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RavenLoud
Canada1100 Posts
Remove the rooting effect of Fungal Growth on air units, replace with a 50% speed reduction instead. Ground unit are still rooted. It would make pheonix and muta more viable, not sure if zerg will appreciate not being able to kill medivacs with pure infestor but it's worth a try imo. | ||
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Ljack
United States3 Posts
We all know the current state of SC2 Meta game. 5 out of 6 match ups involve FE/Econ+Defensive play which push's first major engagements into mid game. The 6th match up involves a Rock, Paper, Scissors style of game play which in most cases never leaves the early game. Now lets not talk about specific stats, units, or abilities just yet. Instead, let us talk about what the 'strategy' in strategy games should be. Let us envision a hypothetically perfect and balance version of SC2. Now lets have two perfectly equal players match up in a 1v1. In this hypothetical match if both players build towards the same strategy, the game will never be won by skill but instead by random luck. Now lets says at the start of the game Player 1 builds a econ based strategy and Player 2 builds a aggression based strategy. With everything but the two different strategies being equal, we can easily say what will come of this match up. If my investment in minerals creates an army now and your investment in minerals creates a later increase in economic production then if I attack, your screwed and if I don't attack and wait till later, I am screwed. Now with players in real life never being 100% equal, we cannot say for sure if Player 2's aggressive play would actually succeed in countering Player 1's econ strategy. With that said, the game itself should be balanced to the point where if everything was equal, it would. We do not see this in the current meta game of SC2. Now lets get to specifics. We all know that the Queen range buff helped solidified this econ based atmosphere throughout the SC2 community, but before you roll your eyes and say "here it comes", I want to say that I believe it has more to do with the proverbial 'Straw that broke the camel's back' instead of "OP range, OP buff!!!!". How does a simple range increase push 3 match ups (one of which doesn't even involve Queens or the race of Zerg for that matter) into majority mid game styles? In fact, the answer to this question has already been said a thousand times, but the actual cause of the problem gets ignored everyone of these said times. Queen have better range > so they become defensive hogs > Zerg can expand/econ at will > if you don't follow suit, you lose. The key to this is not the range buff but the ability rapidly increase production at minimal early game costs. The defensive aspect that triggers this 'Go econ or die' is only OP because it is in combination with production and econ increases. A Zerg player can play defensive while increasing its unit production, (whether it be for economical purposes or defensive) and gains access to more money Now I know you all had a version of this last paragraph already down in your heads and your saying 'NO SHIT!', but we have two more match ups to talk about that have nothing to do with Queens or Zerg. TvP & TvT have the exact same problem yet it doesn't have a single Queen in sight. Terran goes instant Orbital and expands. Why does it do this? Because it can. It has the ability to defend almost every early game push with relatively perfect results while going an econ/production base build. You can't blame supply depots or blocking ramps just because it cuts off aggression allowing Terran to increase production through mules. Even worse they can dump 400 minerals into an expansion that can be built behind a defended wall and gain the said 400 minerals back with 1 & 1/3 mule while gaining the advantage of increased minerals/vespene. The fact is if players have zero draw backs to defense+production increase, they will do it and it will make everyone else have to as well. Thus creating an majority of match ups to be FE and completely gets rid the basic concept of strategy and war in the first 1/2 to 1/3 of a match in a RTS war based game. Now lets talk about the one match up that doesn't involve FE. Why does PvP have the polar opposite effect of all the other match ups? The answer to this is Protoss’s race specific production ability: Chrono Boost. You don't have to tech to it. You don't have to build it or spawn it in. All you have to do is start the match and wait for the energy to collect. Even worse, this is used in conjunction with an upgrade that increases a specific buildings unit production, 'Research Warp Gate'. So not only are people dumping all there minerals into this tech path, but they are getting 50% faster production. Not to mention when it is done all their Gateways produce units at an increased speed (shaving off somewhere around 7 seconds) and if done right can be instantly produced at your doorstep. Now try and fit in 400 minerals of game time (The rate in which x harvesters mine 400 minerals) in to your build while falling