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On April 23 2014 22:22 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +A lot of zerg (including me) was surprised at the +2 range though, we wanted a buff in early game but more in the direction of +1 range.
but as it turns out hots is perfect imo, hellions reapers for slowing creep down and harassing the third, more in line of what the opening should be good at. Yeh, I agree. Queen 5 range feels good with the new reapers IMO. As a terran player, TvZ early game didn't feel fair at all preQueenbuff, so I agree that a change was needed (though +2 range probably was a bit too mcuh as well back then + terran still needed late game compensation. Just a small change such as Seeker Missile being free - which came way too late - would have been decent along the Queen patch or Snipe nerf patch).
I didn't really agree with that last part. TvZ early game pre Queen buff was a lot of fun. There was a very clear early game, mid game and late game to it, and very rarely did anyone that was good die from hellion runbys into the main/natural. While it could be argued that the Zerg was on the backfoot for too long, they tried to make an energy change first, which was shot down completely by the community as it basically negated any decision to inject or creep first, and they added +2 range and it passed within a week or two. Why not +1? Why not test it for longer? It's all and fine now but it's decisions like those that make me question what the hell Blizzard was really thinking, if they were at all.
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On April 23 2014 23:50 Chaggi wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2014 22:22 Hider wrote:A lot of zerg (including me) was surprised at the +2 range though, we wanted a buff in early game but more in the direction of +1 range.
but as it turns out hots is perfect imo, hellions reapers for slowing creep down and harassing the third, more in line of what the opening should be good at. Yeh, I agree. Queen 5 range feels good with the new reapers IMO. As a terran player, TvZ early game didn't feel fair at all preQueenbuff, so I agree that a change was needed (though +2 range probably was a bit too mcuh as well back then + terran still needed late game compensation. Just a small change such as Seeker Missile being free - which came way too late - would have been decent along the Queen patch or Snipe nerf patch). I didn't really agree with that last part. TvZ early game pre Queen buff was a lot of fun. There was a very clear early game, mid game and late game to it, and very rarely did anyone that was good die from hellion runbys into the main/natural. While it could be argued that the Zerg was on the backfoot for too long, they tried to make an energy change first, which was shot down completely by the community as it basically negated any decision to inject or creep first, and they added +2 range and it passed within a week or two. Why not +1? Why not test it for longer? It's all and fine now but it's decisions like those that make me question what the hell Blizzard was really thinking, if they were at all.
Meh, terrans just went reactor factory and used like 4 hellions to prevent any type of creep from being spread. Meanwhile they could either go for fast 3rd OC (much before zerg took their own 3rd) or some type of allin which was hard for zerg to scout. Wasn't really a very good interaction IMO and balancewise, the teran would almost always get ahead. One advantage this had though was that the "action" started earlier as terrans went Factory before expand, but not really such a big deal since there really wasn't that much of a micro interaction anyway.
Right now we have zerg players gaining ground through the combo of Queens + Lings vs Hellion + Reaper which IMO is a better interaction. Very microintensive for both players.
But ofc I do agree that it was a mistake to go directly to 5 range instead of testing 4 range beforehand.
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On April 23 2014 23:57 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2014 23:50 Chaggi wrote:On April 23 2014 22:22 Hider wrote:A lot of zerg (including me) was surprised at the +2 range though, we wanted a buff in early game but more in the direction of +1 range.
but as it turns out hots is perfect imo, hellions reapers for slowing creep down and harassing the third, more in line of what the opening should be good at. Yeh, I agree. Queen 5 range feels good with the new reapers IMO. As a terran player, TvZ early game didn't feel fair at all preQueenbuff, so I agree that a change was needed (though +2 range probably was a bit too mcuh as well back then + terran still needed late game compensation. Just a small change such as Seeker Missile being free - which came way too late - would have been decent along the Queen patch or Snipe nerf patch). I didn't really agree with that last part. TvZ early game pre Queen buff was a lot of fun. There was a very clear early game, mid game and late game to it, and very rarely did anyone that was good die from hellion runbys into the main/natural. While it could be argued that the Zerg was on the backfoot for too long, they tried to make an energy change first, which was shot down completely by the community as it basically negated any decision to inject or creep first, and they added +2 range and it passed within a week or two. Why not +1? Why not test it for longer? It's all and fine now but it's decisions like those that make me question what the hell Blizzard was really thinking, if they were at all. Meh, terrans just went reactor factory and used like 4 hellions to prevent any type of creep from being spread. Meanwhile they could either go for fast 3rd OC (much before zerg took their own 3rd) or some type of allin which was hard for zerg to scout. Wasn't really a very good interaction IMO and balancewise, the teran would almost always get ahead. One advantage this had though was that the "action" started earlier as terrans went Factory before expand, but not really such a big deal since there really wasn't that much of a micro interaction anyway. Right now we have zerg players gaining ground through the combo of Queens + Lings vs Hellion + Reaper which IMO is a better interaction. Very microintensive for both players. But ofc I do agree that it was a mistake to go directly to 5 range instead of testing 4 range beforehand.
How fun something is can be pretty subjective though. I had expected them to buff spines instead of giving range to queens; the change broke the game and hence was a big mistake. However, the changes they made afterwards has fixed a lot of that brokenness.
