Well according to the first youtube quoted video below, there IS in fact a minor change/nerf to how units drop in PTR, but it's unlikely to realistically effect gameplay very much. The first youtube video below (in the quote) demonstrates the change. The first segment in the video with the reapers obv has no realistic application in-game, and the 2nd segment with the marauders demonstrates that there is NO change to how units drop over any sort of clumped army of that nature. The final segment with force fields demonstrates the only practical application of this change. You'd just better hope they don't fungal that..
This thread was based off failed testing. There is no ninja ZvP nerf. Further testing shows that the PTR seems to change nothing about how banelings drop on top of tightly clumped units. Leaving this open so people won't remain having misconceptions about the patch.
See the following by the tester in case and question:
Hi, sorry to trouble you all again. It would appear that in previous submissions I have only sensationalised and confused the general public on this matter. I now hope to put that right by releasing a new video about the changes.
Here it is:
Simple rule for viewing:
* Red is 1.3 * Yellow is 1.4
Summary: Yes the code has changed, however in the vast majority of use cases it will make little to no difference in your gaming experience... unless you like disrupting reaper parties that is.... In practice it is very hard and very situational to abuse the new logic to make the drops fail.
Its worth noting that there is one quite relatively interesting use-case at the end of the video (although its practicality is debateable).
ENJOY!
p.s. I hope this doesn't cause any further confusion. p.p.s. Please don't comment on balance. Just ask Blizzard (nicely) to _consider_ reviewing this code if you take issue with it.
the following quote is referring to the video in the playxp.com article below:
On September 13 2011 05:06 rale wrote: A close look at the 1.3 video is very revealing. The 2nd baneling dropped gets deflected to the edge just like all of the ones in the 1.4 video. The 3rd and 4th manage to find a hole in the center, and the zealots dying makes enough room to allow all others to drop.
In other words, the deflection isn't a change on the PTR. The zealots in the 1.3 video just weren't in perfect enough formation to prevent dropping entirely.
Several other people have tested this and have been unable to find any changes or nerfs to how banelings drop over units. ===============END of MODEDIT ================
EDIT: Read end of this post to see information on semi-failed replication attempts as well as semi-successfull ones. The overall message from TLers who are properly testing it is that it's been nerfed but it's not as bad as the video in my OP... the extent of the nerf to this strategy is unclear as of now. In my experience against very good protosses, ling baneling drop infestor is pretty marginal in massive fights vs GM level toss, depending on the context of the game of course. The remaining viability of this strategy is pending further research into the extent of this nerf (also NP nerf may kill it more but time will tell whether the double nerf will completely remove this strategy). . ----
According to a PlayXP post if current 1.4.0 PTR goes through, it seems Zerg can no longer use baneling drops against Protoss (see end of post for for ppl that semi-dispute this claim as well as others that endorse it in tests). You can still technically do it (if the video I've linked is an accurate representation of the change) but the tech isn't going to be worth it because the damage output in a big fight is significantly less.
The change, under bug-fixes:
Transports can no longer unload units into a dense area if the original order was issued on a fogged location.
In my experience the only things that dealt with ~8+ sentry armies in a straight up fight pre-hive were either baneling drops and/or a lot of infestors with NP - assuming Protoss is competent with FF and doesn't do stupid things like run onto creep at 160/200 without a big advnatage. I am so concerned with this as bane drops added a huge micro and multi-tasking element to ZvP.
It's not even a balance change... "bug fix". Lol.
Thanks to nGenjazbas for the find.
This also stops zergs queuing up 2+ overlords to drop probe lines simultaneously. Which is O.K. I guess, but I really don't like this being patched as 1 stalker in hold position crushes this strategy (as each INDIVIDUAL baneling needs to be microd and X'd into the probes. 3 overlords at a time is impossible. 1 max). But you can't trust a small balance team to know technicalities like this. If they stop this (i.e. if they stop Protoss's losing who don't put 1 stalker behind mineral line on hold), then they should also stop Terrans from being able to run 10 blue flame into the main in midgame and GGing zergs who don't have 3 roaches on hold on the ramp. Same same. ----
EDIT: A TL user claims that a replication attempt has semi-failed.
On September 13 2011 03:08 EmilA wrote: Tested this out a bit on EU PTR server: Here are my conclusions:
There is an issue with dropping on deathballs:
- If you issue a drop command on a huge and tight ball, then banelings will temporarily cease dropping when around the middle of the ball. It won't "stop" the drop command, as it will automatically resume towards the outskirts of the ball again.
4 banelings attempted dropped on top of a super-tight ball. 3 banelings dropped at beginning, all hit on the outskirt. Last baneling was dropped towards the other end of the ball.
Banelings dropped without problems on a not-super tight ball.
- Banelings are now "displaced" a little bit when dropped around the outskirts of the ball. A guess, which is my own rough estimate, would be that banelings can be displaced about 3 units range before the drop command temporarily ceases. Bear in mind that even small holes in the clump are potential dropsites, so these "halts" in drops would probably be very very uncommon.
- I recreated what I thought was a typical 1-a deathball vs ultra-ling-banelingbombs scenario, the protoss ball spread out in a concave that was thin enough to apparently not stop the drops from occuring.
- Usually, you can move a transport unit around freely after initiating a "drop while moving" command, but if you reissue a move command while under the "drop while moving command" over undroppable space, the drop command will be halted. Bear in mind the drop command would otherwise automatically resume when reaching the outskirts of the ball.
TLDR: Bug is there, but it probably requires unrealistic conditions to take full effect, though it may reduce overall damage capabilities of the baneling drops.
Person #2:
On September 13 2011 03:36 Soluhwin wrote: EmilA is correct, according to my tests, baneling bombs are still possible but it will always hit the outskirts of a deathball. This means the overall DPS of banelings have been slaughtered in this matchup, because instead of a the full 360 degree splash on top of units, the splash will hit around 180 degrees of units. This distributes baneling splash without any effort from the protoss, I'd have to disagree with this change.
MS paint added for further explanation:
On September 13 2011 03:37 Clbull wrote: Tested it. I'm having mixed results replicating the bug.
This one makes me happy:
On September 13 2011 04:13 Zelniq wrote: i was bored just now and just tested this in unit tester and it's basically bullshit. Currently (before patch), you can't unload banelings on top of a clumped up army with no gaps, moving drop or no moving drop. the only way it works is if there are tiny gaps in the army. which is why it works in the 'pre-patch 1.4' video.
i need further testing for 100% confidence in this but it seems all this talk is just for nothing..PTR does nothing
Fogged location? The videos not in a fog of war, assuming this is a bug then that's not dropping regardless of the fog or not? If so, WHAT THE FUCK! :|
On September 13 2011 01:56 Montana[TK] wrote: This doesn't affect ZvP because you unload banelings onto "dense areas" when you are already over the army.
I am very happy to hear this, if it's true. can someone clarify Blizzard's definition of fogged.
On September 13 2011 01:56 Montana[TK] wrote: This doesn't affect ZvP because you unload banelings onto "dense areas" when you are already over the army.
The sight range of overlords isn't huge, and a lot of the time you have to make the command partially in the fog-- if you're close enough to have good sight of his army, you've already engaged him, and his army is a dense area. Also, from these videos it looks like this DOES effect ZvP-- in the playxp article it looks like the overlord has sight to the zealots (since it's the 2nd overlord, the first one is over the ball when the command is issued) and the drops are still ineffective.
I thought this might happen when I saw that in the patch notes. Seems disappointing to me - baneling drops are an entertaining tactic, and while strong, I don't think there's any reason to cripple them.
As much as I hate to say it, Banelings drops in a dense area actually make more sense because they never technically should touch the ground as they explode on impact. Other units I could see not being able to drop if the area is too packed with units/stuff.
Transports can no longer unload units into a dense area if the original order was issued on a fogged location.
Okay... then don't order your banelings to be dropped in the fog of war and nothing has changed......................
I don't see what the problem is here. How often have you blindly told your overlords to drop banelings in the fog of war anyway?
Also where are your numbers coming from? ~30%? Where are you getting that from?
watch.... the damn..... video.
I did... and I don't see the problem. You can just reclick d for the front most overlord... the other ones will have vision. This is not a big deal at all.
On September 13 2011 01:58 atmuh wrote: baneling drops were very exciting to watch will be missed if they really arent useful anymore
If it only prevents unloading units onto a dense area when you issue the order in the fog than all they did was nerf a-moving bane drops.If anything they added more difficulty to executing the bane drop(which was pretty easy to pull off and stupidly good almost always with infestors).It's quite a intelligent nerf.
On September 13 2011 01:58 pksens wrote: Fogged location? The videos not in a fog of war, assuming this is a bug then that's not dropping regardless of the fog or not? If so, WHAT THE FUCK! :|
Actually it is suppose to be fogged, but you get both player's vision in that map. If you limit vision to 1 player, I suspect that the baneling drop was performed in fog of war.
Transports can no longer unload units into a dense area if the original order was issued on a fogged location.
Okay... then don't order your banelings to be dropped in the fog of war and nothing has changed......................
I don't see what the problem is here. How often have you blindly told your overlords to drop banelings in the fog of war anyway?
Also where are your numbers coming from? ~30%? Where are you getting that from?
watch.... the damn..... video.
I did... and I don't see the problem. You can just reclick d for the front most overlord... the other ones will have vision. This is not a big deal at all.
I watched the video and here's what I saw: the 2nd overlord looks like it had sight of the zealots when the drop command was issued; the first overlord was there. Despite this, there will still all manner of issues re: dropping with the banelings coming on the outside.
It's weird because the guy who made the comparison video apparently did it to show that there isn't a difference pre-patch and post-patch... except that there very obviously is a difference, since a huge hole gets carved into the mass of zealots in the 1.3 vid and not in the 1.4 vid.
To those saying it's only affected by fog of war, notice how there isn't any in the videos and it's still affected.
Transports can no longer unload units into a dense area if the original order was issued on a fogged location.
Okay... then don't order your banelings to be dropped in the fog of war and nothing has changed......................
I don't see what the problem is here. How often have you blindly told your overlords to drop banelings in the fog of war anyway?
Also where are your numbers coming from? ~30%? Where are you getting that from?
watch.... the damn..... video.
I did... and I don't see the problem. You can just reclick d for the front most overlord... the other ones will have vision. This is not a big deal at all.
Transports can no longer unload units into a dense area if the original order was issued on a fogged location.
Okay... then don't order your banelings to be dropped in the fog of war and nothing has changed......................
I don't see what the problem is here. How often have you blindly told your overlords to drop banelings in the fog of war anyway?
Also where are your numbers coming from? ~30%? Where are you getting that from?
watch.... the damn..... video.
I did... and I don't see the problem. You can just reclick d for the front most overlord... the other ones will have vision. This is not a big deal at all.
I watched the video and here's what I saw: the 2nd overlord looks like it had sight of the zealots when the drop command was issued; the first overlord was there. Despite this, there will still all manner of issues re: dropping with the banelings coming on the outside.
Ya I wish they had the fog turned on. If it doesn't work when in vision of the units, that's obviously a problem, but other than that, the only overlords that should be affected by this are the ones in front, and usually those don't even have banelings in them.
If anything, zerg players will just have to drop a second time if they are chasing the army. I don't think this will make baneling drops useless, unless they literally cannot drop them on a protoss army at all if it is too dense.
Transports can no longer unload units into a dense area if the original order was issued on a fogged location.
Okay... then don't order your banelings to be dropped in the fog of war and nothing has changed......................
I don't see what the problem is here. How often have you blindly told your overlords to drop banelings in the fog of war anyway?
Also where are your numbers coming from? ~30%? Where are you getting that from?
watch.... the damn..... video.
I did... and I don't see the problem. You can just reclick d for the front most overlord... the other ones will have vision. This is not a big deal at all.
you haven't watched the video at all. sigh.
Do you have anything to contribute other than trying to call me out for not watching a video that I did, and being rude? If not, then go away.
FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE HAVING COMPREHENSION ISSUES;
IN THE VIDEO, ALL OVERLORDS HAVE SIGHT OF EVERYTHING AT ALL TIMES. THERE IS NO 'FOG'. PERIOD. YET PRE-PATCH, OVERLORDS DROP THEIR PAYLOAD ON THE ZEALOTS. POST-PATCH, THE OVERLORDS STOP DROPPING OVER THE ZEALOT BALL AND THEY STILL HAVE BANELINGS INSIDE THEM ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BALL.
You can still baneling drop mineral lines right? I mean the vid showed bombing against closely packed zealots, a mineral line would have spots for banelings to upload surely?
That video shows a perfect dense area. Like not a tiny bit of space between units. This isn't realistic in a game because of different unit speed movement so I don't think this will make any change. People will go nuts about it of course, but the video proves nothing, shows no drop in fog of war and baneling drops remain to be oh so good.
I have tried this with moving bane drops over an any and it's the same thing. Unless there's a hole, banes drop on the outside of the pack. The blink stalker/colossus deathball just grew impossibly strong with the infestor and drop nerfs. Also, my bane+roach bomb ZvT style has just gone out the window.
This patch is going to be sad for zergs if this and/or the NP change go through. It's going to go back to the ZvP of a few months ago, just with less options for zerg. toss is going to mass colossus every game and now that bane drops are gone, zerg just has to go mass roach/hydra/corruptor. Sure, fungal will still be nice, but I'm really aprehensive for this patch.
I don't know if Blizzard is just being heavy handed with its changes or if they actually don't want protoss to do anything but mass colossus. Looks to be grim
QUOTE]On September 13 2011 02:09 tkRage wrote: FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE HAVING COMPREHENSION ISSUES;
IN THE VIDEO, ALL OVERLORDS HAVE SIGHT OF EVERYTHING AT ALL TIMES. THERE IS NO 'FOG'. PERIOD. YET PRE-PATCH, OVERLORDS DROP THEIR PAYLOAD ON THE ZEALOTS. POST-PATCH, THE OVERLORDS STOP DROPPING OVER THE ZEALOT BALL AND THEY STILL HAVE BANELINGS INSIDE THEM ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BALL.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME.
I think I'm blind.
The problem I'm having is that the patch notes say how it works and maybe for now it's a bit bugged so that the ovies couldn't drop at all even with sight. If the patch notes say how it should work than there's no reason pointing fingers and crying yet over how it works in game because it may not work properly.
On September 13 2011 02:12 Pred8oar wrote: YAY fungal nerf, np out of the game and now baneling bomb useless, so its roach hydra crrupter again. What yo gonna do? Flame and ragequit tt
No. You're going to get your 30 apm grandmother to play and she'll do as well as you because roach hydra corruptor takes no skill to use, no micro and doesn't require multitasking. The future of ZvP is seriously bleak if the video is actually how it is going to be.
On September 13 2011 02:12 Pred8oar wrote: YAY fungal nerf, np out of the game and now baneling bomb useless, so its roach hydra crrupter again. What yo gonna do? Flame and ragequit tt
No Mr.Tryhard, that would be you.
Well, blizzard does listen to QQs which we can rely on, hopefully another PTR comes out and reverts some changes again
I don't see the problem. I mean, since Z has still chances to win ZvP through roach hydra corruptor, what's wrong?
Well, time to snipe observers and set-up baneling mines everybody! Or just contaminate Robo till its sad death in zergie goo or something... I will miss Banelords
This sounds like a bug, it will probably get fixed before the patch releases.
I don´t know why all the rage..... its seriously getting stupid.
Edit: And lol, why so many people act as if Zerg had a 0 winrate a few months ago? It was P favoured but the stats show that it was never something ridiculous. Gosh
I actually think that finding this is a good thing, since it seems like some of the baneling ineffectiveness was unintentional-- since it's on the PTR, perhaps blizzard will revert it.
After watching the video like for the 10th time now I'm almost positive it isn't working as intended from reading the notes.I'm pretty sure bane drops won't go anywhere.
I haven't watched video, at work so can't, but had some comments/questions.
This affect terran as well? Will be nice if we can sim city to mitigate rauder drops. Cause currently, its about 10x easier to perform a double rauder drop than it is to defend against it. Most terrans queue it up and never look at it again since they just focus on the push into the middle why they do the drop. So my question? Your only mentioning Z, does this happen with T drops and with P drops as well?
Also for people hating on this. It is a bug fix. You should not be able to drop a unit onto a piece of ground thats already being covered by something else (although personally banes prolly shouldn't be included, just other units imo). Making you requeue once you have sight is nice as well. They prolly working on code so dont freak out yet if its not acting perfect.
Baneling drops were just really really really fucking scary. I for one am glad I won't be seeing my ENTIRE ARMY turn into green goo while I can't move them cause they're all fungaled.
This is pretty dumb honesty. Now it seems like you basically have to go roach hydra corruptor with some infestors. This is just encouraging protoss to just sit back and 1a with colossus and win. TT
The notes definitely do not match what is going on in the video. Baneling drops may or may not be too strong, but I think the updated Baneling drops are definitely over-nerfed.
how many times is this now where we figure out something cool for zerg and it gets removed from the game? it's happened a couple times for other races but jesus christ, seriously? no more baneling bombs? i might just switch race purely based off the fact that interesting tactics will never last very long -_______-
this is overkill, all blizzard is doing now is killing the things that beat protoss in zvp making it so that p will crush z on a very consistent basis with just mass colossus again, as well as p will still lose to t allins at the pro level...blizz is just making it a sad time to be a zerg a very sad time
-i play protoss and the occasional zerg
i feel like zerg is going to have trouble with terran mech with mass thor in addition to the new zvp problems that will come from this, but im not 100% sure
edit: i do believe that either protoss needed to be buffed or fungal/it needed to be nerfed maybe...but this...just T___T blizz
On September 13 2011 02:16 windsupernova wrote: This sounds like a bug, it will probably get fixed before the patch releases.
I don´t know why all the rage..... its seriously getting stupid.
Edit: And lol, why so many people act as if Zerg had a 0 winrate a few months ago? It was P favoured but the stats show that it was never something ridiculous. Gosh
I don't know why so many hate for rage..... it is seriously getting absurd and stupid.
Transports can no longer unload units into a dense area if the original order was issued on a fogged location.
Okay... then don't order your banelings to be dropped in the fog of war and nothing has changed......................
I don't see what the problem is here. How often have you blindly told your overlords to drop banelings in the fog of war anyway?
Also where are your numbers coming from? ~30%? Where are you getting that from?
watch.... the damn..... video.
I did... and I don't see the problem. You can just reclick d for the front most overlord... the other ones will have vision. This is not a big deal at all.
I watched the video and here's what I saw: the 2nd overlord looks like it had sight of the zealots when the drop command was issued; the first overlord was there. Despite this, there will still all manner of issues re: dropping with the banelings coming on the outside.
Ya I wish they had the fog turned on. If it doesn't work when in vision of the units, that's obviously a problem, but other than that, the only overlords that should be affected by this are the ones in front, and usually those don't even have banelings in them.
If anything, zerg players will just have to drop a second time if they are chasing the army. I don't think this will make baneling drops useless, unless they literally cannot drop them on a protoss army at all if it is too dense.
Transports can no longer unload units into a dense area if the original order was issued on a fogged location.
Okay... then don't order your banelings to be dropped in the fog of war and nothing has changed......................
I don't see what the problem is here. How often have you blindly told your overlords to drop banelings in the fog of war anyway?
Also where are your numbers coming from? ~30%? Where are you getting that from?
watch.... the damn..... video.
I did... and I don't see the problem. You can just reclick d for the front most overlord... the other ones will have vision. This is not a big deal at all.
you haven't watched the video at all. sigh.
Do you have anything to contribute other than trying to call me out for not watching a video that I did, and being rude? If not, then go away.
I'm slightly confused. Are you talking about how it hypothetically should work or what is shown in the video. Most of what you seem to be talking about is hypothetical?
On September 13 2011 02:19 Herculix wrote: how many times is this now where we figure out something cool for zerg and it gets removed from the game? it's happened a couple times for other races but jesus christ, seriously? no more baneling bombs? i might just switch race purely based off the fact that interesting tactics will never last very long -_______-
Remind me of the multiple times where something like this has happened before?
On September 13 2011 02:18 N3rV[Green] wrote: Baneling drops were just really really really fucking scary. I for one am glad I won't be seeing my ENTIRE ARMY turn into green goo while I can't move them cause they're all fungaled.
Well, the counter for that was... spliting your army and sniping the bananalings :D
Did I get it wrong or does the change mean that we have to issue the drop command once we get vision of the army? It doesn't mean they cannot drop on top of them, but at the moment of the order you have to have vision of the target right? I am pretty confused I hope this doesn't stop baneling drops, because they were really useful and fun to use.
Have done this countless times on PTR in real game scenarios and it still works just the same, just have to get vision with first ovie and then issue the commands. The video posted is pointless because never in a game will you see shit that perfectly clumped to allow no spacing so stop the crying.
You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
On September 13 2011 02:18 TheKefka wrote: After watching the video like for the 10th time now I'm almost positive it isn't working as intended from reading the notes.I'm pretty sure bane drops won't go anywhere.
Exactly, the way it reads is the way i think it should be. I think they are trying to work out how to do it though, lol. Prolly requires some coding they aren't fully used to.
On September 13 2011 02:18 N3rV[Green] wrote: Baneling drops were just really really really fucking scary. I for one am glad I won't be seeing my ENTIRE ARMY turn into green goo while I can't move them cause they're all fungaled.
Well, the counter for that was... spliting your army and sniping the bananalings :D
Well if this goes through the counter would be... stacking your army and making sure it doesn't split :D
Wow Blizzard is actually killing SC2 as an interesting high-level RTS by removing all actions that are NOT a-move. Everything that was once interesting or exciting to watch is being removed.
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
The only reasoning that you provided is that units should not be able to be unloaded on other units.
This is pretty good reasoning (sarcasm), and certainly outweighs the arguments that it improves gameplay tremendously, adds a huge micro element to ZvP that would otherwise be non-existent, turns ZvP into a sick multitasking MU instead of A-move ball strategies.
yep. Your argument that it "just shouldn't be" is not really good sorry!
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
On September 13 2011 02:24 TheKefka wrote: This is so funny watching people rage at the most obviously bugged thing off all time.
It is so funny to watching protoss laughing at one of the only innovative zerg tactic every invented being removed from the game so they can 1-A like before.
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
After reading it this way. +1. That makes sense.
Here is a way to test and see its a bug, which works i believe. Build up like 8 gw's all lined up in a nice big square. Fill a terran drop ship. Try to drop on it. It wont work. Now fill a ovy with some banes. You can drop on it. LOL AT THAT. (if this is wrong im at work, but last i checked this was how it worked)
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
This was exactly what I was thinking of. He even commented on it last night on his stream. If this is the change I am quite fine with it!
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
Bug or not it's a very important part of the game. There are plenty of good bugs in many esports titles, strafe jumping for one, mulatisk stacking is another
On September 13 2011 02:18 N3rV[Green] wrote: Baneling drops were just really really really fucking scary. I for one am glad I won't be seeing my ENTIRE ARMY turn into green goo while I can't move them cause they're all fungaled.
Well, the counter for that was... spliting your army and sniping the bananalings :D
It's actually pretty difficult, if they get off a few Fungals your army will probably die because you can't kill Overlords as fast as you would hope, even with a lot of Stalkers.
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
On the other hand, things like muta-stacking with an overlord in BW was basically a bug that shouldn't have been possible (or wraith-stacking with a sieged-up tank), and yet became a crucial element of gameplay. How the game was designed and how it ought to be played are not always the same.
On September 13 2011 02:18 N3rV[Green] wrote: Baneling drops were just really really really fucking scary. I for one am glad I won't be seeing my ENTIRE ARMY turn into green goo while I can't move them cause they're all fungaled.