behind to this rapidly productive build order. In all 6 matches ups we find the meta game being effected by early game race specific production abilities. The main reason these abilities have such an effect on the game is due to there minimal or lack of cost (whether it be minerals, time, or disadvantages) in relation to the value of said investment. This kind of production ramping discourages overall early game strategy and limits players to consistent and repetitive game play in the early stages. As for solutions.. that’s extremely hard. Each race's specific production ability is unique and will cause ripples throughout most of the current game flow. The only two things I can say that will help lead this in a right direction is: The higher the cost, the smaller the effect becomes from these abilities. The best example I have of this is from MTG, so if you have played MTG you will understand immediately. Black Lotus, Dark Ritual, Lotus Peddle.. shall I say more? If you don't know MTG I suggest taking a couple moments to research one of the said cards above to get a better understand. All of these cards (and more) have been banned or restricted because of their absolutely abusive nature due to cost to value investment. | ||
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Scrubwave
Poland1786 Posts
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Bagration
United States18282 Posts
On July 04 2012 10:48 Scrubwave wrote: TvZ has become a joke, and the recent statistics and results from matches all around prove it. GSTL, today's TSL qualifiers, Terrans either trying to go for macro and getting roflstomped or going for proxy 2 rax that might occasionally get you a win. While the recent queen buff made actually people look more closely at TvZ, it wasn't even close to perfect before that, even though it was relatively balanced. 1) Queen range- makes Z able to get their third fast, shut down Banshees, Helions, Reapers (lol), basically any kind of early pressure, makes them able to spam creep tumors and often you'll watch games of pro terrans being unable to land their 4th because the creep is already there, while queens on creep with their new range, the ability to transfuse each other and ling support can protect the tumors and control the map in early and early mid game quite easily. 2) Terran detection vs tumors- with more tumors you need to burn way more scans, that's obvious. And while terran is scanning the map and handicapping his economy, zerg can happily drone to 80+. Ravens are the only mobile detection the terran has, which brings us to... 3) Ravens SUCK and fungal ROCKS- as simple as that. For the required amount of tech (only fusion core is higher), gas and survivability, raven is not a viable unit to make. HMS is bad, that's it. Storms and fungals are instant cast and come from cheaper units. Hell, even when HMS launches it can still be avoided completely or the zerg can pull the followed unit away from the rest of his blob. Not to mention the sheer difference in numbers Energy cost: 75 for fungal vs 125 for HSM Range: 9 for fungal vs 6 for HSM Research cost: none vs 150/150 and nearly 2 minutes. I think PDD is okay, the turrets are gimmicky garbage. And of course honourable mention to the fact that only fungal roots units in place and this is by far the biggest problem with it. Force fielded units still can be picked up and dropped outside, storm can be dodged or moved out from, fungal- not so much. And infestors can do it from a safe range of 9, which is more than anything terran has on the ground save for ghost snipe and sieged tanks. Ravens on the other hand are basically sent on a suicide mission when HSM orders are issued. Oh, and ravens are much slower. Adding to everything, I think the queen range buff showed zerg players what they can get away with, but the problem had been there before that. If terran in tvz is supposed to be the aggressor, they need some way of being aggressive and so far every successful aggression has been shut down, more by Blizzard than by zerg players. Why does the answer have to be Ravens? Ravens are seldom used, and it would be nice to see more of them in the current meta, but you can't argue balance simply by comparing two units, the infestor and the raven. Hypothetically, if you were to compare the marine vs the hydralisk, you would likely come to the conclusion that the matchup favors the Terran. I think the TvZ matchup right now does have serious issues, and I think it would be great to see abilities like the HSM used more, but the argument and reasoning you used to arrive at the conclusion I disagree with. | ||
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Scrubwave
Poland1786 Posts
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Shiori
3815 Posts
