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Designated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 852

Forum Index > SC2 General
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AIKfans87
Profile Joined February 2011
Sweden170 Posts
December 20 2013 23:49 GMT
#17021
On December 21 2013 05:27 iliketurtles wrote:
Ladder needs a "Challenge for BO3: winner takes it all" button !


A bit off-topic but revenge match option would be a rly nice addition.

Much have been said in this thread about the state of TvP. I mean, it must be good to be a toss player these days, so much options and if u have Msc no worries back at home. I think some of the maps in the pool ar to blame. Take star station for example blink all ins on 1 or 2 base are realy hard to hold even if you scout it. If you don't scout it then it's game over.
The openings feel like a guessing game for the terrans, guess wrong you loose. Most of the pro terrans QQ a lot atm about TvP...
Sweden fighting!!
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland26035 Posts
December 21 2013 03:15 GMT
#17022
On December 21 2013 04:58 TurboMaN wrote:
I have the perfect idea for SC2:

Raise the skill level again (like in Broodwar):
- No Auto-Mine
- Only 12 Units per control group
- Only 1 Building can be selected at a time
- No command queues for buildings
- Remove auto surround, so unmicroed units in the back can't fire

THIS would make the game harder and allins would be more difficult.

For me Broodwar is still the better game, because it's more fair to the better player. How often do you see Pros lose vs amateurs in BW? Yes 1 out of 100.

You don't even have to go that far, there are some things I'd stick in though. Tanks shouldn't overkill, but should do more damage by far, IMO is a change that mightn't be reasonable, but I'd at least want TRIED.

Also WG needs a full retweak, and imo Eco needs a look at, other pathing algorithims, targetting ones etc.

Look tbh, I am viewing it as a pure spectator now. I find Brood War more entertaining from that respect for sure, partly because the Protoss race is actually not retardedly designed. I am a Protoss fanboy in terms of lore and BGH etc from BW (I didn't even know TL existed), but god the race is silly in SC2, especially HoTS

'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
Chaggi
Profile Joined August 2010
Korea (South)1936 Posts
December 21 2013 04:25 GMT
#17023
On December 21 2013 12:15 Wombat_NI wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 21 2013 04:58 TurboMaN wrote:
I have the perfect idea for SC2:

Raise the skill level again (like in Broodwar):
- No Auto-Mine
- Only 12 Units per control group
- Only 1 Building can be selected at a time
- No command queues for buildings
- Remove auto surround, so unmicroed units in the back can't fire

THIS would make the game harder and allins would be more difficult.

For me Broodwar is still the better game, because it's more fair to the better player. How often do you see Pros lose vs amateurs in BW? Yes 1 out of 100.

You don't even have to go that far, there are some things I'd stick in though. Tanks shouldn't overkill, but should do more damage by far, IMO is a change that mightn't be reasonable, but I'd at least want TRIED.

Also WG needs a full retweak, and imo Eco needs a look at, other pathing algorithims, targetting ones etc.

Look tbh, I am viewing it as a pure spectator now. I find Brood War more entertaining from that respect for sure, partly because the Protoss race is actually not retardedly designed. I am a Protoss fanboy in terms of lore and BGH etc from BW (I didn't even know TL existed), but god the race is silly in SC2, especially HoTS



I wonder how likely these changes would happen at all. How low would it be hmmm
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland26035 Posts
December 21 2013 04:34 GMT
#17024
Well, I mean considering the fucking Oracle change really unlikely.

I hate to like, single out David Kim, but really wtf you been smoking hash or? A non-sentient being could probably have realised that buffing a unit that was already strong as a cheese unit would make cheese builds more prevalent.

That said, I don't expect anything more from the dev team that gave you the mothership core in its present form. I was a guy who LOVED PvT in WoL, but now it's a joke. Hey, don't bother making good decisions in terms of units produced in the early game, doesn't matter, you have the fucking death cannon.

Oh my fucking dick, please explain these changes properly. If I hear 'encouraging dynamic play' or any more of those buzzphrases I will blow a gasket.

You know what WOULd fucking encourage dynamic play?

Maps that aren't NR 15.
A need to go beyond 3 base for optimal economy.
No Warpgate, or at least a warpgate that is distinct from Gateway in some (negative) way.

