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On November 20 2012 17:36 Velinath wrote:
Once again, I really think that Blizzard is hugely overreacting with their Infestor changes. It's been overbuffed and overnerfed more times than I can count - but quite honestly, I think making Psionic units immune is a terrible way to try and solve the issue. Specifically, I'm referring to Sentries and Warp Prisms, as I can't imagine defending some Protoss pushes without fungal. That said, I agree with the idea of making Fungal less ridiculous lategame - would a reasonable compromise be a slow on psionic units ? I know that still doesn't solve the underlying anti-micro issues with the spell, but it might go a good way towards balancing WoL as we move closer to HotS.
The problem with the zerg defending the protoss without fungals is again because of a spell that doesn't allow one player to micro out of a situation. Forcefields and fungal growth are quite similar in that they give no way out of a situation to one player. Both these spells need a huge fix or complete redesign.
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On November 20 2012 17:40 Fluid wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2012 17:36 Velinath wrote:
Once again, I really think that Blizzard is hugely overreacting with their Infestor changes. It's been overbuffed and overnerfed more times than I can count - but quite honestly, I think making Psionic units immune is a terrible way to try and solve the issue. Specifically, I'm referring to Sentries and Warp Prisms, as I can't imagine defending some Protoss pushes without fungal. That said, I agree with the idea of making Fungal less ridiculous lategame - would a reasonable compromise be a slow on psionic units ? I know that still doesn't solve the underlying anti-micro issues with the spell, but it might go a good way towards balancing WoL as we move closer to HotS. The problem with the zerg defending the protoss without fungals is again because of a spell that doesn't allow one player to micro out of a situation. Forcefields and fungal growth are quite similar in that they give no way out of a situation to one player. Both these spells need a huge fix or complete redesign.
I'd agree there - but right now Blizzard seems to be happy with the forcefields, and as long as the forcefields work as they do right now, nerfing the infestors too much would just be disasterous.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51481 Posts
Test map: Seeker missile won’t require an upgrade
Dustin doesn't believe this will change much
I personally think that is absolutely crazy!! Free Seeker Missle :S just made opening banshee in TvZ standard, as you just add ravens into your death ball. Will be trying this on beta at every opportunity when it is implemented.
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DB's game design approach is not appropriate for starcraft. He sees things differently. It would be best if they replaced him but its not gonna happen 
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On November 20 2012 16:07 blug wrote:
I really get the impression from Dustin Browder that he's not passionate about the game, he's just been hired to do his job and he does a bit of research to understand a bit about the meta game.
I think Dustin is good in interviews, but I think they need to hire a few open minded professional sc2 players who can at least assist with balance, because I think Dustin might not have a complete understanding of the game.
I think Dustin has been trying harder lately though. He used to be completely ignorant... now he sounds like he's been watching a bit more of the E-Sport scene.
I've talked to the guy in person before at Blizzcon, and I've never really got that feel from him. He always seems super into it to me.
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On November 20 2012 17:36 Velinath wrote:
Once again, I really think that Blizzard is hugely overreacting with their Infestor changes. It's been overbuffed and overnerfed more times than I can count - but quite honestly, I think making Psionic units immune is a terrible way to try and solve the issue. Specifically, I'm referring to Sentries and Warp Prisms, as I can't imagine defending some Protoss pushes without fungal. That said, I agree with the idea of making Fungal less ridiculous lategame - would a reasonable compromise be a slow on psionic units ? I know that still doesn't solve the underlying anti-micro issues with the spell, but it might go a good way towards balancing WoL as we move closer to HotS.
In terran's point of view, make raven psionic unit then we shall talk.
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I'm a Protoss player, and here was my reaction:
Sentries (psionic) immune to fungal?! :D *arms raised to the heavens*
Warp prism (psionic) also immune to fungal?! :O Now THAT'S OP, lol.
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On November 20 2012 17:35 Fluid wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2012 17:32 whatevername wrote:On November 20 2012 17:24 gengka wrote:On November 20 2012 17:16 whatevername wrote:
I'm quite optimistic. This community really annoys me, more and more. Infestors are imba, nerf nerf nerf! OMG your considering nerfing them? I'm terrified, all is lost! Seriously one guy suggested we cant beat immortal sentry all ins if we dont fungal-- infestors are not a standard counter against immortal sentry all in...at all...