Well, the counter for that was... spliting your army and sniping the bananalings :D
Easier said than done, given that stalkers don't have quite the burst dps of marines against overlords. Still, I thought it made games pretty exciting to watch
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
On September 13 2011 02:24 TheKefka wrote: This is so funny watching people rage at the most obviously bugged thing off all time.
It is so funny to watching protoss laughing at one of the only innovative zerg tactic every invented being removed from the game so they can 1-A like before.
Lol calm down man,I'm all for bane drops I have no idea what you are on about. All I am saying the video is showing a bugged version of the change that will not go live so lower your zerg pitchforks and chill.
Jesus, look at all the Protoss players coming out of the woodwork to say that baneling drops is overpowered and broken just like neural and fungal. Enough already.
On September 13 2011 01:56 Montana[TK] wrote: This doesn't affect ZvP because you unload banelings onto "dense areas" when you are already over the army.
The sight range of overlords isn't huge, and a lot of the time you have to make the command partially in the fog-- if you're close enough to have good sight of his army, you've already engaged him, and his army is a dense area. Also, from these videos it looks like this DOES effect ZvP-- in the playxp article it looks like the overlord has sight to the zealots (since it's the 2nd overlord, the first one is over the ball when the command is issued) and the drops are still ineffective.
I think we're assuming the version in the video is bugged, as that army clearly isn't fogged. Either thats a bug or theres been a breakdown of communications somewhere along the line. Personally i wouldn't mind too much either way as someone already said the combination of root + 1.3 bane drops is way too powerful.
This is just terrible. I'm not sure what Blizzards reason for doing this is ? As soon as there are some micro tricks they nerf them out. It wasn't even overpowered or anything. It just made both sides micro harder ? I'm actually shocked and do not understand the reasoning here.
On September 13 2011 02:18 N3rV[Green] wrote: Baneling drops were just really really really fucking scary. I for one am glad I won't be seeing my ENTIRE ARMY turn into green goo while I can't move them cause they're all fungaled.
Well, the counter for that was... spliting your army and sniping the bananalings :D
It's actually pretty difficult, if they get off a few Fungals your army will probably die because you can't kill Overlords as fast as you would hope, even with a lot of Stalkers.
this is utterly ridicuolous Terrans are destroying protoss and Blizzard's sloution is to patch so ZvP becomes unwinnable? What the F do they want to go against protoss, go back for the late beta/early release builds?
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
On the other hand, things like muta-stacking with an overlord in BW was basically a bug that shouldn't have been possible (or wraith-stacking with a sieged-up tank), and yet became a crucial element of gameplay. How the game was designed and how it ought to be played are not always the same.
On September 13 2011 02:18 N3rV[Green] wrote: Baneling drops were just really really really fucking scary. I for one am glad I won't be seeing my ENTIRE ARMY turn into green goo while I can't move them cause they're all fungaled.
Well, the counter for that was... spliting your army and sniping the bananalings :D
Easier said than done, given that stalkers don't have quite the burst dps of marines against overlords. Still, I thought it made games pretty exciting to watch
Since im seeing you are one who is defending it pretty hard, even if it is a bug. The gw test that I mentioned up above. Can you tell me how exactly that is fair?
On September 13 2011 02:16 windsupernova wrote: This sounds like a bug, it will probably get fixed before the patch releases.
I don´t know why all the rage..... its seriously getting stupid.
Edit: And lol, why so many people act as if Zerg had a 0 winrate a few months ago? It was P favoured but the stats show that it was never something ridiculous. Gosh
At the highest level it was very P favored, unless you were playing inca.
I hope they fix this a little bit, baneling bombs are always fun to watch/use and aren't overpowered in the slightest.
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
On September 13 2011 02:24 TheKefka wrote: This is so funny watching people rage at the most obviously bugged thing off all time.
It is so funny to watching protoss laughing at one of the only innovative zerg tactic every invented being removed from the game so they can 1-A like before.
It is so funny to watch zergs overreact as multiple people in this thread have already said that baneling drops are still possible.
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
lol what. If it's balanced, there's no reason it shouldn't be included. It's one of Zerg's only counters to the deathball, and in fact, it creates for some of the most exciting micro there is. Terran can't land their units in those spaces because Terran units don't die upon impact of landing, which is what the banelings are doing. In fact, the change doesn't even make sense, why wouldn't you want to drop volatile explosives directly on the enemy as opposed to in an open area.
Logically it doesn't make sense, balance wise it personally doesn't make sense to me, especially with the infestor nerfs. Why in the world would you ball your stalkers, everyone knows it doesn't have that effect, I'd be super disappointed in Tyler if he was intentionally doing that.
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
On September 13 2011 02:24 TheKefka wrote: This is so funny watching people rage at the most obviously bugged thing off all time.
It is so funny to watching protoss laughing at one of the only innovative zerg tactic every invented being removed from the game so they can 1-A like before.
It is so funny to watch zergs overreact as multiple people in this thread have already said that baneling drops are still possible.
People were speculating that it may be still possible. Nobody has demonstrated it.
I'm a little unsure about all these comments. In lategame if you clump up your units perfectly you will still get rolled by infestors. It's not like every game that Z wins was won because of baneling drops, and roach hydra corruptor will no longer be the only viable strategy.
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
On September 13 2011 02:24 TheKefka wrote: This is so funny watching people rage at the most obviously bugged thing off all time.
It is so funny to watching protoss laughing at one of the only innovative zerg tactic every invented being removed from the game so they can 1-A like before.
It is so funny to watch zergs overreact as multiple people in this thread have already said that baneling drops are still possible.
It's not possible in the video because the change is obviously bugged as I said it like 100 times already and I have no idea how people can seriously think this will go live. Bane drops will work and it will work the way it says in the patch notes.
On September 13 2011 02:11 LovE-z33k wrote: That video is crazy.. sucks for all you zergs haha. But I'm sure blizz will fix this, unless it was intentional? I don't get why it would be.
Because you can't drop units where they don't have room to land? So the baneling has to land on an open area, even if it is right next to the protoss unit.
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
On the other hand, things like muta-stacking with an overlord in BW was basically a bug that shouldn't have been possible (or wraith-stacking with a sieged-up tank), and yet became a crucial element of gameplay. How the game was designed and how it ought to be played are not always the same.
On September 13 2011 02:21 windsupernova wrote:
On September 13 2011 02:18 N3rV[Green] wrote: Baneling drops were just really really really fucking scary. I for one am glad I won't be seeing my ENTIRE ARMY turn into green goo while I can't move them cause they're all fungaled.
Well, the counter for that was... spliting your army and sniping the bananalings :D
Easier said than done, given that stalkers don't have quite the burst dps of marines against overlords. Still, I thought it made games pretty exciting to watch
Since im seeing you are one who is defending it pretty hard, even if it is a bug. The gw test that I mentioned up above. Can you tell me how exactly that is fair?
Sorry can you rephrase? I don't understand the following sentence:
"The gw test that I mentioned up above."
It's a bit early in the morning and I haven't really had my coffee lol.
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
immortal were designed to tank damage rather than that burst dps (from the words of bliz) would you say immortal should never have that dps?
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
On September 13 2011 02:24 TheKefka wrote: This is so funny watching people rage at the most obviously bugged thing off all time.
It is so funny to watching protoss laughing at one of the only innovative zerg tactic every invented being removed from the game so they can 1-A like before.
It is so funny to watch zergs overreact as multiple people in this thread have already said that baneling drops are still possible.
Its always been funny. I mean man, even a few zergs coming in touting the 'P is op at highest levels' talk about the past. P has never been highest level. Terran and Toss can't do it. Neither should Zerg be able to. You can STILL drop. But now you have to deal with the same issues we have. Your not the only dropping race. Your just the only dropping race that abuses dropping onto 'filled' areas.
Id like to see a zerg argue about the example i stated with gw's. Toss/Terran can't drop on a square ball of 8 gw's. But a zerg can drop banes all over it. Not balanced.
On September 13 2011 02:31 Sated wrote: Zergs realise that this is a bugfix, right? Units shouldn't be able to be dropped onto locations were there literally isn't any space for them. Can you imagine a Protoss ball politely making room for a marine to land in the middle of them? Of course not. The same is true with Banelings. Sounds like this is the dropship equivalent of stopping buildings landing by putting a unit under them.
What has "supposed to be -x-" got to do with anything? As already mentioned there were plenty of bugs in BW that made the balance what it was. ZvT would be unwinnable without mutalisk stacking.
Unless the protoss is constantly clicking move to a center point the units will be spread more than enough to not effect baneling drops. Stop crying before you even test it, the video is invalid because you're never going to see 60zealots standing in a perfect square not moving at all, and if you do then laugh as you 1a them with roaches then proceed to bane-rain uninterrupted the second he moves a step with any of them.
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
Bug or not it's a very important part of the game. There are plenty of good bugs in many esports titles, strafe jumping for one, mulatisk stacking is another
Is it important because its exploitable or important because nothing has been created to be more innovative than dumping banelings on your enemy?
Regardless most people tend to split their units as a response to overlords coming at them. Balling them up is going to be risky for Protoss players to do since their DPS will shrink and the Zerg can concave better with roaches. Bringing a bunch of overlords could be used as a feint tactic I suppose -_____-
On September 13 2011 02:31 ishkabibble wrote: I'm a little unsure about all these comments. In lategame if you clump up your units perfectly you will still get rolled by infestors. It's not like every game that Z wins was won because of baneling drops, and roach hydra corruptor will no longer be the only viable strategy.
1. Roach/Hydra/Corrupter is hardly a viable strategy vs the deathball. It flat out loses to it. 2. Infestors are being nerfed vs deathball. Can't NP colossus and reduced dmg on both fronts (vs light and armored).
Now you're nerfing banes, imo the best viable solution to Protosses attempting to deathball (I always liked them better than infestors). Unbelievable.
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
On the other hand, things like muta-stacking with an overlord in BW was basically a bug that shouldn't have been possible (or wraith-stacking with a sieged-up tank), and yet became a crucial element of gameplay. How the game was designed and how it ought to be played are not always the same.
On September 13 2011 02:21 windsupernova wrote:
On September 13 2011 02:18 N3rV[Green] wrote: Baneling drops were just really really really fucking scary. I for one am glad I won't be seeing my ENTIRE ARMY turn into green goo while I can't move them cause they're all fungaled.
Well, the counter for that was... spliting your army and sniping the bananalings :D
Easier said than done, given that stalkers don't have quite the burst dps of marines against overlords. Still, I thought it made games pretty exciting to watch
Since im seeing you are one who is defending it pretty hard, even if it is a bug. The gw test that I mentioned up above. Can you tell me how exactly that is fair?
Unless its changed recently, only zerg's will work. Thats just plain not fair.
Sorry can you rephrase? I don't understand the following sentence:
"The gw test that I mentioned up above."
It's a bit early in the morning and I haven't really had my coffee lol.
I myeself haven't tested. But for testing purposes id like to see a person do the following. As Toss: Make a large square of 8 gw's. Try and drop onto the gw's with terran dropships. Now try to drop with protoss dropships. Now try to drop with zerg dropships.
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
On September 13 2011 02:24 TheKefka wrote: This is so funny watching people rage at the most obviously bugged thing off all time.
It is so funny to watching protoss laughing at one of the only innovative zerg tactic every invented being removed from the game so they can 1-A like before.
It is so funny to watch zergs overreact as multiple people in this thread have already said that baneling drops are still possible.
You are so funny because i was clearing not refering to Baneling rain NOT-being accessible but i was actually laughing at the Amove protoss, besides the 2nd quoted user because i mis-understood or he just didnt provide enough information information for me to think otherwise.
You guys are overthinking this. Basically you couldn't unload over dense areas before. The definition of "dense" is no free grid spaces on the ground below the OL. As there are free spaces when probes mine for example, this will have absolutely no affect. When toss armies engage usually they leave spaces as units move to engage, that's why everybody thinks you can unload over "dense" areas, but you must realize the definition of dense isn't just "a lot of units" it's "so many units that there's absolutely no space". I suppose you used to be able to get around that if you were to blindly order a baneling drop onto an army that you couldn't see (dont think that happens too often), which is why it's classified as a bug fix. But in terms of normal baneling drop usage it makes absolutely no difference.
On September 13 2011 02:31 Sated wrote: Zergs realise that this is a bugfix, right? Units shouldn't be able to be dropped onto locations were there literally isn't any space for them. Can you imagine a Protoss ball politely making room for a marine to land in the middle of them? Of course not. The same is true with Banelings. Sounds like this is the dropship equivalent of stopping buildings landing by putting a unit under them.
.. Wow. So you'd kill off an entire part of the game that IS one of the only strategies in ZvP that requires ANY micro skill at all (the most micro intensive strategy in the game bar none, for both races), and is one of the only multitasking strategies in the matchup (mutas and roach/hydra drop has equivalent multitasking requirements) because........ you're not "supposed" to drop banelings onto armies? Jesus. What completely stupid reasoning.
On September 13 2011 02:28 Sqq wrote: This is just terrible. I'm not sure what Blizzards reason for doing this is ? As soon as there are some micro tricks they nerf them out. It wasn't even overpowered or anything. It just made both sides micro harder ? I'm actually shocked and do not understand the reasoning here.
This micro ¨trick¨ has been around since Launch, this is obviously an unintended consequence.Really if they considered banneling drops a bug or OP they would have nerfed it a long time ago.
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
On the other hand, things like muta-stacking with an overlord in BW was basically a bug that shouldn't have been possible (or wraith-stacking with a sieged-up tank), and yet became a crucial element of gameplay. How the game was designed and how it ought to be played are not always the same.
On September 13 2011 02:21 windsupernova wrote:
On September 13 2011 02:18 N3rV[Green] wrote: Baneling drops were just really really really fucking scary. I for one am glad I won't be seeing my ENTIRE ARMY turn into green goo while I can't move them cause they're all fungaled.
Well, the counter for that was... spliting your army and sniping the bananalings :D
Easier said than done, given that stalkers don't have quite the burst dps of marines against overlords. Still, I thought it made games pretty exciting to watch
Since im seeing you are one who is defending it pretty hard, even if it is a bug. The gw test that I mentioned up above. Can you tell me how exactly that is fair?
I myeself haven't tested. But for testing purposes id like to see a person do the following. As Toss: Make a large square of 8 gw's. Try and drop onto the gw's with terran dropships. Now try to drop with protoss dropships. Now try to drop with zerg dropships.
Unless its changed recently, only zerg's will work. Thats just plain not fair.
Sorry can you rephrase? I don't understand the following sentence:
"The gw test that I mentioned up above."
It's a bit early in the morning and I haven't really had my coffee lol.
I... what? This is actually less coherent than your original post, as you seem to have quoted me and added words to my post. I'm sorry could you post again? I know it's busy in here but it sounds like you have a good point and I want to understand it.
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
On the other hand, things like muta-stacking with an overlord in BW was basically a bug that shouldn't have been possible (or wraith-stacking with a sieged-up tank), and yet became a crucial element of gameplay. How the game was designed and how it ought to be played are not always the same.
On September 13 2011 02:21 windsupernova wrote:
On September 13 2011 02:18 N3rV[Green] wrote: Baneling drops were just really really really fucking scary. I for one am glad I won't be seeing my ENTIRE ARMY turn into green goo while I can't move them cause they're all fungaled.
Well, the counter for that was... spliting your army and sniping the bananalings :D
Easier said than done, given that stalkers don't have quite the burst dps of marines against overlords. Still, I thought it made games pretty exciting to watch
Since im seeing you are one who is defending it pretty hard, even if it is a bug. The gw test that I mentioned up above. Can you tell me how exactly that is fair?
Unless its changed recently, only zerg's will work. Thats just plain not fair.
Sorry can you rephrase? I don't understand the following sentence:
"The gw test that I mentioned up above."
It's a bit early in the morning and I haven't really had my coffee lol.
I myeself haven't tested. But for testing purposes id like to see a person do the following. As Toss: Make a large square of 8 gw's. Try and drop onto the gw's with terran dropships. Now try to drop with protoss dropships. Now try to drop with zerg dropships.
I think that we're talking about dropping on balls of units, not gateways.
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
Bug or not it's a very important part of the game. There are plenty of good bugs in many esports titles, strafe jumping for one, mulatisk stacking is another
Is it important because its exploitable or important because nothing has been created to be more innovative than dumping banelings on your enemy?
What? It's important for balance. Nothing to do with "because it's exploitable." I still argue it's hardly even an exploit, it's utterly stupid you can't drop a SUICIDE unit that's meant to explode on contact on an enemy army. You don't drop marines as bombs onto the enemy, they're meant to land and fight, with banelings you want the opposite effect.
lol jesus, what's with the hostility towards me. I was just explaining what the fix does. I just said baneling bombs were never intended to be able to be dropped on top of stacked up units. The way they wrote the bug fix note is confusing but thats because it HAD to be confusing to be correct. The bug allowed them to drop on top of stacked up armies, but it only happened when dropping on fog of war. Try dropping banelings on your own zerg army that is stacked up... it doesnt work at all... there's no room.
I think baneling bombs are exciting to watch, but its still a bug... not sure if they should fix it or not...
On September 13 2011 02:31 Sated wrote: Zergs realise that this is a bugfix, right? Units shouldn't be able to be dropped onto locations were there literally isn't any space for them. Can you imagine a Protoss ball politely making room for a marine to land in the middle of them? Of course not. The same is true with Banelings. Sounds like this is the dropship equivalent of stopping buildings landing by putting a unit under them.
.. Wow. So you'd kill off an entire part of the game that IS one of the only strategies in ZvP that requires any micro skill at all, and is one of the only multitasking strategies in the matchup because........ you're not "supposed" to drop banelings onto armies? Jesus. What horrible reasoning.
Also banelings are like bombs. Technically they don't need any room to be landed. They can just drop on top of your head and will have the exact same effect. So any "logical" reasoning seems misplaced
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
What is happening in 1.3 is that zerg players are able to drop banelings onto armies that are completely balled up and, thus, should leave no landing zone for the zerg to drop their banes. Baneling drops should NOT be able to be performed AT ALL in situations where there is no landing zone... that is by design... its the same for all drop ships... you cannot drop your units onto an area that is occupied by other ground units. The bug is being fixed in 1.4 so now banelings are no longer the exception to that rule.
If any of you watch Liquid`Tylers stream when its up you'll see alot of times he balls his stalkers up intentionally to eliminate possible landing area for baneling bombs... You'll also see that it NEVER works... its through no fault of his own, but rather, through the fault of this bug, which is being fixed.
Does it affect gameplay? Absolutely. Should that gameplay have been possible to begin with? Absolutely not.
immortal were designed to tank damage rather than that burst dps (from the words of bliz) would you say immortal should never have that dps?
Immortals have an attack. They are meant to deal damage...
On September 13 2011 02:18 N3rV[Green] wrote: Baneling drops were just really really really fucking scary. I for one am glad I won't be seeing my ENTIRE ARMY turn into green goo while I can't move them cause they're all fungaled.
Well, the counter for that was... spliting your army and sniping the bananalings :D
Well if this goes through the counter would be... stacking your army and making sure it doesn't split :D
that's how you deal with almost every zerg comp tbh (any that doesn't involve bane drop or infestor). but then they get fungal and you have to spread which makes your units shit against roach hydra because ff becomes bad
On September 13 2011 02:33 NotSorry wrote: Unless the protoss is constantly clicking move to a center point the units will be spread more than enough to not effect baneling drops. Stop crying before you even test it, the video is invalid because you're never going to see 60zealots standing in a perfect square not moving at all, and if you do then laugh as you 1a them with roaches then proceed to bane-rain uninterrupted the second he moves a step with any of them.
This. The situation in the video is not even close to what would happen in a normal game.
On September 13 2011 02:37 EmilA wrote: I went on the EU PTR and I was unable to replicate the bug in the OP - drop command went through when I had vision without any problems whatsoever
Hate to break it to you... but seriously, this has ACTUALLY been around for a while, Protosses have been screen blinking then hold positioning stalkers so that they could only take radial damage for a while now... all you have to do as a zerg is force the protoss into motion then the banelings fall into the gaps... which means in 90% of real game situations this will change nothing.
It's a game bug... a unit can't land on a unit... that's how it's always supposed to have been....
Sorry blazing. Somehow quote got messed up, logged me out.
Do this test:
Make a square of 8 gw's. Try and use Terran dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Protoss dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Zerg dropshiops on top of the gw.
I can't tell if half the people in this thread are huge trolls or like complaining for the sake of it. Stop being being so overdramatic, half of you are acting as if they patched it so banelings can no longer be loaded in to overlords period.
As stated before, this is a BUG FIX. Meaning there was something innately broken, that is now being fixed.
For those of you saying "well, considering how a baneling works, it would make sense for it to be able to drop on top of things even if there isn't space". I hate to be the bringer of bad news, but there are a lot of things that occur in this game that don't seem physically possible, but somehow are; as well as some things that should be allowed to occur, logically, but a las can not.
Yes, logically a baneling should be able to drop out of the sky and explode on impact on to a clump of units. However, following that logic, a COMMAND CENTER should be able to land on a BURROWED ZERGLING. Unfortunately, neither of these actions can actually occur in game.
There are rules and restrictions to this game. Some of them follow the logic of physics, some follow the logic of balance, and others follow the logic of the game engine.
On September 13 2011 02:34 YumYumGranola wrote: You guys are overthinking this. Basically you couldn't unload over dense areas before. The definition of "dense" is no free grid spaces on the ground below the OL. As there are free spaces when probes mine for example, this will have absolutely no affect. When toss armies engage usually they leave spaces as units move to engage, that's why everybody thinks you can unload over "dense" areas, but you must realize the definition of dense isn't just "a lot of units" it's "so many units that there's absolutely no space". I suppose you used to be able to get around that if you were to blindly order a baneling drop onto an army that you couldn't see (dont think that happens too often), which is why it's classified as a bug fix. But in terms of normal baneling drop usage it makes absolutely no difference.
On September 13 2011 02:37 EmilA wrote: I went on the EU PTR and I was unable to replicate the bug in the OP - drop command went through when I had vision without any problems whatsoever
Edit: This was with the zealots all put to follow on the center zealot
I'm not certain, but I believe you did this test on a test map which was put out a long time ago. Is it possible that the changes didn't go through in the test map? With units training time being reduced and such, maybe the PTR balance and bug changes didn't influence these older maps.
On September 13 2011 02:38 ohampatu wrote: Sorry blazing. Somehow quote got messed up, logged me out.
Do this test:
Make a square of 8 gw's. Try and use Terran dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Protoss dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Zerg dropshiops on top of the gw.
Only the zerg's will work. This is not fair.
I'm fairly sure that the problem with baneling drops isn't bane drops being used to attack Gateways, but rather, its interaction with protoss deathball.
On September 13 2011 02:37 EmilA wrote: I went on the EU PTR and I was unable to replicate the bug in the OP - drop command went through when I had vision without any problems whatsoever
Edit: This was with the zealots all put to follow on the center zealot
I'm not certain, but I believe you did this test on a test map which was put out a long time ago. Is it possible that the changes didn't go through in the test map? With units training time being reduced and such, maybe the PTR balance and bug changes didn't influence these older maps.
I'm sorry, but I'm going to say this. Blizzard is fucking stupid and has no fucking clue what their doing.
Bane drops and the use of infestors were the original tools that zergs used to first beat the protoss death ball. Now that they are both being nerfed, we're going to go back to how the match up used to be.
Serious, Blizzard has no fucking clue about what their doing. The game must have some serious basic design flaws if they have to put through a patch of this caliber.
Lets hope HoTS fundamentally changes concepts and design flaws from the this shitty era of WoL.