Will it happen? No it fucking won't because Blizzard people don't appear to read Tl and people smarter than myself who make good suggestions
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
coolman123123
Profile Joined August 2013
146 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-21 04:43:17
December 21 2013 04:40 GMT
#17025
On December 21 2013 13:25 Chaggi wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 21 2013 12:15 Wombat_NI wrote:
On December 21 2013 04:58 TurboMaN wrote:
I have the perfect idea for SC2:

Raise the skill level again (like in Broodwar):
- No Auto-Mine
- Only 12 Units per control group
- Only 1 Building can be selected at a time
- No command queues for buildings
- Remove auto surround, so unmicroed units in the back can't fire

THIS would make the game harder and allins would be more difficult.

For me Broodwar is still the better game, because it's more fair to the better player. How often do you see Pros lose vs amateurs in BW? Yes 1 out of 100.

You don't even have to go that far, there are some things I'd stick in though. Tanks shouldn't overkill, but should do more damage by far, IMO is a change that mightn't be reasonable, but I'd at least want TRIED.

Also WG needs a full retweak, and imo Eco needs a look at, other pathing algorithims, targetting ones etc.

Look tbh, I am viewing it as a pure spectator now. I find Brood War more entertaining from that respect for sure, partly because the Protoss race is actually not retardedly designed. I am a Protoss fanboy in terms of lore and BGH etc from BW (I didn't even know TL existed), but god the race is silly in SC2, especially HoTS



I wonder how likely these changes would happen at all. How low would it be hmmm


The likelihood is 0%. Blizzard is a big company and can't afford to pander to a tiny group of people who want to make the game less intuitive at the expense of new players. There are ways to make the better player win more often that don't involve adding arbitrary limitations to the game.

edit: not sure what list of changes you were referring to, either way none of the suggestions from either post have any chance of coming into the game, other than maybe WG tweaks.
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland26035 Posts
December 21 2013 04:55 GMT
#17026
Many of these changes would IMO make the game more friendly in terms of intuitively and new players, IMO. Starcraft 2 imo rewards knowledge and build knowledge in its current form beyond latent skill. The 'casuals' I know would bear this out
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
Chaggi
Profile Joined August 2010
Korea (South)1936 Posts
December 21 2013 05:48 GMT
#17027
On December 21 2013 13:40 coolman123123 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 21 2013 13:25 Chaggi wrote:
On December 21 2013 12:15 Wombat_NI wrote:
On December 21 2013 04:58 TurboMaN wrote:
I have the perfect idea for SC2:

Raise the skill level again (like in Broodwar):
- No Auto-Mine
- Only 12 Units per control group
- Only 1 Building can be selected at a time
- No command queues for buildings
- Remove auto surround, so unmicroed units in the back can't fire

THIS would make the game harder and allins would be more difficult.

For me Broodwar is still the better game, because it's more fair to the better player. How often do you see Pros lose vs amateurs in BW? Yes 1 out of 100.

You don't even have to go that far, there are some things I'd stick in though. Tanks shouldn't overkill, but should do more damage by far, IMO is a change that mightn't be reasonable, but I'd at least want TRIED.

Also WG needs a full retweak, and imo Eco needs a look at, other pathing algorithims, targetting ones etc.

Look tbh, I am viewing it as a pure spectator now. I find Brood War more entertaining from that respect for sure, partly because the Protoss race is actually not retardedly designed. I am a Protoss fanboy in terms of lore and BGH etc from BW (I didn't even know TL existed), but god the race is silly in SC2, especially HoTS



I wonder how likely these changes would happen at all. How low would it be hmmm


The likelihood is 0%. Blizzard is a big company and can't afford to pander to a tiny group of people who want to make the game less intuitive at the expense of new players. There are ways to make the better player win more often that don't involve adding arbitrary limitations to the game.

edit: not sure what list of changes you were referring to, either way none of the suggestions from either post have any chance of coming into the game, other than maybe WG tweaks.


Would it really be less intuitive if they made behind the scene changes to econ and micro? Micro is the thing that everyone can see easily. I remember when I first watched SC2 professionally, and I went off and tried to go reproduce some of the stuff that I saw (like MKP vs Kyrix) and was successful to a degree. But I still lost games despite having good micro. It wasn't until I started watching, I think it was, STBomber's stream, that I realized that every single time he lost an army, he had another one right behind it. The macro part of the game was something that didn't totally make sense to me, but it's something I've paid more attention to. But it's not exciting, or really interesting tbh. It's just, make units - ALWAYS. The things that get the biggest cheers has always been micro. There's def a lot of micro that casters and viewers miss (like mineral micro at the start of the game) but having stuff like that increases the depth of the game. Having stupid as fuck units like the oracle vroom vroom around the map is just stupid. Whoever is making the calls, is absolutely retarded. The logic doesn't make sense and it's not like we're stupid either. That's the most annoying thing. It feels like Blizzard treats the community with kiddy gloves and half-assed answers. Might as well be talking to Sundance via Twitter.
VArsovskiSC
Profile Joined July 2010
Macedonia563 Posts
December 21 2013 09:22 GMT
#17028
IMO Terran is the problem.. Though it might feel - ahhh I like Terran, they are a fine race - yet - fail to perform with them

