On August 14 2013 18:24 Ghanburighan wrote: This isn't a balance complain so much as a meta thing I had not noticed before. Every now and then even platinums like me meet up with smurfs, so this time I got this guy who fakes a msc core expand. I haven't seen this before in pro games, but it made sense in the meta.
He never built the msc. The first unit he built was a stalker after 2 bases and a robo (and an observer) at the 7 minute mark, knowing that most terrans know not to touch a msc expand. Of course, he continued to play somewhat greedy afterwards too (2 forges, 3 colossus into HT, 3 bases) but that looked more standard. But the opening rang alarm bells in my mind as something that might become the meta in the future.
To be honest, i have always been wondering why there are so few people that 'fake' an all-in build or something similar. Is it that expensive for a Protoss ( for example) to just throw down 3 extra Gates or so do fake a 7 Gate all-in while playing super standard behind it and just take a third/tech? Zerg ( again, just an example) gonna build a lot of units in response and lack drones which puts you nicely ahead assuming you dont just die if he decides to attack you with the units.
On August 14 2013 18:24 Ghanburighan wrote: This isn't a balance complain so much as a meta thing I had not noticed before. Every now and then even platinums like me meet up with smurfs, so this time I got this guy who fakes a msc core expand. I haven't seen this before in pro games, but it made sense in the meta.
He never built the msc. The first unit he built was a stalker after 2 bases and a robo (and an observer) at the 7 minute mark, knowing that most terrans know not to touch a msc expand. Of course, he continued to play somewhat greedy afterwards too (2 forges, 3 colossus into HT, 3 bases) but that looked more standard. But the opening rang alarm bells in my mind as something that might become the meta in the future.
To be honest, i have always been wondering why there are so few people that 'fake' an all-in build or something similar. Is it that expensive for a Protoss ( for example) to just throw down 3 extra Gates or so do fake a 7 Gate all-in while playing super standard behind it and just take a third/tech? Zerg ( again, just an example) gonna build a lot of units in response and lack drones which puts you nicely ahead assuming you dont just die if he decides to attack you with the units.
I think IdrA made fun of this plan a while ago. If you force units, he can use them. But the msc expand forces the terran to play greedy himself for a midgame timing (not terribly, as several hidden 2-base all-ins exist but the response to these all-ins is to build turrets/bunkers which do not have offensive capacity. By not building the msc, the P saves 100 gas that can go into tech, bolstering himself against said midgame timing.
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.
Ummm ... Warcraft 2 was heavily imbalanced with Orcs being favored. Why? Their spellcasters had an OFFENSIVE spell which was extremely powerful. I used to cast that spell through some forest and right in the path of some workers going to and from a gold mine. Insanely powerful and much better than the heal for the Paladin, which required precise clicking skill and only became useful after you take damage.
"Mastering" such a game is not really necessary to have fun; it should only provide a "bonus" if you are really good. Having more than one way of playing the game is not the same as the options available in a card game and frankly the crapton of multiple build orders - which then end up in the same units being produced - already make the game far too complicated on the economic front. The game needs to have VARIETY, but for this to be a good thing it needs to be ROBUST when it comes to balance and not "finetuned". Balance needs to be such that a deviation this way or that way - introduced by different map styles! - does not make the game unplayable for one race or another. Too often the casters are saying just such things though ... "style X is good on this map".
Constantly changing the game stats is RUBBISH, because it is an indicator of how fragile the game balance is. The balance needs to be solid and strong and with a large margin of error to allow for outside factors like maps or "flavour of the month" strategies. - Why dont we have as many "useable" gold mineral bases in the map pool anymore? Because Terrans would have a huge advantage with them. - Why dont we have any more maps with cliffs behind a mineral line or even simple pillars in the middle of the map anymore? Because people would think that Siege Tanks on there would be too powreful. With the current trend to "boost harrassment" Blizzard should have pushed for this one though ... - Why do we have only maps with rather open central battlefields? Because Forcefield and Fungal are too strong crowd control spells. Robust balance is what we need and not finetuned balance and at the core of the problem sits the amount of units and the army unit density ... in short: the army dps per area. The problematic mechanics behind this are ... huge production, huge economy, unlimited unit selection and clumped up unit movement.
SC2 is a game where controlling your units has almost taken a back seat compared to the ability to produce more stuff than your opponent and in any case "controlling your units" has been reduced to shaping your clump of units into a slightly more advantageous form. True unit micro isnt possible anymore in such big battles, because there simply is too much going on at the same time and units die far too fast to make microing them worth it. Only in the first ten minutes does micro really mean anything ... and that is a shame.
I am not sure if I agree with my post that you are replying to actually, I tried to describe my thoughts in a structural way but maybe it was too simplistic.
In any case, according to my earlier logic, if the game needs constant minor stat changes then one explanation could be that the other balancing forces have not been utilized properly. You state that the game balance is fragile and the need for constant tweaks demonstrates this, but in that case the problem is not improper use of finetuning, but lacking design in other areas that need to be masked with this finetuning approach. So although this style of balancing (overly depending on one aspect) shows deep problems with the game that should ideally be addressed, I think this aspect of balancing is still necessary.
And obviously, in so many computer games the developers are constantly doing small balance tweaks because those have shown to have value almost independent of any underlying design questions.
