Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 696

On August 13 2013 09:48 da0ud wrote:
I love how everyone talks here mostly about the lesser talented leagues of Europe and America.
Those poor Scarlett or Jeadong or Vortix are way behind Soulkey or Symbol who got crushed in Korea (3-1 and 3-0) in round of 8.
I agree there is no balance problem at our level, but at the pro level it is clearly ridiculous to try and admit the opposite.
The games are just hilarious. In ZvT, Terran can afford to lose many fights and make a lot of mistakes and still come back.
If Zerg does one mistake he loses.
Not to take anything from Polt or Duckdoek but there is a massive gap between them and korean players playing in WCS Korea.

I like the ability from Overseer to cast detection upon friendly unit. This would prevent for example getting 60% of your muta ball crushed by three mines because the lazy overseer is half way behind.

On August 13 2013 09:42 TheRabidDeer wrote:
The reason we wont ever see biotank again:
Tanks dont have the potential to kill 20+ lings/banes in 1 shot or take out mutalisks. Biotank was pretty good before, but now their "tanks" (area control) can hit air too.

On August 13 2013 19:40 Grumbels wrote:
Blizzard is reluctant to make minor stat changes for some reason. In the current balance it's easy to do the following:

-widow mines take +2s to build
-3/3 upgrades for terran both cost 25/25 more

And all of a sudden zerg has a slightly larger window to transition to Hive tech.

They also never make any small stat changes to the siege tank or carrier. It's more likely for them to have minor functional changes like speed boosts or removing upgrades. I guess it's because those things are instantly noticeable and are more easy to adjust to? And if they start tweaking stats it has some philosophical implications that change balancing from art to science? (if that makes sense)

On August 13 2013 19:02 Sissors wrote:

Three mines can't kill 60% of your muta ball, you need 4 mines (unless you manage to let them hit all exactly at once). And even then it is your own fault for not paying attention and having them clumped up.

And I can also give you enough examples of terrans losing due to one mistake. Or try playing mech vs zerg, they can make a shitload of mistakes while one mistake is your end. More important, apparantly everyone below RO8 is a lesser talented player who doesn't matter.

Then the question: Do you really want to unbalance the game for everyone outside that RO8 just to get it a tad more balanced for them? Even ignoring that it is of course not even near statistically significant. And that we had a month long zergs complaining WM are OP for everyone outside KR premier league so it shoudl be nerfed to give regular players a chance.


Biotank was 'pretty good' in WoL (where pretty good is pretty relative) before mutas were heavily buffed, vipers introduced, ultras heavily buffed, etc.

On August 13 2013 08:56 TheRabidDeer wrote:

Why do people source one game? Just say it: Keeping mutalisks alive is hard when there are marines and widow mines. Plain and simple. Can it be done? Sure. But it is REALLY hard.

On August 14 2013 04:17 plogamer wrote:


No shit it's really hard. It's really hard for the Terran to play against Zerg too, if Scarlett can pull it off, then I'm sure Korean Zergs can too.

On August 14 2013 08:53 Big J wrote:


Because people keep arguing about that Scarlett game and how every zerg should play like she did:
1) aLive did a mass blue flame hellion attack early, which is NOT a standard macro build. Whether or not the situation after it was equal, it was in no way normal
2) aLive did not do a paradepush (probably due to 1); the first and only big engagment before ultralisks happened at 18mins in the middle of the map and Scarlett could go into Ultralisks right after that. She did not have to spend a lot of gas on rebuilding banelings and was not forced to combat with mutalisks. Keeping mutalisks alive is pretty easy if their sole purpose is hit and run attacks, instead of fighting marines
3) She did not play a different playstyle. She played a standard-as-can-be muta/ling/bling midgame with a standard-as-can-be ultralisk transition. And when the game did go over 25mins and neither of them was able to kill the other one, she did a standard-as-can-be-in-any-matchup-yet-rare-because-matches-tend-to-end-before-that transition into the most supplyefficient army you can build as a zerg against someone who plays bio: Infestor/Broodlord (just pointing this out because some people here keep on missing that she played muta/ling/bling into ultralisks)

I don't want to take anything away from her (she played awesome) or say that she only won because aLive played badly (I believe he played quite well, until the lategame). But you cannot choose for games to look like that. aLive played in a certain way that allowed Scarlett to play the way she did. In comparison, Polt played a different way against Jaedong, that does not allow you to play that way.

On August 14 2013 15:13 ReMinD_ wrote:
Add a damage cap to Widow Mine's splash damage.

