monk: Just talked to Dustin and did an interview. There's a mistake in this translation. He said in the test map, Psionic units will be unaffected by Fungal, not Neural. Also, they're looking into a lot of changes for the infestor, including removing Neural entirely in HotS.
Here is the translation for HOTS and the infester.Full translation credit to weirdkid
Q:Who do you want to win the tournament?
All the players who made it to BWC are all heroes. To me, there's no such thing as a best player. They're all amazing. I just wish to enjoy the best and most balanced competition, without any problems regarding the balance.
How many times have you been to China? What's your impression of Shanghai?
This is my first time in China. I feel that Shanghai is really beautiful, really clean. It's orderly, and very modern.
Q:What strategies do you personally like to use?
I play random, and I can use any of the races. I know almost all the strategies for the races, as well as the various types of all-ins and cheeses.
I'm really good in the first 10-15 minutes, about as good as professionals even. But as the game draws longer, I become weaker and weaker, especially when it comes to a situation with 200/200 supply, my play is just.......
Q:Do you know that the Chinese players call you the marauder? [T/N: Because the marauder is bald, and he is bald, and their heads are pretty similarly shaped I guess]
(Much laughter) Oh, no no no, don't do that. When we look at Terran, we hope to look at it as a whole, and not just at a specific unit type. Balancing has to be done with the overall picture in mind.
As for the marauder, I feel that he is really strong, and is a compulsory unit in TvT and TvP. But he has his weaknesses too, like being unable to shoot air.
No matter what, I will still listen to your opinions, and examine the marauder carefully.
[T/N: Afterwards, Dustin Browder finally understood that he was called the marauder because he looked similar to a marauder, and he laughed even more about it.]
Q: You said the new units in HOTS are pretty good now, and you are going to make some change to some old units. Do you have any plans about changing the units in WOL? I'm more interested about the raven, void ray, carrier, and especially the infestor.
For now, I can't promise what is going to be changed. In the following weeks, we'll be taking a new look at the current existing units, whether we'll be doing some tweaks to some numbers or to overhaul and redesign the unit.
As for the units in WOL, I'll raise some examples. First example would be the hunter seeker missile of the raven. I'm still considering if I should tweak it or whether I should redesign it.
A second example would be the Thor's 250mm Cannons. Very few players use it currently, and so, HOTS is a good chance for us, and we may redesign it to make more players use 250mm cannon.
For the void ray, do you mean it's too weak? But before we made the previous change many people were complaining that it was very strong. I really want to make some crazy changes to the void ray, but we still don't know yet. We'll be doing some tests before Christmas.
Personally, I'm looking forward to a complete overhaul. That's why I'll be encouraging the Starcraft 2 team to make a few revolutionary changes to increase the diversity of our strategies.
Q: You seem to have forgotten the infestor (laughs)
Oh, I forgot. But never mind, I'll tell you.
Infestors. We are going to make a balance test map and put it on WOL servers, where psionic units would be immune to neural parasite. And on HOTS beta servers, we'll add a projectile animation back to Fungal Growth, just like in patch 1.3 PTR.
Note: Psionic units include the mothership, high templar, ghost, infestor, queen, and archon. Therefore, MC's complaint about the mothership being neural parasited would be solved... At this stage, one of the reporters quietly added "MC, you won..."
Question by Mike Morhaime: What about infested terrans?
That's really troublesome, and really hard to balance. We'll have to think about it somemore.
Q: Will the Starcraft 2 tournaments in 2013 be using HOTS or WOL?
That will be decided by the tournament. If they still want to use WOL it'll still be fine, so it'll be completely be up to the tournament organisers.
I think I would prefer you just give MS frenzy or whatever it is called that ultras have, with it not affecting Psionic those weird Archon all ins might come back and those were just silly. The reason they give for the change is pretty funny though, MC used to complain about this but now that he doesn't any more they are gonna fix it?
Sounds good. Psionic being immune to neural will almost exclusively affect PvZ, but it would at least make the lategame engagements easier for Protoss. Fungal growth projectile is nothing I would mind tested in WoL either, but at least we get it in the beta.
I look forward to playing around with whatever they try to change on old units in HotS. Already had a lot of fun with the new units, though my success with swarm hosts was very limited and it was more than likely my own fault.
Projectile fungal could work, especially depending on the speed of the projectile.
On November 17 2012 21:44 astor wrote: This will help a lot with lategame pvz, lets see what strategies will evolve.
hots is coming out in 4 months.. by the time this even gets to an ACTUAL patch there wont be time to develop 'strategies'. Also i dont see how anything will change at all.. what could possibly be different except spreading brood lords more?
this is just to keep people happy until they forget about it when hots comes out.
On November 17 2012 21:44 MuATaran wrote: I think I would prefer you just give MS frenzy or whatever it is called that ultras have, with it not affecting Psionic those weird Archon all ins might come back and those were just silly. The reason they give for the change is pretty funny though, MC used to complain about this but now that he doesn't any more they are gonna fix it?
I think that was a comment made by the writer of the interviewer, not something Browder said.
Reverting back to no energy Thor with cooldown on cannons? Ok.
Also, Thor is a HUGE mechanic vehicle. Why can it not walk over broodlings? Similar to Colossus...Maybe even tanks? I mean they are TANKS...
+2-3 range on seeker missile maybe? So that they will be more than suicidal while attacking BL/Infestor composition...+Range and Fungal being a projectile will definitely make ravens one of the core units.
On November 17 2012 21:44 astor wrote: This will help a lot with lategame pvz, lets see what strategies will evolve.
hots is coming out in 4 months.. by the time this even gets to an ACTUAL patch there wont be time to develop 'strategies'. Also i dont see how anything will change at all.. what could possibly be different except spreading brood lords more?
this is just to keep people happy until they forget about it when hots comes out.
The plot thickens. Blizzard is being very dynamic with this game, it feels like its changing all the time. I hope people see them as being responsive this time around.
On November 17 2012 21:49 DarkLordOlli wrote: They should also address the problem of walking spince crawlers counting as buildings.
Why is this a problem?
You can't even base race as protoss because zerg just walks around with their buildings and their unbeatable army. Soulkey vs HerO game 2 of their second series is the best example for that. It simply shouldn't be like that. Soulkey couldn't defend against the multitasking, lost all his bases so he just started walking around with spines in his army and HerO couldn't do anything about it, it's just stupid.
On November 17 2012 21:54 Zrana wrote: kinda cool ideas, but annoying that archons will be immune, sometimes they are good targets for NP
I don't know if I like this change. NP used to be the big deal about Infestors, but after the nerf to range 7, almost nobody uses it any more, and it's already hard as fuck to NP a mothership. I would prefer a change to fungal, or maybe even BLs (some people have suggested that BLs' get a cost nerf and a damage buff so that overall damage remains the same but the "broodling wall" is nerfed, I'd like that, it would fix some of the problems with lategame PvZ + lategame TvZ) . Glad that they're experimenting with fungal projectile - I hope they're not afraid to make it slow so that it's not as certain a hit as it is now.
On November 17 2012 21:49 DarkLordOlli wrote: They should also address the problem of walking spince crawlers counting as buildings.
Why is this a problem?
Watch HerO's games in this Code S. He was all over the place killing Soulkey's bases taking advantage of the BL+infestor deathball's immobility, until Soulkey decides to basetrade with a few walking spine crawlers with the army which led into a gg. I don't know if it is really a problem, but it sure looked like HerO was the better player in that series. Kinda the same problem with flying buildings by Terrans, but that one never comes to play in the same way, as they don't have such a strong deathball.
I don't like it. I'd rather a change that gets away from relying on the mothership in lategame PvZ. This change to neural just makes it more important.
On November 17 2012 21:49 DarkLordOlli wrote: They should also address the problem of walking spince crawlers counting as buildings.
Why is this a problem?
You can't even base race as protoss because zerg just walks around with their buildings and their unbeatable army. Soulkey vs HerO game 2 of their second series is the best example for that. It simply shouldn't be like that. Soulkey couldn't defend against the multitasking, lost all his bases so he just started walking around with spines in his army and HerO couldn't do anything about it, it's just stupid.
On November 17 2012 21:49 DarkLordOlli wrote: They should also address the problem of walking spince crawlers counting as buildings.
Why is this a problem?
Watch HerO's games in this Code S. He was all over the place killing the Z's bases taking advantage of the BL+infestor deathball's immobility, until the Z decides to basetrade with a few walking spine crawlers with the army which led into a gg. I don't know if it is really a problem, but it sure looked like HerO was the better player in that series. Kinda the same problem with flying buildings by Terrans, but that one never comes to play in the same way, as they don't have such a strong deathball.
Fair play, I can see that. Yeah, you're probably right.
Mmmh, atually the mind control against mothership isn´t the BIG problem in PvZ lategame, it´s just the Broodlord infestor combo that is far tooo strong, so redesign as he also said in the interview, would be something i really appreciate.
As PvZ is currently, protoss has to rely on a vortex. Considering this fact I really support the neural parasite change. However I've always been saying that I'd just love a redesign of how BL/infestor works. Maybe make corruptors massive, make ITs have a cooldown after infestors used 2/3 of them, eggs having the same HP as the ITs themselves, reduce upgrades on free units... something like these.
That infestor change will not help terrans! People tend to forget that besides protoss players, terrans are having a sick hard time against broodlord infestor. Protoss players have the mothership, we have nothing. Ravens do work, but 1) the tech to it is so slow, 2) the zerg has to CLUMP his units.
I can understand the tiny fix for WoL, although I feel a tad more is needed as ZvT is still fairly ridiculous with Hive Rushes. But I'm really saddened that they only think Fungal needs to be a projectile in HotS. It is such boring spell to watch and punishes so many unique and creative things. More to the point, its a crutch for zerg which severely limits not only zerg in it's compositions, also it's opponents.
I guess I'll have to wait until all the changes roll out though to fully judge it.
On November 17 2012 22:03 GreyKnight wrote: imo making all zerg buildings bleed while off creep regardless of being rooted or unrooted is a good idea.
Yeah I actually used to think that spines would bleed to death before I saw Soulkey vs HerO. It just kinda doesn't make sense to me. Not like you're gonna walk spines from your base to the opponent's.
On November 17 2012 22:03 Snowbear wrote: That infestor change will not help terrans! People tend to forget that besides protoss players, terrans are having a sick hard time against broodlord infestor. Protoss players have the mothership, we have nothing. Ravens do work, but 1) the tech to it is so slow, 2) the zerg has to CLUMP his units.
Terran can actually deal with BL/Infestor better than Protoss can; Mothership isn't really a solution. It's the tech switches between BL and Ultralisks that causes the big problems for Terran.
I like it. Projectile is gonna help a lot in TvZ and for Blink Stalkers. Also raising the skill cap quite a bit. No more Neural on Mothership is helpful too. I'm also glad they are still liking to experiment a lot. That's what Beta is for. Curious to see what they'll come up with.
Wow Achons not being able to be neuraled will be painful. It is like neuraling half a Thors, just that Thors still can be neuraled. But both units rip through your army once that happens. Imo Neural was actually perfect. Projectile change will actually buff Infestors current strength. No effect on bad players, good players can already dodge fungals as well. But now the good Zergs will be able to save their Infestors easier, because they can anticipate army movement throw the ball and the Infestor is already out of the range of the units when the fungal hits. So for defense it is a range increase basically, but also a range reduce when being aggressive. But it doesn't really work on the issue of the Zerg doing damage with energy only and then defending while the energy recharges. Making fungal a projectile will actually help this strategy.
On November 17 2012 21:47 Zannadar wrote:Also, Thor is a HUGE mechanic vehicle. Why can it not walk over broodlings? Similar to Colossus...Maybe even tanks? I mean they are TANKS...
I think that would make zergling/broodlings super overpowered, since more units can hit the Thor at the same time.
On November 17 2012 22:03 Snowbear wrote: That infestor change will not help terrans! People tend to forget that besides protoss players, terrans are having a sick hard time against broodlord infestor. Protoss players have the mothership, we have nothing. Ravens do work, but 1) the tech to it is so slow, 2) the zerg has to CLUMP his units.
Terran can actually deal with BL/Infestor better than Protoss can; Mothership isn't really a solution. It's the tech switches between BL and Ultralisks that causes the big problems for Terran.
That combined with the fact that getting to that anti deathball army is really, really hard for terran, much more so than protoss.
On November 17 2012 22:00 Jumbled wrote: I don't like it. I'd rather a change that gets away from relying on the mothership in lategame PvZ. This change to neural just makes it more important.
Yeah that's what blizzard has been doing for the past year, bandaid fix instead of design fixes. That's how we ended with the current metagame.
On November 17 2012 22:00 Jumbled wrote: I don't like it. I'd rather a change that gets away from relying on the mothership in lategame PvZ. This change to neural just makes it more important.
Yeah that's what blizzard has been doing for the past year, bandaid fix instead of design fixes. That's how we ended with the current metagame.
i dont like this change about the infestor, its the root that is boring and destroys gameplay, take balance out of the picture for a second.
The infestor is a boring unit for starcraft2, adding projectile MIGHT work if they make it SLOW. The fungal removes so much strategies for everyrace, even zerg. Iam quite dissapointed, even so PvZ lategame is utterly boring also, i cant even think of why they have these supercombos of each race. That is not skill, that is memoryplay
On November 17 2012 22:10 DarkLordOlli wrote: I don't actually think projectile is gonna change anything in PvZ at all... maybe TvZ. Not sure though.
if it's projectile then Blink stalker will be 2x times more stronger and important? You could actually bait a fungal then blink away.
Doesn't really matter when zerg has exclusively BL/infestor. Zerg laughs at one fungal being wasted lategame. It WILL however make phoenix and warp prism harass stronger throughout the game. Other than that nothing really springs to mind. Not like you could actually micro void rays/carriers against fungal now, they're still too slow to escape.
On November 17 2012 22:00 Jumbled wrote: I don't like it. I'd rather a change that gets away from relying on the mothership in lategame PvZ. This change to neural just makes it more important.
Yeah that's what blizzard has been doing for the past year, bandaid fix instead of design fixes. That's how we ended with the current metagame.
Isn't that what Tempests are for?
Honestly I think that to really accomplish that they need to look at the unit that everyone completely ignores when talking about "Infestor/Brood Lord", which is the Corruptor. Vortex is still the only appropriate response to a Zerg absolutely swarming you with Corruptors if you to commit to air. That unit may be plain but it's insanely good at what it does.
On November 17 2012 22:10 DarkLordOlli wrote: I don't actually think projectile is gonna change anything in PvZ at all... maybe TvZ. Not sure though.
if it's projectile then Blink stalker will be 2x times more stronger and important? You could actually bait a fungal then blink away.
Doesn't really matter when zerg has exclusively BL/infestor. Zerg laughs at one fungal being wasted lategame. It WILL however make phoenix and warp prism harass stronger throughout the game. Other than that nothing really springs to mind. Not like you could actually micro void rays/carriers against fungal now, they're still too slow to escape.
How does BL prevent blink stalker from dodging projectile?
On November 17 2012 22:00 Jumbled wrote: I don't like it. I'd rather a change that gets away from relying on the mothership in lategame PvZ. This change to neural just makes it more important.
Yeah that's what blizzard has been doing for the past year, bandaid fix instead of design fixes. That's how we ended with the current metagame.
Isn't that what Tempests are for?
Honestly I think that to really accomplish that they need to look at the unit that everyone completely ignores when talking about "Infestor/Brood Lord", which is the Corruptor. Vortex is still the only appropriate response to a Zerg absolutely swarming you with Corruptors if you to commit to air. That unit may be plain but it's insanely good at what it does.
Maybe the redesigned Void Ray will help.
Well, HotS is still in beta. They will tune it until Tempest can deal with BL. I don't have beta so I don't really know how well it deal with BL right now.
On November 17 2012 22:21 Naphal wrote: hmm good thing there are still some LoL champions i want to unlock, because blizzard really wants to make sure i dont ladder again anytime soon.
On November 17 2012 21:44 MuATaran wrote: I think I would prefer you just give MS frenzy or whatever it is called that ultras have, with it not affecting Psionic those weird Archon all ins might come back and those were just silly. The reason they give for the change is pretty funny though, MC used to complain about this but now that he doesn't any more they are gonna fix it?
LOL. Zealot/Archon all ins aren't stopped by Neural parasite, they never were They're stopped by fungal + mass roach.
On November 17 2012 22:21 Naphal wrote: hmm good thing there are still some LoL champions i want to unlock, because blizzard really wants to make sure i dont ladder again anytime soon.
What exactly is preventing you from laddering?
It just isn't fun to be forced to outplay your opponent when you can have lost all your eco and win by 1 neural parasite. So he simply decided to go back to LoL, a game that both I and him thinks fits him better
At long last we will see archon toilet every game again, yay so fun to watch! Much better than BL/Infestor, perfect change. I don´t understand what people are complaining about, this is great, now I will win most of my 3v3 games with my vortex.
On November 17 2012 22:10 DarkLordOlli wrote: I don't actually think projectile is gonna change anything in PvZ at all... maybe TvZ. Not sure though.
if it's projectile then Blink stalker will be 2x times more stronger and important? You could actually bait a fungal then blink away.
Doesn't really matter when zerg has exclusively BL/infestor. Zerg laughs at one fungal being wasted lategame. It WILL however make phoenix and warp prism harass stronger throughout the game. Other than that nothing really springs to mind. Not like you could actually micro void rays/carriers against fungal now, they're still too slow to escape.
How does BL prevent blink stalker from dodging projectile?
I don't think you're getting the point I'm trying to make. You still can't engage BL/infestor if you bait one or two fungals. Stalkers have to blink under the brood lords to avoid being blocked by broodlings. Which means there's no way to avoid fungal once you decide to engage. ==> it's exactly how it works now.
On November 17 2012 22:21 Naphal wrote: hmm good thing there are still some LoL champions i want to unlock, because blizzard really wants to make sure i dont ladder again anytime soon.
What exactly is preventing you from laddering?
It just isn't fun to be forced to outplay your opponent when you can have lost all your eco and win by 1 neural parasite. So he simply decided to go back to LoL, a game that both I and him thinks fits him better
i play terran, so i am really tired of protoss and zerg arguing who is more imba, but please, do continue.
On November 17 2012 22:21 Naphal wrote: hmm good thing there are still some LoL champions i want to unlock, because blizzard really wants to make sure i dont ladder again anytime soon.
What exactly is preventing you from laddering?
It just isn't fun to be forced to outplay your opponent when you can have lost all your eco and win by 1 neural parasite. So he simply decided to go back to LoL, a game that both I and him thinks fits him better
i play terran, so i am really tired of protoss and zerg arguing who is more imba, but please, do continue.
..."ok". So you spend your days playing LoL because you're angry at zergs beating up protosses in tournaments... even tho you don't play either race... nice
On November 17 2012 22:21 Naphal wrote: hmm good thing there are still some LoL champions i want to unlock, because blizzard really wants to make sure i dont ladder again anytime soon.
What exactly is preventing you from laddering?
It just isn't fun to be forced to outplay your opponent when you can have lost all your eco and win by 1 neural parasite. So he simply decided to go back to LoL, a game that both I and him thinks fits him better
i play terran, so i am really tired of protoss and zerg arguing who is more imba, but please, do continue.
..."ok". So you spend your days playing LoL because you're angry at zergs beating up protosses in tournaments... even tho you don't play either race... nice
you might want to read what i wrote and what others wrote, because i did not write anything about ZvP or PvZ o.o i am thinking you originally meant another poster maybe?
On November 17 2012 22:10 DarkLordOlli wrote: I don't actually think projectile is gonna change anything in PvZ at all... maybe TvZ. Not sure though.
if it's projectile then Blink stalker will be 2x times more stronger and important? You could actually bait a fungal then blink away.
Doesn't really matter when zerg has exclusively BL/infestor. Zerg laughs at one fungal being wasted lategame. It WILL however make phoenix and warp prism harass stronger throughout the game. Other than that nothing really springs to mind. Not like you could actually micro void rays/carriers against fungal now, they're still too slow to escape.
How does BL prevent blink stalker from dodging projectile?
I don't think you're getting the point I'm trying to make. You still can't engage BL/infestor if you bait one or two fungals. Stalkers have to blink under the brood lords to avoid being blocked by broodlings. Which means there's no way to avoid fungal once you decide to engage. ==> it's exactly how it works now.
pretty much hit the nail on the head
it's not a question of OP or UP (although it probably is OP), but having most of your army locked into place and riddled with a thousand broodlings that screw up pathing is not very exciting to watch. people pay to watch battles not duck shoots.
This bodes poorly for the near future of balance changes. This change is so dumb. PvZ isn't a stale, or imbalanced match-up because neural parasite works on a mothership. If you can't control a mothership without getting neural'd, don't make it. Quit running it out infront all by itself and being surprised because you ignored an obvious possibility. But, the greater point is that this wouldn't change anything for the match-up. I don't care if I can neural your mothership. It's not like any of us think "ooh I'm just gonna neural that and win!" as our playstyle. However, many Protoss do seem to think; "I'm gonna vortex them and win!"
those changes are a joke and dont attack the fundamental problem with the infestor at all. it's too universal and doesnt fulfill only a specific role like it's supposed to be. it's too universal for a spellcaster unit. if they dont make good design changes, then ZvP will always be a boring and frustrating matchup to watch.
On November 17 2012 22:52 digmouse wrote: I asked those questions lol.
Yes I see your name there Funny.. always thought you were digimouse until today.
Is the other news about free HotS upgrade confirmed?
Yea confirmed, if you have the unlimited access to WoL you'll get HotS for free when it launches in China(which is very likely to be around the same time as rest of the world imo). I was right in front of Mike Morhaime when he said that and the the interview room just went on fire lol.
On November 17 2012 22:53 Lumi wrote: This bodes poorly for the near future of balance changes. This change is so dumb. PvZ isn't a stale, or imbalanced match-up because neural parasite works on a mothership. If you can't control a mothership without getting neural'd, don't make it. Quit running it out infront all by itself and being surprised because you ignored an obvious possibility. But, the greater point is that this wouldn't change anything for the match-up. I don't care if I can neural your mothership. It's not like any of us think "ooh I'm just gonna neural that and win!" as our playstyle. However, many Protoss do seem to think; "I'm gonna vortex them and win!"
Maybe fix that.
Nope, they think "I'm gonna vortex them and maybe have a chance not to lose instantly! ".
On November 17 2012 22:53 Lumi wrote: This bodes poorly for the near future of balance changes. This change is so dumb. PvZ isn't a stale, or imbalanced match-up because neural parasite works on a mothership. If you can't control a mothership without getting neural'd, don't make it. Quit running it out infront all by itself and being surprised because you ignored an obvious possibility. But, the greater point is that this wouldn't change anything for the match-up. I don't care if I can neural your mothership. It's not like any of us think "ooh I'm just gonna neural that and win!" as our playstyle. However, many Protoss do seem to think; "I'm gonna vortex them and win!"
Maybe fix that.
Actually, Protoss don't think "I'm gonna vortex them and win!". They think "I HAVE to vortex them to have a CHANCE of winning".
On November 17 2012 22:54 flakmonkey wrote: Neural not working against massive is what it should be. If it's psionic, then really what left is there that's worth using neural parasite on?
Thors, Immortals, Colo? Did zergs really neural HTs and ghosts anyways?
On November 17 2012 22:52 digmouse wrote: I asked those questions lol.
Yes I see your name there Funny.. always thought you were digimouse until today.
Is the other news about free HotS upgrade confirmed?
Yea confirmed, if you have the unlimited access to WoL you'll get HotS for free when it launches in China(which is very likely to be around the same time as rest of the world imo). I was right in front of Mike Morhaime when he said that and the the interview room just went on fire lol.
Oh man So good haha. Too bad I'm not a China player, and have to buy it like the rest of the world
On November 17 2012 22:52 digmouse wrote: I did that interview and asked those questions lol.
lol in that case you may as well post a transcript of the interview in english, instead of going from english to chinese back to english
I might do that some time later since my schedule is batshit crazy right now. BTW I have a 20 min exclusive interview with DB and a joint interview with the sc2 dev team tomorrow morning, if you guys have any more questions feel free to add.
On November 17 2012 21:49 DarkLordOlli wrote: They should also address the problem of walking spince crawlers counting as buildings.
Why is this a problem?
Watch HerO's games in this Code S. He was all over the place killing Soulkey's bases taking advantage of the BL+infestor deathball's immobility, until Soulkey decides to basetrade with a few walking spine crawlers with the army which led into a gg. I don't know if it is really a problem, but it sure looked like HerO was the better player in that series. Kinda the same problem with flying buildings by Terrans, but that one never comes to play in the same way, as they don't have such a strong deathball.
There was also the unstreamed game at MLG between Scarlett and HerO. Turned into a base race and Scarlett did the same thing. Chased around assimilators while walking around spines that were protected by the zerg army. Someone managed to record it from the venue. Also R1CH was pissed about that game as he tweeted "zerg is bullshit" paraphrasing of course
On November 17 2012 21:47 Zannadar wrote:Also, Thor is a HUGE mechanic vehicle. Why can it not walk over broodlings? Similar to Colossus...Maybe even tanks? I mean they are TANKS...
I think that would make zergling/broodlings super overpowered, since more units can hit the Thor at the same time.
I disagree. Broodlings can not walk over each other therefore it will always be the same amount of units. Regardless, currently possibly the biggest ground units in the game are stuck and unable to move meaning certain death for them. Mech army is already slow and it has no way out unlike protoss or zerg armies do.
On November 17 2012 22:52 digmouse wrote: I did that interview and asked those questions lol.
lol in that case you may as well post a transcript of the interview in english, instead of going from english to chinese back to english
I might do that some time later since my schedule is batshit crazy right now. BTW I have a 20 min exclusive interview with DB and a joint interview with the sc2 dev team tomorrow morning, if you guys have any more questions feel free to add.
"dont you think that terran doesnt gain enough new stuff in hots?" "why didnt you adress the lategame issues of terran in hots?" "are you happy with how the reaper is doing in hots? being a cheesy tvt only unit" "is there a concept how to get mech tvp going especially considering that immortals are a single amove counter to it" "when can we expect the map editor for beta?" "are the new features getting more functions? xp system, clan system, etc"
What if they added an attribute to the Mothership that is similar to the Ultralisk's Frenzy attribute that lets it be immune to snares and mind control. Nerfing Neural against almost all spellcasters (except the Raven lol) will kill a lot of interesting gameplay even if the nerf was aimed directly at buffing the Mothership.
On November 17 2012 22:54 flakmonkey wrote: Neural not working against massive is what it should be. If it's psionic, then really what left is there that's worth using neural parasite on?
The Neural nerf is just a band-aid to fix PvZ win-rates. Nothing more.
The projectile Fungal Growth is going to be the biggest design change IMO. It could add a lot of interesting micro opportunities that weren't there previously. Hopefully, they'll be some more design changes tested and implemented in HotS.
On November 17 2012 22:52 digmouse wrote: I did that interview and asked those questions lol.
lol in that case you may as well post a transcript of the interview in english, instead of going from english to chinese back to english
I might do that some time later since my schedule is batshit crazy right now. BTW I have a 20 min exclusive interview with DB and a joint interview with the sc2 dev team tomorrow morning, if you guys have any more questions feel free to add.
"Terran has a lot of micro potential and is balanced accordingly, without the warhound terran will still have the highest skill ceiling and requirement, any plans to raise P and Z to this level? if not, any plans to help (casual) terrans?"
causal in brackets because terran struggles just about everywhere now, even in the korean godrealm of gaming, but at least we still see them there ~~
On November 17 2012 22:52 digmouse wrote: I did that interview and asked those questions lol.
lol in that case you may as well post a transcript of the interview in english, instead of going from english to chinese back to english
I might do that some time later since my schedule is batshit crazy right now. BTW I have a 20 min exclusive interview with DB and a joint interview with the sc2 dev team tomorrow morning, if you guys have any more questions feel free to add.
Ask about the state mech TvP PLEASE!
Pro's are going bio in hots beta since mech still is not viable, are they planning changes? if mech doesn't work star-gate toss will not work vs bio and the MU will exactly look like wol.
On November 17 2012 22:52 digmouse wrote: I did that interview and asked those questions lol.
lol in that case you may as well post a transcript of the interview in english, instead of going from english to chinese back to english
I might do that some time later since my schedule is batshit crazy right now. BTW I have a 20 min exclusive interview with DB and a joint interview with the sc2 dev team tomorrow morning, if you guys have any more questions feel free to add.
"Terran has a lot of micro potential and is balanced accordingly, without the warhound terran will still have the highest skill ceiling and requirement, any plans to raise P and Z to this level? if not, any plans to help (casual) terrans?"
causal in brackets because terran struggles just about everywhere now, even in the korean godrealm of gaming, but at least we still see them there ~~
Mech in HotS is for casuals as far as I remember Blizzard's intention for HotS. E.g. bio being micro intensive, while mech being 1a.
