Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 312

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.

On July 22 2012 09:00 Torra wrote:

I was just about to say this too. That was just disgusting to watch.

On July 22 2012 09:07 xPabt wrote:


Ryung probably should have lost earlier after pushing out with too small an army but for stephano to win after having his expansions denied for so long and taking so many bad engagements is really just retarded. Terran taking a bad engagement means the game is over but for zerg the remax mechanic alows them to stick around and make a comeback due to the cost efficientness of thier late game army+ infestors.

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.

On July 22 2012 22:07 Sapphire.lux wrote:

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.

On July 22 2012 22:07 Sapphire.lux wrote:

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.

On July 22 2012 23:00 Toadvine wrote:


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.

On July 23 2012 03:20 Toadvine wrote:
So, what I'm getting from this is that it would be too difficult for Zerg players to deal with Mutas the way Protosses and Terrans do (without a single Fungal instantly shutting down infinity Mutas). I guess I can understand that. Zerg macro is so difficult, there's no way they'd be able to find the apm to move around their Corruptors and Hydras.

On July 22 2012 22:07 Sapphire.lux wrote:

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.

On July 23 2012 03:39 sevencck wrote:


With the current state of the game, I wonder if it's even fair to claim that Terran was particularly overpowered. Yes, there have been some key balance changes, but maps have also changed, metagame has changed, and I think Zerg play in particular has improved alot from what it once was. What was the balance change that altered Terran from being wildly overpowered to now being in a very questionable spot particularly in TvZ? Was it the stim nerf? The blue flame nerf (which was mostly for TvT as I recall)? The snipe nerf? The rax nerf? The bunker nerf? All of them? By that logic, then if you reverted those nerfs Terran would be OP again. Yet, I doubt it would be. I don't think Terran was particularly OP, I think there were simply some really poor maps back in 2010 and early 2011, and Zerg and Protoss only needed a couple strategic buffs in a couple areas. I'll admit there were some legitimately broken builds though (early reaper builds come to mind). I don't wanna weigh in too heavily in this debate, but in my opinion Terran has been overnerfed and Zerg overbuffed, all during a process wherein the Zerg meta was evolving more slowly than the other two races. We are now seeing the effects.

On July 23 2012 03:46 Big J wrote:


Well, so do you think that mutas are defendable (without going mass muta), or don't you?
Because your corruptor buff idea suggests, that they can't.

Hydras/Queens don't have blink (stalkers), huge range+splash (thors), or the costefficiency + dps of marines.
Corruptors don't have the speed, nor the damage to deal with mutas. I mean, phoenix aren't the greatest defense vs mutas, but they can be useful. Corruptors are basically like phoenix, just without micro capabilities, less dps, more armor and no antiground ability.

ZvZ without air fungal or something to make up for it at least partially will degenerate into mass muta vs mass muta. I'm not saying that this has to be bad (though I love ling/roach/hydra/infestor with Broodlords and Ultras having roles - the ZvZ we have right now and that, even if you don't like zerg, produces some of the best games like Leenock vs DRG or Coca vs Hyun)

I'm all for taking roles away from the infestor and distributing the things it does on different units, to make for a better game and less of a lategame mass infestors style that can deal with everything on it's own, but I absolutly don't think you can "just nerf it". Especially as Infestors are Zergs main antiair right now, it would break nearly every ZvX style, not just "nerf it". (and seeing how Protoss have very good winrates vs Zerg, I don't see why that matchup would need any change, apart from making carrier transitions smoother - while keeping the overall winrates the same)

On July 23 2012 04:02 Toadvine wrote:


I was referring to post-release Terran. Sure, some of the nerfs they've gotten since then could be reverted right now, and not unbalance the game a whole lot. Reapers could actually get speed before factory now with 5 range Queens, BC damage could go back to 10, snipe could be unnerfed, and a bunch of other small stuff.

However, if you brought back something like BBS, EMP with 2.0 radius taking away all energy, 50 damage Tanks and 30 second Bunkers, Terran would be pretty powerful. They'd have some insanely strong cheese (it's hard enough for Protoss to defend 11/11 rax as is), 1/1/1 would be unstoppable, and endgame TvP would end with Protoss getting stomped after blanket EMPs over the whole army from three Ghosts. Not entirely sure how these things would affect TvZ, but proxies would kill hatch first openings 100% of the time.



Hey, I'm all for buffing stuff, and open to suggestions. Giving Corruptors splash is the simplest idea I've come up with, and doesn't affect other parts of the game too much. But if you have a better one, fire away. I'm not even proposing this as a solution to balance problems, I think it'll make the game better overall. What I take issue with are these kneejerk "IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO DEAL WITH MUTAS WITHOUT FUNGAL" reactions. I wouldn't even mind a Spire vs Spire midgame in ZvZ, as long as there's incentive and means to transition out of it.