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Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 354

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Account252508
Profile Joined February 2012
3454 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-12 22:42:02
August 12 2012 22:40 GMT
#7061
--- Nuked ---
KuKri
Profile Joined February 2012
Germany168 Posts
August 12 2012 22:50 GMT
#7062
On August 13 2012 07:31 Stratos_speAr wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 09 2012 11:07 LavaLava wrote:
On August 09 2012 11:00 BandonBanshee wrote:
Who honestly thought warpgate was good idea? ZvP is devolving into 9-13 minutes of "Did you find the pylon?". I'm not arguing its imbalanced because you can obviously win against it, it just leads to terrible games to watch and even more boring to play.

I just wish protoss players actually had to make choices between gateways and warpgates, this game is getting INCREDIBLY stale.


Yeah, I've always thought it was incredibly bizarre how there's a transform back to gateway button. I would never say that Warp Gates need a straight nerf, without a huge, huge redesign of a ton of units, but it just seems like Gateways should have some kind of use!


The fundamental design concept of Warp Gates creates a massive problem for Protoss.

At the core of its philosophy, the Protoss race is supposed to be few but strong. However, if you can warp in strong units across the map in no time at all, then obviously the race is going to be stupidly overpowered. Just think if Dragoons and fast Zealots from BW were able to be warped in across the map. This has forced Blizzard to heavily nerf individual Protoss units, but to keep the race as a whole powerful enough, these units synergize very well together. This all culminates in an incredibly boring race that can only fight in a deathball; we're seeing T and Z split their armies more in matchups that don't involve P, but any matchup with P just results in massive deathballs and boring games. It all just goes straight back to the Warp Gate; it's a fantastic idea that's really cool, but it's an absolute disaster for balance.

But this is inherent in the game and is too hard to come by as trying to change this would afford to tweak the protoss race heavily and I bet Blizzard isn't even considering this. This problem is about 2 years old by now and will most likely never be changed. At least TvZ and TvT are great matchups, I like ZvZ much, too. But everything involving P too often turns out exactly as you said.
However, it would be interesting to see a SC2 version without warpgate and some buffs to P units. Maybe replacing the Warp Prism with a Shuttle that has more life and can carry 8 units or something like that.
TheGreenMachine
Profile Joined March 2010
United States730 Posts
August 12 2012 22:51 GMT
#7063
On August 13 2012 07:40 monkybone wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 13 2012 07:31 Stratos_speAr wrote:
On August 09 2012 11:07 LavaLava wrote:
On August 09 2012 11:00 BandonBanshee wrote:
Who honestly thought warpgate was good idea? ZvP is devolving into 9-13 minutes of "Did you find the pylon?". I'm not arguing its imbalanced because you can obviously win against it, it just leads to terrible games to watch and even more boring to play.

I just wish protoss players actually had to make choices between gateways and warpgates, this game is getting INCREDIBLY stale.


Yeah, I've always thought it was incredibly bizarre how there's a transform back to gateway button. I would never say that Warp Gates need a straight nerf, without a huge, huge redesign of a ton of units, but it just seems like Gateways should have some kind of use!


The fundamental design concept of Warp Gates creates a massive problem for Protoss.

At the core of its philosophy, the Protoss race is supposed to be few but strong. However, if you can warp in strong units across the map in no time at all, then obviously the race is going to be stupidly overpowered. Just think if Dragoons and fast Zealots from BW were able to be warped in across the map. This has forced Blizzard to heavily nerf individual Protoss units, but to keep the race as a whole powerful enough, these units synergize very well together. This all culminates in an incredibly boring race that can only fight in a deathball; we're seeing T and Z split their armies more in matchups that don't involve P, but any matchup with P just results in massive deathballs and boring games. It all just goes straight back to the Warp Gate; it's a fantastic idea that's really cool, but it's an absolute disaster for balance.



Can't tell if balance whine or nonsensical BW nostalgia.

Yea not sure if this guy has seen chargelot warp prism usage before. Combination of deathball+multiple warp prisms is not easy and is not 1 dimensional. Go figure...
Don't forget to get everyone you know to play HOTS so this game we love called Starcraft will live on. Every little bit helps. ^^
Zombo Joe
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada850 Posts
August 12 2012 22:54 GMT
#7064
Warpgate is designed incorrectly. Units should take their build time to warp in instead of 4 seconds.
I am Terranfying.
Orek
Profile Joined February 2012
1665 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-12 23:04:24
August 12 2012 22:58 GMT
#7065
I don't think this is a realistic way to balance at this point because game is so established today after 2 years.

But, what if warpgate cooldown was LONGER than gateway build time instead of "shorter" which is how it is today.

Right now, warpgate cuts build time by 10sec(5sec for sentry) for gateway units. This + addition of warp-in means that gateway is worse in every aspect.

Stalker warp-in cooldown 32sec
Stalker gateway buildtime 42sec
IF scenario......................52sec or something?

Sacrificing build time in favor of having warp-in could have added some dynamics to the game rather than current gateway=obsolete once warpgate is researched.