On November 17 2012 22:52 digmouse wrote: I did that interview and asked those questions lol.
lol in that case you may as well post a transcript of the interview in english, instead of going from english to chinese back to english
I might do that some time later since my schedule is batshit crazy right now. BTW I have a 20 min exclusive interview with DB and a joint interview with the sc2 dev team tomorrow morning, if you guys have any more questions feel free to add.
"Terran has a lot of micro potential and is balanced accordingly, without the warhound terran will still have the highest skill ceiling and requirement, any plans to raise P and Z to this level? if not, any plans to help (casual) terrans?"
causal in brackets because terran struggles just about everywhere now, even in the korean godrealm of gaming, but at least we still see them there ~~
Mech in HotS is for casuals as far as I remember Blizzard's intention for HotS. E.g. bio being micro intensive, while mech being 1a.
Too bad mech is STILL harder to pull off in hots than bio. every terran streamer goes bio vs toss be it dimond or GM.
seeing these interviews with Dustin Browder hurts my head. How can he be happy with the current units in HOTS? I don't think this community is at all impressed with them overall. Oh well i believed in miracles but im beginning to think that a miracle won't happen for HOTS. Just got to keep our eyes pealed for any incoming changes that happen and hope for the best i suppose.
On November 17 2012 21:47 Zannadar wrote: Reverting back to no energy Thor with cooldown on cannons? Ok.
Also, Thor is a HUGE mechanic vehicle. Why can it not walk over broodlings? Similar to Colossus...Maybe even tanks? I mean they are TANKS...
+2-3 range on seeker missile maybe? So that they will be more than suicidal while attacking BL/Infestor composition...+Range and Fungal being a projectile will definitely make ravens one of the core units.
Applying some kind of "logic" to balance is stupid, and if you want to implement a design change like that which would have impact on balance you have to be really careful... Forcing something just because it would be "logical" (in a unrealistic world mind you...) can result in terrible terrible damage T_T.
That beeing said, I think it's nice to see that DB is in the mood for some real design changes .
Remove Vortex and replace with Time Warp and make neural not affect Psionic units. Leave fungal but but increase duration of sticky so that chains no longer occur or are much less effective. Nerf Broodling health and increase Infestor health, also make a Light Unit. Buff Mothership speed and acceleration and Nerf health. This way it is no longer needed to be in the army rather is it a fast (weaker) unit that recall army to opponents base, get out and recall again when opponent army approaches.
If you disagree (which I am sure someone will) please state reasons below.
On November 17 2012 22:52 digmouse wrote: I did that interview and asked those questions lol.
lol in that case you may as well post a transcript of the interview in english, instead of going from english to chinese back to english
I might do that some time later since my schedule is batshit crazy right now. BTW I have a 20 min exclusive interview with DB and a joint interview with the sc2 dev team tomorrow morning, if you guys have any more questions feel free to add.
"dont you think that terran doesnt gain enough new stuff in hots?" "why didnt you adress the lategame issues of terran in hots?" "are you happy with how the reaper is doing in hots? being a cheesy tvt only unit" "is there a concept how to get mech tvp going especially considering that immortals are a single amove counter to it" "when can we expect the map editor for beta?" "are the new features getting more functions? xp system, clan system, etc"
I'll add them, and map editor is already in beta I think?
On November 17 2012 22:54 flakmonkey wrote: Neural not working against massive is what it should be. If it's psionic, then really what left is there that's worth using neural parasite on?
Thors, Immortals, Colo? Did zergs really neural HTs and ghosts anyways?
i recall a pro tournament game where zerg neuraled a HT and then fedback few HTs, plus few pros neuraled ghosts on streams to emp
On November 17 2012 22:54 flakmonkey wrote: Neural not working against massive is what it should be. If it's psionic, then really what left is there that's worth using neural parasite on?
Thors, Immortals, Colo? Did zergs really neural HTs and ghosts anyways?
i recall a pro tournament game where zerg neuraled a HT and then fedback few HTs, plus few pros neuraled ghosts on streams to emp
yeah when T built mass ghosts some Z would neural one and EMP the others, but i have not seen this since the snipe nerf.
On November 17 2012 23:24 eviltomahawk wrote: The Neural nerf is just a band-aid to fix PvZ win-rates. Nothing more.
The projectile Fungal Growth is going to be the biggest design change IMO. It could add a lot of interesting micro opportunities that weren't there previously. Hopefully, they'll be some more design changes tested and implemented in HotS.
Fungal to be a missile and the new HSM to be instant cast, I can totally see blizzard brings that in hots.
Blizzard pushing P to go for Mothership, oh my god -_-
On November 18 2012 00:04 Severedevil wrote: Neural Parasite is already too weak. It's everything else the Infestor can do that breaks the game...
One damn week ago browder finally admitted that FG/IT's need a change, and he shows up with a NP nerf concept. This guy is so trolling the whole world wide web.
On November 17 2012 22:54 flakmonkey wrote: Neural not working against massive is what it should be. If it's psionic, then really what left is there that's worth using neural parasite on?
Thors, Immortals, Colo? Did zergs really neural HTs and ghosts anyways?
i recall a pro tournament game where zerg neuraled a HT and then fedback few HTs, plus few pros neuraled ghosts on streams to emp
Yes, there were some cases but I think they were so rare that it really doesn't need to be considered. I don't think too many people were complaining about infestors neuraling their ghosts and HTs. Due to the range, if you can get HTs and ghost that close to infestors, you should EMP, snipe or feedback them.
On November 18 2012 00:04 Severedevil wrote: Neural Parasite is already too weak. It's everything else the Infestor can do that breaks the game...
One damn week ago browder finally admitted that FG/IT's need a change, and he shows up with a NP nerf concept. This guy is so trolling the whole world wide web.
Hopefully it is ONE of the changes being made and not the ONLY change. But knowing Blizzard, the test map will be like TDA with rocks.
digmouse: "Infestors are only 2 supply. If you make 10 supply of them, they have several spells which alters the game to such a degree that they render other strategies for Terran and Protoss completely obselete.
Fungal shuts down air units such as vikings and carriers, harassment units such as warp prism and medivac, Terran Bio and Sentry based Protoss armies.
Infested Terrans shut down mechanical based play for Terran, and entering the lategame can be used during engagements to create huge "free" supply armies with units that are numerically superior to units which cost supply.
What is your design intent with the Infestor? What is your intended counter to this unit for each of the races? What can the Terran and Protoss players do in order to stop a zerg player from amassing 30 of these units or defeat them in the mid to late game?"
On November 18 2012 00:04 Severedevil wrote: Neural Parasite is already too weak. It's everything else the Infestor can do that breaks the game...
One damn week ago browder finally admitted that FG/IT's need a change, and he shows up with a NP nerf concept. This guy is so trolling the whole world wide web.
Hopefully it is ONE of the changes being made and not the ONLY change. But knowing Blizzard, the test map will be like TDA with rocks.
On November 18 2012 00:04 Severedevil wrote: Neural Parasite is already too weak. It's everything else the Infestor can do that breaks the game...
One damn week ago browder finally admitted that FG/IT's need a change, and he shows up with a NP nerf concept. This guy is so trolling the whole world wide web.
Hopefully it is ONE of the changes being made and not the ONLY change. But knowing Blizzard, the test map will be like TDA with rocks.
On November 17 2012 22:52 digmouse wrote: I did that interview and asked those questions lol.
lol in that case you may as well post a transcript of the interview in english, instead of going from english to chinese back to english
I might do that some time later since my schedule is batshit crazy right now. BTW I have a 20 min exclusive interview with DB and a joint interview with the sc2 dev team tomorrow morning, if you guys have any more questions feel free to add.
ask about 'fundamental game changes', such as changing economy/income and workers per base and such - I'm really curious about Blizzard's opinion on that.
I'd say that from all of infestors abilities neural is least in need of a nerf. Not sure if turning fungal into a projectile makes sense - it may well end up too weak against terran. And why is he considering those suggestions for HotS when tempest was supposed to solve the late-game issues is beyond me.
"We are concerned by all the balance issues relating terran late game. We applied a buff to the terran race and more specifically, the Thor, the 250mm cannon did not see any play so we reworked it : It now does twice the damage against destructible rocks. While this doesn't seem a big change, I swear it is a huge one because, we're gonna add a shitload of destructible rocks on ladder maps to make this buff legit. You're welcome.
On November 17 2012 22:52 digmouse wrote: I did that interview and asked those questions lol.
lol in that case you may as well post a transcript of the interview in english, instead of going from english to chinese back to english
I might do that some time later since my schedule is batshit crazy right now. BTW I have a 20 min exclusive interview with DB and a joint interview with the sc2 dev team tomorrow morning, if you guys have any more questions feel free to add.
"dont you think that terran doesnt gain enough new stuff in hots?" "why didnt you adress the lategame issues of terran in hots?" "are you happy with how the reaper is doing in hots? being a cheesy tvt only unit" "is there a concept how to get mech tvp going especially considering that immortals are a single amove counter to it" "when can we expect the map editor for beta?" "are the new features getting more functions? xp system, clan system, etc"
I'll add them, and map editor is already in beta I think?
On November 17 2012 22:52 digmouse wrote: I did that interview and asked those questions lol.
lol in that case you may as well post a transcript of the interview in english, instead of going from english to chinese back to english
I might do that some time later since my schedule is batshit crazy right now. BTW I have a 20 min exclusive interview with DB and a joint interview with the sc2 dev team tomorrow morning, if you guys have any more questions feel free to add.
"dont you think that terran doesnt gain enough new stuff in hots?" "why didnt you adress the lategame issues of terran in hots?" "are you happy with how the reaper is doing in hots? being a cheesy tvt only unit" "is there a concept how to get mech tvp going especially considering that immortals are a single amove counter to it" "when can we expect the map editor for beta?" "are the new features getting more functions? xp system, clan system, etc"
I'll add them, and map editor is already in beta I think?
"Is the current role (jack of all trades) for the infestor intended ?"
I am interested to know how he pull off to answer that one haha.
On November 17 2012 22:52 digmouse wrote: I did that interview and asked those questions lol.
lol in that case you may as well post a transcript of the interview in english, instead of going from english to chinese back to english
I might do that some time later since my schedule is batshit crazy right now. BTW I have a 20 min exclusive interview with DB and a joint interview with the sc2 dev team tomorrow morning, if you guys have any more questions feel free to add.
What a coincidence. TL also has an exclusive interview with DB tomorrow! ^^
After hosting their own tournament, wich has almost only protoss and zergs, they don't even think about that terran might be UP. Wow this is really weak, not to mention that this infestor change doesn't helps terran at all. I guess it's time to switch races, since terran won't change -.-
now finally i can overcome broodlord/infestor with terran because ghosts getting mind controlled was such a problem. also ghosts proved to be so strong against zerg since you nerfed snipe. they can totally deal with all units and not only be a huge investment risk to exclusively count infestors (which are cheaper than ghost).
and thanks for making fungal a projectile. the first of the 20 fungals or so zerg has in lategame might actually miss my retarded ai clumped up vikings forcing zerg to use one more fungal then they used to to destroy 3k resources vikings and my only chance to win.
On November 17 2012 22:54 flakmonkey wrote: Neural not working against massive is what it should be. If it's psionic, then really what left is there that's worth using neural parasite on?
Thors, Immortals, Colo? Did zergs really neural HTs and ghosts anyways?
i recall a pro tournament game where zerg neuraled a HT and then fedback few HTs, plus few pros neuraled ghosts on streams to emp
Yes, there were some cases but I think they were so rare that it really doesn't need to be considered. I don't think too many people were complaining about infestors neuraling their ghosts and HTs. Due to the range, if you can get HTs and ghost that close to infestors, you should EMP, snipe or feedback them.
doesnt it add to the excitement factor tho? it's like landing a nuke - pros usually notice the dot and dodge it, but once in a while they dont... i guess we could change the nuke to not kill units, but only bring them down to 1 life? :-) because due to the dot people should dodge it anyway, besides obs should be flying left and right to spot the ghost, right? RIGHT?
if someone isnt paying attention, he should get punished for it - and NPing a ghost/ht to emp/feedback your opponents casters is an awesome thing to pull off
On November 17 2012 22:52 digmouse wrote: I did that interview and asked those questions lol.
lol in that case you may as well post a transcript of the interview in english, instead of going from english to chinese back to english
I might do that some time later since my schedule is batshit crazy right now. BTW I have a 20 min exclusive interview with DB and a joint interview with the sc2 dev team tomorrow morning, if you guys have any more questions feel free to add.
"Terran has a lot of micro potential and is balanced accordingly, without the warhound terran will still have the highest skill ceiling and requirement, any plans to raise P and Z to this level? if not, any plans to help (casual) terrans?"
causal in brackets because terran struggles just about everywhere now, even in the korean godrealm of gaming, but at least we still see them there ~~
Mech in HotS is for casuals as far as I remember Blizzard's intention for HotS. E.g. bio being micro intensive, while mech being 1a.
On November 18 2012 00:58 fezvez wrote: Psionic immunity is such a bad thing...
Because I actually LOVED when a good player neural a ghost and EMP the other ghosts. Or neural a templar and feedback the other templars.
That was actually a showcase of sick micro, something I would never be able to do. And I loved it.
I mean, I can NP a mothership. So I'm glad that this disappears. But preventing a lot of incredible micro at the same time? Bad idea...
That wasn't a showcase of sick micro. It's super easy to do. It's a showcase of the opposing T/P being completely terrible or going afk for a short while for a drink or for a pee or something similar to that. Both EMP and Feedback outranged 7range neural with 1sec cast time BY FAR.
Perhaps in the lower leagues, this will reduce the infestor viability a tiny bit if you like to neural ghosts/hts for fun, but it literally will not do anything to pro level games.
Yuck... I don't like the concept of a projectile fungal at all.. This double nerf is going to make infestor play extremely unpopular. I do think the infestor is too strong but this change is going to obliterate zerg defensive capabilities. Zerg is going to get destroyed by mass air protoss, blink stalkers, drops and Terran bio balls. I found a video of projectile fungal for patch 1.3 and I have no idea how amateur zergs (like me ) are going to hit split stimmed marines and blink stalkers with a projectile. That said at a pro level im all for the change! But sadly im not that good and i would like some different zerg options.
I don't think a lot of protoss players properly account for neural parasite. I mean, what other justification is there for having your mothership away from your army, exposed and without observers in proximity to spot for ambushing infestors?
Good. Now we're getting into it and we'll see the very game altering things that we've come to expect from Blizzard's expansions. Should be fun to see.
ez fix is to make it where fungal doesn't affect non-biological air units or doesn't affect armored air units
I would prefer if it wouldn't affect air unit at all but Zergs would complain about ZvZ being muta fest which imo is wayyy better than watching infestor-based armies
On November 17 2012 22:00 Jumbled wrote: I don't like it. I'd rather a change that gets away from relying on the mothership in lategame PvZ. This change to neural just makes it more important.
Yeah i agree, this just tilts the tables in favor of the protoss come lategame. This isn't a redesign in how the late game is played. And honestly in the games i saw where the Zerg didn't neural the MS, they lost the fight badly.
Weird that people are complaining about not being able to neural archons. I can't say I've ever seen a zerg bother to neural an archon in forever. BLs + fungal rape them so hard anyway.
Infestor change won't affect any Terran units at all except for Ghosts, Thors, and Battlecruiser... Which are all rarely used. In the neural parasite sort of way anyways... how often do they get neuraled...
On November 18 2012 01:22 geokilla wrote: Infestor change won't affect any Terran units at all except for Ghosts, Thors, and Battlecruiser... Which are all rarely used. In the neural parasite sort of way anyways... how often do they get neuraled...
I don't think neural is even used much anyways in other matchups that aren't ZvP
On November 18 2012 01:22 geokilla wrote: Infestor change won't affect any Terran units at all except for Ghosts, Thors, and Battlecruiser... Which are all rarely used. In the neural parasite sort of way anyways... how often do they get neuraled...
Neither Thors nor BattleCruisers are Psionic. Having energy ≠ being Psionic.
On November 18 2012 01:12 caradoc wrote: Immune to neural? Seriously? That's their big fix?
Want me to rephrase "immune to neural" for you?
DB: We decided we would make the mothership immune to neural so that at ultimate late game armies, protoss is either even or has the advantage. We will do a test map to see how that works.
And the projectile fungal in HOTS. Honestly, it kinda will make fungal a little more hard and I like that but it won't have too drastic implications so I am quite undecided on this. But the neural? I really like it because zergs will have to innovate since ZvP is no longer the quest to neural or not to neural the Mothership
On November 17 2012 22:52 digmouse wrote: I did that interview and asked those questions lol.
lol in that case you may as well post a transcript of the interview in english, instead of going from english to chinese back to english
I might do that some time later since my schedule is batshit crazy right now. BTW I have a 20 min exclusive interview with DB and a joint interview with the sc2 dev team tomorrow morning, if you guys have any more questions feel free to add.
hey man
thanks so much for the interview and i'm waiting for the translation i have few questions and pm'd ya thanks
Loool, what a change. "Fungal growth is too strong and infested terrans allow zergs to go way way way too far above the supply cap" --> "WE ARE GOING TO FIX THE ALREADY NERFED TO SHIT NEURAL."
Nyeh lol. I'll do it if no one else is doing it. I won't be home until about 15 hours from this post though, so any changes have to be done by the opening poster
All the players who made it to BWC are all heroes. To me, there's no such thing as a best player. They're all amazing. I just wish to enjoy the best and most balanced competition, without any problems regarding the balance.
How many times have you been to China? What's your impression of Shanghai?
This is my first time in China. I feel that Shanghai is really beautiful, really clean. It's orderly, and very modern.
What strategies do you personally like to use?
I play random, and I can use any of the races. I know almost all the strategies for the races, as well as the various types of all-ins and cheeses.
I'm really good in the first 10-15 minutes, about as good as professionals even. But as the game draws longer, I become weaker and weaker, especially when it comes to a situation with 200/200 supply, my play is just.......
Do you know that the Chinese players call you the marauder? [T/N: Because the marauder is bald, and he is bald, and their heads are pretty similarly shaped I guess]
(Much laughter) Oh, no no no, don't do that. When we look at Terran, we hope to look at it as a whole, and not just at a specific unit type. Balancing has to be done with the overall picture in mind.
As for the marauder, I feel that he is really strong, and is a compulsory unit in TvT and TvP. But he has his weaknesses too, like being unable to shoot air.
No matter what, I will still listen to your opinions, and examine the marauder carefully.
[T/N: Afterwards, Dustin Browder finally understood that he was called the marauder because he looked similar to a marauder, and he laughed even more about it.]
You said the new units in HOTS are pretty good now, and you are going to make some change to some old units. Do you have any plans about changing the units in WOL? I'm more interested about the raven, void ray, carrier, and especially the infestor.
For now, I can't promise what is going to be changed. In the following weeks, we'll be taking a new look at the current existing units, whether we'll be doing some tweaks to some numbers or to overhaul and redesign the unit.
As for the units in WOL, I'll raise some examples. First example would be the hunter seeker missile of the raven. I'm still considering if I should tweak it or whether I should redesign it.
A second example would be the Thor's 250mm Cannons. Very few players use it currently, and so, HOTS is a good chance for us, and we may redesign it to make more players use 250mm cannon.
For the void ray, do you mean it's too weak? But before we made the previous change many people were complaining that it was very strong. I really want to make some crazy changes to the void ray, but we still don't know yet. We'll be doing some tests before Christmas.
Personally, I'm looking forward to a complete overhaul. That's why I'll be encouraging the Starcraft 2 team to make a few revolutionary changes to increase the diversity of our strategies.
You seem to have forgotten the infestor (laughs)
Oh, I forgot. But never mind, I'll tell you.
Infestors. We are going to make a balance test map and put it on WOL servers, where psionic units would be immune to neural parasite. And on HOTS beta servers, we'll add a projectile animation back to Fungal Growth, just like in patch 1.3 PTR.
Note: Psionic units include the mothership, high templar, ghost, infestor, queen, and archon. Therefore, MC's complaint about the mothership being neural parasited would be solved... At this stage, one of the reporters quietly added "MC, you won..."
Question by Mike Morhaime: What about infested terrans?
That's really troublesome, and really hard to balance. We'll have to think about it somemore.
Will the Starcraft 2 tournaments in 2013 be using HOTS or WOL?
That will be decided by the tournament. If they still want to use WOL it'll still be fine, so it'll be completely be up to the tournament organisers.
I like the fungal change really. Still leaves it as a strong spell but if you are good enough you should be able to mitigate its damage. Should make it a little more exciting to watch
On November 18 2012 01:12 caradoc wrote: Immune to neural? Seriously? That's their big fix?
Want me to rephrase "immune to neural" for you?
DB: We decided we would make the mothership immune to neural so that at ultimate late game armies, protoss is either even or has the advantage. We will do a test map to see how that works.
And the projectile fungal in HOTS. Honestly, it kinda will make fungal a little more hard and I like that but it won't have too drastic implications so I am quite undecided on this. But the neural? I really like it because zergs will have to innovate since ZvP is no longer the quest to neural or not to neural the Mothership
Why are you putting words in his mouth? That is not what he said, nor what he meant, nor what is going to happen by any means. It's not like Zerg relied on hitting a neural to win the game, it's just something you can do to randomly win a game where you're basically dead (see leenock vs hero where leenock is on 3 mined out bases vs hero's 7 bases).
The thing that bothers me the most about infestors is that fungal is freaking 2 radius, against 1.5 for storm and EMP... It does not only root, which is hard to deal with, but it roots giant freaking clumps of marines or whatever. A 1.5 radius would already help quite a lot x_x
Do you know that the Chinese players call you the marauder? [T/N: Because the marauder is bald, and he is bald, and their heads are pretty similarly shaped I guess]
(Much laughter) Oh, no no no, don't do that. When we look at Terran, we hope to look at it as a whole, and not just at a specific unit type. Balancing has to be done with the overall picture in mind.
As for the marauder, I feel that he is really strong, and is a compulsory unit in TvT and TvP. But he has his weaknesses too, like being unable to shoot air.
No matter what, I will still listen to your opinions, and examine the marauder carefully.
[T/N: Afterwards, Dustin Browder finally understood that he was called the marauder because he looked similar to a marauder, and he laughed even more about it.] .
Thank you for the full translation. I actually laughed my ass off with this answer since it shows how worried Dustin Browder is about balance.
Uhh.. NP change? Not fungal? Needs to be more than a projectile. If you're against 30 infestors, you're NOT going to dodge 30 fungals, no matter the projectile.
like the neural on MS change but making fungal a projectile is just stupid. blinkstalker will be completely broken. good player will be able to dodge too many times. blinkstalker are already borderline OP.
it will be either as slow as in the video (so every gold+ player can dodge it) or has to be so fast that nothing will change. just a bad idea. make fungal a slow already!
and nothing mentioned how to compensate zerg?! no hydra buff? no ultra buff? no cost buff to SH and viper?
How freaking hard can it be to balance the freaking infestor, reduce fungal radius, make 3 pop, make infested terran a bit more costly. I´m getting pissed at these retarded answers and I don´t even play anymore, and when I did I played zerg. I don´t wanna watch these freaking 30 infestor shit matches.
On November 18 2012 02:04 Nausea wrote: How freaking hard can it be to balance the freaking infestor, reduce fungal radius, make 3 pop, make infested terran a bit more costly. I´m getting pissed at these retarded answers and I don´t even play anymore, and when I did I played zerg. I don´t wanna watch these freaking 30 infestor shit matches.
It's hard because Zerg rely upon the unit so much (We need it otherwise we suck). The win rates for Zerg aren't absolutely ludicrous, and nerfing the infestor drastically could make it so Zerg are way under 50% win rates.
Blizzard is completely out of touch with their own game. This is all they are going to change after these last months? Absolutely ridiculous. Infested terrans remain the same? Fungal remains the same? I hope people realize, if it's a projectile...when it hits, it's the exact same problem as now - you'll be able to chain fungal repeatedly on vikings/protoss army till it's dead.
No solid word on raven changes? No solid word on anything. Blizzard refuses to still admit the infestor is a problem, and that's starting to become an even bigger problem now in my opinion.
And why so little mention of TvZ LOL. It's not only ZvP that is completely broken right now in late game.
not being able to neutral archons just makes any sort of ultra baneling infestor army not viable. this is just going to force zerg to go infestor broodlord even more than now. they should just make neutral only work vs ground units if a change is really even necessary.
On November 18 2012 02:18 avilo wrote: Blizzard is completely out of touch with their own game. This is all they are going to change after these last months? Absolutely ridiculous. Infested terrans remain the same? Fungal remains the same? I hope people realize, if it's a projectile...when it hits, it's the exact same problem as now - you'll be able to chain fungal repeatedly on vikings/protoss army till it's dead.
No solid word on raven changes? No solid word on anything. Blizzard refuses to still admit the infestor is a problem, and that's starting to become an even bigger problem now in my opinion.
And why so little mention of TvZ LOL. It's not only ZvP that is completely broken right now in late game.
Just sad.
They have never given 100% specific balance updates in an interview. DB has also never commented on balance beyond "we are looking at it" and some other minor changes. Balance changes are released on patch notes, every time. You think after two years people would just catch on that Blizzard is not going to address the subject of balance in an interview. But every time, the community freaks out, takes one minor comment and screams "OMG, they are so out of touch with the game!!!?! Why won't they admit the game is broken, at the tournament for that game, that they are running..."
On November 18 2012 02:25 AcesAnoka wrote: great, tvz is still fucked.
Depends on that what the fungel missile is like. If it moves slower that stimmed, that could be pretty awesome and dodgeable. Also, hitting air units like phoenixes would be harder as well.
By this point we honestly shouldn't expect more from Blizzard fellas. Between the "knee-jerk" nerfs and now the long, drawn out discussions on what to balance it has become obvious that Blizzard is clueless as to what to do with the game, in my opinion. Strike Cannons? Neural Parasite? This isn't what the community has been complaining about for the past several months. I'm beginning to think that they should just clean house and hire new people to take a look at the game. Judging from a lot of the comments in this thread Blizzard has already lost the faith of the community.
Why do people like @Avilo and others say that Infested Terrans will remain the same when in this interview, they very specifically said they'll look into it?
Do they read the interview than ignore what they just read? I don't understand how someone's train of thought works like that at all.
Looks like they watched State of the Game lol :D - I hope Terran gets a usable T3 Unit like a improved Raven. But changes sound really good, looking foward to it.
On November 18 2012 02:32 Stress wrote: By this point we honestly shouldn't expect more from Blizzard fellas. Between the "knee-jerk" nerfs and now the long, drawn out discussions on what to balance it has become obvious that Blizzard is clueless as to what to do with the game, in my opinion. Strike Cannons? Neural Parasite? This isn't what the community has been complaining about for the past several months. I'm beginning to think that they should just clean house and hire new people to take a look at the game. Judging from a lot of the comments in this thread Blizzard has already lost the faith of the community.
Dustin Browder was asked about revamping WoL units in HotS, what else did you expect him to say? They're going to possibly nerf neural and fungal growth, isn't that enough for you?
On November 17 2012 22:00 Jumbled wrote: I don't like it. I'd rather a change that gets away from relying on the mothership in lategame PvZ. This change to neural just makes it more important.
Because In WoL its impossible to not rely on the mothership in some way if you choose not to do a prehive or GSpire timing.
Hmmm he mentioned that they believe that balancing infested terrans is difficult, and while I agree that it can easily become too weak with tweaking (and become more like the auto turret) I’m curious why they haven't tried playing around with what the infestor did in the early WOL beta. So make it that the IT spell spawns 2 IT’s for the cost of 50 energy (or 3 for 75) instead of 1 for 25. This way the spell hasn’t been ‘nerfed’ per say, it still has the same potential, but the infestor itself is less useful in more situations, due to the higher cost of its spells.
It would also mean that low energy infestors would be more punishing to the zerg, which is not always the case in WOL, as a steady stream of IT can actually hold off some pushes (which feels silly).
At least now that BWC is almost over we can start to see some changes =).
On November 18 2012 02:31 Lukeeze[zR] wrote: When I think about it, NP'd mothership is like the only cool thing I appreciate in the PvZ match-up. :[
I find NPing the mothership really cool, the main problem for me is most the time that's what the entire game comes down to
Exactly, that's what you get when you introduce a 'hero' unit that is so strong than only one is allowed. That problem would never happen with arbiters, because you would've 3-4 and losing 1 for a couple of seconds wouldn't be that much of a deal.
On November 18 2012 02:25 AcesAnoka wrote: great, tvz is still fucked.
Depends on that what the fungel missile is like. If it moves slower that stimmed, that could be pretty awesome and dodgeable. Also, hitting air units like phoenixes would be harder as well.
But if the Z can still get +20 infestors late game, which is the big problem right now, it doesn't matter if you miss 1 or 2 missiles, you still get plenty of them. Once you hit -> root -> impossible to fail a chain fungal.