On August 14 2013 18:24 Ghanburighan wrote: This isn't a balance complain so much as a meta thing I had not noticed before. Every now and then even platinums like me meet up with smurfs, so this time I got this guy who fakes a msc core expand. I haven't seen this before in pro games, but it made sense in the meta.
He never built the msc. The first unit he built was a stalker after 2 bases and a robo (and an observer) at the 7 minute mark, knowing that most terrans know not to touch a msc expand. Of course, he continued to play somewhat greedy afterwards too (2 forges, 3 colossus into HT, 3 bases) but that looked more standard. But the opening rang alarm bells in my mind as something that might become the meta in the future.
Skipping the MSC makes no sense because he doesn't get a free scout of Terran's base and would 100% die to any Marines/Mines or Marines/Hellions pressure.
On August 14 2013 18:24 Ghanburighan wrote: This isn't a balance complain so much as a meta thing I had not noticed before. Every now and then even platinums like me meet up with smurfs, so this time I got this guy who fakes a msc core expand. I haven't seen this before in pro games, but it made sense in the meta.
He never built the msc. The first unit he built was a stalker after 2 bases and a robo (and an observer) at the 7 minute mark, knowing that most terrans know not to touch a msc expand. Of course, he continued to play somewhat greedy afterwards too (2 forges, 3 colossus into HT, 3 bases) but that looked more standard. But the opening rang alarm bells in my mind as something that might become the meta in the future.
Skipping the MSC makes no sense because he doesn't get a free scout of Terran's base and would 100% die to any Marines/Mines or Marines/Hellions pressure.
I haven't actually found good BO's or guides for those so I couldn't compare myself. The best I could think about was Taeja v San on Newkirk
On August 14 2013 18:24 Ghanburighan wrote: This isn't a balance complain so much as a meta thing I had not noticed before. Every now and then even platinums like me meet up with smurfs, so this time I got this guy who fakes a msc core expand. I haven't seen this before in pro games, but it made sense in the meta.
He never built the msc. The first unit he built was a stalker after 2 bases and a robo (and an observer) at the 7 minute mark, knowing that most terrans know not to touch a msc expand. Of course, he continued to play somewhat greedy afterwards too (2 forges, 3 colossus into HT, 3 bases) but that looked more standard. But the opening rang alarm bells in my mind as something that might become the meta in the future.
Skipping the MSC makes no sense because he doesn't get a free scout of Terran's base and would 100% die to any Marines/Mines or Marines/Hellions pressure.
I haven't actually found good BO's or guides for those so I couldn't compare myself. The best I could think about was Taeja v San on Newkirk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OzIJCbaIjU
Is that the build you have in mind?
Yes; or TaeJa vs Alicia, Akilon Wastes, game 5 for the Marines/Hellions one.
On August 14 2013 18:24 Ghanburighan wrote: This isn't a balance complain so much as a meta thing I had not noticed before. Every now and then even platinums like me meet up with smurfs, so this time I got this guy who fakes a msc core expand. I haven't seen this before in pro games, but it made sense in the meta.
He never built the msc. The first unit he built was a stalker after 2 bases and a robo (and an observer) at the 7 minute mark, knowing that most terrans know not to touch a msc expand. Of course, he continued to play somewhat greedy afterwards too (2 forges, 3 colossus into HT, 3 bases) but that looked more standard. But the opening rang alarm bells in my mind as something that might become the meta in the future.
Skipping the MSC makes no sense because he doesn't get a free scout of Terran's base and would 100% die to any Marines/Mines or Marines/Hellions pressure.
I haven't actually found good BO's or guides for those so I couldn't compare myself. The best I could think about was Taeja v San on Newkirk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OzIJCbaIjU
Is that the build you have in mind?
Yes; or TaeJa vs Alicia, Akilon Wastes, game 5 for the Marines/Hellions one.
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.
Ummm ... Warcraft 2 was heavily imbalanced with Orcs being favored. Why? Their spellcasters had an OFFENSIVE spell which was extremely powerful. I used to cast that spell through some forest and right in the path of some workers going to and from a gold mine. Insanely powerful and much better than the heal for the Paladin, which required precise clicking skill and only became useful after you take damage.
"Mastering" such a game is not really necessary to have fun; it should only provide a "bonus" if you are really good. Having more than one way of playing the game is not the same as the options available in a card game and frankly the crapton of multiple build orders - which then end up in the same units being produced - already make the game far too complicated on the economic front. The game needs to have VARIETY, but for this to be a good thing it needs to be ROBUST when it comes to balance and not "finetuned". Balance needs to be such that a deviation this way or that way - introduced by different map styles! - does not make the game unplayable for one race or another. Too often the casters are saying just such things though ... "style X is good on this map".
Constantly changing the game stats is RUBBISH, because it is an indicator of how fragile the game balance is. The balance needs to be solid and strong and with a large margin of error to allow for outside factors like maps or "flavour of the month" strategies. - Why dont we have as many "useable" gold mineral bases in the map pool anymore? Because Terrans would have a huge advantage with them. - Why dont we have any more maps with cliffs behind a mineral line or even simple pillars in the middle of the map anymore? Because people would think that Siege Tanks on there would be too powreful. With the current trend to "boost harrassment" Blizzard should have pushed for this one though ... - Why do we have only maps with rather open central battlefields? Because Forcefield and Fungal are too strong crowd control spells. Robust balance is what we need and not finetuned balance and at the core of the problem sits the amount of units and the army unit density ... in short: the army dps per area. The problematic mechanics behind this are ... huge production, huge economy, unlimited unit selection and clumped up unit movement.
