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United States13143 Posts
On March 22 2012 06:42 Empirimancer wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2012 06:20 Chinesewonder wrote: Anyone else feel that BL infestor is quite strong now since the ghost nerf? As a zerg I must say the composition feels very strong (mid masters level) and even watching pro games, the composition seems very strong. Even when lots of vikings are made, the ultra transition can roll them.
Or do you think that it is just a matter of playing the game a different way (aka more harass)? For example I experience a lot of terran QQ at the brood lord infestor composition. However in those games I hardly see any harass what so ever. For example this one game on cloud kingdom, I had 3 completely undefended expansions on the other side of the map, and not one attempt at harass was made. If it was I would have lost 3 expansions right there, plus I would have had to been drawn back to defend and lose position. Then the terran QQ'd about how BL infestor is so OP.
What is your opinion on this? I think the solution is still Ghosts. BL/Infestor isn't as scary if the Infestors don't have energy. I dunno, Stephano specifically pointed at Polt's lack of ghosts as a strength in his play. Stephano is obviously not guaranteed to be right, but I'm pretty sure he will be correct far more often than not.
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Problem: Warp gates are a broken mechanic. Protoss got along fine in Broodwar without it, and can do the same here.
Result: Metagame is changed, more unit balance (Making Protoss units stronger), and late game is not determined by 50 zealot warpins after both armies melt each other.
Side Effect: Protoss must macro better.
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Problem: Ultralisk pathing with mass Zerglings.
Solution: Make Ultralisks have 0 footprint with regards to (only) Zerglings, similar to the Colossus. Completely solves the Ultralisk Dance Problem when trying to navigate through a swarm of Zerglings. My logical reason behind it is Zerglings are small and fast enough to avoid Ultralisk feet.
Side Effects: None that I can think of, other than improving the Zergling/Ultralisk composition.
Problem: Warpgate technology potentially negates Defender's Advantage and map size considerations with relatively little effort.
Solution Make Warp-ins possible from Warp Prism ONLY. Make Warpgates only able to warp in at a Warp Prism. With no Warp Prism in play, you'd have to switch your Warpgates back into Gateways to resume production.
Side Effects: This change would seriously affect one of the core mechanics of the race negatively and would almost certainly unbalance PvZ and PvT in the current state of SC2. With no similar mechanics on Terran and Zerg side, this would maybe put too much stress on Protoss play.
On the other hand, it would still be a desireable tech for harass play and reinforcements. It could introduce potential micro and decision making, when to switch between gate states and how many to switch. It brings the most useless ability back into the game. And from a personal perspective, it feels like something that it should've been balanced around from the start.
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Problem:
In general I'm seeing a lot of Zerg late games, particularly on the latest string of super-huge maps, where the Zerg just simply turtles, and gets around the 200 supply cap by merely pouring all thier money into spine crawlers and spore crawlers. The result is a game where the Zerg is on one base versus 3 or 5 from the opponent, but the opponent is still at risk of losing if he ever tries to engage the entrenched position.
The other races can do this to some extent too, but they have the issue that money spent entrenching a position is wasted once that position is no longer relevant; such is the general idea of static defenses and the primary reason static defenses get to be stronger than other options for their cost. Spine and spore crawlers, on the other hand, can move forward for a slow offensive or simply migrate to a new base the opponent gets impatient and tries to attack before the 1 hour 15 minute mark and the armies trade enough to make that safe. Zerg also doesn't need much space for sufficient infrastructure to make units; this lets them be much more free with their defenses. Also, Brood Lords' main ability, more so than their damage, is the ability to block movement with their broodlings, which just reinforces the Zerg's incentive to be passive
This isn't really so much of a game balance issue so much as a game design issue. A game that is a contest to see who can resist the urge to do stuff 30 minutes longer than the opponent just isn't much fun to play or to watch.
Solution:
My gut reaction is to suggest spine and spore crawlers retain the 1 supply cost of the drone that made them, though on its own that would be pretty brutal for their use as early game defense. Maybe there could be some sort of hard static defense "supply" cap (for all races), like how the game hard caps mobile armies to 200 supply?
Side Effects:
Some form of capping an amount of static defenses could become a problem for maps which are sufficiently large as to legitimately require that large a quantity of static defenses to defend each of your bases, without an abusive pure turtling going on.
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On March 22 2012 12:11 Crow! wrote: Problem:
In general I'm seeing a lot of Zerg late games, particularly on the latest string of super-huge maps, where the Zerg just simply turtles, and gets around the 200 supply cap by merely pouring all thier money into spine crawlers and spore crawlers. The result is a game where the Zerg is on one base versus 3 or 5 from the opponent, but the opponent is still at risk of losing if he ever tries to engage the entrenched position.