On November 17 2012 22:03 Snowbear wrote: That infestor change will not help terrans! People tend to forget that besides protoss players, terrans are having a sick hard time against broodlord infestor. Protoss players have the mothership, we have nothing. Ravens do work, but 1) the tech to it is so slow, 2) the zerg has to CLUMP his units.
Yeah dude you're 100% right. I mean Zergs nowadays always have double digit numbers of Broodlord Infestor before you get that tech lab on the Starport.
-_-
What a stupid statement. Your second point is fine, Ravens rely on heavy clumping so it's not guaranteed. Having said that, I never see Terran players split their Vikings. You always see them split their Marines against Banelings and Fungal, but never Vikings...
On November 18 2012 02:40 GattAttack wrote: Hmmm he mentioned that they believe that balancing infested terrans is difficult, and while I agree that it can easily become too weak with tweaking (and become more like the auto turret) I’m curious why they haven't tried playing around with what the infestor did in the early WOL beta. So make it that the IT spell spawns 2 IT’s for the cost of 50 energy (or 3 for 75) instead of 1 for 25. This way the spell hasn’t been ‘nerfed’ per say, it still has the same potential, but the infestor itself is less useful in more situations, due to the higher cost of its spells.
It would also mean that low energy infestors would be more punishing to the zerg, which is not always the case in WOL, as a steady stream of IT can actually hold off some pushes (which feels silly).
At least now that BWC is over we can start to see some changes =).
Yeah I think making the spell cost more even if it means same number of infested terrans can help in SOME situations.
But those engagements where the infested terrans are used to create 100 extra supply of fighting units in an engagement wouldn't really change.
On November 18 2012 02:36 SarcasmMonster wrote: Why do people like @Avilo and others say that Infested Terrans will remain the same when in this interview, they very specifically said they'll look into it?
Do they read the interview than ignore what they just read? I don't understand how someone's train of thought works like that at all.
A couple months from now Polt or maybe Taeja will beat some foreigner Zergs at an overseas event and Blizzard will announce that infestors are still fine.
On November 17 2012 22:03 Snowbear wrote: That infestor change will not help terrans! People tend to forget that besides protoss players, terrans are having a sick hard time against broodlord infestor. Protoss players have the mothership, we have nothing. Ravens do work, but 1) the tech to it is so slow, 2) the zerg has to CLUMP his units.
Yeah dude you're 100% right. I mean Zergs nowadays always have double digit numbers of Broodlord Infestor before you get that tech lab on the Starport.
-_-
What a stupid statement. Your second point is fine, Ravens rely on heavy clumping so it's not guaranteed. Having said that, I never see Terran players split their Vikings. You always see them split their Marines against Banelings and Fungal, but never Vikings...
They do, but air units have the best let's go clump up AI ever seen. Anyways, it's getting the starport + upgrades + building time + time to get enough energy for HKM. And if you get that early instead of reactored vikings, good luck with your life because building some HKM ravens (enough to be able to get a few good HKM shots withouth getting fungaled), takes way more time and resources than the scenario you are speaking off, because infestors are the top notch core unit of zerg midgame anyways. Stop being a prick btw.
On November 17 2012 22:03 Snowbear wrote: That infestor change will not help terrans! People tend to forget that besides protoss players, terrans are having a sick hard time against broodlord infestor. Protoss players have the mothership, we have nothing. Ravens do work, but 1) the tech to it is so slow, 2) the zerg has to CLUMP his units.
Yeah dude you're 100% right. I mean Zergs nowadays always have double digit numbers of Broodlord Infestor before you get that tech lab on the Starport.
You're right, Ravens are easy to tech to. However, they're very difficult to mass. Infestors and HTs are expensive, but they build from basic structures -- it's easy to dump as much gas as you've got money into them. Starport + Tech Lab is a rather expensive unit-producing structure, particularly if you're going to fill it for 60 game-seconds to produce one Raven.
Ravens also need more energy to deploy their good spells; a 75-mana Raven is a pretty worthless caster.
On November 18 2012 02:36 SarcasmMonster wrote: Why do people like @Avilo and others say that Infested Terrans will remain the same when in this interview, they very specifically said they'll look into it?
Do they read the interview than ignore what they just read? I don't understand how someone's train of thought works like that at all.
Yeah you're right, some guys can't read the full translation before QQ-ing
On November 18 2012 02:32 Stress wrote: By this point we honestly shouldn't expect more from Blizzard fellas. Between the "knee-jerk" nerfs and now the long, drawn out discussions on what to balance it has become obvious that Blizzard is clueless as to what to do with the game, in my opinion. Strike Cannons? Neural Parasite? This isn't what the community has been complaining about for the past several months. I'm beginning to think that they should just clean house and hire new people to take a look at the game. Judging from a lot of the comments in this thread Blizzard has already lost the faith of the community.
Dustin Browder was asked about revamping WoL units in HotS, what else did you expect him to say? They're going to possibly nerf neural and fungal growth, isn't that enough for you?
Late game PvZ is just a big gimmick(along with TvZ). You have fungal, which stops units from moving, then on the other end you have the mothership, neither of which are fun to play or watch. Just changing fungal to a projectile and nerfing NP isn't going to fix anything, the inability to micro once you are fungaled is the problem. The reason the infestor is this way right now is because of poor design choices for the rest of the Zerg arsenal(hydras, nydus worm, roach). There are plenty of ways to improve the game as it stands right now they just aren't being done. Some alterations on a couple of units and this game would be in a much better state, in my opinion. Waiting 4.5 months for HotS is silly when you can help fix the game right now and make it a more enjoyable experience for both the players and the viewers.
Michael Morhaime also announced that if you purchased the non-subscription pack of SC2 on Chinese server, you can upgrade to HOTS for free when it releases.
On November 18 2012 01:54 Decendos wrote: like the neural on MS change but making fungal a projectile is just stupid. blinkstalker will be completely broken. good player will be able to dodge too many times. blinkstalker are already borderline OP.
it will be either as slow as in the video (so every gold+ player can dodge it) or has to be so fast that nothing will change. just a bad idea. make fungal a slow already!
and nothing mentioned how to compensate zerg?! no hydra buff? no ultra buff? no cost buff to SH and viper?
The problem with the Infestor actually isnt Fungal or the Infested Terran itself ... its the ability to STACK THEM through massing Infestors and then using the energy to "burst fire" all their power in one battle and then get out again to regenerate energy before the next battle.
One Fungal isnt a problem or truly overpowered ... although it is a terribly boring and dull spell; 3-4 Infested Terrans arent a problem. The spells become overpowered when there are 2-3 Fungals on the same stack of units in succession to kill them without any danger to any Zerg unit (since range 9 is more than any infantry can shoot). 30-40 Infested Terrans fill the battlefield with lots of green eggs and then brown units which are indistinguishable from the Zerg creep or most of the regular ground ... and its even worse in a ZvZ with both sides spamming eggs.
Sooo ... the way to solve the problem is to reduce the number of Infestors in an area which can interfere in a battle. That OR increasing the energy by a lot [125 for Fungal, 50 for IT].
On November 17 2012 22:03 Snowbear wrote: That infestor change will not help terrans! People tend to forget that besides protoss players, terrans are having a sick hard time against broodlord infestor. Protoss players have the mothership, we have nothing. Ravens do work, but 1) the tech to it is so slow, 2) the zerg has to CLUMP his units.
Yeah dude you're 100% right. I mean Zergs nowadays always have double digit numbers of Broodlord Infestor before you get that tech lab on the Starport.
-_-
What a stupid statement. Your second point is fine, Ravens rely on heavy clumping so it's not guaranteed. Having said that, I never see Terran players split their Vikings. You always see them split their Marines against Banelings and Fungal, but never Vikings...
If u focus fire with units they stack no matter what
On November 18 2012 03:07 FuriousGool wrote: The game will be fixed with only 2 changes.\
Broodlord - > 6 supply Infestor - > 3 supply
After this Zerg will be underpowered. Zerg needs a redesign in general and hots would be a great opportunity, imo the infestor should be removed, it is a broken unit like warhound and doesn't fits zerg anyway. With the swarmhost and some hydra buffs the game would be fine for midgame and for lategame make the viper more useful and zerg will be fine, there is really no need for the infestor.
A: I used the random, I would use any race, I know almost all race tactics, as well as a variety of wave flow and strokes.
I have new respect for bald brother san.
I translate this for you
Q: What builds do you prefer?
A (Dustin Browder): I use random, so I know how to use every race. I know almost all builds (including all-ins) of three races. I'm very good in first 10 to 15 minutes--as good as professional players. But as the game goes on, I become weaker and weaker, especially after reaching 200 supply.
the psyonic thing is creative, but i don't think NP'ing ghosts/HTs is going to help HT/Ghosts vs infestor that much, right? (tho it does help with mothership)
also projectile yay! it'll be at least slightly harder to chain fungal now
If they turn the infestor fungul growth into a projectile it would make it dodgeable like storm I suppose? But I think it would be very hard for your average John Terran to dodge that. I would like to see some changes to the thors, They aren't really that fun to use. Honestly I wish they would get rid of the energy bar on them so they could be used vs Protoss instead of getting feedbacked to death. The void ray isn't a scary unit, and with the tempest being really good and people rushing to them to own you early game with a 2 gate or something, I think they should address that issue. The tempest is really not the easiest unit to kill and frankly I am not sure what role it serves in the Protoss army.
On November 18 2012 02:40 GattAttack wrote: Hmmm he mentioned that they believe that balancing infested terrans is difficult, and while I agree that it can easily become too weak with tweaking (and become more like the auto turret) I’m curious why they haven't tried playing around with what the infestor did in the early WOL beta. So make it that the IT spell spawns 2 IT’s for the cost of 50 energy (or 3 for 75) instead of 1 for 25. This way the spell hasn’t been ‘nerfed’ per say, it still has the same potential, but the infestor itself is less useful in more situations, due to the higher cost of its spells.
It would also mean that low energy infestors would be more punishing to the zerg, which is not always the case in WOL, as a steady stream of IT can actually hold off some pushes (which feels silly).
At least now that BWC is almost over we can start to see some changes =).
This is an interesting idea. However, back when I played Zerg, the thing I liked the most about IT was the ability to place them at very specific locations, and that was achievable because you could spawn them 1 by 1. Your proposed change sounds quite good, I'm just afraid that it might weaken the micromanagement aspect of the spell. Granted, it's really not that big of a deal at the end of the day.
On November 18 2012 03:39 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: the psyonic thing is creative, but i don't think NP'ing ghosts/HTs is going to help HT/Ghosts vs infestor that much, right? (tho it does help with mothership)
also projectile yay! it'll be at least slightly harder to chain fungal now
Nice, I've been wanting immunity for MSC, HT and Archon from NP for a while, now. Mainly from a lore perspective tbh (I just don't believe the epitome of Protoss psionic units should be NP'ed) and from balance issues where the MSC is concerned.
But an overall buff for balance is creative. It leaves PvT unaffected and is really only a tweak to the PvZ game.
The projectile for HOTS is also the right way to go. It may have been a little much for Zerg in WOL (maybe).
Thor Strike Cannon may help mech play, perhaps? And I really hope they do something good for the VR. It is a cool unit.
Anyway, kudos, yet again to DB and the Blizzard development/balance team.
They should just make the mothership non-neuralable. Neuraling psionic units like high-templars was really fun, and I wanted to chain neural enemy infestors to remove use up all their infested terrans.
On November 18 2012 03:24 EatThePath wrote: Courtesy of google translate:
Q: Do you personally like what tactics
A: I used the random, I would use any race, I know almost all race tactics, as well as a variety of wave flow and strokes.
I have new respect for bald brother san.
I translate this for you
Q: What builds do you prefer?
A (Dustin Browder): I use random, so I know how to use every race. I know almost all builds (including all-ins) of three races. I'm very good in first 10 to 15 minutes--as good as professional players. But as the game goes on, I become weaker and weaker, especially after reaching 200 supply.
Thanks! I figured it was something like this but it's nice to see specifically what I missed. I will also continue to think of wave flow and strokes. ^^
Once again DB delivers. Vague, off-topic answers topped with arrogance. Didn't expect anything more, this is classic neo-blizzard mentality. I guess we'll have to wait and see if the game actually improves with HOTS or degenerates even more.
Making Fungal a projectile is a decent start but it does a lot of damage, Still locks down units and He didn't even touch on how damn strong Infested terrans are. Sorry I have lots of problems with infestors.
I dont know. Neural is the only way Zerg can remove energy from units. They also should make a full warning when a mothership spawns like they do with nydus and nukes
On November 18 2012 04:03 kasumimi wrote: Once again DB delivers. Vague, off-topic answers topped with arrogance. Didn't expect anything more, this is classic neo-blizzard mentality. I guess we'll have to wait and see if the game actually improves with HOTS or degenerates even more.
On November 18 2012 04:03 kasumimi wrote: Once again DB delivers. Vague, off-topic answers topped with arrogance. Didn't expect anything more, this is classic neo-blizzard mentality. I guess we'll have to wait and see if the game actually improves with HOTS or degenerates even more.
Wait, what? Please elaborate, if you can. I'm tired of seeing this repetitive whining about Blizzard, and SC2 "degenerating".
Actually, don't elaborate. You have nothing worth saying that hasn't already been cried before, ad infinitum ad nauseaum.
On November 18 2012 04:03 kasumimi wrote: Once again DB delivers. Vague, off-topic answers topped with arrogance. Didn't expect anything more, this is classic neo-blizzard mentality. I guess we'll have to wait and see if the game actually improves with HOTS or degenerates even more.
First off, neo implies new. Classic neo-blizzard mentality is a walking contradiction. If anything about their mentality is "neo," its that they are actually communicating with the community now, unlike before, and listening to community complaints, and trying very hard to fix the game.
It is just unfortunate that people like you will shit on them no matter what they do. The outspoken minority rears its ugly head. People like you are just bitching to bitch, with no real aim, no matter WHAT blizzard did, it wouldn't appease some people.
On November 18 2012 03:24 EatThePath wrote: Courtesy of google translate:
Q: Do you personally like what tactics
A: I used the random, I would use any race, I know almost all race tactics, as well as a variety of wave flow and strokes.
I have new respect for bald brother san.
I translate this for you
Q: What builds do you prefer?
A (Dustin Browder): I use random, so I know how to use every race. I know almost all builds (including all-ins) of three races. I'm very good in first 10 to 15 minutes--as good as professional players. But as the game goes on, I become weaker and weaker, especially after reaching 200 supply.
Thanks! I figured it was something like this but it's nice to see specifically what I missed. I will also continue to think of wave flow and strokes. ^^
is he exaggerating or joking? he said he was in diamond back then
On November 18 2012 03:24 EatThePath wrote: Courtesy of google translate:
Q: Do you personally like what tactics
A: I used the random, I would use any race, I know almost all race tactics, as well as a variety of wave flow and strokes.
I have new respect for bald brother san.
I translate this for you
Q: What builds do you prefer?
A (Dustin Browder): I use random, so I know how to use every race. I know almost all builds (including all-ins) of three races. I'm very good in first 10 to 15 minutes--as good as professional players. But as the game goes on, I become weaker and weaker, especially after reaching 200 supply.
Thanks! I figured it was something like this but it's nice to see specifically what I missed. I will also continue to think of wave flow and strokes. ^^
is he exaggerating or joking? he said he was in diamond back then
I have no idea. I think it's the translation problem. The interviewer seems like recording what the translator orally translated.
On November 18 2012 02:04 Nausea wrote: How freaking hard can it be to balance the freaking infestor, reduce fungal radius, make 3 pop, make infested terran a bit more costly. I´m getting pissed at these retarded answers and I don´t even play anymore, and when I did I played zerg. I don´t wanna watch these freaking 30 infestor shit matches.
It's hard because Zerg rely upon the unit so much (We need it otherwise we suck). The win rates for Zerg aren't absolutely ludicrous, and nerfing the infestor drastically could make it so Zerg are way under 50% win rates.
My point is if they are gonna nerf it in the HOTS beta, let´s get serious then and nerf it to hell and see what happens and then get i back up as needed.
On November 18 2012 04:03 kasumimi wrote: Once again DB delivers. Vague, off-topic answers topped with arrogance. Didn't expect anything more, this is classic neo-blizzard mentality. I guess we'll have to wait and see if the game actually improves with HOTS or degenerates even more.
if they want more diversity they should emphasize ground type (like high/low). Maybe add some new ground type such as forrest reducing splash or similar, increase sight range on high ground ....
On November 18 2012 04:03 kasumimi wrote: Once again DB delivers. Vague, off-topic answers topped with arrogance. Didn't expect anything more, this is classic neo-blizzard mentality. I guess we'll have to wait and see if the game actually improves with HOTS or degenerates even more.
You didn't actually read the interview, right?
You mean the part where he uses words like revolutionary and diversity about the one the most useless units in the game that HE created? or the part where he casually forgets to talk about the infestor? And he relaxes by talking about HSM and 250mm cannon when, the game is plagued with design oversights in it's core.
This is from the man who thought 1 food/2 armor roach was a fantastic idea in steppes of war.
It makes me happy that I predicted Zerg and Protoss ending up being the OP races once people learned to play by the first year of SC2, predicted that chargelots would take over, and predicted that the snipe nerf and queen change would completely break ZvT.
Correct on all points, and I come back half a year later after giving up on SC2 to see if they've made any changes, and see that Blizzard is still killing their own game off.
Whatever, I'm done. Sad that SC2 had to go out this way, but whatever.
I dont know, shouldn't they buff ultras, hydras and co instead of making NP weaker. I mean, Brood/Infestor forces out the mothership play in the first place.
I know Infestor is really became the core unit but the whole concept of support caster dosen't apply for that unit in the late game
that wont fix the balance or the boringness. it actually makes the game more boring for the players who like to play with neural parasite. It gets clearer and clearer that they want WoL to be boring as shit.
On November 18 2012 04:03 kasumimi wrote: Once again DB delivers. Vague, off-topic answers topped with arrogance. Didn't expect anything more, this is classic neo-blizzard mentality. I guess we'll have to wait and see if the game actually improves with HOTS or degenerates even more.
You didn't actually read the interview, right?
You mean the part where he uses words like revolutionary and diversity about the one the most useless units in the game that HE created? or the part where he casually forgets to talk about the infestor? And he relaxes by talking about HSM and 250mm cannon when, the game is plagued with design oversights in it's core.
This is from the man who thought 1 food/2 armor roach was a fantastic idea in steppes of war.
You totally changed your argument.
You accused Browder of being vague, off-topic and arrogant. The interview is most certainly not vague and off-topic. Arrogance is more open to interpretation.
The only complaint I have about Browder is his utter overuse of the word 'awesome.' "X unit isn't being as awesome as we hoped." "In this patch you'll get to see how awesome X unit is!" "Ability X is really awesome." Am I the only one bugged by this?
On November 18 2012 04:33 Dalavita wrote: It makes me happy that I predicted Zerg and Protoss ending up being the OP races once people learned to play by the first year of SC2, predicted that chargelots would take over, and predicted that the snipe nerf and queen change would completely break ZvT.
Correct on all points, and I come back half a year later after giving up on SC2 to see if they've made any changes, and see that Blizzard is still killing their own game off.
Whatever, I'm done. Sad that SC2 had to go out this way, but whatever.
On November 18 2012 04:42 Scootaloo SC2 wrote: The only complaint I have about Browder is his utter overuse of the word 'awesome.' "X unit isn't being as awesome as we hoped." "In this patch you'll get to see how awesome X unit is!" "Ability X is really awesome." Am I the only one bugged by this?
Might be a personal quirk, maybe. Every interview I've seen with him he tends to the hyperbolic in his speech.
On November 18 2012 04:36 Darksoldierr wrote: I dont know, shouldn't they buff ultras, hydras and co instead of making NP weaker. I mean, Brood/Infestor forces out the mothership play in the first place.
I know Infestor is really became the core unit but the whole concept of support caster dosen't apply for that unit in the late game
I dont see why Ultras should get buffed really. They are allready strong, most zerg just 1-a them into chokes and then cry they are useless. In open field fights they are really strong. Hydras do need buffs tho, after the heavy winfestor nerfs ofc
On November 17 2012 22:00 Jumbled wrote: I don't like it. I'd rather a change that gets away from relying on the mothership in lategame PvZ. This change to neural just makes it more important.
I completely agree. The way broodlord infestor works right now is just dumb. Nobody want's to see games with broodlord infestor because it is JUST DUMB. Using vortex to beat it isn't much better.
Also, these changes aren't gona change terran versus zerg. But that matchup can be made instantly better by nerfing corruptors so that they can't beat vikings so easily even without fungal. Corruptor is a dumb unit. It is a hard counter for air (this is why we don't see much carrier or battle cruiser usage) And basically it's only used as a transition to broodlord these days.
On November 18 2012 04:03 kasumimi wrote: Once again DB delivers. Vague, off-topic answers topped with arrogance. Didn't expect anything more, this is classic neo-blizzard mentality. I guess we'll have to wait and see if the game actually improves with HOTS or degenerates even more.
Vague? Off-topic?
Yes to both:
Vague, because he only says what they are going to do to test stuff ... which we dont care about. Off-topic, because no examples of how things would be changed were given.
The whole thing is more or less a giant "trust us, we know what we are doing" and that is very much in question after their abysmal designs for HotS without any clear concept for what would be working or fun and several "turn around 180 degrees" for the unit designs during the beta so far.
On November 18 2012 04:03 kasumimi wrote: Once again DB delivers. Vague, off-topic answers topped with arrogance. Didn't expect anything more, this is classic neo-blizzard mentality. I guess we'll have to wait and see if the game actually improves with HOTS or degenerates even more.
Vague? Off-topic?
Yes to both:
Vague, because he only says what they are going to do to test stuff ... which we dont care about. Off-topic, because no examples of how things would be changed were given.
The whole thing is more or less a giant "trust us, we know what we are doing" and that is very much in question after their abysmal designs for HotS without any clear concept for what would be working or fun and several "turn around 180 degrees" for the unit designs during the beta so far.
I don't see how you can argue that at all... no examples? Really?
What? That doesn't change anything. It means the matchup still revolves around getting a lucky vortex, while the zerg player wins by using free units only. Retarded.
WoL test map for Infestor Neural kind of says it all in terms of Blizzard's SC2 team making SC2 a more entertaining spectator game
managing to neural a Mothership is an entertaining action to a spectator albeit an imbalanced one assuming the Zerg can Vortex a Protoss or keep the Mothership neuraled, but still it's entertaining to a spectator to watch
since the HotS test map will have fungal being a projectile, the WoL test map should have been focused on experimenting with Infested Terran changes
ITs win games for present day Zerg far far more than neuraling psionic units
I understand their reluctance to change things, but damn they should just make Starcraft 3 or Warcraft 4. They obviously are to scared to change the game, and its only to the detriment of the player. Take what you've learned from SC2 and make a game without bad units if your so reluctant to change them.
I'm just utterly shocked at how the root isn't being looked into. Not to mention the fact that it can make free units. Its just way to well rounded.
Though there is some saving grace.
Personally, I'm looking forward to a complete overhaul. That's why I'll be encouraging the Starcraft 2 team to make a few revolutionary changes to increase the diversity of our strategies.
Seems like they really just want to wait for HOTS. Guess I can't blame them its not to far off. Should be exciting once HOTS comes if the make some revolutionary changes as he says.
On November 18 2012 05:02 Tausken wrote: I'm just utterly shocked at how the root isn't being looked into.
I know. Every time he talks about the Infestor and doesn't mention the root, it makes me not even want to buy HotS. I cannot imagine the game improving if an AoE Root is seen as perfectly acceptable.
On November 18 2012 05:02 Tausken wrote: I'm just utterly shocked at how the root isn't being looked into.
I know. Every time he talks about the Infestor and doesn't mention the root, it makes me not even want to buy HotS. I cannot imagine the game improving if an AoE Root is seen as perfectly acceptable.
It's like he wants to ignore it and pretend it isn't a problem. Just unbelievable.
They're changing nothing to PvZ and TvZ really but making it so that protoss will always have a vortex...
Common DB this doesn't really change anything
Like seriously, we complain about being able to toss out 50 infested terrans for free and being able to delay pushes indefinitly with fungal and their solution is to make the standoff between brood/infestor and protoss deathballs still come down to landing a vortex but taking out the clever micro of getting a NP off on it? That SHOULD be in the game, but the brood/infestor composition strength SHOULD NOT
On November 18 2012 05:58 Skiblet wrote: I have a good feeling that HoTS will change SC2 just like Broodwar changed starcraft, have faith in the ones that brought us Broodwar.
Except that almost nobody from the BW development team is on the HoTS development team. Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if there were indeed zero people from the BW days.
:O always thought it was silly that infestors could neural mothership. It's this HUGE thing and this one unit just pokes it and takes control. I like this choice as you can still neural massive
On November 18 2012 05:58 Skiblet wrote: I have a good feeling that HoTS will change SC2 just like Broodwar changed starcraft, have faith in the ones that brought us Broodwar.
Except that almost nobody from the BW development team is on the HoTS development team. Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if there were indeed zero people from the BW days.
There's the very obvious Mike Morhaime still here.
damn imagine blink stalkers vs infestors, dodging each other
heck imagine the infestor trying to fungal a protoss deathball, but the stalkers blinking out of the way and splitting outwards. would make the battle look cool possibly :D
i wonder why they didn't implement it last time they tested projectile...
On November 18 2012 06:32 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: damn imagine blink stalkers vs infestors, dodging each other
heck imagine the infestor trying to fungal a protoss deathball, but the stalkers blinking out of the way and splitting outwards. would make the battle look cool possibly :D
i wonder why they didn't implement it last time they tested projectile...
The fact that they don´t seem to think there´s much wrong with massing 30+ infestors and how the players are able to get to that point doesn't bode well for the future of this game, plus the fact that they don´t seem to have a problem with the infestor not acting as a support caster but the main army. At least from a spectators point of view this will lower viewer numbers if it continues. I know lots of friends who have already stopped watching because the battles are so insanely boring. I´m still watching, but we´ll see for how long that holds true.
On November 18 2012 06:32 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: damn imagine blink stalkers vs infestors, dodging each other
heck imagine the infestor trying to fungal a protoss deathball, but the stalkers blinking out of the way and splitting outwards. would make the battle look cool possibly :D
i wonder why they didn't implement it last time they tested projectile...
I think it was due to a lot of Zerg qq. They also wanted to make fungal ground only (around the same time as the VR speed nerf) but that was also shelved after Zerg qq. I agree that it would look cool. Heck, even manual cast Chargelots could get stuck in.
Edit/ Ah, of course. Muta battles in ZvZ. Bugger. Although, isn't it now a Roach/Infestor race? I can't really comment on ZvZ though as I rarely ever watch it (same as TvT). The only mirror I like watching is PvP and that's because I'm Protoss.
On November 18 2012 06:32 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: damn imagine blink stalkers vs infestors, dodging each other
heck imagine the infestor trying to fungal a protoss deathball, but the stalkers blinking out of the way and splitting outwards. would make the battle look cool possibly :D
i wonder why they didn't implement it last time they tested projectile...
I belive it was because it forced ZvZ into a muta race.
On November 18 2012 06:32 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: damn imagine blink stalkers vs infestors, dodging each other
heck imagine the infestor trying to fungal a protoss deathball, but the stalkers blinking out of the way and splitting outwards. would make the battle look cool possibly :D
i wonder why they didn't implement it last time they tested projectile...
no queen range or overlord speed buff and the game is a lot more figured out now for Zergs than it was back when projectile fungal was being experimented with
Fungal is a pivotal ability in the zerg arsenal when facing aerial harassment. If it did not hit air, you'd be a sitting duck for mass phoenix/muta. If it does, then one fungal means your air army is useless. At least thors don't invalidate mutalisks, they merely serve as a deterrent as you can always survive a few shots.
Turning it into a projectile means that you might be able to dodge a few infestor shots with excellent micro, but it's a risk. If your opponent has more than a few infestors, you still won't be able to dodge all of the fungals and you're still at risk for losing all your mutas. There are some micro tricks for the zerg also, like using burrowed infestors or predicting muta movement.
I recall that back in the day infestors weren't used so much, even if fungal lasted a whopping eight seconds. The proposal to turn it into a projectile was rejected and Blizzard was derided for trying to nerf zerg, which goes to show that the community can be short-sighted and overly focused on balance over proper game design. Zerg was weak, so any change to the infestor had to be in the context of buffing zerg.
On November 18 2012 06:58 Grumbels wrote: I recall that back in the day infestors weren't used so much, even if fungal lasted a whopping eight seconds. The proposal to turn it into a projectile was rejected and Blizzard was derided for trying to nerf zerg, which goes to show that the community can be short-sighted and overly focused on balance over proper game design. Zerg was weak, so any change to the infestor had to be in the context of buffing zerg.
