EPTDesignated Balance Discussion Thread - Page 960
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Sapphire.lux
Romania2620 Posts
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Foreverkul
United States1649 Posts
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On April 28 2014 01:58 Hider wrote: There is, however a difference beteeen making early game harass strong without making stupid allins that doens't promote micro stronger. For instance, Hellion/Reaper is a very strong harass opening for terran vs zerg, but zerg has to serosuly fail in order to lose the game. Exactly. There is a bunch of cool aggressive openings in the game like hellion/reaper(/banshee) TvZ, banshees in TvT, fast mutalisks in ZvZ and TvZ, widow mine drops in TvP, Stargate openings in ZvP, Stalker/MsC pokes early on in basically all matchups. That is cool aggression, because it relies on units that actually shouldn't be able to beat any form of army early. You rarely straight up lose to such stuff, but it's highly dynamic and puts you ahead or behind. And it's a lot of fun to play and not overly frustrating to play against. That's what I think should be enforced when talking about aggression. Not the types of "ready or not, here are 30roaches in your face". Or the ridiculous all-or-nothing oracles (I guess they got figured out to the point that they are rarely nothing and T/P standard builds simply include a certain level of preparence now - still, they are imo too hit or miss). Or worst of all, rushes that you need to scout, prepare for in very specific manners and still can roll over your army+defenses. I guess a certain level of all out big army plays will always be around - and isn't too unhealthy strategically - but it makes for shit games when you see top pros regularily lose ZvZ because "you didn't scout half way into my base and I just produced 40zerglings and now you are dead" (and I'm not even a JD fan, I'm happy Impact advanced  ). Not to mention that it makes for a shit playing experience, when you summarize your ladder games with "I wanted to train build X today, but 3 of my opponents just did same old rush and the game ended then and there and then there was 1 more rush that went into a game from which it was impossible to try X". | ||
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Faust852
Luxembourg4004 Posts
-Map are too big. -Army value explode for zerg once they have a running 3rd and mutas, and as a terran you just usually lose straight up at this timing ~12min where you are suppose to deny the 4th but you get push back and take a huge counter and lose. -No more viable AoE for terran. | ||
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TW
Poland255 Posts
At Dreamhack in playoffs, T went 4:0 in bo3 against their Korean fellows. Yes, Inno played in semis but he played Welmu and Bunny earlier. Another tournament and another disappointment at least for T fan. Two code S Terrans, Ryung and Jjakji and yet again no finals  Anyone still surprised? I watched only one match out of all tournament, match 3 Inno vs Life and no one is gonna persuade me that Life played a better game. I didn't watch DH because I didn't want to be disappointed again, and as it seems it was a great idea. Look, doesn't it sound weird that someone didnt watch a tournament and is happy about that? Sorry for whining, just to tell you how T fans are feeling right now. | ||
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ejozl
Denmark3329 Posts
 Every round the races were more or less cut in half, but with more Zerg players from the start. If you actually did watch the tournament you'd see some innovative stuff from the Terrans, something you can learn from. | ||
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TW
Poland255 Posts
Unfortunately, I am afraid I am not the only one disappointed as some of my friends already stopped watching games at all Still looking at the playoffs, if Inno had to play Korean Z or P from the start, we could heve had no T in semis. Edit. Looking at a DH thread, really I am not the only one disappointed, what is more, look at the number of viewers, it decreased pretty hard after Inno loss. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On April 28 2014 06:46 TW wrote: Yes, maybe they were innovative, but still came up short. Unfortunately, I am afraid I am not the only one disappointed as some of my friends already stopped watching games at all Still looking at the playoffs, if Inno had to play Korean Z or P from the start, we could heve had no T in semis. Or if Welmu had not botched his attack in the third game. | ||
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Faust852
Luxembourg4004 Posts
On April 28 2014 06:40 ejozl wrote: I hope you're not representing all Terran fans Every round the races were more or less cut in half, but with more Zerg players from the start. If you actually did watch the tournament you'd see some innovative stuff from the Terrans, something you can learn from. Terrans beat foreigners or other terrans to go this far in the playoff tho. | ||
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royalroadweed
United States8301 Posts
On April 28 2014 06:51 Faust852 wrote: Terrans beat foreigners or other terrans to go this far in the playoff tho. Bunny actually took out first and patience to get out of the group stage. Small victory for foreign terrans. | ||
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Sapphire.lux
Romania2620 Posts
On April 28 2014 05:27 Foreverkul wrote: Blizzard seemed to really want to make mech a thing with hellbats, warhounds and widowmines, but it all fell through at the last minute for some reason.... Well yeah, because the only thing worse then broken mech, is having a bunch of a move robots that play like bio 2.0 called "mech". With Terran not doing to well, you'd think this is the perfect time to try more changes to mech units or mech unit counters. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9342 Posts