Ever since I realized 2 years ago that warpgate had shorter build time than gateway, I have always thought of this.
Again, I don't think this should go into the game now. This is just "what if" scenario which I believe would have been easier to balance.
Account252508
Profile Joined February 2012
3454 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-12 23:12:55
August 12 2012 23:06 GMT
#7066
--- Nuked ---
KuKri
Profile Joined February 2012
Germany168 Posts
August 12 2012 23:09 GMT
#7067
On August 13 2012 07:58 Orek wrote:
I don't think this is a realistic way to balance at this point because game is so established today after 2 years.

But, what if warpgate cooldown was LONGER than gateway build time instead of "shorter" which is how it is today.

Right now, warpgate cuts build time by 10sec for any of the gateway units. This + addition of warp-in means that gateway is worse in every aspect.

Stalker warp-in cooldown 32sec
Stalker gateway buildtime 42sec
IF scenario......................52sec or something?

Sacrificing build time in favor of having warp-in could have added some dynamics to the game rather than current gateway=obsolete once warpgate is researched.

Ever since I realized 2 years ago that warpgate had shorter build time than gateway, I have always thought of this.
Again, I don't think this should go into the game now. This is just "what if" scenario which I believe would have been easier to balance.

I don't think there is a problem with this as it takes about the same 'build time' with warpgate, because building takes a few seconds as well and usually, when macroing up, you don't always warp in right after the cooldown finishes, unless you feel you need more defense. In addition the warpgate can be disadvantageous in big battles when you need to focus on the battle, but to reproduce you have to move the screen to where you can warp in and back to the battle (whereas T or Z can just press the hotkey and queue).
Psychonian
Profile Joined March 2012
United States2322 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-12 23:18:12
August 12 2012 23:11 GMT
#7068
On August 13 2012 07:58 Orek wrote:
I don't think this is a realistic way to balance at this point because game is so established today after 2 years.

But, what if warpgate cooldown was LONGER than gateway build time instead of "shorter" which is how it is today.

Right now, warpgate cuts build time by 10sec for any of the gateway units. This + addition of warp-in means that gateway is worse in every aspect.

Stalker warp-in cooldown 32sec
Stalker gateway buildtime 42sec
IF scenario......................52sec or something?

Sacrificing build time in favor of having warp-in could have added some dynamics to the game rather than current gateway=obsolete once warpgate is researched.

Ever since I realized 2 years ago that warpgate had shorter build time than gateway, I have always thought of this.
Again, I don't think this should go into the game now. This is just "what if" scenario which I believe would have been easier to balance.


Yeah, I agree. Warpgate should at least have SOME disadvantage, because right now Warpgate > Gateway in every way possible. Build time of 2 stalkers and cooldown combined is less than the build time of 1 stalker in Gateway.

Now you see people desperately trying to hit timings before research finishes, which really does create a nightmare for TvP and ZvP.

Also, someone said earlier that "ZvP is devolving into a 9-13 minute game of Find the Pylon". This I also agree with. This can be especially annoying in leagues like Silver or Gold because Protoss will know how to 4gate, know roughly how to do a 3gate robo, etc, but they will still be bad enough to just hide pylons EVERYWHERE. And in Diamond/Masters, more and more people are using MaximusBlack Pylons with their 4gate/3gate pressure/blink-stalkers etc. It can often come down to whether or not the Zerg finds the pylon. I have seriously seen games before where the Zerg is at a gigantic lead, but because he misses that one pylon, he techs/expands and the pressure kills him. Simply stupid.

People should just understand that Protoss is designed around the warp gate. The existence of the gateway and its mechanics are set up purely for early game balance reasons. Every aspect of the warp gate is better, even the gameplay aspect of it. All I see here are butthurt BW nostalgists and balance whiners who don't know what to whine about anymore so they pick something as silly as one of the most fundamental features if starcraft.

What's next? Reactors are too good, and Terrans should be awarded for choosing to have no add-ons?


People should just understand that even if a race is designed around something, it can still be imbalanced. It is really that simple. Warpgate is currently turning ZvP into "Find the Pylon" and maybe if that ends then "Who has a bigger deathball?", and TvP into "Who has a bigger deathball?" Yes, there's warp prisms, yes there's positioning, but when you get down to it it is deathball vs deathball. Not to mention PvP where 60% of games, someone 4gates, a build that revolves ENTIRELY around warpgates. The other 40% of the time it will be blinkstalkers vs 3gate robo, which yet again brings us back to "Who has a bigger deathball?". Warpgate is turning everything into "Who has a bigger deathball?" which is absolutely boring to watch and even worse to play.
Trans Rights
Shiori
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
3815 Posts
August 12 2012 23:11 GMT
#7069
On August 13 2012 08:06 monkybone wrote:
People should just understand that Protoss is designed around the warp gate. The existence of the gateway and its mechanics are set up purely for early game balance reasons. Every aspect of the warp gate is better, even the gameplay aspect of it. All I see here are butthurt BW nostalgists and balance whiners who don't know what to whine about anymore so they pick something as silly as one of the most fundamental features if starcraft.

What's next? Reactors are too good, and Terrans should be awarded for choosing to have no add-ons?

Uh, you don't need to be a "BW nostalgist" to think that WG has been nothing but awful for all Protoss matchups. It led to over a year of fucking atrocious PvP, a super stale PvZ matchup (that is like 80% Gateway all-ins) and a ridiculously fragile PvT, which is only now balanced after months and months of P/T favouring due to the inherent problem of balancing super cost-efficient bio against super fast reinforcements.

