On July 23 2012 00:47 Shiori wrote: I think even if you revert the Queen buff, the mass Queen style will still be too powerful because even with kiting, 4 Hellions don't take on more than 2 Queens.
Just theorycrafting here, but if Zerg goes for the mass queen start (without the range), then you can build more then 4 hellions and keep him contained. Without gas (the mass queen strat takes very late gas) there would be only slow lings and queens, something hellions can manage.
On July 22 2012 12:26 Shiori wrote: I actually can't believe people are trying to debate that the different between Taeja winning and losing is taking guys off gas in the lategame.
Transform that 4k gas to minerals. How many marines can you get with that? Well, it's nothing, it's not the reason why Taeja might have lost.
And you think 3 SCVs here and there is going to make that 4000 minerals magically appear.
You Zergs seem to be having trouble understanding this, so I'll spell it out clearly.
There is nothing.
For Terran.
To spend all their gas on.
Taking lots of bases is very difficult for Terran. Getting more SCVs than you need to mine more than 3 at a time is a waste of supply. Terran is not Zerg. Nor is it Protoss. There is no gas sink spellcaster that balances out your income. Terran T3 isn't even good. Zerg/Protoss T3 is. There's not a whole hell of a lot out there to spend the gas on, and insisting that reassigning those 6-9 SCVs from refineries to mineral patches is going to result in some crazy upswing in income that makes it all better doesn't make it so.
I don't understnad this. How can you not understand this?
It's not a matter of spending the gas, its a matter of not getting the gas.....
On July 23 2012 00:47 Shiori wrote: I think even if you revert the Queen buff, the mass Queen style will still be too powerful because even with kiting, 4 Hellions don't take on more than 2 Queens.
Just theorycrafting here, but if Zerg goes for the mass queen start (without the range), then you can build more then 4 hellions and keep him contained. Without gas (the mass queen strat takes very late gas) there would be only slow lings and queens, something hellions can manage.
WIthout the range, you don't get a drone to the third, therefore you cannot build 3bases that early, therefore Zergs economy is quite weaker in the midgame, therefore Zerg doesn't reach the hive that fast, therefore zerg needs to invest into other things to stay safe, which again delays the hivetech and gives Terran more room to react to anything zerg does.
On July 23 2012 00:47 Shiori wrote: I think even if you revert the Queen buff, the mass Queen style will still be too powerful because even with kiting, 4 Hellions don't take on more than 2 Queens.
Just theorycrafting here, but if Zerg goes for the mass queen start (without the range), then you can build more then 4 hellions and keep him contained. Without gas (the mass queen strat takes very late gas) there would be only slow lings and queens, something hellions can manage.
WIthout the range, you don't get a drone to the third, therefore you cannot build 3bases that early, therefore Zergs economy is quite weaker in the midgame, therefore Zerg doesn't reach the hive that fast, therefore zerg needs to invest into other things to stay safe, which again delays the hivetech and gives Terran more room to react to anything zerg does.
yeah...? That's why i said "you keep the Zerg contained" (slow 3ed, etc).
On July 23 2012 00:47 Shiori wrote: I think even if you revert the Queen buff, the mass Queen style will still be too powerful because even with kiting, 4 Hellions don't take on more than 2 Queens.
Just theorycrafting here, but if Zerg goes for the mass queen start (without the range), then you can build more then 4 hellions and keep him contained. Without gas (the mass queen strat takes very late gas) there would be only slow lings and queens, something hellions can manage.
WIthout the range, you don't get a drone to the third, therefore you cannot build 3bases that early, therefore Zergs economy is quite weaker in the midgame, therefore Zerg doesn't reach the hive that fast, therefore zerg needs to invest into other things to stay safe, which again delays the hivetech and gives Terran more room to react to anything zerg does.
yeah...? That's why i said "you keep the Zerg contained" (slow 3ed, etc).
Hellions interfere with the Terrans macro for the later army composition and actually cost -A TON- of money. If the Terran made 10 hellions, Roach Baneling Bust will auto- win. Unless you deal with that too, which brings us to the cloackshee Hellion opener, which gets shut down with mass queen...
On July 23 2012 00:47 Shiori wrote: I think even if you revert the Queen buff, the mass Queen style will still be too powerful because even with kiting, 4 Hellions don't take on more than 2 Queens.
Hellions were never to fight The Queens Headon now...They used to kite them and Kill drones and deny Creep..Which is close to Impossible now.
On July 23 2012 00:47 Shiori wrote: I think even if you revert the Queen buff, the mass Queen style will still be too powerful because even with kiting, 4 Hellions don't take on more than 2 Queens.