You should also recall that Hydralisk and Ultralisk were terrible, and still are terrible, and the community wanted to buff those. But Blizzard didn't listen. Instead they created a super unit, because they had to make up for the weaknesses of the Hydralisk and Ultralisk. Thus the Infestor has many, many roles.
Why can't they just make it so massive units can't be neural'd? Ultralisks can't. Why not Thors, Battlecruisers, Motherships and Carriers?
Also they should take into account what has been discussed at the latest State of the Game, because the suggestions regarding the infestors, ravens and so on would make for a better game overall.
On November 18 2012 07:08 KanoCoke wrote: Why can't they just make it so massive units can't be neural'd? Ultralisks can't. Why not Thors, Battlecruisers, Motherships and Carriers?
There are a lot of ways to bring Infestors in line. I think, "Fungal and Neural can't target air" is an interesting concept to consider. Infested Terrans could still combat opposing air units, but only in a clumsy fashion.
It's also ludicrous to think that sticky gunk would hold an air unit in place, or that the Infestor's mind-probe tentacle can reach into the sky. Though it's also absurd to think an Infestor could mind control a robot or a sphere of pissed-off energy.
My concerns are with IT energy cost (not uncommon to see 20-50+) and with the amazing food efficiency and strength scaling of infestor+brood lord coupled with massable mobile static defenses.
Fungal being a projectile would help terran a ton, but not really affect ultralategame ZvP that makes no protoss in the world want to play a game longer than 14 minutes. Thats a seperate issue that is not being adressed here.
"2 supply infestors, 4 supply brood lords and food-free moveable spine crawlers lets zerg create a death blob of as much as 2-3x the army value of the protoss - I think if you could compete with that, it would be broken - but zerg cannot be allowed to put so much money into a mobile army. 20 brood lords with a spine forest and 30 infestors under them is unbeatable via any composition. Ground with 50 gateways to instantly replace your army can barely touch it, and air is all in - when your fleet gets fungalled and dies to dozens or 100+ IT's you cant replace it and die - It is unbeatable and you cant elimination race it, starve it out, and due to the current state of PvZ, prevent it."
On November 18 2012 07:08 KanoCoke wrote: Why can't they just make it so massive units can't be neural'd? Ultralisks can't. Why not Thors, Battlecruisers, Motherships and Carriers?
Also they should take into account what has been discussed at the latest State of the Game, because the suggestions regarding the infestors, ravens and so on would make for a better game overall.
Because they originally proposed that exact change on the test realm and people complained to much so they nerfed it from 9 to 7 range instead. Zergs wanted to keep stealing colossus at the time.
There are a lot of ways to bring Infestors in line. I think, "Fungal and Neural can't target air" is an interesting concept to consider. Infested Terrans could still combat opposing air units, but only in a clumsy fashion.
Fungal not hitting air was the other change they already considered on the test realm and the community again convinced them not to. So making both fungal and neural ground only would be even worse. Mutas dominating zvz was a big concern.
It's nice that the community has gone in a big circle on these changes though I think it is a good way to confuse blizzard.
On November 18 2012 07:08 KanoCoke wrote: Why can't they just make it so massive units can't be neural'd? Ultralisks can't. Why not Thors, Battlecruisers, Motherships and Carriers?
Also they should take into account what has been discussed at the latest State of the Game, because the suggestions regarding the infestors, ravens and so on would make for a better game overall.
Because they originally proposed that exact change on the test realm and people complained to much so they nerfed it from 9 to 7 range instead. Zergs wanted to keep stealing colossus at the time.
Then they should go back and review the past suggested changes, compare them to what actually occurred, then take all this data into account instead of leaving past documents up in a pile right next to the shredder.
I still don't get why the Hydra isn't tier 1 and why hydra's don't have a unit to morph into with tier 2 upgrades. Make it have terrible range in tier 1 and the tier 2 hydra range brings it up to 7. Have hydra's morph into swarm hosts as the units would probably work rather well together.
They basically addressed the smallest problems of the infestor. The neural change will just force zergs to learn to spread their units better and make vortex do almost nothing. Projectile fungal certainly helps to a degree but even a 90% slow would be more acceptable at this point since immobilizing is crazy. Infested terran being damage soaking and dps for 25 mana is hilarious.
On November 18 2012 06:58 Grumbels wrote: I recall that back in the day infestors weren't used so much, even if fungal lasted a whopping eight seconds. The proposal to turn it into a projectile was rejected and Blizzard was derided for trying to nerf zerg, which goes to show that the community can be short-sighted and overly focused on balance over proper game design. Zerg was weak, so any change to the infestor had to be in the context of buffing zerg.
You should also recall that Hydralisk and Ultralisk were terrible, and still are terrible
Ultralisks aren't terrible at all against Terran...
On November 18 2012 06:58 Grumbels wrote: I recall that back in the day infestors weren't used so much, even if fungal lasted a whopping eight seconds. The proposal to turn it into a projectile was rejected and Blizzard was derided for trying to nerf zerg, which goes to show that the community can be short-sighted and overly focused on balance over proper game design. Zerg was weak, so any change to the infestor had to be in the context of buffing zerg.
You should also recall that Hydralisk and Ultralisk were terrible, and still are terrible
Ultralisks aren't terrible at all against Terran...
They kind of are...
Isn't the point of Ultras versus Terran that you force the Terran to go all-out countering Broodlords and then switch to Ultras, which stomp the Broodlord counters?
On November 18 2012 06:58 Grumbels wrote: I recall that back in the day infestors weren't used so much, even if fungal lasted a whopping eight seconds. The proposal to turn it into a projectile was rejected and Blizzard was derided for trying to nerf zerg, which goes to show that the community can be short-sighted and overly focused on balance over proper game design. Zerg was weak, so any change to the infestor had to be in the context of buffing zerg.
You should also recall that Hydralisk and Ultralisk were terrible, and still are terrible
Ultralisks aren't terrible at all against Terran...
They kind of are...
Isn't the point of Ultras versus Terran that you force the Terran to go all-out countering Broodlords and then switch to Ultras, which stomp the Broodlord counters?
There is the tech switch threat, yes, but Ultralisks are viable as first Hive tech both against Marines/Tanks and mech.
Title (this is real, rofl): Bald Guy : enjoying BWC, Infestor may not be able to control Mothership
Q: Who would you like to win? Everyone who manages to get here is a hero. To me there's no best candidate, they are all great. I just want to appreciate a fair competition, without any balance problems.
Q: What is your impression of Shanghai? Have you been before? First time, I think Shanghai is very pretty, very clean, very orderly and very modern.
Q: Personally, what kind of tactic do you prefer? I use random, I can use any race and I almost know every strategy for every race including both one base all in and macro oriented ones. I am awesome before 10-15minute mark, almost as good as pros. but I become weaker as we go, especially at 200 food....
Q: Did you know in china we call you brother bald? (they translated to marauder when they said this to him)
ROFL, no no, not so intimate. When we look at terran, we hope to look at terran as a whole, and not to just separate out individual units. Balance must be looked at as a whole. As for marauder, I do think it is strong, an essential in TvT and TvP, but he has his own weakness, such as no AA. But regardless I will listen to your feedback and examine this unit carefully.
PS. afterwards when Dustin understood we call him marauder because they are both bald, he laughed even louder.
*************************************************************** <Followed by 2 questions, already translated in OP> ***************************************************************
Q: What about egg throwing? (beach ball, infestor terrans)
This is a very difficult and complex balance issue. We will continue to think about it.
Q: will sc2 tourneys in 2013 use WOL or HOTS?
This is entirely up to the organizers, they can still use WOL if they choose to.
On November 18 2012 06:58 Grumbels wrote: I recall that back in the day infestors weren't used so much, even if fungal lasted a whopping eight seconds. The proposal to turn it into a projectile was rejected and Blizzard was derided for trying to nerf zerg, which goes to show that the community can be short-sighted and overly focused on balance over proper game design. Zerg was weak, so any change to the infestor had to be in the context of buffing zerg.
You should also recall that Hydralisk and Ultralisk were terrible, and still are terrible
Ultralisks aren't terrible at all against Terran...
They kind of are...
Isn't the point of Ultras versus Terran that you force the Terran to go all-out countering Broodlords and then switch to Ultras, which stomp the Broodlord counters?
They work well but you can't stay on them. You have to transition at one point into broodlors or bio medivac tank overruns you.
Why can't Blizzard try the slow% idea? I feel it's the one allowing the most micro capibilities :/
On November 18 2012 07:08 KanoCoke wrote: Why can't they just make it so massive units can't be neural'd? Ultralisks can't. Why not Thors, Battlecruisers, Motherships and Carriers?
There are a lot of ways to bring Infestors in line. I think, "Fungal and Neural can't target air" is an interesting concept to consider. Infested Terrans could still combat opposing air units, but only in a clumsy fashion.
It's also ludicrous to think that sticky gunk would hold an air unit in place, or that the Infestor's mind-probe tentacle can reach into the sky. Though it's also absurd to think an Infestor could mind control a robot or a sphere of pissed-off energy.
I'm sorry but what league are you in? I cant believe its anything outside of silver league if you think fungal not hitting air wouldnt break zerg beyond repair. Voidray collosus would be unstoppable. Air builds against zerg as a whole would force us into heavy hydra production then stomp us when they collosus transitioned. We'd have to all in every game against protoss. We'd have to kill ravens late game with tons of corruptors, which would be dramatically ineffecient and again, lead to zergs avoiding the late game like the plague. zvz would be a perpetual mutalisk race like broodwar, only without scourge to force actual micro. Just blobs of muta 1aing into each other.
The only thing infestors need is the ability to be dodged and a decreased cost effeciency even if they were to hit successfully, so they become support roles and not massed units [even then this will almost certainly require a buff to other zerg units, so be prepared for those implications] such as increasing the sup to 3.
On November 18 2012 06:58 Grumbels wrote: I recall that back in the day infestors weren't used so much, even if fungal lasted a whopping eight seconds. The proposal to turn it into a projectile was rejected and Blizzard was derided for trying to nerf zerg, which goes to show that the community can be short-sighted and overly focused on balance over proper game design. Zerg was weak, so any change to the infestor had to be in the context of buffing zerg.
You should also recall that Hydralisk and Ultralisk were terrible, and still are terrible
Ultralisks aren't terrible at all against Terran...
They kind of are...
Isn't the point of Ultras versus Terran that you force the Terran to go all-out countering Broodlords and then switch to Ultras, which stomp the Broodlord counters?
They work well but you can't stay on them. You have to transition at one point into broodlors or bio medivac tank overruns you.
Why can't Blizzard try the slow% idea? I feel it's the one allowing the most micro capibilities :/
We from the other races like to call this "reacting and strategy." I'm not sure why people pretend that, because the Ultralisk doesn't crush everything, it's a terrible and worthless unit. It's like in PvT: you don't keep making Colossi once the Terran switches into Starport production. That doesn't mean the Colossus is a terrible unit. It means its balanced and has actual weaknesses. Compare that to the Infestor, which you can build against anything and still win.
Maybe if Psionic units would be immune to fungals too so that high templars/ghosts could approach infestors and drain their energy. Even allowing dark templars to snipe them.
On November 18 2012 08:41 ShatterZer0 wrote: We'll never see gosu templar steals into 4 feedbacks We'll never see insane ghost steals to neuter entire Terran armies...
No psionic is ridiculous. Just give the Mothership immunity like the Ultralisk has random immunity to fungal stop.
Completely agreed.
They're fixing a flesh wound by amputating an entire limb of possible strategies. It's too blunt of an approach that reduces many interesting plays just to tweak an end-game win-rate even though there are more elegant solutions out there.
Projectile fungal fixes NOTHING. The problem is that once a fungal lands, you are fucked because your units will be chain fungaled to death, not that it is difficult to avoid the first few fungals. Even when Blizzard is doing the right thing they manage to find a way to fuck it up.
I don't like the projectile change. Z already have banelings which can be kited, and now we are going to have fungals too. Z early - mid game is going to be more unreliable than ever.
A cooler change would be for fungal to come out in a cone in-front of the infestor.and then slow. That way it would be easier to see coming and funner to use.
On November 18 2012 08:41 ShatterZer0 wrote: We'll never see gosu templar steals into 4 feedbacks We'll never see insane ghost steals to neuter entire Terran armies...
No psionic is ridiculous. Just give the Mothership immunity like the Ultralisk has random immunity to fungal stop.
Completely agreed.
They're fixing a flesh wound by amputating an entire limb of possible strategies. It's too blunt of an approach that reduces many interesting plays just to tweak an end-game win-rate even though there are more elegant solutions out there.
Just like their detection changes with the widow mine, they have no subtlety or elegance. Everything is heavy handed with these guys. They use a sledgehammer when a scalpel is required.
On November 18 2012 08:41 ShatterZer0 wrote: We'll never see gosu templar steals into 4 feedbacks We'll never see insane ghost steals to neuter entire Terran armies...
No psionic is ridiculous. Just give the Mothership immunity like the Ultralisk has random immunity to fungal stop.
Completely agreed.
They're fixing a flesh wound by amputating an entire limb of possible strategies. It's too blunt of an approach that reduces many interesting plays just to tweak an end-game win-rate even though there are more elegant solutions out there.
There not fixing anything...there putting up a map for testing in one avenue while testing another possible solution with another avenue. Both could end up rejected for different reasons.
edit: And changing fungal to a projectile isnt subtle? What the fuck? It literally just puts the responsibility on the other user more, thats as subtle and as light a change as you can possibly conceive of. Even a 3 supply infestor would be a more blunt change than that.
Can we just turn fungal into plague? Plague was good right and think about how much fun casters had saying it. The complete negation of movement is what kills fungal in zvt (chain fungals are way to easy and powerful), which is the only one i can really comment on as a t player. Fungal and broodlings are too good at stopping an army from closing, making the terran go for the hero air battle or nothing (which usually fails).
I still don't like the projectile idea. Fungal should just slow not root. Such a profoundly obvious fix that's been needed for a long time both balance and entertainment wise. More nerfs could follow but that should be the starting point. That and maybe putting a cooldown on infested terrans.
On November 18 2012 08:41 ShatterZer0 wrote: We'll never see gosu templar steals into 4 feedbacks We'll never see insane ghost steals to neuter entire Terran armies...
No psionic is ridiculous. Just give the Mothership immunity like the Ultralisk has random immunity to fungal stop.
Agreed.
Just give mothership immunity if thats what they wanna accomplish.
On November 18 2012 08:41 ShatterZer0 wrote: We'll never see gosu templar steals into 4 feedbacks We'll never see insane ghost steals to neuter entire Terran armies...
No psionic is ridiculous. Just give the Mothership immunity like the Ultralisk has random immunity to fungal stop.
Agreed.
Just give mothership immunity if thats what they wanna accomplish.
And still is dumb as fuck because we don't fucking want to watch Vortex wars just to keep win-ratio (dumb balance is dumb),
On November 18 2012 08:41 ShatterZer0 wrote: We'll never see gosu templar steals into 4 feedbacks We'll never see insane ghost steals to neuter entire Terran armies...
No psionic is ridiculous. Just give the Mothership immunity like the Ultralisk has random immunity to fungal stop.
Completely agreed.
They're fixing a flesh wound by amputating an entire limb of possible strategies. It's too blunt of an approach that reduces many interesting plays just to tweak an end-game win-rate even though there are more elegant solutions out there.
Like nerfing snipe to only work on psionic units, thereby removing some openings which used snipe against marines or use of the spell in late-game vs protoss armies. Qxc made a famous post advising Blizzard to instead consider slightly decreasing the damage to massive, but Blizzard ended up doing nothing with it.
On November 18 2012 06:58 Grumbels wrote: I recall that back in the day infestors weren't used so much, even if fungal lasted a whopping eight seconds. The proposal to turn it into a projectile was rejected and Blizzard was derided for trying to nerf zerg, which goes to show that the community can be short-sighted and overly focused on balance over proper game design. Zerg was weak, so any change to the infestor had to be in the context of buffing zerg.
You should also recall that Hydralisk and Ultralisk were terrible, and still are terrible
Ultralisks aren't terrible at all against Terran...
They kind of are...
Isn't the point of Ultras versus Terran that you force the Terran to go all-out countering Broodlords and then switch to Ultras, which stomp the Broodlord counters?
Ultras can be really good against Terran but they're more for pressing an advantage or catching the Terran off guard by hiding them or switching to them quickly from brood lords. They're not something you want to stick with if your initial attack isn't pretty successful though because unlike brood lords, Terran's means of beating them are a lot more practical and easy to get together.
Seems to be a different interview. There is information in this Korean interview that isn't present in the Chinese one.
Interview with Dustin Browder by TIG (Korea) One of the question asked: What features are being added to HOTS? -Resume from replay -Allowing observers to present information like player's name anywhere they want -if you reach max level, at least one custom skin for each race
Interview with Dustin Browder by TIG (Korea) One of the question asked: What features are being added to HOTS? -Resume from replay -Allowing observers to present information like player's name anywhere they want -if you reach max level, at least one custom skin for each race
On November 18 2012 08:44 Scila wrote: Projectile fungal fixes NOTHING. The problem is that once a fungal lands, you are fucked because your units will be chain fungaled to death, not that it is difficult to avoid the first few fungals. Even when Blizzard is doing the right thing they manage to find a way to fuck it up.
Yes I completely agree with this. Picture ZvZ mutas vs infestors. Now when the muta player is focused and dodging the projectiles, they are so hard to catch and so powerful and can waste so much energy from the infestors for little to no damage taken if they are efficient.
On the other hand, lets say they go back to macro for 1 second and then BAM the infestor player lands a fungal on the mutas. Well look at that once again. It's the same shit again where they just get chain fungalled to death. It's bad design and boring to watch.
If it is an instant cast slow, the mutas will take damage as the fungals won't miss (at least not often) but the muta player won't immediately get shut down because they can spread out their mutas.
I severely dislike banning neural from psionic - that kills the gameplay, for god's sake!
Do the opposite! Stimulate people to use neural on psionic and use their abilities - because that adds variety and complexity to the gameplay.
If it's about saving mothership - I suggest that the used mana during neural doesn't count (is restored back after neural ends), and the controlled unit becomes invulnerable during neural. This way, you can't just kill the unit or use up its mana, BUT you can still use its cool tricks to your advantage.
Nerf other sides of the infestor, but not this one. Stimulate this one, it's one of the coolest things in the game - eg: to use storm against protoss, or emp against terran. It's like Rubick in Dota 2, pure fun.
DB is really confusing. He wants to make some "revolutionary changes" to the game yet he doesn't want to directly change the core design of fungal because Z is too centered around it. Is this laziness on his part because he doesn't want to completely rebalance Z?
Does he even understand that a rooting spell is bad for the game?
Neural Parasite can't affect Psionic units? From 9 to 7 range and now this, how do they expect this function to ever work favorably and how on Earth is NP something that had to be nerfed again since it's rarely used in high level tournie's? The MS invulnerability, fine. Other-wise this would be an awful decision and a misguided attempt to quiet the embarrassing crying from players on the Infestor.
On November 18 2012 11:43 President Dead wrote: Neural Parasite can't affect Psionic units? From 9 to 7 range and now this, how do they expect this function to ever work favorably and how on Earth is NP something that had to be nerfed again since it's rarely used in high level tournie's? The MS invulnerability, fine. Other-wise this would be an awful decision and a misguided attempt to quiet the embarrassing crying from players on the Infestor.
On November 18 2012 05:58 Skiblet wrote: I have a good feeling that HoTS will change SC2 just like Broodwar changed starcraft, have faith in the ones that brought us Broodwar.
Except that almost nobody from the BW development team is on the HoTS development team. Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if there were indeed zero people from the BW days.
This is BS. You actually have to go look at who was BW lead designer. He is vice president of game design at Blizzard not to mention the man who made the whole engine for SC1 who is still working on Blizzard's rts team.
The current HoTS team is taking WAY too much from the community, basically the community is designing the game by complaining.
This is really really bad because the community are NOT game designers.
I wish that the HoTS team would just do their own thing and be CONFIDENT in their expertise and experience as game designers.
I want HoTS to be delivered to us, with the note: "This is the game we're giving you. This is the best damn game it can be, becuase WE'RE the experts, not you."
Instead of basically rolling over every time... I mean just look at how drastically the abilities of units have changes in HoTS because a small beta community has whined about certain units... the warhound was removed completely... ugh... I want real game designers to make my game, not a bunch of whining forum members.
On November 18 2012 12:15 EvanC wrote: The current HoTS team is taking WAY too much from the community, basically the community is designing the game by complaining.
This is really really bad because the community are NOT game designers.
I wish that the HoTS team would just do their own thing and be CONFIDENT in their expertise and experience as game designers.
Are you kidding me? They designed the Warhound, you want that?
Blizzard has designed incredibly poor units for HOTS, which is why the Shredder, Replicant and Warhound are gone and Tempest, Oracle and Mothership Core have been completely redesigned. I also think they lacked a plan from the get go about what they wanted to give each race.
We're slowly getting there, but the Widow Mine has to go.
On November 18 2012 12:15 EvanC wrote: The current HoTS team is taking WAY too much from the community, basically the community is designing the game by complaining.
This is really really bad because the community are NOT game designers.
I wish that the HoTS team would just do their own thing and be CONFIDENT in their expertise and experience as game designers.
Are you kidding me? They designed the Warhound, you want that?
Blizzard has designed incredibly poor units for HOTS, which is why the Shredder, Replicant and Warhound are gone and Tempest, Oracle and Mothership Core have been completely redesigned. I also think they lacked a plan from the get go about what they wanted to give each race.
We're slowly getting there, but the Widow Mine has to go.
well i mean, i dont really see anything in this about fungal in WoL. Its nice that they wont allow neural to be used on psionic units but the only psionic units terran have are ghosts and ravens which just get fungaled to death.
To be honest, I dont even think the problem is fungal. i think its just the fact that you can mass infestors and win. You cant do that with other races psionic units (not even archons)
On November 18 2012 12:15 EvanC wrote: The current HoTS team is taking WAY too much from the community, basically the community is designing the game by complaining.
This is really really bad because the community are NOT game designers.
I wish that the HoTS team would just do their own thing and be CONFIDENT in their expertise and experience as game designers.
Are you kidding me? They designed the Warhound, you want that?
Blizzard has designed incredibly poor units for HOTS, which is why the Shredder, Replicant and Warhound are gone and Tempest, Oracle and Mothership Core have been completely redesigned. I also think they lacked a plan from the get go about what they wanted to give each race.
We're slowly getting there, but the Widow Mine has to go.
You dont like that Terran got the Lurker? = (
that has a 40 second cool down on its attacks? nah.
Sure, make deathballing and clicking A + move even easier for late game toss! Keeping a mothership a bit behind the collosus that instantly kill infestors was just too much micro!
What about the Infestor makes Browder & Co. so cautious, compared to something like Super Snipe?
Both of them caused (or are causing) utterly ridiculous, hair-tearingly awful games where someone mashes a button really, really fast and eats the other guy's army. Both of them were (or are) seen as important components of late-game TvZ.
I know that Snipe wasn't that important to TvP, compared to Fungal stopping Protoss blobs in ZvP, but still...couldn't they try using some sort of hydralisk change as a way to counterbalance the incredibly-necessary Fungal / IT nerfs? Something, at least, rather than tip-toeing around while even the TL mod staff loses their minds?
I play random, and I can use any of the races. I know almost all the strategies for the races, as well as the various types of all-ins and cheeses.
I'm really good in the first 10-15 minutes, about as good as professionals even. But as the game draws longer, I become weaker and weaker, especially when it comes to a situation with 200/200 supply, my play is just.......
Spoken like a true diamond leaguer. "My macro is fine!"
NO, FUNGAL is realy really good. if terran looks away from their army for 1 sec, everything dies. take out all anti movement spells, or nerf them. that means FF, and fungal FF, casue that makes IdrA happy
On November 18 2012 14:25 Netsky wrote: This really doesn't make any sense. Half the Protoss army is now immune to fungal, but minimal impact for Terran?
Ummm..what?
On the other hand, it would greatly enhance Ghost play. And if needed, the Psionic attribute could be added to the Raven, which would kinda make sense because Sentries and Warp Prisms are robots as well.
And core units like Stalkers, Zealots, Colossi, Immortals, and Stargate units are still affected by Fungal. The immune units are mostly support units anyways.
On November 18 2012 14:25 Netsky wrote: This really doesn't make any sense. Half the Protoss army is now immune to fungal, but minimal impact for Terran?
Ummm..what?
On the other hand, it would greatly enhance Ghost play. And if needed, the Psionic attribute could be added to the Raven, which would kinda make sense because Sentries and Warp Prisms are robots as well.
I'm down for making the Raven Psionic. But still, it's massive buff for Protoss in comparison to how much it impacts Terran.
On November 18 2012 14:31 Lukeeze[zR] wrote: so sentries/immortal pushes gets stronger meanwhile TvZ remains the same ? :DDDDD
Immortal/sentry will be only marginally stronger, to be fair.
And I can see a resurgence of ghost play, since cloaked ghosts will be much harder to deal with without fungal.
Because they were such a problem before the proposed fungal change. Terrans don't have a good way to take out an overseer in the Zerg army, don't have a way to get ghosts close enough with broodlords out, and ghosts will still be trapped within well placed army fungals. This nerf would literally do nothing to TvZ.
On November 18 2012 14:37 digmouse wrote: Wait, I did hear him said it's neural.
I asked him about making Nerual not affecting Psionic units, and he just assumed I said Fungal, and clearly explained how ghosts and templar would be affected by being immune to Fungal. Also, if you think about it, making them immune to Fungal makes a lot more sense than making them immune to Nerual. Then later one, he said they were probably going to remove Nerual entirely because the times it's been used are not good for the game.
On November 18 2012 14:31 Lukeeze[zR] wrote: so sentries/immortal pushes gets stronger meanwhile TvZ remains the same ? :DDDDD
Immortal/sentry will be only marginally stronger, to be fair.
And I can see a resurgence of ghost play, since cloaked ghosts will be much harder to deal with without fungal.
Ghost is useless against every unit beside the infestor. I really don't see them being used because, like vikings, overproducing them makes you vulnerable to tech switches. And they're not exactly cheap.
On November 18 2012 14:37 digmouse wrote: Wait, I did hear him said it's neural.
I asked him about making Nerual not affecting Psionic units, and he just assumed I said Fungal, and clearly explained how ghosts and templar would be affected by being immune to Fungal. Also, if you think about it, making them immune to Fungal makes a lot more sense than making them immune to Nerual. Then later one, he said they were probably going to remove Nerual entirely because the times it's been used are not good for the game.
Also, come find me!
That's a huge relief. Neural is a nightmare to balance.
On November 17 2012 21:37 DaveVAH wrote: Q:What strategies do you personally like to use?
>.> I could see first 10 minutes maybe (perhaps closer to 8), because in 90% of games those first 10 minutes are macro where you are left alone but after that... I dunno if I see Dustin that high (maybe David Kim, but even that is iffy with a random player). Professionals are kind of in their own league.
As for everything else? I will just say that I kinda cant believe that there is 4 more months of HotS beta if they dont have a ton of balance changes in mind.
If they do those changes with the infestor I really pray they do something to buff zerg to compensate. I'd kill for that as I hate the infestor as a unit :D
On November 18 2012 14:37 digmouse wrote: Wait, I did hear him said it's neural.
I asked him about making Nerual not affecting Psionic units, and he just assumed I said Fungal, and clearly explained how ghosts and templar would be affected by being immune to Fungal. Also, if you think about it, making them immune to Fungal makes a lot more sense than making them immune to Nerual. Then later one, he said they were probably going to remove Nerual entirely because the times it's been used are not good for the game.
On November 18 2012 15:11 EvanC wrote: I feel like this would drastically weaken Zerg versus Protoss and yet not do much to 'balance' the Infestor TvZ
If ghost become immune to fungal, I think that getting a few ghosts to kill of infestors might actually be somewhat viable. It's impossible to say until pros try it. But everytime I see someone go ghosts, they lose because they get locked down and killed immediately. It's possible that ghosts being immune to fungal would help. It's also possible that ghosts are still wasted supply.
Also, I don't think it drastically weakens zerg v protoss. Archons will still be awful because of broodlings, HT will still not be able to get in range of inestors. The roll of DT will stay the same, except now one of the 10 spine crawlers in the main will need to be a spore. At the end of the day, mamaship being immune to fungal doesnt change the fact that protoss gets destroyed by infestor/BL armies.
On November 18 2012 15:08 blade55555 wrote: If they do those changes with the infestor I really pray they do something to buff zerg to compensate. I'd kill for that as I hate the infestor as a unit :D
Those changes are so insignificant for the TvZ matchup that buffing other units would just make that match even more tilted towards zerg.
But I do aggre with you, the infester leads to boring games. I miss banelings outside of all-ins.
He said in the test map, Psionic units will be unaffected by Fungal, not Neural.