Well - that's because Terran IS NOT a well designed race.. It's a race in which transitions are nearly impossible to make.. Though there was the Broodwar case as well - dislike that TBH.. Though mech was a viable option as well - it was either one of the two..

NOW - perhaps Blizz could make Mech stronger and make things like making the Siege-Tank dps being "magic" instead of physical and therefore not activate the shield of the Immortal, or they could make that and make the immortal shield being 50% resistant to spells (would hardly affect the other matchups TBH, storm is rarely used in PvP), and make it like the Brood-war-esque scenario where EITHER bio or EITHER mech is strong again..

OR - they could make some of the mech units (for example the Widow-Mine) more versatile and not a specialized unit.. They could buff the thing in every which different way other than being a vs Zerg board-domination unit.. They could rather make it just as it is in total against the Zerg as well as the Protoss.. Could increase damage vs mech, i.e. - non-bio, or could even make the WM CD being shorter..

Like - options are VIABLE TO TEST/EXPERIMENT, but they did nothing.. Blizzard released the WM in it's primary retarded anti-Zerg form which is totally useless vs Protoss IMO.. Out of all the mech units TBH I feel like the only unit that doesn't do it's own job vs Protoss is the WM, hence noone produces them anymore.. If they could do at least a decent board-control vs the Aiur race - then mech, as well as BioMech, would be viable..

The reason I say this is that the problem with Terran is that except the Marines (Marauders, Medivacs, w/e/ - that's just a suplement to the Marines TBH) they have not a single versatile unit anymore.. All the other units (except the Banshee which becomes useless once the opponent has air units or air unit production capability) are designed to "help" marines instead of work on their own.. And THAT's a problem TBH

As long as the other two production structures don't have "the marine" - i.e. - a versatile/easy to produce unit - Terran will be a race stuck on Marine tech all game long and things we observe will occur.. Terran will win very easily vs what Marines are strong, Terran will die to what Marines die to.. Simple as that - the whole race ATM is defined by the Marine as a unit, and that's really a bad design y know
Another world, another place, another universe, won the race.. :) ;) :P
Big J
Profile Joined March 2011
Austria16289 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-21 09:45:12
December 21 2013 09:44 GMT
#17029
I'd say it's a balance problem, not a design problem. The Units are not properly balanced against each other, so if you were forced into a situation in which you know nothing about an opponent but you had to choose which units to fight with, there are way to clear winners. Nothing against one unit being "universally a little stronger", but a few of the units - mutas, marines - are just over the top.

Thing with the Marine in particular is that it is somewhat needed to be so strong because zealots and zerglings are quite strong as well. Imo that's one of the real problems the game suffers from, early Tier units are very strong and mineral only while midtier units often don't bring a lot of extra strength to the table and cost gas.
This influences strongly how we play and perceive the game, strong armies are easy to reach (because mineral heavy armies are strong) and require few bases (because you need little gas).
The only race that breaks out of this a tiny bit is Zerg who often mines from 4-5bases simultanously, since they have the mapcontrol to do so and they really benefit from the extra gas income. And even then they usually fully mine the minerals on 4bases, since it's still so rewarding to build low tier stuff.
Gullis
Profile Joined April 2012
Sweden740 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-21 09:57:30
December 21 2013 09:51 GMT
#17030
To a certain extent I agree with you but I feel like Terran has good designed units but the numbers are a bit off and maybe bio is to dominant. Protoss has core issues that can't be solved by tweaking numbers. Band aid fixes like msc and oracles may make winrates look good but they only makes things worse.

