SC2 is heading in the wrong direction - Page 25

On October 27 2011 03:29 NicolBolas wrote:


You seem to think that complaints actually get things done. People cried bloody murder over LAN; the complaining about it now is nothing compared to when it was first announced. People were saying that no LAN would kill the game competitively.

And yet despite all the complaining, we didn't get LAN.

The Colossus was not going to be removed. Ever. The original Colossus didn't even have AoE; that was bootstrapped in later. You could get every progamer on the planet bitching about Colossi, and it would have changed nothing.

The Marauder is the only thing that makes Marines and Bio in general useful outside of TvZ. And it's clear that Blizzard wants Bio to be useful outside of TvZ (and I wholeheartedly agree). No amount of complaining would change that.

The Roach and the Immortal were units that sort of became something else. Roaches weren't supposed to have high Hp; they were supposed to survive based on fast regen. But in balancing them, they went with high Hp over regen. Again, like the Colossus, Blizzard would rather change the unit that cut them. So complaints would have been meaningless.

If Blizzard sets their mind to something, complaints generally aren't going to get something done.

On October 27 2011 05:52 Kyuki wrote:

Because blizz presented a very unpolished product at blizzcon? I mean they even said on the panel that it is not unlikely that they will just outright kill some of the things that we saw. Some were hardly even tested but they thought "what the hell, we show this anyway and see where it leads us". And even if the replicant make BETA, it's not even sure that it will make the end product.

I too dislike some of the things showed at blizzcon and I also dont like the design of some of the units in the game as of now, but it's pretty obvious they need to do some rather radical things and Rebalance the game to create new gameplay. I'm quite certain we'll see more and more additions and even removals of units before this even hits beta, and at that point we'll see ATLEAST alot of numbertweaking and changes made to alot of units including current ones.

I honestly dont see a need for this thread at this moment, it just have bad timing imho.

On October 27 2011 05:47 Belial88 wrote:


Well there's going to at least be another YEAR before alpha is even released. Furthermore, they have said they plan to add more units, explicitly, and that they think they are going to change what they already added.

Also, in WOL, in alpha (which HOTS isn't even at yet btw) they removed a TON of units. Reavers, lurkers, Tempests (as 'dark templar carriers'), nomads, melee roaches, twilight archons, soul hunters, purifiers, and swarm lords were all units that existed at the same point where HOTS is today for WOL.

Also, people don't seem to understand the new Swarm Host at all. The unit is extremely worthless, in the sense it is horrible in combat. They are NOTHING like lurkers at all. They do not control space at all, you can't just have a few swarm hosts that prevent the opponent from coming through. You will never add these to your army, they are pitifully bad. What they DO do, very well, is when your opponent is turtling, especially terran, you plant a few outside their base and it just releases constant pressure. It's a great way to annoy someone who is turtling when you have a lead, and you can't just bust in.

It may also have application against the 3 base rine/tank push when they try to contain you. But it is NOT a combat unit at all, and everyone's reaction to it was "Wow this unit sucks ass in combat". It has an extremely limited role, that's very good. Every zerg knows what it's like when we are owning someone, then they turtle on 2-3 bases, and we have to play another 20 minutes because turtles are impossibly hard for us to break.

On October 27 2011 06:40 Belial88 wrote:


As someone who played the Tempest, I can tell you it's really fucking badass, and everyone else who played it - balance issues aside - said the unit was the most fun unit ever. Of course, they explicitly put it on the show floor as completely OP just for concept, but it was fun.

On October 27 2011 06:40 Belial88 wrote:


Replicant is just to give protoss more strategies. That's it. If someone even comes up with a single new strat for it, like replicating a dropship to heal zealots, then it's worth it. Every new unit had a reason, the replicant was created to help with the problem of protoss not having enough strategies.

On October 27 2011 06:40 Belial88 wrote:


Dude, we aren't even near alpha yet, and WOL JUST got balanced recently. Quit discussing balance, so damn annoying.

