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On July 17 2012 10:04 TheShimmy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2012 08:24 s1ege wrote:On July 17 2012 08:21 Toadvine wrote:On July 17 2012 07:06 Shiori wrote:
Here are my suggestions for fixing the Zerg race (preferably I would have them all applied unless otherwise specified):
1) Reduce Larva spawned from Inject by 1
2) Larva cannot be stacked past 7 (willing to negotiate higher rates for Lair/Hive)
3) Creep recedes MUCH more quickly than it already does. The space covered by a single tumor should take no more than 10 seconds to recede.
4) Either Roach HP reduced or gas increased to 50 (may not be necessary with Larva nerf, but we'll see).
5) Queen armour type changed to Armoured so that Void Rays are actually relevant again.
6) BL supply increased by 2 in order to prevent 30BL + 16 Infestor stupidity in the lategame.
Sounds harsh, but this would fix the game. Zerg players would be forced to take risks and try to make their opponents react rather than just sitting back and fending off all pressure with Roach/Ling, Queens, and standard play.
Even if these changes ended up making Zerg too weak (which is doubtful) they would improve the style of the game, which means that we could buff any T/P strategies that become too powerful. But a game in which Zerg is losing because its abilities to pressure don't have enough punch is something which we can fix, whereas the game we have right now shows a fundamental brokenness in the Zerg's very mechanics, and that's much more significant and cries out for change.
TL;DR: yes, the changes I propose are harsh, but they will improve the game. If the changes make Zerg too weak, then we can buff OTHER parts of the Zerg race while keeping the overall nerfs to the macro mechanics and basic units, because these are far too systemically imbalanced to keep. Rather than straight up nerfing Spawn Larvae, I'd prefer something like making inject cost 12.5 energy and produce 2 larvae, That way, you actually need to spend minerals on more hatches if you want more production. Don't think you need to nerf any units (perhaps you'd need to buff lings slightly, since they suffer the most from a nerf to larvae generation). I'd rather if Void Rays were simply removed from the game, and Fungal would not hit air anymore (or, not root air at the very least). This would also solve the Broodlord problem, as it would be impossible to counter any air transition with mass Infestor. Fungal should become a combination of Ensnare and Plague in any case, because currently it's really fucking stupid. Byun plays a nearly flawless game against Symbol, is way ahead, and then loses because a Fungal catches all his Vikings twice. It's just dumb as hell, and made all the more aggravating by Zerg players telling Terrans to split their units, while at the same time complaining about FF after having their army headbutt them and helplessly die to Colossus fire. If Zergs suddenly had to do be half as careful and meticulous with their armies as P and T need to when playing against Zerg, their tears would blot out the sun. Or we could just simply remove infestors and bring back defilers Seconded. Idk why people bitch so much about zerg. The key to beat zerg is out-scouting and timing the big push for either race right before the zerg techs to hive. If they get up to hive then you failed to capatilize on the mid-game advantage and yeah you lose.
Which means the Protoss or Terran are required to outplay the Zerg every time or the Zerg has to make mistakes every time. If two players are of equal skill, it's an auto-win for Zerg. You say those things like it's easy to do; it's not. Right now, Queens can simply defend everything early game that is harass and not all-in then after they tech to infestors with support units, it's a win for Zerg unless they make a mistake and get vortexed or the ghosts EMP the infestors or something.
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This game is probably as balanced as it possibly can be but the problems are in the core design. Terran is the only race that cant max out like protoss and zerg do with warp gates and larva mechanics. What terran had in the beginning whas a ridiculously overpowered early game to compensate for its disadvantages. I dont know what blizzard can actually do to fix this because buffing or nerfing units will no longer work. It has become really bad for terran and I'm beginning to fear that in the end blizzard will suffer reputation damage when they arent able to shape up WoL.
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On July 17 2012 09:59 Zealot Lord wrote:
Personally, I don't think mid-late/late game zerg itself is hopelessly broken or anything, it tends to feel like that, but its because they are already in such an advantageous position by the time it reaches that point. A lot of people point out the race's ability to remax instantly being too strong and whatnot, but that can only happen with an existing big resource bank. And in my humble opinion there lies the problem, zergs ability to deflect most early game pressures too cost efficiently. Right now a lot of harassments can be held off just fine with minimal lings/roaches if you just get more queens. Which is a problem as building queens for defense is not even an opportunity cost, because there is so much utility for them.
So what you are left with is zerg being mostly undisrupted in their macro, by the 15-20min mark they have a huge supply lead with a sizable bank; that even trading armies well as a terran/toss feels futile because soon enough there is another similar wave coming at you again, but only this time you have like maybe 60% the previous army size. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the thing people are frustrated with is the fact that you have to consistently trade ultra cost efficiently to have a chance to even consider doing a counterattack, trade slightly bad once and you know the game is over already.