THIS MAKES A LOT MORE SENSE! so that without increasing the range of emp/snipe/storm/feedback, u can allow them to counter infestors better ( punish infestors whenever they want to go in to fungal units )
Okay Blizzard, psionic units being unaffected by fungal is a step in the right direction because Ghosts and High Templar are basically the counter. Now I want you guys to nerf infested Terran as well AND buff hydras greatly.
On November 18 2012 14:25 Netsky wrote: This really doesn't make any sense. Half the Protoss army is now immune to fungal, but minimal impact for Terran?
Ummm..what?
Half of Protoss units are immune to fungal? 16/2=6? Seems legit.
Not really minimap impact for terran. Ghosts are now immune to fungal and will work as a real counter to the infestor (with their relatively new +psionic dmg making them 2 shot instead of 3 shot + now immune to fungal).
Getting rid of Neural Parasite seems kind off...wrong, doesn't it? It's almost like getting rid of ghost nukes, or the siege tank's siege-up routine of always pointing the hull southeast and the gun northwest before beginning to fire. What are they going to do with the big tentacle-head that bobs around the back of the infestor like a tail?
I really hope they reconsider the psionic-fungal junk, it's just so damn stupid sounding I want to scream.
On November 18 2012 04:03 kasumimi wrote: Once again DB delivers. Vague, off-topic answers topped with arrogance. Didn't expect anything more, this is classic neo-blizzard mentality. I guess we'll have to wait and see if the game actually improves with HOTS or degenerates even more.
Vague? Off-topic?
Yes to both:
Vague, because he only says what they are going to do to test stuff ... which we dont care about. Off-topic, because no examples of how things would be changed were given.
The whole thing is more or less a giant "trust us, we know what we are doing" and that is very much in question after their abysmal designs for HotS without any clear concept for what would be working or fun and several "turn around 180 degrees" for the unit designs during the beta so far.
I don't see how you can argue that at all... no examples? Really?
I am not accusing Browder of being an idiot or dumb, just stating that an interview isnt a good place to get "solid info" from. Thus it is correct that he was vague and off-topic as stated by kasumimi, because things like that can only be revealed decently in a "written statement form" and would be done best on forums. I consider "giving interviews" to be a terrible terrible thing for Browder right now, because he cant say anything specific enough in them and this will be seen as "blatant politician lies". They have to prove that they can fix the game and its many problems right now, so actions are needed much more than looking good on camera and being smart with words when a microphone is thrust in their face.
Blind trust only exists in stupid fanboys ...
On November 18 2012 14:40 SafeAsCheese wrote: If they made Marines psionic, this might change TvZ lol
Why should braindead criminals forced into military service be psionic?
I really wonder what will happen to all the patchzergs that place their whole game on infestors if they really make a proper nerf to these disgusgting spawnings of imbalance.
On November 18 2012 16:22 Ooshmagoosh wrote: Getting rid of Neural Parasite seems kind off...wrong, doesn't it? It's almost like getting rid of ghost nukes, or the siege tank's siege-up routine of always pointing the hull southeast and the gun northwest before beginning to fire. What are they going to do with the big tentacle-head that bobs around the back of the infestor like a tail?
I really hope they reconsider the psionic-fungal junk, it's just so damn stupid sounding I want to scream.
Just make NP not work on massive units.
It still have some uses against Immortals, Siege Tanks, Dropships, etc and can allow some fancy play.
Plus, maybe one day we'll see a game where Zerg uses the other race's army via NP a probe or SCV and building their tech...
It happened in televised BW maybe once or twice (sort of, they got up to a spawning pool in one of the games I watched >.>).
On November 18 2012 17:31 Zannadar wrote: So...Fungal not affecting Ghosts means cloaked Ghosts will not be revealed when fungaled? Or just not take dmg?
Remove neural? What possibly makes them think that neural is the problem here? Yes it can change games but infested terrans and fungals are what is currently making many zerg games quite uninteresting and annoying to watch.
On November 18 2012 17:21 Hopelessnoob wrote: i dunno if this was posted but the interview called DB 光头哥 which means literally "Bald brother" I found that so funny XD
Guys, I have a baller idea for changing infested terrans:
Just change it like it was with the reaver back in BW, means Infestor gets 5 unit slots and has to "build" infested terrans over time for maybe 25 mins each. That would mean they would be way more expensive (leaving Z with a much harder tech investment choice and him not being able to stockpile that much minerals when he gets those out on the field) each single infestor couldn't throw that much eggs at once.
On November 18 2012 17:57 Hall0wed wrote: Remove neural? What possibly makes them think that neural is the problem here? Yes it can change games but infested terrans and fungals are what is currently making many zerg games quite uninteresting and annoying to watch.
The point isnt wether it is "powerful" or "a problem" but rather if it is "fun" and "well designed". Compare it with the mind control spell from BW and you will see that that one was on a unit which had no other real offensive powers (Feedback is limited in its targets and Maelstrom is a crowd control spell only without any damage) ... not even an attack itself. Thus it wouldnt really make sense to build more than one or maybe two of them. Compare it with the number of Infestors and then see how much of an impact it has on a battle when 3-4 Thors, Siege Tanks, Colossi or even a Mothership switch sides. You cant come to any other conclusion that the spell is just as terrible in design as the rest of them or even Forcefield and Vortex.
Removing it is a good idea and my solution to fixing the Infestor spells requires that it gets replaced by the Defiler's Consume ability while increasing the energy cost for Fungal to 125 and Infested Terran to 50 (or even more). Consume should give energy equal to the mineral cost of a unit reduced by the amount of injury [a Roach at 50% health gives 38 energy].
On November 18 2012 18:41 Creager wrote: Guys, I have a baller idea for changing infested terrans:
Just change it like it was with the reaver back in BW, means Infestor gets 5 unit slots and has to "build" infested terrans over time for maybe 25 mins each. That would mean they would be way more expensive (leaving Z with a much harder tech investment choice and him not being able to stockpile that much minerals when he gets those out on the field) each single infestor couldn't throw that much eggs at once.
Good idea?
Sounds cool, but I assume that the Infested Terran stats need to be tweaked in some way to accommodate this change, possibly buffed since this is otherwise a pretty big nerf to what we currently have.
dude that new interview from gamespot is SICK, such good information
Question about the pathfinding:
It makes sense what he's saying about how nothing much is changed, but won't there be situations where you can intentinoally just a-click far once (like to engage an enemy defense), so that your forces stay more split up? But given the rest of his answer, I guess he feels that would make things too easy. Meh, I think it should be slightly easier to keep them apart, i feel they converge wayy too fast after splitting, but o well
-Psionic units being immune to Fungal to promote the use of HT and Ghost
-Fungal Growth as a projectile to allow missing the hit similar to EMP. This way Mutas, Phoenix etc. can possibly turn around and dodge the fungal. The goal seems to be create an uncertainty around the spell. For the moment it is a 100% hit. It will also help increase the skill level required to use FG.
-There is no problem with race distribution in tournaments. DB says they do not look at a single tournament but look a the bigger picture. There is no major imbalance.
-Certain strategies seem to be too strong in the game at the moment. We're looking into fixing them.
-Tempest will change how PvP is played. Whoever builds too many(8+) Colossi will be in trouble vs. someone who has tempests
-They are doing very well with Protoss. Happy with MS core. Frees up Protoss to choose between many paths/builds. Tempests are doing quite well. Happy with their progress in PvP and PvZ; especially vs BL's.
-Swarm Host and Viper are also doing well for Zerg. DB is a bit nervous about Ultralisk burrow charge. It might be destabilizing. It may be nerfed.
-Hellbat needs a buff. To be discussed next week.
-Conflicting messages for Widow Mine. Some say it is OP and some say it is useless. It may be too strong for someone who has never come across it before but it is quite easy to dodge once players are familiar with it. Thus, it has to be balanced in a way that it is not OP or underpowered.
-TvP mech not working at all so far. It is a goal for DB coming up.
-Raven and seeker missile investments are quite big. Very hard to get the tech in a timely fashion. There are opportunities to tweak Raven and seeker missle.
-There seems to be no problem with clustering. Most pros/players want units to be clustered. Having clustering by default was the choice for DB. Players should split up their units if they want to engage that way. Marines/Marauders fighting zealots want to be clustered but they obviously have to split up vs. banelings.
-It is still the beta and they are willing to have some crazy changes.
On November 18 2012 18:41 Creager wrote: Guys, I have a baller idea for changing infested terrans:
Just change it like it was with the reaver back in BW, means Infestor gets 5 unit slots and has to "build" infested terrans over time for maybe 25 mins each. That would mean they would be way more expensive (leaving Z with a much harder tech investment choice and him not being able to stockpile that much minerals when he gets those out on the field) each single infestor couldn't throw that much eggs at once.
Good idea?
Doesnt change one bit, because engagements only happen every now and then and you have enough time to get the full amount of charges for every one of them. If any this would make the Infestor easier to manage, because with a 200 energy Infestor you could spam out those 5 eggs and still have enough for a Fungal ...
The problem with the Infestor powers only arises if you have TONS of them (20+) so regenerating energy is done at an awesome rate. If you only have 3-4 Infestors one Fungal is a big investment, but as the Infestor count rises that investment grows less and less. Its again a "critical numbers thing".
I think Warp Prisms has to be fungal-able or they have to reduce the number of warpins able from a warp prism. They are going to be way too strong otherwise. They are already used a lot now and if they are not fungal-able they will have 0 counters. And 20 zealot warpins are really good.
I really just want someone to straight up put the question to Browder or Kim:
"Is having Zerg players mass 20+ Infestors every single game the direction you want StarCraft 2 to take?"
Just put it to them plain and try to get a straight answer, because these Infestor strategies are just so boring and combining them with mass Swarm Hosts or Brood Lords just makes it worse.
On November 18 2012 19:18 M.R. McThundercrotch wrote: I really just want someone to straight up put the question to Browder or Kim:
"Is having Zerg players mass 20+ Infestors every single game the direction you want StarCraft 2 to take?"
Just put it to them plain and try to get a straight answer, because these Infestor strategies are just so boring and combining them with mass Swarm Hosts or Brood Lords just makes it worse.
They pretty much said its not fine, just not with the exact words. They think that the overall balance is ok, just not the way it is balanced. They dont want the game to be balanced around some overpowered strats, aka infestor BL, sentrie immortal all-in, mass collosus. They will work on this.
There is no fucking way fungal not working on psionic units can pass. No fungal on sentries is a massive deal, it makes it so that sentry immortal cannot be defended with infestors anymore. It forces a single techpath everygame less you want to die to that single allin.
It doesn't even address the real fungal problems, fungalling vikings and the protoss ball lategame. It's a big midgame nerf when the problems is the lategame. If they do this they seriously have zero clue.
On November 18 2012 19:35 NeonFox wrote: it makes it so that sentry immortal cannot be defended with infestors anymore
Its impossible to defend sentry immortal with infestors right now. They are just too late
You can definitely hold until they come with lings and spine, I know I'm not a pro so my personal experience isn't really revelant, but I hold immo sentry allins from mid-high masters like this. It also is very important against prehive timings.
And now I see they consider removing neural altogether. They seriously don't have a clue...
On November 18 2012 19:35 NeonFox wrote: it makes it so that sentry immortal cannot be defended with infestors anymore
Its impossible to defend sentry immortal with infestors right now. They are just too late
Suppy defended Parting immo sentry all ins with infestor lings.
if it turns out to be a problem the solution is simple: removing psionic tag from sentries. its not like that effects anything else.
In my sudden attack of panic I didn't even think about that.. Yes that would be better. But it still doesn't really address the issue that fungal is just too punishing once it lands. They are taking the problem the wrong way imo, creating even more hardcounters/doesn't counter at all instead of more dynamic and versatile units.
Even the projectile idea is bad, if it lands it's super powerfull and does huge damage, roots and all that, if it doesn't nothing at all happens and the zerg is in deep trouble.
The slow% idea with instant or near-instant cast was such a great idea, the % is easy to tweak, it implies that fungal landing doesn't mean your units are now impossible to micro and will die.
Also why would ever remove neural if the only problem it poses is the mothership, and they plan on removing vortex down the road.
Don't really understand why they are focusing on NP. NPing the mothership is just a tip of the stupid meter in ZvP lategame. Having to archon toilet to win BL+infestor+spine army is in the first place just really stupid and they should really be focusing on that, and in the least make sure that HotS PvZ lategame will not end up like that. Personally I don't think projectile will be enough, you need to be able to micro against FG incombat, even FF allow you to pick up your front units, burrow under them, blink over them or crush them. It's very frustrating to loose a game because a rogue infestor was able to catch your units out of position once(with follow up infestors with FGs to kill everything).
On November 18 2012 20:04 Zarahtra wrote: Don't really understand why they are focusing on NP. NPing the mothership is just a tip of the stupid meter in ZvP lategame. Having to archon toilet to win BL+infestor+spine army is in the first place just really stupid and they should really be focusing on that, and in the least make sure that HotS PvZ lategame will not end up like that. Personally I don't think projectile will be enough, you need to be able to micro against FG incombat, even FF allow you to pick up your front units, burrow under them, blink over them or crush them. It's very frustrating to loose a game because a rogue infestor was able to catch your units out of position once(with follow up infestors with FGs to kill everything).
You should read the mod message on top of the thread.
On November 18 2012 20:04 Zarahtra wrote: Don't really understand why they are focusing on NP. NPing the mothership is just a tip of the stupid meter in ZvP lategame. Having to archon toilet to win BL+infestor+spine army is in the first place just really stupid and they should really be focusing on that, and in the least make sure that HotS PvZ lategame will not end up like that. Personally I don't think projectile will be enough, you need to be able to micro against FG incombat, even FF allow you to pick up your front units, burrow under them, blink over them or crush them. It's very frustrating to loose a game because a rogue infestor was able to catch your units out of position once(with follow up infestors with FGs to kill everything).
You should read the mod message on top of the thread.
Indeed I should, however that still doesn't invalidate my concern for the FG, just the NP part.
Edit: Actually it invalidates neither part, that is unless they end up removing NP.
-There seems to be no problem with clustering. Most pros/players want units to be clustered. Having clustering by default was the choice for DB. Players should split up their units if they want to engage that way. Marines/Marauders fighting zealots want to be clustered but they obviously have to split up vs. banelings.
[...]
Players only want their units to cluster up because there is no penalty for doing so. As QXC said well designed units balance power with a disadvantage or two, but clustering your units has none and this creates the problem. If the Siege Tank did 70 damage instead of their nerfed damage players would probably "think differently", but even without such a change Browder does not understand the problem behind too many units clustered in a tight clump. This seems to prove that they are looking at it from the wrong point of view.
The problem is really one of math and critical numbers. The game balance is different according to the number of units present in an encounter. If you have 2 Marines against 1 Zealot the Marines will have to run away from the Zealot and try to kite him, but if you have 20 Marines against 10 Zealots the Marines will win most likely without having to move, because they have enough "clump dps" to kill a few of the Zealots before they get to the Marines. This change in the balance gets bigger and bigger with more increasing numbers and it is the reason why Fungal and Infested Terran are sometimes overpowered. Its all about "critical numbers" which are a terrible thing for a strategy game to have.
On November 18 2012 20:04 Zarahtra wrote: Don't really understand why they are focusing on NP. NPing the mothership is just a tip of the stupid meter in ZvP lategame. Having to archon toilet to win BL+infestor+spine army is in the first place just really stupid and they should really be focusing on that, and in the least make sure that HotS PvZ lategame will not end up like that. Personally I don't think projectile will be enough, you need to be able to micro against FG incombat, even FF allow you to pick up your front units, burrow under them, blink over them or crush them. It's very frustrating to loose a game because a rogue infestor was able to catch your units out of position once(with follow up infestors with FGs to kill everything).
You should read the mod message on top of the thread.
Indeed I should, however that still doesn't invalidate my concern for the FG, just the NP part.
Edit: Actually it invalidates neither part, that is unless they end up removing NP.
I didnt mean to say anything about your point of view. Just trying to make you more informed. Maybe too passive agressive? I can only say that I didnt really sleep, and hope to find some forgiveness.
Hmm, i'm starting to change my opinion on DB, he makes good points. My decision on buying HOTS depends on how they will go about fixing mech TvP. I'm still worried they will do stupid design choices like the bio Hellbat or Medivac heal mechanic.
-There seems to be no problem with clustering. Most pros/players want units to be clustered. Having clustering by default was the choice for DB. Players should split up their units if they want to engage that way. Marines/Marauders fighting zealots want to be clustered but they obviously have to split up vs. banelings.
[...]
Players only want their units to cluster up because there is no penalty for doing so. As QXC said well designed units balance power with a disadvantage or two, but clustering your units has none and this creates the problem. If the Siege Tank did 70 damage instead of their nerfed damage players would probably "think differently", but even without such a change Browder does not understand the problem behind too many units clustered in a tight clump. This seems to prove that they are looking at it from the wrong point of view.
The problem is really one of math and critical numbers. The game balance is different according to the number of units present in an encounter. If you have 2 Marines against 1 Zealot the Marines will have to run away from the Zealot and try to kite him, but if you have 20 Marines against 10 Zealots the Marines will win most likely without having to move, because they have enough "clump dps" to kill a few of the Zealots before they get to the Marines. This change in the balance gets bigger and bigger with more increasing numbers and it is the reason why Fungal and Infested Terran are sometimes overpowered. Its all about "critical numbers" which are a terrible thing for a strategy game to have.
No, it's a good thing for an RTS to have. It makes the gameplay varied, allowing for different tactics depending on the time in the game and the investments each player has made.
If you want a game where zealots always beat marines, there are other RTS games for you.
-There seems to be no problem with clustering. Most pros/players want units to be clustered. Having clustering by default was the choice for DB. Players should split up their units if they want to engage that way. Marines/Marauders fighting zealots want to be clustered but they obviously have to split up vs. banelings.
[...]
Players only want their units to cluster up because there is no penalty for doing so. As QXC said well designed units balance power with a disadvantage or two, but clustering your units has none and this creates the problem. If the Siege Tank did 70 damage instead of their nerfed damage players would probably "think differently", but even without such a change Browder does not understand the problem behind too many units clustered in a tight clump. This seems to prove that they are looking at it from the wrong point of view.
The problem is really one of math and critical numbers. The game balance is different according to the number of units present in an encounter. If you have 2 Marines against 1 Zealot the Marines will have to run away from the Zealot and try to kite him, but if you have 20 Marines against 10 Zealots the Marines will win most likely without having to move, because they have enough "clump dps" to kill a few of the Zealots before they get to the Marines. This change in the balance gets bigger and bigger with more increasing numbers and it is the reason why Fungal and Infested Terran are sometimes overpowered. Its all about "critical numbers" which are a terrible thing for a strategy game to have.
No, it's a good thing for an RTS to have. It makes the gameplay varied, allowing for different tactics depending on the time in the game and the investments each player has made.
If you want a game where zealots always beat marines, there are other RTS games for you.
I always read loads of these type of arguments. "There shouldnt be rock paper siccor elements in RTS." I wonder, did you ever play other RTS games on a normal competitive level?
On November 18 2012 20:26 Sapphire.lux wrote: Hmm, i'm starting to change my opinion on DB, he makes good points. My decision on buying HOTS depends on how they will go about fixing mech TvP. I'm still worried they will do stupid design choices like the bio Hellbat or Medivac heal mechanic.
Yeh it was a pretty good interview. I still think DB's way of designing the game is flawed as it seems to be too much focussed on throwing different units into the game, instead of having a "goal for how the game should be played (which kind of options each races should have, appropriate responses from the opponent etc)", and then designing the proper units.
And yes, my buying decision relies on mech tvp as well. No reason to buy the game as it is now.
The fungal not affecting ghosts is "interesting", i guess they wouldn't get uncloaked, but overseers aren't psionic so sniping them isn't exactly easy before your ghost get reaped from afar because broodlords.
The worst thing is he saying that racial distribution would be a problem if everybody in a tournament was P,T or Z.Come on,really? This is for you race distribution issue?? 16 P,4 T and 12 Z is not an issue in a tournament? Incredible...
On November 18 2012 21:00 Godwrath wrote: The fungal not affecting ghosts is "interesting", i guess they wouldn't get uncloaked, but overseers aren't psionic so sniping them isn't exactly easy before your ghost get reaped from afar because broodlords.
Now imagine a HT, with his almighty mobility, dodging broodlings left and right in order to feedback some infestors.
On November 18 2012 21:02 Dvriel wrote: The worst thing is he saying that racial distribution would be a problem if everybody in a tournament was P,T or Z.Come on,really? This is for you race distribution issue?? 16 P,4 T and 12 Z is not an issue in a tournament? Incredible...
it's just combination of circumstances would say a protoss player...
On November 17 2012 21:37 DaveVAH wrote: -Psionic units immune to infester fungal test map. so a good buff to ghosts and HT vs infester.
I don't like this, seems like another balance change where intuitive thinking is disregarded. If I cast a spell it should affect all units in its range, that's how it's always been and balance is not a good enough reason to change that. It's confusing for both players and spectators.
- Fungal projactile so it takes more skill to use.
They should make the projectile's height between air and ground, so it doesn't look silly when a ground missile hits an air target and vice versa.
On November 18 2012 21:00 Godwrath wrote: The fungal not affecting ghosts is "interesting", i guess they wouldn't get uncloaked, but overseers aren't psionic so sniping them isn't exactly easy before your ghost get reaped from afar because broodlords.
Now imagine a HT, with his almighty mobility, dodging broodlings left and right in order to feedback some infestors.
I wasn't even thinking on them like a possibility because fungal or not they fucking die to broodlords. All the time.
On November 18 2012 21:00 Godwrath wrote: The fungal not affecting ghosts is "interesting", i guess they wouldn't get uncloaked, but overseers aren't psionic so sniping them isn't exactly easy before your ghost get reaped from afar because broodlords.
Now imagine a HT, with his almighty mobility, dodging broodlings left and right in order to feedback some infestors.
I wasn't even thinking on them like a possibility because fungal or not they fucking die to broodlords. All the time.
they should just get down and walk... not like they still make awesome afterimages like in broodwar anyway
Man, i thought that I misheard Dustin post-interview when i read neural was the target of non-effect instead of fungal. I started asking everyone their opinion on that >< Now I will look silly haha
On November 18 2012 21:16 Salteador Neo wrote: Fungal not affecting psionic is quite dumb. Again, it only affects ZvP and it makes Protoss 2 base pushes even stronger.
Infestor needs to be nerfed for sure but that's not the smart way IMO
edit: The projectile is way cool and should be applied asap
That's just not true o.O if you can't fungal psionic units you aren't able to fungal cloaked ghosts anymore, you can't fungal a bunch of ravens in ZvT lategame either. This change definitely won't only change ZvP as you might rage about :-P
On November 18 2012 21:16 Salteador Neo wrote: Fungal not affecting psionic is quite dumb. Again, it only affects ZvP and it makes Protoss 2 base pushes even stronger.
Infestor needs to be nerfed for sure but that's not the smart way IMO
edit: The projectile is way cool and should be applied asap
Actually, Ghost and Raven being immune to fungal change everything.
On November 18 2012 21:16 Salteador Neo wrote: Fungal not affecting psionic is quite dumb. Again, it only affects ZvP and it makes Protoss 2 base pushes even stronger.
Infestor needs to be nerfed for sure but that's not the smart way IMO
edit: The projectile is way cool and should be applied asap
Actually, Ghost and Raven being immune to fungal change everything.
Raven is currently not psionic i think, and ghosts i do not know, broodlords and overseers should not have too much trouble with them, because it is not like you could snipe Overseers how you do with observers in TvP, because a) you expose your vikings to fungals and b) zerg is unlikely to run out of overseers (as they do not cut into colossusproduction or similar, but morph from plain overlords)
On November 18 2012 21:16 Salteador Neo wrote: Fungal not affecting psionic is quite dumb. Again, it only affects ZvP and it makes Protoss 2 base pushes even stronger.
Infestor needs to be nerfed for sure but that's not the smart way IMO
edit: The projectile is way cool and should be applied asap
I cant think of a 2 base push that if done properly hits after infestors are out. Not having infestors are why 2 base pushes can work.
Funny how Kim said there wont be any major infestor changes in both WoL and HotS. Then Browder says they testing some big changes in test map. Finally "they're looking into a lot of changes for the infestor". just wtf?
On November 18 2012 22:48 Lukeeze[zR] wrote: Raven is not psionic.
Psionic units:
Protoss Sentry High Templar Dark Templar Archon Warp Prism Mothership
Terran Ghost
Zerg Queen Infestor
You forgot oracle for HOTS protoss. Alot of toss units have to become non Psionic for this change to be balanced. the good news is it can be done without affecting anything else. I would leave HT and DT and moma ship as the only protoss psionic units.
raven becoming psionic makes a lot of sense as well depending on what changes it goes through.
I'm not sure if the FG psionic thing is enough though. I mean, sure FG is strong against Ghost and HT, but the main reason for why these 2 units can't get to the infestors are the BL,imo. I still think the FG should not hit air, so that Vikings and Void Rays can do their jobs right, and force Zerg to invest supply in other ground based anti air like queens and hidras. If Hidras are not good enough, then buff them...we all know they need a buff anyway.
If ZvZ goes to shit, then fuck it. It's worth having a bad mirror MU if you can fix 2 non mirror ones. The main focus has to be to discourage Zergs to mass Infestors cos it makes for ugly games, not just give some slightly better counters to T/P. Mass Infestor has to go from the pro scene, for ever and ever.
EDIT: or maybe i'm thinking of this the wrong way. If Ghosts and HT can really counter Infestors, then maybe P/T can punish the Zerg player that is massing Infestors before BLs come out. I still don't like how Ghost are rubbish against everything Zerg, but absolutely needed against one unit and one unit only, especially if you go mech and you have 0/0 upgrades on bio.
On November 18 2012 21:16 Salteador Neo wrote: Fungal not affecting psionic is quite dumb. Again, it only affects ZvP and it makes Protoss 2 base pushes even stronger.
Infestor needs to be nerfed for sure but that's not the smart way IMO
edit: The projectile is way cool and should be applied asap
Actually, Ghost and Raven being immune to fungal change everything.
On November 18 2012 21:16 Salteador Neo wrote: Fungal not affecting psionic is quite dumb. Again, it only affects ZvP and it makes Protoss 2 base pushes even stronger.
Infestor needs to be nerfed for sure but that's not the smart way IMO
edit: The projectile is way cool and should be applied asap
Actually, Ghost and Raven being immune to fungal change everything.
It doesn't. And Raven isn't psionic.
Cloaked ghosts not being revealed by fungal isn't going to change anything? DT's not getting hardcountered by fungal growth? This would be a massive buff to ghost and templar play against zerg, and i actually really like that approach. Hope they are putting out the balance map really quick.
On November 18 2012 22:57 pivor wrote: Funny how Kim said there wont be any major infestor changes in both WoL and HotS. Then Browder says they testing some big changes in test map. Finally "they're looking into a lot of changes for the infestor". just wtf?
Yeah funny how people might change their mind over time, this is definitely something that has never been seen before, ever.
I ask myself who will be the first, who does a real interview with a blizzard employee.... They all think you have to be nice and ask nice questions if you do an interview.
"A big part of the sc2 community is disappointed with your work in the past. Do you think you did big mistakes in the past and do you agree that the options you put into the game on pressure are far behind options most other games have? "
If yes: "how do you change this in future? Why should someone still buy the addon?" If no, compare the options to bw and wc3 or other games and ask how exactly he thinks that bnet options are better.
"Also blizzard is know for their anti-modding politics. With the success of mods for bw , wc3 and mods in generell, will you rethink this politics in future?"
If he deny this politics give few of the several hundred examples where they worked against modders and ask for the reasons for every case. If he talks about control, ask him if the freedom of mods is not what makes them popular and if controlling mods is not against the main idea of modding. If he denys that, ask him with what modders blizzard or he personal worked together in the past and how it turned out. Ask him why dota2 is not a blizzard title.
That are questions i would ask... but all i see from people is sentence like "great answer" after every answer they get. There is no rule that says: you have to stick your head into his ... when asking questions.
well here is the problem for terran, especially mech players:
eventhough ghosts will be a way better counter to infestors when immune to fungal, they are still very much useless against everything else zerg has. infestors on the other hand are very effective against absolutely everything except ghosts. with mech and no 3/3 bio it will obviously be even worth.
they have to make snipe stronger again, its the only solution.
I'm pretty happy with the work Dustin's putting into it. Ever since I started programming professionally I understand more the weight of the decisions they make and the difficulty implementing even small tasks, due to complexity of the application.
On November 18 2012 21:16 Salteador Neo wrote: Fungal not affecting psionic is quite dumb. Again, it only affects ZvP and it makes Protoss 2 base pushes even stronger.
Infestor needs to be nerfed for sure but that's not the smart way IMO
edit: The projectile is way cool and should be applied asap
Actually, Ghost and Raven being immune to fungal change everything.
