Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 772

On September 19 2013 01:20 SlixSC wrote:


Doesn't the fact that they are almost never used make them useless by definition? Granted, you have much more insight into TvP than I do, because you are a much better player and more knowledgeable in the matchups.

I can accept that the tempest might not be bad, but the fact that it's never used, because almost no game ever gets to the stage where it's useful still makes it a questionable unit from a design perspective.

What's the point of introducing units to the game that are only useful in specific circumstances and cannot be used in any other context, but hardcounter other units (such as mech or BCs) to a point where we see even less of these other unit compositions? Wouldn't you agree that, at the very least, that's a potential problem with the unit, irrespective of how good it is in certain circumstances, when in general it limits the options of the terran player and subsequently also the options of the protoss player?

On September 19 2013 01:05 a176 wrote:


the advantage of dark swarm was that it had a massive area of effect; where its literally two steps for bio to leave a blinding cloud, it would be much longer to leave a dark swarm, giving speedy zerg units opportune time to catch up with them.

On September 18 2013 23:14 lolfail9001 wrote:

Terran in 2011 needed GOOD space control unit (hence the addition of shredder and later replacing it with widow mine) and zerg needed good ways to break entrenched positions (hence the SH).

On September 19 2013 01:53 Thieving Magpie wrote:


I know *why* they added those units.

Flavor wise, I actual adore both units.

I think it makes sense that a ragged, run down human race that has lost many planets to Protoss/Zerg encounters would get less flashy and more sneaky. It makes sense that they need traps and surprise tactics moreso than sheer power. It makes sense that they use smaller nukes instead of the bigger nukes they had in Broodwar.

Flavor wise its all cool.

What I find funny is that Zerg does the best Mech TvP in the game because of swarmhost, and terran does the best Savior impression with seemingly "randomly" placed lurkers/widow mines sniping masses of tier 1 units.

That's what I find funny

It makes me wish they gave Terran the Swarm Host so we can have mech TvP and they give Zerg the Widow Mine so we can have Savior Style play all over again

On September 19 2013 01:53 Thieving Magpie wrote:


I know *why* they added those units.

Flavor wise, I actual adore both units.

I think it makes sense that a ragged, run down human race that has lost many planets to Protoss/Zerg encounters would get less flashy and more sneaky. It makes sense that they need traps and surprise tactics moreso than sheer power. It makes sense that they use smaller nukes instead of the bigger nukes they had in Broodwar.

Flavor wise its all cool.

What I find funny is that Zerg does the best Mech TvP in the game because of swarmhost, and terran does the best Savior impression with seemingly "randomly" placed lurkers/widow mines sniping masses of tier 1 units.

That's what I find funny

It makes me wish they gave Terran the Swarm Host so we can have mech TvP and they give Zerg the Widow Mine so we can have Savior Style play all over again

On September 19 2013 01:58 plogamer wrote:


What lolfail9001 has nothing to do with Terran race being ragged and run down and needing sneak attacks. That sounds more like lore than actual gameplay.

Tanks suck at controlling space. Widow-mines are the answer. Zergs suck at sieging (until brood lords, and even then it is countered) and thus swarm hosts.

On September 19 2013 01:58 plogamer wrote:


What lolfail9001 has nothing to do with Terran race being ragged and run down and needing sneak attacks. That sounds more like lore than actual gameplay.

Tanks suck at controlling space. Widow-mines are the answer. Zergs suck at sieging (until brood lords, and even then it is countered) and thus swarm hosts.

On September 19 2013 02:22 fdsdfg wrote:


They gave Zerg answers to Campagin problems. That is, in the campaign you're trying to crack a base with siege tanks, bunkers, etc. SH and Vipers are great at that.

That's not the way T plays, though, they have a very mobile force that is all but immune to SH and Viper.

In addition, they gave T two extremely strong buffs to that mobile force, making it even more desirable.

The TvZ matchup was just very poorly designed in HOTS, I don't see any other way of putting it.

On September 19 2013 02:17 Thieving Magpie wrote:


When you say "That sounds more like lore than actual gameplay" after I have already said "Flavor wise its all cool" it really confuses me.

I know tanks are not good at controlling space except in TvT, I never contradicted that. I know Zerg sucks at siege play pre-broodlords, I never contradicted that either.

I said its funny that Zerg does the best mech impersonation, because they build lines upon lines of swarm hosts, have hundreds of free tumors for map control, and slowly suffocate the protoss army.