I would like to see a small change on the PTR or something (say queens raised to 200 minerals for instance) and see how it changes the overall flow of the game. I'm not trying to say that queens are overpowered per se, but they seem a bit too cheap considering how all-purpose they are right now - it turns so many of the pressure attacks into somewhat of an all-in already, which is terrible for gameplay imo. I'm not a fan of big nerfs for any race, so I would much rather prefer a subtle change that reduces the rate of momentum zerg gains.
This is so spot on. If you actually compare units just straight up in combats and simulate even supply or even cost combats, zergs don't tend to perform better than T/P armies. But well, zerg has had an economy edge over Protoss for the longest time and therefore Protoss has to attack before Zerg can emphasize too much on it. So when the drone investments haven't quite paid off and the tech isn't quite up.
In TvZ, it was quite even (economywise) for the longest time, and more often than once you'd see high level Terrans even with small "standard" macro advantages over zerg. (faster third bases, 3OC on 2base vs 2base, both fully saturated, but terran with extra mules) and in that metagame, Terran did extraordinarily well.
The queen change however, has made it quite easy to get 3bases extremly fast AND power drones off them.
Zerg simply should not have 3-4 bases, 70drones, fully evolved lair tech, 2-2 on the way and complete mapcontrol at 11mins. Right now I feel like, you don't have to make a lot of choices when you play TvZ. You basically just get everything that is useful and safely work towards either an Ultralisk timing, or a 10min long Broodlord domination, until the Terran has transitioned into something that can beat them, or one of you is worn down from continous Terran basetrade attempts to avoid army fights.
Yes, the strategic choices for zerg are kind of restricted early on, but that doesn't mean that the early game should just be skipped until Zerg is ready for combat. The balancing should rather be the other way around. At first make Zerg ready for combat and then let us work for droning windows.
I wanna see how a zerg can get a BL/Inf/Cor ball up before 20-25mins, when he still has to think about building up economy at 12mins. And I wanna see how Terrans cry, because they are forced to deal with an angry 2-3base zerg that does have similar macro + aggressive openings, as Terrans used to have with all their hellions, banshees and early drops while building 3CC. (sadly noone is going to include my wonderful preroach/micro roach idea :D - but hopefully swarm hosts can give us some 2base options)
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On July 17 2012 09:59 Zealot Lord wrote:
Personally, I don't think mid-late/late game zerg itself is hopelessly broken or anything, it tends to feel like that, but its because they are already in such an advantageous position by the time it reaches that point. A lot of people point out the race's ability to remax instantly being too strong and whatnot, but that can only happen with an existing big resource bank. And in my humble opinion there lies the problem, zergs ability to deflect most early game pressures too cost efficiently. Right now a lot of harassments can be held off just fine with minimal lings/roaches if you just get more queens. Which is a problem as building queens for defense is not even an opportunity cost, because there is so much utility for them.
So what you are left with is zerg being mostly undisrupted in their macro, by the 15-20min mark they have a huge supply lead with a sizable bank; that even trading armies well as a terran/toss feels futile because soon enough there is another similar wave coming at you again, but only this time you have like maybe 60% the previous army size. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the thing people are frustrated with is the fact that you have to consistently trade ultra cost efficiently to have a chance to even consider doing a counterattack, trade slightly bad once and you know the game is over already.
I would like to see a small change on the PTR or something (say queens raised to 200 minerals for instance) and see how it changes the overall flow of the game. I'm not trying to say that queens are overpowered per se, but they seem a bit too cheap considering how all-purpose they are right now - it turns so many of the pressure attacks into somewhat of an all-in already, which is terrible for gameplay imo. I'm not a fan of big nerfs for any race, so I would much rather prefer a subtle change that reduces the rate of momentum zerg gains.
Great insight.
Now the statement that Zerg is OP mostly diverges into two arguments:
1. Zerg's macro mechanism is OP
2. Zerg's army strength (especially late-game) is OP
Saying Queen is OP is basically the first argument, since the logic of Queen being OP is the same as saying that "no damage to zerg economy early ----> zerg's economy grows faster than other two races later". This is an indirect statement that Zerg's macro mechanism is OP.
Therefore, as always, to address the first type of OPness, the solutions can be either revert the queen change (so other two races can do economic damage early ----> equal economy later), or nerf the Zerg's macro mechanism (most people argue reduce the larvae produced from injection by 1)
To address the second type of OPness, the solutions are more debatable but most people argue some sorts of nerfs to roach, infestor, or Broodlord.
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On July 17 2012 10:22 derpinator wrote:
This game is probably as balanced as it possibly can be but the problems are in the core design. Terran is the only race that cant max out like protoss and zerg do with warp gates and larva mechanics. What terran had in the beginning whas a ridiculously overpowered early game to compensate for its disadvantages. I dont know what blizzard can actually do to fix this because buffing or nerfing units will no longer work. It has become really bad for terran and I'm beginning to fear that in the end blizzard will suffer reputation damage when they arent able to shape up WoL.