The game is much better if Terran can have an proactive goal in the early game that zerg has to riposte. It took an expansion and completely changing the reaper--but I'll take results over craft anyday when it comes to games I enjoy 
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On April 24 2014 03:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2014 23:57 Hider wrote:On April 23 2014 23:50 Chaggi wrote:On April 23 2014 22:22 Hider wrote:A lot of zerg (including me) was surprised at the +2 range though, we wanted a buff in early game but more in the direction of +1 range.
but as it turns out hots is perfect imo, hellions reapers for slowing creep down and harassing the third, more in line of what the opening should be good at. Yeh, I agree. Queen 5 range feels good with the new reapers IMO. As a terran player, TvZ early game didn't feel fair at all preQueenbuff, so I agree that a change was needed (though +2 range probably was a bit too mcuh as well back then + terran still needed late game compensation. Just a small change such as Seeker Missile being free - which came way too late - would have been decent along the Queen patch or Snipe nerf patch). I didn't really agree with that last part. TvZ early game pre Queen buff was a lot of fun. There was a very clear early game, mid game and late game to it, and very rarely did anyone that was good die from hellion runbys into the main/natural. While it could be argued that the Zerg was on the backfoot for too long, they tried to make an energy change first, which was shot down completely by the community as it basically negated any decision to inject or creep first, and they added +2 range and it passed within a week or two. Why not +1? Why not test it for longer? It's all and fine now but it's decisions like those that make me question what the hell Blizzard was really thinking, if they were at all. Meh, terrans just went reactor factory and used like 4 hellions to prevent any type of creep from being spread. Meanwhile they could either go for fast 3rd OC (much before zerg took their own 3rd) or some type of allin which was hard for zerg to scout. Wasn't really a very good interaction IMO and balancewise, the teran would almost always get ahead. One advantage this had though was that the "action" started earlier as terrans went Factory before expand, but not really such a big deal since there really wasn't that much of a micro interaction anyway. Right now we have zerg players gaining ground through the combo of Queens + Lings vs Hellion + Reaper which IMO is a better interaction. Very microintensive for both players. But ofc I do agree that it was a mistake to go directly to 5 range instead of testing 4 range beforehand. How fun something is can be pretty subjective though. I had expected them to buff spines instead of giving range to queens; the change broke the game and hence was a big mistake. However, the changes they made afterwards has fixed a lot of that brokenness. The game is much better if Terran can have an proactive goal in the early game that zerg has to riposte. It took an expansion and completely changing the reaper--but I'll take results over craft anyday when it comes to games I enjoy
Buff Spines? That wouldn't really accomplish anything in terms of more aggression or microinteractions.
It would just make it easier for zerg to defend against terran timing attacks and they would then be incentivizied to turtle on 2 bases. Meanwhile terran would be incentivized to go quick 3 CC on 4 hellions every game.
The way I look at fun micro is this: Both races can micro and remicro against each other. Forcefields are thus an example of boring micro and Marine Drop is an example of fun micro.
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On April 24 2014 03:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2014 23:57 Hider wrote:On April 23 2014 23:50 Chaggi wrote:On April 23 2014 22:22 Hider wrote:A lot of zerg (including me) was surprised at the +2 range though, we wanted a buff in early game but more in the direction of +1 range.
but as it turns out hots is perfect imo, hellions reapers for slowing creep down and harassing the third, more in line of what the opening should be good at. Yeh, I agree. Queen 5 range feels good with the new reapers IMO. As a terran player, TvZ early game didn't feel fair at all preQueenbuff, so I agree that a change was needed (though +2 range probably was a bit too mcuh as well back then + terran still needed late game compensation. Just a small change such as Seeker Missile being free - which came way too late - would have been decent along the Queen patch or Snipe nerf patch). I didn't really agree with that last part. TvZ early game pre Queen buff was a lot of fun. There was a very clear early game, mid game and late game to it, and very rarely did anyone that was good die from hellion runbys into the main/natural. While it could be argued that the Zerg was on the backfoot for too long, they tried to make an energy change first, which was shot down completely by the community as it basically negated any decision to inject or creep first, and they added +2 range and it passed within a week or two. Why not +1? Why not test it for longer? It's all and fine now but it's decisions like those that make me question what the hell Blizzard was really thinking, if they were at all. Meh, terrans just went reactor factory and used like 4 hellions to prevent any type of creep from being spread. Meanwhile they could either go for fast 3rd OC (much before zerg took their own 3rd) or some type of allin which was hard for zerg to scout. Wasn't really a very good interaction IMO and balancewise, the teran would almost always get ahead. One advantage this had though was that the "action" started earlier as terrans went Factory before expand, but not really such a big deal since there really wasn't that much of a micro interaction anyway. Right now we have zerg players gaining ground through the combo of Queens + Lings vs Hellion + Reaper which IMO is a better interaction. Very microintensive for both players. But ofc I do agree that it was a mistake to go directly to 5 range instead of testing 4 range beforehand. How fun something is can be pretty subjective though. I had expected them to buff spines instead of giving range to queens; the change broke the game and hence was a big mistake. However, the changes they made afterwards has fixed a lot of that brokenness. The game is much better if Terran can have an proactive goal in the early game that zerg has to riposte. It took an expansion and completely changing the reaper--but I'll take results over craft anyday when it comes to games I enjoy
A lot of Zergs had actually been started doing 3-4 roach expands at this time, which let them get their third around 6-6:30 like they do now. Win rates were about even at this time (actually very similar to the situation with the Widow Mine, where it was deemed too strong initially but Zerg figured it out and when win rates were around 50/50 Blizzard made a big change).