HOTS will probably be really imba at first, and a lot of these changes to WoL units I expect to "blow up in their face" to be melodramatic, but the fact that there looking at it from a design stand point makes me optimistic. I'm perfectly fine playing 6 months of shifting balance if theres light at the end of the tunnel, and I think with a lot of these ideas and new units there probably is. i had played WOL for 2 years and i didn't see any light in the tunnel end... It's been 2 years and the game is still not balanced and it's going to phase out in a few months time... I'm not hoping, expect, or want perfect balance. Heaven will not be in this life. What I want is a higher skill cap, and with that, a higher degree of strategical variance and meta game shifts, which through maps or otherwise, we the community can bridge the gap for balance for the most part. Thats all broodwar had. SC2 successfully had this variance for quite a while, its only been recently the game has become stultified and boring. If your so filled with despair, well, I dont really care. You wont be here in a month if thats the case and I'm not really going to plead with strangers to like a game they dont. lol@ at the other guy, how dare they criticize marine king? wtf else do you expect them to do. People criticize blizzard for looking at balance purely mathematically because it ignores context, blizzard says they look at context and try to theory craft out mistakes as much as they can and people whine about that too. So I guess blizzard is, what, suppose to sacrifice 30 virgins every time they want to discuss balance? If they cant look at numbers and they cant look at context and figure it out with their own heads, the only thing left is magic. Except Dustin and his balance team are all gold/plat except dakim who is diamond. When you are at that level you can't judge a pro's play correctly and point out "what he could have done better". They also spend all their day watching and learning the game, their ranking league is more a product of lack of time to play than it is knowledge: And no, what you said was completely false. David Kim was GM not that long ago, hes not diamond. Dustin was diamond [stated as such in an interview a few months ago]. We dont know what the rest of the balance team is, they arent public figures.
If there even going to attempt to balance the game they have to make those kind of criticisms, end of story. You either accept that people who are worse than the pros are doing their best to determine whether a loss was a product of inherent balance or an individuals mistake, or, you advocate zero balance changes or effort on the part of the sc2 at all.
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Brilliant interview. Dustin seems to be highly engaged with the community's concerns. I like that he is prepared to make radical changes to game design/balance when the time is right, but that all balance changes are slated for extremely precise reasons.
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On November 20 2012 17:20 Hizzay wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2012 17:07 Flonomenalz wrote:On November 20 2012 16:57 Hizzay wrote:On November 20 2012 16:52 blade55555 wrote:On November 20 2012 16:50 Flonomenalz wrote:On November 20 2012 16:49 Al Bundy wrote:On November 20 2012 16:44 Flonomenalz wrote:On November 20 2012 16:40 Al Bundy wrote:Thanks for sharing  Looks like we're going to have to wait for HotS in order to see significant changes. I'm fine with that. I agree with Dustin about the immortal all-in. Also I agree with him about Terran in HotS. Now hopefully when the balance test map (featuring the fungal immunity for psionic units) will be live, people won't jump to conclusions. Like all changes, it may take some time for the Zergs to adapt. I don't agree with him about the immortal all-in. He seems to think it can be solved by the players' strategies, when in actuality it is solved through map design. Any all in centering around forcefield has nothing to do with the Zerg it becomes a question of whether the Protoss hits his forcefields. This can be alleviated through better map design (*cough* no more Ohana maps please Blizzard) which allows the Zerg to bait forcefields earlier on and get a better concave/surround, since that's just about all the micro we can do against the all in. Bottom line is, there is no need for Blizzard to intervene in that specific matter. From a balance perspective, no. From a map design perspective, yes. Well and a fun perspective. We saw it used 3 times to sen i believe? I saw the last two games but it's just not fun to watch. It's just idk incredibly boring to watch someone do that lol. Sen actually defended it in the first game with roaches and 1-1 lings, but then still lost in a macro game. That was mostly because Parting went for the third instead of going straight into the natural, which is better for the Zerg. Also, Sen lost because he never denied Parting's third base after he stopped the all in, and stayed on 3 base far too long before taking a 4th, so Parting could recover. That line really interested me, so I went and double checked all the vods of Parting vs zergs at BWC. Every time he went for immortal-sentry, he always went for the 3rd, except for the 1st game vs Suppy.
Well Parting just doesn't care, he believes the strategy is unstoppable any way, and it kind of is if you hit your forcefields properly...
But going for the natural IS better. You can forcefield the main ramp quite easily since the Zerg is going to be scrambling till the last minute to get reinforcements, then you can position yourself in between the natural and third so you cut off the ability to reinforce that way as well.
Going for the third gives the Zerg more time, he can sac it if need be, to pool more units. And it's even worse if the Zerg happens to be going muta, going for the third gives him the time for the 10+ mutas to pop, which is devastating if you haven't made a round of Stalkers yet.