Some sort of researchable upgrade that allows units to be deployed onto the field once production has completed (like the pod things that drop from the sky in the campaign). Obviously this would have to be a late game upgrade and probably only apply to bio reinforcements.
There would need to be reductions to attack or damage scaling for late game bio TvP for this to be balanced though i think.
Perhaps if terrans had some kind of Drop Beacon that could float around with a phase in mechanic (similar to warp prisms but without the drop-ship capacity) Think like a flying pylon with low hp. Food for thought.
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On July 17 2012 10:52 larse wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2012 09:59 Zealot Lord wrote:
Personally, I don't think mid-late/late game zerg itself is hopelessly broken or anything, it tends to feel like that, but its because they are already in such an advantageous position by the time it reaches that point. A lot of people point out the race's ability to remax instantly being too strong and whatnot, but that can only happen with an existing big resource bank. And in my humble opinion there lies the problem, zergs ability to deflect most early game pressures too cost efficiently. Right now a lot of harassments can be held off just fine with minimal lings/roaches if you just get more queens. Which is a problem as building queens for defense is not even an opportunity cost, because there is so much utility for them.
So what you are left with is zerg being mostly undisrupted in their macro, by the 15-20min mark they have a huge supply lead with a sizable bank; that even trading armies well as a terran/toss feels futile because soon enough there is another similar wave coming at you again, but only this time you have like maybe 60% the previous army size. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the thing people are frustrated with is the fact that you have to consistently trade ultra cost efficiently to have a chance to even consider doing a counterattack, trade slightly bad once and you know the game is over already.
I would like to see a small change on the PTR or something (say queens raised to 200 minerals for instance) and see how it changes the overall flow of the game. I'm not trying to say that queens are overpowered per se, but they seem a bit too cheap considering how all-purpose they are right now - it turns so many of the pressure attacks into somewhat of an all-in already, which is terrible for gameplay imo. I'm not a fan of big nerfs for any race, so I would much rather prefer a subtle change that reduces the rate of momentum zerg gains.
Great insight. Now the statement that Zerg is OP mostly diverges into two arguments: 1. Zerg's macro mechanism is OP
2. Zerg's army strength (especially late-game) is OPSaying Queen is OP is basically the first argument, since the logic of Queen being OP is the same as saying that "no damage to zerg economy early ----> zerg's economy grows faster than other two races later". This is an indirect statement that Zerg's macro mechanism is OP. Therefore, as always, to address the first type of OPness, the solutions can be either revert the queen change (so other two races can do economic damage early ----> equal economy later), or nerf the Zerg's macro mechanism (most people argue reduce the larvae produced from injection by 1) To address the second type of OPness, the solutions are more debatable but most people argue some sorts of nerfs to roach, infestor, or Broodlord.
Or they can simply remove warp gate from protoss, reactors from terran, and larva inject from Zerg. Also one thing I'd like to say is that I think sc2 is too worker focused. They only mine 5 per miner and 4 gas. Blizzard should make them mine 8 minerals and 5 gas with only 1 gas per base
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On July 17 2012 07:06 BIZNESofKLLN wrote:
I'm not sure why everybody is so overly concerned about balance at the moment. Z is without a doubt the best race in the game right now. It cannot be argued. All you have to do is look at recent tournament results to see the trend. However, none of that matters guys. Reason being is that none of you are playing in these top level tournaments.
No, but I'm watching those top level tournaments, and I'd honestly rather stab myself in the eye than watch any more Mothership vs Broodlord turtlefests.
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On July 17 2012 11:01 s1ege wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2012 10:52 larse wrote:On July 17 2012 09:59 Zealot Lord wrote:
Personally, I don't think mid-late/late game zerg itself is hopelessly broken or anything, it tends to feel like that, but its because they are already in such an advantageous position by the time it reaches that point. A lot of people point out the race's ability to remax instantly being too strong and whatnot, but that can only happen with an existing big resource bank. And in my humble opinion there lies the problem, zergs ability to deflect most early game pressures too cost efficiently. Right now a lot of harassments can be held off just fine with minimal lings/roaches if you just get more queens. Which is a problem as building queens for defense is not even an opportunity cost, because there is so much utility for them.
So what you are left with is zerg being mostly undisrupted in their macro, by the 15-20min mark they have a huge supply lead with a sizable bank; that even trading armies well as a terran/toss feels futile because soon enough there is another similar wave coming at you again, but only this time you have like maybe 60% the previous army size. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the thing people are frustrated with is the fact that you have to consistently trade ultra cost efficiently to have a chance to even consider doing a counterattack, trade slightly bad once and you know the game is over already.
I would like to see a small change on the PTR or something (say queens raised to 200 minerals for instance) and see how it changes the overall flow of the game. I'm not trying to say that queens are overpowered per se, but they seem a bit too cheap considering how all-purpose they are right now - it turns so many of the pressure attacks into somewhat of an all-in already, which is terrible for gameplay imo. I'm not a fan of big nerfs for any race, so I would much rather prefer a subtle change that reduces the rate of momentum zerg gains.