When the queen was buffed they basically just replaced those roaches with extra Queens, meaning they didn't have to get gas or a roach warren, got to spend all of their larva on drones, were even more safe since queens are stronger defensive units than roaches and spread creep faster since they had 4 queens dedicated to creep spread even after having 2 queens dedicated to injects. All of this led to Zerg having an explosion of economy and creep and being completely safe until around 8:00, and led to extremely passive games (Terran had the option to commit to aggressive Hellion / Banshee, BFH or some off Marine timing ala Bomber, but you had to do insane amounts of damage to make it worth it- it wasn't uncommon to see Terran's lose with 100+ drone kills) leading up to one pre-hive timing that more or less decided the outcome of the game.
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When these micro discussions and Protoss complaints crop up, it always just shows tremendous race bias. Why is Blink unfun, but stim Marines are? What exactly is fun about your opposing army being twice as fast as you and twice as much DPS? Where are these micro situations suddenly gained? Micro is made despite Marines, not because of them. Banelings force epic splitting, but there's nothing intrinsic about the Marine that makes their splitting more fun or anything, aside from the 0 damage point delay. It's why Hydras are garbage for micro because their damage point isn't unrealistically instant. The debate over whether or not Warpgate should be on equal terms with Gateway is another oft talked about red herring. At this point in the development it's not gonna happen. Why doesn't Inject Larva have cons? Why doesn't Medivac boost have cons? Why doesn't a Mule have cons? There's plenty of stuff in this game that doesn't force a sophie's choice. The Warpgate haters are really saying "I don't like Protoss aggression keeping me in check, I want my Stim timing to be stronger," or they don't like the idea that their easily acquired map control by virtue of their naturally stronger and faster basic units can be undermined intermittently.
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I was interested in hearing about how we can increase the use of mostly unused units/abilities. Hydras got a great boost in HotS and now we see them regularly, but there are some units/abilities we don't see such as:
Nukes - What will make nukes viable at top level play? Decrease launch time? Longer ghost range? Cheaper nukes?
Seeker Missile - We have seen this sometimes, but most often is kind of a scare tactic (ie spend 75 energy to zone some units a few seconds). Maybe instead of 5 seconds of waiting (which feels ridiculous), maybe just 4-3 seconds instead?
Battlecruisers - I really like this unit, its so cool but we never see it! I want to see epic air battles with these things! How can it be made viable? More HP, long range but most cost? Just faster movement? Better Yamato cannon?
Reaper - We do see these guys early in game and they did get a buff but they aren't viable after 10 minutes. Perhaps there can be some upgrade that gives HP or a useful skill? Maybe a group of reapers could be made an alternative to medivac drops!
Viking Land Mode - Seems like it would be fun if Vikings were useful on the ground too. Maybe increase movement speed/range but increase transform time?
Carriers - Only recently we've seen it on the new Maze map, but generally they aren't viable. What would make them usable? Longer range? Cheaper/faster building/more intercepters?
Dark Templar - They are rare, but not bad. Maybe they could get their own blink or something to make them more viable?
Neural Parasite - Now that there are vipers that can pull those units in at long range, maybe neural parasite should be made slightly different, like instead it costs less and target unit goes "berserk" and randomly attacks a friendly target for some seconds.
In general, these are just a few units/abilities I feel are rather stagnant and have little to no use in the game. With the Zerg buffs in HotS, virtually every unit is viable in the Zerg arsenal which I really like! I wanna see other units become relevant to the meta
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On April 24 2014 03:49 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2014 03:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:On April 23 2014 23:57 Hider wrote:On April 23 2014 23:50 Chaggi wrote:On April 23 2014 22:22 Hider wrote:A lot of zerg (including me) was surprised at the +2 range though, we wanted a buff in early game but more in the direction of +1 range.
but as it turns out hots is perfect imo, hellions reapers for slowing creep down and harassing the third, more in line of what the opening should be good at. Yeh, I agree. Queen 5 range feels good with the new reapers IMO. As a terran player, TvZ early game didn't feel fair at all preQueenbuff, so I agree that a change was needed (though +2 range probably was a bit too mcuh as well back then + terran still needed late game compensation. Just a small change such as Seeker Missile being free - which came way too late - would have been decent along the Queen patch or Snipe nerf patch). I didn't really agree with that last part. TvZ early game pre Queen buff was a lot of fun. There was a very clear early game, mid game and late game to it, and very rarely did anyone that was good die from hellion runbys into the main/natural. While it could be argued that the Zerg was on the backfoot for too long, they tried to make an energy change first, which was shot down completely by the community as it basically negated any decision to inject or creep first, and they added +2 range and it passed within a week or two. Why not +1? Why not test it for longer? It's all and fine now but it's decisions like those that make me question what the hell Blizzard was really thinking, if they were at all. Meh, terrans just went reactor factory and used like 4 hellions to prevent any type of creep from being spread. Meanwhile they could either go for fast 3rd OC (much before zerg took their own 3rd) or some type of allin which was hard for zerg to scout. Wasn't really a very good interaction IMO and balancewise, the teran would almost always get ahead. One advantage this had though was that the "action" started earlier as terrans went Factory before expand, but not really such a big deal since there really wasn't that much of a micro interaction anyway. Right now we have zerg players gaining ground through the combo of Queens + Lings vs Hellion + Reaper which IMO is a better interaction. Very microintensive for both players. But ofc I do agree that it was a mistake to go directly to 5 range instead of testing 4 range beforehand. How fun something is can be pretty subjective though. I had expected them to buff spines instead of giving range to queens; the change broke the game and hence was a big mistake. However, the changes they made afterwards has fixed a lot of that brokenness. The game is much better if Terran can have an proactive goal in the early game that zerg has to riposte. It took an expansion and completely changing the reaper--but I'll take results over craft anyday when it comes to games I enjoy Buff Spines? That wouldn't really accomplish anything in terms of more aggression or microinteractions. It would just make it easier for zerg to defend against terran timing attacks and they would then be incentivizied to turtle on 2 bases. Meanwhile terran would be incentivized to go quick 3 CC on 4 hellions every game. The way I look at fun micro is this: Both races can micro and remicro against each other. Forcefields are thus an example of boring micro and Marine Drop is an example of fun micro.