On April 28 2014 05:43 Big J wrote: Exactly. There is a bunch of cool aggressive openings in the game like hellion/reaper(/banshee) TvZ, banshees in TvT, fast mutalisks in ZvZ and TvZ, widow mine drops in TvP, Stargate openings in ZvP, Stalker/MsC pokes early on in basically all matchups. That is cool aggression, because it relies on units that actually shouldn't be able to beat any form of army early. You rarely straight up lose to such stuff, but it's highly dynamic and puts you ahead or behind. And it's a lot of fun to play and not overly frustrating to play against. That's what I think should be enforced when talking about aggression. Not the types of "ready or not, here are 30roaches in your face". Or the ridiculous all-or-nothing oracles (I guess they got figured out to the point that they are rarely nothing and T/P standard builds simply include a certain level of preparence now - still, they are imo too hit or miss). Or worst of all, rushes that you need to scout, prepare for in very specific manners and still can roll over your army+defenses. I guess a certain level of all out big army plays will always be around - and isn't too unhealthy strategically - but it makes for !@#$%^&* games when you see top pros regularily lose ZvZ because "you didn't scout half way into my base and I just produced 40zerglings and now you are dead" (and I'm not even a JD fan, I'm happy Impact advanced ). Not to mention that it makes for a !@#$%^&* playing experience, when you summarize your ladder games with "I wanted to train build X today, but 3 of my opponents just did same old rush and the game ended then and there and then there was 1 more rush that went into a game from which it was impossible to try X".I honestly think we have to get rid of many of the surprise elements of the game. Yeh, if your a bronze leaguer and you come from the poker-world, it might be cool to see players going for cheesy stuff that only relies on your opponent not having the proper counter to it, and then facing a build order loss. However, after a while seeing that stuff gets really boring and you instead wanna see build orders that promote micro. The problem with Oracles for instance is that it sucks as a solid microbased opening as the unit has a really ackward control, but it is fantastic when it catches the opponent off guards. I much rather see either the indirect costs of defeating a certain build going down or making it a lot easier to scout, but then in stead make protoss opening such as Oracle and DT's more reliant upon skill (aka micro) for both players. | ||
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Foreverkul
United States1649 Posts
On April 28 2014 07:13 Hider wrote: However, after a while seeing that stuff gets really boring and you instead wanna see build orders that promote micro. Exactly! Micro is fun to watch! Not build orders, not A move, and not stand stills. I think thats why bio games are probably the most interesting games to watch because everything relies on how well he micros. (Though this claim is unsubstantiated, just based on my experience.) When the result matters on an undeniable display of skill, the game is amazing to watch. Probably why there is a lot of Protoss hate because deathball is not fun to watch and does not require intense micro (notorious A move composition). Zerg is fun because he changes unit composition constantly. Zerg and Protoss have a similar base strategy using composition wins, just Protoss uses strong expensive units and Zerg uses massive numbers and re-maxing to counter an enemy composition. Terran players do well directly proportional to their ability to micro their units to achieve maximum resource efficency, but if they fail and take too much damage there is no back up plan, no ability to remax, or spells (recall, blink, timewarp, force fields) to delay an incoming army. | ||
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ZenithM
France15952 Posts
On April 28 2014 06:56 royalroadweed wrote: Bunny actually took out first and patience to get out of the group stage. Small victory for foreign terrans. Yeah, that was nice to see, he played quite well. And I agree with what Hider and Big J are saying. It's good to promote aggressive openings that contain enough power to be ahead if you outmicro your opponent (this is an important provision I feel), but not enough power to straight-up bop the guy with it. | ||
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LSN
Germany696 Posts
On April 28 2014 06:33 TW wrote: Ok a quick note. At Dreamhack in playoffs, T went 4:0 in bo3 against their Korean fellows. Yes, Inno played in semis but he played Welmu and Bunny earlier. Another tournament and another disappointment at least for T fan. Two code S Terrans, Ryung and Jjakji and yet again no finals Anyone still surprised? I watched only one match out of all tournament, match 3 Inno vs Life and no one is gonna persuade me that Life played a better game. I didn't watch DH because I didn't want to be disappointed again, and as it seems it was a great idea. Look, doesn't it sound weird that someone didnt watch a tournament and is happy about that? Sorry for whining, just to tell you how T fans are feeling right now. I am very convinced that giving SC2 a more even balance relies on marines. Marines kill quickly when uncontested and can end games immediatly. With marineshields + air heal they survive quite well against any normal unit composition. Therefore other races need even stronger counters against them. Now when for example removing marine shields from the game (just as an example) the counters to marines could be weakened as well. These are mutalisks vs bio+drop, banelings vs bio and colossi and strom on the protoss side. This would lead SC2 into a position where games can't be ended as fast as they are now when one player gets a slight advantage from a previous fight: 1. Its all about baneling connections and if zerg can clear up the bio forces. If not and for example a hatchery falls the game in most cases can be considered as done with the terran winning instantly, as the bio ball can't be killed with conventional units anymore. 