Great insight. Now the statement that Zerg is OP mostly diverges into two arguments: 1. Zerg's macro mechanism is OP
2. Zerg's army strength (especially late-game) is OPSaying Queen is OP is basically the first argument, since the logic of Queen being OP is the same as saying that "no damage to zerg economy early ----> zerg's economy grows faster than other two races later". This is an indirect statement that Zerg's macro mechanism is OP. Therefore, as always, to address the first type of OPness, the solutions can be either revert the queen change (so other two races can do economic damage early ----> equal economy later), or nerf the Zerg's macro mechanism (most people argue reduce the larvae produced from injection by 1) To address the second type of OPness, the solutions are more debatable but most people argue some sorts of nerfs to roach, infestor, or Broodlord. Or they can simply remove warp gate from protoss, reactors from terran, and larva inject from Zerg. Also one thing I'd like to say is that I think sc2 is too worker focused. They only mine 5 per miner and 4 gas. Blizzard should make them mine 8 minerals and 5 gas with only 1 gas per base
You forgot to remove Chronoboost and MULE, but once all of them are gone the game should be much easier to balance due to being slower paced and not focused on HUGE economy and production. I am all for that ...
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On July 17 2012 10:52 larse wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2012 09:59 Zealot Lord wrote:
Personally, I don't think mid-late/late game zerg itself is hopelessly broken or anything, it tends to feel like that, but its because they are already in such an advantageous position by the time it reaches that point. A lot of people point out the race's ability to remax instantly being too strong and whatnot, but that can only happen with an existing big resource bank. And in my humble opinion there lies the problem, zergs ability to deflect most early game pressures too cost efficiently. Right now a lot of harassments can be held off just fine with minimal lings/roaches if you just get more queens. Which is a problem as building queens for defense is not even an opportunity cost, because there is so much utility for them.
So what you are left with is zerg being mostly undisrupted in their macro, by the 15-20min mark they have a huge supply lead with a sizable bank; that even trading armies well as a terran/toss feels futile because soon enough there is another similar wave coming at you again, but only this time you have like maybe 60% the previous army size. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the thing people are frustrated with is the fact that you have to consistently trade ultra cost efficiently to have a chance to even consider doing a counterattack, trade slightly bad once and you know the game is over already.
I would like to see a small change on the PTR or something (say queens raised to 200 minerals for instance) and see how it changes the overall flow of the game. I'm not trying to say that queens are overpowered per se, but they seem a bit too cheap considering how all-purpose they are right now - it turns so many of the pressure attacks into somewhat of an all-in already, which is terrible for gameplay imo. I'm not a fan of big nerfs for any race, so I would much rather prefer a subtle change that reduces the rate of momentum zerg gains.
Great insight. Now the statement that Zerg is OP mostly diverges into two arguments: 1. Zerg's macro mechanism is OP
2. Zerg's army strength (especially late-game) is OPSaying Queen is OP is basically the first argument, since the logic of Queen being OP is the same as saying that "no damage to zerg economy early ----> zerg's economy grows faster than other two races later". This is an indirect statement that Zerg's macro mechanism is OP. Therefore, as always, to address the first type of OPness, the solutions can be either revert the queen change (so other two races can do economic damage early ----> equal economy later), or nerf the Zerg's macro mechanism (most people argue reduce the larvae produced from injection by 1) To address the second type of OPness, the solutions are more debatable but most people argue some sorts of nerfs to roach, infestor, or Broodlord.
I would much rather it wasn't just a blanket nerf to larva. As a spectator, the game is far better if the economy is slowed by the opponent actually attacking.
TvZ was universally considered the most entertaining matchup because economic damage mattered, so there was constant action. TvZ has now degenerated to what PvZ has always been - fast all in to avoid midgame, or bilateral turtling straight to a late game economy.
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On July 17 2012 15:46 yeint wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2012 10:52 larse wrote:On July 17 2012 09:59 Zealot Lord wrote:
Personally, I don't think mid-late/late game zerg itself is hopelessly broken or anything, it tends to feel like that, but its because they are already in such an advantageous position by the time it reaches that point. A lot of people point out the race's ability to remax instantly being too strong and whatnot, but that can only happen with an existing big resource bank. And in my humble opinion there lies the problem, zergs ability to deflect most early game pressures too cost efficiently. Right now a lot of harassments can be held off just fine with minimal lings/roaches if you just get more queens. Which is a problem as building queens for defense is not even an opportunity cost, because there is so much utility for them.
So what you are left with is zerg being mostly undisrupted in their macro, by the 15-20min mark they have a huge supply lead with a sizable bank; that even trading armies well as a terran/toss feels futile because soon enough there is another similar wave coming at you again, but only this time you have like maybe 60% the previous army size. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the thing people are frustrated with is the fact that you have to consistently trade ultra cost efficiently to have a chance to even consider doing a counterattack, trade slightly bad once and you know the game is over already.