Hellions were never to fight The Queens Headon now...They used to kite them and Kill drones and deny Creep..Which is close to Impossible now.
It IS impossible to do without sacrificing something doing so.
On July 23 2012 00:47 Shiori wrote: I think even if you revert the Queen buff, the mass Queen style will still be too powerful because even with kiting, 4 Hellions don't take on more than 2 Queens.
Just theorycrafting here, but if Zerg goes for the mass queen start (without the range), then you can build more then 4 hellions and keep him contained. Without gas (the mass queen strat takes very late gas) there would be only slow lings and queens, something hellions can manage.
WIthout the range, you don't get a drone to the third, therefore you cannot build 3bases that early, therefore Zergs economy is quite weaker in the midgame, therefore Zerg doesn't reach the hive that fast, therefore zerg needs to invest into other things to stay safe, which again delays the hivetech and gives Terran more room to react to anything zerg does.
yeah...? That's why i said "you keep the Zerg contained" (slow 3ed, etc).
Hellions interfere with the Terrans macro for the later army composition and actually cost -A TON- of money. If the Terran made 10 hellions, Roach Baneling Bust will auto- win. Unless you deal with that too, which brings us to the cloackshee Hellion opener, which gets shut down with mass queen...
We are talking about a hypothetical scenario: mass queen but without the range. Mass queen means very slow gas, so no danger of roach baneling bust.
On July 23 2012 00:47 Shiori wrote: I think even if you revert the Queen buff, the mass Queen style will still be too powerful because even with kiting, 4 Hellions don't take on more than 2 Queens.
It was already popular to build up to 6 Hellions pre-patch. With 6 Hellions mass Queen style without extra range would keep Zerg on 2 bases until they get a few roaches or enough lings.
As a zerg player , I have some ideas how to balace game little better
Zerg
Slower creep spread for zerg , many pro players complain its now to fast , and i agree . Creep give you vision , speed , its very strong thing for zerg.
Give zerg ability to morpf ovie to overseer before lair , or make over speed up before lair , for early scout.
Take away from roches 10 HP , or make them cost 10 more minerals.
Toss
Take away from toss warp ability fo sentrys , imo its to strong you can warp them on ramps , etc. Warp ability should be only for zelots , stalkers , dt . Or let toss warp sentrys only from pylons
Make FF cost 10 more energy
Give amulet back , templars really need starting energy buff
Terran
Nerf PF HP
Take away mules
Buff siege tanks
Nerf maruders dmg vs bulding
Imo changes should go in this way.. but im only top diamond noob ;P
On July 23 2012 01:26 Toastie.NL wrote: Want a freewin button with that? I see massive nerfs to Protoss early game, EXTREME nerfs to anything Terran and a scouting buff for Zerg..!?
On July 23 2012 01:25 Bagi wrote: Take away mules huh?
Sounds perfectly balanced.
Everyone know mules are OP now . There was many many games that mules win for terran , in base trade , or semi base trade scenarios. IMO ability to lift buldings up in some situations is very strong , and add to this mules . Now terran player can land with CC and start gather minieras very fast , to fast with mules.
On July 23 2012 01:26 Toastie.NL wrote: Want a freewin button with that? I see massive nerfs to Protoss early game, EXTREME nerfs to anything Terran and a scouting buff for Zerg..!?
And you think now toss early game is weak ? aha... Buff for tanks its not nerf Yes buff for zerg scout , but nerf at creep spread.
On July 21 2012 21:51 Coffee Zombie wrote: Reverting the Queen buff probably wouldn't make people all-in more often. If the buff is reverted, Zerg players have to invest something into defense again - some gas (Roaches), lots of larvae (Lings) or attention and time (Crawler reroots), so they end up playing fair instead of broken - the whole point of the Hellion expand was to force us to play fair - and make no mistake, unhindered Zerg economy is broken. It was ok beforehand because you needed to outplay the opponent to access it. That isn't the case anymore when Queens are better in combat than Roaches, cost no gas or Larvae and don't need that much micro. And then you get mass creep to nerf midgame pushes. It's easy and standardizes hilariously outrageous greed. I remember when insane creep spread was impressive. I remember being impressed by very greedy Lair and Hive timings. Not anymore. Because all that shit is safe and boring. What the hell is going on if you need an all-in to punish completely ludicrous greed? Not good games, of that I'm sure.*
Buffing the Terran lategame a bit is a good idea, but for goodness' sake don't leave it at that. The game is already horrible to watch because it's so binary - as Jinro put it in a comment about toss, you choose to be a rabid monkey on speed or a sedated sloth. The middleground is evaporating because noncommittal pressure has been nerfed to hell and back. And it makes for some terribly dull games.