On October 27 2011 06:40 Belial88 wrote:


um void rays do a ton to add to the strength of an army, and the new Oracle is supposed to solve this problem as well, as it's supposed to be a relatively cheap harass unit that is usable all game long, unlike, say, banshees when eventually the opponent throws up enough static D, or reapers when the opponent gets an army going. Now, with stargate, you can make the oracle and just harass all game long. It also has great scouting utility so you can perfectly counter the opponent with your push (or your defense against his push), and delay him so you can get an expo up.

On October 27 2011 06:40 Belial88 wrote:


Maybe you should stop playing protoss as "open X into 2 BASE ALL IN YEAAAA" and think of it as "open pressure, secure expansion, pressure again, secure expansion". Terran understand that the 2 base timing push is bad play, protoss should understand it too. There's no 2 base push that zerg or terran can do that is 'good play', so it shouldn't be a revelation that 2 base protoss pushes are bad too.

On October 27 2011 06:40 Belial88 wrote:


I can assure you that the swarm host is quite useless. All Zerg got was the viper, extremely slow (yet of course undeniably awesome) support caster that's quite expensive. Protoss definitely got the best of HOTS, with the new nexus abilities and their new units, trust me.

Swarm host is pretty useless. It fills a niche role of pressuring a turtle on 2 bases when you have a huge lead as zerg. Which is an extremely useful role, don't get me wrong, there are so many games I play where it's 30+ minutes and the opponent just mines out his 2 bases and a-moves, and it's really obnoxious. So i LOVE the swarm host, but it's a completely unnecessary unit and in it's current form not useful in a back and forth competitive game. It will never win a game for you, it will just secure a win sooner that you already had.

On October 27 2011 06:40 Belial88 wrote:


Replicator is not about balance, we already know that Protoss is pretty well balanced right now (except in KR GM, which is being addressed with emp nerf anyways in both hots and patch 1.4.2). It's about giving new strats to protoss, to be creative with. It's the new warp prism, that's all.

On October 27 2011 05:02 drcatellino wrote:
A game that follows what the community wants is a game that don’t try new things, that stays within a comfort range, that just replicate and combine things from successful games that were released in the genre. I want SC2 and it’s expansions to push the boundaries of our expectations, make us step out of our comfort zone, and that is not afraid to go beyond the BW nostalgia and push towards innovation. I really liked to hear Artosis toughts on the new units (on SOTG) because he really seemed genuinely interested in the innovatives strategies that these units could bring to the game, and how it could play differently instead of “blabla imba, blabla not enough like BW, blabla Blizzard suck”.

On October 27 2011 07:17 NicolBolas wrote:


HOTS is coming out next year. Not entering beta, coming out. That means that, at the longest, beta will be mid-summer. What you saw at BlizzCon is as much Alpha as anything we saw of WoL.

Blizzard isn't going to add units. They may slot in different abilities. They may cut the Replicator. But they're not going to make entirely new units. Not at this point. Not after introducing all of these.

Also, Nomads weren't removed; they were just renamed Nighthawk (and later Raven) and given a new model. "Melee Roaches" became regular Roaches. Twilight Archons were just regular Archons with Feedback. Purifiers were older versions of Soul Hunters. And Brood Lords are Swarm Lords with a different name/model.

That shows that Blizzard is far more likely to alter a unit than to cut it. So the best you can hope for is that they'll alter the functioning of some units.

On October 27 2011 07:27 Nistacular wrote:
I agree with you TT1, I don't like the massive amount of casters... it feels wrong. I also think that it's going to be more... how to say this best... random and crazy. The game, although still retaining many game mechanics, no longer DEPENDS on these specific game mechanics. And I don't like the sheer amount of different stuff that going to have to be microed. That doesn't take the same kind of raw skill that really amazing ling/marine micro would take, it simply takes good timing and placement, all that sort of stuff. I hope to see more mechanics that evolve so each race can show off their raw micro skill and not just army compositions and quick battles dominated by casters. But again, the game hasn't come out yet.... not trying to put words in Blizz's mouth, just sayin, so many casters and crazy special units I believe to be the wrong direction.

On October 27 2011 07:43 Longshank wrote:


By massive amount of casters you mean one with combat abilities? One that promotes micro from the opponent?

The only additional caster would be the Oracle which promotes multi-tasking from both the user and the opponent.