they? Maybe the tournament organizers want to see some Zerg in Ro8 and adhust the mappool themselves? During #Dreampool that should be allowed?) The map pool for WCS 2015 Season 1 is yet to be announced I know, but GSL/SSL start before WCS 2015. I assume that Blizzard's gonna start the new ladder season at the same time (and therefore with the same map pool) as WCS S1. But what about the tournaments that happen before that (-> during "offseason", or #Dreampool)? Are they forced to use the 2014 S3 map pool or are they allowed to come up with their own maps? And since SSL starts... the day after tomorrow... So... which map pool will they use there? xD Same as qualificaiton, probably. Show nested quote +On December 15 2014 20:13 Clonester wrote: They are allowed to use whatever Maps they want. Sadly most teams use S3 Pool. Those are the tried and tested maps. I doubt any players would be happy with an entirely new set of maps to learn for just one round of a tournament. A lot of the problems come down to Blizzard forcing this Dreampool bullshit down our throats...
Dreampool is definitely the problem, agreed there.
And: Same as qualification would be... not tooooo bad. I mean, KSS and Overgrowth are decent maps. What I'm worried about are the two additional maps, because it's gonna be Bo5.
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good thing you're not in charge of the map pool
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the first two are quite nice, 8 player is too large and very boring, the other gives you 3/4 bases without moving your army, that's a bit meh in my book...
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On December 15 2014 20:18 xGameMamba wrote: 16 Brackets 1 Win for Zerg Yieeah T_T
8 third places though!
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What would you guys think about a "new" overseer upgrade, for helping zerg a little bit against widow mines?
In broodwar, there was the Antennae upgrade, which increased the sight range of all Overlords.
In sc2 i often have the problem with zerg, that i dont know how many widow mines there are burrowed with the terran army. For example, just the 2 at the front or 5 more at the back?
Possible upgrade: Antennae(100 minerals, 100 gas): Increases the Range of the detector ability of the overseer from 11 to 13.
Vision would still be at 11 like before. The Zerg player would have to use some other units (some zerglings) to use the advantage of this upgrade. The Zerg player wouldnt have better Information about the Army of the terran/protoss itself, just better information about how many widow mines they are facing.
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On December 16 2014 03:34 Flopgun wrote: What would you guys think about a "new" overseer upgrade, for helping zerg a little bit against widow mines?
In broodwar, there was the Antennae upgrade, which increased the sight range of all Overlords.
In sc2 i often have the problem with zerg, that i dont know how many widow mines there are burrowed with the terran army. For example, just the 2 at the front or 5 more at the back?
Possible upgrade: Antennae(100 minerals, 100 gas): Increases the Range of the detector ability of the overseer from 11 to 13.
Vision would still be at 11 like before. The Zerg player would have to use some other units (some zerglings) to use the advantage of this upgrade. The Zerg player wouldnt have better Information about the Army of the terran/protoss itself, just better information about how many widow mines they are facing.
This would also hurt Protoss (DTs, observers)
A new map pool could flip balance stats completely. This should wait until then.
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it would be time to fix Z AA (which will be even more horrible in LotV with all the air buffs for T and P). we already see mass spores as the only viable AA option which obv means Z has to turtle and that option is gone in LotV).
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there are other ways to do that. For example you could run in a couple spreaded out lings or lead the charge with beefier units. I wouldnt mind if there was an upgrade though because its a reasonable tradeoff. DTs / obs dont get hurt that much. P often loses its obs because they dont control them individually. With the speed upgrade at robo bay and some micro you can keep it alive even with a 13 detector range i think.
DT wouldnt mind either because they die anyways if you send in detection so the difference would be a couple milliseconds. And if you catch a DT *only* because you upgraded detection range then thats a rare situation which balances off the cost of the upgrade.
In general options like this dont have a big impact on balance i don't think. In my book there could be more upgrades for everything as long as they focus on utility. If an upgrade has just *raw* fighting power then thats a different story. It then has to be something that demands tons of micro for example so it doesnt just make your race stronger in general or else it would count as a pure buff.