The other races can do this to some extent too, but they have the issue that money spent entrenching a position is wasted once that position is no longer relevant; such is the general idea of static defenses and the primary reason static defenses get to be stronger than other options for their cost. Spine and spore crawlers, on the other hand, can move forward for a slow offensive or simply migrate to a new base the opponent gets impatient and tries to attack before the 1 hour 15 minute mark and the armies trade enough to make that safe. Zerg also doesn't need much space for sufficient infrastructure to make units; this lets them be much more free with their defenses. Also, Brood Lords' main ability, more so than their damage, is the ability to block movement with their broodlings, which just reinforces the Zerg's incentive to be passive
This isn't really so much of a game balance issue so much as a game design issue. A game that is a contest to see who can resist the urge to do stuff 30 minutes longer than the opponent just isn't much fun to play or to watch.
Solution:
My gut reaction is to suggest spine and spore crawlers retain the 1 supply cost of the drone that made them, though on its own that would be pretty brutal for their use as early game defense. Maybe there could be some sort of hard static defense "supply" cap (for all races), like how the game hard caps mobile armies to 200 supply?
instead of this solution you can just go kill him with Tanks/Ultralisk/Broodlords/Colossis.
edit: or you can simply starve him out by denying his every attempt to expand by parking your army outside of his base and killing everything.
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In case it wasn't clear, I was assuming a maxed brood lord / corruptor / infestor army over the crawlers, so that from P colossi aren't sufficient and a good vortex hit is required, and from T nothing works until the corrupters are dead (insert typical ghost nerf complaint here). Haven't seen a ZvZ go this long, but broodlings stop ultras dead in their tracks to an awfully embarassing degree so I'd be shocked if that were the answer.
The "starve him out" answer is apparently the correct answer, but that still doesn't actually kill him; the best choice becomes to continue starving him for the 20-45 minutes (depending on the map) to get as huge an infrastructure and bank as the map permits before moving in... which is the whole issue.
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On March 22 2012 11:48 EienShinwa wrote: Problem: Warp gates are a broken mechanic. Protoss got along fine in Broodwar without it, and can do the same here.
Result: Metagame is changed, more unit balance (Making Protoss units stronger), and late game is not determined by 50 zealot warpins after both armies melt each other.
Side Effect: Protoss must macro better. The side effect is just completely clueless.
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Northern Ireland23785 Posts
On March 22 2012 11:48 EienShinwa wrote: Problem: Warp gates are a broken mechanic. Protoss got along fine in Broodwar without it, and can do the same here.
Result: Metagame is changed, more unit balance (Making Protoss units stronger), and late game is not determined by 50 zealot warpins after both armies melt each other.
Side Effect: Protoss must macro better. I'm all for this, as a Protoss player. Blizzard may be loathe to make such a hardcore switch in the design of the race, but then they completely overhauled Warcraft three when the first expansion came out.
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On March 22 2012 11:48 EienShinwa wrote: Problem: Warp gates are a broken mechanic. Protoss got along fine in Broodwar without it, and can do the same here.
Result: Metagame is changed, more unit balance (Making Protoss units stronger), and late game is not determined by 50 zealot warpins after both armies melt each other.
Side Effect: Protoss must macro better. Honestly, I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, having Protoss reinforce with Zerg-like numbers of zealots can win the game easily, and leads to Terrans having even more of a "going against the clock" type situation. But if they took out warp-tech and buffed gateway units, then that would 2-base aggression (for example) vs. Zerg on small maps almost unbeatable (at least in a somewhat economic fashion). It would lead to a huge metagame shift and I don't know if it would really be balance-able with the current state of things.
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On March 22 2012 12:39 ipwntbarney wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2012 11:48 EienShinwa wrote: Problem: Warp gates are a broken mechanic. Protoss got along fine in Broodwar without it, and can do the same here.
Result: Metagame is changed, more unit balance (Making Protoss units stronger), and late game is not determined by 50 zealot warpins after both armies melt each other.
Side Effect: Protoss must macro better. Honestly, I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, having Protoss reinforce with Zerg-like numbers of zealots can win the game easily, and leads to Terrans having even more of a "going against the clock" type situation. But if they took out warp-tech and buffed gateway units, then that would 2-base aggression (for example) vs. Zerg on small maps almost unbeatable (at least in a somewhat economic fashion). It would lead to a huge metagame shift and I don't know if it would really be balance-able with the current state of things.
I dunno, most of the protoss push timings are based around getting a proxy pylon down and warping in as the protoss advances, making the attacking army bigger and bigger. If they had to walk across map then their timings would all be different giving zerg more time to prepare.
