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Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 745
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Vanadiel
France961 Posts
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=427728 | ||
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Deleted User 132135
702 Posts
"In TvZ, Terran uses marines, maurauders, medivacs, and widow mines against ANY zerg compositions. Zergs can’t trade efficiently using any other unit compositions other than mutas, lings, banelings and teching up to ultralisks." "How was it SCI? There was an opportunity cost involved in making a dropship, ..." "It’s a really frustrating situation for Zerg progamers." "I don’t think the overseer patch was bad, But I doubt that the overseer patch will change the current TvZ metagame." "I hope the balance team really acknowledges as soon as possible and gives variety to the match up." "Zerg vs. Terran? Fear of ling counterattacks? Build a bunker and burrow a widow mine. Mutalisk harassment? That’s not viable due to the fear of possible drops and widow mines,..." "They lose the game if they make one micro mistake and lose all their banelings to widow mines." "If SCII is to regain its popularity or be entertaining again, I think we should fix the current problems in TvZ." These are basically all things that me and others have written in this thread. Especially I have put focus on making the matchup more versatile again and given some examples how blizzard could try to change the viable builds for both T and Z. I have stated that ZvT is discouraging and zero fun to play before. Also it wont be fun to watch it in the future because it is always the exactly same unit compositions clashing against each other with always the terran being the attacker and the zerg being the defender. The first 50 games you watch might be interesting, but its going to get boring after that. As well it is boring and discouraging to play zerg. Just as MC I have very oftenly and reasonably been pointing at the "one mistake" and win mechanic of TvZ. Terran just keeps attacking until the zerg does one mistake of minor kind that has major effects and then wins the game without a chance of comeback (yes I consider losing a few banelings to a mine shot minor compared to its effect that is major). That there are no opportunity costs for terrans using medivac harrass has been discussed in this thread alot of times as well. Already in one of my very first posts in this thread I stated that these problems are not going to be fixed by itself or time "when zergs figure out how to play" but instead I clearly stated that there is nothing to figure out from zergs and the whole potential to increase the performance in TvZ is on the terran side, as they gotta learn to deal with all-ins and stop the greed against an all-in or semi all-in zerg. Also terrans are going to learn their exact compositions/timings better and are going to increase when using a variation of them (this is what I said months ago). The reasoning behind this is the interestingness of the matchup and game. The game (in zerg perspective) is not fun to play anymore. It is for the sake of whole starcraft to encourage blizzard to do major changes in design. This is what narrow minded people that are solely focused on the benefit of their own race - as naruto is - will never understand. Myself being a semi inactive Z player with no progaming ambitions is instant leaving games vs T on ladder and I am mostly just cheesing in ZvZ because the matchup is the worst mirror in hots and in the worst condition of all time (including SC1, BW, WOL and HOTS). Some ZvZ cheese makes it feel more exciting. In ZvP I think I have a wider range in decisionmaking that allows creativity and different styles that _both_ opponents need to react on (in ZvT only Z has to react, Terran has to react on all-ins only). Therefore I have always denied to judge about ZvP balance because there is alot to be figured out from both races, given the many options and styles both races have. Many of you might gonna flame me because I said that I leave ZvTs on the ladder. The decisionmaking behind this is quite easy. There is no reason to play it. There is 0 fun and 0 creativity involved, instead there are many (not to say only) always repeating "discouraging" (quote of myself from former posts) and "frustrating" (quote of MC) elements. If the matchup stays like this I will stop playing SC2 and stop watching it. A game should be fun and it should as well offer similar opportunities to both players, ZvT is not. | ||
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RampancyTW
United States577 Posts
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CosmicSpiral
United States15275 Posts
On September 02 2013 17:05 Big J wrote: I think that would be too big of a change and might cause huge troubles for ZvP and ZvZ. It could also be too good as early antiair and as bustunit (hydras can shoot Protoss/Terran/Zerg walls without getting attacked by canon/bunker/spine/5-6range units unlike roaches). Actually Big J it would be the complete opposite in ZvZ if done correctly. Speedling/bane can dominate hydras due to their low health but hydras get the advantage if you micro and position them correctly. Instead of players immediately transitioning into roach for the entire game we would get a mixture of speedling/bane/hydra and maps would become much more important in determining which combinations we choose. ZvP suffers from Protoss having gateway units that are either fragile (sentry) or ineffective against masses of ranged units from the other races (zealots, stalkers). That's not an issue with zerg: complaints about Protoss strategy tied to its flawed design have existed since the very beginning of the game's lifespan. And I view it as a positive thing that P cannot simply pick between FFE and gateway expand on a whim if hydralisks were an early game unit. | ||