In the other hand all the races have alot of underused but very powerful utility which are not used very often. Just to name a few:
burrow is heavily underused to protect drones vs harass (T can scan but P and Z have to commit more to harassment if they want to detect burrowed drones)
viking transform is apparently very powerful but it demands alot of attention and apm so we dont see it that often
nydus networks are a risky offensive utility but very strong defensively with slow compositions like roach hydra or swarm hosts
carefully placed pylon networks are still a rare feat
burrowed zerglings to deny expansions
offensive sensor towers
etc
so there's so much utility and even more that alot of players miss out on up to the highest levels. The bottom line is Idc if there was even more utility and upgrades. I would even find that really cool. But I don't think anyone is in the position to complain as long as we don't explore and regularly use the stuff that is allready there and very powerful and cheap.
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On December 16 2014 04:18 clickrush wrote: so there's so much utility and even more that alot of players miss out on up to the highest levels. The bottom line is Idc if there was even more utility and upgrades. I would even find that really cool. But I don't think anyone is in the position to complain as long as we don't explore and regularly use the stuff that is allready there and very powerful and cheap.
It's your word that those things are powerful and cheap against the experience of thousands of players and hundreds of progamers who all have tried and dismissed that kind of stuff... Like... offensive sensor towers? Are you even playing the game? When can Terran stay so close to the enemy bases for it to be built and then used? I mean, you understand how small the radius of a sensor tower is for that kind of purpose? You'd need to build it somewhere between 2nd&3rd or 3rd&4th base of your opponent to get any use out of it... Or defensive nydus: 150/200 for the network 100/100 for each worm ... for the costs alone to connect 2-3bases you can spine/spore up 1-2bases. But then the static defense works without any usage of APM. The nydus worm needs lots of attention and especially more money/supply tied up in units to make it work.
Defensive burrow is nice in rare scenarios, but in 90% of all cases (like against zealots or roaches) it's just better to run the drones away. They aren't mining in either scenario, but with burrow you endanger them from being detected, with running they are just safe if you react fast enough. In nearly any position in which you even have burrow for damage preventition your problem isn't how to safe the drones, but reacting fast enough.
burrowed zerglings to deny expansions as well as pylons all across the map aren't rare... Viking transform isn't even an upgrade, no clue what you are talking about with that one...
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SSL SPOILERS ! ! ! ! !
So, I have a minor complaint on how TvP lategame works out ^_^ This is a result of watching the series in SSL today.
The problem is with the Zealot. More specifically, the low amounts of attention the Zealot needs compared to the countermicro that is required from Terran, but also the lack of micro that can be spend on Zealots.
It is very visible in SSL Game 3 between Classic and Cure, where Classic made a ton of Zealots, Cure kills the collosi and kites the Zealots until they pretty much all die. There is nothing Classic can do in such a situation; either he retreats and loses units to Concussive Shells, or he moves on and tries to equalize the damage he takes by sniping Medivacs and Vikings with his Stalkers. Whilst he proceeds to win the game, I noticed this stupid situation in the game.
In Game 5 the exact opposite happens. Classic shows and excellent understanding of the matchup and abuses the excessive amounts of micro and attention Terran needs to spend on units to trade efficiently for 10 minutes. Charge Zealots have such a good AI, speed and strenght they trade really efficiently with Terran bio. As a rule of thumb, bio needs to be in about 1.5x the supply for Terran to only Stim and trade well. If Terran has less supply at location, he'll have to kite to ensure a decent trade. Now, this is a stupid situation as it's either... or .... Terran either loses a marauder for 4 Zealots, or he loses 3 marauders and 4 marines for 4 zealots. The only difference is whether the Terran player can spend the time on handling the engagement.