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On March 22 2012 12:39 ipwntbarney wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2012 11:48 EienShinwa wrote: Problem: Warp gates are a broken mechanic. Protoss got along fine in Broodwar without it, and can do the same here.
Result: Metagame is changed, more unit balance (Making Protoss units stronger), and late game is not determined by 50 zealot warpins after both armies melt each other.
Side Effect: Protoss must macro better. Honestly, I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, having Protoss reinforce with Zerg-like numbers of zealots can win the game easily, and leads to Terrans having even more of a "going against the clock" type situation. But if they took out warp-tech and buffed gateway units, then that would 2-base aggression (for example) vs. Zerg on small maps almost unbeatable (at least in a somewhat economic fashion). It would lead to a huge metagame shift and I don't know if it would really be balance-able with the current state of things. It doesn't necessarily mean that every gateway unit needs a buff like zealot for example. That unit already has good amount of health and damage. I also pretty sure most zergs can handle 2-base aggression's very well regardless of the buffs, maybe even easier since protoss wouldn't be able to reinforce his army at the front of your base that easily. That is of course me thinking that the warp gate upgrade would be put higher in the tech tree, since it is a non-brainer upgrade to get right now.
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On March 22 2012 12:39 ipwntbarney wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2012 11:48 EienShinwa wrote: Problem: Warp gates are a broken mechanic. Protoss got along fine in Broodwar without it, and can do the same here.
Result: Metagame is changed, more unit balance (Making Protoss units stronger), and late game is not determined by 50 zealot warpins after both armies melt each other.
Side Effect: Protoss must macro better. Honestly, I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, having Protoss reinforce with Zerg-like numbers of zealots can win the game easily, and leads to Terrans having even more of a "going against the clock" type situation. But if they took out warp-tech and buffed gateway units, then that would 2-base aggression (for example) vs. Zerg on small maps almost unbeatable (at least in a somewhat economic fashion). It would lead to a huge metagame shift and I don't know if it would really be balance-able with the current state of things.
If warpgate was removed, then Protoss would never have the numbers to make a 2 base push unstoppable. Usually they just warp in 1-2 rounds of units after warpgate is finished and then push. Without it, Protoss would have to wait for the gateways to finish and then another 40 seconds for whatever units to finish.
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On March 22 2012 14:07 Kharnage wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2012 12:39 ipwntbarney wrote:On March 22 2012 11:48 EienShinwa wrote: Problem: Warp gates are a broken mechanic. Protoss got along fine in Broodwar without it, and can do the same here.
Result: Metagame is changed, more unit balance (Making Protoss units stronger), and late game is not determined by 50 zealot warpins after both armies melt each other.
Side Effect: Protoss must macro better. Honestly, I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, having Protoss reinforce with Zerg-like numbers of zealots can win the game easily, and leads to Terrans having even more of a "going against the clock" type situation. But if they took out warp-tech and buffed gateway units, then that would 2-base aggression (for example) vs. Zerg on small maps almost unbeatable (at least in a somewhat economic fashion). It would lead to a huge metagame shift and I don't know if it would really be balance-able with the current state of things. I dunno, most of the protoss push timings are based around getting a proxy pylon down and warping in as the protoss advances, making the attacking army bigger and bigger. If they had to walk across map then their timings would all be different giving zerg more time to prepare. I guess I was assuming that the buffs would be relatively large. Like making zealots start off with like 200 hp and 2-shotting lings. Because then, even small numbers of units would be so cost-efficient vs. Zerg's T1, that just the threat of a push would be enough to seriously mess with the Zerg's economy because of the larva cost of all the lings and needing gas for roaches. I guess it would depend on how big the buffs to the gateway units would be.
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On March 22 2012 14:31 ipwntbarney wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2012 14:07 Kharnage wrote:On March 22 2012 12:39 ipwntbarney wrote:On March 22 2012 11:48 EienShinwa wrote: Problem: Warp gates are a broken mechanic. Protoss got along fine in Broodwar without it, and can do the same here.
Result: Metagame is changed, more unit balance (Making Protoss units stronger), and late game is not determined by 50 zealot warpins after both armies melt each other.