It doesn't. And Raven isn't psionic.
Cloaked ghosts not being revealed by fungal isn't going to change anything? DT's not getting hardcountered by fungal growth? This would be a massive buff to ghost and templar play against zerg, and i actually really like that approach. Hope they are putting out the balance map really quick.
Can't really talk about PvZ, but about TvZ:
- Overseer and broodlords are the reason why ghosts can't get close enough to snipe infestors, fungal isn't the problem. - it just pushes casters to be even more important, which is wrong. It's the same dumbshit "vortex vs neural" scenario, whoever lands it wins. - Even if you successfully snipe/emp infestors (2 abilities for a same purpose btw...) , what are you gonna do with your ghosts as they're useless against all zerg units beside infestor and the queen ? They become dead wood, like vikings after an ultra tech switch. - 1 fungal will still be able to lock down a bio, mech or sky army. - projectile is harder to land, but once it hits, chain fungal is as easy as always - projectile or not, fungal remains a boring anti-micro ability.
On November 18 2012 21:16 Salteador Neo wrote: Fungal not affecting psionic is quite dumb. Again, it only affects ZvP and it makes Protoss 2 base pushes even stronger.
Infestor needs to be nerfed for sure but that's not the smart way IMO
edit: The projectile is way cool and should be applied asap
That's just not true o.O if you can't fungal psionic units you aren't able to fungal cloaked ghosts anymore, you can't fungal a bunch of ravens in ZvT lategame either. This change definitely won't only change ZvP as you might rage about :-P
Hm I had not thought about cloaked ghosts not being revealed tbh. Not that there's any ghost usage in the matchup nowadays, but could be interesting I guess. On the other hand I don't like making the counters more obvious while keeping the infestor good against everything else. There's enough of that in SC2 already.
I still feel fungal not hitting air would help more all the matchups. Also making it slow, not root, like has been mentioned a thousand times before, would stop the chain fungals and still allow some micro. Both should be tested.
Anyway I'm glad its being looked into, as a viewer there's nothing more boring than mass infestors. I literally alt-tab and play some other game myself.
On November 18 2012 21:02 Cuce wrote: fungal not effecting sentries is more intrested I think
I wholeheartedly agree this, I think it will increase the chance of sentries from mid game pushes (when fungal first comes into play), to survive to the late game, where things like hallucination are starting to show promises of being useful against late game zerg (recent WCS - Hero, I think).
I also think the no fungal against psionic units is good because zerg have it much easier to keep their spellcaster alive in late game. Every other race practically has to suicide them in (e.g. late game pvz, high templar feedback the infestor, but die to broodlord shots & fungal; ravens when they are trying to use any of their abilities in a fight (a tiny bit of cynicism there); late game tvz, ghosts get caught by fungal when trying to emp, most likely die; and as I said earlier, sentries once fungal comes out). Having to suicide spellcasters into battle are one of the reasons why broodlord infestor is so powerful. They get more spells, and they get more gas to be put into other things compared to the other races who have to constantly rebuild their spellcasters which are (should?) be needed in that game battle.
It may unbalance the game for a little bit, but I think Zerg can adapt, or probably be buffed in other areas depending on the problems that may emerge. They should also change the raven to psionic while they are it.
Huge huge huge protoss buff! A lot of Zergs will complain, but I think it'll be interesting. The only thing that worries me are the buffs to Warp Prism and all the cloaked units. Now Zerg will have to be extra diligent in getting detection.
It's also encouraging that even with HoTS coming out, they're trying to make WoL a great game in its own right. This is something I always wanted. I think Blizz does great credit to the franchis, the game, and their company if they not have some "ultimate" game by the time LoTV comes out, but have 3 very different games that can be played for different flavors (even if each successive game should be, well, an expansion).
I don't think I agree with making fungal not affect psionic units. For one, you can't fungal other infestors anymore, which seems silly. And now there are randomly a whole bunch of protoss units you can't attack. And there won't be a good way to stop ghosts from sniping your infestors for zerg. I know ghosts are not a good option at the moment, but this seems like it would remove some back-and-forth micro. I think the fungal projectile is a better solution for allowing ghosts to survive.
There are a lot of other changes I didn't say here. The video interview will be up soon. Taking forever to cut, edit, transcribe, and upload such a big video. Also, we're doing a shitton of other interviews as well.
Listening to Browder reminds me of watching The Wire. He has absolutely no idea what's really going on, he's just playing the numbers game. Fuck the numbers game.
And how hard is it to get streams into the client, wtf..."that's super cool, but it won't be in HotS, we focused on other features..."
On November 19 2012 00:42 Grumbels wrote: I don't think I agree with making fungal not affect psionic units. For one, you can't fungal other infestors anymore, which seems silly. And now there are randomly a whole bunch of protoss units you can't attack. And there won't be a good way to stop ghosts from sniping your infestors for zerg. I know ghosts are not a good option at the moment, but this seems like it would remove some back-and-forth micro. I think the fungal projectile is a better solution for allowing ghosts to survive.
Is the non-fungal of other infestors game-breaking, though, or is it just kind of neutral for ZvZ? Part of the reason they kept fungal versus air was to make sure Muta didn't break the mirror match up.
I'm still not following your line of logic in how encouraging more ghost play in the TvZ matchup removes back-and-forth. Care to elaborate?
On November 19 2012 00:42 Grumbels wrote: I don't think I agree with making fungal not affect psionic units. For one, you can't fungal other infestors anymore, which seems silly. And now there are randomly a whole bunch of protoss units you can't attack. And there won't be a good way to stop ghosts from sniping your infestors for zerg. I know ghosts are not a good option at the moment, but this seems like it would remove some back-and-forth micro. I think the fungal projectile is a better solution for allowing ghosts to survive.
Is the non-fungal of other infestors game-breaking, though, or is it just kind of neutral for ZvZ? Part of the reason they kept fungal versus air was to make sure Muta didn't break the mirror match up.
I'm still not following your line of logic in how encouraging more ghost play in the TvZ matchup removes back-and-forth. Care to elaborate?
The idea is that you have ghosts, which have EMP and cloak, vs infestors that can spread out, use burrow, use fungal to keep ghosts at bay, protect with overseers, use scan to kill them if they burrow, use snipe to kill overseers etc. It's all funny micro that never gets used because the infestors are protected by a cloud of broodlord/overseer and because infestors are so big that EMP doesn't work as well anymore, as EMP was continuously nerfed because of its strength against protoss. Ghosts not being affected by fungal actually won't change too much, as you still won't survive the brood lord defense, so it's still almost suicide to send them in, and they won't be able to kill too many infestors also. Fungal as a projectile on the other hand promotes the micro war even more, since with clever control you might dodge a few fungals.
To change this dynamic for the better I think all that's needed is 1. mass brood lord should not be the default strategy 2. less infestors should exist, so killing or draining a few of them is actually relevant. i.e. it requires a redesign of zerg.
On November 19 2012 00:45 TimENT wrote: Listening to Browder reminds me of watching The Wire. He has absolutely no idea what's really going on, he's just playing the numbers game. Fuck the numbers game.
And how hard is it to get streams into the client, wtf..."that's super cool, but it won't be in HotS, we focused on other features..."
Really? How hard it is to integrate a whole new feature that has to be created from scratch? Other than trying to figure out how to actually implement it, trying several ideas, coding aaall that, creating the interface ( again, trying several ideas), dealing with all the problems that appear along the way and doing that while they are launching an expansion, it's pretty "easy".
If you have absolutely no idea about how software development works please shut up.
On November 19 2012 00:45 TimENT wrote: Listening to Browder reminds me of watching The Wire. He has absolutely no idea what's really going on, he's just playing the numbers game. Fuck the numbers game.
And how hard is it to get streams into the client, wtf..."that's super cool, but it won't be in HotS, we focused on other features..."
Really? How hard it is to integrate a whole new feature that has to be created from scratch? Other than trying to figure out how to actually implement it, trying several ideas, coding aaall that, creating the interface ( again, trying several ideas), dealing with all the problems that appear along the way and doing that while they are launching an expansion, it's pretty "easy".
If you have absolutely no idea about how software development works please shut up.
If you have absolutely no idea how software development works you thinks its hard. For you its hard but that does not mean its hard for an professional software developer. How hard it is for a car factory to make a car? They learned it, they did it before, they do it every day.
Making software is no magic. And a stream client is nothing special or new. Many people coded that before. You dont even have to do it yourself if you think you are to bad for it. Just buy a solution form someone who can and put it in.
We are not talking about inventing something or go a step ahead. Just redo what over people do for years already. Blizzard is a mulit-million software company. If they cant develop software they are in the wrong business...
BTW: How i would do it: I would create a basic Webclient in the GUI frontend and than go and ask "twitch" or "own" or "youtube" how much they pay me that i put their sc2 stream-overview on default....
On November 19 2012 00:42 Grumbels wrote: I don't think I agree with making fungal not affect psionic units. For one, you can't fungal other infestors anymore, which seems silly. And now there are randomly a whole bunch of protoss units you can't attack. And there won't be a good way to stop ghosts from sniping your infestors for zerg. I know ghosts are not a good option at the moment, but this seems like it would remove some back-and-forth micro. I think the fungal projectile is a better solution for allowing ghosts to survive.
Is the non-fungal of other infestors game-breaking, though, or is it just kind of neutral for ZvZ? Part of the reason they kept fungal versus air was to make sure Muta didn't break the mirror match up.
I'm still not following your line of logic in how encouraging more ghost play in the TvZ matchup removes back-and-forth. Care to elaborate?
The idea is that you have ghosts, which have EMP and cloak, vs infestors that can spread out, use burrow, use fungal to keep ghosts at bay, protect with overseers, use scan to kill them if they burrow, use snipe to kill overseers etc. It's all funny micro.
It takes 9 snipes to kill one overseer by the way so that's not really an option since the snipe-nerf patch ^^ Imagine Zerg having like 4 overseers, that's 36 snipes = not efficient. I think making overseer Psionic would be a cool idea, I don't think it would hurt Zerg in any other way.
Regarding the mod edit, I don't think removing neural parasite is a good idea... I'd rather raise the energy level requirement to something like 150. This way, it makes it possible that neural parasite will still be used if you're good enough and you have an Infestor that has that much energy stored. I mean, how often do you get a 150 energy Infestor?
On November 19 2012 00:42 Grumbels wrote: I don't think I agree with making fungal not affect psionic units. For one, you can't fungal other infestors anymore, which seems silly. And now there are randomly a whole bunch of protoss units you can't attack. And there won't be a good way to stop ghosts from sniping your infestors for zerg. I know ghosts are not a good option at the moment, but this seems like it would remove some back-and-forth micro. I think the fungal projectile is a better solution for allowing ghosts to survive.
Is the non-fungal of other infestors game-breaking, though, or is it just kind of neutral for ZvZ? Part of the reason they kept fungal versus air was to make sure Muta didn't break the mirror match up.
I'm still not following your line of logic in how encouraging more ghost play in the TvZ matchup removes back-and-forth. Care to elaborate?
The idea is that you have ghosts, which have EMP and cloak, vs infestors that can spread out, use burrow, use fungal to keep ghosts at bay, protect with overseers, use scan to kill them if they burrow, use snipe to kill overseers etc. It's all funny micro.
It takes 9 snipes to kill one overseer by the way so that's not really an option since the snipe-nerf patch ^^ Imagine Zerg having like 4 overseers, that's 36 snipes = not efficient. I think making overseer Psionic would be a cool idea, I don't think it would hurt Zerg in any other way.
Indeed, since blizzard randomly makes units 'psionic or not', better make the overseer snipeable. I'd like to know what psionic means in sc2 btw, it seems meaningless.
On November 19 2012 00:42 Grumbels wrote: I don't think I agree with making fungal not affect psionic units. For one, you can't fungal other infestors anymore, which seems silly. And now there are randomly a whole bunch of protoss units you can't attack. And there won't be a good way to stop ghosts from sniping your infestors for zerg. I know ghosts are not a good option at the moment, but this seems like it would remove some back-and-forth micro. I think the fungal projectile is a better solution for allowing ghosts to survive.
Is the non-fungal of other infestors game-breaking, though, or is it just kind of neutral for ZvZ? Part of the reason they kept fungal versus air was to make sure Muta didn't break the mirror match up.
I'm still not following your line of logic in how encouraging more ghost play in the TvZ matchup removes back-and-forth. Care to elaborate?
The idea is that you have ghosts, which have EMP and cloak, vs infestors that can spread out, use burrow, use fungal to keep ghosts at bay, protect with overseers, use scan to kill them if they burrow, use snipe to kill overseers etc. It's all funny micro.
It takes 9 snipes to kill one overseer by the way so that's not really an option since the snipe-nerf patch ^^ Imagine Zerg having like 4 overseers, that's 36 snipes = not efficient. I think making overseer Psionic would be a cool idea, I don't think it would hurt Zerg in any other way.
Indeed, since blizzard randomly makes units 'psionic or not', better make the overseer snipeable. I'd like to know what psionic means in sc2 btw, it seems meaningless.
Better yet, change Snipe so that it's not dedicated for anti-Psionic. EMP already deals quite well with most spellcasters, anti-Psionic snipe overlaps too much.
There are a lot of other changes I didn't say here. The video interview will be up soon. Taking forever to cut, edit, transcribe, and upload such a big video. Also, we're doing a shitton of other interviews as well.
I play random, and I can use any of the races. I know almost all the strategies for the races, as well as the various types of all-ins and cheeses.
I'm really good in the first 10-15 minutes, about as good as professionals even. But as the game draws longer, I become weaker and weaker, especially when it comes to a situation with 200/200 supply, my play is just.......
I play random, and I can use any of the races. I know almost all the strategies for the races, as well as the various types of all-ins and cheeses.
I'm really good in the first 10-15 minutes, about as good as professionals even. But as the game draws longer, I become weaker and weaker, especially when it comes to a situation with 200/200 supply, my play is just.......
I seriously hope this is a joke.
Only one way to find out... Dustin Browder showmatch!
I play random, and I can use any of the races. I know almost all the strategies for the races, as well as the various types of all-ins and cheeses.
I'm really good in the first 10-15 minutes, about as good as professionals even. But as the game draws longer, I become weaker and weaker, especially when it comes to a situation with 200/200 supply, my play is just.......
I seriously hope this is a joke.
it probably isn't, the guy might know of all of those strategies and possibilities from, ya know, being the designer of the game and having followed it closely since the beta O_O
he's not saying he's consistently playing on a professional level
Part where Dustin talks about the "continue from replay" function sounds really awesome and is needed badly. I hope Blizzard get's it out asap. I also wonder how long they've been making it.
I play random, and I can use any of the races. I know almost all the strategies for the races, as well as the various types of all-ins and cheeses.
I'm really good in the first 10-15 minutes, about as good as professionals even. But as the game draws longer, I become weaker and weaker, especially when it comes to a situation with 200/200 supply, my play is just.......
I seriously hope this is a joke.
it probably isn't, the guy might know of all of those strategies and possibilities from, ya know, being the designer of the game and having followed it closely since the beta O_O
he's not saying he's consistently playing on a professional level
If you've been following what Browder has said over the past 2 years it's clear that this is obviously either a joke or him just downright lying. The guy wasn't even aware of the mothership's use in PvZ months after it had become commonplace. Furthermore, the guy is in gold or plat league. It's just the exact type of ignorant statement that you'd expect to hear from someone of those leagues. "Oh yea, I'm basically as good as a pro, it's just my lategame engagements that hold me back, ya know..." No, he's nowhere near pro level, not at any time in the game.
On November 19 2012 02:21 StarVe wrote: Browder to HomeStoryCup! Starting a petition.
OMG lol that would be interesting, tho i think the pros would have grudges/hate him
A lot of the pros don't hate him and are a lot of talk. The reasonable ones would listen to him and the unreasonable ones would sit there and then make an angry post after how he was out of touch.
On November 19 2012 02:21 StarVe wrote: Browder to HomeStoryCup! Starting a petition.
OMG lol that would be interesting, tho i think the pros would have grudges/hate him
A lot of the pros don't hate him and are a lot of talk. The reasonable ones would listen to him and the unreasonable ones would sit there and then make an angry post after how he was out of touch.
I've heard a number of pros badmouth him, I feel like him going to homestory would be a bit like Deezer or CombatEX trying to show up.
I play random, and I can use any of the races. I know almost all the strategies for the races, as well as the various types of all-ins and cheeses.
I'm really good in the first 10-15 minutes, about as good as professionals even. But as the game draws longer, I become weaker and weaker, especially when it comes to a situation with 200/200 supply, my play is just.......
I seriously hope this is a joke.
it probably isn't, the guy might know of all of those strategies and possibilities from, ya know, being the designer of the game and having followed it closely since the beta O_O
he's not saying he's consistently playing on a professional level
If you've been following what Browder has said over the past 2 years it's clear that this is obviously either a joke or him just downright lying. The guy wasn't even aware of the mothership's use in PvZ months after it had become commonplace. Furthermore, the guy is in gold or plat league. It's just the exact type of ignorant statement that you'd expect to hear from someone of those leagues. "Oh yea, I'm basically as good as a pro, it's just my lategame engagements that hold me back, ya know..." No, he's nowhere near pro level, not at any time in the game.
They guys is the lead designer of video games, not a professional gamer. It makes sense that he could do very well on one base or even two. I'm pretty bad at starcraft, but I can do some pretty awesome micro/macro on one base. After 2 bases, I start to become pretty bad.
Rock does a lot more than just worry about multiplayer, like manage the people worry about multiplayer. In professional sports, owners of teams may not know the names of specific plays or up to date stats on their players. They hire people to worry about that. This guy has to worry about everything, including art direction, UI, arcade, publishing, the servers and a lot of other stuff that is not just 1v1 multiplayer.
On November 19 2012 02:21 StarVe wrote: Browder to HomeStoryCup! Starting a petition.
OMG lol that would be interesting, tho i think the pros would have grudges/hate him
A lot of the pros don't hate him and are a lot of talk. The reasonable ones would listen to him and the unreasonable ones would sit there and then make an angry post after how he was out of touch.
I've heard a number of pros badmouth him, I feel like him going to homestory would be a bit like Deezer or CombatEX trying to show up.
I think you overestimate how brave those players would be in person when faced with the head designer of the game. A lot of people are very brave behind the wall of the internet, where there are no repercussions for their actions. From personal experience, these sorts of people are very timid when faced with the person they have been badmouthing.
I play random, and I can use any of the races. I know almost all the strategies for the races, as well as the various types of all-ins and cheeses.
I'm really good in the first 10-15 minutes, about as good as professionals even. But as the game draws longer, I become weaker and weaker, especially when it comes to a situation with 200/200 supply, my play is just.......
I seriously hope this is a joke.
it probably isn't, the guy might know of all of those strategies and possibilities from, ya know, being the designer of the game and having followed it closely since the beta O_O
he's not saying he's consistently playing on a professional level
If you've been following what Browder has said over the past 2 years it's clear that this is obviously either a joke or him just downright lying. The guy wasn't even aware of the mothership's use in PvZ months after it had become commonplace. Furthermore, the guy is in gold or plat league. It's just the exact type of ignorant statement that you'd expect to hear from someone of those leagues. "Oh yea, I'm basically as good as a pro, it's just my lategame engagements that hold me back, ya know..." No, he's nowhere near pro level, not at any time in the game.
You can hit a lot of the same timings up to about 10 min w practice as pros but the decision-making about what to do after, the reflexes, none of that will be even close. I love your preconceived notion about how you think gold/platinum players act, as if they're all try hard whiners who have completely unrealistic ideas about their play.
I play random, and I can use any of the races. I know almost all the strategies for the races, as well as the various types of all-ins and cheeses.
I'm really good in the first 10-15 minutes, about as good as professionals even. But as the game draws longer, I become weaker and weaker, especially when it comes to a situation with 200/200 supply, my play is just.......
I seriously hope this is a joke.
it probably isn't, the guy might know of all of those strategies and possibilities from, ya know, being the designer of the game and having followed it closely since the beta O_O
he's not saying he's consistently playing on a professional level
If you've been following what Browder has said over the past 2 years it's clear that this is obviously either a joke or him just downright lying. The guy wasn't even aware of the mothership's use in PvZ months after it had become commonplace. Furthermore, the guy is in gold or plat league. It's just the exact type of ignorant statement that you'd expect to hear from someone of those leagues. "Oh yea, I'm basically as good as a pro, it's just my lategame engagements that hold me back, ya know..." No, he's nowhere near pro level, not at any time in the game.
You can hit a lot of the same timings up to about 10 min w practice as pros but the decision-making about what to do after, the reflexes, none of that will be even close. I love your preconceived notion about how you think gold/platinum players act, as if they're all try hard whiners who have completely unrealistic ideas about their play.
What makes you think it's a preconceived notion? I know tons of gold/plat players, there's like 40 on our CSL team and many of them think this same way. It really takes a certain amount of time and effort at SC2 to truly realize how bad you really are compared to pros. Also I love how you just pull out arbitrary numbers like "about 10 min" when Browder is saying "10-15 mins". The truth is, if you are Plat (or w/e league Browder is in) you aren't anywhere close to pro level, not at 5 minutes, not at 10 minutes, never. Maybe against an easy comp you can hit the same timings as pros, but that's about it.
I play random, and I can use any of the races. I know almost all the strategies for the races, as well as the various types of all-ins and cheeses.
I'm really good in the first 10-15 minutes, about as good as professionals even. But as the game draws longer, I become weaker and weaker, especially when it comes to a situation with 200/200 supply, my play is just.......
I seriously hope this is a joke.
it probably isn't, the guy might know of all of those strategies and possibilities from, ya know, being the designer of the game and having followed it closely since the beta O_O
he's not saying he's consistently playing on a professional level
If you've been following what Browder has said over the past 2 years it's clear that this is obviously either a joke or him just downright lying. The guy wasn't even aware of the mothership's use in PvZ months after it had become commonplace. Furthermore, the guy is in gold or plat league. It's just the exact type of ignorant statement that you'd expect to hear from someone of those leagues. "Oh yea, I'm basically as good as a pro, it's just my lategame engagements that hold me back, ya know..." No, he's nowhere near pro level, not at any time in the game.
You can hit a lot of the same timings up to about 10 min w practice as pros but the decision-making about what to do after, the reflexes, none of that will be even close. I love your preconceived notion about how you think gold/platinum players act, as if they're all try hard whiners who have completely unrealistic ideas about their play.
What makes you think it's a preconceived notion? I know tons of gold/plat players, there's like 40 on our CSL team and many of them think this same way. It really takes a certain amount of time and effort at SC2 to truly realize how bad you really are compared to pros. Also I love how you just pull out arbitrary numbers like "about 10 min" when Browder is saying "10-15 mins". The truth is, if you are Plat (or w/e league Browder is in) you aren't anywhere close to pro level, not at 5 minutes, not at 10 minutes, never. Maybe against an easy comp you can hit the same timings as pros, but that's about it.
It's a preconceived notion because you are forming an opinion on not one but two entire leagues based on hearing a minority have unrealistic ideas about their play. That does, and should not, follow to reason that you expect to hear ignorance from gold/plat players in general. Maybe your CSL team does a shitty job of picking people who have solid ideas about what they need to improve on? It's funny that you would extend all of their bogus thoughts to anyone else who incidentally is in the same league. The definition of prejudiced.
Also, it's hilarious that you think "about 10 minutes" is arbitrary when that is part of the statement DB made. I already addressed the fact that I don't think his reflexes or decision-making are there, period, to give him any idea of really being on the level of a pro but if you're discussing build orders, unit count, etc. he probably can do a pretty good job of hitting those marks at ~10 minutes
I play random, and I can use any of the races. I know almost all the strategies for the races, as well as the various types of all-ins and cheeses.
I'm really good in the first 10-15 minutes, about as good as professionals even. But as the game draws longer, I become weaker and weaker, especially when it comes to a situation with 200/200 supply, my play is just.......
I seriously hope this is a joke.
it probably isn't, the guy might know of all of those strategies and possibilities from, ya know, being the designer of the game and having followed it closely since the beta O_O
he's not saying he's consistently playing on a professional level
If you've been following what Browder has said over the past 2 years it's clear that this is obviously either a joke or him just downright lying. The guy wasn't even aware of the mothership's use in PvZ months after it had become commonplace. Furthermore, the guy is in gold or plat league. It's just the exact type of ignorant statement that you'd expect to hear from someone of those leagues. "Oh yea, I'm basically as good as a pro, it's just my lategame engagements that hold me back, ya know..." No, he's nowhere near pro level, not at any time in the game.
You can hit a lot of the same timings up to about 10 min w practice as pros but the decision-making about what to do after, the reflexes, none of that will be even close. I love your preconceived notion about how you think gold/platinum players act, as if they're all try hard whiners who have completely unrealistic ideas about their play.
What makes you think it's a preconceived notion? I know tons of gold/plat players, there's like 40 on our CSL team and many of them think this same way. It really takes a certain amount of time and effort at SC2 to truly realize how bad you really are compared to pros. Also I love how you just pull out arbitrary numbers like "about 10 min" when Browder is saying "10-15 mins". The truth is, if you are Plat (or w/e league Browder is in) you aren't anywhere close to pro level, not at 5 minutes, not at 10 minutes, never. Maybe against an easy comp you can hit the same timings as pros, but that's about it.
It's a preconceived notion because you are forming an opinion on not one but two entire leagues based on hearing a minority have unrealistic ideas about their play. That does, and should not, follow to reason that you expect to hear ignorance from gold/plat players in general. Maybe your CSL team does a shitty job of picking people who have solid ideas about what they need to improve on? It's funny that you would extend all of their bogus thoughts to anyone else who incidentally is in the same league. The definition of prejudiced.
Also, it's hilarious that you think "about 10 minutes" is arbitrary when that is part of the statement DB made. I already addressed the fact that I don't think his reflexes or decision-making are there, period, to give him any idea of really being on the level of a pro but if you're discussing build orders, unit count, etc. he probably can do a pretty good job of hitting those marks at ~10 minutes
You realize that it's not possible to be in Gold or Plat if you play as well as Pros for 10-15 minutes? I'm sorry to sound like a dick, but do you actually play SC2? I only ask because I've seen you mod for streamers, but never knew if you played or not. Browder's statement is literally impossible unless he just throws games starting at the 15 minute mark.
I play random, and I can use any of the races. I know almost all the strategies for the races, as well as the various types of all-ins and cheeses.
I'm really good in the first 10-15 minutes, about as good as professionals even. But as the game draws longer, I become weaker and weaker, especially when it comes to a situation with 200/200 supply, my play is just.......
I seriously hope this is a joke.
it probably isn't, the guy might know of all of those strategies and possibilities from, ya know, being the designer of the game and having followed it closely since the beta O_O
he's not saying he's consistently playing on a professional level
If you've been following what Browder has said over the past 2 years it's clear that this is obviously either a joke or him just downright lying. The guy wasn't even aware of the mothership's use in PvZ months after it had become commonplace. Furthermore, the guy is in gold or plat league. It's just the exact type of ignorant statement that you'd expect to hear from someone of those leagues. "Oh yea, I'm basically as good as a pro, it's just my lategame engagements that hold me back, ya know..." No, he's nowhere near pro level, not at any time in the game.
You can hit a lot of the same timings up to about 10 min w practice as pros but the decision-making about what to do after, the reflexes, none of that will be even close. I love your preconceived notion about how you think gold/platinum players act, as if they're all try hard whiners who have completely unrealistic ideas about their play.
What makes you think it's a preconceived notion? I know tons of gold/plat players, there's like 40 on our CSL team and many of them think this same way. It really takes a certain amount of time and effort at SC2 to truly realize how bad you really are compared to pros. Also I love how you just pull out arbitrary numbers like "about 10 min" when Browder is saying "10-15 mins". The truth is, if you are Plat (or w/e league Browder is in) you aren't anywhere close to pro level, not at 5 minutes, not at 10 minutes, never. Maybe against an easy comp you can hit the same timings as pros, but that's about it.
It's a preconceived notion because you are forming an opinion on not one but two entire leagues based on hearing a minority have unrealistic ideas about their play. That does, and should not, follow to reason that you expect to hear ignorance from gold/plat players in general. Maybe your CSL team does a shitty job of picking people who have solid ideas about what they need to improve on? It's funny that you would extend all of their bogus thoughts to anyone else who incidentally is in the same league. The definition of prejudiced.
Also, it's hilarious that you think "about 10 minutes" is arbitrary when that is part of the statement DB made. I already addressed the fact that I don't think his reflexes or decision-making are there, period, to give him any idea of really being on the level of a pro but if you're discussing build orders, unit count, etc. he probably can do a pretty good job of hitting those marks at ~10 minutes
You realize that it's not possible to be in Gold or Plat if you play as well as Pros for 10-15 minutes? I'm sorry to sound like a dick, but do you actually play SC2? I only ask because I've seen you mod for streamers, but never knew if you played or not. Browder's statement is literally impossible unless he just throws games starting at the 15 minute mark.
