Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 467

On April 22 2013 22:02 ZenithM wrote:

+ Show Spoiler +
"Strafe jumping" wasn't intended, so it wasn't "design". That's all I'm saying here. Stop talking about "design", dammit, that's not even your point most of the time. Most of the great things that came with BW weren't "by design".

And my point about Blizzard not wanting to put BW's mechanics back in SC2 is that it's not marketingly viable for them to do so. When most of the RTS out there feature hundreds of "different" units and 20 factions and hugely automatized mechanics (like auto-unit production), you can't really say "yeah, we have bad path-finding, welcome to 2010!".

And we'll have to agree to disagree about MBS and auto-mine being bad for the game. I think it was great.

People arguing about "design" when they don't even know what design means seem also ignorant to me.

When I first implemented the feature it was possible to select and control large numbers of units at a time; there was no upper limit on the number of units that could be selected.

Later in the development process, and after many design arguments between team-members, we decided to allow players to select only four units at a time based on the idea that users would be required to pay attention to their tactical deployments rather than simply gathering a mob and sending them into the fray all at once. We later increased this number to nine in Warcraft II. Command and Conquer, the spiritual successor to Dune 2, didn’t have any upper bound on the number of units that could be selected. It’s worth another article to talk about the design ramifications, for sure.

On April 22 2013 16:36 Big J wrote:


If I use my common sense it tells me that low league players don't have the multitasking to harass properly with mutalisks. That they often won't do enough damage, lose a lot of mutalisks in the process and just die to a straight up attack. And the regeneration will hardly ever matter. When they win with mutalisks, it's going to be because their opponent wasn't in position to deal with them and a whole mineralline is gone before their army got back.

On April 23 2013 22:04 Rabiator wrote:

Lower league players DONT NEED to "multi"task and will still be able to harrass properly with Mutalisks. The DEFENDER against that needs to switch to "base defense" QUICKLY and that is the hard part for a lower level player ... deciding how to defend the base against threat X properly ...

In any case the Mutalisks will be in a MUCH better shape FOR THE NEXT ENGAGEMENT due to the regeneration and that is what makes them too strong for lower leagues ... your own playing mistakes / slow reactions are somewhat negated by that buff to the unit ...

That is how common sense works ...

On April 23 2013 22:04 Rabiator wrote:

Lower league players DONT NEED to "multi"task and will still be able to harrass properly with Mutalisks. The DEFENDER against that needs to switch to "base defense" QUICKLY and that is the hard part for a lower level player ... deciding how to defend the base against threat X properly ...

In any case the Mutalisks will be in a MUCH better shape FOR THE NEXT ENGAGEMENT due to the regeneration and that is what makes them too strong for lower leagues ... your own playing mistakes / slow reactions are somewhat negated by that buff to the unit ...

That is how common sense works ...

On April 24 2013 01:49 Decendos wrote:


also lower league players will lose horribly to widow mines...even more than high league players. it balances out dude. every race has "OP" stuff.

On April 24 2013 01:49 Decendos wrote:


also lower league players will lose horribly to widow mines...even more than high league players. it balances out dude. every race has "OP" stuff.

On April 24 2013 02:20 convention wrote:
Rabiator said MULE was hard in the lower leagues?

On April 24 2013 13:51 Rabiator wrote:

Gosh ... that is a STUPID design for a game where "horribly OP stuff" is in the game and will give you bad and unsatisfactory games. Maybe you understand it this way:

Casuals do not care about BALANCE ... they do care about FUN.

A game where you lose to Reapers after five minutes just because you were too slow or didnt put your two Marines at the exactly right spot is not very satisfying to play. The same is true for losing to warp ins inside your base, a Baneling bust or even regular engagement on your pack of Marines ... its a NOT FUN WAY TO LOSE because you never ever had a chance. In BW the game developed rather slowly and especially the unit selection and movement mechanics made sure that you had way more time to react before half your army was dead.

Again ... fuck balance (especially of the "everyone has his OP stuff" type) and yay for fun and excitement even when you lose. Satisfaction - even when losing - comes from the "illusion of having had a chance" and the OP stuff in SC2 do not give that illusion.


Show me where ...


EDIT:
The MULE is part of the whole "production and eceonomic speed boost" package and I think this whole thing should be removed from the game because it is behind some of the problems of the game ... which are caused by too many units (in conjunction with the tightly packed movement and unlimited unit selection) and the "imbalance" of asymmetric production speed boost capacity (Terrans only being able to boost "simple units" while Zerg can do anything and Protoss have something inbetween).