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This infestor change in terms of ZvT will be perfect, ghosts will be less fragile thus more useful. Hell, they should make ravens psionic too, that'd be great.
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Drink everytime he says "right"
otherwise a good interview~ but i could be wrong, riight
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On November 20 2012 17:35 Fluid wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2012 17:32 whatevername wrote:On November 20 2012 17:24 gengka wrote:On November 20 2012 17:16 whatevername wrote:
I'm quite optimistic. This community really annoys me, more and more. Infestors are imba, nerf nerf nerf! OMG your considering nerfing them? I'm terrified, all is lost! Seriously one guy suggested we cant beat immortal sentry all ins if we dont fungal-- infestors are not a standard counter against immortal sentry all in...at all...
HOTS will probably be really imba at first, and a lot of these changes to WoL units I expect to "blow up in their face" to be melodramatic, but the fact that there looking at it from a design stand point makes me optimistic. I'm perfectly fine playing 6 months of shifting balance if theres light at the end of the tunnel, and I think with a lot of these ideas and new units there probably is. i had played WOL for 2 years and i didn't see any light in the tunnel end... It's been 2 years and the game is still not balanced and it's going to phase out in a few months time... I'm not hoping, expect, or want perfect balance. Heaven will not be in this life. What I want is a higher skill cap, and with that, a higher degree of strategical variance and meta game shifts, which through maps or otherwise, we the community can bridge the gap for balance for the most part. Thats all broodwar had. SC2 successfully had this variance for quite a while, its only been recently the game has become stultified and boring. If your so filled with despair, well, I dont really care. You wont be here in a month if thats the case and I'm not really going to plead with strangers to like a game they dont. lol@ at the other guy, how dare they criticize marine king? wtf else do you expect them to do. People criticize blizzard for looking at balance purely mathematically because it ignores context, blizzard says they look at context and try to theory craft out mistakes as much as they can and people whine about that too. So I guess blizzard is, what, suppose to sacrifice 30 virgins every time they want to discuss balance? If they cant look at numbers and they cant look at context and figure it out with their own heads, the only thing left is magic. Except Dustin and his balance team are all gold/plat except dakim who is diamond. When you are at that level you can't judge a pro's play correctly and point out "what he could have done better".
Wait, what? You do realise DB and his team make the damn game? And you say they know nothing about it because they aren't ladder gods? No doubt SC2 fell from the sky gift wrapped in blue. As to pointing out what pros could have done better, LR threads are filled with it. The same community members then spamming away on design, balance etc. But, oh wait, they must be masters - so it's alright. Please, I don't even know what to make of asinine comments like this.
10 minutes in so far. Cool interview. Great questions so far, Monk.
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To be honest I liked the questions on the gamespot video better. Good interview non the less.
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1.Testing internally: Very likely balance map in next two weeks
(WoL)Psionic units immune to Fungal Growth-Hopes EMP/Templar more viable
Note: Psionic units include: Ghost, Queen, Infestor, Sentry, Templar, Dark Templar, Archon, Warp Prism, Mothership
(HotS only)Add projectile animation on Fungal Growth-This delay will allow units to dodge
Yea this will just make protoss fucking all in more. immortal sentry all in that makes sure that sentrys can't be even really killed without fucking screw ups on the protoss part? lol. The delay on FG will just make protoss again go blink stalkers so now it is dodgeable. Honestly all these changes I just see from protoss of "why the fuck not all in since it is getting even stronger?"
2.Thinks Corruptors are a bigger problem vs Carriers rather than Infestors
How the fuck do they expect to change the corruptor? All I can see is maybe a change to how corruption works, but nerfing anything really else when it is super fucking shitty in the first place is just weird. I mean what is the Corruptor even good against? I think carriers and battlecrusairs..thats it.
3.Feels Neuraling Motherships is a problem.Neural is on the chopping block for Swarm.
what the fuck..this ability has already been gutted to hell and back and sees barely any play already. If you are going to make the mothership not that great too then why nerf it when it is just really good against that but not the other shit it can't get?
4.Possible buffs to Medivacs to account for more new options to defend drops.
Thats the infestor which if you gut that shit while buffing drop play..which is already decent vs zerg..then shit will just be stupid.
I am fine with them making balance changes + testing them, but most of this just doesn't seem to make sense from a zerg standpoint for sure.