Side Effect: Protoss must macro better. Honestly, I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, having Protoss reinforce with Zerg-like numbers of zealots can win the game easily, and leads to Terrans having even more of a "going against the clock" type situation. But if they took out warp-tech and buffed gateway units, then that would 2-base aggression (for example) vs. Zerg on small maps almost unbeatable (at least in a somewhat economic fashion). It would lead to a huge metagame shift and I don't know if it would really be balance-able with the current state of things. I dunno, most of the protoss push timings are based around getting a proxy pylon down and warping in as the protoss advances, making the attacking army bigger and bigger. If they had to walk across map then their timings would all be different giving zerg more time to prepare. I guess I was assuming that the buffs would be relatively large. Like making zealots start off with like 200 hp and 2-shotting lings. Because then, even small numbers of units would be so cost-efficient vs. Zerg's T1, that just the threat of a push would be enough to seriously mess with the Zerg's economy because of the larva cost of all the lings and needing gas for roaches. I guess it would depend on how big the buffs to the gateway units would be.
If they did nothing apart from change the build time for zealots from gateways to the same build time as zealots from warp gates 2 gate proxy would be super hard for zerg to deal with.
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Problem: Warp gate remax is a broken mechanic.
Solution: Have warp gates sit with a full cooldown if the Protoss player is maxed. Cooldown on the gateways begin once supply is freed.
Result: Metagame is changed, and late game is not determined by 50 zealot warpins after both armies melt each other.
Side Effect: Protoss must macro better.
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On March 22 2012 07:29 -NegativeZero- wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2012 06:47 StarscreamG1 wrote: Problem: Late TvP
Solution Increase viking ground DPS
Side Effects: Unknown. The problem with increasing viking ground DPS is that they can then kill workers really quickly - you can just land them in a mineral line, wipe it out, and run away. They used to do 14 damage instead of 12, which 3 shots workers, and they were nerfed because of this. A slight decrease in the attack cooldown wouldn't be too bad I guess. Woah, woah, woah. Increase viking ground dps? Who to the what now?
Fun fact: an unupgraded viking in ground mode has more flat dps than a +3 stalker does against armoured. Like, already.
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On March 22 2012 12:05 GaiaCaT wrote: Problem: Ultralisk pathing with mass Zerglings.
Solution: Make Ultralisks have 0 footprint with regards to (only) Zerglings, similar to the Colossus. Completely solves the Ultralisk Dance Problem when trying to navigate through a swarm of Zerglings. My logical reason behind it is Zerglings are small and fast enough to avoid Ultralisk feet.
Side Effects: None that I can think of, other than improving the Zergling/Ultralisk composition. One side effect I can come up with is that Ultralisks cant block enemy Zerglings anymore and that might be desirable. Sure it will attack a whole bunch of them while they are running past it, but the attack isnt that fast and a few could get through. There would be an increased surface area due to this against Zerglings and that might not be a good thing despite the Ultralisks "AoE attack".
Coding such a thing would be a "special ability" since it would be given only to Zerglings and not other small and light units (Marines, Zealots, ...), which might be a good thing as well to get more "stompy stompy" on a mass of them (just drop one Ultralisk into a mass of Marines and you get a load of damage). Such unit-specific things havent been included into the game and usually abilities / immunities have been linked to a characteristic of the unit (massive, armored, ...), so I highly doubt it will make sense for Zerglings only.
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On March 22 2012 14:47 chadissilent wrote: Problem: Warp gate remax is a broken mechanic.
Solution: Have warp gates sit with a full cooldown if the Protoss player is maxed. Cooldown on the gateways begin once supply is freed.
Result: Metagame is changed, and late game is not determined by 50 zealot warpins after both armies melt each other.
Side Effect: Protoss must macro better. The solution to the Warp Gate mechanic is NOT to have it increase the prodution speed but rather have a longer cycle for Warp Gates. This would enable the players to choose between - having Gateways with faster production OR - producing through Warp Gates but anywhere you need.
That would add depth to the game and would remove the "totally necessary for every Protoss"-sticker from the Warp Gate research. Sure being able to produce anywhere is nice, but if the other building produces faster you have a choice to make ... and that is GOOD for a strategy game.
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On March 22 2012 11:27 ThomasHobbes wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2012 07:57 Bagi wrote:On March 22 2012 06:20 Chinesewonder wrote: Anyone else feel that BL infestor is quite strong now since the ghost nerf? As a zerg I must say the composition feels very strong (mid masters level) and even watching pro games, the composition seems very strong. Even when lots of vikings are made, the ultra transition can roll them.
Or do you think that it is just a matter of playing the game a different way (aka more harass)? For example I experience a lot of terran QQ at the brood lord infestor composition. However in those games I hardly see any harass what so ever. For example this one game on cloud kingdom, I had 3 completely undefended expansions on the other side of the map, and not one attempt at harass was made. If it was I would have lost 3 expansions right there, plus I would have had to been drawn back to defend and lose position. Then the terran QQ'd about how BL infestor is so OP.