You really do want to force this point home huh? Anyone with a brain cell would be able to tell (like I've posted, for a third time now) that his reflexes and decision-making are not on the level of a pro, but it is ENTIRELY possible that he can be at nearly the same place as a pro around 10 minutes in terms of unit count, unit producing buildings, and tech/upgrades. I mean, are the gold/plat players you've seen really that bad to where they can't emulate a build they see in a replay up until that point or thereabouts? That's more than likely what DB is talking about, I think you're jumping all over him a bit too much.
I play T in Diamond league, if it matters that much to you.
Browder said he was low masters previously, recently dropped to diamond/platinum because he didn't play as much. Something along those lines, but he said this some months ago. But you don't know if he has been putting in time playing recently. Also he didn't say he was playing as well, but almost as well. And in fact, hitting your timings while passively macroing up isn't that difficult. Furthermore, diamond now is masters of a few seasons ago, as player skill keeps increasing. I've played games vs diamond opponents where they hit really nice timings that a pro player wouldn't improve upon that much.
Dustin Browder plays the game more than probably 90% of this forum.
I guess I musta missed something crucial during my training because I'm mid masters with random and I can't play nearly as well as pros for 10-15 minutes ;\
On November 19 2012 04:56 SupLilSon wrote: I guess I musta missed something crucial during my training because I'm mid masters with random and I can't play nearly as well as pros for 10-15 minutes ;\
I play random, and I can use any of the races. I know almost all the strategies for the races, as well as the various types of all-ins and cheeses.
I'm really good in the first 10-15 minutes, about as good as professionals even. But as the game draws longer, I become weaker and weaker, especially when it comes to a situation with 200/200 supply, my play is just.......
I seriously hope this is a joke.
it probably isn't, the guy might know of all of those strategies and possibilities from, ya know, being the designer of the game and having followed it closely since the beta O_O
he's not saying he's consistently playing on a professional level
If you've been following what Browder has said over the past 2 years it's clear that this is obviously either a joke or him just downright lying. The guy wasn't even aware of the mothership's use in PvZ months after it had become commonplace. Furthermore, the guy is in gold or plat league. It's just the exact type of ignorant statement that you'd expect to hear from someone of those leagues. "Oh yea, I'm basically as good as a pro, it's just my lategame engagements that hold me back, ya know..." No, he's nowhere near pro level, not at any time in the game.
You can hit a lot of the same timings up to about 10 min w practice as pros but the decision-making about what to do after, the reflexes, none of that will be even close. I love your preconceived notion about how you think gold/platinum players act, as if they're all try hard whiners who have completely unrealistic ideas about their play.
What makes you think it's a preconceived notion? I know tons of gold/plat players, there's like 40 on our CSL team and many of them think this same way. It really takes a certain amount of time and effort at SC2 to truly realize how bad you really are compared to pros. Also I love how you just pull out arbitrary numbers like "about 10 min" when Browder is saying "10-15 mins". The truth is, if you are Plat (or w/e league Browder is in) you aren't anywhere close to pro level, not at 5 minutes, not at 10 minutes, never. Maybe against an easy comp you can hit the same timings as pros, but that's about it.
It's a preconceived notion because you are forming an opinion on not one but two entire leagues based on hearing a minority have unrealistic ideas about their play. That does, and should not, follow to reason that you expect to hear ignorance from gold/plat players in general. Maybe your CSL team does a shitty job of picking people who have solid ideas about what they need to improve on? It's funny that you would extend all of their bogus thoughts to anyone else who incidentally is in the same league. The definition of prejudiced.
Also, it's hilarious that you think "about 10 minutes" is arbitrary when that is part of the statement DB made. I already addressed the fact that I don't think his reflexes or decision-making are there, period, to give him any idea of really being on the level of a pro but if you're discussing build orders, unit count, etc. he probably can do a pretty good job of hitting those marks at ~10 minutes
You realize that it's not possible to be in Gold or Plat if you play as well as Pros for 10-15 minutes? I'm sorry to sound like a dick, but do you actually play SC2? I only ask because I've seen you mod for streamers, but never knew if you played or not. Browder's statement is literally impossible unless he just throws games starting at the 15 minute mark.
You really do want to force this point home huh? Anyone with a brain cell would be able to tell (like I've posted, for a third time now) that his reflexes and decision-making are not on the level of a pro, but it is ENTIRELY possible that he can be at nearly the same place as a pro around 10 minutes in terms of unit count, unit producing buildings, and tech/upgrades. I mean, are the gold/plat players you've seen really that bad to where they can't emulate a build they see in a replay up until that point or thereabouts? That's more than likely what DB is talking about, I think you're jumping all over him a bit too much.
I play T in Diamond league, if it matters that much to you.
Uh this is definately false. A gold/plat player, and probably even a diamond player cannot emulate a pro build up to 10 mins except in cases where they have no opponents (or a weak AI).
I play random, and I can use any of the races. I know almost all the strategies for the races, as well as the various types of all-ins and cheeses.
I'm really good in the first 10-15 minutes, about as good as professionals even. But as the game draws longer, I become weaker and weaker, especially when it comes to a situation with 200/200 supply, my play is just.......
I seriously hope this is a joke.
it probably isn't, the guy might know of all of those strategies and possibilities from, ya know, being the designer of the game and having followed it closely since the beta O_O
he's not saying he's consistently playing on a professional level
If you've been following what Browder has said over the past 2 years it's clear that this is obviously either a joke or him just downright lying. The guy wasn't even aware of the mothership's use in PvZ months after it had become commonplace. Furthermore, the guy is in gold or plat league. It's just the exact type of ignorant statement that you'd expect to hear from someone of those leagues. "Oh yea, I'm basically as good as a pro, it's just my lategame engagements that hold me back, ya know..." No, he's nowhere near pro level, not at any time in the game.
You can hit a lot of the same timings up to about 10 min w practice as pros but the decision-making about what to do after, the reflexes, none of that will be even close. I love your preconceived notion about how you think gold/platinum players act, as if they're all try hard whiners who have completely unrealistic ideas about their play.
What makes you think it's a preconceived notion? I know tons of gold/plat players, there's like 40 on our CSL team and many of them think this same way. It really takes a certain amount of time and effort at SC2 to truly realize how bad you really are compared to pros. Also I love how you just pull out arbitrary numbers like "about 10 min" when Browder is saying "10-15 mins". The truth is, if you are Plat (or w/e league Browder is in) you aren't anywhere close to pro level, not at 5 minutes, not at 10 minutes, never. Maybe against an easy comp you can hit the same timings as pros, but that's about it.
It's a preconceived notion because you are forming an opinion on not one but two entire leagues based on hearing a minority have unrealistic ideas about their play. That does, and should not, follow to reason that you expect to hear ignorance from gold/plat players in general. Maybe your CSL team does a shitty job of picking people who have solid ideas about what they need to improve on? It's funny that you would extend all of their bogus thoughts to anyone else who incidentally is in the same league. The definition of prejudiced.
Also, it's hilarious that you think "about 10 minutes" is arbitrary when that is part of the statement DB made. I already addressed the fact that I don't think his reflexes or decision-making are there, period, to give him any idea of really being on the level of a pro but if you're discussing build orders, unit count, etc. he probably can do a pretty good job of hitting those marks at ~10 minutes
You realize that it's not possible to be in Gold or Plat if you play as well as Pros for 10-15 minutes? I'm sorry to sound like a dick, but do you actually play SC2? I only ask because I've seen you mod for streamers, but never knew if you played or not. Browder's statement is literally impossible unless he just throws games starting at the 15 minute mark.
You really do want to force this point home huh? Anyone with a brain cell would be able to tell (like I've posted, for a third time now) that his reflexes and decision-making are not on the level of a pro, but it is ENTIRELY possible that he can be at nearly the same place as a pro around 10 minutes in terms of unit count, unit producing buildings, and tech/upgrades. I mean, are the gold/plat players you've seen really that bad to where they can't emulate a build they see in a replay up until that point or thereabouts? That's more than likely what DB is talking about, I think you're jumping all over him a bit too much.
I play T in Diamond league, if it matters that much to you.
Uh this is definately false. A gold/plat player, and probably even a diamond player cannot emulate a pro build up to 10 mins except in cases where they have no opponents (or a weak AI).
Someone made a post right above this about being able to replicate Thorzain's build very well being in Diamond, are you saying he's lying?
it probably isn't, the guy might know of all of those strategies and possibilities from, ya know, being the designer of the game and having followed it closely since the beta O_O
he's not saying he's consistently playing on a professional level
If you've been following what Browder has said over the past 2 years it's clear that this is obviously either a joke or him just downright lying. The guy wasn't even aware of the mothership's use in PvZ months after it had become commonplace. Furthermore, the guy is in gold or plat league. It's just the exact type of ignorant statement that you'd expect to hear from someone of those leagues. "Oh yea, I'm basically as good as a pro, it's just my lategame engagements that hold me back, ya know..." No, he's nowhere near pro level, not at any time in the game.
You can hit a lot of the same timings up to about 10 min w practice as pros but the decision-making about what to do after, the reflexes, none of that will be even close. I love your preconceived notion about how you think gold/platinum players act, as if they're all try hard whiners who have completely unrealistic ideas about their play.
What makes you think it's a preconceived notion? I know tons of gold/plat players, there's like 40 on our CSL team and many of them think this same way. It really takes a certain amount of time and effort at SC2 to truly realize how bad you really are compared to pros. Also I love how you just pull out arbitrary numbers like "about 10 min" when Browder is saying "10-15 mins". The truth is, if you are Plat (or w/e league Browder is in) you aren't anywhere close to pro level, not at 5 minutes, not at 10 minutes, never. Maybe against an easy comp you can hit the same timings as pros, but that's about it.
It's a preconceived notion because you are forming an opinion on not one but two entire leagues based on hearing a minority have unrealistic ideas about their play. That does, and should not, follow to reason that you expect to hear ignorance from gold/plat players in general. Maybe your CSL team does a shitty job of picking people who have solid ideas about what they need to improve on? It's funny that you would extend all of their bogus thoughts to anyone else who incidentally is in the same league. The definition of prejudiced.
Also, it's hilarious that you think "about 10 minutes" is arbitrary when that is part of the statement DB made. I already addressed the fact that I don't think his reflexes or decision-making are there, period, to give him any idea of really being on the level of a pro but if you're discussing build orders, unit count, etc. he probably can do a pretty good job of hitting those marks at ~10 minutes
You realize that it's not possible to be in Gold or Plat if you play as well as Pros for 10-15 minutes? I'm sorry to sound like a dick, but do you actually play SC2? I only ask because I've seen you mod for streamers, but never knew if you played or not. Browder's statement is literally impossible unless he just throws games starting at the 15 minute mark.
You really do want to force this point home huh? Anyone with a brain cell would be able to tell (like I've posted, for a third time now) that his reflexes and decision-making are not on the level of a pro, but it is ENTIRELY possible that he can be at nearly the same place as a pro around 10 minutes in terms of unit count, unit producing buildings, and tech/upgrades. I mean, are the gold/plat players you've seen really that bad to where they can't emulate a build they see in a replay up until that point or thereabouts? That's more than likely what DB is talking about, I think you're jumping all over him a bit too much.
I play T in Diamond league, if it matters that much to you.
Uh this is definately false. A gold/plat player, and probably even a diamond player cannot emulate a pro build up to 10 mins except in cases where they have no opponents (or a weak AI).
Someone made a post right above this about being able to replicate Thorzain's build very well being in Diamond, are you saying he's lying?
He probably is just ignorant to how much of a difference there really is between his execution and ThorZain's execution. Like I said earlier, it's not uncommon for lower level players to have a very misguided perception of their own play.
On November 19 2012 02:30 BlueLanterna wrote: [quote]
it probably isn't, the guy might know of all of those strategies and possibilities from, ya know, being the designer of the game and having followed it closely since the beta O_O
he's not saying he's consistently playing on a professional level
If you've been following what Browder has said over the past 2 years it's clear that this is obviously either a joke or him just downright lying. The guy wasn't even aware of the mothership's use in PvZ months after it had become commonplace. Furthermore, the guy is in gold or plat league. It's just the exact type of ignorant statement that you'd expect to hear from someone of those leagues. "Oh yea, I'm basically as good as a pro, it's just my lategame engagements that hold me back, ya know..." No, he's nowhere near pro level, not at any time in the game.
You can hit a lot of the same timings up to about 10 min w practice as pros but the decision-making about what to do after, the reflexes, none of that will be even close. I love your preconceived notion about how you think gold/platinum players act, as if they're all try hard whiners who have completely unrealistic ideas about their play.
What makes you think it's a preconceived notion? I know tons of gold/plat players, there's like 40 on our CSL team and many of them think this same way. It really takes a certain amount of time and effort at SC2 to truly realize how bad you really are compared to pros. Also I love how you just pull out arbitrary numbers like "about 10 min" when Browder is saying "10-15 mins". The truth is, if you are Plat (or w/e league Browder is in) you aren't anywhere close to pro level, not at 5 minutes, not at 10 minutes, never. Maybe against an easy comp you can hit the same timings as pros, but that's about it.
It's a preconceived notion because you are forming an opinion on not one but two entire leagues based on hearing a minority have unrealistic ideas about their play. That does, and should not, follow to reason that you expect to hear ignorance from gold/plat players in general. Maybe your CSL team does a shitty job of picking people who have solid ideas about what they need to improve on? It's funny that you would extend all of their bogus thoughts to anyone else who incidentally is in the same league. The definition of prejudiced.
Also, it's hilarious that you think "about 10 minutes" is arbitrary when that is part of the statement DB made. I already addressed the fact that I don't think his reflexes or decision-making are there, period, to give him any idea of really being on the level of a pro but if you're discussing build orders, unit count, etc. he probably can do a pretty good job of hitting those marks at ~10 minutes
You realize that it's not possible to be in Gold or Plat if you play as well as Pros for 10-15 minutes? I'm sorry to sound like a dick, but do you actually play SC2? I only ask because I've seen you mod for streamers, but never knew if you played or not. Browder's statement is literally impossible unless he just throws games starting at the 15 minute mark.
You really do want to force this point home huh? Anyone with a brain cell would be able to tell (like I've posted, for a third time now) that his reflexes and decision-making are not on the level of a pro, but it is ENTIRELY possible that he can be at nearly the same place as a pro around 10 minutes in terms of unit count, unit producing buildings, and tech/upgrades. I mean, are the gold/plat players you've seen really that bad to where they can't emulate a build they see in a replay up until that point or thereabouts? That's more than likely what DB is talking about, I think you're jumping all over him a bit too much.
I play T in Diamond league, if it matters that much to you.
Uh this is definately false. A gold/plat player, and probably even a diamond player cannot emulate a pro build up to 10 mins except in cases where they have no opponents (or a weak AI).
Someone made a post right above this about being able to replicate Thorzain's build very well being in Diamond, are you saying he's lying?
He probably is just ignorant to how much of a difference there really is between his execution and ThorZain's execution. Like I said earlier, it's not uncommon for lower level players to have a very misguided perception of their own play.
That's a fair point, but that goes back to the point that I was making: that DB (and lower-league players) CAN emulate a pro build very well, but only in terms of the hard numbers (units at X time, buildings at X time, upgrades at X time). The real meat is understanding what transitions to make, what to look for in scouting, army movement, etc.
Obviously everyone who is in a league lower than tip top masters does not have the understanding of those as well as they could. IMHO there is a line between being able to build things at the expected time, have a particular worker count, and be working on 1/1 ups around ~10 minutes (which is what I think of as "emulating a pro build" and what DB is probably describing), and being able to figure out very subtle pieces of the game which make the pro players SO much better than normal joes, it's NOT that they have the ability to hit timings with buildings, its their understanding of the deeper metagame and concepts, along with the reflexes.
Getting back to the actual interview, what Dustin said about the state of HotS sounds pretty grounded. Judging from his comments I'd imagine the next balance patch will be Terran focused, along with some Oracle numbers tweaking; "doesn't work at all" with regards to TvP mech implies the most drastic amount of changes, as does the swingy nature of widow mines.
WoL changes, doesn't sound like a new patch will be out anytime soon until the changes are out for a while in HotS. Making interceptors fungal-immune makes sense, as does the fungal projectile. Making infestors slower might cripple them a little too much. I'm personally a fan of making them 3 supply, but that also might be too much a swing after fungal is nerfed.
This interview made me realize how troubled the future of sc2 development is with this clown as the leader. Somewhere in between him suggesting another placebo nerf to infested brood lord that will likely create more problems than it solves and claiming he played a pro level game for 10-15 I just completely lost all hope. It's not even ignorance at this point, blizzard just seems to have their own vision of how sc2 should be played an isn't willing to reconcile that with what the player base wants.
Protoss Sentry High Templar Dark Templar Archon Warp Prism Mothership
Terran Ghost
Zerg Queen Infestor
So terran would get 1 unit immune to fungal growth while Protoss would get 6? Hmm, that doesn't seem fair.
To me it seems like Terran has more of a problem with fungal while Protoss has more of a problem with infested marines. Terran can mass repair bunkers and pf's to counter infested marines but its units have low hp.
Hmm good points, they would act differently in person. And also even those who might express disappointment may actually be friendly in person, to give DB their thoughts and such.
Also, great points that he also has to worry about much more than just competitive 1v1 esports. People should stop hating on him like that one time when he said he didn't know or hasn't seen NP vs MS to be that often. It's a lot of work to manage something, and if he's managing several teams/departments, then ya... let alone him trying to bring them to make a coherent package like he says.
(Anyone remember when he said why the thor was nerfed? cus it was too big and made it hard to see units besides it like marines, and thus they don't want to see mass thors? And he also mentioned ultra needing to be that big aesthetically, and the colossi has to stay as an air unit because it's too tall. So it seems he gives some space, i guess u can say, to the individual teams, instead of rejecting everything if it's not exactly how he wants it. Anyways, dealing with people is harder than many may think.)
Not being able to Fungal Psionic will a)fuck up ZvZ so badly its not even funny b)will make ZvP unplayable C)won't really help TvZ. I don't even want to go and talk about Sentry being immune, but Warp Prism harras will become basicly risk free.
I hope that this is just their strategy of lets propose absurdal change so when we will implement fungal as projectile it won't cause mass whinning couse compared to this it seems at least semi reasonable.
On November 19 2012 10:58 neoghaleon55 wrote: I don't agree with fungals not affecting sentries. Sentries are obnoxious enough as it is. Without fungals, how will zerg kill them?
On November 19 2012 10:40 SgtSlick wrote: List of psionic units:
Protoss Sentry High Templar Dark Templar Archon Warp Prism Mothership
Terran Ghost
Zerg Queen Infestor
So terran would get 1 unit immune to fungal growth while Protoss would get 6? Hmm, that doesn't seem fair.
To me it seems like Terran has more of a problem with fungal while Protoss has more of a problem with infested marines. Terran can mass repair bunkers and pf's to counter infested marines but its units have low hp.
To tell you the truth, ghost seem most suited to deal with infestors if they were immune to fungle. Snipe has insane range and the only reason terrans don't use it is fungle and the high cost/risk of ghost. HTs have feedback, but are also as slow as a Thor.
if ghosts become immune to fungal that would help bring them back in the late game since once your group of ghosts get fungled your pretty much screwed.
On November 19 2012 11:15 Narw wrote: Not being able to Fungal Psionic will a)fuck up ZvZ so badly its not even funny b)will make ZvP unplayable C)won't really help TvZ. I don't even want to go and talk about Sentry being immune, but Warp Prism harras will become basicly risk free.
I hope that this is just their strategy of lets propose absurdal change so when we will implement fungal as projectile it won't cause mass whinning couse compared to this it seems at least semi reasonable.
They could always remove psionic from Warp Prism. Ghosts can't snipe it as it is, and nothing else cares about psionic. Anyway, this is why they make test maps, so people can do more than theorycraft about it.
On November 19 2012 10:58 neoghaleon55 wrote: I don't agree with fungals not affecting sentries. Sentries are obnoxious enough as it is. Without fungals, how will zerg kill them?
Remove the Psionic attribute from Sentries. Problem solved.
DRG: So apparently Zerg is OP and yet the Protosses advance yet again [WCS/BWC]. DRG: Hey crackhead Genius, you watching? Genius: Look how awesome Stephano is, stating that infestor/brood lord should be nerfed like that. DRG: Is that why he lost to HerO? He was unable to use that imba infestor/brood lord composition? Genius: Whether or not a Zerg gets pushed is up to the Zerg. Almost every single grand master Zerg never gets pushed, DRG: Whether or not a Protoss can push is also up to the Protoss. Did you ever think perhaps you're the reason that the Zerg never gets pushed? Genius: It's more important to defend... DRG: I think breaking through is more important.
On November 19 2012 14:48 neoghaleon55 wrote: DRG and Genius discuss balance:
Translation thanks to SeeKeR:
DRG: So apparently Zerg is OP and yet the Protosses advance yet again [WCS/BWC]. DRG: Hey crackhead Genius, you watching? Genius: Look how awesome Stephano is, stating that infestor/brood lord should be nerfed like that. DRG: Is that why he lost to HerO? He was unable to use that imba infestor/brood lord composition? Genius: Whether or not a Zerg gets pushed is up to the Zerg. Almost every single grand master Zerg never gets pushed, DRG: Whether or not a Protoss can push is also up to the Protoss. Did you ever think perhaps you're the reason that the Zerg never gets pushed? Genius: It's more important to defend... DRG: I think breaking through is more important.
Too many people here in the thread are forgetting the main point ... which ISNT that ability X or Y is supposedly OP or so, but rather that IT ISNT FUN.
Thats the main point behind Fungal and Forcefield and its only when they are "abused" (15+ Infestors; godly Forcefields against a stupid opponent or on a ramp) when "overpowered or not" becomes an issue. Being locked down completely isnt fun and both of these spells do that.
Being swamped by 40 Infested Terrans (free units) when you have an immobile mech army and cant run from them isnt fun either. One Infestor can drop up to eight Infested Terrans - which are superior to Marines in their dps - and yet they cost only two supply themselves? It should be a no brainer that there is something wrong ...
So regardless of "OP or not", Blizzard has to do something about these three crappy abilities ...
It's opinion, but fun is more important. We can just play Rock Paper Scissors Online for extreme balance and absolute boringness. Extreme imbalance is bad of course, but whatever imbalance SC2 might have isn't even close to extreme. It's a fairly balanced game. Having your army made immobile and take damage by something impossible to dodge isn't fun, whether it's balanced or not.
On November 19 2012 19:49 pzea469 wrote: It's opinion, but fun is more important. We can just play Rock Paper Scissors Online for extreme balance and absolute boringness. Extreme imbalance is bad of course, but whatever imbalance SC2 might have isn't even close to extreme. It's a fairly balanced game. Having your army made immobile and take damage by something impossible to dodge isn't fun, whether it's balanced or not.
True, but it's fun for the zerg to ensnare units.
On November 19 2012 15:16 Rabiator wrote: Too many people here in the thread are forgetting the main point ... which ISNT that ability X or Y is supposedly OP or so, but rather that IT ISNT FUN.
Getting stomped isn't fun. Without abilities which look total OP the game would be much less fun. We do need abilities which can kill a lot of units fast to have such moments when someone who was ahead all the time loses his army and subsequently looses the game.
Otherwise it would be too boring to watch the game played out while it was won by player X about 15 minutes ago.
On November 19 2012 19:49 pzea469 wrote: It's opinion, but fun is more important. We can just play Rock Paper Scissors Online for extreme balance and absolute boringness. Extreme imbalance is bad of course, but whatever imbalance SC2 might have isn't even close to extreme. It's a fairly balanced game. Having your army made immobile and take damage by something impossible to dodge isn't fun, whether it's balanced or not.
On November 19 2012 15:16 Rabiator wrote: Too many people here in the thread are forgetting the main point ... which ISNT that ability X or Y is supposedly OP or so, but rather that IT ISNT FUN.
Getting stomped isn't fun. Without abilities which look total OP the game would be much less fun. We do need abilities which can kill a lot of units fast to have such moments when someone who was ahead all the time loses his army and subsequently looses the game.
Otherwise it would be too boring to watch the game played out while it was won by player X about 15 minutes ago.
What a huge false dichotomy. You don't need giant explosions everywhere with things dying really fast like we have now. You just need things to be interesting and impressive to watch with mechanics that make you respect the pros who master them. It's hard for me to get hyped for someone sentry dropping and repeatedly FFing a one FF wide ramp for 2 minutes while they kill everything in the main base. It's hard for me to really care or applaud someone that FFs an army into a tiny little area and slaughters it with 4 attacks from a couple colossi.
On November 19 2012 19:49 pzea469 wrote: It's opinion, but fun is more important. We can just play Rock Paper Scissors Online for extreme balance and absolute boringness. Extreme imbalance is bad of course, but whatever imbalance SC2 might have isn't even close to extreme. It's a fairly balanced game. Having your army made immobile and take damage by something impossible to dodge isn't fun, whether it's balanced or not.
True, but it's fun for the zerg to ensnare units.
On November 19 2012 15:16 Rabiator wrote: Too many people here in the thread are forgetting the main point ... which ISNT that ability X or Y is supposedly OP or so, but rather that IT ISNT FUN.
Getting stomped isn't fun. Without abilities which look total OP the game would be much less fun. We do need abilities which can kill a lot of units fast to have such moments when someone who was ahead all the time loses his army and subsequently looses the game.
Otherwise it would be too boring to watch the game played out while it was won by player X about 15 minutes ago.
What a huge false dichotomy. You don't need giant explosions everywhere with things dying really fast like we have now. You just need things to be interesting and impressive to watch with mechanics that make you respect the pros who master them. It's hard for me to get hyped for someone sentry dropping and repeatedly FFing a one FF wide ramp for 2 minutes while they kill everything in the main base. It's hard for me to really care or applaud someone that FFs an army into a tiny little area and slaughters it with 4 attacks from a couple colossi.
I did not mention giant explosions. I agree that it is debatable if the current options of killing a lot of units fast require enough mechanical skill to justify the effectiveness.
A.) larva mechanics is ridiculous and kills interesting games.
B.) This game has to many hard counters.
C.) Many units have problematic abilities: sentries, infestors and high templars.
Only low leagues think this game is ever going to be a great experience. I lost count on how many times I see gold players state that: "The sky is the limit just use your imagination and build raven derp derp".
On November 19 2012 22:09 aarsgier wrote: This game is never going to be good because:
A.) larva mechanics is ridiculous and kills interesting games.
B.) This game has to many hard counters.
C.) Many units have problematic abilities: sentries, infestors and high templars.
Only low leagues think this game is ever going to be a great experience. I lost count on how many times I see gold players state that: "The sky is the limit just use your imagination and build raven derp derp".
I love people like this that thinks that their opinion is the fact. Yeah man, you tell them!
I lost the count on how many times I've seen people whine about how the SC2 is a bad game, and constantly keep doing it, while still posting on SC2 forums and playing the god damn game for months after.
On November 19 2012 15:16 Rabiator wrote: Too many people here in the thread are forgetting the main point ... which ISNT that ability X or Y is supposedly OP or so, but rather that IT ISNT FUN.
This isn't the main point, it's an indirect consequent of unfairness in a game. That's not fun either.
Life isnt fair and with three differently designed races you can never ever have a "fair" game. That unfairness can be dealt with and the game can be balanced, so your point is kinda moot and irrelevant IMO.
Enabling one side to disable the other instantly is not fun, because its basically the same as an "instawin" (just not instant to achieve).
On November 19 2012 15:16 Rabiator wrote: Too many people here in the thread are forgetting the main point ... which ISNT that ability X or Y is supposedly OP or so, but rather that IT ISNT FUN.
Getting stomped isn't fun. Without abilities which look total OP the game would be much less fun. We do need abilities which can kill a lot of units fast to have such moments when someone who was ahead all the time loses his army and subsequently looses the game.
Otherwise it would be too boring to watch the game played out while it was won by player X about 15 minutes ago.
That logic worked in Broodwar, because you didnt lose half your army in that instant, but since Starcraft 2 has the stupid "perfectly tight movement mechanic for all your units" you cant have Siege Tanks which deal 70 damage anymore or a Reaver shot which deals 100 damage instantly when it connects or a Lurker which deals 20 AoE damage from burrowed.
Big explosions and locally overpowered abilities only work in an environment where you cant stack these powers well enough. In SC2 it is terribly easy to stack Infestors and Infested Terrans and Forcefields and yadda yadda yadda, so it doesnt work for this game ... SADLY ... which is why I am adamant in my belief that the game needs to get rid of unlimited unit selection, production&economic speed boosts and the tight unit pathing.
I'm really impressed with Frodan as an interviewer. Really nice questions!