On September 13 2011 02:38 ohampatu wrote: Sorry blazing. Somehow quote got messed up, logged me out.
Do this test:
Make a square of 8 gw's. Try and use Terran dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Protoss dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Zerg dropshiops on top of the gw.
Only the zerg's will work. This is not fair.
I.. don't know what to say. I pray that this is a troll..
To be fair, why should banelings need ground space to drop? Logically, the banelings are just dropping on top of units and exploding. Not the same as a unit landing on the ground and than attacking.
And I'm talking from a purely practical perspective. Not a gameplay or SC2 perspective. If you drop a bomb on top of someone, you don't need it to hit the ground first lol
On September 13 2011 02:39 spbelky wrote: I can't tell if half the people in this thread are huge trolls or like complaining for the sake of it. Stop being being so overdramatic, half of you are acting as if they patched it so banelings can no longer be loaded in to overlords period.
As stated before, this is a BUG FIX. Meaning there was something innately broken, that is now being fixed.
For those of you saying "well, considering how a baneling works, it would make sense for it to be able to drop on top of things even if there isn't space". I hate to be the bringer of bad news, but there are a lot of things that occur in this game that don't seem physically possible, but somehow are; as well as some things that should be allowed to occur, logically, but a las can not.
Yes, logically a baneling should be able to drop out of the sky and explode on impact on to a clump of units. However, following that logic, a COMMAND CENTER should be able to land on a BURROWED ZERGLING. Unfortunately, neither of these actions can actually occur in game.
There are rules and restrictions to this game. Some of them follow the logic of physics, some follow the logic of balance, and others follow the logic of the game engine.
It's also worth noting, however, that a lot of cool game mechanics (muta stacking, etc) that are pretty pro are based off of what was initially considered bugs.
interesting change, from what they say in the patch it looks a bit different so might be a bug that it works that way (or bug in the unit tester ) ?. I can completly understand it though, they wanted to keep protoss bwish with the giant ball killing everything and you have to try and wear it down before it reaches your main . And those baneling drops were quiet nasty unless you had high templars which completly destroyed that :3. And without a deatball wasn't to problematic ... with it deatball never stood a chance
But damn I love this change ... i am imagining 30 workers right now cuddling under an overlord to prevent baneling dropping, that will look so awesome.
And for those not looking at the vids. The banelings post 1.4 get moved to the side of the deatball and not drop in the middle. If the overlords are to far over the the deathball (3 zealots to each side) the drop command will be canceled. There was no fog involved in the test. Its done in a custom map though sadly.
Anyway if i see a deathball fight against this and fungal especially with sentrys involved there are tons of holes. so the Person should have tested what happens if there is a small zealot big hole, which i think is pretty common in a 4 zealot radius. Also do colossi count i would say no since units can move below them. So in my eyes this change only forces a zerg to do more micro nothing else. Cuddling against infestors so banelings won't hit yeah sure .
What would be more interesting is what happens if there is fog of war. Since this affects terran far more heavily then it does the zerg. dropping at 4 times will require way more actions now. And well banelings won't work auto anymore, so you can distract the enemy that effectiv anymore. (in ladder make some banelings drops to every base run a few lings into the opponents army and they will have no workers left, works up to master)
On September 13 2011 02:39 spbelky wrote: I can't tell if half the people in this thread are huge trolls or like complaining for the sake of it. Stop being being so overdramatic, half of you are acting as if they patched it so banelings can no longer be loaded in to overlords period.
As stated before, this is a BUG FIX. Meaning there was something innately broken, that is now being fixed.
For those of you saying "well, considering how a baneling works, it would make sense for it to be able to drop on top of things even if there isn't space". I hate to be the bringer of bad news, but there are a lot of things that occur in this game that don't seem physically possible, but somehow are; as well as some things that should be allowed to occur, logically, but a las can not.
Yes, logically a baneling should be able to drop out of the sky and explode on impact on to a clump of units. However, following that logic, a COMMAND CENTER should be able to land on a BURROWED ZERGLING. Unfortunately, neither of these actions can actually occur in game.
There are rules and restrictions to this game. Some of them follow the logic of physics, some follow the logic of balance, and others follow the logic of the game engine.
As a toss player I don't really get this change. I agreed with the NP nerf, but if you can't deal with baneling drops as toss you don't deserve to win. Zerg choices are getting pretty limited again this way/
Well actualy it makes sense that banes can be dropped like in patch 1.3 however protoss mostly only has a chance on surviving with balling up and fighting a balled protoss never loses a zerg straight out a game.
In some cases avoiding a slow ball often gives zerg the win too.
Its just that Blizzard has to keep balance in mind and yes stun + utterly strong splash that basicly makes any kind of defensive play impossible ( not meaning u cant wall ur base and stay behind it but once u are forced to defend more bases a wall wont do anymore.)
still making balance changed now with HoTS on the door wont change major winrates , basic game maths and equal amount of possibilitys with nearly equal micro rewarding effect will be needed to make this game worth staying for years to come in the competive buiseness .
I for myself can say confident im the most experienced player in EU and thus i know whats wrong with the game (im a protoss ) didnt ladder for nearly a month.
all i can say is enjoy the game and look forward for HoTS :>.
E: offtopic : big thumbs up nevertheless for fixing blinking over 1 ff at ramp
but generaly the main issues in PvT wont fade about PvZ i better stay silent :> except for the fact that i dont get why a protoss ever loses to zergs :D
On September 13 2011 02:33 NotSorry wrote: Unless the protoss is constantly clicking move to a center point the units will be spread more than enough to not effect baneling drops. Stop crying before you even test it, the video is invalid because you're never going to see 60zealots standing in a perfect square not moving at all, and if you do then laugh as you 1a them with roaches then proceed to bane-rain uninterrupted the second he moves a step with any of them.
This, hahaha I actually went and test it on the PTR and yeah the Protoss needs to be constantly clumping their units to Hinder the bling drops, which leaves the more vulnerable to Fungal.
Talk about overhype. I don´t think this (if it comes live, which i think it will be at least tweaked) will be a factor most of the time.
On September 13 2011 02:37 EmilA wrote: I went on the EU PTR and I was unable to replicate the bug in the OP - drop command went through when I had vision without any problems whatsoever
Edit: This was with the zealots all put to follow on the center zealot
I'm not certain, but I believe you did this test on a test map which was put out a long time ago. Is it possible that the changes didn't go through in the test map? With units training time being reduced and such, maybe the PTR balance and bug changes didn't influence these older maps.
I am still editing and testing, when I made the ball bigger it started displacing the banelings a bit. I am testing how big a ball it takes for it to possibly stop the command completely now. Though I think the complete stop of drops would be a bug, not a balance fix.
On September 13 2011 02:38 ohampatu wrote: Sorry blazing. Somehow quote got messed up, logged me out.
Do this test:
Make a square of 8 gw's. Try and use Terran dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Protoss dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Zerg dropshiops on top of the gw.
Only the zerg's will work. This is not fair.
I'm fairly sure that the problem with baneling drops isn't bane drops being used to attack Gateways, but rather, its interaction with protoss deathball.
You misunderstand. The test above proves that Zerg drops aren't following the same 'rules' that Terran and Protoss's are. I dont care how long its been being used. If i can't duplicate the same drop pattern you can do on a different race, its bugged. Get off your high horse. Too many zerg have been doing ez drops on us thinking is ok, and its not. Also, this is ptr. They are prolly working on the code to perfect it how they want.
They dont care 'how youve been playing for months'.
On September 13 2011 02:41 DoomsVille wrote: To be fair, why should banelings need ground space to drop? Logically, the banelings are just dropping on top of units and exploding. Not the same as a unit landing on the ground and than attacking.
And I'm talking from a purely practical perspective. Not a gameplay or SC2 perspective. If you drop a bomb on top of someone, you don't need it to hit the ground first lol
Their attack is exploding. They are not bombs. They are units. Just because something is called a bomb in a game (by spectators, not designers, mind you) because it looks like something in the real world doesn't mean that it has to take the form of that specific thing. How do you know what it was intended to be or look like?
"This is a bug fix. Banelings shouldn't be able to drop if there is no landing zone."
No! Just fucking no. That's a terrible reason to remove a strategy path. Banelings drops were a unique zerg strategy that made the game more dynamic. This "bug" fix only makes the game more one-dimensional. With changes such as these we will end up just a-moving one giant ball of units at each other.
On September 13 2011 02:19 Chill wrote: Crazy. These changes are getting more and more absurd. It seems we should just go to 200/200 and a move into each other.
im so glad to see a highly respected member of the community speak out about these changes.
while i won't speak for you, the direction these changes are taking (for all races) are just simply dumbing down gameplay and reducing traditional RTS tennants such as engagement decisions, positioning, micro etc. The way they are headed with SC2 is fearful to me and I'm not usually an alarmist.
On September 13 2011 02:41 DoomsVille wrote: To be fair, why should banelings need ground space to drop? Logically, the banelings are just dropping on top of units and exploding. Not the same as a unit landing on the ground and than attacking.
And I'm talking from a purely practical perspective. Not a gameplay or SC2 perspective. If you drop a bomb on top of someone, you don't need it to hit the ground first lol
Their attack is exploding. They are not bombs. They are units. Just because something is called a bomb in a game (by spectators, not designers, mind you) because it looks like something in the real world doesn't mean that it has to take the form of that specific thing. How do you know what it was intended to be or look like?
Balance/Bug Fixes aside, the entire concept of a baneling having to have to have space to land is completely retarded in and of itself.
I have never understand why forcefields can push units back or you can put them on top of units fix that next then blizz. sounds about as logical as this change.
On September 13 2011 02:38 ohampatu wrote: Sorry blazing. Somehow quote got messed up, logged me out.
Do this test:
Make a square of 8 gw's. Try and use Terran dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Protoss dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Zerg dropshiops on top of the gw.
Only the zerg's will work. This is not fair.
I'm fairly sure that the problem with baneling drops isn't bane drops being used to attack Gateways, but rather, its interaction with protoss deathball.
You misunderstand. The test above proves that Zerg drops aren't following the same 'rules' that Terran and Protoss's are. I dont care how long its been being used. If i can't duplicate the same drop pattern you can do on a different race, its bugged. Get off your high horse. Too many zerg have been doing ez drops on us thinking is ok, and its not. Also, this is ptr. They are prolly working on the code to perfect it how they want.
They dont care 'how youve been playing for months'.
Specifically, it's baneling drops. In theory, as zerg, you could NP a probe, make a nexus, pylon, gateway, cyber core, robo, then warp prism, and use warp prisms to drop banelings in the same way. Baneling dictates this behavior, not overlord.
In any case, it seems like this was a somewhat balanced mechanic that might have needed a nerf, and got over-nerfed, or something. You make a good point in that it's PTR: they might have made a mistake in the adjustment and will fix this going forwards. I hope that threads like this help spread the word about it.
On September 13 2011 02:44 InstantKarma wrote: To those of you justifying this change with -
"This is a bug fix. Banelings shouldn't be able to drop if there is no landing zone."
No! Just fucking no. That's a terrible reason to remove a strategy path. Banelings drops were a unique zerg strategy that made the game more dynamic. This "bug" fix only makes the game more one-dimensional. With changes such as these we will end up just a-moving one giant ball of units at each other.
I repeat:
You misunderstand. The test above proves that Zerg drops aren't following the same 'rules' that Terran and Protoss's are. I dont care how long its been being used. If i can't duplicate the same drop pattern you can do on a different race, its bugged. Get off your high horse. Too many zerg have been doing ez drops on us thinking is ok, and its not. Also, this is ptr. They are prolly working on the code to perfect it how they want.
They dont care 'how youve been playing for months'.
On September 13 2011 02:38 ohampatu wrote: Sorry blazing. Somehow quote got messed up, logged me out.
Do this test:
Make a square of 8 gw's. Try and use Terran dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Protoss dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Zerg dropshiops on top of the gw.
Only the zerg's will work. This is not fair.
I'm fairly sure that the problem with baneling drops isn't bane drops being used to attack Gateways, but rather, its interaction with protoss deathball.
You misunderstand. The test above proves that Zerg drops aren't following the same 'rules' that Terran and Protoss's are. I dont care how long its been being used. If i can't duplicate the same drop pattern you can do on a different race, its bugged. Get off your high horse. Too many zerg have been doing ez drops on us thinking is ok, and its not. Also, this is ptr. They are prolly working on the code to perfect it how they want.
They dont care 'how youve been playing for months'.
Sorry but you're completely brain dead. Sc2 isn't a game where races are equivalent when considering an isolated facet of that race. One race can have better X and this is balanced by the other race having better Y. Equilibrium is reached and it matters not if X is not possessed by the opposite race, ONLY THAT EQUILIBRIUM EXISTS AND THAT THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN RACES ARE CONDUCIVE TO BETTER GAMEPLAY. Use your brain god damn.
Zerg hatcheries can't be upgraded to have a massive cannon on top that does splash and can be repair. Do you want this nerfed because there's not equality in this one aspect among races? of course not.. Jesus.
On September 13 2011 02:38 ohampatu wrote: Sorry blazing. Somehow quote got messed up, logged me out.
Do this test:
Make a square of 8 gw's. Try and use Terran dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Protoss dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Zerg dropshiops on top of the gw.
Only the zerg's will work. This is not fair.
I'm fairly sure that the problem with baneling drops isn't bane drops being used to attack Gateways, but rather, its interaction with protoss deathball.
You misunderstand. The test above proves that Zerg drops aren't following the same 'rules' that Terran and Protoss's are. I dont care how long its been being used. If i can't duplicate the same drop pattern you can do on a different race, its bugged. Get off your high horse. Too many zerg have been doing ez drops on us thinking is ok, and its not. Also, this is ptr. They are prolly working on the code to perfect it how they want.
They dont care 'how youve been playing for months'.
It's a different unit. Different rules for different units.
Besides, balance > all. Removing baneling drops is a huge balance change that's not warranted.
On September 13 2011 02:45 Logros wrote: Why do people keep posting like baneling drops aren't possible anymore? Multiple people have tried it out on PTR and it's still fine.
I've read this whole thread and remember 1 person, and this was disputed.
Do you have quotations of other people testing this?
On September 13 2011 02:41 DoomsVille wrote: To be fair, why should banelings need ground space to drop? Logically, the banelings are just dropping on top of units and exploding. Not the same as a unit landing on the ground and than attacking.
And I'm talking from a purely practical perspective. Not a gameplay or SC2 perspective. If you drop a bomb on top of someone, you don't need it to hit the ground first lol
Their attack is exploding. They are not bombs. They are units. Just because something is called a bomb in a game (by spectators, not designers, mind you) because it looks like something in the real world doesn't mean that it has to take the form of that specific thing. How do you know what it was intended to be or look like?
Balance/Bug Fixes aside, the entire concept of a baneling having to have to have space to land is completely retarded in and of itself.
Why? Is it not a moving unit that occupies space? Where are my exception units that are allowed to bend the rules of the game (and physics for that matter...)
On September 13 2011 02:45 Logros wrote: Why do people keep posting like baneling drops aren't possible anymore? Multiple people have tried it out on PTR and it's still fine.
I've read this whole thread and remember 1 person, and this was disputed.
Do you have quotations of other people testing this?
Just read every single post of his, he's talking non stop rubbish throughout the thread. If only there was an "ignore poster" feature...
On September 13 2011 02:38 ohampatu wrote: Sorry blazing. Somehow quote got messed up, logged me out.
Do this test:
Make a square of 8 gw's. Try and use Terran dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Protoss dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Zerg dropshiops on top of the gw.
Only the zerg's will work. This is not fair.
I'm fairly sure that the problem with baneling drops isn't bane drops being used to attack Gateways, but rather, its interaction with protoss deathball.
You misunderstand. The test above proves that Zerg drops aren't following the same 'rules' that Terran and Protoss's are. I dont care how long its been being used. If i can't duplicate the same drop pattern you can do on a different race, its bugged. Get off your high horse. Too many zerg have been doing ez drops on us thinking is ok, and its not. Also, this is ptr. They are prolly working on the code to perfect it how they want.
They dont care 'how youve been playing for months'.
Sorry but you're completely brain dead. Sc2 isn't a game where races are equivalent when considering an isolated facet of that race. One race can have better X and this is balanced by the other race having better Y. Equilibrium is reached and it matters not if X is not possessed by the opposite race, ONLY THAT EQUILIBRIUM EXISTS AND THAT THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN RACES ARE CONDUCIVE TO BETTER GAMEPLAY. Use your brain god damn.
Similarly, the game is balanced because while terran is not the strongest race, it is certainly the most "robust."
On September 13 2011 02:42 See.Blue wrote: I love the rage when people cannot even replicate the video... In fact are able to do drops just fine on PTR.
Well everyone is assuming that the bug fix made it so banelings no longer damaged protoss units. Really, it just says you can't drop where there is no space to land. I don't think it will come up that much, unless the overlord is hovering over a colossi and 12 stalkers that just blinked.
On September 13 2011 02:44 InstantKarma wrote: To those of you justifying this change with -
"This is a bug fix. Banelings shouldn't be able to drop if there is no landing zone."
No! Just fucking no. That's a terrible reason to remove a strategy path. Banelings drops were a unique zerg strategy that made the game more dynamic. This "bug" fix only makes the game more one-dimensional. With changes such as these we will end up just a-moving one giant ball of units at each other.
I repeat:
You misunderstand. The test above proves that Zerg drops aren't following the same 'rules' that Terran and Protoss's are. I dont care how long its been being used. If i can't duplicate the same drop pattern you can do on a different race, its bugged. Get off your high horse. Too many zerg have been doing ez drops on us thinking is ok, and its not. Also, this is ptr. They are prolly working on the code to perfect it how they want.
They dont care 'how youve been playing for months'.
Get off YOUR high horse first plz.
If every race is the same, then we will have zerg mules, protoss marines, terran overlords. Please go play Red Alert 2/3 if you want every race to be almost identical. And for argument sake,"Oh terran can get mules(miner) for free, we should too!"
On September 13 2011 02:45 Logros wrote: Why do people keep posting like baneling drops aren't possible anymore? Multiple people have tried it out on PTR and it's still fine.
I've read this whole thread and remember 1 person, and this was disputed.
Do you have quotations of other people testing this?
On September 13 2011 02:22 NotSorry wrote: Have done this countless times on PTR in real game scenarios and it still works just the same, just have to get vision with first ovie and then issue the commands. The video posted is pointless because never in a game will you see shit that perfectly clumped to allow no spacing so stop the crying.
On September 13 2011 02:37 EmilA wrote: I went on the EU PTR and I was unable to replicate the bug in the OP - drop command went through when I had vision without any problems whatsoever
Edit: This was with the zealots all put to follow on the center zealot
and what he said:
On September 13 2011 02:33 NotSorry wrote: Unless the protoss is constantly clicking move to a center point the units will be spread more than enough to not effect baneling drops. Stop crying before you even test it, the video is invalid because you're never going to see 60zealots standing in a perfect square not moving at all, and if you do then laugh as you 1a them with roaches then proceed to bane-rain uninterrupted the second he moves a step with any of them.
You are not gonna have an entire army standing still doing nothing in a real game. There are gonna be gaps in the army unless you keep spamming move so you can still baneling drop.
On September 13 2011 02:38 ohampatu wrote: Sorry blazing. Somehow quote got messed up, logged me out.
Do this test:
Make a square of 8 gw's. Try and use Terran dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Protoss dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Zerg dropshiops on top of the gw.
Only the zerg's will work. This is not fair.
I'm fairly sure that the problem with baneling drops isn't bane drops being used to attack Gateways, but rather, its interaction with protoss deathball.
You misunderstand. The test above proves that Zerg drops aren't following the same 'rules' that Terran and Protoss's are. I dont care how long its been being used. If i can't duplicate the same drop pattern you can do on a different race, its bugged. Get off your high horse. Too many zerg have been doing ez drops on us thinking is ok, and its not. Also, this is ptr. They are prolly working on the code to perfect it how they want.
They dont care 'how youve been playing for months'.
Specifically, it's baneling drops. In theory, as zerg, you could NP a probe, make a nexus, pylon, gateway, cyber core, robo, then warp prism, and use warp prisms to drop banelings in the same way. Baneling dictates this behavior, not overlord.
In any case, it seems like this was a somewhat balanced mechanic that might have needed a nerf, and got over-nerfed, or something. You make a good point in that it's PTR: they might have made a mistake in the adjustment and will fix this going forwards. I hope that threads like this help spread the word about it.
As a toss player, i dont mind if they can drop on my army actually. LOL, i was just proving it is indeed a bug fix.
Ideally, i think they should keep it in, and mebe tweak code untill its working as intended. Something like, 'banes can drop when 'this much' space is open'. So like, if theres even just a small amount, banes will still work. That way it still prevents other units from abusing this. Cuzz currently you can abuse this mechanic with different units as zerg.
So...Blizzard meant to put in an intelligent nerf, but instead broke it to make baneling drops useless. I just hope they don't treat this like the phoenix bugs...
I am really curious about this, at first it looks a plain retarded change but i can understand that a piece of terrain that is occuped can't be droped, i guess we'll have to see how it goes in practical battles where there is always a tiny bit of space between most of the units.
This could also create a intersting mechanic : The protoss player sees baneling drop incoming on his ball -> immediatly clumps all of his unit to prevent the baneling rain, leaving his army vulnerable to fungals even more.
We'll just have to see how it goes if this change gets implemented in the patch release, anyways this is a BIG change in the game mechanics.
I fail to see how you can call an argument that bling drops are bug 'wrong' while stating, that drops were 'unique strategy'. Bug is still a bug, especially drops for P and T were designed on the same scheme - no dropping units when there's no space left. I don't see any reasons why Zerg shouldn't follow the same rule. And by the way - just try it on PTR instead of crying - there were a post clearly stating that it is possible.
On September 13 2011 02:38 ohampatu wrote: Sorry blazing. Somehow quote got messed up, logged me out.
Do this test:
Make a square of 8 gw's. Try and use Terran dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Protoss dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Zerg dropshiops on top of the gw.
Only the zerg's will work. This is not fair.
I'm fairly sure that the problem with baneling drops isn't bane drops being used to attack Gateways, but rather, its interaction with protoss deathball.
You misunderstand. The test above proves that Zerg drops aren't following the same 'rules' that Terran and Protoss's are. I dont care how long its been being used. If i can't duplicate the same drop pattern you can do on a different race, its bugged. Get off your high horse. Too many zerg have been doing ez drops on us thinking is ok, and its not. Also, this is ptr. They are prolly working on the code to perfect it how they want.
They dont care 'how youve been playing for months'.
Specifically, it's baneling drops. In theory, as zerg, you could NP a probe, make a nexus, pylon, gateway, cyber core, robo, then warp prism, and use warp prisms to drop banelings in the same way. Baneling dictates this behavior, not overlord.
In any case, it seems like this was a somewhat balanced mechanic that might have needed a nerf, and got over-nerfed, or something. You make a good point in that it's PTR: they might have made a mistake in the adjustment and will fix this going forwards. I hope that threads like this help spread the word about it.
As a toss player, i dont mind if they can drop on my army actually. LOL, i was just proving it is indeed a bug fix.
Ideally, i think they should keep it in, and mebe tweak code untill its working as intended. Something like, 'banes can drop when 'this much' space is open'. So like, if theres even just a small amount, banes will still work. That way it still prevents other units from abusing this. Cuzz currently you can abuse this mechanic with different units as zerg.