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MockHamill
Sweden1798 Posts
TvZ: Widow mines are OP and tanks are UP. Terran is forced to use MMMM every game. TvP: Mech is UP. Terran is forced to use MMM+V/G every game. Solution Nerf widow mines. Improve tanks. Result: Both TvZ and TvP will be more interesting to play and watch since it will not be the same thing every single game. | ||
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Deleted User 137586
7859 Posts
Also, there is no evidence that WM are OP, as much as people like to perceive this. They work as area control in the current meta, while tanks will not (unless they start shooting air). | ||
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VArsovskiSC
Macedonia563 Posts
Problem: TvZ bio/mine - too much of a board-control gotten from mines, easy to evade Zerg attacks or make them cost a lot to Zerg Solution: Make mine have less splash damage radius, but reduce mine-recharge time as well.. Less splash means less deadly vs Zerg, less recharge-time means more viable vs Protoss.. Drilling-claws upgrade also changed: Upgrade will allow mines to hold up 2 missles fired 5 sec after another each, - more positional strength, less penetration ratio.. For example: Mine has a splash radius 1.5 (down from 2.5 I think, not quite sure, still - around half the splash that it has now currently).. Mine recharge-time is 20 sec instead of 40.. Side Effects: If you make Mines recharge faster but have less splash strength - then they will be (at least I expect so) viable in TvP, but not as much game-breaking in TvZ due to the less splash The upgrade change is also anti-protoss and zerg-friendly as well.. Protoss suffers more from "rechargeable" positional contain, so mines having 2 charges will surely make Protoss think twice engaging the area (at least with Gateway units), while Zerg that suffers more from higher advancement of penetration ratio will have more time to "gather up".. If mines become less "mobile" and more "positionally strong", then Zerg can afford a bit more time to "chill out and defend", or at least make the "beachhead" from it's 3rd and 4th base last a bit longer, while actually having the option to teching behind it as well.. AND - not gonna be OP, cause again only the good Zergs will be able to "keep away" Terran from advancing while teching behind.. ================================================================ Problem: Right now ATM I think that at some point in the game when Terran's endless push starts to kick-in - at least one of the problems is that Zerg has to use ALL THE GAS in Mutas and Banes if not want to die immediately.. And that's REALLY BAD.. Solution: If mines don't insta-burrow, and act more like a positional "drawback-point", rather than "you-die-zerg if you wanna engage me" tool, then think at least that change will give the Zerg more breathing room to allow to tech, So that same mine-upgrade change will adress that second problem as well.. Upgraded mines will have about the same devastation ratio vs Zerg, cause nearly each mine will shoot twice if at least a bit guarded, but not suffer as much as now in engagements if the mine is unupgraded.. | ||
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Faust852
Luxembourg4004 Posts
On September 02 2013 21:28 RampancyTW wrote: LSN, what league are you? I don't think he even plays sc2. | ||
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ysnake
Bosnia-Herzegovina261 Posts
Some serious changes need to occur and not a stupid Overseer buff. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On September 02 2013 21:30 CosmicSpiral wrote: Actually Big J it would be the complete opposite in ZvZ if done correctly. Speedling/bane can dominate hydras due to their low health but hydras get the advantage if you micro and position them correctly. Instead of players immediately transitioning into roach for the entire game we would get a mixture of speedling/bane/hydra and maps would become much more important in determining which combinations we choose. ZvP suffers from Protoss having gateway units that are either fragile (sentry) or ineffective against masses of ranged units from the other races (zealots, stalkers). That's not an issue with zerg: complaints about Protoss strategy tied to its flawed design have existed since the very beginning of the game's lifespan. And I view it as a positive thing that P cannot simply pick between FFE and gateway expand on a whim if hydralisks were an early game unit. Well, that may be true. My point is simply that you cannot know which consequences this would have. Like in TvZ it may be possible to ling/hydra bust without using any banelings on buildings and then finish him off with an endless stream of zerglings. Something like a 7RR just with hydras. Not sure if this is really defendible etc. In PvZ, 4-8gateway pushes with +1 may become too strong. What I'm saying is that this is not just a small change to make some stuff more viable, this would basically need its own beta because there are a lot of things that could become broken. And it completely overdoes what I'd like to achieve. I don't want roaches (or another low-midtier zerg unit) to be a "you build marines, I build roaches, you lose"-unit. But more unit compositions should break even with MMM in a cost for cost engagement than currently. | ||