----

Most people here are coming with a "competitive point of view" and it is great to have such a dedicated and well moderated site for the scene, BUT they sadly seem to forget that there are people who dont care about "going up on the ladder" or "balance" and just want to play a game or two every week for fun. This experience is ruined because of the units and mechanics which Blizzard has added to the game. They may be balanced for higher skilled players, but they sadly are totally OP in lower leagues due to the "critical amount" stuff and all the snowballing that results from it OR the gimmicky nature which leaves not enough time to react to a threat. As a casual you simply have less stuff than a pro, BUT your opponent might have chosen to have a higher tech already and a few units of that stuff might easily walk over your whole units or ruin your economy. Not fun way to lose when you had no chance because of a "build order loss".

On April 22 2013 13:04 Rabiator wrote:

Oh come on ... just use some COMMON SENSE instead of that stupid fallback of "prove it 1000% first". Just look at the Blizzard boards and you will probably see a lot of WHINING about units ... which is based upon the perception of them being imba. That doesnt really mean they are, but they are probably still hard to play against. So there are things like the MULE, Forcefield and lots more in the game which really are hard to handle for lower levels.

On April 24 2013 13:51 Rabiator wrote:

Gosh ... that is a STUPID design for a game where "horribly OP stuff" is in the game and will give you bad and unsatisfactory games. Maybe you understand it this way:

Casuals do not care about BALANCE ... they do care about FUN.

A game where you lose to Reapers after five minutes just because you were too slow or didnt put your two Marines at the exactly right spot is not very satisfying to play. The same is true for losing to warp ins inside your base, a Baneling bust or even regular engagement on your pack of Marines ... its a NOT FUN WAY TO LOSE because you never ever had a chance. In BW the game developed rather slowly and especially the unit selection and movement mechanics made sure that you had way more time to react before half your army was dead.

Again ... fuck balance (especially of the "everyone has his OP stuff" type) and yay for fun and excitement even when you lose. Satisfaction - even when losing - comes from the "illusion of having had a chance" and the OP stuff in SC2 do not give that illusion.


Show me where ...


EDIT:
The MULE is part of the whole "production and eceonomic speed boost" package and I think this whole thing should be removed from the game because it is behind some of the problems of the game ... which are caused by too many units (in conjunction with the tightly packed movement and unlimited unit selection) and the "imbalance" of asymmetric production speed boost capacity (Terrans only being able to boost "simple units" while Zerg can do anything and Protoss have something inbetween).

----

Most people here are coming with a "competitive point of view" and it is great to have such a dedicated and well moderated site for the scene, BUT they sadly seem to forget that there are people who dont care about "going up on the ladder" or "balance" and just want to play a game or two every week for fun. This experience is ruined because of the units and mechanics which Blizzard has added to the game. They may be balanced for higher skilled players, but they sadly are totally OP in lower leagues due to the "critical amount" stuff and all the snowballing that results from it OR the gimmicky nature which leaves not enough time to react to a threat. As a casual you simply have less stuff than a pro, BUT your opponent might have chosen to have a higher tech already and a few units of that stuff might easily walk over your whole units or ruin your economy. Not fun way to lose when you had no chance because of a "build order loss".

On April 24 2013 13:51 Rabiator wrote:

Gosh ... that is a STUPID design for a game where "horribly OP stuff" is in the game and will give you bad and unsatisfactory games. Maybe you understand it this way:

Casuals do not care about BALANCE ... they do care about FUN.

A game where you lose to Reapers after five minutes just because you were too slow or didnt put your two Marines at the exactly right spot is not very satisfying to play. The same is true for losing to warp ins inside your base, a Baneling bust or even regular engagement on your pack of Marines ... its a NOT FUN WAY TO LOSE because you never ever had a chance. In BW the game developed rather slowly and especially the unit selection and movement mechanics made sure that you had way more time to react before half your army was dead.

Again ... fuck balance (especially of the "everyone has his OP stuff" type) and yay for fun and excitement even when you lose. Satisfaction - even when losing - comes from the "illusion of having had a chance" and the OP stuff in SC2 do not give that illusion.


Show me where ...


EDIT:
The MULE is part of the whole "production and eceonomic speed boost" package and I think this whole thing should be removed from the game because it is behind some of the problems of the game ... which are caused by too many units (in conjunction with the tightly packed movement and unlimited unit selection) and the "imbalance" of asymmetric production speed boost capacity (Terrans only being able to boost "simple units" while Zerg can do anything and Protoss have something inbetween).

----

Most people here are coming with a "competitive point of view" and it is great to have such a dedicated and well moderated site for the scene, BUT they sadly seem to forget that there are people who dont care about "going up on the ladder" or "balance" and just want to play a game or two every week for fun. This experience is ruined because of the units and mechanics which Blizzard has added to the game. They may be balanced for higher skilled players, but they sadly are totally OP in lower leagues due to the "critical amount" stuff and all the snowballing that results from it OR the gimmicky nature which leaves not enough time to react to a threat. As a casual you simply have less stuff than a pro, BUT your opponent might have chosen to have a higher tech already and a few units of that stuff might easily walk over your whole units or ruin your economy. Not fun way to lose when you had no chance because of a "build order loss".