Really? Because I was under the impression (and correct me if I'm wrong) that this was a problem specific to banelings, not overlords-- you can't drop roaches or queens or whatever into the middle of armies unless there's space (out of any transport, medivac, warp prism, etc) whereas you can drop banes wherever you want (out of any transport, medivac, warp prism, etc) in the current patch, and in the PTR they're patching banelings, not overlords.
On September 13 2011 02:39 spbelky wrote: I can't tell if half the people in this thread are huge trolls or like complaining for the sake of it. Stop being being so overdramatic, half of you are acting as if they patched it so banelings can no longer be loaded in to overlords period.
As stated before, this is a BUG FIX. Meaning there was something innately broken, that is now being fixed.
For those of you saying "well, considering how a baneling works, it would make sense for it to be able to drop on top of things even if there isn't space". I hate to be the bringer of bad news, but there are a lot of things that occur in this game that don't seem physically possible, but somehow are; as well as some things that should be allowed to occur, logically, but a las can not.
Yes, logically a baneling should be able to drop out of the sky and explode on impact on to a clump of units. However, following that logic, a COMMAND CENTER should be able to land on a BURROWED ZERGLING. Unfortunately, neither of these actions can actually occur in game.
There are rules and restrictions to this game. Some of them follow the logic of physics, some follow the logic of balance, and others follow the logic of the game engine.
Just because something is a bug doesn't mean it should be taken out of gameplay for that reason in and of itself. See every major esport title for instances of this. Saying "DERP It's a bug, rules, must come out!!1" isn't a good argument.
On September 13 2011 02:49 FrodaN wrote: So...Blizzard meant to put in an intelligent nerf, but instead broke it to make baneling drops useless. I just hope they don't treat this like the phoenix bugs...
Oh boy how long did that exist? Like 4 weeks? ._. That was the worst time ever ^^
I'd be fine if they refix it, I never had problems with Banelings the last few weeks.
On September 13 2011 02:44 InstantKarma wrote: To those of you justifying this change with -
"This is a bug fix. Banelings shouldn't be able to drop if there is no landing zone."
No! Just fucking no. That's a terrible reason to remove a strategy path. Banelings drops were a unique zerg strategy that made the game more dynamic. This "bug" fix only makes the game more one-dimensional. With changes such as these we will end up just a-moving one giant ball of units at each other.
I repeat:
You misunderstand. The test above proves that Zerg drops aren't following the same 'rules' that Terran and Protoss's are. I dont care how long its been being used. If i can't duplicate the same drop pattern you can do on a different race, its bugged. Get off your high horse. Too many zerg have been doing ez drops on us thinking is ok, and its not. Also, this is ptr. They are prolly working on the code to perfect it how they want.
They dont care 'how youve been playing for months'.
I don't misunderstand. It's you that can't grasp the importance of dynamic play in an RTS game. Why can't these drops be unique to banelings? It doesn't matter if it was a bug or not. It adds an extra dimension of strategy to the game. What if stacking air units was considered a bug and removed? It makes no sense.
On September 13 2011 02:45 Logros wrote: Why do people keep posting like baneling drops aren't possible anymore? Multiple people have tried it out on PTR and it's still fine.
Because multiple people post without thinking and than other people that just want to post something quote them and argue about something that isn't even in the video and more importantly in the notes. The reason why I am so convinced that the video shows a unintended version of the mechanic now is that the patch notes say something completely different and if you think logically what are the chances that the content of the sentence is not accurate to the coding of the game not being accurate to what they had in mind.
This is the equivalent of a patch note that says" Colossus can no longer get vision up cliffs" and than a video showing a Colossus shooting down a fucking viking.
People are arguing just for the sake of arguing by now.
On September 13 2011 02:50 Deimos0 wrote: I fail to see how you can call an argument that bling drops are bug 'wrong' while stating, that drops were 'unique strategy'. Bug is still a bug, especially drops for P and T were designed on the same scheme - no dropping units when there's no space left. I don't see any reasons why Zerg shouldn't follow the same rule. And by the way - just try it on PTR instead of crying - there were a post clearly stating that it is possible.
Lol we are not raging that it will not be possible, you are quite right. But we are just simply debating about the attention and the original interest of blizzard of making/trying to apply this change.
On September 13 2011 02:49 FrodaN wrote: So...Blizzard meant to put in an intelligent nerf, but instead broke it to make baneling drops useless. I just hope they don't treat this like the phoenix bugs...
Oh boy how long did that exist? Like 4 weeks? ._. That was the worst time ever ^^
I'd be fine if they refix it, I never had problems with Banelings the last few weeks.
I think this is just on the PTR-- not on the actual ladder servers, so in that respect you don't have to worry.
On September 13 2011 02:23 Jayrod wrote: You guys are reading this exactly backwards. First of all, its a bug fix... what was bugged before is now unbugged... keep that in mind.
Bug or not it's a very important part of the game. There are plenty of good bugs in many esports titles, strafe jumping for one, mulatisk stacking is another
Is it important because its exploitable or important because nothing has been created to be more innovative than dumping banelings on your enemy?
What? It's important for balance. Nothing to do with "because it's exploitable." I still argue it's hardly even an exploit, it's utterly stupid you can't drop a SUICIDE unit that's meant to explode on contact on an enemy army. You don't drop marines as bombs onto the enemy, they're meant to land and fight, with banelings you want the opposite effect.
That's not necessarily true. I have seen a TvZ where a Terran dropped marines onto banelings on the ground to kill them inefficiently for the Zerg. This bug fix would stop that as well.
In any case, I think people should chill. We seem to be getting different information from different people. Some people have tested it and the baneling drops do not work, while others have tested it and they still work. Perhaps we should wait until we see if this change goes through, and then what the pros think of it when they try executing it.
Did it ever occur to some of you that the guy in the initial video is executing it poorly? Or as someone mentioned earlier that an army on the move will naturally create enough openings for the baneling drops to still work? I just don't see a reason to get all in a huff over something that we don't know if it will even come to fruition.
On September 13 2011 02:03 demonik187 wrote: As much as I hate to say it, Banelings drops in a dense area actually make more sense because they never technically should touch the ground as they explode on impact. Other units I could see not being able to drop if the area is too packed with units/stuff.
then maybe banelings should do friendly fire aswell?? since hey , it makes a HELL lot of sense that when something EXPLODES it doesn't care if it's friend or foe right?
On September 13 2011 02:45 Logros wrote: Why do people keep posting like baneling drops aren't possible anymore? Multiple people have tried it out on PTR and it's still fine.
Because multiple people post without thinking and than other people that just want to post something quote them and argue about something that isn't even in the video and more importantly in the notes. The reason why I am so convinced that the video shows a unintended version the the mechanic now is that the patch notes say something completely different and if you think logically what are the chances that the content of the sentence is not accurate to the coding of the game not being accurate to what they had in mind.
This is the equivalent of a patch note that says" Colossus can no longer get vision up cliffs" and than a video showing a Colossus shooting down a fucking viking.
Colossus with anti-air now that's something that would flood the world in tears
On September 13 2011 02:45 Logros wrote: Why do people keep posting like baneling drops aren't possible anymore? Multiple people have tried it out on PTR and it's still fine.
Because multiple people post without thinking and than other people that just want to post something quote them and argue about something that isn't even in the video and more importantly in the notes. The reason why I am so convinced that the video shows a unintended version the the mechanic now is that the patch notes say something completely different and if you think logically what are the chances that the content of the sentence is not accurate to the coding of the game not being accurate to what they had in mind.
This is the equivalent of a patch note that says" Colossus can no longer get vision up cliffs" and than a video showing a Colossus shooting down a fucking viking.
On September 13 2011 02:53 flowSthead wrote:Did it ever occur to some of you that the guy in the initial video is executing it poorly? Or as someone mentioned earlier that an army on the move will naturally create enough openings for the baneling drops to still work? I just don't see a reason to get all in a huff over something that we don't know if it will even come to fruition.
The same person made both videos and the Zealot balls appear equally clumped
On September 13 2011 02:52 TheKefka wrote: This is the equivalent of a patch note that says" Colossus can no longer get vision up cliffs" and than a video showing a Colossus shooting down a fucking viking.
This is so beautiful. I think this is a good point. Whether or not the nerf is warranted (I play terran, I have no comment on PvZ) an unintended consequence is unintended.
Lol we are not raging that it will not be possible, you are quite right. But we are just simply debating about the attention and the original interest of blizzard of making/trying to apply this change.
Apparently some users still are raging (or it is just maybe me replying too slow). There were few statements from Blizzard that changes on PTR are a result of observing games - if it is true in this banelings' case, then something about that drops must have caught testers' attention.
On September 13 2011 02:33 hunts wrote: so with fungal nerf, NP nerf, baneling drop removal, this leaveszerg with what exactly vs a protoss death ball?
Next time, before you post such clueless comments, realize that the number of fungals required to kill any protoss unit is totally unchanged from previous patch.
People just post random shit and lose their head when they see stuff in the patch notes.
Also test stuff out for yourself on PTR. instead of relying on some random person's video. If something is broken, Blizzard will fix it. After all, you zergs got buff after bufff after buff through incessant whining. You will receive buffs if required.
Watch this video again (this is from 1.3) Look at the last baneling dropped from the last overlord. It is dropped out of synch (later than it should be) and it's dropped further forward than you'd expect, outside the zealot ball. Presumably because there was no room to drop. If that's the case then I don't think anything has changed and the guy making the experiment wasn't careful enough to have identical zealot clumps.
On September 13 2011 02:33 hunts wrote: so with fungal nerf, NP nerf, baneling drop removal, this leaveszerg with what exactly vs a protoss death ball?
Also test stuff out for yourself on PTR. instead of relying on some random person's video. If something is broken, Blizzard will fix it. After all, you zergs got buff after bufff after buff through incessant whining. You will receive buffs if required.
Do you possess any evidence in support of your claim that Blizzard buffed zerg due to community whining?
On September 13 2011 02:38 ohampatu wrote: Sorry blazing. Somehow quote got messed up, logged me out.
Do this test:
Make a square of 8 gw's. Try and use Terran dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Protoss dropships on top of the gw. Try and use Zerg dropshiops on top of the gw.
Only the zerg's will work. This is not fair.
I'm fairly sure that the problem with baneling drops isn't bane drops being used to attack Gateways, but rather, its interaction with protoss deathball.
You misunderstand. The test above proves that Zerg drops aren't following the same 'rules' that Terran and Protoss's are. I dont care how long its been being used. If i can't duplicate the same drop pattern you can do on a different race, its bugged. Get off your high horse. Too many zerg have been doing ez drops on us thinking is ok, and its not. Also, this is ptr. They are prolly working on the code to perfect it how they want.
They dont care 'how youve been playing for months'.
Specifically, it's baneling drops. In theory, as zerg, you could NP a probe, make a nexus, pylon, gateway, cyber core, robo, then warp prism, and use warp prisms to drop banelings in the same way. Baneling dictates this behavior, not overlord.
In any case, it seems like this was a somewhat balanced mechanic that might have needed a nerf, and got over-nerfed, or something. You make a good point in that it's PTR: they might have made a mistake in the adjustment and will fix this going forwards. I hope that threads like this help spread the word about it.
As a toss player, i dont mind if they can drop on my army actually. LOL, i was just proving it is indeed a bug fix.
Ideally, i think they should keep it in, and mebe tweak code untill its working as intended. Something like, 'banes can drop when 'this much' space is open'. So like, if theres even just a small amount, banes will still work. That way it still prevents other units from abusing this. Cuzz currently you can abuse this mechanic with different units as zerg.
Really? Because I was under the impression (and correct me if I'm wrong) that this was a problem specific to banelings, not overlords-- you can't drop roaches or queens or whatever into the middle of armies unless there's space (out of any transport, medivac, warp prism, etc) whereas you can drop banes wherever you want (out of any transport, medivac, warp prism, etc) in the current patch, and in the PTR they're patching banelings, not overlords.
Meh, i might be wrong. I had swore i played few games recently where ling/roach drops into my main acted similar. Was prolly just hte lings landing in small areas though. Not able to pull up any replays. So ignore if false :/
On September 13 2011 02:59 hugman wrote: Watch this video again (this is from 1.3) Look at the last baneling dropped from the last overlord. It is dropped out of synch (later than it should be) and it's dropped further forward than you'd expect, outside the zealot ball. Presumably because there was no room to drop. If that's the case then I don't think anything has changed and the guy making the experiment wasn't careful enough to have identical zealot clumps.
From what I've seen, baneling bombing can still happen. All this discussion about weather baneling bombs are "right" or not seems pointless. I suppose I'll hop on the bandwagon and test it myself though...
On September 13 2011 02:49 FrodaN wrote: So...Blizzard meant to put in an intelligent nerf, but instead broke it to make baneling drops useless. I just hope they don't treat this like the phoenix bugs...
I love these posts. They are the best. No fact checking or reading. Just broad statements that serve to enrage the rest of the thread:
Blizzard: We have fixed a bug that allowed zerg units to drop where there was no space. This only comes into play 1% of the time. Drops are still possible, just not in tightly clumped units.
Zerg play: BANELING DROPS ARE RUINED!!! THE END HAS COME!!!! THE RETURN OF THE DEALTH BALL WILL DESTORY US ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY RACE IS WORTHLESS NOW, DOESN'T BLIZZARD KNOW WE CAN'T WIN WITHOUT THIS BUG!!!! EVER!
On September 13 2011 02:41 DoomsVille wrote: To be fair, why should banelings need ground space to drop? Logically, the banelings are just dropping on top of units and exploding. Not the same as a unit landing on the ground and than attacking.
And I'm talking from a purely practical perspective. Not a gameplay or SC2 perspective. If you drop a bomb on top of someone, you don't need it to hit the ground first lol
Their attack is exploding. They are not bombs. They are units. Just because something is called a bomb in a game (by spectators, not designers, mind you) because it looks like something in the real world doesn't mean that it has to take the form of that specific thing. How do you know what it was intended to be or look like?
Balance/Bug Fixes aside, the entire concept of a baneling having to have to have space to land is completely retarded in and of itself.
Why? Is it not a moving unit that occupies space? Where are my exception units that are allowed to bend the rules of the game (and physics for that matter...)
I'm going to give you time to think about it. It's not that hard.
I honestly don't see how this changes anything. At what point in a battle will the protoss ever be in a really tight ball? The only way is if they are manually trying to do it. Otherwise their army will spread out a little (or a lot in my case because I spread my army manually against infestors). Therefore if there are ANY gaps at all then bane drops will work. Also, if a protoss does try and stay clumped in a little ball do you know how bad he will get owned by fungal growth?
On September 13 2011 02:49 FrodaN wrote: So...Blizzard meant to put in an intelligent nerf, but instead broke it to make baneling drops useless. I just hope they don't treat this like the phoenix bugs...
I love these posts. They are the best. No fact checking or reading. Just broad statements that serve to enrage the rest of the thread:
Blizzard: We have fixed a bug that allowed zerg units to drop where there was no space. This only comes into play 1% of the time. Drops are still possible, just not in tightly clumped units.
Zerg play: BANELING DROPS ARE RUINED!!! THE END HAS COME!!!! THE RETURN OF THE DEALTH BALL WILL DESTORY US ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY RACE IS WORTHLESS NOW, DOESN'T BLIZZARD KNOW WE CAN'T WIN WITHOUT THIS BUG!!!! EVER!
I love these posts. They are the best. No fact checking or reading. Just broad statements that serve to enrage the rest of the thread. Oh god the irony.
Baneling drops puts alot of pressure on the P, and bronze-platinum players dont like this, and theese players are the majority of the overall players. Blizzard already lost 1 million ladder players, they don't wanna continue on that route obviously.
On September 13 2011 02:49 FrodaN wrote: So...Blizzard meant to put in an intelligent nerf, but instead broke it to make baneling drops useless. I just hope they don't treat this like the phoenix bugs...
Blizzard: We have fixed a bug that allowed zerg units to drop where there was no space. This only comes into play 1% of the time. Drops are still possible, just not in tightly clumped units.
Another brain dead. This kills (if OP's claims are correct) an entire approach to the match up that was one of the most demanding of skill and multitasking from both sides. And for the entire zerg progamer population, I'd say it's at least 5-10%, and for some players it's 90%+ [roach bane drop, infestor opening into bane drop into ultra, Morrow's ling bane into bane drop into infestor]
On September 13 2011 02:41 DoomsVille wrote: To be fair, why should banelings need ground space to drop? Logically, the banelings are just dropping on top of units and exploding. Not the same as a unit landing on the ground and than attacking.
And I'm talking from a purely practical perspective. Not a gameplay or SC2 perspective. If you drop a bomb on top of someone, you don't need it to hit the ground first lol
Their attack is exploding. They are not bombs. They are units. Just because something is called a bomb in a game (by spectators, not designers, mind you) because it looks like something in the real world doesn't mean that it has to take the form of that specific thing. How do you know what it was intended to be or look like?
Balance/Bug Fixes aside, the entire concept of a baneling having to have to have space to land is completely retarded in and of itself.
Why? Is it not a moving unit that occupies space? Where are my exception units that are allowed to bend the rules of the game (and physics for that matter...)
I'm going to give you time to think about it. It's not that hard.
On September 13 2011 02:05 Olsson wrote: Great. Two things viable against protoss deathball:
Fungal: Nerfed but will still be decent.
Baneling Rain: Completely nullified and worthless now.
Don't forget the neural parasite nerf
so in your head , an infestor can neural parasite a mothership or a battlecruiser ...makes perfect sense
it's not about what makes RL sense, there's enough hand-wavium that goes on that it's not the point at all. It's about the balance of the situation. This however is entirely off-topic for the post at hand.
If the original claims were true there would have been a massive balance shift (combined with NP/FG nerfs) but it looks like this is not as drastic a change as was thought, so we don't really need to worry.
On September 13 2011 02:05 Olsson wrote: Great. Two things viable against protoss deathball:
Fungal: Nerfed but will still be decent.
Baneling Rain: Completely nullified and worthless now.
Don't forget the neural parasite nerf
so in your head , an infestor can neural parasite a mothership or a battlecruiser ...makes perfect sense
How is that any less logical than being able to NP a siege tank?
I mean I don't understand the logic that you need room to land anyways. Should roaches not be able to unburrow in the middle of an enemy army? Should forcefields not be able to be cast where there are units, but only in empty open ground?
On September 13 2011 02:05 Olsson wrote: Great. Two things viable against protoss deathball:
Fungal: Nerfed but will still be decent.
Baneling Rain: Completely nullified and worthless now.
Don't forget the neural parasite nerf
so in your head , an infestor can neural parasite a mothership or a battlecruiser ...makes perfect sense
It's a bug creature belonging to a race of telepathic aliens capable of FTL travel despite having no technology. Whether or not it makes "sense" for it to mind control a flying saucer is irrelevant.
Tested this out a bit on EU PTR server: Here are my conclusions:
There is an issue with dropping on deathballs:
- If you issue a drop command on a huge and tight ball, then banelings will temporarily cease dropping when around the middle of the ball. It won't "stop" the drop command, as it will automatically resume towards the outskirts of the ball again.
4 banelings attempted dropped on top of a super-tight ball. 3 banelings dropped at beginning, all hit on the outskirt. Last baneling was dropped towards the other end of the ball.
Banelings dropped without problems on a not-super tight ball.
- Banelings are now "displaced" a little bit when dropped around the outskirts of the ball. A guess, which is my own rough estimate, would be that banelings can be displaced about 3 units range before the drop command temporarily ceases. Bear in mind that even small holes in the clump are potential dropsites, so these "halts" in drops would probably be very very uncommon.
- I recreated what I thought was a typical 1-a deathball vs ultra-ling-banelingbombs scenario, the protoss ball spread out in a concave that was thin enough to apparently not stop the drops from occuring.
- Usually, you can move a transport unit around freely after initiating a "drop while moving" command, but if you reissue a move command while under the "drop while moving command" over undroppable space, the drop command will be halted. Bear in mind the drop command would otherwise automatically resume when reaching the outskirts of the ball.
TLDR: Bug is there, but it probably requires unrealistic conditions to take full effect, though it may reduce overall damage capabilities of the baneling drops.
On September 13 2011 02:36 Jayrod wrote: lol jesus, what's with the hostility towards me. I was just explaining what the fix does. I just said baneling bombs were never intended to be able to be dropped on top of stacked up units. The way they wrote the bug fix note is confusing but thats because it HAD to be confusing to be correct. The bug allowed them to drop on top of stacked up armies, but it only happened when dropping on fog of war. Try dropping banelings on your own zerg army that is stacked up... it doesnt work at all... there's no room.
I think baneling bombs are exciting to watch, but its still a bug... not sure if they should fix it or not...
Why shouldn't you be able to drop *bombs* that explode upon the head of the aforementioned enemy units if there is no grounds available ? They can perfectly blow up before touching ground, why shouldn't this be logical ?
Would be quite easy to determine if the units making the ball underneath are friend or foe... Friend : no landing, no room, foe : why the fuck do we care ? BOOOOMMMM § (on a programmer point of view) The fact that it's a "unit" by the game logic, which need space on the ground, is a design flaw, and could be easily fixed.
I also don't understand why every time Blizzard makes a change you don't like, the necessary conclusion is "Blizzard is fucking stupid". The arrogance and lack of logic from some of you is astounding.
Do none of you adhere to White-Ra's "More GG, More Win"? That's Blizzard's entire game model. They don't have an issue with putting out tons and tons of patches, because they know that even if they make a mistake, they can fix it. I am happy they are trying to make the best game they can. That is smart. Yes, at a certain point I would like patches to stop as well. But come on! The fact that they are patching does not make them stupid.
On September 13 2011 02:49 FrodaN wrote: So...Blizzard meant to put in an intelligent nerf, but instead broke it to make baneling drops useless. I just hope they don't treat this like the phoenix bugs...
Blizzard: We have fixed a bug that allowed zerg units to drop where there was no space. This only comes into play 1% of the time. Drops are still possible, just not in tightly clumped units.
Another brain dead. This kills (if OP's claims are correct) an entire approach to the match up that was one of the most demanding of skill and multitasking from both sides.
You have no information to back up any of that claim. What if it takes amazing control to get the protoss units to the point where no banelings can be dropped on them? To me it sounds like a huge risk. What if you mess it up and you lose your whole army? You are clumping your units into a small area and in the hopes they take no damage from an AOE.
If its as hard as magic boxing mutas, I think we are ok.
On September 13 2011 02:49 FrodaN wrote: So...Blizzard meant to put in an intelligent nerf, but instead broke it to make baneling drops useless. I just hope they don't treat this like the phoenix bugs...
Blizzard: We have fixed a bug that allowed zerg units to drop where there was no space. This only comes into play 1% of the time. Drops are still possible, just not in tightly clumped units.
Another brain dead. This kills (if OP's claims are correct) an entire approach to the match up that was one of the most demanding of skill and multitasking from both sides.
You have no information to back up any of that claim. What if it takes amazing control to get the protoss units to the point where no banelings can be dropped on them? To me it sounds like a huge risk. What if you mess it up and you lose your whole army? You are clumping your units into a small area and in the hopes they take no damage from an AOE.
If its as hard as magic boxing mutas, I think we are ok.
What about I'm high masters on Korea and I've played all styles to death that I can think of? Perhaps you don't understand how hard it is for protoss to stop their probes from dying to banes going to them every 1 minute game time, and to multitask to stop 2 overlords of lings going to each base every minute, burrowing and hiding in the main to morph into banes. You also clearly don't know how hard it is for zerg to execute this whilst getting to 5 base before 15:00 and staying low money, and also macroing enough to not die to an all-in counter.
Compared to what. Infestor turtle? Roach hydra corruptor A-move? Lol. Anyone can have perfect macro doing this. To have perfect macro whilst doing the above morrow-strategy is hard for both sides, which is where the multitasking part of my claim comes from.