It's caused more problems than it's solved, basically.
Coffeeling
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
Finland250 Posts
August 12 2012 23:12 GMT
#7070
Complaints about Warpgate balance are misguided, though. The mechanic is balanced well enough, it just happens to be atrociously designed. To quote myself from tehblog:

On June 19 2012 21:29 Coffee Zombie wrote:
http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/the-core-gameplay/

Show nested quote +
The reason why it is getting longer to get to the core fun is because it probably isn’t there. Allow me to use an example.

During the Real Time Strategy game boom, many people were making RTS games. Very few people knew what they were doing. They kept focusing on later units where they said it was fun when all this other stuff is activated.

In order to make a good RTS game, you need to get to the core gameplay, wipe away everything else, and make it interesting. What is the core RTS gameplay? What would a RTS game look like with just the core RTS gameplay?

-Buildings-

-A HQ building (often where the building makers are made).
-A Resource building (where resources are brought in. Sometimes it is the HQ).
-A Unit producing building (where you make offensive units).

-Units-

-A builder unit (who makes buildings)
-A resource unit (who gathers the resource and brings it back)
-One offense unit (it is the first one made).

And that is it. One single unit. And it is the early grunt. Based on just this, the RTS needs to become interesting and be very fun to play. The RTS does not get to bring in super cool later units. Just the simple basics here. This is the core gameplay in which everything else stacks on. If this is not interesting, the game will fail.

When you focus on the the core gameplay, you realize things become very important that you never considered. In the above example, resource gatherers and the very basic structures need to become extremely interesting. In bad RTS games, little attention is given to them (while too much attention is given to the uber units at the end of the tech tree).


This is an interesting blog post. Very, very interesting actually. Extremely good, too. Many games nowadays feel pretty bad because they're built on things that are not fundamental to playing a game. Much of this is just focusing on the how instead of the why, though. People make stuff instead of gameplay, and if gameplay is made, people tend to focus on elaborate systems instead. If both are avoided, the ugly problem of overt simplicity for it's own sake can rear it's head. But really, building a solid foundation and then expanding on it is very good.

A few brilliant examples from Starcraft 2, as examples of very simple, but very interesting things:

Farms: Terran and Zerg farms are very interesting contraptions. The zerg farm, called an Overlord is actually a flying unit instead of a building and can thus be used to scout (it can also later be upgraded into a makeshift dropship. Cheap and massable due to not consuming population cap, but slow), while the Terran farm (Supply Depot) can lower itself to the ground so it can be walked over. This is extremely useful in building walls on chokepoints near your base.

Point-based armour system: The presence of this alone creates an actual difference between the cannon and the machine gun. While the machine gun may deal great damage, armour rapidly kills off it's effectiveness. Far less so for the cannon. A percentage-based armour system needs attack types because it mostly cares about the DPS.

No-nonsense units with different numbers: This is one readily underestimated thing in modern RTS unit design. Consider the Marine and the Zergling. Both deal about equivalent (and quite high) damage with quick weak attacks, making them bad against heavy armour. The Zerglings come in two-packs, and move very fast, but attack only in melee. Meanwhile, the Marine has more HP and shoots at range (it is also marginally better against armoured targets). These kinds of traits readily synergize with the very basic traits of the species' different farms, allowing Zerg great map control (the ability to have a lot of map vision and the ability to project force around the map), while the Marines' range and Terran's natural wall-offs trivially fend off the Zerg. The range also allows Marines who find good places to hole up in to achieve 300-esque feats of endurance and slaughter.

The different character of the races is easily evident with such simple things as these, and they are also very interesting and versatile. Yet they also do one very important thing: All these traits respect the fundamental character of an RTS game: That of troop production and movement, which allow for rough simulations of real-life strategy.

The racial traits of the Protoss are, in contrast, designed to completely circumvent these basic kinds of rules. In an RTS, troop production is usually done in steps such that:
1. The player orders the unit
2. The unit's cost is paid.
3. The unit is produced, forcing the player to wait.
4. The unit is ready and emerges from the production facility, heading for the battlefield.

The Protoss process works differently. They have a mechanic called the Warp Gate which allows them to produce their units directly at any Pylon (the name of the Protoss farm) they have on the map. The Warp-in process works like so:
1. The player orders the unit.
2. The unit's cost is paid.
3. The unit emerges at the chosen Pylon.
4. The Warpgate goes on cooldown, forcing the player to wait.

This sounds like a simple adjustment but serves to undermine a great number of the natural dynamics arising from the game's foundations:
1. Protoss reinforcements are completed much faster. They can get units immediately when getting free population cap whether due to a new farm or units dying. The Terran and Zerg have to wait half a minute for their units to even come out.
1b. This means that an even army trade favours the Protoss because he has units out first. If you win narrowly you may not even have the advantage, let alone a large one.
2. The Protoss player can build his unit-producing structures later because the first unit comes out immediately. As we all know, time is man- I mean money.
3. The natural concepts of reinforcement times and resulting defender's advantage (based on which basic tenets of strategy work) cease to apply to a great extent. Regardless of how far the Protoss opponent's base is, his troops are at your door immediately and you cannot intercept his reinforcements by way of ambush. You, conversely, are bound by these basic rules of strategy.
4. The system is ridiculously efficient. Normally these kinds of abilities require taking insane risks like placing your production structures near the enemy base (called proxying them). Protoss needs a single Pylon. This is an insanely cheap cost (100 minerals for Pylon, 150 for a single production facility, 50 for a Worker/Marine or a pair of Zerglings), and has none of the other traditional disadvantages like having no production in your home base.