I love Dustin Browder's honesty and energy as always It seems they tried tinkering with pathing and unit clumping and it didn't make much practical difference one way or another, he's not yet convinced TvP mech is set, infestors are being scrutinized, and that they still have a long way to go before HotS is ready. That's about as good of an interview as you can possibly get.
On November 19 2012 22:09 aarsgier wrote: This game is never going to be good because:
A.) larva mechanics is ridiculous and kills interesting games.
B.) This game has to many hard counters.
C.) Many units have problematic abilities: sentries, infestors and high templars.
Only low leagues think this game is ever going to be a great experience. I lost count on how many times I see gold players state that: "The sky is the limit just use your imagination and build raven derp derp".
One point for every post of yours on TL huh? Let's see:
A: Elaborate. It rewards good mechanics; what's wrong with that? The late game 300 food Zerg push (via insta-remaxing) is quite strong, but it seems that players have more trouble against the late game composition (e.g. broodlords or infestors), rather than the sheer number of units (which also requires a huge bank and good macro). It's the quality of units, not just the quantity.
B and C: That's what balance patches, the beta, and the metagame are for. To think that the game will *never* be good is not only your random opinion, but already a call made far too soon. Let's see what Blizzard, the players, and the rest of the community can do first, over a long period of time.
On November 19 2012 15:16 Rabiator wrote: Too many people here in the thread are forgetting the main point ... which ISNT that ability X or Y is supposedly OP or so, but rather that IT ISNT FUN.
This isn't the main point, it's an indirect consequent of unfairness in a game. That's not fun either.
Life isnt fair and with three differently designed races you can never ever have a "fair" game. That unfairness can be dealt with and the game can be balanced, so your point is kinda moot and irrelevant IMO.
The game requires a certain degree of fairness to retain its integrity as a competitive game. If one race is too favored in a variety of situations, this kills the competitive spirit. sc2 is not life, nor is life competitive. So your point is kinda moot and irrelevant IMO.
That which you state as "fairness" is done by balancing and it is in the game - well it should be. "Fairness" more or less means that everyone has the same opportunities - which they dont, but everyone gets an equal number of different opportunities. Fairness would also imply that everyone starts with the same conditions, but that isnt the case due to the different racial styles.
Fair isnt the same as balanced and Zerg dont have a Siege Tank just as much as Terrans dont have Banelings. So the game isnt fair, but it can be balanced.
If Fungal is a projectile again, wouldn't that make the Raven even more valuable in TvZ? PDD would deflect the the Fungal, bringing the Raven into more use.
I play random, and I can use any of the races. I know almost all the strategies for the races, as well as the various types of all-ins and cheeses.
I'm really good in the first 10-15 minutes, about as good as professionals even. But as the game draws longer, I become weaker and weaker, especially when it comes to a situation with 200/200 supply, my play is just.......
...
ahahahahahah I can not believe this guy was this naive to actually let something this stupid come out of his mouth.
This is going to be a running joke in the community for a long time
I love the way Browder does his interviews. He always seems so on point, and always has a really clear direction on whatever topic the interviewer can think of. That and he pumps out the words at a million miles an hour so you feel like you're getting so much value for time spent watching it xD
On November 20 2012 01:59 -Genome- wrote: I love the way Browder does his interviews. He always seems so on point, and always has a really clear direction on whatever topic the interviewer can think of. That and he pumps out the words at a million miles an hour so you feel like you're getting so much value for time spent watching it xD
A.) larva mechanics is ridiculous and kills interesting games.
B.) This game has to many hard counters.
C.) Many units have problematic abilities: sentries, infestors and high templars.
Only low leagues think this game is ever going to be a great experience. I lost count on how many times I see gold players state that: "The sky is the limit just use your imagination and build raven derp derp"
A: Elaborate. It rewards good mechanics; what's wrong with that? The late game 300 food Zerg push (via insta-remaxing) is quite strong, but it seems that players have more trouble against the late game composition (e.g. broodlords or infestors), rather than the sheer number of units (which also requires a huge bank and good macro). It's the quality of units, not just the quantity.
Whats there to elaborate honestly, most people have figured it out by now. The larva mechanics make it so that you dont want to face zerg lategame, so you attack before that when your race is at an advantage (11/11 proxy rax or sentry immortal all-in for instance depending on map). I dont believe that adjusting existing zerg units like the infestor is ever going to create some kind of balance sweetspot that makes early harassment viable without going all-in.
B and C: That's what balance patches, the beta, and the metagame are for. To think that the game will *never* be good is not only your random opinion, but already a call made far too soon. Let's see what Blizzard, the players, and the rest of the community can do first, over a long period of time.
This man is really dedicated to Starcraft. Yeah he may not always be right and 100 % insightful, but hes got energy, hes got dedication and also alot of insight and talent in gamemaking and designprocesses..
What if 250mm Strike Cannons was changed to allow the Thor's air attack to target ground (either a mode change or cooldown)? The range, splash, and bonus to light would be great for clearing out ITs. This "mode change" would be in line with Terran's design (siege tanks, vikings, hellbats), and perhaps it would prevent them from attacking air during the duration. Thus, a skilled player would bait out the ITs, use Thors to clear them while zoning the BL's, then switch the Thors back to anti-air duties.
This would also help mech against swarms of reinforcing chargelots lategame PvT (maybe?), getting in a solid volley before charge and allowing blueflames to do their job better.
On November 20 2012 03:14 MasterFischer wrote: People give Dustin too much wrap and flame imo..
i would be giving him zero crap if he showed any real game knowledge that wouldn't be immediately trumped by anyone in diamond or better..: - as of MLG dallas, he didn't know zergs were using more than "6 or 7" infestors in their army composition - around july he was interviewed and laughed at the notion that people were using infestors to mindcontrol motherships and waste vortex, he said he wasn't aware of the vortex vs broodlord infestor interaction... - he claimed in this interview that tournament representation is fine, and said people were only looking at one or two tournaments. terran have been represented in low numbers for the last few months now, especially in gstl and other team leagues..
there are many more examples but you get my point. people are just frustrated when the lead dev of their game somehow manages to say some stupid crap in every interview that either is just not true or maybe was true a few months ago. listening to his interviews makes me question if he even watches this game. i know it's his job, but that doesn't mean he automatically is doing a good job of it.
On November 20 2012 03:14 MasterFischer wrote: People give Dustin too much wrap and flame imo..
i would be giving him zero crap if he showed any real game knowledge that wouldn't be immediately trumped by anyone in diamond or better..: - as of MLG dallas, he didn't know zergs were using more than "6 or 7" infestors in their army composition - around july he was interviewed and laughed at the notion that people were using infestors to mindcontrol motherships and waste vortex, he said he wasn't aware of the vortex vs broodlord infestor interaction... - he claimed in this interview that tournament representation is fine, and said people were only looking at one or two tournaments. terran have been represented in low numbers for the last few months now, especially in gstl and other team leagues..
there are many more examples but you get my point. people are just frustrated when the lead dev of their game somehow manages to say some stupid crap in every interview that either is just not true or maybe was true a few months ago. listening to his interviews makes me question if he even watches this game. i know it's his job, but that doesn't mean he automatically is doing a good job of it.
As the owner or manager of any professional sports team about specific statistics on his players in a specific match up and see if you get the detailed response you want. If you ask the coach, you might get a different response. Blizzard is a large company and not everyone knows every tiny piece of information. The man manages all of SC2, from single player, arcade, Blizzard All Stars and 1v1 multiplayer. He only has so much RAM up there and only so much information can be on call.
Or to put it another way, if you asked him how many single player missions there were, he would answer right away. Or the most popular user made map. If you asked some pro SC2 players, they might not know. SC2 is a big game, everyone can know everything.
For people that want to know. The uints that are Psoinic are :
Protoss Sentry High Templar Dark Templar Archon Warp Prism Mothership
Zerg Queen Infestor
Terran Ghost
I my self didnt know that warp prism was psionic. Imagine warp prism harass now when you cant fungel them in place. Maybe they should make medivacs psionic also?. This also means u cant hit high templars and archons under the mothership if u dont have a overseer near by.
On November 20 2012 07:51 BeholdOblivion wrote: How broken would the game become if larva inject produced 1 less larva?
You would probably have to invest in a macro hatch every game, so it has some pronounced effects. It would mostly make zergling-heavy strategies weaker though. There is an argument made by LaLush, Barrin and others that in WoL you have too much economy and LaLush has mentioned that reducing the power of spawn larva would be one method to address this.
I think it's an interesting idea, since you have a lot of larva available even when you go for greedy play - which is when you need larva the most, as drones are 50 minerals per larva only and you will have a stronger economy to support ever more drone production. Limiting available larva a bit will mean that the zerg economy is slightly less exponential, since you'd need to build a macro hatchery in greedy play styles. Which coincidentally also helps with map imbalances, since zerg won't be as strong anymore on larger maps.
I think it's funny (and sad) that he keeps saying "I will make this change..." instead of a "we" unless it truly is ONLY him on the balance team, which would make me almost wanna quit playing.
God he's so stupid. I also like how he tries to pretend that he's at the pro level, even if it's within the first 15 mins.
On November 20 2012 07:58 BlueLanterna wrote: How in the FUCK is Warp Prism considered Psionic?O_O There is absolutely no reason for that.
Probably because it can create a psionic matrix(warp in field). I still find it wierd but it will be fun to se how zergs will deal with storm drops now late game.
On November 20 2012 03:14 MasterFischer wrote: People give Dustin too much wrap and flame imo..
i would be giving him zero crap if he showed any real game knowledge that wouldn't be immediately trumped by anyone in diamond or better..: - as of MLG dallas, he didn't know zergs were using more than "6 or 7" infestors in their army composition - around july he was interviewed and laughed at the notion that people were using infestors to mindcontrol motherships and waste vortex, he said he wasn't aware of the vortex vs broodlord infestor interaction... - he claimed in this interview that tournament representation is fine, and said people were only looking at one or two tournaments. terran have been represented in low numbers for the last few months now, especially in gstl and other team leagues..
there are many more examples but you get my point. people are just frustrated when the lead dev of their game somehow manages to say some stupid crap in every interview that either is just not true or maybe was true a few months ago. listening to his interviews makes me question if he even watches this game. i know it's his job, but that doesn't mean he automatically is doing a good job of it.
As the owner or manager of any professional sports team about specific statistics on his players in a specific match up and see if you get the detailed response you want. If you ask the coach, you might get a different response. Blizzard is a large company and not everyone knows every tiny piece of information. The man manages all of SC2, from single player, arcade, Blizzard All Stars and 1v1 multiplayer. He only has so much RAM up there and only so much information can be on call.
Or to put it another way, if you asked him how many single player missions there were, he would answer right away. Or the most popular user made map. If you asked some pro SC2 players, they might not know. SC2 is a big game, everyone can know everything.
The problem is that in addition to him managing EVERYTHING about the game he is still SOMEHOW the lead balance designer, which means he has the final say with what direction the metagame will go etc. And so if he decides that he is best for that job he NEEDS to pay attention to pro matches and tournaments. Essentially, to use your analogy, he needs to act like a coach.
If he thinks that he has too much to do and cannot pay attention to tournaments, he needs to GTFO out of the balance side of the game. At least it doesn't matter how many destructible rocks you put into Single Player.
On November 18 2012 02:33 Gladiator333 wrote: Why can't we just wait and see how this change plans out before we jump to conclusions?
Because many people feel they have all the answers and know absolutely everything about the game, and are eager to make themselves look knowledgeable by ignoring what DB actually said and just parroting their desired changes over and over again.
Never mind, of course, that SC2 is an extremely complex game, and will require actual testing (not just theorycrafting) to determine which balance solutions work. The winrates/percentage of races in GM show that the game is not terribly unbalanced right now; perhaps making fungal into a projectile and removing NP from mothership will be the subtle changes which shift the edge back away from zerg.
On November 19 2012 15:16 Rabiator wrote: Too many people here in the thread are forgetting the main point ... which ISNT that ability X or Y is supposedly OP or so, but rather that IT ISNT FUN.
This isn't the main point, it's an indirect consequent of unfairness in a game. That's not fun either.
Life isnt fair and with three differently designed races you can never ever have a "fair" game. That unfairness can be dealt with and the game can be balanced, so your point is kinda moot and irrelevant IMO.
Enabling one side to disable the other instantly is not fun, because its basically the same as an "instawin" (just not instant to achieve).
On November 19 2012 15:16 Rabiator wrote: Too many people here in the thread are forgetting the main point ... which ISNT that ability X or Y is supposedly OP or so, but rather that IT ISNT FUN.
Getting stomped isn't fun. Without abilities which look total OP the game would be much less fun. We do need abilities which can kill a lot of units fast to have such moments when someone who was ahead all the time loses his army and subsequently looses the game.
Otherwise it would be too boring to watch the game played out while it was won by player X about 15 minutes ago.
That logic worked in Broodwar, because you didnt lose half your army in that instant, but since Starcraft 2 has the stupid "perfectly tight movement mechanic for all your units" you cant have Siege Tanks which deal 70 damage anymore or a Reaver shot which deals 100 damage instantly when it connects or a Lurker which deals 20 AoE damage from burrowed.
Big explosions and locally overpowered abilities only work in an environment where you cant stack these powers well enough. In SC2 it is terribly easy to stack Infestors and Infested Terrans and Forcefields and yadda yadda yadda, so it doesnt work for this game ... SADLY ... which is why I am adamant in my belief that the game needs to get rid of unlimited unit selection, production&economic speed boosts and the tight unit pathing.
about the other part,just because u spent a long time watching a game with those features,it doesn't mean they are "the best"il tell u as a younger gamer(which is most of the gamers) that having restrictions on how many units u could move at one click(or how u wanna phrase it)is unbelievable and i mean UNBELIEVABLE frustrating, i fucking hated that in wc3 and i still do, and now u are gonna probably say i am lazy or something,well realise that all people don't have time to play 5+hours a day,a game is good when it appeal to alot of different people,which sc2 obv does, so ye even though it took amasing skill to be good at BW,the game was really frustrating to play
On November 20 2012 07:27 Anomi wrote: For people that want to know. The uints that are Psoinic are :
Protoss Sentry High Templar Dark Templar Archon Warp Prism Mothership
Zerg Queen Infestor
Terran Ghost
I my self didnt know that warp prism was psionic. Imagine warp prism harass now when you cant fungel them in place. Maybe they should make medivacs psionic also?. This also means u cant hit high templars and archons under the mothership if u dont have a overseer near by.
That change is so retarded... Not only speed WP and mothership but how exactly do you deal with cloaked ghost? Snipe is range 10, overseer vision is 11, viper abduct is 9 and BL range is 9,5...
The fact that they keep on circling around the idea of a slow instead of a root is weird.
On November 20 2012 07:58 BlueLanterna wrote: How in the FUCK is Warp Prism considered Psionic?O_O There is absolutely no reason for that.
Probably solely for lore reasons. Keep in mind that a all the gameplay features that revolved around the Psionic attribute were removed during the alpha.
According to lore, it is created through a "psionic manufacturing process" and acts as a mobile focus for the Protoss Psionic matrix. So with so many lore references to Psionic, I guess the developers thought it wouldn't hurt to add the Psionic attribute.
An easy solution would be to remove the Psionic attribute from the Warp Prism.
On November 20 2012 07:58 BlueLanterna wrote: How in the FUCK is Warp Prism considered Psionic?O_O There is absolutely no reason for that.
Probably because it can create a psionic matrix(warp in field). I still find it wierd but it will be fun to se how zergs will deal with storm drops now late game.
I guess I....could understand that but when I think of psionic units I think of: the ghost, the infestor, the high templar, for example. It seems very strange to label a glorified drop ship as psionic if they don't have any actual casting ability
On November 20 2012 07:58 BlueLanterna wrote: How in the FUCK is Warp Prism considered Psionic?O_O There is absolutely no reason for that.
Probably solely for lore reasons. Keep in mind that a all the gameplay features that revolved around the Psionic attribute were removed during the alpha.
According to lore, it is created through a "psionic manufacturing process" and acts as a mobile focus for the Protoss Psionic matrix. So with so many lore references to Psionic, I guess the developers thought it wouldn't hurt to add the Psionic attribute.
An easy solution would be to remove the Psionic attribute from the Warp Prism.
Thanks for that background I'm not one for lore so I never considered that.
It would be nice if warp prism stays psionic and in that sense forcing zerg to spire tech or hydras to deal with warp prism. Warp prism still cant pick up fungeld units.
On November 20 2012 07:58 BlueLanterna wrote: How in the FUCK is Warp Prism considered Psionic?O_O There is absolutely no reason for that.
Probably because it can create a psionic matrix(warp in field). I still find it wierd but it will be fun to se how zergs will deal with storm drops now late game.
Just finished 35 min interview with Dustin. Told us after that they're also looking into changes for void ray, phoenix, and mutalisk
... really? I dont want to be skeptical, but the phoenix is my favorite new unit to starcraft, and the muta is by far the most intriguing and dynamic unit in the game, why do they want to revisit these units and not units like the colossus or roach or marauder?!?
Totally agree with the Widow Mine Comment. Couple days I was dominating with the Widow Mine. Now that I've ranked up and playing against more seasoned players, alot of them know how to deal with Widow Mines.
Fungal is overpowered, but it has to be in order to stop the good ol' laser toss from wiping zerg out. Back when it was balanced PvZ was a silly matchup. I don't think fungal can ever be properly balanced in WoL; the only way I can see it working is if the viper's disruption web and meat hook end up being strong enough against deathballs that zerg doesn't need super fungals any more.
if they redesign HSM, 250mm canon and buff hellbat, i would strongly consider buying heart of the swarm again. And i am so touched that dustin finally admitted mech is still not working vs protoss. So those freaking protoss theorycrafter who keep insisting mech is too strong can stfu
On November 20 2012 07:27 Anomi wrote: For people that want to know. The uints that are Psoinic are :
Protoss Sentry High Templar Dark Templar Archon Warp Prism Mothership
Zerg Queen Infestor
Terran Ghost
I my self didnt know that warp prism was psionic. Imagine warp prism harass now when you cant fungel them in place. Maybe they should make medivacs psionic also?. This also means u cant hit high templars and archons under the mothership if u dont have a overseer near by.
That change is so retarded... Not only speed WP and mothership but how exactly do you deal with cloaked ghost? Snipe is range 10, overseer vision is 11, viper abduct is 9 and BL range is 9,5...
The fact that they keep on circling around the idea of a slow instead of a root is weird.
I assume the fact that overseers cost no supply is the way you handle cloaked ghosts but maybe I'm wrong
On November 20 2012 11:53 Govou wrote: Are you guys even reading or just too lazy? they are NOT talking about FUNGAL but rather NEURAL PARASITE for those psyonic immune.
Let me repeat what they plan to do with infestor for you.
- NO NEURAL PARASITE for psionic. - projectile animation to FUNGAL
Mod note at the top of the thread says that DB was actually talking about making psionic units immune to fungal.
On November 20 2012 11:53 Govou wrote: Are you guys even reading or just too lazy? they are NOT talking about FUNGAL but rather NEURAL PARASITE for those psyonic immune.
Let me repeat what they plan to do with infestor for you.
- NO NEURAL PARASITE for psionic. - projectile animation to FUNGAL
Mod note at the top of the thread says that DB was actually talking about making psionic units immune to fungal.
On November 20 2012 08:02 genius_man16 wrote: I think it's funny (and sad) that he keeps saying "I will make this change..." instead of a "we" unless it truly is ONLY him on the balance team, which would make me almost wanna quit playing.
God he's so stupid. I also like how he tries to pretend that he's at the pro level, even if it's within the first 15 mins.
You realize you're dissing Browder quotes from a translated Chinese interview, right? He uses "we" to refer to the dev team continuously in the English interview video.
On November 20 2012 09:10 GinDo wrote: Totally agree with the Widow Mine Comment. Couple days I was dominating with the Widow Mine. Now that I've ranked up and playing against more seasoned players, alot of them know how to deal with Widow Mines.
The longer the game goes in HOTS, the more worthless widow mines become. You'll notice this is the same bad design of WOL Terran where the longer the game goes things things like vikings become very bad and a catch-22.
Widow mines people (mostly noobs) thought were OP the first day they buffed them because every player was 1Aing into the mines. Then everyone suddenly remembered how to micro and not walk into mines and they went back to suck status.
I thought immune to neural makes sense, but not gonna complain about zergs being unable to fungal DTs for cheap detection and fungal mothership. Project for fungal so good players can dodge it too sounds good.
Removing neural though... I don't know why they keep dicking around with neural, since most people's quelms with with the infestor seem to be with the infested terran 'free units' and the 'root' aspect of fungal, and they seem to be willing to try anything except change these...
On November 20 2012 08:02 genius_man16 wrote: I think it's funny (and sad) that he keeps saying "I will make this change..." instead of a "we" unless it truly is ONLY him on the balance team, which would make me almost wanna quit playing.
God he's so stupid. I also like how he tries to pretend that he's at the pro level, even if it's within the first 15 mins.
You realize you're dissing Browder quotes from a translated Chinese interview, right? He uses "we" to refer to the dev team continuously in the English interview video.
Well ill be right back guys. Gotta go to the doc to remove my foot from my mouth.
On November 20 2012 14:06 bokeevboke wrote: he thinks clumped units are good.
I've lost my last hope for sc2.
Clumped units are good. They are cozy, warm, protected form lings and zealots. They do maximum damage in the smallest space possible. They move efficiently through small spaces, can be picked up in drops in one swoops. They can blink right off edges and leave no one behind. They pack in tightly to chokes like mighty Spartans holding off the Persian army. I love my clumped up stalkers, they win me games with their minimal need for personal space.
Deathballs would be fine, if there were harder counters to them. Of course, it should always be possible to beat those counters with good positioning and micro. The dodgeable fungals might be a step into the right direction.
I have a great Idea for Balancing the game better, and making the games more fun to play. What I think is the biggest problem is the clustering up of Units. Why don't they design the units in a way that they can't cluster up that much. No more ball of death. no more one battle decides the hole game. It would also be more similar to BW. what do you guys think?
On November 24 2012 22:59 shangul wrote: I have a great Idea for Balancing the game better, and making the games more fun to play. What I think is the biggest problem is the clustering up of Units. Why don't they design the units in a way that they can't cluster up that much. No more ball of death. no more one battle decides the hole game. It would also be more similar to BW. what do you guys think?
They have commented on this. Clustering up units has it's place, and the game is also balanced around this. For example, marines and marauders need to be able to cluster up like they do to deal the damage they need while kiting zealots. Or else they just wouldn't stand a chance. Splitting units up is a skill, but most importantly a choice. If the units didn't cluster, it would remove the benefit and dynamic of clustered units. With clustering, a skilled player can take advantage of both spread out and clustered units in different situations.
It's also kind of awkward to call this an idea of yours considering how it has been heavily debated since the beginnings of sc2 beta.
This is a stupid argumentation. If the Zerglings run up to the Marines in a less dense pack then you dont need as high a concentration of Marines to deal with them ... simple math and doesnt require much imagination.
Clumping is TERRIBLE, because ... 1. The dps of the pack increases differently for different units. + Show Spoiler +
Stalkers are much larger than Marines and thus you can stack more Marines in the same space and consequently their dps per area increases more than the much more expensive Protoss units even though they both start at roughly the same dps. Marines are also a lot cheaper than Stalkers and these "expensive high tech units" are only worth it due to Blink and Forcefield.
2. Big clumps of tight units put "max dps" in the foreground and this prevents micro. Cutesy tricks never work when faced with brute force. + Show Spoiler +
You know that you have seen micro, when you see 2 Zerglings battling 2 Zerglings and one of the players keeps both of his Zerglings alive. Splitting Marines isnt really micro, because it requires far less precision and there are too many units involved anyways.
3. The tight clumps of units are the "core definition" of the deathball and this is considered to be terrible by most people.
4. The balance of two groups of units shifts with the number of units involved. A single Zealot can chase two Marines around for some time, BUT a huge clump of 40 Marines would probably win against 20 Zealots, because they can eliminate some of the Zealots before they even get to the Marines. This "critical dps" is part of the reason why big units like the Carrier or Battlecruiser are not really viable and it even works for Siege Tanks, who melt much too fast when faced with a mediocre batch of Marines.
Sadly diehard Blizzard fanboys will respond to this argumentation with either of "It isnt clear enough" OR the ever popular "you arent smart enough, because you dont work at Blizzard ... trust in Blizzard" line.
Clumping is not a problem because you can easily clump units by clicking very fast near the ball and most of the time its beneficial to casual players. They will cluster up. The only way is to make units like broodwar, but it does not look good because units look like retards trying to scoot up but stops every millisecond.
When you select a large area full of units, you take the value of the most left/right/top/bottom units and make a box. You take the center of the box and that would act similar to one unit. When you click a move, the direction from the center to the pointer would be the direction the group will move toward, making the entire group move in one direction that is not clustered. You will have units that will not arrive at the destination if you want the group to not cluster, which is just bad mechanics. So they need to reach their destination, which will ultimately make them cluster anyways. It's not that different. The only difference broodwar has is that unit pathing does not consider other units, so when they have the same path as another unit, they will just stop behind another unit, making a scooting effect you see.
It's been discussed that broodwar pathfinding is bad for how the game looks. Units look stupid, and its just hard to move from point a to point b. Using the sc2 pathfinding but keep armies unclustered while on move doesn't make a difference because most of the time, you want to be in ball formation. it's the default. I do wish they would explore the unclustered movement though. Because with this, players actually have a choice to stay spread or not.
Also another point is that sc2 is needed to engage casual gamers and most ball formation is beneficial for casual players because deathballs are efficient. once you get in higher level games, you need to spread you units, and like broodwar, you can have multiple groups to do that. Anyways, actually typing this and thinking about it, they should explore the unclustered movement mechanic.
On November 25 2012 02:34 monkybone wrote: Stupid argumentation from diehard blizzard fanboys? You can't argue like this. Your post is just your opinion on the matter anyway, which honestly doesn't appear very enlightened.
Try to be less biased and people might just take you seriously next time.
Explain why my arguments are bad or off the mark.
1. Do Stalkers have the same size as Marines? Yes/No If they have not and are bigger as I claim, do Marines have a higher "dps per area"? Yes/No If the "dps per area" increases in different speed, does this make balancing these units easier or harder? easier/harder
2. Is the "kill rate" higher with a bigger bunch of units involved? Yes/No Does it make sense to build a Carrier with tiny Interceptors when you know that you are facing a big bunch of Marines or Hydras which will kill the Interceptors in no time? Yes/No If the previous question is answered with NO, would it change anything if they added "Nony's Carrier micro"? Yes/No How often do you see/use target-firing in a BIG battle with lots of units? often/rarely/never Is it effective to do "cutesy positional micro" when your army is faced with a big group of units? Yes/No
Micro is the abiltiy of better players to use their skill to win, but the larger the clumps are the less there is room for micro. More microability is good ... unless you choose to disagree of course.
3. Do you like the deathball? Yes/No Would you like to have alternative ways to fight than keeping all your units in one big clump? Yes/No If YES, then how do you think its going to happen since the deathball is the most efficient way to fight?
4. Have you ever heard the term "critical number" by casters? Yes/No How often? Pretty regularly/once in a while/rarely Do you understand what "critical number" means and what the implications are? Yes/No Explain to me why Battlecruisers and Carriers are not efficient please and how to fix them.
Honestly you are not arguing with the points I made and focus on my mentioning "Blizzard fanboys" while choosing the "It isnt clear enough" answer to dismiss my points. I hope the Q&A form in small steps is easier to understand ...
On November 25 2012 03:04 Lokian wrote: It's been discussed that broodwar pathfinding is bad for how the game looks. Units look stupid, and its just hard to move from point a to point b. Using the sc2 pathfinding but keep armies unclustered while on move doesn't make a difference because most of the time, you want to be in ball formation. it's the default. I do wish they would explore the unclustered movement though. Because with this, players actually have a choice to stay spread or not.
Also another point is that sc2 is needed to engage casual gamers and most ball formation is beneficial for casual players because deathballs are efficient. once you get in higher level games, you need to spread you units, and like broodwar, you can have multiple groups to do that. Anyways, actually typing this and thinking about it, they should explore the unclustered movement mechanic.
Original Broodwar pathing wasnt really perfect, BUT no one in their right mind wants to change the pathing in SC2 into that type. Claiming this is simply false.
The deathball is BAD for casual gamers, because they are unable to cope with such a huge number of units on one button. Easiest example is Banelings (EASY to use in one big group) against Marines (HARD to use if faced by Banelings rolling in); MarineKing can split his units and survive, but "Joe Casual" cant. It is better for the casual to be limited to 12 units per control group JUST AS THE OPPONENT. Anything else is just a misconception and somewhat stupid "everything new must be better" propaganda.
EPT
So good haha. Too bad I'm not a China player, and have to buy it like the rest of the world 
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/DJIAP.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KrtUK.jpg)