The micro part of my claim is self-evident.... Protoss have to split like a biatch, and instead of A moving and spamming E zerg now has to drop from each overlord and move command them optimally over the protoss partitions.
I've tested it on the PTR, and honestly, I don't think that not being able to drop will ever happen in an actual game. For that to happend you need a very large group of units, with no space.
BUT, when you drop even a small group (10 zealots for instance), the banneling is dropped on the side instead of behing drop on the middle, resulting in much less damage.
Also, a forcefield ring would probably completely defend against the banneling drop, protoss taking no damage. Not sure if it is viable though.
On September 13 2011 03:08 EmilA wrote: Tested this out a bit on EU PTR server: Here are my conclusions:
There is an issue with dropping on deathballs:
- If you issue a drop command on a huge and tight ball, then banelings will temporarily cease dropping when around the middle of the ball. It won't "stop" the drop command, as it will automatically resume towards the outskirts of the ball again.
4 banelings attempted dropped on top of a super-tight ball. 3 banelings dropped at beginning, all hit on the outskirt. Last baneling was dropped towards the other end of the ball.
Banelings dropped without problems on a not-super tight ball.
- Banelings are now "displaced" a little bit when dropped around the outskirts of the ball. A guess, which is my own rough estimate, would be that banelings can be displaced about 3 units range before the drop command temporarily ceases. Bear in mind that even small holes in the clump are potential dropsites, so these "halts" in drops would probably be very very uncommon.
- I recreated what I thought was a typical 1-a deathball vs ultra-ling-banelingbombs scenario, the protoss ball spread out in a concave that was thin enough to apparently not stop the drops from occuring.
- Usually, you can move a transport unit around freely after initiating a "drop while moving" command, but if you reissue a move command while under the "drop while moving command" over undroppable space, the drop command will be halted. Bear in mind the drop command would otherwise automatically resume when reaching the outskirts of the ball.
TLDR: Bug is there, but it probably requires unrealistic conditions to take full effect, though it may reduce overall damage capabilities of the baneling drops.
I think that if you do the same thorough testing on 1.3 you will find that the results don't differ because you have never been able to drop on top of units if you issue the command with vision, you always drop in the gaps and the banelings can be displaced quite a lot.
On September 13 2011 02:49 FrodaN wrote: So...Blizzard meant to put in an intelligent nerf, but instead broke it to make baneling drops useless. I just hope they don't treat this like the phoenix bugs...
Blizzard: We have fixed a bug that allowed zerg units to drop where there was no space. This only comes into play 1% of the time. Drops are still possible, just not in tightly clumped units.
Another brain dead. This kills (if OP's claims are correct) an entire approach to the match up that was one of the most demanding of skill and multitasking from both sides.
You have no information to back up any of that claim. What if it takes amazing control to get the protoss units to the point where no banelings can be dropped on them? To me it sounds like a huge risk. What if you mess it up and you lose your whole army? You are clumping your units into a small area and in the hopes they take no damage from an AOE.
If its as hard as magic boxing mutas, I think we are ok.
Clumping up units is as hard as magic boxing, are you kidding me?
Baneling bombs were my go-to unit in ZvP. Its actually a unit combination where I can come back from a slight macro disadvantage. Now the Protoss will just forcefield all around their army to make them ball up as much as possible to negate Baneling drops on them while the Stalkers snipe the overlords out.
I wouldn't rage as much as I would if Protoss would actually just engage in a dynamic match up. But all of them just sit on their 3 bases and ride the game out. They don't need to harass, they don't need to split their army up, they just have to sit behind a cannon wall and creep along the map taking more bases until the Zerg becomes ineffective. This makes ZvP for me a very boring match up where I have to do my damn best to harass from multiple sides and drop Banelings, micro roaches and zerglings where one misstep will mean me losing all of my army.
It just dumbs down the match up even more for the Protoss while making it tougher for the Zerg. That warp prism buff? You won't see them being used because the Protoss won't need it in the following patch anyway.
I dont understand this change. Technically you when you drop something from higher altitude, there should be a chance that it lands ON things and not always beside them
I am desperate for a situation report. All these changes blizzard are making without properly addressing them to the crowd pisses me off.
On September 13 2011 02:49 FrodaN wrote: So...Blizzard meant to put in an intelligent nerf, but instead broke it to make baneling drops useless. I just hope they don't treat this like the phoenix bugs...
Blizzard: We have fixed a bug that allowed zerg units to drop where there was no space. This only comes into play 1% of the time. Drops are still possible, just not in tightly clumped units.
Another brain dead. This kills (if OP's claims are correct) an entire approach to the match up that was one of the most demanding of skill and multitasking from both sides.
You have no information to back up any of that claim. What if it takes amazing control to get the protoss units to the point where no banelings can be dropped on them? To me it sounds like a huge risk. What if you mess it up and you lose your whole army? You are clumping your units into a small area and in the hopes they take no damage from an AOE.
If its as hard as magic boxing mutas, I think we are ok.
What about I'm high masters on Korea and I've played all styles to death that I can think of? Perhaps you don't understand how hard it is for protoss to stop their probes from dying to banes going to them every 1 minute game time, and to multitask to stop 2 overlords of lings going to each base every minute, burrowing and hiding in the main to morph into banes. You also clearly don't know how hard it is for zerg to execute this whilst getting to 5 base before 15:00 and staying low money, and also macroing enough to not die to an all-in counter.
Compared to what. Infestor turtle? Roach hydra corruptor A-move? Lol. Anyone can have perfect macro doing this.
As I said, -this style is comparable in micro to no other style, for both sides. -This style is comparable in multitasking to mutas and roach/hydra drops.
What's wrong with these claims? Is there not enough "information" for you?
Well your clearly better than me. But still, I don't think the the bug change has anything to do with the thinks you just said, but I'm high plat on NA. But I am going to believe that you are masters in the Korean server and accept the fact that you know more than me.
Still, the idea of clumping your units closer together to avoid aoe damage sounds risky to me. I won't be trying or counting on it any time soon, so any zerg playing against me is fine.
On September 13 2011 02:59 hugman wrote: Watch this video again (this is from 1.3) Look at the last baneling dropped from the last overlord. It is dropped out of synch (later than it should be) and it's dropped further forward than you'd expect, outside the zealot ball. Presumably because there was no room to drop. If that's the case then I don't think anything has changed and the guy making the experiment wasn't careful enough to have identical zealot clumps.
"Transports can no longer unload units into a dense area if the original order was issued on a fogged location."
Which I would, by reading it alone, interpret as "transports never could drop on dense areas, but there was a bug that made this possible if the dense area in question was fogged during command-time. That has now been fixed". Don't think the bugged case ever applied in common ZvP bling drop scenarios - you move your ovies on top of the army then issue the drop command - far as I know no one asks their ovies to drop into fog even if you know the enemy is there, unless it's a bling drop into the mineral line, which is almost never dense.
It seems like they just changed the drop command to check if there is space before every drop instead of when the command is given. On live you can't drop in the middle of a big tight zealot group either, unless you start dropping on the edge of the group. After one unit successfully drops it will automatically push the units aside to make room for the other ones. But even on PTR there is a radius where the game will look for empty space to drop if there isn't any under the overlord. The radius is about 3 zealot widths so this will not completely prevent drops unless you make deathballs at least 6 zealots in diameter and without any ling-sized holes. It might however reduce damage from baneling splash since they would be dropped on the edge of the ball rather than in the center.
On September 13 2011 03:18 neoghaleon55 wrote: I am desperate for a situation report. All these changes blizzard are making without properly addressing them to the crowd pisses me off.
they do this after the changes are through for some time. No need to heat up the drama if the change is not going live. (and everytime they say why they did it people drama as well.)
One of those changes adding micro, while people complain about no micro involved and everytime somethings needs more micro people go omg terrible. Aoes generally roflstomp lower leagues especially the zerg ones. expect more of those micro increasements to aoe units. Colossi are probably up next patch, wonder what will happen they they will be harder to micro, or if they get a tank like ultra damage nerf.
On September 13 2011 02:49 FrodaN wrote: So...Blizzard meant to put in an intelligent nerf, but instead broke it to make baneling drops useless. I just hope they don't treat this like the phoenix bugs...
Blizzard: We have fixed a bug that allowed zerg units to drop where there was no space. This only comes into play 1% of the time. Drops are still possible, just not in tightly clumped units.
I don't see the problem of dropping explosive matter from the air into the ground even if there is no space on the ground personally. It's called bombing !
On September 13 2011 03:08 flowSthead wrote: I also don't understand why every time Blizzard makes a change you don't like, the necessary conclusion is "Blizzard is fucking stupid". The arrogance and lack of logic from some of you is astounding.
Do none of you adhere to White-Ra's "More GG, More Win"? That's Blizzard's entire game model. They don't have an issue with putting out tons and tons of patches, because they know that even if they make a mistake, they can fix it. I am happy they are trying to make the best game they can. That is smart. Yes, at a certain point I would like patches to stop as well. But come on! The fact that they are patching does not make them stupid.
This mentality worked for Diablo 2, because Blizzard never intended it to be balanced.
This mentality has been terrible for WoW, because Blizzard tweaks one thing and breaks two others. Blizzard's stance doesn't take into account the limitations and innovations of current/future players and the result is not necessarily a better game. It results in a more streamlined game, which may ultimately leave less intricacies for top players to manage.
It may fix a bug in the engine, but it also affects balance, especially when banelings get dropped on the side instead of in the middle. The BW mutalisk example is apt for the entire situation. Not only was it a bug that wasn't discovered for 7 years but once it was revealed, it became an extremely exciting and crucial part of ZvZ and ZvT. Things take time to develop, and just because it's a bug doesn't mean it's bad for the game.
On September 13 2011 02:59 hugman wrote: Watch this video again (this is from 1.3) Look at the last baneling dropped from the last overlord. It is dropped out of synch (later than it should be) and it's dropped further forward than you'd expect, outside the zealot ball. Presumably because there was no room to drop. If that's the case then I don't think anything has changed and the guy making the experiment wasn't careful enough to have identical zealot clumps.
"Transports can no longer unload units into a dense area if the original order was issued on a fogged location."
Which I would, by reading it alone, interpret as "transports never could drop on dense areas, but there was a bug that made this possible if the dense area in question was fogged during command-time. That has now been fixed". Don't think the bugged case ever applied in common ZvP bling drop scenarios - you move your ovies on top of the army then issue the drop command - far as I know no one asks their ovies to drop into fog even if you know the enemy is there, unless it's a bling drop into the mineral line, which is almost never dense.
So happy baneling drops on the mineral line are gone. That stuff was ridiculous. Especially when they faked dropped an overlord, and you have to pull your probes every time.
On September 13 2011 02:03 demonik187 wrote: As much as I hate to say it, Banelings drops in a dense area actually make more sense because they never technically should touch the ground as they explode on impact. Other units I could see not being able to drop if the area is too packed with units/stuff.
then maybe banelings should do friendly fire aswell?? since hey , it makes a HELL lot of sense that when something EXPLODES it doesn't care if it's friend or foe right?
nonono, that would make too much sense... then spells like Psionic Storm or stuff like Siege mode tanks would have to do friendly damage too!
On September 13 2011 03:28 SoKHo wrote: So happy baneling drops on the mineral line are gone. That stuff was ridiculous. Especially when they faked dropped an overlord, and you have to pull your probes every time.
On September 13 2011 03:28 SoKHo wrote: So happy baneling drops on the mineral line are gone. That stuff was ridiculous. Especially when they faked dropped an overlord, and you have to pull your probes every time.
Why was it ridiculous? You're supposed to build 2+ cannons per line vs this strategy. You seem to not be doing this if he keeps faking you. Why weren't you doing this?
On September 13 2011 03:08 flowSthead wrote: I also don't understand why every time Blizzard makes a change you don't like, the necessary conclusion is "Blizzard is fucking stupid". The arrogance and lack of logic from some of you is astounding.
Do none of you adhere to White-Ra's "More GG, More Win"? That's Blizzard's entire game model. They don't have an issue with putting out tons and tons of patches, because they know that even if they make a mistake, they can fix it. I am happy they are trying to make the best game they can. That is smart. Yes, at a certain point I would like patches to stop as well. But come on! The fact that they are patching does not make them stupid.
This mentality worked for Diablo 2, because Blizzard never intended it to be balanced.
This mentality has been terrible for WoW, because Blizzard tweaks one thing and breaks two others. Blizzard's stance doesn't take into account the limitations and innovations of current/future players and the result is not necessarily a better game. It results in a more streamlined game, which may ultimately leave less intricacies for top players to manage.
It may fix a bug in the engine, but it also affects balance, especially when banelings get dropped on the side instead of in the middle. The BW mutalisk example is apt for the entire situation. Not only was it a bug that wasn't discovered for 7 years but once it was revealed, it became an extremely exciting and crucial part of ZvZ and ZvT. Things take time to develop, and just because it's a bug doesn't mean it's bad for the game.
The WoW-ification balance of Starcraft2 is something I both dread and fear. WoW used to be fun when there were strong traits about characters that made them feel imba. Many in fact were but the classes were at least fun to play. A shadow priest was something unique, as was a mage. I enjoyed having something particularly strong about my class, such as Vampiric Embrace for priests and the best AoE (among other things) for mages. Now that everything is near equal, the only differences are cosmetic. I hope Blizzard can look at how seriously WoW Arena is considered as an e-sport (Imo Starcraft 2 surpassed it before it was officially released), how many disillusioned or bored players there are, and not screw it up for Starcraft 2.
It's not this "bug fix" that concerns me, but the proposed Neural Parasite change. Why not just lower the range, making it potentially more unforgiving? From what I can tell, their issue is with late game Zerg armies that have a ton of infestors being very difficult to deal with. Ultras will suffer the same fate as WoW classes (even though this trait isn't often talked about or key) if they lose their unique status of being immune to stuns and mind control. In spite of my knee-jerk feeling to take everything Idra says about balance with a grain of salt, I actually am starting to think this change is "utterly retarded."
To elaborate, since that was kind of a shitty post, if the protoss FF's his army into a small ball, he'll be vulnerable to fungals. If he spreads, he'll be vulnerable to baneling drops. Why is this nerf an issue? It doesn't seem to change that much.
The real bad part is removing FoW queued commands on mineral line drops. That's silly.
EmilA is correct, according to my tests, baneling bombs are still possible but it will always hit the outskirts of a deathball. This means the overall DPS of banelings have been slaughtered in this matchup, because instead of a the full 360 degree splash on top of units, the splash will hit around 180 degrees of units. This distributes baneling splash without any effort from the protoss, I'd have to disagree with this change.
MS paint added for further explanation:
Black dots w/purple outlines are stalkers, green circle is bane splash.
Tested it. I'm having mixed results replicating the bug.
However, if this is the case, I think it's safe to say my switch to Protoss or Terran will be solidified. If Blizzard doesn't want us to fight Protoss deathballs with masterful neurals or Baneling drops, then I cannot think of another way to really defeat them. Archons do have Ultralisks listed as a Zerg counter to them on the Help page, however, Ultralisks can also get sniped by a large number of Zealots surrounding or from the criticial mass of ranged units, hence the effectiveness of Blink Stalkers too.
I think this patch will fuck up the metagame for a bit and ensure both Terran and Protoss dominance. Sure fungals will still be a good idea but the point of Neural Parasite will be mostly negated with the change to not affect Massive units.
I cannot say if this will be the end of Zerg because not even pros have really mastered the race yet, and there are changes in the metagame all the time at the moment.
In the case of Colossus, I think it will take several methods to take them out, namely large Corruptor/Brood Lord numbers and a few key fungals in order to deal enough area based damage to the deathball whilst your ground forces push further in.
In the case of Chargelot/Archon/HT..... probably a much scarier situation. The worst a Zerg can do with fungals is neural parasite the HTs and make them either feedback or storm each other, or attempt to fungal the ball whilst kiting the chargelot numbers as best as they can.
I think Chargelot/Archon/HT will be a much more difficult composition to counter post patch, and will be a style played like Zerg, with the goal to spread out and prevent fungals as well as getting a surround with chargelots whilst using the Archons and HT combo to deal huge area damage and harm any spellcasters.
Plus baneling drop nerfs will make the MorroW style much less effective.
On September 13 2011 03:36 Soluhwin wrote: EmilA is correct, according to my tests, baneling bombs are still possible but it will always hit the outskirts of a deathball. This means the overall DPS of banelings have been slaughtered in this matchup, because instead of a the full 360 degree splash on top of units, the splash will hit around 180 degrees of units. This distributes baneling splash without any effort from the protoss, I'd have to disagree with this change.
MS paint added for further explanation:
Black dots w/purple outlines are stalkers, green circle is bane splash.
Also to all the folks who are saying that this would make every protoss try to squeeze their army to stop the drop from happening, let me add myself to the protosses who have been saying that is a ridiculously bad idea and that I would personally never do it. There is no way to reliably clamp your units instantly as far as I know and banelings are pretty darn small units. In the heat of battle all it'll take is for 1 zealot to squirm abit trying to get to the roaches hitting his fellows for your entire army to evaporate. Sorry, unless someone can prove me wrong and demonstrate the existence of an instant and reliable way to squeeze my army, my first reaction to a pack of ovies coming overhead will remain blink, spread, ff, kite.
Dont mind this change and i tink its is good, as long as theres chain fungal growth.
Just moving two overlords in two mineral lines and then continuing to macro etc was too big of an advantage compared the the damage it does to the protoss imo, if he doesnt pull probes in time, kinda like zerg bfh^^
On September 13 2011 01:55 arbitrageur wrote: If current 1.4.0 PTR goes through, it seems Zerg can no longer use baneling drops against Protoss (see end of post for for ppl that semi-dispute this claim as well as others that endorse it in tests). You can still technically do it (if the video I've linked is an accurate representation of the change) but the tech isn't going to be worth it because the damage output in a big fight may be ~30% as much as it used to be, as you'll see in the video (perhaps 0% because they can now FF wall their army).
On September 13 2011 02:03 demonik187 wrote: As much as I hate to say it, Banelings drops in a dense area actually make more sense because they never technically should touch the ground as they explode on impact. Other units I could see not being able to drop if the area is too packed with units/stuff.
then maybe banelings should do friendly fire aswell?? since hey , it makes a HELL lot of sense that when something EXPLODES it doesn't care if it's friend or foe right?
nonono, that would make too much sense... then spells like Psionic Storm or stuff like Siege mode tanks would have to do friendly damage too!
On another note, wtb fungal friendly fire ^_^
wtf are you playing sc2? O_O
or I failed to see the sarcasm in that post sorry^^
€: on a site note, how does that effect medivac drops btw? If a terran ques up move/unload command behind the mineral line and I happen to have lets say 2-3 stalkers in "that area" will the unload command be canceled the medivac keeps floating in the air or does it automatically move to a free spot to drop
basically what I want to know is if its the same as with terran buldings then where you have to land the cc again if a zergling was under the original landing spot
On September 13 2011 03:36 Soluhwin wrote: EmilA is correct, according to my tests, baneling bombs are still possible but it will always hit the outskirts of a deathball. This means the overall DPS of banelings have been slaughtered in this matchup, because instead of a the full 360 degree splash on top of units, the splash will hit around 180 degrees of units. This distributes baneling splash without any effort from the protoss, I'd have to disagree with this change.
MS paint added for further explanation:
Black dots w/purple outlines are stalkers, green circle is bane splash.
Yeah that picture is a good TL;DR for my post as well. But if you make the ball big enough and cluster it tightly, there'll be some space where units won't be dropped at all.
On September 13 2011 03:36 Soluhwin wrote: EmilA is correct, according to my tests, baneling bombs are still possible but it will always hit the outskirts of a deathball. This means the overall DPS of banelings have been slaughtered in this matchup, because instead of a the full 360 degree splash on top of units, the splash will hit around 180 degrees of units. This distributes baneling splash without any effort from the protoss, I'd have to disagree with this change.
MS paint added for further explanation:
Black dots w/purple outlines are stalkers, green circle is bane splash.
Hmmm, I'm curious. Did you test the 360 degree splash case in 1.3 extensively too? Like I said, the tone of the patch note implied that you never could drop on fully clumped units even in 1.3.
On September 13 2011 02:38 Horse...falcon wrote: Executor! Banelings are falling from the sky!
Quick, everyone huddle closer!
:D
This does make the INTENDED mechanic seem ridiculous.
And you are aware of the complex Bio/Cellmechanisms and reactions that occur in a Zerg body ?
I guess not and no one realy knows this its realy hard for the best scientists of the Terrans to even find out what kind of Biological weapons they can use to make mass Zerg destroying weapons u know a against insects u just use spray to kill em´ .
Thats what made Zerg even that hard to deal with for the Humans , hell even the Protoss cant realy figure them out.
But you know...
there are rumors...
some people said that banelings have problems with air pressure .. more precisely they saw when a overlord had no more creep stored and looked kind of thirsty n stuff like the people who survived and thought they were doomed saw the Banelings exploding in the air.
Thats why the theory is that Overlords use their creep as protection of the pressure in comparision to normaly just dropping n stuff .
That might explain aswell why they are getting so close to the ground i mean the farer away the better right ?
But we cant confirm rumors because Overlords seem to be hard to get thirsty i mean the Zerg used as main planet a fucking vulcan landscape their biologic structure is strong... mysterious... and effective...
maybe Kerrigan will reveal some of their strenghs and weaknesses in HoTS but thats very unlikely .. well i guess aslong they have Xel´Naga stuff they are fine GL HF universe lets see who survives.
On September 13 2011 02:03 demonik187 wrote: As much as I hate to say it, Banelings drops in a dense area actually make more sense because they never technically should touch the ground as they explode on impact. Other units I could see not being able to drop if the area is too packed with units/stuff.
then maybe banelings should do friendly fire aswell?? since hey , it makes a HELL lot of sense that when something EXPLODES it doesn't care if it's friend or foe right?
nonono, that would make too much sense... then spells like Psionic Storm or stuff like Siege mode tanks would have to do friendly damage too!
On another note, wtb fungal friendly fire ^_^
wtf are you playing sc2? O_O
or I failed to see the sarcasm in that post sorry^^
€: on a site note, how does that effect medivac drops btw? If a terran ques up move/unload command behind the mineral line and I happen to have lets say 2-3 stalkers in "that area" will the unload command be canceled the medivac keeps floating in the air or does it automatically move to a free spot to drop
basically what I want to know is if its the same as with terran buldings then where you have to land the cc again if a zergling was under the original landing spot
Haha it was clearly sarcasm. Any post that beings with "that would make too much sense" is always going to have sarcasm, not to mention that even without that snippet you'd still be able to tell it's sarcasm.
Being from Germany I take is English is your second language .
logically thinking without accounting technical mumbo jumbo, baneling drops as a tactic should punish protoss user (or terran or zerg nvm) who neglects army control i.e clumped deathball, no spreading etc., banelings are one of few SPLASH dmg units in zerg arsenal, only Fungal comes as second weapon to fight clumpy balls.
Zerg is getting destroyed for having clumped units from siege tanks and collosus primarily. And everyone cries how SC2 players are neglecting micro, isnt it ironic when "bug fix" suddenly favors clumping units instead of actually manualy controling them. And no, clumped units happen often when you are near wall / behind forcefield etc. Im ok with this if they remove auto-clumping stupid AI.
On September 13 2011 03:36 Soluhwin wrote: EmilA is correct, according to my tests, baneling bombs are still possible but it will always hit the outskirts of a deathball. This means the overall DPS of banelings have been slaughtered in this matchup, because instead of a the full 360 degree splash on top of units, the splash will hit around 180 degrees of units. This distributes baneling splash without any effort from the protoss, I'd have to disagree with this change.