The mechanic is interesting, and feels cool, yes, but a simple examination exposes all kinds of problems. These can somewhat be masked away by balance tweaks like making Protoss units weak (which was done but leads to another host of problems) but the core issues are still there and will inevitably rear their ugly head somewhere.
The reason I chose this example is to highlight two things:
First, how a certain sense of rules to be respected is necessary for things to make sense and the players to have expectations. In this case, the Warp Gate tramples on established rules of how the game works at a very fundamental level.
The second one is to highlight how antagonistic multiplayer raises the bar for the cool stuff to be included. Imagine Kirby Wii as a competitive more than co-operational game, like a race to the finish for example. Kirby himself may be broken, but him being super cool does not limit the other characters' ability to be cool to a great degree at all. It's still a big bummer but not a complete catastrophe.
In a game where the players are direct enemies, however, it is a catastrophe because what you can do very drastically affects what your opponent is allowed to do. It is not enough for the unit to be cool and fun to use - it also has to be fun or interesting to face. Numbers tweaks are possible but in the end the fundamental nature of the inclusion should be "right". This is something I feel Blizzard is nowadays very much slipping on*.

*If they were ever good at it in the first place - as far as I know, the Frozen Throne expansion was directed by a WarCraft 3 pro or a similar outsider who basically went "goddamnit let me fix your game" and included things with a very distinct gameplay job to fulfill instead of just making cool stuff up and including it (Blizz's admitted MO with Heart of the Swarm). The game is still broken, balance-wise, to the point where a famous Undead pro just picked Orc against Orc. Starcraft: Brood War's famed balance is in large part a result of saner unit designs combined with professional Korean mapmakers and the near-inhuman effort and work ethic of the progamers from said country. An argument could be made that Blizzard was only ever really good in the art direction and general content department, where they have been very clearly slipping as of late (Exhibits #1, #2, #3)

Squee
KuKri
Profile Joined February 2012
Germany168 Posts
August 12 2012 23:19 GMT
#7071
On August 13 2012 08:06 monkybone wrote:
People should just understand that Protoss is designed around the warp gate. The existence of the gateway and its mechanics are set up purely for early game balance reasons. Every aspect of the warp gate is better, even the gameplay aspect of it. All I see here are butthurt BW nostalgists and balance whiners who don't know what to whine about anymore so they pick something as silly as one of the most fundamental features if starcraft.

What's next? Reactors are too good, and Terrans should be awarded for choosing to have no add-ons?

You can stop raging. There was no whining going on, it was just reasoning beyond your 'I don't think of changing anything that feels like it's too established.' Why do I even bother...
Frex
Profile Joined March 2012
Finland888 Posts
August 12 2012 23:26 GMT
#7072
On August 09 2012 06:18 Orek wrote:
It is neither creep range nor raven speed that is the most significant thing in this balance testing.

It is the "Queen will stay 5 range forever" hidden(?) message from Blizzard that is the most important content you take away from the post.

If I were to write summary of the Blizzard post, that would be it.


Blizzard has stated they changed the queen with HotS in mind. Now that looking at the TvZ battle report we have seen that reapers are supposed to be again usable in HotS so I'm pretty positive that the changes we will see in HotS to reaper is one of the reasons why Blizzard won't revert the queen change.

However, I wish we had also seen a reduce in production time of reaper with the queen change.
tskarzyn
Profile Joined July 2010
United States516 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-12 23:33:13
August 12 2012 23:33 GMT
#7073
Think of what the game could be without warpgate. PvT would be constant streams of units running across the map which opens up new dynamics like cutting off reinforcements, gateway all ins would most likely disappear, defender's advantage will actually matter, one battle wont determine the winner of the game (oh you lost your army? proxy zlot warp in GG!") PvT and PvZ would have so much more back and forth, and they could start to rebalance the game by nerfing Zerg late game and possibly nerfing terran bio.

Almost forgot- PvP would be watchable!
Shiori
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
3815 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-12 23:46:03
August 12 2012 23:43 GMT
#7074
I think Blizzard is actually just walking on a path that's going to lead to the gradual death of the eSports scene. A combination of their obsession with turtle styles, too much rhetoric about "everyone having a solid lategame" and not enough about everyone having solid early game harassment, an understanding of harassment as being tied to raiding units (which misses the fundamental point: MMM is awesome harassment because it flows naturally out of the army; same for Infestors and Lings. Adding Stargate Reapers isn't going to be interesting; it's just an alternate Phoenix) and underemphasis on micro in favour of "terrible terrible damage" is just sending this game more and more down hill.

I appreciate that they want the game to be balanced at all levels, but the fact is that if you keep giving easy a-move alternatives to help out shitty Gold leaguers, that's going to have an effect on the pro scene, and it's almost always going to be a bad effect. I don't understand why they couldn't have made more units like the Marine, which can be microed to counter things, or the HT, which requires micro to use effectively, instead of retarded shit like the Infestor, Roach, Marauder, Colossus, and other deathball stuff that can never possibly be used in any really interesting way because they're just simplistic and boring fucking units.