2. However if the zerg overcomes the bio attack with having only few losses he can oftenly overpower the terran instantly with a counterattack and win the game with it. Try to figure out what would fix this fundamental mechanic of the game. No conventional minor balance change could help this. It will always be like described in 1./2. with one the races having the edge depending on the current meta and balance. To change this fundamental problem the fundamentals need to be addressed. This is how counters against bit too strong bio have been implemented (banelings, op regen mutas, colossi, psi). The fundamental problem that I see in SC2 balance is that marines with shields and heal (and whole bio play, but especially marines) can't be contested anymore by standard units once they (marines) get out of control. Single/smaller groups of units can be just deflected without any or barely any losses from marines + heal so that reproduced units have no impact on healing marines, if they have no splash damage . This in the end lead into a metagame where races were designed in order to be able to deflect marine/bio attacks over and over again - if they were not, the game would just end always with the first marine attack. There is no balanced fight with bio involved - either the bio dps kills everything in the end of the fight or the heavy splash dmg of opponents kills the bio. In either way we are going to continue to see games that are being ended way too early after fights with one only being slightly ahead but instead of getting a slight advantage he wins the game afterwards. When talking about terran balance, it is fundamental to see exactly this. The game is designed around deflecting bio and it being only a matter of how much the bio can exchange for in the process. Terrans could be helped if bio was weaker as they then would not have to face that many hard counters to hit. So with me advising blizzard to overthink the marine shields and medivac mechanic, I don't want to harm terrans but actually help them in the end and anyone else to create a game of less (necessary) hard counters. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9342 Posts
The reason why you some times see TvZ end in midgame is that terran midgame production simply is inferior too zerg unless he gets ahead early on. I think Innovation is simply too used to just outplaying zergs in the early game and overcommited quite a lot in the midgame, which is something he usually can get away with (as he typically has an advantage at that point in the game). A smarter Innovation had just played more passive in that phase. But generally, I believe that all terran need is just a small buff here. Aka make it practical to focus fire with Widow Mine and you suddenly have a totally new dynamic where zergs needs to micro their banlinegs (once again) and can't just rely on Zerglings detonating the mines. Also, I gotta disagree that games in general end quickly (or that it's just one battle and that's it). We really have tons of battles in most games and if you go watch the average Snipelot game.... BW isn't actually that different. Yes there are tons of stupid !@#$%^&* in Sc2 and tons of mediocore stuff that could be potentially awesome (if Blizzard spended more time tweaking stat values), but from a quality perespective, a lot of games are actually pretty decent. | ||
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Faust852
Luxembourg4004 Posts
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Hider
Denmark9342 Posts
On April 28 2014 09:08 Faust852 wrote: Reverse mine nerf, profit. Not really a fan of that as it creates a dynamic where zerg needs to be overly careful as small mistakes are punished quite a bit. I rather just fix small balance issues by rewarding more micro. | ||
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Jerom
Netherlands588 Posts
On April 28 2014 09:08 Faust852 wrote: Reverse mine nerf, profit. Bio mine was fun to watch and play, but the match up was super stale aswell. You could basically watch like 10 different TvZ's and have seen about everything that was ever going to happen in that match up. I'd love to see tanks again though. Bio tank was a really fun composition against Zerg. | ||
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LSN
Germany696 Posts
I don't think you got any of my points. Sure games don't end too quickly. Players do adapt to metagames and of course they don't run every game into a do or die situation if they can choose and retreat from fights etc. The game has been designed around these hardcounters for bio so that if done right a zerg can deflect it bio pushes. But what was given to him to enable him to deflect it, also enables him to overcome the terran after a bad fight. In this innovation game, I think he didn't have any mines with him and pushed out way too early after losing a few medivacs with marines in it. You should be able to understand the detrimental mechanics of healing up tho. A group of lets say 15 mutalisks can kill 10 marines and lets say most mutalisks are in the yellow. In next fight they are green again and the damage is as have never taken place. The same applies to bio as well but in a more fundamental nature, as the marine is the core unit of terran and therefore it is a fundamental problem to me. | ||
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