I find it funny that Terran does the best impersonation of Broodwar style Lurker play with constantly burrowing and unborrowing 6 range aoe units that are supported by spammed tier 1 units.

I find it funny Blizzard was able to make mech play TvP work and they were able to make siege based ZvTwork, except mech is ZvP and siege style zerg is tvz.

It's funny because the results of their attempts was the opposite of what they wanted to happen. They did "make it happen" but it all happened with the wrong races.

On September 19 2013 02:32 plogamer wrote:


K, I was confused myself that you had to bring up lore considering what lolfail9001 had to say. And frankly there is nothing wrong with the roles of the races being shifted. Progamers can adapt to it or not. Strange, yes perhaps, but the roles of the races are arbritary - and subject of Blizzard's view of how the game should play.

I wouldn't assume that Blizzard wanted a continuation of the race roles from BW. That much is clearly not true. I would think instead that they wanted all races to be able to play all roles, or styles, if you prefer.

On September 19 2013 02:39 Thieving Magpie wrote:


Oh it's too late to change course now

I actually enjoy watching the different bio variations in all the terran matchups.

The in your face aggressive TvZ bio looks VERY different from the skittish hit and run bio play of TvP which looks very different from the surgical hit and run bio style of TvT

It's actually a joy for me to watch. People get hung up that its the same units but it's not the same gameplay at all.

On September 19 2013 02:41 lolfail9001 wrote:

To be fair, AFAIK BW PvT and TvT was pretty much same thing all day every day, except for few funny timings like fOrGG's :D

On September 19 2013 02:57 Thieving Magpie wrote:


Execution wise they were very different, but visually they were the same. In essence, Protoss could more easily break siege lines than terrans could which meant that you needed tighter formations in TvP than in TvT, but you were less able to punish enemy terrans in TvT the way you could in Protoss in TvP.

In the end it evened out to be about the same.

On September 19 2013 01:38 lolfail9001 wrote:

Still if we actually had that exact dark swarm in SC2 bio would take 3+ seconds to get far away for lings to get damage as they leave are of dark swarm.
Actually let me just theory craft about what if SC2 had SC2's mechanics (except for armor mechanics) and whatever and BW's units (this piece of word-flood is just a theoretical thought and if i am wrong at any point of it i will accept constructive fixes). I just take TvZ as classic match-up (since in my rather casual 1v1 exp at Iccup i only played T and Z, so it is essentially only match-up i have a clue about both sides of which):
Ultras would... to put it blunt, suck. They have 'just' 400 HP and pretty low DPS, so they would probably just die to unavoidable focus fire, on even upgrades it is only '136' hits from marines, so at high marine count they would probably just tank about 2 seconds, not to mention that marines with medics would tank 'em like in WoL, but without even caring
about splitting.
Cracklings would be.... pretty good i guess, until m&m ball got big enough for 'em to get there without dying (since AFAIK marines in BW did overkill stuff, and few cracklings would actually tank alot of shots to kill due to that). Similarly to killing stalkers 1 by 1 with 20 unstimmed marauders to put it blunt. Not to mention that hellbats would probably work worse against clumped up lings than stimmed firebats.
Hydras.... uhem, if you think SC2 hydras are bad, SC1 hydras would be even worse most likely, considering they would still overkill, have rather crappy damage on non-large units and WOULD clump up (now put it up against BW tanks, want to cry now?).
Lurkers, well, now instead of shooting a line of marines, they would shoot half of a line of marines or even less, if terran got a concave over lurkers before moving in, if bio ball is moving over 'em. Then scan (MBS, do not forget :3) and terran wipes 'em out.
Mutas would be the same, except that you would not be able to stack 'em (call Blizzard and ask 'em if muta stack and shooting while moving was ever intentional), considering lack of stacking it would be easier to lose 'em. Thankfully turrets would still be not the good defense against 'em in low turret counts.
Scourge: dammit, it would be sickeningly good as a-move unit.
Devourers could be good... though never mind, never used 'em in TvZ :D
Infested terrans.... well, if their a-move mechanic was intentional they would be only as useful as they were in BW.
Guardians... well, with good positioning they would work i suppose, but then again no clue.
Oh right, sunkens and spores. Well, sunkens would likely to die faster in TvZ, cause bio-ball and tanks.
Nydus... i think it would be as good as it was, but i honestly have no clue
Now we come to... casters, lol. So we have the ez-pz ability to destroy large tank line, once you have enough queens with energy, plague and ensnare that are more dangerous than ever, since now it hits much more stuff and dark swarm, that honestly would only benefit from SC2 in a sense of flanking being easier.
Marine, Firebat, Medic: teehee, what a profit, suddenly it ends up with SC2's pathing being especially beneficial for small ranged units, yes, i am looking at you three.
Tank... well, it would be more OP than ever, since i believe tank-goliath push would end games in that game of imagination long before zerg could have appropriate counter. Because now you have tank that does not overkill and all units run right to splash damage now!
Vulture: no more patrol micro, though with this speed you will not need it most of time i guess. Also, mine fields become way more powerful, since zerg most likely will not have ability to defuse mine field with couple of lings, that will drag all mines to them. Also (pvt note): dt is not going to destroy tank line by drawing mines to it :D.
Goliath: ehem, it should be pretty good. Also, was it not be able to shoot both ground and air with it's weapons?
Science Vessels. So now i have EMP with large area, irradiate that is now smart cast and defensive matrix with marines, that are already capable of kill ultras? Gimme more of this.
Wraiths: probably would be worse, since they still overkill, do not stack and they sucked anyways (unless part of clever build AFAIK).
Dropships.... see Medivacs with same gas cost, but without healing and can only be produced 1 a time.
Valkyries: i guess magic box for sure will not work against 'em as it does against thors heehee, granted their damage was rather bad without splash.
BCs: Scourges.
P. S. Yes, i have no clue why i wrote this here, but in Soviet Russia this thread is called Balanced design discussion. And yes, i wrote this just for fun, but somehow i start to understand Rabiator in his senseless comparisons of marines and stalkers.