I would like to see a small change on the PTR or something (say queens raised to 200 minerals for instance) and see how it changes the overall flow of the game. I'm not trying to say that queens are overpowered per se, but they seem a bit too cheap considering how all-purpose they are right now - it turns so many of the pressure attacks into somewhat of an all-in already, which is terrible for gameplay imo. I'm not a fan of big nerfs for any race, so I would much rather prefer a subtle change that reduces the rate of momentum zerg gains.
Great insight. Now the statement that Zerg is OP mostly diverges into two arguments: 1. Zerg's macro mechanism is OP
2. Zerg's army strength (especially late-game) is OPSaying Queen is OP is basically the first argument, since the logic of Queen being OP is the same as saying that "no damage to zerg economy early ----> zerg's economy grows faster than other two races later". This is an indirect statement that Zerg's macro mechanism is OP. Therefore, as always, to address the first type of OPness, the solutions can be either revert the queen change (so other two races can do economic damage early ----> equal economy later), or nerf the Zerg's macro mechanism (most people argue reduce the larvae produced from injection by 1) To address the second type of OPness, the solutions are more debatable but most people argue some sorts of nerfs to roach, infestor, or Broodlord. I would much rather it wasn't just a blanket nerf to larva. As a spectator, the game is far better if the economy is slowed by the opponent actually attacking. TvZ was universally considered the most entertaining matchup because economic damage mattered, so there was constant action. TvZ has now degenerated to what PvZ has always been - fast all in to avoid midgame, or bilateral turtling straight to a late game economy.
Being FORCED or REQUIRED to attack Zerg early to have a chance to win is actually bad, because you should be able to "outeconomize" or "outstrategize" them in any form. Letting a Zerg get to a huge economy just means you will lose most likely. Sure there are certain pros who can win against unwinnable odds, but the majority of us will simply lose. TvZ is boring, because bio loses as soon as the Zerg hits a decent supply of Infestors (supported by ling-Baneling) and mech loses right after they have lost the majority of their siege tanks to one attack wave and when the Zerg have rebuilt their whole army in one production cycle. There is no way for Terrans to make a Zerg trade cost inefficient in the late game unless the Zerg goes for mass Ultralisks without good support.
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On July 17 2012 15:53 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2012 15:46 yeint wrote:On July 17 2012 10:52 larse wrote:On July 17 2012 09:59 Zealot Lord wrote:
Personally, I don't think mid-late/late game zerg itself is hopelessly broken or anything, it tends to feel like that, but its because they are already in such an advantageous position by the time it reaches that point. A lot of people point out the race's ability to remax instantly being too strong and whatnot, but that can only happen with an existing big resource bank. And in my humble opinion there lies the problem, zergs ability to deflect most early game pressures too cost efficiently. Right now a lot of harassments can be held off just fine with minimal lings/roaches if you just get more queens. Which is a problem as building queens for defense is not even an opportunity cost, because there is so much utility for them.
So what you are left with is zerg being mostly undisrupted in their macro, by the 15-20min mark they have a huge supply lead with a sizable bank; that even trading armies well as a terran/toss feels futile because soon enough there is another similar wave coming at you again, but only this time you have like maybe 60% the previous army size. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the thing people are frustrated with is the fact that you have to consistently trade ultra cost efficiently to have a chance to even consider doing a counterattack, trade slightly bad once and you know the game is over already.
I would like to see a small change on the PTR or something (say queens raised to 200 minerals for instance) and see how it changes the overall flow of the game. I'm not trying to say that queens are overpowered per se, but they seem a bit too cheap considering how all-purpose they are right now - it turns so many of the pressure attacks into somewhat of an all-in already, which is terrible for gameplay imo. I'm not a fan of big nerfs for any race, so I would much rather prefer a subtle change that reduces the rate of momentum zerg gains.
Great insight. Now the statement that Zerg is OP mostly diverges into two arguments: 1. Zerg's macro mechanism is OP
2. Zerg's army strength (especially late-game) is OPSaying Queen is OP is basically the first argument, since the logic of Queen being OP is the same as saying that "no damage to zerg economy early ----> zerg's economy grows faster than other two races later". This is an indirect statement that Zerg's macro mechanism is OP. Therefore, as always, to address the first type of OPness, the solutions can be either revert the queen change (so other two races can do economic damage early ----> equal economy later), or nerf the Zerg's macro mechanism (most people argue reduce the larvae produced from injection by 1) To address the second type of OPness, the solutions are more debatable but most people argue some sorts of nerfs to roach, infestor, or Broodlord. I would much rather it wasn't just a blanket nerf to larva. As a spectator, the game is far better if the economy is slowed by the opponent actually attacking. TvZ was universally considered the most entertaining matchup because economic damage mattered, so there was constant action. TvZ has now degenerated to what PvZ has always been - fast all in to avoid midgame, or bilateral turtling straight to a late game economy. Being FORCED or REQUIRED to attack Zerg early to have a chance to win is actually bad, because you should be able to "outeconomize" or "outstrategize" them in any form. Letting a Zerg get to a huge economy just means you will lose most likely. Sure there are certain pros who can win against unwinnable odds, but the majority of us will simply lose. TvZ is boring, because bio loses as soon as the Zerg hits a decent supply of Infestors (supported by ling-Baneling) and mech loses right after they have lost the majority of their siege tanks to one attack wave and when the Zerg have rebuilt their whole army in one production cycle. There is no way for Terrans to make a Zerg trade cost inefficient in the late game unless the Zerg goes for mass Ultralisks without good support.