So, if you want to keep Zerg a bit safer? (Unnecessary IMHO, there never was a problem, but anyway Revert the Queen buff, perhaps revert some Terran early game nerfs. And then help those Zerg investments in defense work better in some way. The key is just thatb defending slows the Zerg economy back to sanity and that the defense investment allows Z to fend off the Terran harassment on equal terms.
*Addendum: More than an SC2 enthusiast, I'm an MtG player. I like combo because hey, broken things feel fun. One thing I've noticed over the years is that straight up broken shit stays fun only for a while - when you're still amazed that omfg how is this even allowed. Then it becomes so very dull. The one deck I've stayed with over the years is a concoction that can occasionally do hilariously broken things, but usually ends up playing fair in an attempt to stay alive and then sneak the brokenness in somewhere as a finishing blow or as a calculated risk. This keeps the temptation and fun of brokenness (in SC2, the unhindered Zerg economy) but delivers actual games. Plus doing ridiculous things feels like an accomplishment.
As another way to think about it, imagine if Marines automatically did the MKP thing and beat banelings? They can do that already, but it requires good calls and micro to do it. It's a ridiculous thing as a reward of great play. Standardizing antibling splits would just make that boring and stupid-feeling instead of amazing and the feeling of greatness would just wear off in short order.
Great post this! I gues the biggest problem of SC2 is that games are very predictable, relatively speaking, and thus borring.
EDIT: and i blame Blizzard for this with their way of patching the game. Wander how the game would have looked if we had half decent maps in BETA, when most of the changes took place.
I actually blame Zerg players (well, the ones who complain about it, pros included) for the current state of the game. With pre-nerf Terran, even though they were overpowered, it was all on Blizzard and their bad decisions, and terrible maps. While with current Zerg, I really feel like this is what they wanted all along. Just read this thread, and a bunch of others, you'll see tons of Zerg players saying how much more fun ZvT is for them after the Queen buff. This is what they wanted all along.
Also, from a Protoss perspective, remember that one PTR where Blizzard wanted to significantly increase WG research time, and reduce unit build times out of gateways to compensate? Wouldn't that have made Protoss early game a lot more stable and interesting, in every matchup? But alas, without ever playing on the PTR, every Zerg (spearheaded by Idra) suddenly knew that 2 gate pressure was going to be impossible to defend. Thus, only Sentry build time was reduced, and Warpgates only got an additional 20 seconds to their research time.
That was not only because of PvZ, it was also because of PvP, where 2gate is (and always was) significantly stronger than against Zerg. And it's not like noone has played it. The build time was like that in the beta and the early days, and PvP and PvZ degenerated to proxy rushing more than not. It was not even about 2gate pressure. It was about 2gate proxy allin. Wether this would have been solved or not I can't tell, but there are still quite a lot of people mixing in 1-2proxy gate rushes in PvP, which seem to work quite well as they are.
It literally makes no difference in PvP. Hell, it helps the defender a little bit, because a typical proxy 2 gate barely has money for constant chronoboosted zealot production and pylons to go with it. Generally speaking, build time reductions will favor the player with the better economy, since timings are essentially the same relative to each other. Nowadays, good players don't even scout in PvP beyond checking their main and natural, since they're confident in being able to defend proxies with standard play if they're farther away.
And no, even back then, we didn't see proxy gates against Zerg, and people saw this nerf as something targeting silver Zergs, since nobody decent would lose to that particular cheese. Currently, you can 15 hatch and still defend against unscouted proxy gates, so a build time reduction on Zealots might actually make it slightly dangerous and force Zergs to scout a bit more.
And yes, the complaints mostly centered around 2 gate pressure against the Zerg expansion. I distinctly recall Idra complaining about it in some interview, or maybe on Sotg.
On July 22 2012 23:00 Toadvine wrote: Or VR speed, that one was pretty funny. Don't know why they even wanted to remove it, since it didn't feature in any high-level games (you could put it back in today and not much would change), but they did. So, as compensation, Fungal was supposed to not hit air. Alas, a few days of Zerg whine on b.net forums later, the Fungal nerf was retracted. VR speed was still removed. Guess Protosses didn't complain enough.
I have heard some highlevel Protoss talk about it, though I can't remember who. Maybe White Ra (just a guess), that mass speed void ray in the lategame PvZ was nearly unstoppable - prefungal patch that was. That fungal does not hit air is due to ZvZ. Give zerg something to defend against mutalisks and then fungal could be reworked.