SC2 is a game where controlling your units has almost taken a back seat compared to the ability to produce more stuff than your opponent and in any case "controlling your units" has been reduced to shaping your clump of units into a slightly more advantageous form. True unit micro isnt possible anymore in such big battles, because there simply is too much going on at the same time and units die far too fast to make microing them worth it. Only in the first ten minutes does micro really mean anything ... and that is a shame.
I am not sure if I agree with my post that you are replying to actually, I tried to describe my thoughts in a structural way but maybe it was too simplistic.
In any case, according to my earlier logic, if the game needs constant minor stat changes then one explanation could be that the other balancing forces have not been utilized properly. You state that the game balance is fragile and the need for constant tweaks demonstrates this, but in that case the problem is not improper use of finetuning, but lacking design in other areas that need to be masked with this finetuning approach. So although this style of balancing (overly depending on one aspect) shows deep problems with the game that should ideally be addressed, I think this aspect of balancing is still necessary.
And obviously, in so many computer games the developers are constantly doing small balance tweaks because those have shown to have value almost independent of any underlying design questions.
I agree with you on this. I think the main tool to balance should be a very strong focus on 2+3, which I'd call strategy circling. Basically give every player the options to replace* their currently played strategy with another one at any point in the game. One that allows you to counter the enemy strategy. I think ZvP does this currently very well, where you have circles like: zerg ground + spellcaster<robo/gateway<mutalisk play<starport/gateway play<zerg ground+spellcaster Until it eventually settles on mixtures of those strategies in the lategame when P/Z have the freedom to chooses their compositions very freely and thus need to be ready for any form of enemy strategy change. What this does - due to the blooming amount of strategies that are all viable and counter each other - is that it actually does not matter as much whether the pheonix counters the mutalisks more or less, than the hydralisk counters the phoenix (than the colossus counters the hydralisk, than the mutalisk counters the colossus). In the end the guy that forces engagements when having a strategyadvantage while avoiding them when having a strategydisadvantage wins. The degree of those advantages only needs to be balanced in a way to make the counterstrategies reachable.
*it is important that the old strategy cannot be played parallel to the new one. E.g. if hydralisks didn't cost gas we would have a huge problem, because then you could add hydralisks on top of mutalisks and combine those strategies to beat the counter to the mutalisk strategy.
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.
Ummm ... Warcraft 2 was heavily imbalanced with Orcs being favored. Why? Their spellcasters had an OFFENSIVE spell which was extremely powerful. I used to cast that spell through some forest and right in the path of some workers going to and from a gold mine. Insanely powerful and much better than the heal for the Paladin, which required precise clicking skill and only became useful after you take damage.
"Mastering" such a game is not really necessary to have fun; it should only provide a "bonus" if you are really good. Having more than one way of playing the game is not the same as the options available in a card game and frankly the crapton of multiple build orders - which then end up in the same units being produced - already make the game far too complicated on the economic front. The game needs to have VARIETY, but for this to be a good thing it needs to be ROBUST when it comes to balance and not "finetuned". Balance needs to be such that a deviation this way or that way - introduced by different map styles! - does not make the game unplayable for one race or another. Too often the casters are saying just such things though ... "style X is good on this map".
Constantly changing the game stats is RUBBISH, because it is an indicator of how fragile the game balance is. The balance needs to be solid and strong and with a large margin of error to allow for outside factors like maps or "flavour of the month" strategies. - Why dont we have as many "useable" gold mineral bases in the map pool anymore? Because Terrans would have a huge advantage with them. - Why dont we have any more maps with cliffs behind a mineral line or even simple pillars in the middle of the map anymore? Because people would think that Siege Tanks on there would be too powreful. With the current trend to "boost harrassment" Blizzard should have pushed for this one though ... - Why do we have only maps with rather open central battlefields? Because Forcefield and Fungal are too strong crowd control spells. Robust balance is what we need and not finetuned balance and at the core of the problem sits the amount of units and the army unit density ... in short: the army dps per area. The problematic mechanics behind this are ... huge production, huge economy, unlimited unit selection and clumped up unit movement.
SC2 is a game where controlling your units has almost taken a back seat compared to the ability to produce more stuff than your opponent and in any case "controlling your units" has been reduced to shaping your clump of units into a slightly more advantageous form. True unit micro isnt possible anymore in such big battles, because there simply is too much going on at the same time and units die far too fast to make microing them worth it. Only in the first ten minutes does micro really mean anything ... and that is a shame.
I am not sure if I agree with my post that you are replying to actually, I tried to describe my thoughts in a structural way but maybe it was too simplistic.
In any case, according to my earlier logic, if the game needs constant minor stat changes then one explanation could be that the other balancing forces have not been utilized properly. You state that the game balance is fragile and the need for constant tweaks demonstrates this, but in that case the problem is not improper use of finetuning, but lacking design in other areas that need to be masked with this finetuning approach. So although this style of balancing (overly depending on one aspect) shows deep problems with the game that should ideally be addressed, I think this aspect of balancing is still necessary.