And also what Big J says.
I would rather eat than see my children starve.
MacSyndicate
Profile Joined April 2013
United States3 Posts
December 21 2013 09:58 GMT
#17031
I think the current problem is honestly just the sheer number of competitive-viable openers protoss has against terran (and zerg to some extent). There is a plethora of safe aggressive gate openers as well as at least 8 other tech builds and all-ins. I understand that scouting is important, but in HOTS you could scout a protoss with 1 probe on gas and then 1 minute later dts kill you.
Jesse: And what did he say? Walter: He said "never give up on family". And I didn't.
Snusmumriken
Profile Joined April 2012
Sweden1717 Posts
December 21 2013 12:37 GMT
#17032
everyone has already mentioned the (only solution blizzard will consider) in this thread. Reduce range of nexus cannon a bit, reduce mothership core vision and revert the oracle speed (but not the acceleration).
Amove for Aiur
NovemberstOrm
Profile Blog Joined September 2011
Canada16217 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-21 12:44:19
December 21 2013 12:42 GMT
#17033
On December 21 2013 04:58 TurboMaN wrote:
I have the perfect idea for SC2:

Raise the skill level again (like in Broodwar):
- No Auto-Mine
- Only 12 Units per control group
- Only 1 Building can be selected at a time
- No command queues for buildings
- Remove auto surround, so unmicroed units in the back can't fire

THIS would make the game harder and allins would be more difficult.

For me Broodwar is still the better game, because it's more fair to the better player. How often do you see Pros lose vs amateurs in BW? Yes 1 out of 100.

what's your definition of "professional" and "amateur"? It was a lot more clear in BW because you had progamer licenses.
Also I think artificially limiting the game is a bad idea and isn't what should make a game "hard"
Moderatorlickypiddy
Snusmumriken
Profile Joined April 2012
Sweden1717 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-21 12:50:13
December 21 2013 12:48 GMT
#17034
On December 21 2013 21:42 NovemberstOrm wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 21 2013 04:58 TurboMaN wrote:
I have the perfect idea for SC2:

Raise the skill level again (like in Broodwar):
- No Auto-Mine
- Only 12 Units per control group
- Only 1 Building can be selected at a time
- No command queues for buildings
- Remove auto surround, so unmicroed units in the back can't fire

THIS would make the game harder and allins would be more difficult.

For me Broodwar is still the better game, because it's more fair to the better player. How often do you see Pros lose vs amateurs in BW? Yes 1 out of 100.

what's your definition of "professional" and "amateur"? It was a lot more clear in BW because you had progamer licenses.
Also I think artificially limiting the game is a bad idea and isn't what should make a game "hard"


I agree with this. Making a game harder is only viable if it also makes the game more intuitive (in most cases). One example of this would be to fix the tracking turrets of tanks, making the unit more microable and thus harder both to perfectly use and to destroy, and all at the same time making tanks an intuitive unit as they behave similar to how they do in real life. In general, making units more responsive and increase their micro potential (note the word increase, not "make harder for the sake of it") will both raise skillceiling and make things more intuitive

What we DONT want is arbitrary restrictions that are neither intuitive nor really give away how difficult they are except to other good players.
Amove for Aiur
Survivor61316
Profile Joined July 2012
United States470 Posts
December 21 2013 17:56 GMT
#17035
On December 21 2013 18:44 Big J wrote:
I'd say it's a balance problem, not a design problem. The Units are not properly balanced against each other, so if you were forced into a situation in which you know nothing about an opponent but you had to choose which units to fight with, there are way to clear winners. Nothing against one unit being "universally a little stronger", but a few of the units - mutas, marines - are just over the top.

Thing with the Marine in particular is that it is somewhat needed to be so strong because zealots and zerglings are quite strong as well. Imo that's one of the real problems the game suffers from, early Tier units are very strong and mineral only while midtier units often don't bring a lot of extra strength to the table and cost gas.
This influences strongly how we play and perceive the game, strong armies are easy to reach (because mineral heavy armies are strong) and require few bases (because you need little gas).
The only race that breaks out of this a tiny bit is Zerg who often mines from 4-5bases simultanously, since they have the mapcontrol to do so and they really benefit from the extra gas income. And even then they usually fully mine the minerals on 4bases, since it's still so rewarding to build low tier stuff.

Balance problems and design problems are far from being mutually exclusive. All balance tweaks have to be based around the core design of the race in question. Warp gate in particular comes to mind: the ability for toss to reinforce across the map mid battle is one of the first concerns when balancing any gateway units. In fact, WG is one of the biggest reasons the toss race is so broken, but thats another tangent entirely. My point though is that balance stems from design, they are not separate ideas.
Liquid Fighting
aZealot
Profile Blog Joined May 2011
New Zealand5447 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-21 19:02:06
December 21 2013 19:00 GMT
#17036
Wrong thread.
KT best KT ~ 2014
BaronVonOwn
Profile Joined April 2011
299 Posts
December 21 2013 19:40 GMT
#17037
Well Scarlett just hopped on the protoss imba bandwagon, playing under the nick "TossImba." I'm not sure how you could nerf protoss though. I'm thinking up the energy cost on nexus cannon to 125 and increase the cost of MSC to 200/100. It's too easy and automatic for protoss to just tech up to MSC and be safe for the first 10 minutes.