Hey, I'm fine with a massive buff to Corruptors. Give those guys some splash damage, and you'll be able to defend against infinity Mutas with 5-6 of them. Mutas are pretty bad against Corrupters right now anyway, the only thing the latter need is a force multiplier. This will also force Terran to spread their Vikings in TvZ, but without losing the game to a single Fungal. Or you can buff Hydras, that's fine too, they could do with 100 hp.
Alternatively, you can just make Fungal not affect the movement of air units, but still do damage. It'll still work against Mutas, but it'll be impossible to only have Infestors for anti-air.
The one game I remember speed VRs being used was Kiwikaki vs Machine in some Root invitational tournament. And then CatZ said he was talking to David Kim about the changes because he couldn't beat the VRs in practice. So I guess it was a balance change aimed at mediocre NA pros?
On July 23 2012 01:21 pallad wrote: As a zerg player , I have some ideas how to balace game little better
Zerg
1. Slower creep spread for zerg , many pro players complain its now to fast , and i agree . Creep give you vision , speed , its very strong thing for zerg.
2. Give zerg ability to morph ovie to overseer before lair , or make over speed up before lair , for early scout.
3. Take away from roaches 10 HP , or make them cost 10 more minerals.
I agree with the first point, but the second point doesn't need to be done, we can already early scout with overlords because of this nice speed increase they got. The third point is my eyes is really bad, for the roach to cost 85/25 and have 135 health i think would be bad. It would weaken our army against Toss early to midgame and against Terran who goes mech and does a mid game push by a lot, if you changed one of those it might work.
On July 23 2012 01:25 Bagi wrote: Take away mules huh?
Sounds perfectly balanced.
Everyone know mules are OP now . There was many many games that mules win for terran , in base trade , or semi base trade scenarios. IMO ability to lift buldings up in some situations is very strong , and add to this mules . Now terran player can land with CC and start gather minieras very fast , to fast with mules.
Agreed, but I don't understand why you're not suggesting a marine nerf too. Everyone knows marines are OP.
On July 23 2012 01:21 pallad wrote: As a zerg player , I have some ideas how to balace game little better
Zerg
1. Slower creep spread for zerg , many pro players complain its now to fast , and i agree . Creep give you vision , speed , its very strong thing for zerg.
2. Give zerg ability to morph ovie to overseer before lair , or make over speed up before lair , for early scout.
3. Take away from roaches 10 HP , or make them cost 10 more minerals.
I agree with the first point, but the second point doesn't need to be done, we can already early scout with overlords because of this nice speed increase they got. The third point is my eyes is really bad, for the roach to cost 85/25 and have 135 health i think would be bad. It would weaken our army against Toss early to midgame and against Terran who goes mech and does a mid game push by a lot, if you changed one of those it might work.
Maby yes.. but for now what we can see in tournaments , pro players strems etc.. its seems that everyone have big problems vs mass roches. I dont say its very imba, but sometimes its looks this way ;P
On July 23 2012 01:25 Bagi wrote: Take away mules huh?
Sounds perfectly balanced.
Everyone know mules are OP now . There was many many games that mules win for terran , in base trade , or semi base trade scenarios. IMO ability to lift buldings up in some situations is very strong , and add to this mules . Now terran player can land with CC and start gather minieras very fast , to fast with mules.
Agreed, but I don't understand why you're not suggesting a marine nerf too. Everyone knows marines are OP.
Marines are easy countered by banes , or infestors. They are little OP , but its not that big like Op thing like mules.
On July 23 2012 00:47 Shiori wrote: I think even if you revert the Queen buff, the mass Queen style will still be too powerful because even with kiting, 4 Hellions don't take on more than 2 Queens.
Just theorycrafting here, but if Zerg goes for the mass queen start (without the range), then you can build more then 4 hellions and keep him contained. Without gas (the mass queen strat takes very late gas) there would be only slow lings and queens, something hellions can manage.
And how do you contain 4 queens with 8 hellions exactly?
Just so you know, I have tried it and you can roast a queen or two, even some drones. But in total it is not worth it sacking so many hellions to do so little. You can't deny a quick third, even with 10 hellions. The best thing you can hope for is if your hellions forced a roach warren but most zergs just ignore them and keep droning.
On July 23 2012 01:25 Bagi wrote: Take away mules huh?
Sounds perfectly balanced.
Everyone know mules are OP now . There was many many games that mules win for terran , in base trade , or semi base trade scenarios. IMO ability to lift buldings up in some situations is very strong , and add to this mules . Now terran player can land with CC and start gather minieras very fast , to fast with mules.
Agreed, but I don't understand why you're not suggesting a marine nerf too. Everyone knows marines are OP.
No need. The 10 mineral extra for roaches would balance "no mules". Ez!
EPT