And obviously, in so many computer games the developers are constantly doing small balance tweaks because those have shown to have value almost independent of any underlying design questions.
I agree with you on this. I think the main tool to balance should be a very strong focus on 2+3, which I'd call strategy circling. Basically give every player the options to replace* their currently played strategy with another one at any point in the game. One that allows you to counter the enemy strategy.
IdrA always mentions this way of thinking: if terran plays too greedy then zerg can do roach baneling all-ins until terrans become too scared and then zerg can play more greedy etc. so it stabilizes itself with no one single strategy becoming too dominant, always ensuring some variety.
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.
Ummm ... Warcraft 2 was heavily imbalanced with Orcs being favored. Why? Their spellcasters had an OFFENSIVE spell which was extremely powerful. I used to cast that spell through some forest and right in the path of some workers going to and from a gold mine. Insanely powerful and much better than the heal for the Paladin, which required precise clicking skill and only became useful after you take damage.
"Mastering" such a game is not really necessary to have fun; it should only provide a "bonus" if you are really good. Having more than one way of playing the game is not the same as the options available in a card game and frankly the crapton of multiple build orders - which then end up in the same units being produced - already make the game far too complicated on the economic front. The game needs to have VARIETY, but for this to be a good thing it needs to be ROBUST when it comes to balance and not "finetuned". Balance needs to be such that a deviation this way or that way - introduced by different map styles! - does not make the game unplayable for one race or another. Too often the casters are saying just such things though ... "style X is good on this map".
Constantly changing the game stats is RUBBISH, because it is an indicator of how fragile the game balance is. The balance needs to be solid and strong and with a large margin of error to allow for outside factors like maps or "flavour of the month" strategies. - Why dont we have as many "useable" gold mineral bases in the map pool anymore? Because Terrans would have a huge advantage with them. - Why dont we have any more maps with cliffs behind a mineral line or even simple pillars in the middle of the map anymore? Because people would think that Siege Tanks on there would be too powreful. With the current trend to "boost harrassment" Blizzard should have pushed for this one though ... - Why do we have only maps with rather open central battlefields? Because Forcefield and Fungal are too strong crowd control spells. Robust balance is what we need and not finetuned balance and at the core of the problem sits the amount of units and the army unit density ... in short: the army dps per area. The problematic mechanics behind this are ... huge production, huge economy, unlimited unit selection and clumped up unit movement.
SC2 is a game where controlling your units has almost taken a back seat compared to the ability to produce more stuff than your opponent and in any case "controlling your units" has been reduced to shaping your clump of units into a slightly more advantageous form. True unit micro isnt possible anymore in such big battles, because there simply is too much going on at the same time and units die far too fast to make microing them worth it. Only in the first ten minutes does micro really mean anything ... and that is a shame.
I am not sure if I agree with my post that you are replying to actually, I tried to describe my thoughts in a structural way but maybe it was too simplistic.
In any case, according to my earlier logic, if the game needs constant minor stat changes then one explanation could be that the other balancing forces have not been utilized properly. You state that the game balance is fragile and the need for constant tweaks demonstrates this, but in that case the problem is not improper use of finetuning, but lacking design in other areas that need to be masked with this finetuning approach. So although this style of balancing (overly depending on one aspect) shows deep problems with the game that should ideally be addressed, I think this aspect of balancing is still necessary.
And obviously, in so many computer games the developers are constantly doing small balance tweaks because those have shown to have value almost independent of any underlying design questions.
I agree with you on this. I think the main tool to balance should be a very strong focus on 2+3, which I'd call strategy circling. Basically give every player the options to replace* their currently played strategy with another one at any point in the game. One that allows you to counter the enemy strategy.
IdrA always mentions this way of thinking: if terran plays too greedy then zerg can do roach baneling all-ins until terrans become too scared and then zerg can play more greedy etc. so it stabilizes itself with no one single strategy becoming too dominant, always ensuring some variety.
Hm, well what I meant is a little different. His example is players playing specific strategies in specific games. What I mean is players transitioning from strategy to strategy inside a single (macro) game.
The difference is that the Idra example means that finetuning alone is superimportant. Because you are only playing one specific strategy in one game and if those strategies don't counter each other equally, the average outcome will be scewed. While in my example, I believe that - because we are using obscurity as well - it's not that important whether the strategies counter each other equally. Every situation becomes very unique, and perfect play is not set in stone as much, as sometimes a mutalisk transition against colossus will be good, and another time it will come too late. And it's on the player to figure that out in every game specifically, as every game plays out uniquely.
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.
Ummm ... Warcraft 2 was heavily imbalanced with Orcs being favored. Why? Their spellcasters had an OFFENSIVE spell which was extremely powerful. I used to cast that spell through some forest and right in the path of some workers going to and from a gold mine. Insanely powerful and much better than the heal for the Paladin, which required precise clicking skill and only became useful after you take damage.