On April 23 2013 20:16 Zanzabarr wrote:
I've never understood this. The whole point of the hellbat initially was to create a unit that could help terran deal with mass chargelot. It was designed to be a slower, tankier version of the hellion with conal splash (making it better against melee units).

So... Blizzard made the hellbat 2.25 movespeed, 135 hp up from 90, and conal splash...... but then they also increased it's DPS over the hellion MASSIVELY.

- vs non-light 281% dps of a hellion
- vs light 268% dps of a hellion without blue flame
- vs light 197% dps of a hellion with blue flame

Needless to say.... the DPS increases are downright ridiculous. I guess they felt the increased hp and change in splash wouldn't be attractive enough for a unit unlocked by armory, and felt the need to increase it's dps over the hellion....... but the current amount of DPS increases are way too much. Such a huge oversight. The unit is still the same cost as a hellion....... it would be like making stim reduce marine attack cd to 0.3 from .86 and marauder attack cd to .54 from 1.5, that would be ridiculous just like this.

My suggestion is quite an obvious one. Reduce Hellbat dps vs both non-light and light. I'm fine with hellbat having more dps than a hellion, but 2.8x as much? I don't think so. We could even have a compromise of lowering the hellbat attack CD from 2 to 1.5 or something, making + attack upgrades on it stronger and it's two shot dps higher.

What the hellbat really needs:

- vs non-light: 11 damage, 1.5 delay (7.33 dps, down from 9)

Still 229% damage of helion

- vs light: 19 damage, 1.5 delay (12.66 dps, down from 15)

Still 226% damage of helion without blue flame, 167% damage of helion with blue flame.

Note: the dps increase from upgrades is better than that of old hellbat. These changes would make workers die in 3 hits and not two before upgrades (though would only take 4.5 seconds to get 3 shots off, compared to the old hellbat two-shotting workers at 4 seconds, so not a huge nerf).

The dps of the hellbat would still be ridiculous compared to the helion, but I feel these changes are a step in the right direction.

Another weird thing about the hellbat is that it doesn't benefit from blue-flame, and the fact that you can build a hellbat once you get an armory, without the servos upgrade. If you plan on going hellbats, despite it being a battle version of the hellion, you will basically never bother upgrading neither blue flame or servos unless you went for a lot of hellions earlier.

I have a possible suggestion..... combine the servos hellion->hellbat transformation upgrade with the blue flame upgrade, available to upgrade without armory. Then make hellbats buildable from factory after this upgrade is completed.

This would do two things. It would allow terrans opening with hellions and committing to them with blue flame to have the option of transforming them to hellbats instead without the need of another second upgrade. It would also make terrans going bio to actually have to invest a little to get some hellbats, as opposed to getting them by default (armory needed for +2 and +3 bio upgrades anyway, and factory needed for starport->dropships anyway). It's only 150/150 cost, which isn't very much, and the 110 second research time would mirror the 110 second build time of the armory, which was the old requirement for the hellbat.

On April 24 2013 16:22 iky43210 wrote:
why do we need to nerf hellbat when its very rarely being utilized at all in TvZ and TvP?

On April 24 2013 20:14 freetgy wrote:


Why, is Hellbat beeing utilized in TvT more, than in TvZ, TvP?

I thought Hellbat was supposed to be used against melee units. Terran does not have melee units except SCVs.

As it is not used like it was intended, which begs the question if the unit needs a total redesign.

On April 24 2013 20:14 freetgy wrote:


Why, is Hellbat beeing utilized in TvT more, than in TvZ, TvP?

I thought Hellbat was supposed to be used against melee units. Terran does not have melee units except SCVs.

As it is not used like it was intended, which begs the question if the unit needs a total redesign.

On April 25 2013 01:31 Melloncollie wrote:
2 spines, 2 queens, 1 spore.

1 hellbat drop and all my drones killed.

How on earth is this balanced?

On April 24 2013 20:14 freetgy wrote:


Why, is Hellbat beeing utilized in TvT more, than in TvZ, TvP?

I thought Hellbat was supposed to be used against melee units. Terran does not have melee units except SCVs.

As it is not used like it was intended, which begs the question if the unit needs a total redesign.

On April 25 2013 04:13 Jasiwel wrote:
I'm not sure why Terrans don't use Hellbats more in TvP. Hellbat/Ghost/Viking/Whatever wrecks most anything Protoss has aside from Skytoss. It's actually more impressive than it is terrifying, though honestly I'm a bit irritated how efficient they are for their cost.

2 spines, 2 queens, 1 spore.

1 hellbat drop and all my drones killed.

How on earth is this balanced?