MS paint added for further explanation:
Black dots w/purple outlines are stalkers, green circle is bane splash.
Hmmm, I'm curious. Did you test the 360 degree splash case in 1.3 extensively too? Like I said, the tone of the patch note implied that you never could drop on fully clumped units even in 1.3.
I tested on 1.3 - while you can't issue a drop command while on top of the ball, you can issue the drop command on the outskirts of the ball and it won't stop no matter how tightly clumped the ball gets.
if blizzard thinks zerg aoe is too strong, can't they just remove fungal snare? first we lose NP, which actually takes positioning / micro, and now the damage from baneling drops appears to be severely attenuated by this "fix". If blizzard wants to get rid of F + click syndrome in the matchups (which they should), this is NOT the way to do it.
On September 13 2011 01:55 arbitrageur wrote: If current 1.4.0 PTR goes through, it seems Zerg can no longer use baneling drops against Protoss (see end of post for for ppl that semi-dispute this claim as well as others that endorse it in tests). You can still technically do it (if the video I've linked is an accurate representation of the change) but the tech isn't going to be worth it because the damage output in a big fight may be ~30% as much as it used to be, as you'll see in the video (perhaps 0% because they can now FF wall their army).
The change, under bug-fixes:
Transports can no longer unload units into a dense area if the original order was issued on a fogged location.
This thread, from April 2011, dealt with this issue as a bug. It contains elements of the same discussion--clumping versus non-clumping.
I'm fine with them dropping directly on units (unlike P and T). But I also agree with those who are claiming that this IS a bug.
So I assume that this means that the effect shown in the OPs video (banelings not dropping on clumped armies), was not changed at all in the patch when you have vision (based on observations seen in the april thread). The only thing the patch is changing is that you can't drop onto clumped areas when you issue the command without vision, as described by the patch notes.
So baneling drops should work exactly as they have before patch 1.4.
cool, now protoss will never have to learn how to micro, terran actually takes splitting, and now protoss just has to stack there army tightly together and 1a!
On September 13 2011 03:41 Arcanefrost wrote: I hope Morrow wasn't drinking a hot beverage while reading this.
On topic: Good change, but the problem will still be ling/infestor completely stopping all toss pressure in the midgame.
LOL at the morrow comment.
this is a terrible change... protoss laying down forcefields and microing back was a cool gameplay mechanic that developed to combat the overlord drops.
banelings on paper are terrible against protoss, its just everyone is too lazy to not clusterfuck their units.
so, blizzard encouraging making ball of death (keeping army tightly in one cluster) and neglecting micro (spreading army, sniping ovies). And nerfing zergs while protoss struggling in PvT.
thought they knew what they're doing its depressing.
On September 13 2011 03:55 Avril_Lavigne wrote: cool, now protoss will never have to learn how to micro, terran actually takes splitting, and now protoss just has to stack there army tightly together and 1a!
Jokes on you, you dont even have to 1a cause youre standing still.
in all seriousness zerg has the easiest and least consequential micro requirements by FAR.. baneling drops are no exception... its hilarious to read people that are saying its difficult. Its pathetically easy... if its difficult for you, maybe world of warcraft would suit you better.
It is no longer possible to drop a unit in a dense area as explained above. This is definitely the way it should always have been. Previously, units dropped would push the units away from it in order to make space which is why baneling drops worked on super dense groups, but no longer do. In most actual game situations, this is highly unlikely to affect anything since unless you are spamming a command to group close, there will always be some room in between units, especially with stalkers in the mix.
How will this affect the game?
It won't. The situation in which your units are so tightly clumped that banelings will actually show up on the outside of the group is really really hard to do and has to be done in an instant. Usually the best idea when you see a bunch of overlords is to run away. If you decide "ok, i'm going to group up to prevent the banelings from hitting the middle of the group. If you screw up at all, which is the most likely scenario unless you are perfect, then you just lost the game for yourself. 99.9% of the time, protoss will still be running away and 99.9% of the time, banelings will still land in the middle of the group.
The fog of war thing I believe has to do with not being able to drop units if the area was under fog of war, it seems however, that this change lead to this unintended bug fix which they decided to report as a single bug fix.
On September 13 2011 03:57 Mastermind wrote: I dont think I ever won a game where zerg used baneling drops so I am glad this has been removed. Such an OP tactic.
If there were futures contracts for individual's I'd short you so hard lol
On September 13 2011 04:01 darmousseh wrote: How will this affect the game?
It won't. The situation in which your units are so tightly clumped that banelings will actually show up on the outside of the group is really really hard to do and has to be done in an instant.
Im just kinda laughing my ass of as they proceed to label queing drop as bug, next time they label everything as "bug" so they can proceed to change any mechanic without consequence of having discussion ("thats not balance issue it was only a bug, everyone used and we failed to notice for 1.5 year").
On September 13 2011 03:55 Avril_Lavigne wrote: cool, now protoss will never have to learn how to micro, terran actually takes splitting, and now protoss just has to stack there army tightly together and 1a!
Jokes on you, you dont even have to 1a cause youre standing still.
in all seriousness zerg has the easiest and least consequential micro requirements by FAR.. baneling drops are no exception... its hilarious to read people that are saying its difficult. Its pathetically easy... if its difficult for you, maybe world of warcraft would suit you better.
It's actually difficult. It's easy to drop, but it's hard to do it optimally. If protoss splits in 3 directions, you want to move command groups of overlords after individually D-clicking each one and neuraling. doing this efficiently is not easy. Doing it inefficiently is.
On September 13 2011 03:57 Mastermind wrote: I dont think I ever won a game where zerg used baneling drops so I am glad this has been removed. Such an OP tactic.
Yes, just as improving or adjusting to strategies and controlling your army.
Top master protoss here, and if this is an intended change I must say that blizzard is approaching balancing in the completly wrong way. Protoss is a very one dimensional, clumpsy race atm. Just nerfing random stuff that is good against the only way protoss can play is just plain stupid. Dont fix zerg, fix protoss blizzard.
On September 13 2011 04:01 darmousseh wrote: How will this affect the game?
It won't. The situation in which your units are so tightly clumped that banelings will actually show up on the outside of the group is really really hard to do and has to be done in an instant.
Evidence?
I know I've tried using a stalker to plug a hole to prevent a ling runby. Suffice to say, I never tried it again.
i was bored just now and just tested this in unit tester and it's basically bullshit. Currently (before patch), you can't unload banelings on top of a clumped up army with no gaps, moving drop or no moving drop. the only way it works is if there are tiny gaps in the army. which is why it works in the 'pre-patch 1.4' video.
i need further testing for 100% confidence in this but it seems all this talk is just for nothing..PTR does nothing
On September 13 2011 03:55 Avril_Lavigne wrote: cool, now protoss will never have to learn how to micro, terran actually takes splitting, and now protoss just has to stack there army tightly together and 1a!
How can you split when your army is fungal growthd lol.
On September 13 2011 02:31 Sated wrote: Zergs realise that this is a bugfix, right? Units shouldn't be able to be dropped onto locations were there literally isn't any space for them. Can you imagine a Protoss ball politely making room for a marine to land in the middle of them? Of course not. The same is true with Banelings. Sounds like this is the dropship equivalent of stopping buildings landing by putting a unit under them.
What has "supposed to be -x-" got to do with anything? As already mentioned there were plenty of bugs in BW that made the balance what it was. ZvT would be unwinnable without mutalisk stacking.
Last time I checked, this isn't Brood War. God forbid Blizzard wants to release a game with as few bugs as possible. I suppose Viking flowers should return?
Yes you're right. Let's destroy good gameplay because it wasn't part of the original model of how the drop mechanic works.
Everyone posting in this thread, better read the thread first. We're having the same arguments over and over. Actually, "gosublade", "Sausefag" etc should at least read the edited OP before posting...
On September 13 2011 04:13 Zelniq wrote: i was bored just now and just tested this in unit tester and it's basically bullshit. Currently (before patch), you can't unload banelings on top of a clumped up army with no gaps, moving drop or no moving drop. the only way it works is if there are tiny gaps in the army. which is why it works in the 'pre-patch 1.4' video.
i need further testing for 100% confidence in this but it seems all this talk is just for nothing..PTR does nothing
And yet this topic is still open and ongoing despite numerous people stating the same thing and others just ignoring it.
On September 13 2011 04:01 darmousseh wrote: How will this affect the game?
It won't. The situation in which your units are so tightly clumped that banelings will actually show up on the outside of the group is really really hard to do and has to be done in an instant.
Evidence?
I know I've tried using a stalker to plug a hole to prevent a ling runby. Suffice to say, I never tried it again.
why not? I have had my ling runbys stopped by:
a zealot (until I issued additional commands) a hold-position zealot a hold-position stalker forcefield an immortal once as of yet I have never had my runbys stopped by probes or templars though
the reason why people are having mixed results is because it does matter how clumped the ball is/what type of units are clumped. some clumps allow for drops on top of them, others force to the side..depends if there are little tiny gaps (not gaps that look big enough for a bane to fit, even smaller ones will do)
On September 13 2011 04:13 Zelniq wrote: i was bored just now and just tested this in unit tester and it's basically bullshit. Currently (before patch), you can't unload banelings on top of a clumped up army with no gaps, moving drop or no moving drop. the only way it works is if there are tiny gaps in the army. which is why it works in the 'pre-patch 1.4' video.
i need further testing for 100% confidence in this but it seems all this talk is just for nothing..PTR does nothing
I think people are just trolling zergs to make them whine lol. You should do more test to confirm. But yea, as a toss player, I think the current baneling drop mechanic should stay as it require both side to micro. But Im guessing all this whining is for nothing.
On September 13 2011 04:16 Zelniq wrote: the reason why people are having mixed results is because it does matter how clumped the ball is/what type of units are clumped. some clumps allow for drops on top of them, others force to the side..depends if there are little tiny gaps (not gaps that look big enough for a bane to fit, even smaller ones will do)
Yeah took some attempts but i replicated that earlier today. Thought the FOW made a difference but in the end it didnt.
On September 13 2011 04:13 Zelniq wrote: i was bored just now and just tested this in unit tester and it's basically bullshit. Currently (before patch), you can't unload banelings on top of a clumped up army with no gaps, moving drop or no moving drop. the only way it works is if there are tiny gaps in the army. which is why it works in the 'pre-patch 1.4' video.
i need further testing for 100% confidence in this but it seems all this talk is just for nothing..PTR does nothing
Have to admit I was too soon to voice an opinion as well before testing it myself. Seems like nothing has really changed,.
WTF noone even used bane drops that much. THX BLIZZ for killing the funnest and most entertaining thing in ZvP. were people even QQing about this? what the hell is the point of it?
On September 13 2011 02:18 N3rV[Green] wrote: Baneling drops were just really really really fucking scary. I for one am glad I won't be seeing my ENTIRE ARMY turn into green goo while I can't move them cause they're all fungaled.
The correct counter is to make your army NOT move around in a compact ball, and to spread it out instead. If it's spread out, less fungals will hit, as well as less banelings.
I hope Blizzard is trolling. Baneling rain and fungals just punish a player who has 1a syndrome. That is all.
On September 13 2011 03:55 Avril_Lavigne wrote: cool, now protoss will never have to learn how to micro, terran actually takes splitting, and now protoss just has to stack there army tightly together and 1a!
How can you split when your army is fungal growthd lol.
Why don't you split your army before you get fungaled?
On September 13 2011 04:29 GypsyBeast wrote: WTF noone even used bane drops that much. THX BLIZZ for killing the funnest and most entertaining thing in ZvP. were people even QQing about this? what the hell is the point of it?
Lol? Banedrop is one of two answers to Toss 1a ball.
On September 13 2011 04:13 Zelniq wrote: i was bored just now and just tested this in unit tester and it's basically bullshit. Currently (before patch), you can't unload banelings on top of a clumped up army with no gaps, moving drop or no moving drop. the only way it works is if there are tiny gaps in the army. which is why it works in the 'pre-patch 1.4' video.
i need further testing for 100% confidence in this but it seems all this talk is just for nothing..PTR does nothing
Thanks for testing. I think its high time for this thread to be closed unless the OP is modified along with the title.
On September 13 2011 03:51 TutsiRebel wrote: if blizzard thinks zerg aoe is too strong, can't they just remove fungal snare? first we lose NP, which actually takes positioning / micro, and now the damage from baneling drops appears to be severely attenuated by this "fix". If blizzard wants to get rid of F + click syndrome in the matchups (which they should), this is NOT the way to do it.
I'd actually be happy it fungal was changed from STUN to SNARE
although Im protoss, I have to kind agree that NP change, if it goes through, is kinda ridiculous
I'm not sure what blizzard is honestly thinking...not allowing overlords to drop over dense areas or areas of fog is just flat our retarded. If I tell my overlord to move to a mineral line and shift drop it, that should be done. If I am over an army and I want to drop banelings, they should drop and not wait to get to the outskirts of an army or simply NOT drop at all even when they do get to space.
I mean these are things dropping out of an airship, if you think about it then it makes complete sense that they would be able to drop on top of units...
On September 13 2011 04:13 Zelniq wrote: i was bored just now and just tested this in unit tester and it's basically bullshit. Currently (before patch), you can't unload banelings on top of a clumped up army with no gaps, moving drop or no moving drop. the only way it works is if there are tiny gaps in the army. which is why it works in the 'pre-patch 1.4' video.
i need further testing for 100% confidence in this but it seems all this talk is just for nothing..PTR does nothing
And yet this topic is still open and ongoing despite numerous people stating the same thing and others just ignoring it.
This would be a good way for TL mods to determine (read: ban) those who don't even bother to read the last page of the thread they are posting in and just drop their opinion
On September 13 2011 04:16 Zelniq wrote: the reason why people are having mixed results is because it does matter how clumped the ball is/what type of units are clumped. some clumps allow for drops on top of them, others force to the side..depends if there are little tiny gaps (not gaps that look big enough for a bane to fit, even smaller ones will do)
Yeah took some attempts but i replicated that earlier today. Thought the FOW made a difference but in the end it didnt.
Weird. I wonder if there's a way to standard how spaced-out your units are to get some better testing in? From the sounds of it, though, this will be a non-issue.
Basically strategies that once were just queue and forget will actually require attention and micro, like the terran (and toss to some extent) counterparts.
A close look at the 1.3 video is very revealing. The 2nd baneling dropped gets deflected to the edge just like all of the ones in the 1.4 video. The 3rd and 4th manage to find a hole in the center, and the zealots dying makes enough room to allow all others to drop.
In other words, the deflection isn't a change on the PTR. The zealots in the 1.3 video just weren't in perfect enough formation to prevent dropping entirely.
Please read the whole post : "if the original order was issued on a fogged location."
This means you can't just shift-move drop onto a probe line and leave it. THAT IS ALL. If you actually watch your OL and don't just shift-move drop over the fog of war, you are fine.
I have tested this for about an hour in PTR and non-PTR unit testers.
This is lame. The "fix" is about as bad as taking out hold position lurkers or muta stacking. :| In other words, Blizzard shouldn't simply nerf vital aspects of Zerg play for the sake of having a "bug-free" game.
At least it'll still be a little viable, but come on, ovies are already pretty easy to snipe, are they not?
On September 13 2011 05:06 rale wrote: A close look at the 1.3 video is very revealing. The 2nd baneling dropped gets deflected to the edge just like all of the ones in the 1.4 video. The 3rd and 4th manage to find a hole in the center, and the zealots dying makes enough room to allow all others to drop.
In other words, the deflection isn't a change on the PTR. The zealots in the 1.3 video just weren't in perfect enough formation to prevent dropping entirely.
Ooh, that's very revealing. So here's a thought: we could try running the same test, but BEFORE dropping the enemy banelings onto the zealots, dropp some banelings that are allied with the zealots in there and fill all the baneling-sized holes! Then, there's no chance of failure.
On September 13 2011 05:19 Blazinghand wrote: So here's a thought: we could try running the same test, but BEFORE dropping the enemy banelings onto the zealots, dropp some banelings that are allied with the zealots in there and fill all the baneling-sized holes! Then, there's no chance of failure.
Not quite right, dropping allied banes will make new holes. The key here is the footprint of units, such as Zealots and Stalkers. If you have a bunch of Stalkers right-clicked on a Colossus, are there holes to drop on?
On September 13 2011 05:06 rale wrote: A close look at the 1.3 video is very revealing. The 2nd baneling dropped gets deflected to the edge just like all of the ones in the 1.4 video. The 3rd and 4th manage to find a hole in the center, and the zealots dying makes enough room to allow all others to drop.
In other words, the deflection isn't a change on the PTR. The zealots in the 1.3 video just weren't in perfect enough formation to prevent dropping entirely.
Ooh, that's very revealing. So here's a thought: we could try running the same test, but BEFORE dropping the enemy banelings onto the zealots, dropp some banelings that are allied with the zealots in there and fill all the baneling-sized holes! Then, there's no chance of failure.
Very smart. I would do this if i was at home but unfortunately am not atm.
Another thing to note is would someone try in a custom game with someone else to do a shift queue baneling drop into a mineral line? Doesnt really matter which match up - just to see if this effects automated through shift commands baneling drops in the mineral line.
If true, that really blows. Zergs went from being extremely one dimensional against protoss (and losing) to coming up with some fun and cool ways to play against them. Bane drops were one of the coolest strategies to watch from a spectators point of view and it sucks that it may be less effective.
o.O this makes no sense as to why they would do it. I mean it wasn't a broken mechanic or anything and frankly Protoss is fairly good against non-dropped banelings
On September 13 2011 05:06 rale wrote: A close look at the 1.3 video is very revealing. The 2nd baneling dropped gets deflected to the edge just like all of the ones in the 1.4 video. The 3rd and 4th manage to find a hole in the center, and the zealots dying makes enough room to allow all others to drop.
In other words, the deflection isn't a change on the PTR. The zealots in the 1.3 video just weren't in perfect enough formation to prevent dropping entirely.
Ooh, that's very revealing. So here's a thought: we could try running the same test, but BEFORE dropping the enemy banelings onto the zealots, dropp some banelings that are allied with the zealots in there and fill all the baneling-sized holes! Then, there's no chance of failure.
Very smart. I would do this if i was at home but unfortunately am not atm.
Another thing to note is would someone try in a custom game with someone else to do a shift queue baneling drop into a mineral line? Doesnt really matter which match up - just to see if this effects automated through shift commands baneling drops in the mineral line.
I'm not sure this would have any impact though, right? I thought mining works take up 0 pathing space while mining, so the mineral line drops should be unaffected-- the banelings will be able to jump out like normal unless there's a bunch of tightly-packed units already in the mineral line.
On September 13 2011 05:19 Blazinghand wrote: So here's a thought: we could try running the same test, but BEFORE dropping the enemy banelings onto the zealots, dropp some banelings that are allied with the zealots in there and fill all the baneling-sized holes! Then, there's no chance of failure.
Not quite right, dropping allied banes will make new holes. The key here is the footprint of units, such as Zealots and Stalkers. If you have a bunch of Stalkers right-clicked on a Colossus, are there holes to drop on?
Well you could put the Zealots on "Hold Position" first and then drop the allied banelings; this way the zealots won't move. Then, once all the holes are filled, use enemy baneling drops to test.
Non PTR, 24 zealots packed together cause banelings to drop on the outside of them. So no change there. Adding in stalkers or other fat units to the mix usually causes gaps to form (even when you try to blink into the gaps). So the change will not affect many normal games that I've ever seen. Like no affect after the bug fix.
Soooo.... baneling drops act about the same unless you have about 40-75 zealots (80-150 supply worth) packed tightly together on hold position. And one gap (a sentry that died from fungal for instance) in the ball will allow banelings to land there anyway. Colossi count as air units for this packing rule (i.e. they don't fill in gaps).
The only time this will have a noticeable affect is when:
a. Protoss is only using one ground unit type (or same sized units, like all stalkers + sentries maybe?). EDIT: Sentries aren't the same size as Stalkers, scratch that. b. He packs them all togther. c. He holds position (or something causes this affect to be simulated). d. He doesn't have enough anti-air to kill the overlords anyway.
I'm struggling to find the actual measurable nerf. What is all the complaining about?
Back then, like the bug fix note says, you could unload banelings onto a deathball directly when you issue it in the fog (better than when you do it without the fog trick). But it seems now, when you have vision and unload, it is also changed/affected. I'm wondering if this is a separate change (that is not noted, aka Ninja fix) or if this is an error from Blizzard trying to fix the fog bug.
This is like saying zerglings are cost effective vs marines, they are in super small number but 10+marines zerglings of any number melt.
The protoss ball will ALWAYS have gaps because of the motion of units, stalkers make large gaps as it is in real games because they are moving to get to the front.
Please try this during a fight on the PTR instead of a theoretical scenario on super packed zealots.
On September 13 2011 06:03 Blacklizard wrote: From my tests:
Non PTR, 24 zealots packed together cause banelings to drop on the outside of them. So no change there. Adding in stalkers or other fat units to the mix usually causes gaps to form (even when you try to blink into the gaps). So the change will not affect many normal games that I've ever seen. Like no affect after the bug fix.
Soooo.... baneling drops act about the same unless you have about 40-75 zealots (80-150 supply worth) packed tightly together on hold position. And one gap (a sentry that died from fungal for instance) in the ball will allow banelings to land there anyway. Colossi count as air units for this packing rule (i.e. they don't fill in gaps).
The only time this will have a noticeable affect is when:
a. Protoss is only using one ground unit type. b. He packs them all togther. c. He holds position (or something causes this affect to be simulated). d. He doesn't have enough anti-air to kill the overlords anyway.
I'm struggling to find the actual measurable nerf. What is all the complaining about?
Having reviewed Blacklizard's statements and the information others have provided, I'm inclined to agree. I retract any statements I made which implied that this would actually be a nerf... it sounds like realistically this won't have an impact on protoss deathball.
has anyone tested if surrounding your stalkers super tightly with forcefields will make it so banelings cannot even hit the prtosos untis when dropped?
On September 13 2011 06:20 PPTouch wrote: has anyone tested if surrounding your stalkers super tightly with forcefields will make it so banelings cannot even hit the prtosos untis when dropped?
I'm not 100% sure that such a test would be entirely useful, since a protoss player who's up against baneling drops may not want to pack his units so tightly together-- if he makes even the slightest error he will lose. Also, this won't be doable if you have colossi in your group as they will just step on the forcefields
On September 13 2011 06:20 PPTouch wrote: has anyone tested if surrounding your stalkers super tightly with forcefields will make it so banelings cannot even hit the prtosos untis when dropped?
I'm not 100% sure that such a test would be entirely useful, since a protoss player who's up against baneling drops may not want to pack his units so tightly together-- if he makes even the slightest error he will lose. Also, this won't be doable if you have colossi in your group as they will just step on the forcefields
Depends on how tightly you pack your units- with perfect micro I think you could pack everything lcose enough togather while not having colossi too close to forcefields (at lest at 200/200) that bane rain would not even hit the ball- it's worth a test.
Seriously? I play protoss and this pisses me off, I want to actually learn how to split well when baneling drops are coming and micro my blink and force fields better, I don't want every strategy that I have trouble against to get nerfed to oblivion by Blizzard this is just retarded.
As you can see in this video, my findings are inconclusive plus I am not sure if the nerf is active or not on the EU PTR. On both tests (1.3 live and 1.4 PTR), I did a crapton of damage on an a-moving Zealot Colossus ball with 24 Banelings.
However, what I can say is that the army made it out a little bit more intact on the 1.4 PTR than it did on the 1.3 Live client. Then again, this could have just been me doing it slightly wrong.