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Pretty fucking excellent interview, seems like they have a very clear design philosophy now that's consistent with what the community wants, and are trying to meet that criteria in the best way possible. Not much more you can ask for, really ^_^
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On November 20 2012 17:48 gengka wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2012 17:36 Velinath wrote:
Once again, I really think that Blizzard is hugely overreacting with their Infestor changes. It's been overbuffed and overnerfed more times than I can count - but quite honestly, I think making Psionic units immune is a terrible way to try and solve the issue. Specifically, I'm referring to Sentries and Warp Prisms, as I can't imagine defending some Protoss pushes without fungal. That said, I agree with the idea of making Fungal less ridiculous lategame - would a reasonable compromise be a slow on psionic units ? I know that still doesn't solve the underlying anti-micro issues with the spell, but it might go a good way towards balancing WoL as we move closer to HotS. In terran's point of view, make raven psionic unit then we shall talk.
Make banshee a psionic unit too when we are at it (doesnt make sense, true. But I do think it is a good idea to have them not so hard countered by infestors). Or remove the decloaking of fungal. For sure also get rid of the ridiculous queen range.
The psionic unit change is imo however just a bad idea. It makes toss timing pushes stronger, which are strong enough, and pretty much does nothing for the late game. About warp prisms I am not too worried, just make a load of spore crawlers around bases (WCS made me cry sometimes when toss could do the warp in again and again in the main, with zergs not making defenses against it. Hell put a corrupter there and you also solve it). Also TvZ is also just fighting infestor/BL, this does pretty much nothing for that (especially late game when there are plenty of BLs around).
Making it a projectile will make it more skill based. That said why on earth would you only do that for HotS? Get people to buy HotS by leaving WoL a train wreck balance wise? For those complaining about killing mutas: maybe get more than 1 infestor against a swarm of mutas. That said main downside I see is that it still is all or nothing. Hit one fungal and they all die, only change is that it is a harder to hit that one fungal.
Thats why I still think changing it to a slow is the best solution, it simply makes it alot less all or nothing. And make ITs at the very least retain damage they got as egg.
Pretty fucking excellent interview, seems like they have a very clear design philosophy now that's consistent with what the community wants, and are trying to meet that criteria in the best way possible. Not much more you can ask for, really ^_^
Personally from that interview I dont get the idea they realise how bad infestors/BL is to play against. Not just balance wise, but also no fun at all.
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On November 20 2012 17:49 Jacmert wrote:
I'm a Protoss player, and here was my reaction:
Sentries (psionic) immune to fungal?! :D *arms raised to the heavens*
Warp prism (psionic) also immune to fungal?! :O Now THAT'S OP, lol.
Haha, yeah. I'm just picturing Archons going "fungal me not - Obliterate!". Eviscerated Infestor bits all over the battlefield.
I'm a little biased as I love P, but anything that makes Archons even beastlier than they are is fine by me.
Edit/ That said, WP immunity may be a bit much. Not so sure about Sentries though. Good Zergs target them down asap.
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was plannec as a goofy unit. OMG
this guy is killing me
he should make a new fun and goofy red alert not sc
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My 2 cents as a Protoss player:
If they make psionic immune to fungal, they need to make warp prism mechanical, or make fungal slow. Because, even being a Protoss player, watching Sen catch that warp prism before it even hit land made me admire that feat of mini-map awareness and reaction speed.
Other than that, simultaneous speed prism/muta play would open the matchup right up. Even if infestors aren't a convenient auto-save vs harassment. If you think that's unfair, keep in mind that all Protoss had to learn a whole different play style just to deal with mutas which can't be caught either.
No comment on the 'how am I gonna deal with *blank*/*blank*/sentry/archon as Zerg QQ' - army engagements are something that really need to be tested. However first impressions are that it will reduce the letahlityof fungal vs casters, while still preserving its delaying ability(when cast on part of the army it roots the whole army).
Also the projectile is a really good change, cant wait to see how +2 blink timings do now. I honestly hope it turns into a stalemate forcing transitions into later games(do enough damage before too many of your stalkers get caught).
Personally I think that yes, BL-Infestor shouldn't be unbeatable. But also that Toss are too stuck on going fucking blink-stalker-colossus. We all know that the stalker is a garbage combat unit but a good support unit (pinching off medivacs etc.). 6-10 should be all you need, and we get what we deserve for making it the core unit of a strategy that isn't some cute blink timing.
You guys should check out the newer PvZ [g] floating around on the strategy forum - particularly ones designed to fight BL-Infestor post BL timing. It will be very interesting to see how these changes affect them. BRING ON THE TEST MAP.
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EPT