On July 04 2012 10:48 Scrubwave wrote: TvZ has become a joke, and the recent statistics and results from matches all around prove it. GSTL, today's TSL qualifiers, Terrans either trying to go for macro and getting roflstomped or going for proxy 2 rax that might occasionally get you a win. While the recent queen buff made actually people look more closely at TvZ, it wasn't even close to perfect before that, even though it was relatively balanced. 1) Queen range- makes Z able to get their third fast, shut down Banshees, Helions, Reapers (lol), basically any kind of early pressure, makes them able to spam creep tumors and often you'll watch games of pro terrans being unable to land their 4th because the creep is already there, while queens on creep with their new range, the ability to transfuse each other and ling support can protect the tumors and control the map in early and early mid game quite easily. 2) Terran detection vs tumors- with more tumors you need to burn way more scans, that's obvious. And while terran is scanning the map and handicapping his economy, zerg can happily drone to 80+. Ravens are the only mobile detection the terran has, which brings us to... 3) Ravens SUCK and fungal ROCKS- as simple as that. For the required amount of tech (only fusion core is higher), gas and survivability, raven is not a viable unit to make. HMS is bad, that's it. Storms and fungals are instant cast and come from cheaper units. Hell, even when HMS launches it can still be avoided completely or the zerg can pull the followed unit away from the rest of his blob. Not to mention the sheer difference in numbers Energy cost: 75 for fungal vs 125 for HSM Range: 9 for fungal vs 6 for HSM Research cost: none vs 150/150 and nearly 2 minutes. I think PDD is okay, the turrets are gimmicky garbage. And of course honourable mention to the fact that only fungal roots units in place and this is by far the biggest problem with it. Force fielded units still can be picked up and dropped outside, storm can be dodged or moved out from, fungal- not so much. And infestors can do it from a safe range of 9, which is more than anything terran has on the ground save for ghost snipe and sieged tanks. Ravens on the other hand are basically sent on a suicide mission when HSM orders are issued. Oh, and ravens are much slower. Adding to everything, I think the queen range buff showed zerg players what they can get away with, but the problem had been there before that. If terran in tvz is supposed to be the aggressor, they need some way of being aggressive and so far every successful aggression has been shut down, more by Blizzard than by zerg players. This, this, this! I don't want to sound apocalyptic, but this obsession with macroing (especially with regard to Zerg) being the only viable strategy is destroying the game and making it boring. It's stupid if you can take 3 bases easily and macro up a storm without being vulnerable to anything. It's just stupid. No, I don't care if T or P or whomever can also take 3 bases. It's boring, and it doesn't take that much skill. I'm sorry, but it doesn't take skill to just mindless spread Creep and Drone to infinity. It wouldn't be skillful if Protoss or Terrans could do it either. I'm not saying that Zergs are bad, or something, but the style they're playing is boring and stupid. Every time an aggressive strategy has come out in this game, it's been prematurely nerfed in order to foster this ridiculous obsession with being able to macro to 200/200 unless you "make a mistake." Fuck that. You should be forced to react and deviate from your 200/200 ultimate-style in order to win games. I have no idea why this attitude has evaded so many people, but Korean players seem have to down pat. It was awesome when I, as a Protoss, could pressure a Zerg and know I would force a real reaction. But now that standard play from every race counters basically everything, it's just the same old nonsense over and over. | ||
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SnowFox2ne1
United States52 Posts
On July 04 2012 08:35 RavenLoud wrote: Food for thought. Remove the rooting effect of Fungal Growth on air units, replace with a 50% speed reduction instead. Ground unit are still rooted. It would make pheonix and muta more viable, not sure if zerg will appreciate not being able to kill medivacs with pure infestor but it's worth a try imo. A lot of people have discussed this before, and it has never really seemed to catch on. I see a nerf to infestors in some way coming, as people are now trying to utilize a 30+ infestor style which honestly doesn't die to anything unless they make some kind of huge mistake. Blizzard hate it when one unit can take on every unit comp, or they hate it when terran did it. | ||
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RavenLoud
Canada1100 Posts
Perhaps we could reduce the range of the creep tumor spread range by approximately 1 to test out whether it helps. These are very simple suggestions from a neutral observer. I don't claim to know the game more than Blizzard, but these changes makes sense to me. | ||
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Scrubwave
Poland1786 Posts
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cydial
United States750 Posts
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LuckoftheIrish
United States4791 Posts
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bittman
Australia8759 Posts