"Mastering" such a game is not really necessary to have fun; it should only provide a "bonus" if you are really good. Having more than one way of playing the game is not the same as the options available in a card game and frankly the crapton of multiple build orders - which then end up in the same units being produced - already make the game far too complicated on the economic front. The game needs to have VARIETY, but for this to be a good thing it needs to be ROBUST when it comes to balance and not "finetuned". Balance needs to be such that a deviation this way or that way - introduced by different map styles! - does not make the game unplayable for one race or another. Too often the casters are saying just such things though ... "style X is good on this map".
Constantly changing the game stats is RUBBISH, because it is an indicator of how fragile the game balance is. The balance needs to be solid and strong and with a large margin of error to allow for outside factors like maps or "flavour of the month" strategies. - Why dont we have as many "useable" gold mineral bases in the map pool anymore? Because Terrans would have a huge advantage with them. - Why dont we have any more maps with cliffs behind a mineral line or even simple pillars in the middle of the map anymore? Because people would think that Siege Tanks on there would be too powreful. With the current trend to "boost harrassment" Blizzard should have pushed for this one though ... - Why do we have only maps with rather open central battlefields? Because Forcefield and Fungal are too strong crowd control spells. Robust balance is what we need and not finetuned balance and at the core of the problem sits the amount of units and the army unit density ... in short: the army dps per area. The problematic mechanics behind this are ... huge production, huge economy, unlimited unit selection and clumped up unit movement.
SC2 is a game where controlling your units has almost taken a back seat compared to the ability to produce more stuff than your opponent and in any case "controlling your units" has been reduced to shaping your clump of units into a slightly more advantageous form. True unit micro isnt possible anymore in such big battles, because there simply is too much going on at the same time and units die far too fast to make microing them worth it. Only in the first ten minutes does micro really mean anything ... and that is a shame.
I am not sure if I agree with my post that you are replying to actually, I tried to describe my thoughts in a structural way but maybe it was too simplistic.
In any case, according to my earlier logic, if the game needs constant minor stat changes then one explanation could be that the other balancing forces have not been utilized properly. You state that the game balance is fragile and the need for constant tweaks demonstrates this, but in that case the problem is not improper use of finetuning, but lacking design in other areas that need to be masked with this finetuning approach. So although this style of balancing (overly depending on one aspect) shows deep problems with the game that should ideally be addressed, I think this aspect of balancing is still necessary.
And obviously, in so many computer games the developers are constantly doing small balance tweaks because those have shown to have value almost independent of any underlying design questions.
I agree with you on this. I think the main tool to balance should be a very strong focus on 2+3, which I'd call strategy circling. Basically give every player the options to replace* their currently played strategy with another one at any point in the game. One that allows you to counter the enemy strategy.
IdrA always mentions this way of thinking: if terran plays too greedy then zerg can do roach baneling all-ins until terrans become too scared and then zerg can play more greedy etc. so it stabilizes itself with no one single strategy becoming too dominant, always ensuring some variety.
Hm, well what I meant is a little different. His example is players playing specific strategies in specific games. What I mean is players transitioning from strategy to strategy inside a single (macro) game.
The difference is that the Idra example means that finetuning alone is superimportant. Because you are only playing one specific strategy in one game and if those strategies don't counter each other equally, the average outcome will be scewed. While in my example, I believe that - because we are using obscurity as well - it's not that important whether the strategies counter each other equally. Every situation becomes very unique, and perfect play is not set in stone as much, as sometimes a mutalisk transition against colossus will be good, and another time it will come too late. And it's on the player to figure that out in every game specifically, as every game plays out uniquely.
I guess you mean for reactive play to be stronger? And not just in terms of, say, army movement but strategic decisions throughout the game? It's easy to get locked into tech choices in SC2 I guess.
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.
Ummm ... Warcraft 2 was heavily imbalanced with Orcs being favored. Why? Their spellcasters had an OFFENSIVE spell which was extremely powerful. I used to cast that spell through some forest and right in the path of some workers going to and from a gold mine. Insanely powerful and much better than the heal for the Paladin, which required precise clicking skill and only became useful after you take damage.
"Mastering" such a game is not really necessary to have fun; it should only provide a "bonus" if you are really good. Having more than one way of playing the game is not the same as the options available in a card game and frankly the crapton of multiple build orders - which then end up in the same units being produced - already make the game far too complicated on the economic front. The game needs to have VARIETY, but for this to be a good thing it needs to be ROBUST when it comes to balance and not "finetuned". Balance needs to be such that a deviation this way or that way - introduced by different map styles! - does not make the game unplayable for one race or another. Too often the casters are saying just such things though ... "style X is good on this map".
Constantly changing the game stats is RUBBISH, because it is an indicator of how fragile the game balance is. The balance needs to be solid and strong and with a large margin of error to allow for outside factors like maps or "flavour of the month" strategies. - Why dont we have as many "useable" gold mineral bases in the map pool anymore? Because Terrans would have a huge advantage with them. - Why dont we have any more maps with cliffs behind a mineral line or even simple pillars in the middle of the map anymore? Because people would think that Siege Tanks on there would be too powreful. With the current trend to "boost harrassment" Blizzard should have pushed for this one though ... - Why do we have only maps with rather open central battlefields? Because Forcefield and Fungal are too strong crowd control spells. Robust balance is what we need and not finetuned balance and at the core of the problem sits the amount of units and the army unit density ... in short: the army dps per area. The problematic mechanics behind this are ... huge production, huge economy, unlimited unit selection and clumped up unit movement.