Now, Classic abuses this 'imbalance' in attention required. On King Sejong Station, he greatly abuses the AI on Zealots by repeating the same pattern over and over and over. A) he moves a force of approx. 6 Zealots to Cure's natural or fifth expansion. B) he moves his army towards Cures fifth base and C) he does some move with a pair of High Templar. The problem lies in the fact that each and every of these moves is a simple move command for Classic whilst looking at the High Templar to aim his storms and the minimap to retreat his main army. For Cure, however, this means extremely careful micro in 3 locations. Verse the Zealots, he needs to scramble an army at location, either position it in a tight choke (TIGHT!, thanks to Charge) or kite. He meanwhile needs to perfectly position his main army so his Ghost and Vikings zone out Classics main army, AND he has to be watching the minimap to respond within a second to minimize the damage the HT are going to do.
Classic won this game five after being behind by messing up an engagement and macro-ing like a silver leaguer only by repeating this pattern.
I have thought of two possible solutions for this. A: change Warpgate. Won't happen, so I'll ignore that. The second one is to change the Charge upgrade to increase movement speed and possibly decrease the effect of movement restricting spells like Concussive Shells, Fungal Growth and Time Warp (either by 100% or by a lower percentage) and remove the actual Charge. Note, this is not necessarily a nerf. Zealots move faster across the map and they will become substantially better when micro'd compared to the current situation in which micro usually decreases their effectiveness compared to a simple amove.
This change completely changes the Zealot verse kiting bio scenario. Currently, Zealots sort of 'shuffle' when being kited: the Zealots in the back Charge, get a free hit on the bio, and are now in front. Combined with Concussive Shells, this perfectly distributes damage across all Zealots that are following the Bio army, forcing Terran to kite continuously until most zealots are dead. This is because a 10 HP Zealot still deals the same amount of damage a 150 HP Zealot deals. Protoss, on the other hand, cannot really do anything. Retreating means just losing some Zealots. Good bio players will abuse this majorly. I think this interaction might be a part in why Protoss needs to have it's long range AOE: it covers the Zealots and removes the scenario of Terran continuously poking the Protoss army with impunity (See for an example of this Maru in Proleague earlier this year - his relentless pokes essentially force Protoss to take a late third because without a good number of Collosi, Maru kites the army back and forth until there is simply nothing left). Now, with this change in effect, Protoss first of all gets the flexibility to disengage from Terran without taking major losses. This decreases the snowballing effect where Protoss is really never allowed to disengage (one of the reasons we have Recall in it's current form). Protoss harassment will also cost more attention. Without Charge, Zealots won't get free hits in and Terran has an easier time abusing Terrain against Protoss.
As a first noteworthy side effect, this change may help the beloved Templar openings. The aforementioned problem of Terran poking and kiting until there is nothing left to shoot at is greatly reduced by this, because the reliance on long range damage (Psionic Storm) is reduced and can to some extend be compensated for by Photon Overcharge and Immortals when defending to get the Templar transition done. It also helps with suiciding Zealots into the Bio Ball to drag Mines, as Marauders won't stop them dead in their tracks.
For other matchups, in PvP I cannot estimate the effects. On one hand, Zealots will move faster through Time Warp, but they will usually be more clumped up against Archons, unless split up ahead of time. The initial clash of Zealots into army will occur a second later because the armies do not activate Charge. This may have as a result that heavy Zealot armies get somewhat less popular. On the other hand, in extended engagements and for flanking, Zealots will be better.
I don't expect big effects for PvZ. Charge Zealots are not a popular go-to for the main army. They may see a slight increase in utility as they are no longer pinned by Fungal Growth. They will also be faster when Protoss wants to dump Zealots into spread out Zerg bases and they may be stronger against a Swarm Host Zerg (when well microed). Zerg, on the other hand, should have an easier time defending against them as they no longer automatically shuffle the high health Zealots forwards.
I'm interesting in hearing other opinions on the matter. I want to emphasize again: Zealot Charge upgrade is changed to Zealot Leg Enhancement, which increases Movement Speed and gives a resistance to spells that effect movement. This is not a buff, nor a nerf, it's a change.