On July 04 2012 12:58 LuckoftheIrish wrote: I wonder how a cheapish Raven speed upgrade would change the matchup. Something the same price or thereabouts as Caduceus Reactor. I also kinda like the idea of a really small reduction in creep spread per tumor. Or maybe a small reduction in creep spread time. Speed upgrades are terribly uninspired. I actually hate how HotS gave Hydras speed and everyone went "omg they're fixed now!" Same thing for battlecruisers tbh. Slow units should have their own benefits too, fast units look impressive if they get move micro'd well, but move micro isn't the only way to do things in the game. The Raven is meant to be a slow supportive caster. You don't hear much in the way of asking for sentry speed buffs, they're still so useful though right? If the Raven gets updated, it shouldn't be in speed. Speed should be the realm of super aggro units (zerglings, stimmed marines, zealot charges) or units that are made to get in and get out, harrassment typically (reaper, hellion, phoenix, warp prism, mutas). If a caster can do damage and get out, then you might as well only build them. But even beyond that, a lot of casters do have a way out, but it's not speed based. Infestors can burrow, hold enemies away. Ghosts can cloak. HT can blanket an area with DoT to aid escape. Sentries can hide behind FF. Ravens hide behind auto-turrets (fairly weak), PDD (only works on some units) or Hunter Seeker Missile (125 energy single unit target). If a Raven wants to get away, it should have to sacrifice something for it. Energy is a good sacrifice. Besides, Raven already has like 5 upgrades =S | ||
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DougJDempsey
747 Posts
On July 04 2012 13:21 bittman wrote: Speed upgrades are terribly uninspired. I actually hate how HotS gave Hydras speed and everyone went "omg they're fixed now!" Same thing for battlecruisers tbh. Slow units should have their own benefits too, fast units look impressive if they get move micro'd well, but move micro isn't the only way to do things in the game. The Raven is meant to be a slow supportive caster. You don't hear much in the way of asking for sentry speed buffs, they're still so useful though right? If the Raven gets updated, it shouldn't be in speed. Speed should be the realm of super aggro units (zerglings, stimmed marines, zealot charges) or units that are made to get in and get out, harrassment typically (reaper, hellion, phoenix, warp prism, mutas). If a caster can do damage and get out, then you might as well only build them. But even beyond that, a lot of casters do have a way out, but it's not speed based. Infestors can burrow, hold enemies away. Ghosts can cloak. HT can blanket an area with DoT to aid escape. Sentries can hide behind FF. Ravens hide behind auto-turrets (fairly weak), PDD (only works on some units) or Hunter Seeker Missile (125 energy single unit target). If a Raven wants to get away, it should have to sacrifice something for it. Energy is a good sacrifice. Besides, Raven already has like 5 upgrades =S yes, but imagine a sentry using forcefield once and 70% chance it"ll die while casting it like raven with HSM. Would it still be "so useful" then? | ||
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zalien
United States216 Posts
Recently I have played dozens of ladder games as each race and I have noticed an evolution in metagame in the PvT matchup. Something that I have been doing with great success for nearly a month now seems to have started to catch, a very fast charge expand. The way it works is to get three gates and charge along with only zealots. as soon as charge is about to finish expand, and they get HT after mining off 2 gas for a long time. It has stopped almost everything I have seen including cloaked banshee because templar get out soon enough. I think that this charge with fast storm opener will start to gain popularity as it rips bio to shreds, it will be interesting to see how it works out against possible mech play in HotS, but for now in WoL it could make a big splash in the scene soon, it is certainly a style that has the chance too, if anyone would like more details let me know! I've been experimenting with it a lot and would love to see it at a high masters level and see how well it works! | ||
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bittman
Australia8759 Posts
On July 04 2012 13:38 Digamma wrote: yes, but imagine a sentry using forcefield once and 70% chance it"ll die while casting it like raven with HSM. Would it still be "so useful" then? Of course, that's my point isn't it? I guess I could have been clearer, but basically Raven's have abilities which let them retreat, but they aren't very good at retreating. All of the Raven's abilities don't allow it to engineer a good escape. Auto-turrets are too weak, PDD only works on some units and HSM costs a bunch of energy, only targets one unit, moves slowly and has low range. The reason the Raven can't retreat isn't it's speed. That's my point. Speed it up all you like and you're just making an Oracle0.8 | ||
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FakeDeath
Malaysia6060 Posts