I had *thought* they would buff spines since the meta was queens defending a spine being built and a combination of Spine/Queen/Ling to push back the Hellion.
I thought they'd buff spines to improve that specific interaction without affecting other matchups. The queen buff made it so that mass queens solved both the Hellion problem and the Banshee problems at the same time. Terran no longer had a form of early pressure.
In Hots reapers were given free speed, no tech restrictions, and tier 1 heal to compensate for the 5 range. Without the queen buff this would not have been a good change since it would roflstomp zerg early game.
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On April 24 2014 04:15 Foreverkul wrote:
Dark Templar - They are rare, but not bad. Maybe they could get their own blink or something to make them more viable?
I choked hard.
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On April 24 2014 04:34 Faust852 wrote:
I choked hard.
They are used in very specific situations, but they aren't used in a general composition and they rarely are the reason you win a game at high level play when opponents know how to deal with them. What about the other units though?
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On April 24 2014 04:11 Pursuit_ wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2014 03:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:On April 23 2014 23:57 Hider wrote:On April 23 2014 23:50 Chaggi wrote:On April 23 2014 22:22 Hider wrote:A lot of zerg (including me) was surprised at the +2 range though, we wanted a buff in early game but more in the direction of +1 range.
but as it turns out hots is perfect imo, hellions reapers for slowing creep down and harassing the third, more in line of what the opening should be good at. Yeh, I agree. Queen 5 range feels good with the new reapers IMO. As a terran player, TvZ early game didn't feel fair at all preQueenbuff, so I agree that a change was needed (though +2 range probably was a bit too mcuh as well back then + terran still needed late game compensation. Just a small change such as Seeker Missile being free - which came way too late - would have been decent along the Queen patch or Snipe nerf patch). I didn't really agree with that last part. TvZ early game pre Queen buff was a lot of fun. There was a very clear early game, mid game and late game to it, and very rarely did anyone that was good die from hellion runbys into the main/natural. While it could be argued that the Zerg was on the backfoot for too long, they tried to make an energy change first, which was shot down completely by the community as it basically negated any decision to inject or creep first, and they added +2 range and it passed within a week or two. Why not +1? Why not test it for longer? It's all and fine now but it's decisions like those that make me question what the hell Blizzard was really thinking, if they were at all. Meh, terrans just went reactor factory and used like 4 hellions to prevent any type of creep from being spread. Meanwhile they could either go for fast 3rd OC (much before zerg took their own 3rd) or some type of allin which was hard for zerg to scout. Wasn't really a very good interaction IMO and balancewise, the teran would almost always get ahead. One advantage this had though was that the "action" started earlier as terrans went Factory before expand, but not really such a big deal since there really wasn't that much of a micro interaction anyway. Right now we have zerg players gaining ground through the combo of Queens + Lings vs Hellion + Reaper which IMO is a better interaction. Very microintensive for both players. But ofc I do agree that it was a mistake to go directly to 5 range instead of testing 4 range beforehand. How fun something is can be pretty subjective though. I had expected them to buff spines instead of giving range to queens; the change broke the game and hence was a big mistake. However, the changes they made afterwards has fixed a lot of that brokenness. The game is much better if Terran can have an proactive goal in the early game that zerg has to riposte. It took an expansion and completely changing the reaper--but I'll take results over craft anyday when it comes to games I enjoy A lot of Zergs had actually been started doing 3-4 roach expands at this time, which let them get their third around 6-6:30 like they do now. Win rates were about even at this time (actually very similar to the situation with the Widow Mine, where it was deemed too strong initially but Zerg figured it out and when win rates were around 50/50 Blizzard made a big change). When the queen was buffed they basically just replaced those roaches with extra Queens, meaning they didn't have to get gas or a roach warren, got to spend all of their larva on drones, were even more safe since queens are stronger defensive units than roaches and spread creep faster since they had 4 queens dedicated to creep spread even after having 2 queens dedicated to injects. All of this led to Zerg having an explosion of economy and creep and being completely safe until around 8:00, and led to extremely passive games (Terran had the option to commit to aggressive Hellion / Banshee, BFH or some off Marine timing ala Bomber, but you had to do insane amounts of damage to make it worth it- it wasn't uncommon to see Terran's lose with 100+ drone kills) leading up to one pre-hive timing that more or less decided the outcome of the game.
That's not true, those "macro" roach openings usually got stomped in macro games. I can't remember too many of those roach opening games at the highest level to begin with.
Like, Nerchio used to open like that and I think I remember that Stephano did it rarely. On the Korean toplevel? DRG was known for roach/ling and roach/baneling allins, but not for defensive roaches. Leenock and July went early speed as far as I remember. Nestea and Losira switched around between 4queen gasless and 3queen+speed.
Those roach openings were pretty costly and quite unsafe because you got stomped by a bunch of hellion+bio builds and did not help you acquire a third when banshees were in play, rather the opposite because you cut queens for roaches. And they delayed anything that you could do of 2bases by a lot.