This Queen change is just the latest in a long string of changes designed to produce more "macro games." You know what? Macro games in Sc2 are a dime a dozen, and roughly half of them are extremely boring split map scenarios which culminate in an unsatisfying (but pretty, I'll give them that) 200/200 deathball bonanza that is virtually devoid of micro beyond basic positioning. It's actually funny to consider that the most well-designed parts of matchups are the ones players want changed. I am, of course, talking about lategame PvT. How many Terrans lamented (and still lament) that micro baseline required to do well against Protoss in the lategame? How many Protoss players find the effects of EMP on clumped up Templar unfair? How many of them struggle to hold lategame drops, or prevent their Colossi from getting sniped? And yet, of all the non-mirrors, PvT is the only one in which the better player tends to win in a macro situation. But no, instead we have calls for stupid units like the Warhound, or buffs to the Ghost to make it easier to use.

I mean, come on. The most competitive games are difficult. That's what makes them competitive. If any idiot can pick up Sc2 and master every matchup in a year by learning 1 builds that works against everything, Sc2 isn't going to last. In that respect, we desperately need HotS to come around and fix things. But it's not looking like it's going in the right direction. Basically every unit except the Mothership Core is a bandaid for players who don't know how to control properly. Oh, you're having difficulty fighting against Colossi pushes? Here's the Viper, so now Protoss players' meticulous positioning is irrelevant. Can't macro or engage well enough to beat a Chargelot army? Here, take the battle Hellion and Warhound. Now you can a-move every game with a super boring mech army (yes, mech in Sc2 is unbelievably boring; the only interesting/skill based unit is the Siege Tank). Protoss is getting some utterly stupid unit to deal with BroodLords in the Tempest.

Look, I know none of the units in HotS are final, but they do show you Blizzard's mindset, and, right now, it isn't pretty. The problem with the Queen buff isn't so much that it makes Zerg overpowered (though I'd argue that it does) but that it makes the game simpler and means that the early and mid games are more telegraphed. It's just not interesting to watch TvZ anymore, because nothing actually happens until like 10 minutes in, and at that point it's just a macro contest and posturing until Infestor/BL faces off against whatever the Terran army has. It's not fun because none of those engagements are interesting. I greatly enjoyed Muta/Ling/Blind vs Marine/Tank because it was so mobile and dynamic and scaled so well with skill. Rather than Vikings getting Fungaled being the deciding factor in the engagement, it was about who controlled their units in such a way that they acquired the better positioning. It wasn't "oh, he got all of his Vikings caught by Fungal. GG." But instead of fostering that type of gameplay, Blizzard apparently wants to see Infestor/BL bullshit in every matchup, because I've yet to see them acknowledge how stale and skilless that composition (and similar compositions, mind you) has become.
Fig
Profile Joined March 2010
United States1324 Posts
August 12 2012 23:51 GMT
#7075
On August 13 2012 08:33 tskarzyn wrote:
Think of what the game could be without warpgate. PvT would be constant streams of units running across the map which opens up new dynamics like cutting off reinforcements, gateway all ins would most likely disappear, defender's advantage will actually matter, one battle wont determine the winner of the game (oh you lost your army? proxy zlot warp in GG!") PvT and PvZ would have so much more back and forth, and they could start to rebalance the game by nerfing Zerg late game and possibly nerfing terran bio.

Almost forgot- PvP would be watchable!

This whole problem can be solved very simply. Just make it so gateway units must be built in the gateway, and can only warp once that build time is finished. Basically putting gateways and warpgates together.

This would make gateway all ins much slower, because the build time of the units would be taken into account before they can get into the fray.

It would also make terrans happy because this way there is no instant 20 zealot warpin during lategame maxed battles. The toss would have to wait for the build time like everyone else.

And, it would make tosses happy, because gateway units would be buffed a bit to compensate for this nerf.

And finally, it would make getting warpgates a choice upgrade, since the build time is still the same either way (and theoretically longer if you keep the 5 sec warp in time). So if you plan on just defending in your base, you wouldn't want to get it.
Can't elope with my cantaloupe
Stratos_speAr
Profile Joined May 2009
United States6959 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-12 23:58:42
August 12 2012 23:54 GMT
#7076
On August 13 2012 07:50 KuKri wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 13 2012 07:31 Stratos_speAr wrote:
On August 09 2012 11:07 LavaLava wrote:
On August 09 2012 11:00 BandonBanshee wrote:
Who honestly thought warpgate was good idea? ZvP is devolving into 9-13 minutes of "Did you find the pylon?". I'm not arguing its imbalanced because you can obviously win against it, it just leads to terrible games to watch and even more boring to play.

I just wish protoss players actually had to make choices between gateways and warpgates, this game is getting INCREDIBLY stale.


Yeah, I've always thought it was incredibly bizarre how there's a transform back to gateway button. I would never say that Warp Gates need a straight nerf, without a huge, huge redesign of a ton of units, but it just seems like Gateways should have some kind of use!


The fundamental design concept of Warp Gates creates a massive problem for Protoss.