As for TvP specifically, terran has no good mech antiarmor option. It used to be goliaths, but the closest thing to a goliath now is the viking (the thor fills the role of the valkyrie). With ship/vehicle upgrades combined the viking now makes sense in a mech composition. Unfortunately the viking's ground attack is weak but more importantly it can't stand up to stalkers or immortals. You could probably make them stronger vs. protoss by removing their "armored" attribute. The only zerg unit with a bonus vs. armor is the spine crawler so I don't see it hurting that matchup at all.
Survivor61316
Profile Joined July 2012
United States470 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-21 20:00:33
December 21 2013 19:57 GMT
#17038
On December 22 2013 04:00 aZealot wrote:
Wrong thread.

Really? Silly me, I thought this was the balance thread, and here I was commenting on a discussion about balance..

edit: someone should tell Scarlett that design has nothing to do with balance too I guess, because when asked why she thought toss was imba at the beginning of her showmatch with Nani, she said it was the overall design of the race.
Liquid Fighting
Big J
Profile Joined March 2011
Austria16289 Posts
December 21 2013 20:01 GMT
#17039
On December 22 2013 02:56 Survivor61316 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 21 2013 18:44 Big J wrote:
I'd say it's a balance problem, not a design problem. The Units are not properly balanced against each other, so if you were forced into a situation in which you know nothing about an opponent but you had to choose which units to fight with, there are way to clear winners. Nothing against one unit being "universally a little stronger", but a few of the units - mutas, marines - are just over the top.

Thing with the Marine in particular is that it is somewhat needed to be so strong because zealots and zerglings are quite strong as well. Imo that's one of the real problems the game suffers from, early Tier units are very strong and mineral only while midtier units often don't bring a lot of extra strength to the table and cost gas.
This influences strongly how we play and perceive the game, strong armies are easy to reach (because mineral heavy armies are strong) and require few bases (because you need little gas).
The only race that breaks out of this a tiny bit is Zerg who often mines from 4-5bases simultanously, since they have the mapcontrol to do so and they really benefit from the extra gas income. And even then they usually fully mine the minerals on 4bases, since it's still so rewarding to build low tier stuff.

Balance problems and design problems are far from being mutually exclusive. All balance tweaks have to be based around the core design of the race in question. Warp gate in particular comes to mind: the ability for toss to reinforce across the map mid battle is one of the first concerns when balancing any gateway units. In fact, WG is one of the biggest reasons the toss race is so broken, but thats another tangent entirely. My point though is that balance stems from design, they are not separate ideas.


Definitely. But since what I'm talking about is less about what roles a unit should fullfill, but rather to what degree it should fullfill it, I'd mostly call it a balance problem.
E.g. Tanks are not dead against Protoss because Protoss can counter tanks, but rather because they can counter them so efficiently. And I'd say a designquestion is whether Immortals should counter tanks, a balance question is whether Immortals should 3-4 shoot them while tanking 14+ hits or whether it wouldn't be enough to have Immortals with less damage done to armored or hardened shields with a reduction to only 12damage. Neither of those changes would change the core role of the Immortal, but it would change the balance and gameplay of Immortals.

And that's basically what I'm saying above. I think everybody wants lowtier units to stay viable all game long, but I think it would be more interesting if the Zergling wasn't the bigass mapdomination unit it is for how little it costs and the marine wouldn't be the bigass combat threat that you have to base your whole vs Terran gameplan around since it costs so little, nor do we want a zealot warpin destroying a base that actually has some amount of defending units in it.