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Deleted User 132135
702 Posts
been master since day one of WOL and master in all hots seasons. But I downgraded to diamond in this new season of course. Also I play starcraft since 98'. I don't think that it matters as the issues are the same in GM, Masters, Diamonds, platin... . What you probably are trying to do again is to just tell everything is fine with the game and especially TvZ meta which is only a terran biased view that is oftenly justified with WOL BL/Infestors, that is in no way connected to current TvZ. Instead you should realize that about all my analysis and predictions about TvZ meta have been (or will be) coming true and even progamers like MC, who is a protoss himself, use almost the exact same words that I used to describe the situation. But I know you guys rather like to ask "which league do you play in?" which is a quite immature thing to do. | ||
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Vanadiel
France961 Posts
On September 02 2013 21:32 MockHamill wrote: Problem TvZ: Widow mines are OP and tanks are UP. Terran is forced to use MMMM every game. TvP: Mech is UP. Terran is forced to use MMM+V/G every game. Solution Nerf widow mines. Improve tanks. Result: Both TvZ and TvP will be more interesting to play and watch since it will not be the same thing every single game. I'd love to see some good tank buff, as it was really nice to watch in WoL and less random, but how would you change it without messing with TvT, and not promoving the bad/boring turtling mech, I really don't know. | ||
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CosmicSpiral
United States15275 Posts
On September 02 2013 22:05 Big J wrote:Well, that may be true. My point is simply that you cannot know which consequences this would have. Like in TvZ it may be possible to ling/hydra bust without using any banelings on buildings and then finish him off with an endless stream of zerglings. Something like a 7RR just with hydras. Not sure if this is really defendible etc. In PvZ, 4-8gateway pushes with +1 may become too strong. It would end the game if the terran goes 3 CC, delays his factory, and goes double upgrades. Considering that the zerg is pretty much doing an all-in and even in theory it would be easily defended with an easily producible composition, I don't see the problem with it. But the real potential is that zerg can do substantial damage without committing to an all-in. That's the main problem with zerg in all non-mirror matchups these days. Gateway timing pushes would be significant weakened since FFs are much less effective against hydralisks. Even the extremely fast warpgate timing with zealots and MSC could get shut down hard as the MSC would be in severe danger. I like the concept of hydralisks at hatch tech specifically because it will force people to acknowledge the issues of Protoss as an entire race. On September 02 2013 22:05 Big J wrote:What I'm saying is that this is not just a small change to make some stuff more viable, this would basically need its own beta because there are a lot of things that could become broken. And it completely overdoes what I'd like to achieve. I don't want roaches (or another low-midtier zerg unit) to be a "you build marines, I build roaches, you lose"-unit. But more unit compositions should break even with MMM in a cost for cost engagement than currently. We don't know the definitive consequences of any buffs or nerfs. However it's not hard to project into the future on these issues. There was a small group of people (me included) who predicted that the queen buff was too strong and would upset WoL TvZ. The impact of hellbat drops was predicted beforehand as well. Little tweaks don't address the actual issues that plague the game. For example the infestor is a deeply flawed unit by design and tweaks to it end up not addressing that fundamental problem, which just makes things either worse for zerg or worse for the other races. | ||
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manniefresh
United States74 Posts
This would make tanks more efficient (less overkill) vs some zerg units, maybe worse against lings, much better vs protoss (due to immortals taking twice as much damage from sieged tanks) and barely change tvt (kinda) Keep the same dps, allow terrans to tech towards an solution to the immortal problem, what yall think? | ||
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Douillos
France3195 Posts
Discuss <3 | ||
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Rabiator
Germany3948 Posts
On September 02 2013 16:45 Big J wrote: My point on most of those specific units you mention isn't that they are always being used, but that Terran has those options. Of course you won't see many Ravens or Thors to counter Marines, but if you get one of those for one reason or another it's not a situation where you are afterwards like: "oh fuck, when we both max out and I can't trade off my Thor(s)/Raven(s) before that I'm fucked because those units are so bad against his marine composition". I mean this is like Broodlords or Infestors. They are quite good against marines if you can stabilize while keeping them. Of course noone will ever be like "fuck marines, let's mass BCs", because there are better options around. But when you find a reason why you want BCs (like tanks) it is not a waste to have them against marines either. One more detail, I don't think Zerg needs a mid-late game unit with splash. I think Zerg needs options beside going for those that are already there, because those options are ultralisk and baneling and force you into