I don't agree at all. Starcraft is a game of asymmetry. It's perfectly fine for one race to be better at macro if left alone - the larva mechanic is specifically suited to reward the opponent's aggression. It allows for posturing and feints. The Zerg should have to decide whether to spend larva on units or drones. In current ZvT they just spam drones.
As to infestors, fungal is just complete bullshit and should be entirely reworked.
Changes to consider:
* Limit 1 queen per hatch, remove food cost.
* Hydra den to tier 1.
* Fungal damage reduced by 25%, root removed, replaced by silence (can't stim, blink, medivacs can't heal, motherships can't vortex, sentries can't FF, templars can't storm, ghosts can't snipe or emp). Would turn Infestor into a proper anti-caster unit like other casters are, while not being a straight up carbon copy of HT/ghost).
* Hellion speed on creep reduced, pre-igniter upgrade also removes speed limit.
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Fungal is one of the major reasons zerg is utterly broken right now. The root means that any mistake is irrecoverable and your units WILL die. Plus, the way that Broodlords screw with unit pathing and AI means that they have a critical mass beyond which no ground unit can hope to be remotely cost effective against them. Leaving aside the 10 billion lings that zerg can pull out of their ass, BL infestor smashes blink stalkers HARD once fungals start getting liberally applied.
FG root should be removed and replaced with a slow. Broodlords should spawn broodlings slower and broodlings should die faster, improve damage to retain current DPS if necessary.
Shiori already said what I think about the economic absurdity that zerg power-droning is right now. Any ZvX pro game right now is downright unwatchable.
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On July 17 2012 09:59 Zealot Lord wrote:
Personally, I don't think mid-late/late game zerg itself is hopelessly broken or anything, it tends to feel like that, but its because they are already in such an advantageous position by the time it reaches that point. A lot of people point out the race's ability to remax instantly being too strong and whatnot, but that can only happen with an existing big resource bank. And in my humble opinion there lies the problem, zergs ability to deflect most early game pressures too cost efficiently. Right now a lot of harassments can be held off just fine with minimal lings/roaches if you just get more queens. Which is a problem as building queens for defense is not even an opportunity cost, because there is so much utility for them.
So what you are left with is zerg being mostly undisrupted in their macro, by the 15-20min mark they have a huge supply lead with a sizable bank; that even trading armies well as a terran/toss feels futile because soon enough there is another similar wave coming at you again, but only this time you have like maybe 60% the previous army size. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the thing people are frustrated with is the fact that you have to consistently trade ultra cost efficiently to have a chance to even consider doing a counterattack, trade slightly bad once and you know the game is over already.
I would like to see a small change on the PTR or something (say queens raised to 200 minerals for instance) and see how it changes the overall flow of the game. I'm not trying to say that queens are overpowered per se, but they seem a bit too cheap considering how all-purpose they are right now - it turns so many of the pressure attacks into somewhat of an all-in already, which is terrible for gameplay imo. I'm not a fan of big nerfs for any race, so I would much rather prefer a subtle change that reduces the rate of momentum zerg gains.
I would like to test out an upgrade for techlabs and reactors to techreactors that requires the fusion core. That way terran could keep up with the production of the other races. The transformation of techlabs and reactors to techreactors should required some time, lets say 40 seconds and costs about 75/75 and it may be able to give terran a more flexible late game production.
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Zerg's OPness all comes back to the early game imo. They are now virtually untouchable by terrans due to constant changes from Blizzard, but Zerg still has all it's powerful tools like 3 gas roach bane busts etc etc. Lets look at what has been nerfed for the poor zergs instead of them figuring it out since launch.
Proxy anything barracks. Anything reaper. Both economic 2 rax (12,14) and also 11/11 due to the build time nerf. Banshee openers (spore root time buffs, the queen ground attack damage buff which encourages more queens to be made, and also the cost reduction on overseers). Blue flame. Any stim attack timings. Siege tank damage was too good vs lings so they nerfed it. Bunker has been nerfed more times than anyone can recall. Medivac movement speed was nerfed. The worst offender has been the queen ground dmg buff, which makes the last and final terran build that hadn't been nerfed, the reactor hellion expand, now utterly useless. I know I'm missing plenty of strategies that were weakened or removed, but I think everyone gets the point.