Since you mention Warpgate, imo there we have the opposite situation. It's not that limiting for the balance of the Gateway Units. Stalkers are very versatile, therefore not extremly strong combatants. Sentries are very powerful casters, therefore not extremly strong combatants. Zealots are actually quite good combatants anyways. And higher Tier units like Archons and HTs are really not weak either. DTs rely on stealth and surprise and can't be top combatants.
It's more that it limits the design of units that can be on the Warpgate (and mostly early on). You can obviously not have anything that costs more or less than 2supply on the warpgate, since it would be too strong or too weak per production cycle. You can't put much more variety on the warpgate than there already is, since mass warpgates without too much tech would become too strong. But all of the units you can put and that are on the Warpgate can be and are quite strong in the roles they have. The lowtier WP-Units just don't offer the pure power (without the subtile versatility) that some other 2supply units like a Marauder or a Roach do offer, but they still excel at certain roles.
Survivor61316
Profile Joined July 2012
United States470 Posts
December 21 2013 20:17 GMT
#17040
On December 22 2013 05:01 Big J wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 22 2013 02:56 Survivor61316 wrote:
On December 21 2013 18:44 Big J wrote:
I'd say it's a balance problem, not a design problem. The Units are not properly balanced against each other, so if you were forced into a situation in which you know nothing about an opponent but you had to choose which units to fight with, there are way to clear winners. Nothing against one unit being "universally a little stronger", but a few of the units - mutas, marines - are just over the top.

Thing with the Marine in particular is that it is somewhat needed to be so strong because zealots and zerglings are quite strong as well. Imo that's one of the real problems the game suffers from, early Tier units are very strong and mineral only while midtier units often don't bring a lot of extra strength to the table and cost gas.
This influences strongly how we play and perceive the game, strong armies are easy to reach (because mineral heavy armies are strong) and require few bases (because you need little gas).
The only race that breaks out of this a tiny bit is Zerg who often mines from 4-5bases simultanously, since they have the mapcontrol to do so and they really benefit from the extra gas income. And even then they usually fully mine the minerals on 4bases, since it's still so rewarding to build low tier stuff.

Balance problems and design problems are far from being mutually exclusive. All balance tweaks have to be based around the core design of the race in question. Warp gate in particular comes to mind: the ability for toss to reinforce across the map mid battle is one of the first concerns when balancing any gateway units. In fact, WG is one of the biggest reasons the toss race is so broken, but thats another tangent entirely. My point though is that balance stems from design, they are not separate ideas.


Definitely. But since what I'm talking about is less about what roles a unit should fullfill, but rather to what degree it should fullfill it, I'd mostly call it a balance problem.
E.g. Tanks are not dead against Protoss because Protoss can counter tanks, but rather because they can counter them so efficiently. And I'd say a designquestion is whether Immortals should counter tanks, a balance question is whether Immortals should 3-4 shoot them while tanking 14+ hits or whether it wouldn't be enough to have Immortals with less damage done to armored or hardened shields with a reduction to only 12damage. Neither of those changes would change the core role of the Immortal, but it would change the balance and gameplay of Immortals.

And that's basically what I'm saying above. I think everybody wants lowtier units to stay viable all game long, but I think it would be more interesting if the Zergling wasn't the bigass mapdomination unit it is for how little it costs and the marine wouldn't be the bigass combat threat that you have to base your whole vs Terran gameplan around since it costs so little, nor do we want a zealot warpin destroying a base that actually has some amount of defending units in it.

Since you mention Warpgate, imo there we have the opposite situation. It's not that limiting for the balance of the Gateway Units. Stalkers are very versatile, therefore not extremly strong combatants. Sentries are very powerful casters, therefore not extremly strong combatants. Zealots are actually quite good combatants anyways. And higher Tier units like Archons and HTs are really not weak either. DTs rely on stealth and surprise and can't be top combatants.
It's more that it limits the design of units that can be on the Warpgate (and mostly early on). You can obviously not have anything that costs more or less than 2supply on the warpgate, since it would be too strong or too weak per production cycle. You can't put much more variety on the warpgate than there already is, since mass warpgates without too much tech would become too strong. But all of the units you can put and that are on the Warpgate can be and are quite strong in the roles they have. The lowtier WP-Units just don't offer the pure power (without the subtile versatility) that some other 2supply units like a Marauder or a Roach do offer, but they still excel at certain roles.

Yeah I agree with most everything you said. When I say design, I'm mostly talking about macro mechanics (WG, Reactors, Spawn Larva, ect.). I think having unit counters is good for the game, and youre right that balance comes from deciding just how efficient those counters are. I disagree about WG though; if it were to be removed from the game, gateway units like stalkers, even with their versatility, would be able to become much stronger as straight combat units because toss wouldnt be able to warp 10 of them in 1 second away from the fight. Though I do agree that zealots are already strong enough as a combat unit (could use a nerf in my Terran opinion, though I know they cant be bc it would wreck PvZ).
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