What is your opinion on this? I saw Kas play a TvZ today, it was close positions on Antiga. His opponent took the usual 3 bases and then took the gold expansion on his side. Kas tried to drop but it was no used as his opponent wasn't stretched out at all and his lings could reach every base in mere seconds. Eventually his 200/200 marine/tank/thor/viking lost the engagement despite having a huge concave, he killed plenty of lings and corruptors but only 1-2 broodlords and infestors. gg. I certainly think the unit composition is problematic. I don't think zerg is significantly overpowered or anything, but I think that every unit composition should have its counter - assuming your opponent has a good enough economy, you should be able to build an army that can take your opponents army head on. Currently its not the case with BL infestor, as no terran army can fight BL/infestor in a cost efficient manner. I guess its also worth noting that a BL infestor army is so much easier to control than its supposed counter army. Ghosts? EMP radius is too small to effectively counter infestors. Its great against high templar because of the unit size, not so much against infestor. You could try cloak + snipe, but that really relies on your opponent messing up with his detection. Ghosts were great against broodlords because they could take them head on with snipes, now they have to find a way around them to get where the infestors are hiding. A good zerg won't let that happen, just ask Stephano. Oh, and I haven't even touched the issue where you manage to kill the BL army but the zerg remaxes on ultra/ling. Good times. I think Blizzard should take a look at the raven and find ways to make it the proper counter for this composition. It seems like a natural extension to the viking style, but its just bad in its current state since it takes too long to gather energy and you seeker missile might never land because you get caught in a fungal. I don't think buffing ravens would become an issue to protoss as long as you only adjust seeker missile (PDD buff would help 1-1-1) and keep the spell ranges somewhat short. That way feedback will always provide a solid counter to any raven shenanigans. Ultimately I consider BL/infestor a kinda broken unit comp since protoss cannot engage it without abusing a bug (archon toilet) and terran cannot engage it at all. However, fundamentally changing it would have too many implications and I feel its best left for HOTS. Broodlord / Infestor is Zerg's only cost-efficient composition. Zerg plays against stronger, more cost and supply-efficient armies all game long in ZvT and ZvP. Getting near maxed with Broodlord / Infestor means that the Terran / Protoss was doing something wrong, he did not manage to kill, limit, or weaken the Zerg despite his significant advantage up until that point. The Zerg ouplayed him, got a much better economy, and used it to create a composition which could finally take the Terran / Protoss on. Zerg cannot break entrenched Terrans without Broodlord / Infestor, that's why there's no cost-efficient counter. There are counters, and Zergs must be careful about control or they risk losing the huge advantage they gained all game long, but there is no hard counter because that wouldn't make any sense. Broodlord / Infestor is the means by which a Zerg in a superior position ends the game. If he isn't in the lead he can't go infestor / broodlord and have enough to win. The problem here is that Terrans see the Broodlord / Infestor composition, and think that the composition itself is the reason they lost. No, they lost because they got behind, and infestor / broodlord is just the Zergs only means of exploiting that advantage. I've seen plenty of games where a zerg and terran remain on roughly equal bases, trade armies at equal effectiveness and then suddenly the terran loses every battle since the zerg got BL/infestor out. No real eco disadvantage for the terran player, he just didn't kill the zerg apparently fast enough. Zergs are getting better and better at playing defensive with pure ling/festor, which is extremely cost effective as long as you keep the infestors alive and transitions to broodlords very well.
Broodlord/infestor absolutely needs a harder counter. Zerg is not meant to be the deathball race in the first place, they rely on outproducing their opponent which they definitely have the tools for. Giving them by far the strongest army in the game too is just madness, a maxed terran or protoss army should have an edge over the zerg army if they built the proper units. Zerg armies in general are not very cost effective, but this is for a reason - their superior production and expanding capabilities.
Broodlord/infestor can be the counter to entrenched terrans even if terrans had better options at dealing with them. This would just mean that if the zerg was actually ahead, they could finish the game with the composition. Currently if all other things are equal and the zerg gets to that stage, the terran player just dies. You have to cripple the zerg in the early/midgame to have a chance against it, and its what all the terrans are complaining about - you are fighting against the clock in TvZ. It's just bad design when a macro game is out of the question for one race.
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I'd say it's about time to give a raven some sort of a buff. It's doesn't need to be major, just to tell players to start using it. I'm getting tired of seeing terran players floating thousands of gas past the midgame then complain that the other races's high tech army is too powerful.
An acceleration buff would be perfect (maybe even a speed buff but that won't be necessary.) It also increases manoeuvering potentials, the science vessel in BW was a fast and agile unit, of course ravens aren't the same, but they aren't as satisfying to use partly because of a lack of nimbleness.
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