SC2 is a game where controlling your units has almost taken a back seat compared to the ability to produce more stuff than your opponent and in any case "controlling your units" has been reduced to shaping your clump of units into a slightly more advantageous form. True unit micro isnt possible anymore in such big battles, because there simply is too much going on at the same time and units die far too fast to make microing them worth it. Only in the first ten minutes does micro really mean anything ... and that is a shame.
I am not sure if I agree with my post that you are replying to actually, I tried to describe my thoughts in a structural way but maybe it was too simplistic.
In any case, according to my earlier logic, if the game needs constant minor stat changes then one explanation could be that the other balancing forces have not been utilized properly. You state that the game balance is fragile and the need for constant tweaks demonstrates this, but in that case the problem is not improper use of finetuning, but lacking design in other areas that need to be masked with this finetuning approach. So although this style of balancing (overly depending on one aspect) shows deep problems with the game that should ideally be addressed, I think this aspect of balancing is still necessary.
And obviously, in so many computer games the developers are constantly doing small balance tweaks because those have shown to have value almost independent of any underlying design questions.
I agree with you on this. I think the main tool to balance should be a very strong focus on 2+3, which I'd call strategy circling. Basically give every player the options to replace* their currently played strategy with another one at any point in the game. One that allows you to counter the enemy strategy.
IdrA always mentions this way of thinking: if terran plays too greedy then zerg can do roach baneling all-ins until terrans become too scared and then zerg can play more greedy etc. so it stabilizes itself with no one single strategy becoming too dominant, always ensuring some variety.
Hm, well what I meant is a little different. His example is players playing specific strategies in specific games. What I mean is players transitioning from strategy to strategy inside a single (macro) game.
The difference is that the Idra example means that finetuning alone is superimportant. Because you are only playing one specific strategy in one game and if those strategies don't counter each other equally, the average outcome will be scewed. While in my example, I believe that - because we are using obscurity as well - it's not that important whether the strategies counter each other equally. Every situation becomes very unique, and perfect play is not set in stone as much, as sometimes a mutalisk transition against colossus will be good, and another time it will come too late. And it's on the player to figure that out in every game specifically, as every game plays out uniquely.
I guess you mean for reactive play to be stronger? And not just in terms of, say, army movement but strategic decisions throughout the game? It's easy to get locked into tech choices in SC2 I guess.
yes, exactly. But those reaction have to form a circle (kind of). Else you just aim to go into "ultimate strategies" right from the start.
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.
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.
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.
Biotank was 'pretty good' in WoL (where pretty good is pretty relative) before mutas were heavily buffed, vipers introduced, ultras heavily buffed, etc.
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.
Can you give those examples where the terran players play with pink while the zerg player only uses his left hand and right foot? As in, why are you suddenly adding extra demands? I can do that too, but that wasn't what it was all about.
Honestly I think you are hard presses to find a TvZ macro game where the zerg lost due to one mistake. Sure one mistake can cost him a bunch of banelings, but then I can add every TvZ where the T has bad splits. Then we have stuff like baneling mines which can really ruin a T's day, or how about simply forgetting for a second to raise your supply wall, with next speedlings streaming in, gg. Or as innovation can testify, running a bunch of loaded medivacs into a swarm of mutas is also not good for your chances to win a WCS KR.
If we go that route zerg can lose if they simply forget to make units, run all of their banelings into ONE WM, don´t see one drop, get blueflame hellbat dropped. When zerg can lose a whole macro game? When terran is attacking zerg 4th and mines take out most of zerg banes and zerg loses all of his units. This means that terran can just walk into his main cause zerg doesn´t have time to make banes which z needs to have a chance against 4M. And i know that zerg can allways sack his 4th which would mean not an istant death, but a slower one cause zerg absolutely needs one. Flanking is a good choose, but thanks to mines that doesn´t always work and in maps like belshiere zerg often has to attack terran in less than perfect location.
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.
Ummm ... Warcraft 2 was heavily imbalanced with Orcs being favored. Why? Their spellcasters had an OFFENSIVE spell which was extremely powerful. I used to cast that spell through some forest and right in the path of some workers going to and from a gold mine. Insanely powerful and much better than the heal for the Paladin, which required precise clicking skill and only became useful after you take damage.
"Mastering" such a game is not really necessary to have fun; it should only provide a "bonus" if you are really good. Having more than one way of playing the game is not the same as the options available in a card game and frankly the crapton of multiple build orders - which then end up in the same units being produced - already make the game far too complicated on the economic front. The game needs to have VARIETY, but for this to be a good thing it needs to be ROBUST when it comes to balance and not "finetuned". Balance needs to be such that a deviation this way or that way - introduced by different map styles! - does not make the game unplayable for one race or another. Too often the casters are saying just such things though ... "style X is good on this map".