Winrates were getting quite fine though, in Korea driven by a lot of Code A players that later on were being called patchzergs. The queen patch was great for stabilizing zerg early game instead of the variety of semirandom BO interactions we had before. Maybe the overlord part would have been enough initially, but also with ZvZ in mind (where the 5range queens work wonders), the patch was good. What wasn't was infestors (or the lack of good counters for them) especially in combination with BLs (which destroyed the softcounter siege tank) and their timing possibilities.
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On April 24 2014 04:42 Foreverkul wrote:They are used in very specific situations, but they aren't used in a general composition and they rarely are the reason you win a game at high level play when opponents know how to deal with them. What about the other units though?
At high level they are used every late game situations when we see a "split map" scenario. Drop DT is utterly common too.
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On April 24 2014 04:13 Cloak wrote:
When these micro discussions and Protoss complaints crop up, it always just shows tremendous race bias. Why is Blink unfun, but stim Marines are? What exactly is fun about your opposing army being twice as fast as you and twice as much DPS? Where are these micro situations suddenly gained? Micro is made despite Marines, not because of them. Banelings force epic splitting, but there's nothing intrinsic about the Marine that makes their splitting more fun or anything, aside from the 0 damage point delay. It's why Hydras are garbage for micro because their damage point isn't unrealistically instant. The debate over whether or not Warpgate should be on equal terms with Gateway is another oft talked about red herring. At this point in the development it's not gonna happen. Why doesn't Inject Larva have cons? Why doesn't Medivac boost have cons? Why doesn't a Mule have cons? There's plenty of stuff in this game that doesn't force a sophie's choice. The Warpgate haters are really saying "I don't like Protoss aggression keeping me in check, I want my Stim timing to be stronger," or they don't like the idea that their easily acquired map control by virtue of their naturally stronger and faster basic units can be undermined intermittently.
Um what? All micro is created because of unit interactions, not because of one unit or the other... It's the interaction between high dps low hp marines and units that can quickly close the gap on them and kill them (zealots / banelings / zerglings / ect) that creating splitting / kiting. And I think Blink is fun, I think a lot of Terrans do too and I don't want to see the ability removed from the game. The problem is more being able to see that a Blink Build is coming than actually defending the attack itself.
Inject does have an inherent choice, spend the energy on creep tumor or inject?
Mule does have an inherent choice, spend the OC's energy on Mule or Scan? (Calldown supply is more of a 'shit I fucked up' ability, but you could argue it's a choice too)
Medivac boost has choices too (do you want to boost in to try to catch your opponent off guard or save the boost to make a quick escape if your opponent has units nearby?), although there are situations where no choices are involved (i.e. get across the map faster). Very similar to Blink in this regard actually.
There's no situation in which you would want to have Gateways over Warp Gates. Honestly PvP could have been fixed from the start if you made Gateways produce units slightly faster (~25%?) than Warp Gates because you could hold an offensive 4 warp gate with a defensive 3 gate (for example).
On April 24 2014 04:44 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2014 04:11 Pursuit_ wrote:On April 24 2014 03:21 Thieving Magpie wrote:On April 23 2014 23:57 Hider wrote:On April 23 2014 23:50 Chaggi wrote:On April 23 2014 22:22 Hider wrote:A lot of zerg (including me) was surprised at the +2 range though, we wanted a buff in early game but more in the direction of +1 range.
but as it turns out hots is perfect imo, hellions reapers for slowing creep down and harassing the third, more in line of what the opening should be good at. Yeh, I agree. Queen 5 range feels good with the new reapers IMO. As a terran player, TvZ early game didn't feel fair at all preQueenbuff, so I agree that a change was needed (though +2 range probably was a bit too mcuh as well back then + terran still needed late game compensation. Just a small change such as Seeker Missile being free - which came way too late - would have been decent along the Queen patch or Snipe nerf patch). I didn't really agree with that last part. TvZ early game pre Queen buff was a lot of fun. There was a very clear early game, mid game and late game to it, and very rarely did anyone that was good die from hellion runbys into the main/natural. While it could be argued that the Zerg was on the backfoot for too long, they tried to make an energy change first, which was shot down completely by the community as it basically negated any decision to inject or creep first, and they added +2 range and it passed within a week or two. Why not +1? Why not test it for longer? It's all and fine now but it's decisions like those that make me question what the hell Blizzard was really thinking, if they were at all. Meh, terrans just went reactor factory and used like 4 hellions to prevent any type of creep from being spread. Meanwhile they could either go for fast 3rd OC (much before zerg took their own 3rd) or some type of allin which was hard for zerg to scout. Wasn't really a very good interaction IMO and balancewise, the teran would almost always get ahead. One advantage this had though was that the "action" started earlier as terrans went Factory before expand, but not really such a big deal since there really wasn't that much of a micro interaction anyway. Right now we have zerg players gaining ground through the combo of Queens + Lings vs Hellion + Reaper which IMO is a better interaction. Very microintensive for both players. But ofc I do agree that it was a mistake to go directly to 5 range instead of testing 4 range beforehand. How fun something is can be pretty subjective though. I had expected them to buff spines instead of giving range to queens; the change broke the game and hence was a big mistake. However, the changes they made afterwards has fixed a lot of that brokenness. The game is much better if Terran can have an proactive goal in the early game that zerg has to riposte. It took an expansion and completely changing the reaper--but I'll take results over craft anyday when it comes to games I enjoy A lot of Zergs had actually been started doing 3-4 roach expands at this time, which let them get their third around 6-6:30 like they do now. Win rates were about even at this time (actually very similar to the situation with the Widow Mine, where it was deemed too strong initially