We're at the point where terran has no strategies left that haven't been nerfed, meanwhile zergs still have plenty of options that haven't been removed (because no one uses them because everyone just masses drones). This in itself is imbalanced, but then you also factor in how much easier and more relaxed Zerg is to play in longer games...and you have a blatantly broken race.
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On July 17 2012 15:43 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2012 11:01 s1ege wrote:On July 17 2012 10:52 larse wrote:On July 17 2012 09:59 Zealot Lord wrote:
Personally, I don't think mid-late/late game zerg itself is hopelessly broken or anything, it tends to feel like that, but its because they are already in such an advantageous position by the time it reaches that point. A lot of people point out the race's ability to remax instantly being too strong and whatnot, but that can only happen with an existing big resource bank. And in my humble opinion there lies the problem, zergs ability to deflect most early game pressures too cost efficiently. Right now a lot of harassments can be held off just fine with minimal lings/roaches if you just get more queens. Which is a problem as building queens for defense is not even an opportunity cost, because there is so much utility for them.
So what you are left with is zerg being mostly undisrupted in their macro, by the 15-20min mark they have a huge supply lead with a sizable bank; that even trading armies well as a terran/toss feels futile because soon enough there is another similar wave coming at you again, but only this time you have like maybe 60% the previous army size. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the thing people are frustrated with is the fact that you have to consistently trade ultra cost efficiently to have a chance to even consider doing a counterattack, trade slightly bad once and you know the game is over already.
I would like to see a small change on the PTR or something (say queens raised to 200 minerals for instance) and see how it changes the overall flow of the game. I'm not trying to say that queens are overpowered per se, but they seem a bit too cheap considering how all-purpose they are right now - it turns so many of the pressure attacks into somewhat of an all-in already, which is terrible for gameplay imo. I'm not a fan of big nerfs for any race, so I would much rather prefer a subtle change that reduces the rate of momentum zerg gains.
Great insight. Now the statement that Zerg is OP mostly diverges into two arguments: 1. Zerg's macro mechanism is OP
2. Zerg's army strength (especially late-game) is OPSaying Queen is OP is basically the first argument, since the logic of Queen being OP is the same as saying that "no damage to zerg economy early ----> zerg's economy grows faster than other two races later". This is an indirect statement that Zerg's macro mechanism is OP. Therefore, as always, to address the first type of OPness, the solutions can be either revert the queen change (so other two races can do economic damage early ----> equal economy later), or nerf the Zerg's macro mechanism (most people argue reduce the larvae produced from injection by 1) To address the second type of OPness, the solutions are more debatable but most people argue some sorts of nerfs to roach, infestor, or Broodlord. Or they can simply remove warp gate from protoss, reactors from terran, and larva inject from Zerg. Also one thing I'd like to say is that I think sc2 is too worker focused. They only mine 5 per miner and 4 gas. Blizzard should make them mine 8 minerals and 5 gas with only 1 gas per base You forgot to remove Chronoboost and MULE, but once all of them are gone the game should be much easier to balance due to being slower paced and not focused on HUGE economy and production. I am all for that ...
It has been mentioned many times, the MULE is very necessary because Terran SCVs have to be pulled off to build, so therefore they have higher infrastructure costs. One way to "fix" it would be to weaken it, so that it mines only 120/minute, give it for free, no Orbital required, but probably start CCs with 0 energy fwiw...
Chronoboost is pretty benign, you can increase building times for stuff if you want it anyways.
Larva is a good question, maybe they need to remove Larva Inject, and get more Larva per minute by upgrading to Lair. This would increase the time it takes the Zerg economy to grow, or start growing I should say.
My take on WG is pretty well known, it is super bad for the game and it inserts a lot of volatility into the game, but if you remove it, many things would need rebalancing in all matchups, of course starting with Larva mechanics.
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On July 17 2012 18:52 Neurosis wrote:
Zerg's OPness all comes back to the early game imo. They are now virtually untouchable by terrans due to constant changes from Blizzard, but Zerg still has all it's powerful tools like 3 gas roach bane busts etc etc. Lets look at what has been nerfed for the poor zergs instead of them figuring it out since launch.
Proxy anything barracks. Anything reaper. Both economic 2 rax (12,14) and also 11/11 due to the build time nerf. Banshee openers (spore root time buffs, the queen ground attack damage buff which encourages more queens to be made, and also the cost reduction on overseers). Blue flame. Any stim attack timings. Siege tank damage was too good vs lings so they nerfed it. Bunker has been nerfed more times than anyone can recall. Medivac movement speed was nerfed. The worst offender has been the queen ground dmg buff, which makes the last and final terran build that hadn't been nerfed, the reactor hellion expand, now utterly useless. I know I'm missing plenty of strategies that were weakened or removed, but I think everyone gets the point.
We're at the point where terran has no strategies left that haven't been nerfed, meanwhile zergs still have plenty of options that haven't been removed (because no one uses them because everyone just masses drones). This in itself is imbalanced, but then you also factor in how much easier and more relaxed Zerg is to play in longer games...and you have a blatantly broken race.