On August 14 2013 15:42 PiPoGevy wrote:
The widow mine is very powerful, while the siege tank is left weak
In my opinion, the siege tank should be buffed to more closely represent its Broodwar counterpart,
While the widow mine should be nerfed

The only side effect would be a more slow paced TvZ, but the increased effectiveness of mech in three matchups

On August 14 2013 15:42 PiPoGevy wrote:
The widow mine is very powerful, while the siege tank is left weak
In my opinion, the siege tank should be buffed to more closely represent its Broodwar counterpart,
While the widow mine should be nerfed

The only side effect would be a more slow paced TvZ, but the increased effectiveness of mech in three matchups

On August 14 2013 16:15 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:


Widow mines are already nerfed version of the Vulture.
They cost 100 minerals and had 3 mines that could wipe out a mineral line.
For SC2 Terranto achieve the same effect he would need to build both a reaper and a WM, both which cost gas, therefore the trade off is that both reaper and widow mine are stronger than the vulture.
Reapers can heal and cliff jump and widow mines are walking missile silos.

So really what is the trade off that you find acceptable then? Because this is a balance discussion not a whine thread. You are supposed to COUNTER PROPOSE.

On August 13 2013 23:35 RaFox17 wrote:

Can you please offer those numerous examples of terran losing in a macro game because of one mistake? The "mech is unforgivable" argument is stupid cause 4M is so much superior to mech that if you play mech you know you are playing with an inferior composition that has nothing to do with T v Z meta.

On August 13 2013 21:26 Grumbels wrote:
Timing adjustments and that sort of thing happen in maps already anyway. A map with a longer rush distance is already an example of finetuning balance.

I think there are only three main options when dealing with imbalance:

1. parity -- everyone has access to the same tools. This can be like warcraft 2 or chess, where the options are basically the same for all players, it can be like dota where you have the same hero pool to pick from, or even like starcraft where there are a lot of similarities between races.

2. obscurity -- if there is such a wealth of strategic options to choose from then it really becomes so complicated so quickly that no player can master the game's strategy. (maybe like in card games where there are so many deck choices it's not possible to master) Even if there exist theoretically overpowered styles, it would be difficult to exploit them because you leave yourself too vulnerable to being countered. This is sometimes the opposite in starcraft 2 which often gives the perception of possible alternative styles to a dominant style being too easily exhausted, requiring others (blizzard, map makers) to step in. With this method of dealing with imbalance, you really turn finding imbalanced (powerful) options into a skill.

3. finetuning -- trying to constantly adjust the maps and game stats to create reasonable balance, trying to stay 'ahead of the metagame'.

Please tell me if I missed any.

In any case, I think that any game should do well to look into all three areas of balancing, each has its pros and cons. I was playing devil's advocate a bit in my post, since I think it's a complicated issue.

On August 13 2013 19:40 Grumbels wrote:
Blizzard is reluctant to make minor stat changes for some reason. In the current balance it's easy to do the following:

-widow mines take +2s to build
-3/3 upgrades for terran both cost 25/25 more

And all of a sudden zerg has a slightly larger window to transition to Hive tech.

They also never make any small stat changes to the siege tank or carrier. It's more likely for them to have minor functional changes like speed boosts or removing upgrades. I guess it's because those things are instantly noticeable and are more easy to adjust to? And if they start tweaking stats it has some philosophical implications that change balancing from art to science? (if that makes sense)

On August 14 2013 16:15 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:


Widow mines are already nerfed version of the Vulture.
They cost 100 minerals and had 3 mines that could wipe out a mineral line.
For SC2 Terranto achieve the same effect he would need to build both a reaper and a WM, both which cost gas, therefore the trade off is that both reaper and widow mine are stronger than the vulture.
Reapers can heal and cliff jump and widow mines are walking missile silos.

So really what is the trade off that you find acceptable then? Because this is a balance discussion not a whine thread. You are supposed to COUNTER PROPOSE.

On August 14 2013 04:17 plogamer wrote:


No shit it's really hard. It's really hard for the Terran to play against Zerg too, if Scarlett can pull it off, then I'm sure Korean Zergs can too.

On August 14 2013 13:47 plogamer wrote:

All you're saying is that muta retention is easier when you are ahead. That much is true. Marine retention is also easier when you're ahead. Less banelings to split again, more splash units to have shots again banelings. Better upgrades, better tech (medivac to heal and load-up)

But we also accept that better players in general have better unit retention - even when they are behind (MVP v Tefel for an exaggerated example - tefel's mistake was huge).

Muta retention is also easier when you are the better player.