but Zerg figured it out and when win rates were around 50/50 Blizzard made a big change). When the queen was buffed they basically just replaced those roaches with extra Queens, meaning they didn't have to get gas or a roach warren, got to spend all of their larva on drones, were even more safe since queens are stronger defensive units than roaches and spread creep faster since they had 4 queens dedicated to creep spread even after having 2 queens dedicated to injects. All of this led to Zerg having an explosion of economy and creep and being completely safe until around 8:00, and led to extremely passive games (Terran had the option to commit to aggressive Hellion / Banshee, BFH or some off Marine timing ala Bomber, but you had to do insane amounts of damage to make it worth it- it wasn't uncommon to see Terran's lose with 100+ drone kills) leading up to one pre-hive timing that more or less decided the outcome of the game. That's not true, those "macro" roach openings usually got stomped in macro games. I can't remember too many of those roach opening games at the highest level to begin with. Like, Nerchio used to open like that and I think I remember that Stephano did it rarely. On the Korean toplevel? DRG was known for roach/ling and roach/baneling allins, but not for defensive roaches. Leenock and July went early speed as far as I remember. Nestea and Losira switched around between 4queen gasless and 3queen+speed. Those roach openings were pretty costly and quite unsafe because you got stomped by a bunch of hellion+bio builds and did not help you acquire a third when banshees were in play, rather the opposite because you cut queens for roaches. And they delayed anything that you could do of 2bases by a lot. Winrates were getting quite fine though, in Korea driven by a lot of Code A players that later on were being called patchzergs. The queen patch was great for stabilizing zerg early game instead of the variety of semirandom BO interactions we had before. Maybe the overlord part would have been enough initially, but also with ZvZ in mind (where the 5range queens work wonders), the patch was good. What wasn't was infestors (or the lack of good counters for them) especially in combination with BLs (which destroyed the softcounter siege tank) and their timing possibilities.
Yeah, some players would try to use a large number of lings and overwhelm the Hellions or just open 2 base Muta. Aggressive roach openings were pretty common too, but you'd rarely see Zergs commit more than 1 round of production of lings behind it and getting a third behind it wasn't uncommon, so I wouldn't call them all-ins.
The point is really that Zergs had adapted in such a way that they didn't need the huge economy boost they were recieving in the early game, and it was that safety + early economy + extra creep spread that was allowing them to hold off all the different pressure Terran could apply with heavily upgraded lings + queens until they could get infestors out. Once this (4-6 queen gasless openers that is) became a refined opening that Zergs were using across the board, Terran winrates dropped drastically.
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On April 23 2014 20:15 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2014 12:22 plogamer wrote:On April 23 2014 11:33 Thieving Magpie wrote:On April 23 2014 11:27 plogamer wrote:On April 23 2014 10:59 Hider wrote:On April 23 2014 10:15 aZealot wrote:On April 23 2014 09:44 Gingy wrote:On April 23 2014 09:42 Thieving Magpie wrote:On April 23 2014 09:37 Gingy wrote:On April 23 2014 09:36 royalroadweed wrote:
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I doubt blizzard will ever change warp gate. If they didn't change something as minor as the dumb +1 range queen, I doubt they'd change something as major as warpgate. I know, but I want to know what people think of it, not how blizzard inevitably would react to it. It sounds like an arbitrarily complicated change to a mechanic that was not good enough to get much if any protoss wins during the first few years of WoL making me think its an overreaction from a subgroup of the community unable to properly gauge their losses on their own weaknesses and instead wants the nerf to be on the only production mechanic that still requires good screen movement as opposed to the other two races who can produce any number of units at a whim without ever removing their screen from following the main army. Wow, came with a productive suggestion, and got shat on by a salty protoss. Well, so long balance thread. Not sure what I expected. Tbh mate, it's not a productive suggestion. Just think about the actual implementation. WG build times would differ in terms of distance from the warp location. That means there are different build times for every area of the map with respect to warpgates. Players would have to take into account which gates are closer to the warpin location to make a few second difference to a warpin. Thinking about using it properly in game (let alone the system requirements) makes my head hurt. Secondly, how would the warpin cooldown work? Does it get preset by telling the relevant WG that you want warpin at a specific location? What if you change your mind because you got dropped and want to warpin closer to home? Does that reset the cooldown timer? Or does the cooldown only work after the first warpin of units? Succeeding waves of reinforcements are much slower (depending on how close they are to the warpin location)? But, does this mean that your WG have to be all idle before any attack or defense? How would you deal with unexpected attacks at your third and your main? Would you have to select the right WG to warp in the right base? All of this seems complicated to even think about, let alone play. Whatever the problems with WG (and in my view they are few), it is currently simple and easy to use. Moreover, your suggestion also seems an incentive to turtle where Protoss simply sits at home, takes advantage of faster warpins right next to their gates and moves out at 200/200. This is even more so as you've also removed any incentive for aggression on the part of Protoss. We already had enough of turtle Toss in WOL. I don't think we need anymore in HOTS/LOTV. Basically, your idea is not a good one. It is overcomplicated and would lead to poor effects on gameplay. Edit/ Happy Birthday, Magpie! Nice to see you posting again (and quite possible playing Devil's Advocate). This so much. I feel like all warpgate redesigns misses the point so much. Like multiple players seem to think you can make protoss more "normal" by nerfing warptech a bit (higher cooldown) and then buff the warpgate units. Like.... that's also just gonna buff protoss deathball in the lategame at the expense of higher infastructure costs basically. Other solutions like a penalty for warping in far from Nexus also is just counterproductive as it deincentiveis warpgates used for pressure plays which also only will result in more passive