At the core of its philosophy, the Protoss race is supposed to be few but strong. However, if you can warp in strong units across the map in no time at all, then obviously the race is going to be stupidly overpowered. Just think if Dragoons and fast Zealots from BW were able to be warped in across the map. This has forced Blizzard to heavily nerf individual Protoss units, but to keep the race as a whole powerful enough, these units synergize very well together. This all culminates in an incredibly boring race that can only fight in a deathball; we're seeing T and Z split their armies more in matchups that don't involve P, but any matchup with P just results in massive deathballs and boring games. It all just goes straight back to the Warp Gate; it's a fantastic idea that's really cool, but it's an absolute disaster for balance.

But this is inherent in the game and is too hard to come by as trying to change this would afford to tweak the protoss race heavily and I bet Blizzard isn't even considering this. This problem is about 2 years old by now and will most likely never be changed. At least TvZ and TvT are great matchups, I like ZvZ much, too. But everything involving P too often turns out exactly as you said.
However, it would be interesting to see a SC2 version without warpgate and some buffs to P units. Maybe replacing the Warp Prism with a Shuttle that has more life and can carry 8 units or something like that.


I absolutely agree; trying to change it now would be pure chaos. It's just unfortunate that we're in this position, because now it's an incredibly headache to try to fix.

Can't tell if balance whine or nonsensical BW nostalgia.


It's neither. Stop being a prick.

People should just understand that Protoss is designed around the warp gate. The existence of the gateway and its mechanics are set up purely for early game balance reasons. Every aspect of the warp gate is better, even the gameplay aspect of it. No buff to the gateway would make it more viable that warp gate further into the game. This is just silly speculation. All I see here are butthurt BW nostalgists and balance whiners who don't know what to whine about anymore so they pick something as silly as one of the most fundamental features if starcraft.

What's next? Reactors are too good, and Terrans should be awarded for choosing to have no add-ons?


You completely missed the point that we're trying to make.

Yea not sure if this guy has seen chargelot warp prism usage before. Combination of deathball+multiple warp prisms is not easy and is not 1 dimensional. Go figure...


I never said that it was super easy. I just said that it's boring (to watch). Warp Prism harass with Chargelots (still stupidly inneficient compared to other harass options) doesn't magically fix the deathball problem; you still have a deathball roaming around the map, but with one or two Warp Prisms doing the occassional harassment. It's laughable to look at a little Warp Prism harass and say, "See! Protoss is fixed and isn't completely deathball oriented!" Warp Prism harass isn't viable until later in the game and isn't viable in the way that any T or Z harass is.
A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.
Stratos_speAr
Profile Joined May 2009
United States6959 Posts
August 13 2012 00:00 GMT
#7077
On August 13 2012 08:51 Fig wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 13 2012 08:33 tskarzyn wrote:
Think of what the game could be without warpgate. PvT would be constant streams of units running across the map which opens up new dynamics like cutting off reinforcements, gateway all ins would most likely disappear, defender's advantage will actually matter, one battle wont determine the winner of the game (oh you lost your army? proxy zlot warp in GG!") PvT and PvZ would have so much more back and forth, and they could start to rebalance the game by nerfing Zerg late game and possibly nerfing terran bio.

Almost forgot- PvP would be watchable!

This whole problem can be solved very simply. Just make it so gateway units must be built in the gateway, and can only warp once that build time is finished. Basically putting gateways and warpgates together.

This would make gateway all ins much slower, because the build time of the units would be taken into account before they can get into the fray.

It would also make terrans happy because this way there is no instant 20 zealot warpin during lategame maxed battles. The toss would have to wait for the build time like everyone else.

And, it would make tosses happy, because gateway units would be buffed a bit to compensate for this nerf.

And finally, it would make getting warpgates a choice upgrade, since the build time is still the same either way (and theoretically longer if you keep the 5 sec warp in time). So if you plan on just defending in your base, you wouldn't want to get it.


That's a really interesting idea, but it might be a little too radical for Blizzard to try it.
A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.
Orek
Profile Joined February 2012
1665 Posts
August 13 2012 00:45 GMT
#7078
On August 13 2012 08:43 Shiori wrote:

+ Show Spoiler +
I think Blizzard is actually just walking on a path that's going to lead to the gradual death of the eSports scene. A combination of their obsession with turtle styles, too much rhetoric about "everyone having a solid lategame" and not enough about everyone having solid early game harassment, an understanding of harassment as being tied to raiding units (which misses the fundamental point: MMM is awesome harassment because it flows naturally out of the army; same for Infestors and Lings. Adding Stargate Reapers isn't going to be interesting; it's just an alternate Phoenix) and underemphasis on micro in favour of "terrible terrible damage" is just sending this game more and more down hill.

I appreciate that they want the game to be balanced at all levels, but the fact is that if you keep giving easy a-move alternatives to help out shitty Gold leaguers, that's going to have an effect on the pro scene, and it's almost always going to be a bad effect. I don't understand why they couldn't have made more units like the Marine, which can be microed to counter things, or the HT, which requires micro to use effectively, instead of retarded shit like the Infestor, Roach, Marauder, Colossus, and other deathball stuff that can never possibly be used in any really interesting way because they're just simplistic and boring fucking units.