Constantly changing the game stats is RUBBISH, because it is an indicator of how fragile the game balance is. The balance needs to be solid and strong and with a large margin of error to allow for outside factors like maps or "flavour of the month" strategies. - Why dont we have as many "useable" gold mineral bases in the map pool anymore? Because Terrans would have a huge advantage with them. - Why dont we have any more maps with cliffs behind a mineral line or even simple pillars in the middle of the map anymore? Because people would think that Siege Tanks on there would be too powreful. With the current trend to "boost harrassment" Blizzard should have pushed for this one though ... - Why do we have only maps with rather open central battlefields? Because Forcefield and Fungal are too strong crowd control spells. Robust balance is what we need and not finetuned balance and at the core of the problem sits the amount of units and the army unit density ... in short: the army dps per area. The problematic mechanics behind this are ... huge production, huge economy, unlimited unit selection and clumped up unit movement.
SC2 is a game where controlling your units has almost taken a back seat compared to the ability to produce more stuff than your opponent and in any case "controlling your units" has been reduced to shaping your clump of units into a slightly more advantageous form. True unit micro isnt possible anymore in such big battles, because there simply is too much going on at the same time and units die far too fast to make microing them worth it. Only in the first ten minutes does micro really mean anything ... and that is a shame.
I am not sure if I agree with my post that you are replying to actually, I tried to describe my thoughts in a structural way but maybe it was too simplistic.
In any case, according to my earlier logic, if the game needs constant minor stat changes then one explanation could be that the other balancing forces have not been utilized properly. You state that the game balance is fragile and the need for constant tweaks demonstrates this, but in that case the problem is not improper use of finetuning, but lacking design in other areas that need to be masked with this finetuning approach. So although this style of balancing (overly depending on one aspect) shows deep problems with the game that should ideally be addressed, I think this aspect of balancing is still necessary.
And obviously, in so many computer games the developers are constantly doing small balance tweaks because those have shown to have value almost independent of any underlying design questions.
I agree with you on this. I think the main tool to balance should be a very strong focus on 2+3, which I'd call strategy circling. Basically give every player the options to replace* their currently played strategy with another one at any point in the game. One that allows you to counter the enemy strategy. I think ZvP does this currently very well, where you have circles like: zerg ground + spellcaster<robo/gateway<mutalisk play<starport/gateway play<zerg ground+spellcaster Until it eventually settles on mixtures of those strategies in the lategame when P/Z have the freedom to chooses their compositions very freely and thus need to be ready for any form of enemy strategy change. What this does - due to the blooming amount of strategies that are all viable and counter each other - is that it actually does not matter as much whether the pheonix counters the mutalisks more or less, than the hydralisk counters the phoenix (than the colossus counters the hydralisk, than the mutalisk counters the colossus). In the end the guy that forces engagements when having a strategyadvantage while avoiding them when having a strategydisadvantage wins. The degree of those advantages only needs to be balanced in a way to make the counterstrategies reachable.
*it is important that the old strategy cannot be played parallel to the new one. E.g. if hydralisks didn't cost gas we would have a huge problem, because then you could add hydralisks on top of mutalisks and combine those strategies to beat the counter to the mutalisk strategy.
The problem I have with Grumbel's #2 - Obscurity - is that I dont think that it is a bad thing if no one is a master of the game and the intricate strategies. The game should be about choosing a good strategy to play (for your own preference) and then being good enough at using the units available to you to beat the opponent and his chosen units. Perfectly detailed and practiced builds are boring IMO because they are predictable and thus I have no problem with the game having a lot of options for the player.
In any case there should be a "mech way", a "bio way" and an "air way" to deal with a threat instead of just a "you should have built Marauders to block those Banelings" limitation. With the way that SC2 is designed that isnt really possible. Instead of forcing Zerg to build Corruptors to kill Colossi - which become useless if you dont intend to go Broodlords afterwards - the Queen could have an area or single target buff for non-Queen units which boosts their range for AA fire (or maybe even allows them to hit air at all).
The game has become too "preplanned" and too predictable for my taste and improvisation should be more important, because it keeps the game fresh and exciting for the viewer. To make the game "improvisable" the units need to be able to deal with more than just one thing and the "bonus damage" system of SC2 really prevents that.
Someone here citated some article from liquipedia which said that game balance and fairness are not the same hence equal winrates do not mean that game is balanced.
That is absolute nonsense. "Game balance" refers ONLY to what is win propability for each player. As long as there are units that have their own respective counter units or other ways to counter them, the game is balanced. It does not even matter if there are inferior units in the game, just as long as there is 50/50 chance for winning by any means for both players. "Game balance" is not related to game design. Sure, if there were inferior units in the game, it would be bad game design but not neccesarily unbalanced.
If I remember correctly, there was some generally bad unit in SC:BW as well, and still the game is widely considered pretty balanced. (even though most achieved players are almoust without exception terrans which is a signal of some form of imbalance)
On August 15 2013 20:52 Naturedota wrote: If I remember correctly, there was some generally bad unit in SC:BW as well, and still the game is widely considered pretty balanced. (even though most achieved players are almoust without exception terrans which is a signal of some form of imbalance)
I wasn't there, bear that in mind. But I think BW has it better than SC2 on the subject of balance for several reasons:
- Less leagues in a short period of time: when something doesn't work balance wise, the race that has the advantage can only benefit it for one or two tournaments, because there aren't more tournaments to play. There is less time to feel bad about a race doing badly when it lasts only two tournaments. - Overall feeling of skill. It's very hard in SC2 to win a non mirror match-up and have people from the other race agree that you play well. There was a shift from BW to SC2, where in BW, it was amazing to abuse stuff: it meant you understood something about the game and used it (like the way marines going behind mineral lines could be exploited by muta flocks). In SC2, discovering something broken is disgusting. Where people should be like "omg, I can't believe he can do that, that's incredible", they're like "omg, I can't believe he's allowed to do that, that's ridiculous". - Past is the golden age. People just enjoy shitting on SC2 overall, so it makes sense that they would overplay how awesome BW was, in order to shine a bad light on SC2. Races have dominated tournaments in BW. The "6 dragons" MSL. The one Hydra won, zvzvzvzvz. At some periods of time a race had a 20% winratio versus another (imagine how that would be seen today). Everything wasn't perfect, but we tend to forget it because BW was a more passionate community, with more emphasis on the game and the players and less emphasis on the races.