protoss play. Yes, warptech does lead to probelmatic gameplay at times, but those solutions is only gonna make protoss more boring to play/watch. Having no warptech for Z and T, especially in their mirrors, don't mean that they don't use aggressive play. You still see aggressive styles in non-Protoss matchups. Introducing a mechanic where the cooldown is affected by the warp location's distance to the Warpgate (Except on a Nexus) - means that warp-ins defensively are untouched, while their offensive capacity is now affected by a penalty somewhat similar to what Zergs and Terrans face. That suggestion actually brings Protoss back into the fold of having Defender's Advantage play a factor in their early to mid-game. This doesn't mean warp-tech is gutted - it still negates the need for the units to face the dangers of actually traversing on the map. It's still great for that surprise factor when you sneak a pylon and send zealots into an enemy expansion - it just requires a bigger commitment to snowball with just warp-ins. I was unaware that Protoss did not have a defenders advantage, and apparently needs more of it. Protoss already have the least mobile army in the game, now you want them to match their lack of mobility with an inability to easily fortify their far off bases? While Zerg have complete map awareness + fastest units in the game and Terran have mobile buildings + high number of dropships to allow for quick reinforcing while the base has an ability to escape from being attacked. I just don't get it. People asked for warp gates to be removed in WoL because they thought Protoss Units were too weak. Now they ask for Warp Gates because Protoss Army is too strong. Protoss had Warp Gates when they were a crappy race, they have warp gates now that they win often. The warp gates was not what made them strong. As I wrote in my earlier post, early to mid, yes, Protoss warp-tech based attacks absolutely negate defender's advantage. Least mobile army is pushing it - Terran mech is the least mobile. With somewhat recent buffs (Warp Prism speed, Observer build-time, Hallucination research) a Protoss that can only move in a ball and not make multi-pronged aggression; or being a race with map control/scouting issues are a relic of the past. Anyway, you still haven't defended why making defender's advantage apply to Warp-tech be would suddenly make Protoss play any more passive than Terrans or Zergs. You can still design the games around abilities that provide defenders advantage (widow mine/creep spread) and make timing attacks more fun to play against. The real problem for protoss here is that playing against Blink, Timewarp and Forcefields are so !@#$%^&* antimicro that it makes protoss allins/timing attacks incredibly boring. But tweaking/redesigning those abilities and you suddenly don't have any balance issues nor design issues with protoss being able to make timing attacks through warp tech.
Widow mines don't provide the level of defender's advantage that creep gives. And I do agree that Zergs have a very strong response to warp tech - the MU with the biggest issue atm, however, is PvT. Creep is good no matter what style Protoss plays - mines are rather nullified with colossi on the field.
For instance, just look at a standard PvZ game from Starbow. Atm. it severely suffers from no actual defenders advantage despite warptech not being a part of the early game. Instead, protoss players are forced into massing cannons and zerg need to turtle behind building walloffs in order to survive against many protoss timings. This has occured as Starbow buffed twilight tech relative to BW. So when toss didn't neccesarily have to play very tech-based (with stargate + tier 3 AOE) they could suddenly become a lot more aggressive against zerg --> leads to very volatile gameplay (like 80% of all pvz's end within the first 15 minutes).
You're supporting my point that aggressive styles do not require Warpgate tech for Protoss. And it sounds wonderful that both sides have aggressive options that are viable. Starbow is still being figured out afaik. It's not easy to point to a lack of defender's advantage that games might not go the mile in PvZ in Starbow. Maybe the defender's advantage isn't big enough - but that's again a matter of fine-tuning. It is not convincing to argue that there is no defender's advantage at all in PvZ (Starbow).
The truth here is that Sc2 zerg actually has a much higher defenders advantage due to creep-spread which too a large extent nullifies with the warp-tech defenders advantage. So basically Sc2 is designed in such a way that it's actually fine that warptech nullifies traveldistance as the opponents have the neccesary tools to deal with that.
And think about it this way: Most players complain about protoss being to deathball'ish and having poorly designed units/abilities. Making protoss worse offensively is only gonna reward even more passive play, esp if you compensate them with a stronger maxed out army.
And we see SC2 Zergs do pretty decently against Protoss. Creep is really a powerful mechanic. And why do you assume that Protoss needs a compensation for applying a slight increase in cooldown based on distance of warp-in? Warp-tech makes deathballs more powerful, because you can kite and kill zealots of a Protoss deathball close to your base - and they still warp in units to reinforce that deathball.
Warp-tech cooldown increase (relative to warp-in distance) will be an indirect nerf to the deathball.
Show nested quote +Having no warptech for Z and T, especially in their mirrors, don't mean that they don't use aggressive play. You still see aggressive styles in non-Protoss matchups.
Introducing a mechanic where the cooldown is affected by the warp location's distance to the Warpgate (Except on a Nexus) - means that warp-ins defensively are untouched, while their offensive capacity is now affected by a penalty somewhat similar to what Zergs and Terrans face. Because zerg and terran has much more mobile harass options. Now here is the issue: If you give protoss mobile and strong units that can harass/have map control on their own + the option of warping in defensively instantly --> Protoss can nullify opponents harass a lot easier than they currently can --> more passive game. So simply put, if you make warptech stronger defensively and weaker offensively --> More passive gameplay is rewarded (ceteris paribus at least). I simply much rather focus on making the offensive protoss plays more exciting and microable than taking the aspect away from them.
Protoss harass options have gotten better in HotS. They can use oracles for early harass - speed buffed and all. Warp prism got a speed buff. Nexus overcharge allows Protoss to have virtually no units back home to defend most harass/push (early on) and that indirectly makes harass easier (you're not out of position with your army if its harassing since you can Nexus Overcharge and Recall, or warp-in defensively if its not a big harass or doom drop).