Have a good day, Toastie
TLDR: Zealot Charge changed to a new upgrade than increases movement speed and gives a resistance to movement reduction (Concussive Shells, Fungal etc). Pro: Zealots are more microable, Protoss army can disengage better, may be a buff to Templar Openers, faster attacking at distant locations. Con: Zealots require more attention because they no longer shuffle when kited, they autosurround slower.
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On December 16 2014 04:38 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 04:18 clickrush wrote: so there's so much utility and even more that alot of players miss out on up to the highest levels. The bottom line is Idc if there was even more utility and upgrades. I would even find that really cool. But I don't think anyone is in the position to complain as long as we don't explore and regularly use the stuff that is allready there and very powerful and cheap. Like... offensive sensor towers? Are you even playing the game? When can Terran stay so close to the enemy bases for it to be built and then used? I mean, you understand how small the radius of a sensor tower is for that kind of purpose? You'd need to build it somewhere between 2nd&3rd or 3rd&4th base of your opponent to get any use out of it... I would like to make on small nitpick in here: In TvT seeing offensive Sensor Towers is not unheard of. They can keep track of the army. I think I've also seen it in TvP when Protoss plays Phoenix Collosus in combination with Missile Turrets to essentially create an unbreakable location (I think it was TY or Bbyong verse Myungsik, can't recall the exact game. map was Foxtrot Labs). Lastly, Mech sometimes does it in slowpushing (usually coupled with taking an opponents expansion). I think this is a use of the Tower that is exciting and still somewhat unexplored.
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On December 16 2014 03:34 Flopgun wrote: What would you guys think about a "new" overseer upgrade, for helping zerg a little bit against widow mines?
In broodwar, there was the Antennae upgrade, which increased the sight range of all Overlords.
In sc2 i often have the problem with zerg, that i dont know how many widow mines there are burrowed with the terran army. For example, just the 2 at the front or 5 more at the back?
Possible upgrade: Antennae(100 minerals, 100 gas): Increases the Range of the detector ability of the overseer from 11 to 13.
Vision would still be at 11 like before. The Zerg player would have to use some other units (some zerglings) to use the advantage of this upgrade. The Zerg player wouldnt have better Information about the Army of the terran/protoss itself, just better information about how many widow mines they are facing.
WM is the last unit Zerg should be helped against. It is literally the equivalent to Banelings vs Terran, you look away from your screen for a second and your army evaporates. Zerg have a unit like that against Terran, Terran needs to have a unit like that against Zerg.
Overseer movement speed already makes it trivially easy to take out WMs with Mutas in many cases.
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On December 18 2014 03:46 pure.Wasted wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 03:34 Flopgun wrote: What would you guys think about a "new" overseer upgrade, for helping zerg a little bit against widow mines?
In broodwar, there was the Antennae upgrade, which increased the sight range of all Overlords.
In sc2 i often have the problem with zerg, that i dont know how many widow mines there are burrowed with the terran army. For example, just the 2 at the front or 5 more at the back?
Possible upgrade: Antennae(100 minerals, 100 gas): Increases the Range of the detector ability of the overseer from 11 to 13.
Vision would still be at 11 like before. The Zerg player would have to use some other units (some zerglings) to use the advantage of this upgrade. The Zerg player wouldnt have better Information about the Army of the terran/protoss itself, just better information about how many widow mines they are facing. WM is the last unit Zerg should be helped against. It is literally the equivalent to Banelings vs Terran, you look away from your screen for a second and your army evaporates. Zerg have a unit like that against Terran, Terran needs to have a unit like that against Zerg. Overseer movement speed already makes it trivially easy to take out WMs with Mutas in many cases. Whilst I disagree with the first statement, Overseer speed makes detection of mines easy enough. 2 additional detection range won't help you in estimating the amount of mines, you'll need scouting beforehand and gamesense for that.
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