Don't get me wrong, it sounds like a huge nerf on paper. However, I think it would depend on your unit composition and just how many banelings and overlords you are willing to waste. Plus I didn't use the forcefield trick that anybody mentioned.
I hope it gets reversed nonetheless. Zerg need more ways to fight a deathball anyways.
You realize even if you nerf baneling drops will still be good, just not absoluetly amazing as they are now. Currently if the Toss doesnt kite at all his whole army dies in the blink of an eye.
Oh, thank god. Baneling drops are so so good ZvP and relatively easy to execute and with lings swarming in and such it's so hard to position well against them. This makes them strong but not insane imo.
I am surprised that this is even an issue. Its not an actual change. Are you dumb? Baneling drops will work exactly the same way they do now, except now the funky bug where you could drop them anywhere if you issued the command to a destination covered by fog of war (which no one does against a deathball). Its a minor bugfix, no more.
On September 13 2011 08:05 Zelniq wrote: edited thread title and OP
You didn't cite the evidence for the test being false. There are multiple videos of this nerf. Are they just hallucinations? How are they incorrect?
They are incorrect because there are small gaps in between the zealots where the banelings land, and sometimes those gaps are too big and sometimes they're too small and that caused the difference between the tests.
After reading this thread earlier when it was thought to be a legit nerf, I went on battlenet and rediscovered the joys of dropping banelings on protoss armies. It felt good. Thank you thread for letting me rediscover baneling drops.
On September 13 2011 08:05 Zelniq wrote: edited thread title and OP
You didn't cite the evidence for the test being false. There are multiple videos of this nerf. Are they just hallucinations? How are they incorrect?
They are incorrect because there are small gaps in between the zealots where the banelings land, and sometimes those gaps are too big and sometimes they're too small and that caused the difference between the tests.
Ye, just did some testing myself, nothing changed to baneling drops. You cant drop on super tigh unit balls just like you cant drop on top of tightly built buildings. The banelings will just stop to drop. So what is that bug fix in the patch notes really about? Anyone knows?
Hello! I am the creator of the original test (tpyo / BelligerentWombat) and the videos that are linked to. I just wanted to add my 0.02 cents.
First off I should really clarify that I 100% agree with the TL;DR on the original post
That is: "it probably requires unrealistic conditions to take full effect"
I apologise for my sensationalist headline and minimalist commentary on my initial posting on reddit, it has resulted in the community wildly overreacting to the change. It probably wont be an issue for most games. I have performed further testing on more realistic death balls and have clarified that everything should be okay.
Anyway, I did want to clarify a couple of things. The tests were not "failed" in any way. While I appreciate that I used a somewhat unrealistic parameters but I really wanted to see if there was any change between the two versions, hence I made a huge ball of closely clumped together zealots. I verified my results multiple times. Exactly the same micro and setup was used almost every single time. The holes circled in the OP are not real gaps but merely appear to be due to the perspective of the 3d. Unless 1.4 also has also made changes to the way one can clump a bunch of zealots those gaps do not exist
To clarify my findings: There is a difference between 1.3 and 1.4 in the way that the drop code is handled. In 1.3 it will permit the dropping of units into a tight cluster of units if it cannot find available space within a specific radius. In 1.4 it will delay the drop command until if finds viable space. However in 1.4 if it fails to find available space within a specific period of time the drop command will be cancelled. This is why in my 1.4 test you can see that most of the overlords fail to drop their full contingent of banelings.
Now while this should not be an issue in most games my fear is that cunning players of the future will find mechanisms to exploit this logic and cause baneling drops to fail. I really wanted to bring light to the fact that there is a flaw in the new logic in 1.4 that should be resolved before people find mechanisms to exploit it. I have added some musings to my thread on battle.net (*shudders*) and I hope the devs take note and consider improving the logic.
One example of such exploits that concern me is how players exploit the "hold" position command on workers in micro fights to make melee troops act idiotically. People seem to champion this as "amazing micro" whereas (as a software engineer) I see it as just a flaw in the system that should be fixed (not that I dislike players that do it but I don't like the fact that the exploit exists at all).
Once more I'd like to apologise for creating the video without the proper commentary alongside it to put into context and for my sensationalist title. I will be more careful with any future postings I make.
Thanks for reading this far.
TL;DR; "it probably requires unrealistic conditions to take full effect" (but there is a difference between the two versions and the tests were genuine)
---------
EDIT: WHOA! Check the post at the top of this page that states:
has anyone tested if surrounding your stalkers super tightly with forcefields will make it so banelings cannot even hit the prtosos untis when dropped?
I just did a couple of tests... and by all means we really need to test this further, preferably with two people to make the micro good (as its tough to do it all as one person)..... but from what I can gather It's true.
I don't know if it is unrealistic to have so many sentries/FFs but it is at least possible.
On September 13 2011 02:19 Chill wrote: Crazy. These changes are getting more and more absurd. It seems we should just go to 200/200 and a move into each other.
It seems that is indeed what Blizzard are trying to achieve sir. Someone over there must really really like Roach/Hydra/Corruptor...
On September 13 2011 02:19 Chill wrote: Crazy. These changes are getting more and more absurd. It seems we should just go to 200/200 and a move into each other.
It seems that is indeed what Blizzard are trying to achieve sir. Someone over there must really really like Roach/Hydra/Corruptor...
Could you please read the thread?
Nothing changed but some people figured out that there could be a possibilty to avoid getting dropped. And this possibility is super riscy because if your clumping doesn't work, everything's dead
On September 13 2011 14:12 DustyShelf wrote:To clarify my findings: There is a difference between 1.3 and 1.4 in the way that the drop code is handled. In 1.3 it will permit the dropping of units into a tight cluster of units if it cannot find available space within a specific radius. In 1.4 it will delay the drop command until if finds viable space. However in 1.4 if it fails to find available space within a specific period of time the drop command will be cancelled. This is why in my 1.4 test you can see that most of the overlords fail to drop their full contingent of banelings.
I can confirm this, this is the way it is handled now. I did some errors earlier with testing. If you guys want to see how it works you can use roaches to make sure there are now holes big enough and you will see the difference. Basically in this version the roaches get stuck on top of the zealots while in 1.4 they dont drop.
Wow, one of the most exciting thing in SC2 is getting killed.... seriously?! Also im Z I dont care about balance atm. Im also watching GSL etc. we will soooo much excitment in fights =/
There was, after all, a change in the baneling drops in the PTR. In 1.3, you could not drop into a stack of units. This is still true in the PTR. However, in the 1.3 patch, you can start the drop before you reach the stack of units, and have it still drop inside the stack. In the PTR, this is no longer the case.
This has real-world implications, unlike what the title of the thread implies. It is easy to verify for oneself. The topic of this thread is false and misleading and should be changed. However, the severity of the change is smaller than first claimed.
On September 13 2011 20:28 ch4ppi wrote: Wow, one of the most exciting thing in SC2 is getting killed.... seriously?! Also im Z I dont care about balance atm. Im also watching GSL etc. we will soooo much excitment in fights =/
On September 13 2011 20:28 ch4ppi wrote: Wow, one of the most exciting thing in SC2 is getting killed.... seriously?! Also im Z I dont care about balance atm. Im also watching GSL etc. we will soooo much excitment in fights =/
Try reading the thread?
Gosh
That's the saddest part. You don't even need to read the thread, reading the title should be enough. >.>
On September 13 2011 20:28 ch4ppi wrote: Wow, one of the most exciting thing in SC2 is getting killed.... seriously?! Also im Z I dont care about balance atm. Im also watching GSL etc. we will soooo much excitment in fights =/
Try reading the thread?
Gosh
That's the saddest part. You don't even need to read the thread, reading the title should be enough. >.>
Except the title is actually wrong at present. It isn't untrue. The test is legit, the application in real-game scenarios is somewhat limited though. However I don't think anyone is 100% sure how the change would play out across thousands of games. Its technically possible it could lead to failed baneling bomb at a key moment in a key game. Unlikely... (as the overlord would have to travel over a significantly large and clustered group for a relatively significant amount of time) but possible.
I'm hoping a mod will update the title for me at some point as I did not start this thread. I am however, responsible for the videos. *crosses fingers* <3
The game i love so much is seriously turning to shit. As soon as a new strategy is invented and proven to be effective against something, blizzard is just going to destroy it so that casuals don't have to put to any effort into crushing it? Do people not realize that you are not supposed to be able to handle everything with ease? what is the point of playing the game when it's nothing but "wait until 200/200 ----> see who placed their army 1pixel better than their opponent" sigh.
I fear SC2 has become too popular and in order to maximize profit Blizzard decides to cater to the "wrong" crowd.
On September 14 2011 01:35 grobo wrote: I'm not even mad anymore, it's just sad.
The game i love so much is seriously turning to shit. As soon as a new strategy is invented and proven to be effective against something, blizzard is just going to destroy it so that casuals don't have to put to any effort into crushing it? Do people not realize that you are not supposed to be able to handle everything with ease? what is the point of playing the game when it's nothing but "wait until 200/200 ----> see who placed their army 1pixel better than their opponent" sigh.
I fear SC2 has become too popular and in order to maximize profit Blizzard decides to cater to the "wrong" crowd.
Why are there 5 people responding with the exact same answer if the "problem" is already solved -_-
On September 14 2011 01:35 grobo wrote: I'm not even mad anymore, it's just sad.
The game i love so much is seriously turning to shit. As soon as a new strategy is invented and proven to be effective against something, blizzard is just going to destroy it so that casuals don't have to put to any effort into crushing it? Do people not realize that you are not supposed to be able to handle everything with ease? what is the point of playing the game when it's nothing but "wait until 200/200 ----> see who placed their army 1pixel better than their opponent" sigh.
I fear SC2 has become too popular and in order to maximize profit Blizzard decides to cater to the "wrong" crowd.
Why are there 5 people responding with the exact same answer if the "problem" is already solved -_-
Because people just read the title and not the OP.
I'm excited to see what the end result of 1.4.1 will be, what will be kept, what will be removed, etc, 1.3 featured some bunker changes that everyone got up in arms about and ended up getting removed, so we should wait until the final patch notes are released.
On September 14 2011 01:35 grobo wrote: I'm not even mad anymore, it's just sad.
The game i love so much is seriously turning to shit. As soon as a new strategy is invented and proven to be effective against something, blizzard is just going to destroy it so that casuals don't have to put to any effort into crushing it? Do people not realize that you are not supposed to be able to handle everything with ease? what is the point of playing the game when it's nothing but "wait until 200/200 ----> see who placed their army 1pixel better than their opponent" sigh.
I fear SC2 has become too popular and in order to maximize profit Blizzard decides to cater to the "wrong" crowd.
On September 13 2011 01:56 Montana[TK] wrote: This doesn't affect ZvP because you unload banelings onto "dense areas" when you are already over the army.
Told you guys with the FIRST post
but no, you had to have 17 pages of discussion, silly TL
On September 14 2011 01:57 rezoacken wrote: They dont read anymore, they just see nerf their mind goes blank and start the QQing chain "sc2 sux balls" "Blizz is making a crap game" etc.
I know I myself start whining about 2 rax bunker nerfs whenever i see a patch thread regardless of content.
On September 13 2011 04:32 PenguinWithNuke wrote: I hope Blizzard is trolling.
Why would you ever hope Blizzard is trolling? This anti-Blizzard/pro-chaos attitude adds nothing to the discussion. If you think Blizzard made a mistake, then explain why you think it's a mistake and leave it at that. It's absurd to tell us that you hope that they're making the mistake on purpose so that they can have a laugh about it.
Just a friendly bump to point out the title and opening paragraph ("MOD EDIT") of the OP is still riddled with inaccuracies.
The logic _has_ changed. The tests were _not_ failures they were just unrealistic in a 1v1 setting (it would still be possible to exploit this in say: monobattles as per the original test). However there is only one obvious 1v1 game play change and that is that you can now counter bling drops by surrounding your army with force fields (however impractical this might be).
Aside from those edge cases, bling drops they will still behave in pretty much the same fashion in your normal 1v1 unless some sort crazy micro is developed to exploit the issue (which might not even be possible).
On September 14 2011 01:35 grobo wrote: I'm not even mad anymore, it's just sad.
The game i love so much is seriously turning to shit. As soon as a new strategy is invented and proven to be effective against something, blizzard is just going to destroy it so that casuals don't have to put to any effort into crushing it? Do people not realize that you are not supposed to be able to handle everything with ease? what is the point of playing the game when it's nothing but "wait until 200/200 ----> see who placed their army 1pixel better than their opponent" sigh.
I fear SC2 has become too popular and in order to maximize profit Blizzard decides to cater to the "wrong" crowd.
On September 14 2011 01:35 grobo wrote: I'm not even mad anymore, it's just sad.
The game i love so much is seriously turning to shit. As soon as a new strategy is invented and proven to be effective against something, blizzard is just going to destroy it so that casuals don't have to put to any effort into crushing it? Do people not realize that you are not supposed to be able to handle everything with ease? what is the point of playing the game when it's nothing but "wait until 200/200 ----> see who placed their army 1pixel better than their opponent" sigh.
I fear SC2 has become too popular and in order to maximize profit Blizzard decides to cater to the "wrong" crowd.
Why are there 5 people responding with the exact same answer if the "problem" is already solved -_-
Stop with the "re-read the OP/i'm such a good citizen"-crap, Chill said pretty much the exact same thing i did, but for some reason you let that pass, how peculiar.
The fact is that this change is still in the current version of the PTR, i know that it's unlikely that this will ever have an impact on the game, but it's still not impossible.
On September 14 2011 01:35 grobo wrote: I'm not even mad anymore, it's just sad.
The game i love so much is seriously turning to shit. As soon as a new strategy is invented and proven to be effective against something, blizzard is just going to destroy it so that casuals don't have to put to any effort into crushing it? Do people not realize that you are not supposed to be able to handle everything with ease? what is the point of playing the game when it's nothing but "wait until 200/200 ----> see who placed their army 1pixel better than their opponent" sigh.
I fear SC2 has become too popular and in order to maximize profit Blizzard decides to cater to the "wrong" crowd.
On September 14 2011 01:35 grobo wrote: I'm not even mad anymore, it's just sad.
The game i love so much is seriously turning to shit. As soon as a new strategy is invented and proven to be effective against something, blizzard is just going to destroy it so that casuals don't have to put to any effort into crushing it? Do people not realize that you are not supposed to be able to handle everything with ease? what is the point of playing the game when it's nothing but "wait until 200/200 ----> see who placed their army 1pixel better than their opponent" sigh.
I fear SC2 has become too popular and in order to maximize profit Blizzard decides to cater to the "wrong" crowd.
Why are there 5 people responding with the exact same answer if the "problem" is already solved -_-
Stop with the "re-read the OP/i'm such a good citizen"-crap, Chill said pretty much the exact same thing i did, but for some reason you let that pass, how peculiar.
The fact is that this change is still in the current version of the PTR, i know that it's unlikely that this will ever have an impact on the game, but it's still not impossible.
Chill posted that before it become apparent that the testing method was flawed. If Chill posted after the update mentioning that this is UNTRUE, then I'm sure people would have corrected him.
More importantly, the only reason I bothered to respond was how emotionally distressed you were by the change. "I'm not even mad anymore, it's just sad. The game i love so much is seriously turning to shit."
As well as.... "I fear SC2 has become too popular and in order to maximize profit Blizzard decides to cater to the "wrong" crowd." (lol)
These statements are quite inconsistent with your following comment of "i know that it's unlikely that this will ever have an impact on the game, but it's still not impossible."
So you are beyond anger but now sad, despite knowing that this will probably be a non-issue going into the future. OK...
If anything, I was hoping you would neither be mad / sad with the news updated in the OP. Looks like I've made you mad somehow... sorry about that.
After testing it more myself, I agree there is a change.
On 1.3, if you attempt a moving drop in an area that's completely occupied, the dropped baneling will deflect to the nearest open point, up to a certain distance. The maximum deflection distance seems to be about 1.5 times the diameter of a forcefield. If there is no open space within the deflection range, it would drop even in areas occupied by units.
On 1.4, if there are no open spaces within the deflection range, the unit is simply not dropped.
In practice, this means you can defend baneling drops by forcefield-donuting your own army, but the risk of doing so is great. The slightest opening will draw most of the banelings in, and it's quite difficult to donut yourself if your army contains any colossus or archons. Also, if there are any infestors in the zerg army, it's obviously suicide.
On September 14 2011 04:34 rale wrote: After testing it more myself, I agree there is a change.
On 1.3, if you attempt a moving drop in an area that's completely occupied, the dropped baneling will deflect to the nearest open point, up to a certain distance. The maximum deflection distance seems to be about 1.5 times the diameter of a forcefield. If there is no open space within the deflection range, it would drop even in areas occupied by units.
On 1.4, if there are no open spaces within the deflection range, the unit is simply not dropped.
In practice, this means you can defend baneling drops by forcefield-donuting your own army, but the risk of doing so is great. The slightest opening will draw most of the banelings in, and it's quite difficult to donut yourself if your army contains any colossus or archons. Also, if there are any infestors in the zerg army, it's obviously suicide.
This is about what I found, though it appears that even when I click a big clump of units to move around the center unit, they'll sometimes form small gaps. So it's hard to test properly.
Reading the last several responses, it makes me sad that people can't read the OP. It's been known for a while that you can't drop units into a very densely packed areas because the banes need to land to do their damage and if space isn't available, then guess what, you CAN'T drop them. There was no ninja fix or anything. Everything is working AS INTENDED!!!!!
Yeah..... have a look at the latest video I made (linked below as well as in the OP). Its in the OP just after the paragraph with "mod edit in it". I've been trying for the past few hours to get the mods to change both the title and the opening paragraph of this thread because its all terribly incorrect but I guess they're busy.
I'm the guy who made the original vids we're discussing and also this new vid that explains the change in a much better fashion.
I did post the new vid in a new thread but that thread got merged into this one and the OP is still not correctly fixed up yet (as I didn't post the OP here so I don't have control over it and no-one reads all the posts from start to end). Just watch the vid to see what i'm on about and realise that there is a change in the PTR (probably not a big deal, but a change nevertheless).
On September 13 2011 04:32 PenguinWithNuke wrote: I hope Blizzard is trolling.
Why would you ever hope Blizzard is trolling? This anti-Blizzard/pro-chaos attitude adds nothing to the discussion. If you think Blizzard made a mistake, then explain why you think it's a mistake and leave it at that. It's absurd to tell us that you hope that they're making the mistake on purpose so that they can have a laugh about it.
Do you remember Blizzard once tried to fix a "bug" where units can be produced by holding down a hotkey, so that you must spam press in order to create same units? Everyone knew/knows it was a thinly veiled attempt to nerf zerg's mid-late game unit production. It was rightfully retracted because no one, other than a select few who just will try to justify anything that might cripple other races regardless of its ramification, wanted such a "bug fix" that takes the RTS interface to that of 10 ears ago. One could consider that feeble attempt by Blizzard pathetic, or trolling.
Honestly to me this "drop bug fix" kind of reminds me of that failed bug fix. It seems like a backhanded attempt at balancing by interface/game mechanic change. If baneling drops were too strong Blizzard should address it in a direct fashion (e.g. by giving protoss more options to deal with them). Instead, they are going after the game mechanic that may or may not have been a bug (after that baneling morph "bug fix" attempt I do not really trust what Blizzard says). You really have to wonder, even if you hated baneling drops to death, if this is the right way to the balance.
My answer is no and Blizzard is either trolling or throwing a towel in racial balance.
On September 14 2011 04:34 rale wrote: After testing it more myself, I agree there is a change.
On 1.3, if you attempt a moving drop in an area that's completely occupied, the dropped baneling will deflect to the nearest open point, up to a certain distance. The maximum deflection distance seems to be about 1.5 times the diameter of a forcefield. If there is no open space within the deflection range, it would drop even in areas occupied by units.
On 1.4, if there are no open spaces within the deflection range, the unit is simply not dropped.
In practice, this means you can defend baneling drops by forcefield-donuting your own army, but the risk of doing so is great. The slightest opening will draw most of the banelings in, and it's quite difficult to donut yourself if your army contains any colossus or archons. Also, if there are any infestors in the zerg army, it's obviously suicide.
So protoss is doing bad atm. Blizzards solution is nerf zergs three ways to deal with the *a* moving deathball by nerfing fungal, baneling drops and NP all at the same time. While terran (the most winning race) have thiere ghosts untouched. It really feels like blizzard dont give a fuck and have no reasoing behind thiere changes. When zerg had the deathball problems with the roach/hydra/corr the responds was *zerg needs to evolve* guess they want protoss players to keep *a* moving to victory. Nice blizzard, nice.
On September 14 2011 09:58 TissTuss wrote: So protoss is doing bad atm. Blizzards solution is nerf zergs three ways to deal with the *a* moving deathball by nerfing fungal, baneling drops and NP all at the same time. While terran (the most winning race) have thiere ghosts untouched. It really feels like blizzard dont give a fuck and have no reasoing behind thiere changes. When zerg had the deathball problems with the roach/hydra/corr the responds was *zerg needs to evolve* guess they want protoss players to keep *a* moving to victory. Nice blizzard, nice.
As I have mentioned above, I don't think that's the proper way to look at this specific "bug fix". Fungal nerf (absolutely necessary) and neural nerf (somewhat dubious) were, I know zergs don't like them, legitimate ways of balancing the racial power in my eyes. (Though I as a toss would much rather take templar speed increase to 2.25 that will be useful in both PvT and PvZ than neural nerf that is marginally helpful to toss but kills the spectators' excitement)
But the drop "bug fix", in both the way it's implemented and the timing of it (Blizzard have known about baneling drops since Fruitdealer's amazing run in the first GSL), is kind of strange and just feels wrong. I already have exampled above how blizzard did try (and failed) to nerf zerg's unit production by disabling the game's interface/mechanism instead of addressing units, techs, maps, or what not. This drop bug fix looks suspiciously similar to that and I can't support this change until Blizzard's honest explanation.
On September 13 2011 02:05 Olsson wrote: Great. Two things viable against protoss deathball:
Fungal: Nerfed but will still be decent.
Baneling Rain: Completely nullified and worthless now.
The fungal nerf was not for protoss army it was specifically for marine medivac healing because lololol 2 fungals bye bye marines and damage exceeded medivac healing was pretty stupid. at least 5 or 6 marines will survive now. Someone did a test that if you chain fungal it takes the same amount of fungal to destroy all toss units..
On September 13 2011 02:05 Olsson wrote: Great. Two things viable against protoss deathball:
Fungal: Nerfed but will still be decent.
Baneling Rain: Completely nullified and worthless now.
The fungal nerf was not for protoss army it was specifically for marine medivac healing because lololol 2 fungals bye bye marines and damage exceeded medivac healing was pretty stupid. at least 5 or 6 marines will survive now. Someone did a test that if you chain fungal it takes the same amount of fungal to destroy all toss units..
Incorrect. David kim addressed in the "chat with the Korean pros" that it was meant to help toss. (1 more fungal v. Stalkers, 2 more v. Void Rays) I think if a zerg can perfectly time fungals without an overlap (which I honestly think is near impossibility) then maybe stalkers might die to the same number of fungals.
On September 13 2011 02:05 Olsson wrote: Great. Two things viable against protoss deathball:
Fungal: Nerfed but will still be decent.
Baneling Rain: Completely nullified and worthless now.
The fungal nerf was not for protoss army it was specifically for marine medivac healing because lololol 2 fungals bye bye marines and damage exceeded medivac healing was pretty stupid. at least 5 or 6 marines will survive now. Someone did a test that if you chain fungal it takes the same amount of fungal to destroy all toss units..