a very, very specific mid-lategame. And it doesn't have to be a splash unit. High armor or specific damage boni are also a really good counter to marines. Outranging marines is pretty good as well. E.g. a T3 armor upgrade for roaches, a +vs bio buff/change/upgrade for Hydralisks or a buff to their range upgrade. A locust redesign with less health and more armor (burst unit become stronger vs locusts, low damage units worse) or a +vs light/bio change. A fungal buff with +vs bio or light. A Viper blinding cloud redesign to be stronger vs small units (and worse vs static ones). At least those are things I can think of the top of my head which wouldn't mess too much with PvZ (besides zealots, sorry guys). Zerg has a problem in that many of the units of that race are melee or very short range. This makes them "vulnerable" or "inefficient" against other races which can get a clump of ranged dps units which outrange the limited range of Roaches, Banelings, Zerglings or Ultralisks OR which can control the flow of battle through crowd control like Forcefield. The two Zerg units you mentioned as "good allrounders" are the longest shots Zerg have more or less. The problem would not be as great if ... a) the enemy could not get a critical number of units in a tight clump where they kill everything from the Zerg army that is trying to get into range before they get there (that is also the reason why Broodlords are soo awesome, because they have their own "invulnerability screen" of free units) AND b) any crowd control spells are taken out of the game or are at least made "unspammable" by removing smartcast. Once again I seem to have arrived at my core point of criticism of Blizzard that the game would be far easier to balance without any economic or production speed boots, a limited unit selection and forced unit spreading while moving. Lower army dps concentration is better because it is easier to balance AND "overpowered attacks or spells" are less important because they dont overpower a whole army in one instant. Since you cant fix a matchup without affecting the other matchups as well this general "slowing down of the kill speed" would be the best solution IMO. - Tanks would become more viable because they arent swamped by a shitton of Zerglings of whom only 3-4 die from a mighty tank shell. - Roaches could actually fight Marines because getting a tight clump of Marines would be non-automatic and actually require skill. - Hydralisks wouldnt overpower everything instantly if something got abducted into their tight clump and a Colossus might have a change to do something before it died. - Stalkers would not REQUIRE good skill with Forcefields and Blink to be "worth it". ... | ||
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Rabiator
Germany3948 Posts
On September 02 2013 22:49 Douillos wrote: I think that widow mines shouldn't be able to drill into creep. Discuss <3 Bad idea, because non-Zerg cant build buildings on creep which they *might* need/want. Zerg can burrow on "non-creeped areas" too, so why the unequal treatment? | ||
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Thruth
Poland112 Posts
On September 02 2013 22:52 Rabiator wrote: Bad idea, because non-Zerg cant build buildings on creep which they *might* need/want. Zerg can burrow on "non-creeped areas" too, so why the unequal treatment? Because we have asymetrical balance in SC? I actully think this would be a good solution, we get even more fights for map control in TvZ. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On September 02 2013 22:24 CosmicSpiral wrote: It would end the game if the terran goes 3 CC, delays his factory, and goes double upgrades. Considering that the zerg is pretty much doing an all-in and even in theory it would be easily defended with an easily producible composition, I don't see the problem with it. But the real potential is that zerg can do substantial damage without committing to an all-in. That's the main problem with zerg in all non-mirror matchups these days. Gateway timing pushes would be significant weakened since FFs are much less effective against hydralisks. Even the extremely fast warpgate timing with zealots and MSC could get shut down hard as the MSC would be in severe danger. I like the concept of hydralisks at hatch tech specifically because it will force people to acknowledge the issues of Protoss as an entire race. We don't know the definitive consequences of any buffs or nerfs. However it's not hard to project into the future on these issues. There was a small group of people (me included) who predicted that the queen buff was too strong and would upset WoL TvZ. The impact of hellbat drops was predicted beforehand as well. Little tweaks don't address the actual issues that plague the game. For example the infestor is a deeply flawed unit by design and tweaks to it end up not addressing that fundamental problem, which just makes things either worse for zerg or worse for the other races. The first part is pure speculation. Like if a Terran has to go 2base to defend such a push 3CC might simply not be viable. Right now Terran can defend any push after hatch first while going for a 3CC (with hellion+bunker) build. It may also turn out like an old reactored hellion contain. For gateway timing pushes: I'm talking about things like the old FFE into 4gate+1 timing push where you can barely squeeze out a handful of roaches currently to hold or an even stronger 6-7gate+1 with pure zealots. Can you hold that kind of stuff with hydras instead of roaches? It would at least shake up BOs. What you mean with "it will force people to acknowledge the issues of