I'm not sure there is any OPness actually.
The way to see the way Blizzard patched Zerg recently, is that Zerg midgame units suck ass so we need to buff their early game so they get to lategame faster, where they are the strongest race. The current situation may evolve into Zerg winning too much, but also if Terrans find a way to get around the new Queens, then Blizzard balancers would be back to square one on this matchup, since they haven't tackled the core problem of Zerg. That being said, I think Protoss will still get the upper hand in the matchup and that will trigger a review of Zerg midgame.
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On July 17 2012 07:06 BIZNESofKLLN wrote:
I'm not sure why everybody is so overly concerned about balance at the moment. Z is without a doubt the best race in the game right now. It cannot be argued. All you have to do is look at recent tournament results to see the trend. However, none of that matters guys. Reason being is that none of you are playing in these top level tournaments. So, quit arguing for the time being and play Z if you want easy wins over T and P. Plus, you guys do realize that the release of HOTS will have a drastic impact on the way the entire community plays SC. So, just wait for the release of HOTS because there aren't going to be an monumental patches that will effect balance from here on out. Nuff said...peace
You are wrong. I want even game, and yes I want even game on my level. Moreover I much more care about my wins than wins of the pros. In current situation pros with good mechanics sometimes can mitigate Zerg's advantage - but Zerg's adventage is undisputable at the moment, and this advantage can impact more leagues than only GM.
For example for two years Terran recieved more or less this nerfs:
5 sec slower Rax build time
10 sec longer Bunker build time
Nerf to Tank damage
Nerf to stim research time
Nerf to Ghost snipe
Nerf to medievac speed and turning
Nerf to Ghost EMP
Nerf to MULE mining from gold mines
If you think that this changes, if reverted, would only impact highest level on play, then you are delusional elitist. What I want to say is that balance changes impact much more gamers than only pros.
Face it, Terrans got a hard situation and it is hard to play them ATM.
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This thread is painful to read. Terrans have just forgotten how long they had been domination and just won't innovate. Zerg dominance is not only a result of nerfs, but a result of inovation by players like spanishiwa (mass queen, no gas opener, completely changed the way the game is played now), destiny and catz(mass infestor usage, even before any buffs) and more recently stephano and DRG, macro and agressive strategies.
Hellion opener was too strong a strategy. Before the hellion buff it meant that if 4 hellions ran by you lost automatically without the terran having to risk anything. After the hellion nerf it remained pretty much the same. Now terran has to actually risk something in order to end the game right there. Suddenly it is useless even with the map control and potential of harass it still gives...
Terrans in korea are pretty much still winning against zerg, byun completely destroyed nestea in gsl, those are big words in my opinion...
People are biased right now because of NASL and WCS...
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On July 17 2012 19:27 Embir wrote:Show nested quote +On July 17 2012 07:06 BIZNESofKLLN wrote:
I'm not sure why everybody is so overly concerned about balance at the moment. Z is without a doubt the best race in the game right now. It cannot be argued. All you have to do is look at recent tournament results to see the trend. However, none of that matters guys. Reason being is that none of you are playing in these top level tournaments. So, quit arguing for the time being and play Z if you want easy wins over T and P. Plus, you guys do realize that the release of HOTS will have a drastic impact on the way the entire community plays SC. So, just wait for the release of HOTS because there aren't going to be an monumental patches that will effect balance from here on out. Nuff said...peace You are wrong. I want even game, and yes I want even game on my level. Moreover I much more care about my wins than wins of the pros. In current situation pros with good mechanics sometimes can mitigate Zerg's advantage - but Zerg's adventage is undisputable at the moment, and this advantage can impact more leagues than only GM. For example for two years Terran recieved more or less this nerfs: 5 sec slower Rax build time 10 sec longer Bunker build time Nerf to Tank damage Nerf to stim research time Nerf to Ghost snipe Nerf to medievac speed and turning Nerf to Ghost EMP Nerf to MULE mining from gold mines If you think that this changes, if reverted, would only impact highest level on play, then you are delusional elitist. What I want to say is that balance changes impact much more gamers than only pros. Face it, Terrans got a hard situation and it is hard to play them ATM.
Yeah, everone knew that the game would still need patches after it came out. Just because Zerg got overnerfed in the beta and Terran was touched way less and got bunkerbuffs and raxbuildtime buffs "because Terrans are not doing so well", that doesn't mean that they shouldn't keep on balancing the game after release.
The recent queen buff was too much imo, but before that Terran was more than fine in that MU.
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Don't you think it's all a bit planned by Blizzard?
I mean, Terran being OP at the launch and first months of Wings of Liberty (most new players would pick Terran at this time, it was the campaign, etc.)
Zerg being OP for the launch of HOTS (most new players will play the Zerg campaign and will want to pick Zerg in multiplayer)
I don't think it's a good "excuse", but maybe there is some marketing reason behind this.
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