This post is a total fail. Marines will die as they did before. Get your numbers right. The change is especially for ZvP, and again your nr. are wrong. The reason why Fungal was kinda OP against Toss is that Fungal was effectiv against the big hitters, too. The dmg change doesnt change the nr. of fungals that are needed for their "supposed" targets, only for the big hitters
Yeah... if I FF my whole army with strong micro, at the right time without it spreading due to your units, that there effectively no hole in it (dead units), that my collosus dont walk on FF. Also if I really want to FF myself somehow, and hope zerg dont Fungal this nice very clumped up army.
Yay totally the end of baneling drop. Realisticly, if protoss take all the risks, and that everrything requiring luck is on protoss side, it deserves to counter the baneling drop for this one and probably only time in pro play.
On September 13 2011 02:05 Olsson wrote: Great. Two things viable against protoss deathball:
Fungal: Nerfed but will still be decent.
Baneling Rain: Completely nullified and worthless now.
The fungal nerf was not for protoss army it was specifically for marine medivac healing because lololol 2 fungals bye bye marines and damage exceeded medivac healing was pretty stupid. at least 5 or 6 marines will survive now. Someone did a test that if you chain fungal it takes the same amount of fungal to destroy all toss units..
This post is a total fail. Marines will die as they did before. Get your numbers right. The change is especially for ZvP, and again your nr. are wrong. The reason why Fungal was kinda OP against Toss is that Fungal was effectiv against the big hitters, too. The dmg change doesnt change the nr. of fungals that are needed for their "supposed" targets, only for the big hitters
Fungal still kills most gateway units in the same hits no?
I think they only changes is that fungal now takes an extra Fungal to kill Voids and Vikings IIRC. It was more of a nerf to Broodlord Infestors than anything
It's not untrue that's the nerf is in effect in patch 1.4 What am i missing? I see him not dropping sentries that have been FF in 1.4
Yes banelings drops are nerfed how can you disgree even start to disgree.
I'm not saying "omg nerf wah ahhh" all i'm saying is done lie and say it's not a nerf because it clearly is.
You aren't missing anything, the mods here are.
If you want to try to make Blizzard revert the way they think that "it was an issue and deserved a bugfix", please post in this thread in their official forums:
When has there ever been a case in game where this would ever matter? It's not like I see baneling drops coming and immediately think "Oh god I need to clump up my units!" I spread them out to minimize effect.
It's not untrue that's the nerf is in effect in patch 1.4 What am i missing? I see him not dropping sentries that have been FF in 1.4
Yes banelings drops are nerfed how can you disgree even start to disgree.
I'm not saying "omg nerf wah ahhh" all i'm saying is done lie and say it's not a nerf because it clearly is.
You aren't missing anything, the mods here are.
If you want to try to make Blizzard revert the way they think that "it was an issue and deserved a bugfix", please post in this thread in their official forums:
Thankfully we no longer need to be confused or frustrated by such. TL has made its stance loud and clear and I applaud its courage. (Although I would have hoped them to refrain from personal attacks for the sake of keeping their integrity)
If you haven't noticed that protoss sucks against terran, and has profound cost-efficiency difficulties against zerg, it’s because you're blind.
On September 14 2011 17:40 Uncultured wrote: When has there ever been a case in game where this would ever matter? It's not like I see baneling drops coming and immediately think "Oh god I need to clump up my units!" I spread them out to minimize effect.
It matters to those who value logic and principles, not just results at any cost. And the reason why logic and principles matters is precisely because they will bring out the very results eventually - sometimes unexpected ones. Also, not everyone is possessed by partisan (racial) interests. (I hope)
I do have a suspicion that this "bug fix" is indeed a ninja patch, and I will try to make a post why it's problematic. (Not the baneling bombs, but a ninja patch under the guise of a bug fix) Gotta run for now, though.
I don't like this behaviour of banelings teleporting to the edge of a group of units, or failing to drop. I think it's stupid not because of balance, but because it looks ridiculous and is completely counterintuitive.
Dropping an exploding green blob of slime on a tightly packed cluster of units should do more damage, not less, than on a spread out group.
On September 13 2011 04:32 PenguinWithNuke wrote: I hope Blizzard is trolling.
Why would you ever hope Blizzard is trolling? This anti-Blizzard/pro-chaos attitude adds nothing to the discussion. If you think Blizzard made a mistake, then explain why you think it's a mistake and leave it at that. It's absurd to tell us that you hope that they're making the mistake on purpose so that they can have a laugh about it.
Well not trying to de-rail the thread but I think they're trolling with the Neural Parasite change.
Neural Parasite is an ability intended to control the significant units in an opponent's army. It can be negated by sniping the Infestor that is mind controlling the unit.. If Massive units are crossed off the list which are a vast majority of the units that Zerg would actually want to control then Zerg have very few other options to engage in the ultra-late game when these behemoth units will be most commonly seen.
Basically, Roach Infestor or Ling Infestor will no longer be remotely viable vs a critical mass of Colossus once/if this change goes through to the final 1.4 patch. As long as Colossus are kept in a position where the Zerg can't attack them, they will roast the ground army and not even a load of fungals can stop them.
I'm glad this drop 'nerf' is much harder to replicate than it seems and won't really change real matches where baneling drops occur. Else it would be the final nail in the coffin for Zerg players. You'd see Zerg pros like Destiny, Morrow etc race switch in an instant.
It's not untrue that's the nerf is in effect in patch 1.4 What am i missing? I see him not dropping sentries that have been FF in 1.4
Yes banelings drops are nerfed how can you disgree even start to disgree.
I'm not saying "omg nerf wah ahhh" all i'm saying is done lie and say it's not a nerf because it clearly is.
I just tested this same thing myself and this video is in fact true. Also a stetement by the creator of this video here: http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/2624788180?page=1#1 I am not sure why why this thread was edited going back and rereading some of the posts, yes even those on 16 stating that the original claims of this are false. This "nerf" or rather bug fix is very real, and it makes baneling drops slightly less effective, while this may not make a huge change to the game as a whole compiled with all the other changes we have seen lately seems a slight bit over the top. Going back on topic however, there should be another edit because while this may have been blown a bit out of proportion, is NOT false... It is a very true claim.
Sounds good to me. As was pointed out, it was very easy to A move bane drops with fungal, which really hurt my Toss brethren. Now it will take more micro with those banes-- seems to me Blizzard made this a purposiveful change
On September 15 2011 11:47 zmansman17 wrote: Sounds good to me. As was pointed out, it was very easy to A move bane drops with fungal, which really hurt my Toss brethren. Now it will take more micro with those banes-- seems to me Blizzard made this a purposiveful change
IMO if you clump your army you deserve that splash damage. Risk Reward for bane drops being sniped.
man, instead of spreading out your army in a skilled way, now you just have to clump them up which the game does automatically with it's AI. I am very displeased.
I'm rather surprised this, now that it has been proven is still being downplayed as unsubstantial. the research done to discover this bug basically has taught every zerg who likes drops simply d click your ovie right before it goes over the clump and you will do a lot of damage. granted the fact that that knowledge seems to have been previously rather unknown you could argue downplays the nerf, but to say it's a minor change now that we have this knowledge confuses me a bit.
man protoss need to learn from zergs how to QQ properly.
When KA was removed from the game we just took it whereas zergs start forming petitions on BNET over tiny nerfs that probably won't affect real game situations.
No wonder the toss winrate in GSL has gone to shit. Half the game has been reduced to lobbying blizzard over patches. Toss needs a QQ hero like Idra, not someone like MC who claims his race is the best.
Honestly from reading the responses in this thread from people claiming pro zergs are gonna race switch over this... are you all insane? Does anyone honestly think a pro like nestea is gonna stop playing zerg if this goes through? Would a single one of his GSL championships not have happened if this had been in the game from day one?
On September 15 2011 12:36 Zelniq wrote: are you referring to the Neural Parasite change? and are posting in the wrong thread? it hardly makes sense for this thread
No, I'm too lazy to find it now, but there were at least 2 posts saying people expected zerg pros to race switch over this change.
EDIT: Having trouble finding the posta about the pros (I think they mentioned morrow by name?) but quickly found several posters who have said they will race change over it throughout the thread, eg
On September 13 2011 02:19 Herculix wrote: no more baneling bombs? i might just switch race
On September 15 2011 12:36 Zelniq wrote: are you referring to the Neural Parasite change? and are posting in the wrong thread? it hardly makes sense for this thread
No, I'm too lazy to find it now, but there were at least 2 posts saying people expected zerg pros to race switch over this change.
EDIT: Having trouble finding the post about the pros (I think it mentioned morrow by name?) but at least several users have said they will race change over it
This is freaking lame.... Blizzard doesn't like to see Z winning ZvPs, they want P to have 100% win rate in PvZ, so they proceed into massive nerf on the Z race. 1st nerfing fungal, then now completely nullifying the bane drops, which is fking important against the deathball. Blizzard wants to c death ball in every PvZ games.... TQ blizzard....
On September 15 2011 12:51 weiliem wrote: This is freaking lame.... Blizzard doesn't like to see Z winning ZvPs, they want P to have 100% win rate in PvZ, so they proceed into massive nerf on the Z race. 1st nerfing fungal, then now completely nullifying the bane drops, which is fking important against the deathball. Blizzard wants to c death ball in every PvZ games.... TQ blizzard....
Not to burden you with facts but....
GSL August:
PvZ: 23.5% (4W, 13L)
PvT: 34% (16W, 31L)
And now your QQing about something that will likely affect <1% of games. I can't even comprehend how you think this "completely nullifies" baneling drops.
This nerf was totally needed. It was quite retarded when ~3 banelings could kill a a whole protoss army. People qq'ing on zerg's behalf have no idea that this was just a straight up broken mechanic and needed to be fixed.
Hmmm...They really really really REALLY want the zerg to return to the sloppy and terrible roach hydra corruptor vs toss...Nothing...Can...Work anymore if all zerg nerfs are going in effect. Ah well, I guess this time I will pack a flashlight for the dark times of Zerg.
On September 13 2011 08:15 I Hott Sauce I wrote: Blizz is just raping Zerg now huh
User was warned for this post
Please cite your sources for blizzard raping zerg, and give us details and examples.
About the bane drop situation, under a colossus still counts as "free space" when not occupied, right? Thus a colossus who doesn't have units unit it will basically draw all the banes from the Ols like a magnet, since everywhere else will be packed with stalkers.
On September 13 2011 14:12 DustyShelf wrote: Hello! I am the creator of the original test (tpyo / BelligerentWombat) and the videos that are linked to. I just wanted to add my 0.02 cents.
First off I should really clarify that I 100% agree with the TL;DR on the original post
That is: "it probably requires unrealistic conditions to take full effect"
I apologise for my sensationalist headline and minimalist commentary on my initial posting on reddit, it has resulted in the community wildly overreacting to the change. It probably wont be an issue for most games. I have performed further testing on more realistic death balls and have clarified that everything should be okay.
Anyway, I did want to clarify a couple of things. The tests were not "failed" in any way. While I appreciate that I used a somewhat unrealistic parameters but I really wanted to see if there was any change between the two versions, hence I made a huge ball of closely clumped together zealots. I verified my results multiple times. Exactly the same micro and setup was used almost every single time. The holes circled in the OP are not real gaps but merely appear to be due to the perspective of the 3d. Unless 1.4 also has also made changes to the way one can clump a bunch of zealots those gaps do not exist
To clarify my findings: There is a difference between 1.3 and 1.4 in the way that the drop code is handled. In 1.3 it will permit the dropping of units into a tight cluster of units if it cannot find available space within a specific radius. In 1.4 it will delay the drop command until if finds viable space. However in 1.4 if it fails to find available space within a specific period of time the drop command will be cancelled. This is why in my 1.4 test you can see that most of the overlords fail to drop their full contingent of banelings.
Now while this should not be an issue in most games my fear is that cunning players of the future will find mechanisms to exploit this logic and cause baneling drops to fail. I really wanted to bring light to the fact that there is a flaw in the new logic in 1.4 that should be resolved before people find mechanisms to exploit it. I have added some musings to my thread on battle.net (*shudders*) and I hope the devs take note and consider improving the logic.
One example of such exploits that concern me is how players exploit the "hold" position command on workers in micro fights to make melee troops act idiotically. People seem to champion this as "amazing micro" whereas (as a software engineer) I see it as just a flaw in the system that should be fixed (not that I dislike players that do it but I don't like the fact that the exploit exists at all).
Once more I'd like to apologise for creating the video without the proper commentary alongside it to put into context and for my sensationalist title. I will be more careful with any future postings I make.
Thanks for reading this far.
TL;DR; "it probably requires unrealistic conditions to take full effect" (but there is a difference between the two versions and the tests were genuine)
---------
EDIT: WHOA! Check the post at the top of this page that states:
has anyone tested if surrounding your stalkers super tightly with forcefields will make it so banelings cannot even hit the prtosos untis when dropped?
I just did a couple of tests... and by all means we really need to test this further, preferably with two people to make the micro good (as its tough to do it all as one person)..... but from what I can gather It's true.
I don't know if it is unrealistic to have so many sentries/FFs but it is at least possible.
And you're correct, And I dont really like that "mechanic" either, of hold position. Not that I don't do it. its another tool in the toolbox, and I've even done this with roaches (since bad players will not realize the range limitation will make them autoattack the workers while on hold position, making it a more resilient worker-kill force), however, the main issue is NOT hold position but "Mineral Walk". Thats the reason it works so well. In BW, this didn't exist.
"Mineral Walk", imo, gets the vote for worst mechanic addition ever. Sure, people are using it to get around or avoid being cheesed, but doesn't that say something about the game itself when a mechanic is abused in such ways to simply survive?
I put 2 and 2 together after a while and decided that I can start scouting Protoss bases with mineral walking drones.
T can do the same thing to protoss.
Meanwhile T is impervious to this.
Just one more way in which they damaged the mechanics of the gameplay for some unknown reason, leading to unintended consequences, and these factors affect balance, because it artificially deflates the value of what a protoss might by trying to tech to in secret, as one of many examples of ways it screws with the game.
I don't see how they ever thought mineral walk was a good idea. ITs the reason hellions are getting nerfed, even though mass hellions can still toast queens and a number of roaches damn quickly.
On September 13 2011 14:12 DustyShelf wrote: Hello! I am the creator of the original test (tpyo / BelligerentWombat) and the videos that are linked to. I just wanted to add my 0.02 cents.
First off I should really clarify that I 100% agree with the TL;DR on the original post
That is: "it probably requires unrealistic conditions to take full effect"
I apologise for my sensationalist headline and minimalist commentary on my initial posting on reddit, it has resulted in the community wildly overreacting to the change. It probably wont be an issue for most games. I have performed further testing on more realistic death balls and have clarified that everything should be okay.
Anyway, I did want to clarify a couple of things. The tests were not "failed" in any way. While I appreciate that I used a somewhat unrealistic parameters but I really wanted to see if there was any change between the two versions, hence I made a huge ball of closely clumped together zealots. I verified my results multiple times. Exactly the same micro and setup was used almost every single time. The holes circled in the OP are not real gaps but merely appear to be due to the perspective of the 3d. Unless 1.4 also has also made changes to the way one can clump a bunch of zealots those gaps do not exist
To clarify my findings: There is a difference between 1.3 and 1.4 in the way that the drop code is handled. In 1.3 it will permit the dropping of units into a tight cluster of units if it cannot find available space within a specific radius. In 1.4 it will delay the drop command until if finds viable space. However in 1.4 if it fails to find available space within a specific period of time the drop command will be cancelled. This is why in my 1.4 test you can see that most of the overlords fail to drop their full contingent of banelings.
Now while this should not be an issue in most games my fear is that cunning players of the future will find mechanisms to exploit this logic and cause baneling drops to fail. I really wanted to bring light to the fact that there is a flaw in the new logic in 1.4 that should be resolved before people find mechanisms to exploit it. I have added some musings to my thread on battle.net (*shudders*) and I hope the devs take note and consider improving the logic.
One example of such exploits that concern me is how players exploit the "hold" position command on workers in micro fights to make melee troops act idiotically. People seem to champion this as "amazing micro" whereas (as a software engineer) I see it as just a flaw in the system that should be fixed (not that I dislike players that do it but I don't like the fact that the exploit exists at all).
Once more I'd like to apologise for creating the video without the proper commentary alongside it to put into context and for my sensationalist title. I will be more careful with any future postings I make.
Thanks for reading this far.
TL;DR; "it probably requires unrealistic conditions to take full effect" (but there is a difference between the two versions and the tests were genuine)
---------
EDIT: WHOA! Check the post at the top of this page that states:
has anyone tested if surrounding your stalkers super tightly with forcefields will make it so banelings cannot even hit the prtosos untis when dropped?
I just did a couple of tests... and by all means we really need to test this further, preferably with two people to make the micro good (as its tough to do it all as one person)..... but from what I can gather It's true.
I don't know if it is unrealistic to have so many sentries/FFs but it is at least possible.
And you're correct, And I dont really like that "mechanic" either, of hold position. Not that I don't do it. its another tool in the toolbox, and I've even done this with roaches (since bad players will not realize the range limitation will make them autoattack the workers while on hold position, making it a more resilient worker-kill force), however, the main issue is NOT hold position but "Mineral Walk". Thats the reason it works so well. In BW, this didn't exist.
"Mineral Walk", imo, gets the vote for worst mechanic addition ever. Sure, people are using it to get around or avoid being cheesed, but doesn't that say something about the game itself when a mechanic is abused in such ways to simply survive?
I put 2 and 2 together after a while and decided that I can start scouting Protoss bases with mineral walking drones.
T can do the same thing to protoss.
Meanwhile T is impervious to this.
Just one more way in which they damaged the mechanics of the gameplay for some unknown reason, leading to unintended consequences, and these factors affect balance, because it artificially deflates the value of what a protoss might by trying to tech to in secret, as one of many examples of ways it screws with the game.
I don't see how they ever thought mineral walk was a good idea. ITs the reason hellions are getting nerfed, even though mass hellions can still toast queens and a number of roaches damn quickly.
If only roaches got +2 to light...
wtf am i reading? did you even play bw since you want to justify your whining about hold position and mineral walk by making totally wrong statements.... just for the record: mineral walking exists in bw and was used ever since it was discovered. the only limitation is that you need to scout your opponents minerals first to go into a base since there is actually fog of war. it exists in wc3 too btw. and hold position is a known micro techninque also used in every blizzard rts and noone has EVER complained about it. maybe because it is just doing what it says and is working as intended.
to the subject of workers on hold: in all blizzard rts workers ALWAYS behave like this. this is not a bug but intended by the designers (though it's sort of a work around to a not easy to solve problem technically). it is to buff workers and give them a fighting chance through attacking all at once or surrounding. and it has never been a problem but lead to exciting micro situation and more options.
On September 13 2011 14:12 DustyShelf wrote: Hello! I am the creator of the original test (tpyo / BelligerentWombat) and the videos that are linked to. I just wanted to add my 0.02 cents.
First off I should really clarify that I 100% agree with the TL;DR on the original post
That is: "it probably requires unrealistic conditions to take full effect"
I apologise for my sensationalist headline and minimalist commentary on my initial posting on reddit, it has resulted in the community wildly overreacting to the change. It probably wont be an issue for most games. I have performed further testing on more realistic death balls and have clarified that everything should be okay.
Anyway, I did want to clarify a couple of things. The tests were not "failed" in any way. While I appreciate that I used a somewhat unrealistic parameters but I really wanted to see if there was any change between the two versions, hence I made a huge ball of closely clumped together zealots. I verified my results multiple times. Exactly the same micro and setup was used almost every single time. The holes circled in the OP are not real gaps but merely appear to be due to the perspective of the 3d. Unless 1.4 also has also made changes to the way one can clump a bunch of zealots those gaps do not exist
To clarify my findings: There is a difference between 1.3 and 1.4 in the way that the drop code is handled. In 1.3 it will permit the dropping of units into a tight cluster of units if it cannot find available space within a specific radius. In 1.4 it will delay the drop command until if finds viable space. However in 1.4 if it fails to find available space within a specific period of time the drop command will be cancelled. This is why in my 1.4 test you can see that most of the overlords fail to drop their full contingent of banelings.
Now while this should not be an issue in most games my fear is that cunning players of the future will find mechanisms to exploit this logic and cause baneling drops to fail. I really wanted to bring light to the fact that there is a flaw in the new logic in 1.4 that should be resolved before people find mechanisms to exploit it. I have added some musings to my thread on battle.net (*shudders*) and I hope the devs take note and consider improving the logic.
One example of such exploits that concern me is how players exploit the "hold" position command on workers in micro fights to make melee troops act idiotically. People seem to champion this as "amazing micro" whereas (as a software engineer) I see it as just a flaw in the system that should be fixed (not that I dislike players that do it but I don't like the fact that the exploit exists at all).
Once more I'd like to apologise for creating the video without the proper commentary alongside it to put into context and for my sensationalist title. I will be more careful with any future postings I make.
Thanks for reading this far.
TL;DR; "it probably requires unrealistic conditions to take full effect" (but there is a difference between the two versions and the tests were genuine)
---------
EDIT: WHOA! Check the post at the top of this page that states:
has anyone tested if surrounding your stalkers super tightly with forcefields will make it so banelings cannot even hit the prtosos untis when dropped?
I just did a couple of tests... and by all means we really need to test this further, preferably with two people to make the micro good (as its tough to do it all as one person)..... but from what I can gather It's true.
I don't know if it is unrealistic to have so many sentries/FFs but it is at least possible.
And you're correct, And I dont really like that "mechanic" either, of hold position. Not that I don't do it. its another tool in the toolbox, and I've even done this with roaches (since bad players will not realize the range limitation will make them autoattack the workers while on hold position, making it a more resilient worker-kill force), however, the main issue is NOT hold position but "Mineral Walk". Thats the reason it works so well. In BW, this didn't exist.
"Mineral Walk", imo, gets the vote for worst mechanic addition ever. Sure, people are using it to get around or avoid being cheesed, but doesn't that say something about the game itself when a mechanic is abused in such ways to simply survive?
I put 2 and 2 together after a while and decided that I can start scouting Protoss bases with mineral walking drones.
T can do the same thing to protoss.
Meanwhile T is impervious to this.
Just one more way in which they damaged the mechanics of the gameplay for some unknown reason, leading to unintended consequences, and these factors affect balance, because it artificially deflates the value of what a protoss might by trying to tech to in secret, as one of many examples of ways it screws with the game.
I don't see how they ever thought mineral walk was a good idea. ITs the reason hellions are getting nerfed, even though mass hellions can still toast queens and a number of roaches damn quickly.
If only roaches got +2 to light...
wtf am i reading? did you even play bw since you want to justify your whining about hold position and mineral walk by making totally wrong statements.... just for the record: mineral walking exists in bw and was used ever since it was discovered. the only limitation is that you need to scout your opponents minerals first to go into a base since there is actually fog of war. it exists in wc3 too btw. and hold position is a known micro techninque also used in every blizzard rts and noone has EVER complained about it. maybe because it is just doing what it says and is working as intended.
to the subject of workers on hold: in all blizzard rts workers ALWAYS behave like this. this is not a bug but intended by the designers (though it's sort of a work around to a not easy to solve problem technically). it is to buff workers and give them a fighting chance through attacking all at once or surrounding. and it has never been a problem but lead to exciting micro situation and more options.
and wtf has this to do with the thread at all?
I played bood war for 10 years. scvs would stack, but their movement would still be impeded by non harvesting units. thus, its not the same as in this game.
hold position is only lame in relation to this "trick". did I say hold position was bad all around? Its been in RTSes since around the dune2000 era.