On September 19 2013 01:06 DuneBug wrote:
I don't know why anyone would want to go mech.

On September 19 2013 03:13 lolfail9001 wrote:

I mean PvT and TvT as in the same PvTs most of time you will see mech vs gateway+arbiter army (aka as they mean PvTs and ZvTs are the same thing all the time). Not as in mech in both MUs. I did not really mean that terrans were doing same thing in the TvP and TvT (though visually it was pretty much same thing).

On September 19 2013 08:10 Umpteen wrote:
In the end, SC2 will always be hamstrung by the fact that there are so few scenarios for units to interact:

1. Two tightly-packed deathballs colliding in an orgy of DPS
2. Drops.
3. ???

That's pretty much it. If a unit is suboptimal or easily countered in those scenarios, it's not worth making. There's very little nuance, very few ways to contrive utility for units through playstyle

ZvT demonstrates one example of the sort of thing we should be watching. On paper mutas counter drop play - except they do so at the expense of ceding map control to the Terran. It's not just 'duh, build the counter unit and put it in your deathball'.

Unfortunately the rest of the game is precisely that. Battlecruisers aren't rendered useless because of Tempests, they're useless because all you'd ever want to do with BCs or Tempests is add them to the deathball, and in that scenario, Tempests just win. There's nothing you can do to pull the Tempests away, nothing clever you can do with your BCs, and no way to survive an engagement if you split your army.

Warpgates are another example of bad, scenario-limiting design. Reinforcements teleport directly into the deathball rather than potentially being intercepted straggling across the map. Read that article about Savior's genius strategies? Yeah - none of that is possible in XvP. Or any matchup, for that matter, because by the time you've done something clever like intercepting reinforcements, your split army has been crushed by the opposing deathball and the game is over.

On September 19 2013 07:39 YyapSsap wrote:


The advantage of the dark swarm primarily is that it creates a cover for you units to get to its target without being blown to bits (or hold a position via lurkers/zoning units). So it didn't matter if the enemy unit was under the dark swarm or not, as long as it allowed most of your units to get to them without being scathed.

I forgot when the game was played but it was iloveoov vs S.... on some map where S.... broke through an entrenched T line than spanned atleast 3 monitors with a masterful darkswarm usage. Not necessarily using it to cover the T unit but shielding his units under the swarm while closing the gap.



Because it suddenly makes more than 50% of the units in the game viable to the meta?

On September 20 2013 04:43 Decendos wrote:


+ lolfail also forgets that ultras were 4 supply, hydras 1 supply etc. so you cant compare some of the units with their sc2 counterparts. really hope they adjust roaches and hydras to 1 supply in LotV and maybe even ultras to 4 supply to make zerg more swarmy (with adjusted stats obv).