This Queen change is just the latest in a long string of changes designed to produce more "macro games." You know what? Macro games in Sc2 are a dime a dozen, and roughly half of them are extremely boring split map scenarios which culminate in an unsatisfying (but pretty, I'll give them that) 200/200 deathball bonanza that is virtually devoid of micro beyond basic positioning. It's actually funny to consider that the most well-designed parts of matchups are the ones players want changed. I am, of course, talking about lategame PvT. How many Terrans lamented (and still lament) that micro baseline required to do well against Protoss in the lategame? How many Protoss players find the effects of EMP on clumped up Templar unfair? How many of them struggle to hold lategame drops, or prevent their Colossi from getting sniped? And yet, of all the non-mirrors, PvT is the only one in which the better player tends to win in a macro situation. But no, instead we have calls for stupid units like the Warhound, or buffs to the Ghost to make it easier to use.

I mean, come on. The most competitive games are difficult. That's what makes them competitive. If any idiot can pick up Sc2 and master every matchup in a year by learning 1 builds that works against everything, Sc2 isn't going to last. In that respect, we desperately need HotS to come around and fix things. But it's not looking like it's going in the right direction. Basically every unit except the Mothership Core is a bandaid for players who don't know how to control properly. Oh, you're having difficulty fighting against Colossi pushes? Here's the Viper, so now Protoss players' meticulous positioning is irrelevant. Can't macro or engage well enough to beat a Chargelot army? Here, take the battle Hellion and Warhound. Now you can a-move every game with a super boring mech army (yes, mech in Sc2 is unbelievably boring; the only interesting/skill based unit is the Siege Tank). Protoss is getting some utterly stupid unit to deal with BroodLords in the Tempest.

Look, I know none of the units in HotS are final, but they do show you Blizzard's mindset, and, right now, it isn't pretty. The problem with the Queen buff isn't so much that it makes Zerg overpowered (though I'd argue that it does) but that it makes the game simpler and means that the early and mid games are more telegraphed. It's just not interesting to watch TvZ anymore, because nothing actually happens until like 10 minutes in, and at that point it's just a macro contest and posturing until Infestor/BL faces off against whatever the Terran army has. It's not fun because none of those engagements are interesting. I greatly enjoyed Muta/Ling/Blind vs Marine/Tank because it was so mobile and dynamic and scaled so well with skill. Rather than Vikings getting Fungaled being the deciding factor in the engagement, it was about who controlled their units in such a way that they acquired the better positioning. It wasn't "oh, he got all of his Vikings caught by Fungal. GG." But instead of fostering that type of gameplay, Blizzard apparently wants to see Infestor/BL bullshit in every matchup, because I've yet to see them acknowledge how stale and skilless that composition (and similar compositions, mind you) has become.



I agree with your post, especially the bolded part.

I honestly think that unlimited units selection is playing a big role in this ez a-move syndrome. Call me nostalgic, but in BW, you could select only 12 units at a time, and this made the skill cap soooooooooooooo much higher than SC2. Army you 1a with today required 1a2a3a4a5a6a commands. Therefore, 1a2a3a core army, 4a5a flank, and 6a counter attack army seperation had almost same number of commands to execute as 1a2a3a4a5a6a deathball style push. In SC2, army seperation requires so many more commands and skill, so people choose deathball especially in lower leagues.

Also, any GM/master can copy top SC2 pro builds somewhat decently because mechanics is easy enough with auto worker rally and nearly unlimited unit selection. On the contrary, I once heard that it took 2 pro B-teamers to copy Jaedong play because Jaedong played that fast/good. In my view, BW was considered "balanced" because skill mattered so much that slight build/race imbalance could be overcome by skill. As for SC2, balance discussion never ends because execution of the builds is so much easier that slight imbalance cannot be overcome by skill,and build vs build matters so much more than skill vs skill.

By making a game that is easier for us noobs to play, Blizzard made this game so hard to balance. I wouldn't go as far to say we should revert auto worker rally or have 12 max unit selection. But maybe like 24 max unit selection = 1 page worth might be good? Then, I could see many players below gold quit playing entirely because it is just too difficult to play, but as a game that tests your skill, I don't think it is a bad change. Having to use only 3 hotkeys for your army even at pro level is insanely easy game design. Limiting maximum unit selection would wipe out 2 things from ladder:1a strategy and lower league players. Tough call because lower leaguers like us are the majority. When 150APM becomes minimum requirement to execute a build, then we would see more entertaining games from pros. It's just that you cannot do it on ladder with your master level skill.
Shiori
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
3815 Posts
August 13 2012 00:51 GMT
#7079
On August 13 2012 09:45 Orek wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 13 2012 08:43 Shiori wrote:

+ Show Spoiler +
I think Blizzard is actually just walking on a path that's going to lead to the gradual death of the eSports scene. A combination of their obsession with turtle styles, too much rhetoric about "everyone having a solid lategame" and not enough about everyone having solid early game harassment, an understanding of harassment as being tied to raiding units (which misses the fundamental point: MMM is awesome harassment because it flows naturally out of the army; same for Infestors and Lings. Adding Stargate Reapers isn't going to be interesting; it's just an alternate Phoenix) and underemphasis on micro in favour of "terrible terrible damage" is just sending this game more and more down hill.

I appreciate that they want the game to be balanced at all levels, but the fact is that if you keep giving easy a-move alternatives to help out shitty Gold leaguers, that's going to have an effect on the pro scene, and it's almost always going to be a bad effect. I don't understand why they couldn't have made more units like the Marine, which can be microed to counter things, or the HT, which requires micro to use effectively, instead of retarded shit like the Infestor, Roach, Marauder, Colossus, and other deathball stuff that can never possibly be used in any really interesting way because they're just simplistic and boring fucking units.