BCs+Vikings+Ravens rape the entire Bls+Infestor army. It was a rare sight to see. Check how he plays TvZ.Certainly worth to watch. The funny thing is that he expand more aggresively than Losira and while at the same time put on pressure by doing multiple drops while transitioning into late game air army(BCs+Ravens+Vikings) | ||
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iky43210
United States2099 Posts
On July 04 2012 14:21 FakeDeath wrote: Guys watch how Hack played lategame TvZ against Losira yesterday in Game 3 Code A Round of 48. BCs+Vikings+Ravens rape the entire Bls+Infestor army. It was a rare sight to see. Check how he plays TvZ.Certainly worth to watch. The funny thing is that he expand more aggresively than Losira and while at the same time put on pressure by doing multiple drops while transitioning into late game air army(BCs+Ravens+Vikings) I kinda glimpse over the game, didn't see any BC? and he had a huge ball of vikings whereas the zerg had like 10 corruptors and not many infestors. Not that surprised it got rolled over. | ||
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sieksdekciw
240 Posts
On July 04 2012 14:21 FakeDeath wrote: Guys watch how Hack played lategame TvZ against Losira yesterday in Game 3 Code A Round of 48. BCs+Vikings+Ravens rape the entire Bls+Infestor army. It was a rare sight to see. Check how he plays TvZ.Certainly worth to watch. The funny thing is that he expand more aggresively than Losira and while at the same time put on pressure by doing multiple drops while transitioning into late game air army(BCs+Ravens+Vikings) Your post has showed us the truth about a successful terran play in tvz. Basically you have to have better multitasking, micro and macro by far, while expanding and dropping on 3 places at the same time and the zerg has to play in a slump (Losira is one of the best zergs out there but I think we both know his performance vs Hack was not one of his highest plays.) I hardly think hack won cause of ravens hsm. For that matter you might say he won cause of neosteel bunker... no, he won just cause simply outplayed his opponent by a huge amount. Once you try him against a zerg more his level, like symbol, you are going to see that infestors still can fungal ravens and that corruptors are far more effective in protecting your broodlords than sitting unused nearby for about 20 seconds. | ||
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Thrombozyt
Germany1269 Posts
On July 04 2012 14:21 FakeDeath wrote: Guys watch how Hack played lategame TvZ against Losira yesterday in Game 3 Code A Round of 48. BCs+Vikings+Ravens rape the entire Bls+Infestor army. It was a rare sight to see. Check how he plays TvZ.Certainly worth to watch. The funny thing is that he expand more aggresively than Losira and while at the same time put on pressure by doing multiple drops while transitioning into late game air army(BCs+Ravens+Vikings) Hack won because Losira's macro slipped and he was indecisive defending/counter attacking. The BCs were just the flourish. To really evaluate BC+raven as a game plan, watch Bomber vs freaky in the Code A RO48 on Atlantis Spacebear. Entertaining game, despite the massive end game air army being killed by mass infestors alone. Despite a lack of neural parasite (which would have made the fight a whole lot easier). | ||
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FakeDeath
Malaysia6060 Posts
On July 04 2012 15:26 sieksdekciw wrote: Your post has showed us the truth about a successful terran play in tvz. Basically you have to have better multitasking, micro and macro by far, while expanding and dropping on 3 places at the same time and the zerg has to play in a slump (Losira is one of the best zergs out there but I think we both know his performance vs Hack was not one of his highest plays.) I hardly think hack won cause of ravens hsm. For that matter you might say he won cause of neosteel bunker... no, he won just cause simply outplayed his opponent by a huge amount. Once you try him against a zerg more his level, like symbol, you are going to see that infestors still can fungal ravens and that corruptors are far more effective in protecting your broodlords than sitting unused nearby for about 20 seconds. I didn't say he won cause of Ravens HSM or Neosteel bunker lol don't even know why he researched it. FYI Symbol lost to a similar style played by Sculp in the GSTL.Though this lategame terran air army is firstly popularized by Bomber first. Mass expanding while applying pressure using multiple drops and transitioning into late game air army(BCs+Ravens+Vikings)is the way to go. People that say terran got no lategame army to compete with Bls+Infestor is wrong. The problem is mainly because zergs can transition into late game army(Bls+Infestor or Ultras) a lot quicker than terran now due to queen buff and minimal defense and focused heavily on tech and economy. If terran can get to the supreme late game with like 5 or 6 bases and get their late game army(BCs+Ravens+Vikings/Ghost if needed),they can compete with the Bls+Infestor army which most terran bitched about. | ||
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