As my issues in fighting swarmhosts grow, I find them beyond super annoying to fight against as protoss. I was wondering how everyone would view a change: Revelation on detected stealth units reveals that unit for the full duration.
It is really annoying how nearly impossible it is to track lategame zerg armies. They have mobile detectors that take no supply, so they will always have one with their army. And the SH range is just so large, that you need some long range unit to try to pick them off. But there is no way that a protoss army should be able to detect the swarmhost if the zerg has a few corruptors with their SH. And currently if you cast revelation on any zerg ground unit, they only need to burrow and unburrow to remove the spell.
As for balance, I don't know how much that would really change. Protoss still need to invest in the flimsy oracles, and corruptors can still zone them away from the army, but it gives protoss a way to be able to see the swarm hosts (by potentially suiciding an oracle to get off a revelation), such that they can move some tempest forward and either force zerg back for a bit, or to pick off a few SH.
On August 16 2013 01:38 convention wrote: As my issues in fighting swarmhosts grow, I find them beyond super annoying to fight against as protoss. I was wondering how everyone would view a change: Revelation on detected stealth units reveals that unit for the full duration.
It is really annoying how nearly impossible it is to track lategame zerg armies. They have mobile detectors that take no supply, so they will always have one with their army. And the SH range is just so large, that you need some long range unit to try to pick them off. But there is no way that a protoss army should be able to detect the swarmhost if the zerg has a few corruptors with their SH. And currently if you cast revelation on any zerg ground unit, they only need to burrow and unburrow to remove the spell.
As for balance, I don't know how much that would really change. Protoss still need to invest in the flimsy oracles, and corruptors can still zone them away from the army, but it gives protoss a way to be able to see the swarm hosts (by potentially suiciding an oracle to get off a revelation), such that they can move some tempest forward and either force zerg back for a bit, or to pick off a few SH.
I think that idea would be bit too strong. The problem with SH is that as long as sky-toss remains the god-composition there is no way they can nerd SH much. It´s a bit silly how zerg air or AA just dies against sky-toss. I think they should look at both composition cause just making SH weaker could potentially turn the match-up into sky-toss all the time which is as boring to watch and play as the SH turtle. And i do feel your frustration. Playing against voidrays for example is a tad infuriating.
On August 16 2013 01:38 convention wrote: As my issues in fighting swarmhosts grow, I find them beyond super annoying to fight against as protoss. I was wondering how everyone would view a change: Revelation on detected stealth units reveals that unit for the full duration.
It is really annoying how nearly impossible it is to track lategame zerg armies. They have mobile detectors that take no supply, so they will always have one with their army. And the SH range is just so large, that you need some long range unit to try to pick them off. But there is no way that a protoss army should be able to detect the swarmhost if the zerg has a few corruptors with their SH. And currently if you cast revelation on any zerg ground unit, they only need to burrow and unburrow to remove the spell.
As for balance, I don't know how much that would really change. Protoss still need to invest in the flimsy oracles, and corruptors can still zone them away from the army, but it gives protoss a way to be able to see the swarm hosts (by potentially suiciding an oracle to get off a revelation), such that they can move some tempest forward and either force zerg back for a bit, or to pick off a few SH.
I think that idea would be bit too strong. The problem with SH is that as long as sky-toss remains the god-composition there is no way they can nerd SH much. It´s a bit silly how zerg air or AA just dies against sky-toss. I think they should look at both composition cause just making SH weaker could potentially turn the match-up into sky-toss all the time which is as boring to watch and play as the SH turtle. And i do feel your frustration. Playing against voidrays for example is a tad infuriating.
I agree with the voidrays as well. It really feels like it's impossible to kill without landing a money fungal. I think with void rays, prismatic alignment should either have a longer cooldown, or a shorter duration. That way forcing out a prismatic alignment would be more meaningful. As both of those changes would effect only the PvZ matchup, I would like to see both of those changes. Slight nerf to void rays, and slight nerf to SH.
It would also mean skytoss against zerg would have a reason for building anything but voidrays. Right now, I think the absolute most boring part of skytoss, is why would you ever build anything but voidrays? Tempest can't do much since revelation (the thing that is suppose to allow you to take advantage of the tempest range) is useless against zerg. Carriers are carriers and still suck. Phoenixes can be good, but if you just have enough void rays you don't need any phoenixes. And oracles are easily shut down at every base, and their abilities are useless in PvZ.
EPT