This Queen change is just the latest in a long string of changes designed to produce more "macro games." You know what? Macro games in Sc2 are a dime a dozen, and roughly half of them are extremely boring split map scenarios which culminate in an unsatisfying (but pretty, I'll give them that) 200/200 deathball bonanza that is virtually devoid of micro beyond basic positioning. It's actually funny to consider that the most well-designed parts of matchups are the ones players want changed. I am, of course, talking about lategame PvT. How many Terrans lamented (and still lament) that micro baseline required to do well against Protoss in the lategame? How many Protoss players find the effects of EMP on clumped up Templar unfair? How many of them struggle to hold lategame drops, or prevent their Colossi from getting sniped? And yet, of all the non-mirrors, PvT is the only one in which the better player tends to win in a macro situation. But no, instead we have calls for stupid units like the Warhound, or buffs to the Ghost to make it easier to use.

I mean, come on. The most competitive games are difficult. That's what makes them competitive. If any idiot can pick up Sc2 and master every matchup in a year by learning 1 builds that works against everything, Sc2 isn't going to last. In that respect, we desperately need HotS to come around and fix things. But it's not looking like it's going in the right direction. Basically every unit except the Mothership Core is a bandaid for players who don't know how to control properly. Oh, you're having difficulty fighting against Colossi pushes? Here's the Viper, so now Protoss players' meticulous positioning is irrelevant. Can't macro or engage well enough to beat a Chargelot army? Here, take the battle Hellion and Warhound. Now you can a-move every game with a super boring mech army (yes, mech in Sc2 is unbelievably boring; the only interesting/skill based unit is the Siege Tank). Protoss is getting some utterly stupid unit to deal with BroodLords in the Tempest.

Look, I know none of the units in HotS are final, but they do show you Blizzard's mindset, and, right now, it isn't pretty. The problem with the Queen buff isn't so much that it makes Zerg overpowered (though I'd argue that it does) but that it makes the game simpler and means that the early and mid games are more telegraphed. It's just not interesting to watch TvZ anymore, because nothing actually happens until like 10 minutes in, and at that point it's just a macro contest and posturing until Infestor/BL faces off against whatever the Terran army has. It's not fun because none of those engagements are interesting. I greatly enjoyed Muta/Ling/Blind vs Marine/Tank because it was so mobile and dynamic and scaled so well with skill. Rather than Vikings getting Fungaled being the deciding factor in the engagement, it was about who controlled their units in such a way that they acquired the better positioning. It wasn't "oh, he got all of his Vikings caught by Fungal. GG." But instead of fostering that type of gameplay, Blizzard apparently wants to see Infestor/BL bullshit in every matchup, because I've yet to see them acknowledge how stale and skilless that composition (and similar compositions, mind you) has become.



I agree with your post, especially the bolded part.

I honestly think that unlimited units selection is playing a big role in this ez a-move syndrome. Call me nostalgic, but in BW, you could select only 12 units at a time, and this made the skill cap soooooooooooooo much higher than SC2. Army you 1a with today required 1a2a3a4a5a6a commands. Therefore, 1a2a3a core army, 4a5a flank, and 6a counter attack army seperation had almost same number of commands to execute as 1a2a3a4a5a6a deathball style push. In SC2, army seperation requires so many more commands and skill, so people choose deathball especially in lower leagues.

Also, any GM/master can copy top SC2 pro builds somewhat decently because mechanics is easy enough with auto worker rally and nearly unlimited unit selection. On the contrary, I once heard that it took 2 pro B-teamers to copy Jaedong play because Jaedong played that fast/good. In my view, BW was considered "balanced" because skill mattered so much that slight build/race imbalance could be overcome by skill. As for SC2, balance discussion never ends because execution of the builds is so much easier that slight imbalance cannot be overcome by skill,and build vs build matters so much more than skill vs skill.

By making a game that is easier for us noobs to play, Blizzard made this game so hard to balance. I wouldn't go as far to say we should revert auto worker rally or have 12 max unit selection. But maybe like 24 max unit selection = 1 page worth might be good? Then, I could see many players below gold quit playing entirely because it is just too difficult to play, but as a game that tests your skill, I don't think it is a bad change. Having to use only 3 hotkeys for your army even at pro level is insanely easy game design. Limiting maximum unit selection would wipe out 2 things from ladder:1a strategy and lower league players. Tough call because lower leaguers like us are the majority. When 150APM becomes minimum requirement to execute a build, then we would see more entertaining games from pros. It's just that you cannot do it on ladder with your master level skill.

I've got no idea what the solution is. I don't think anything like a UI change would be feasible since Sc2 was already released and it would be perceived as a step backwards. However, I believe that there IS a solution in that Blizzard has made units which scale well with micro without being useless without micro, namely, the Marine. Now I know everyone thinks the Marine was OP, and it was, but maybe having more OP stuff balances each other out.
SKDN
Profile Joined April 2012
Sweden243 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-13 01:00:43
August 13 2012 00:56 GMT
#7080
Vortex fest endgame ZvP is stupid for both sides, Why is none talking about it?
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