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Not every unit should be used in every game. That would be boring too. Part of what makes Carriers fun is that you get to say "OMG HE'S GOING CARRIERS!"
LOL @ DTs with Blink. You'd just blink out of scan range whenever T scanned or blink past their turrets into their base. That would be imba as hell.
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With the new mine buff, I'd really like it if they fixed the issue where half the time Stalkers die to Widow Mines. It's getting really frustrating to play against all these Widow Mine rushes that I KNOW are coming and that I react properly to but still lose because the AI decided the Stalker should walk into WM range rather than shoot at it.
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I also just had a random thought- Since Warp Gate has no drawbacks from regular Gateways, why has Blizzard even left a choice to convert back to regular Gateways? It's not like the Hellion / Hellbat tranformation where both sides have uses, it's more like a Combat Shields upgrade. The way Gateways / Warp gates are implemented in game makes us want to believe they're both viable.
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Nerfing warpgate and buffing gateway units doesnt mean passive play from protoss.
It means instead:
- Getting better unit interactions.
This could also help with the "timing/allin attacks". In general protoss either snowballs or do a timingattack through warpgate. With this change it might be a better "fight".
- If protoss really lacks any kind of mobility, you have the teleport on the mothership core that could be looked at and go further with: aka give more teleport stuff to protoss as a whole or something else.
One thing removed, and other things redesigned doesnt mean other things cant be looked at.
Again, this would mean stuff would need to be redesiged, which would mean a game with better unit interactions.
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On April 24 2014 04:15 Foreverkul wrote:
Carriers - Only recently we've seen it on the new Maze map, but generally they aren't viable. What would make them usable? Longer range? Cheaper/faster building/more intercepters?
While I'm only a plat I go carriers in pretty much all my PvZs and PvTs. In PvZs, I usually open FFE oracles into fleet beacon before 8 min, double stargate carriers that will give you 2 carriers with graviton catapult and+1 air weapons, with 2 more half way done at around 10 minutes when hydra pushes arrive. In PvT, I go double oracle opening, fleet beacon before 7:30 and when the first normal medivac push arrives I will have 1 carrier with a second one half way done. From that point on I usually just mass up carriers with possible void ray tempest support and play defensively until I can distract them with gateway harass to push out.
The biggest problem with carriers is how long it takes to transition into them and upgrade dependent they are imo.
Transitioning into carriers, like transitioning into BCs, is an extremely costly and time consuming investment. But terrans can buy a lot of time with big PF walls(mineral intensive), or slowly replacing a bio army with BC raven by dropping stuff and replacing them(also mineral intensive). With Protoss, the options that we have to buy time is either gas heavy(storm flanks), or ineffective(zealot counter attacks are not as effective as drops and are usually shut down by late game stuff like muta balls or mass static D) This makes an effective carrier transition very difficult to pull off. Not to mention that 120 second build time.
Also carriers are ridiculously upgrade dependent. Carrier damage works like this: a carrier has 8 interceptors, each does 5(+1/upgrade)x2 damage. That means against an unarmored target, a +3 carrier will do 128 damage to a single target from 8 range away, combine that with graviton catapult and you basically have a mini free yamato. Also with how the leash range works, interceptors will remain on a target until the carrier is manually retargeted or the target goes out of 14 range around the carrier, so against most targets you end up being able to do two rounds of interceptor attacks, making that 256 damage against an unarmored target, which is basically a free yamato.
The thing is though the same thing that makes carrier damage output so impressive is also it's biggest weakness: every armor point will take away 20% from it's basic attack. And since you are usually transitioning into air with very little air upgrades, against an established army with at least +2 armor, and also probably their own armor, carrier damage is laughable at best, usually you just end up doing 48 damage per interceptor attack around (around 15 dps) since your damage upgrade is usually behind by 2 armor. This is why carriers are so terrible vs corruptors, because they already have 2 base armor before any upgrades. This is also part of why my build kinda works better than people expect, because after chrono boosting my initial 4 carriers(2 in PvT), all available chronoboosts will go to cybercore upgrades, and carrier dps is pretty good when you have an upgrade advantage.
Most people I have seen though argue that the carrier's role should be more like that in broodwar, where they can tank lots of damage while running around, attacking from infinite range and being really hard to kill from the ground because of a combination of range and bad pathing AI, and that blizzard should try to buff carriers in this direction. I like the concept, but seeing how good the pathing AI in SC2 is, and how vikings, corruptors and void rays/blink stalkers/tempests soft/hard counter carriers I'm not sure if it's feasible.
Best way blizzard can make carriers viable in the late game main unit role? Reduce build time to 90-100 seconds and change interceptor attacks from 5x2(+1 per upgrade) to 10x1(+2 per upgrade). The same concept probably applies to BCs as well, but they don't suffer as much as carriers do because they have a base damage of 8, and they have yamato.
Best way players can integrate carriers into their late game plans? Start air weapons early on with your bank, keep gas units, especially high templars and void rays alive(duh!) and DON'T BUILD SO MANY TEMPESTS VS SWARM HOSTS, honestly carriers are far better at disposing locusts, sniping buildings from afar(with interceptors launched against locusts carriers have 14 range because of the leash range mechanic and they do damage faster), sniping infestors/queens from afar, and they are infinitely better in a straight up battle because they have a much better dps and they NEVER overkill, unlike tempests, which gives them a much higher effective dps.
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EPT