Protoss as an entire race" I don't really know. If you made Ultralisks T1 you would also "force people to acknowledge the issues of Protoss as an entire race"... It doesn't make sense that you say by introducing a problem you show a problem. For the second part, there have always been a thousand speculations about everything. With every nerf/buff Terrans were telling people how each of their matchups became unwinable (immortal buff --> "without 1-1-1 we can't punish a greedy Protoss", EMP nerf --> "Protoss deathball becomes unbeatable", ultralisk build time buff --> "Broodlord/Ultra switches will become impossible to stop"snipe nerf -->..., fungal buff...; and similarily with Voidrays, widow mines, Seeker Missile change and other things in other matchups). If the community predicts everything, they are bound to sometimes be right. And even that is questionable with the queen buff, because in retrospect I believe that Broodlord/Infestor would have still broken the matchup sooner or later, it would have just been blamed on the snipe nerf instead. The timing window of it was just way to big, the gameplay may have just turned out more ZvPish with Terran having a variety of 2 base allins due to weaker queens. And I disagree with the Infestor being flawed in itself. It was overpowered because it was too hard to avoid perfect fungals and because it could produce an equivalent of a maxed marine army temporarily. Blizzard fixed that and I believe it is a very nice unit to play with and against now, one that can't produce a strong lategame army anymore and can really be dealt with by micro and counterunits, but still has its uses in the lategame. Just one example of a little tweak (this may already be too much, but just to show you the power of such tweaks): right now roach/hydra play in ZvT basically ends in the late midgame, because Terran's production kicks in and from there on it's a question of "who counters who". And Marines win that fight. If roaches had 3-4 instead of 3-3 (e.g. tunneling claws would be a hive upgrade and provide +1armor as well) in the lategame, they would break exactly even with marines in open areas. Instead, marines win with nearly 50% surviving. This is a little tweak, but it would have a big effect on the viability of roach based compositions in the lategame against biobased play. (I also tested this vs stalkers and its probably too much vs lategame Protoss, but you could do this while simultanously just nerfing roach HP by 5-10. Then you'd have a little tweak that could turn out quite uninteresting for most situations, but be really good against fast attacking low damage units in the lategame) On September 02 2013 22:50 Rabiator wrote: Zerg has a problem in that many of the units of that race are melee or very short range. This makes them "vulnerable" or "inefficient" against other races which can get a clump of ranged dps units which outrange the limited range of Roaches, Banelings, Zerglings or Ultralisks OR which can control the flow of battle through crowd control like Forcefield. The two Zerg units you mentioned as "good allrounders" are the longest shots Zerg have more or less. The problem would not be as great if ... a) the enemy could not get a critical number of units in a tight clump where they kill everything from the Zerg army that is trying to get into range before they get there (that is also the reason why Broodlords are soo awesome, because they have their own "invulnerability screen" of free units) AND b) any crowd control spells are taken out of the game or are at least made "unspammable" by removing smartcast. Once again I seem to have arrived at my core point of criticism of Blizzard that the game would be far easier to balance without any economic or production speed boots, a limited unit selection and forced unit spreading while moving. Lower army dps concentration is better because it is easier to balance AND "overpowered attacks or spells" are less important because they dont overpower a whole army in one instant. Since you cant fix a matchup without affecting the other matchups as well this general "slowing down of the kill speed" would be the best solution IMO. - Tanks would become more viable because they arent swamped by a shitton of Zerglings of whom only 3-4 die from a mighty tank shell. - Roaches could actually fight Marines because getting a tight clump of Marines would be non-automatic and actually require skill. - Hydralisks wouldnt overpower everything instantly if something got abducted into their tight clump and a Colossus might have a change to do something before it died. - Stalkers would not REQUIRE good skill with Forcefields and Blink to be "worth it". ... the problem would also not be as great if roaches had 1 more armor against marines. See what I wrote above. You know, there are many solutions to problems. We can make the most extreme ones, scrap the whole game, start with a new alphaversion. Or we could just tweak in the relations that we want. There are only finite numbers of interactions. It's not that hard to go to the editor, play around with numbers until you find something fitting, and put it into the game. | ||
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Wingblade
United States1806 Posts
On September 02 2013 23:14 Thruth wrote: Because we have asymetrical balance in SC? I actully think this would be a good solution, we get even more fights for map control in TvZ. Map control. It would be irrelevant. Terran would only be able to be on non-creep areas. You cannot just prevent a race from being on parts of the map with their army. | ||
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