We sat down with Dustin Browder during the Battle.net World Championships for a lengthy chat regarding the state of StarCraft 2 and what Heart of the Swarm will be bringing in the future.
The following is a basic summary of the major points Dustin addressed in our interview. That being said, we highly recommend you watch the full interview, as he goes very well in-depth on a lot of issues the community is concerned about right now.
Dustin Browder Interview Summary
Believes Immortal/Sentry All-in can be solved by Zerg players without Blizzard intervention
Blizzard is aware of the restrictions on map design caused by the Stephano Roach style, but doesn’t think it can/will be fixed in WoL, will work on for HotS
Will redesign Mothership so it won’t be a serious unit used in professional esports play
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
About uprooting spines/spores to base trade in PvZ: The core problem is that races don’t have options vs Infestor/Broodlord, so Blizzard will fix the core problem instead
Regarding the Carrier: Considered Change: Interceptors Immune to Fungal
Thinks Corruptors are a bigger problem vs Carriers rather than Infestors
Blizzard wants to be cautious with balancing PvZ
Seeing more Infestor/broodlord mirrors lately, will play close attention to this
Feels Neuraling Motherships is a problem
Neural is on the chopping block for Swarm
Doesn’t feel changing Fungal to a slow will change much to the game
Believes there’s cultural differences between countries that makes Korean Terrans and foreigner Terrans different
On lack of Terrans at BWC: Some Korean Terrans dropped out for various reasons and “It is what it is”
Blizzard doesn't blindly look at win-rates and actually watches the games
When watching games, Blizzard always asks, ‘could this player could have played the game better?’
Relies on community to call out specific games and issues with the game
Can redesign 250mm strike cannon to give Thors a different purpose
Test map: Seeker missile won’t require an upgrade
Dustin doesn't believe this will change much
Possible buffs to Medivacs to account for more new options to defend drops
Feels like HotS units, especially Protoss and Zerg right now, are “balanceable”, Terrans might need bigger changes to create dynamic play
Will work on Mech TvP later on in HotS Beta
To TeamLiquid: Please keep the feedback coming and please play beta!
We ran out of time, but after the interview, he told us there were changes planned for Void Ray, Phoenix, and Mutalisk. It’s unclear if these will be for WoL or HotS, but most likely will be HotS only. + Show Spoiler [Summary of the Possible Proposed Changes] +
Starting to watch, really excited only thing im not excited for and im actually against is that destructible rocks at 3rd, even as a P player and not even a Z player i dont really like it.
Thanks for great interview and summary. Very excited that so many units are being revisisted. Will check out the video tonight when my VPN starts cooperating.
Seems like he is finally taking an interest in the pro scene. I dont see how you can change the mother ship as a unit so that it wont be used in professional play, and still have it do anything. Might as well take it out. Psionic units immune to fungal sounds really interesting. I am somewhat confused about his opinion on the weakness of Carriers to corruptors. It seems to me that if you have enough fungals currently, you can just spam them and bring down the enormous swarm of interceptors.
His approach to balance is interesting, but it seems to me that the way to stop the immortal sentry all in is either to get lucky, spend so many units on breaking the attack that you are behind, spend just enough so that you are even because of your third base. Besides that all you can do is some gimmicky 2-base play, which for zerg is somewhat questionable as you have the same number of bases as the protoss.
On November 20 2012 16:01 Falling wrote: I wish if they are so adamant to make the mothership as a goofy unit, then give us the Arbiter back. Or some equivalent.
Yeah I agree. The mothership is an interesting unit with recall and cloak... and if vortex is reworked so it isn't so ridiculous then it will still be a lot of fun.
Infestors wouldn't be able to fungal archons, sentries, warp prisms, and DTs? I'm fine with say ghosts and high templars being immune but those 4 in particular would suck for zerg players...
On November 20 2012 16:01 Falling wrote: I wish if they are so adamant to make the mothership as a goofy unit, then give us the Arbiter back. Or some equivalent.
Like, why is it that the Protoss gets stuck with the 'non-serious' unit?
10 mins in. Very nice interview so far
Heh well hydras have been that way in sc2 for a majority of it .
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.
Every time I hear him talk I just get really afraid that he is going to nerf things and completely destroy the balance. Like for instance that change to fungal to make psyonic units immune, it completely removes infestors as a counter to immortal sentry. And fungal as a projectile just makes me see into a future of just muta in ZvZ becauase what are you going to make hydra? Nope they still suck unless you have 20 of them infestors? Well unless they are asleep they won't lose many muta. So it would change ZvZ completely and make it imbalanced (as in really boring and awkward like early game ling bling battles) mid game from a place that was ok.
And removing neural? They nerfed it out of excistance and then they remove it. I remember talking about thor hellbat in heart of the swarm being stupid and everyone said oh you can neural the thors and that is the only option for winning in that scenario because the entire army has almost 10k hp potentially.
I just feel like Zerg will be a mess if they made every change that he talked about in this video.
I really don't know how he doesn't think that changing a fungal to slow wouldn't do much. If he really thinks that, then change it! People will be happy how you can micro against it, and apparently it won't really change the balance so... no reason not to! :D
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 get the opposite impression then you. He sounds very passionate to me, but wish he would do some more drastic changes .
I do like his thoughts on korean terran and foreign terrans though. Problem with the way korean terrans are and foreign terrans is if you buff terrans to help foreigners out, korean may dominant again because it's just a fact that korean terrans are so fucking good like way way better then most foreign terrans most of the time xD.
1. (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
- Please tell me how, as a Zerg, I would stop these Chargelot/Sentry/Immortal/Archon or Stalker/Sentry/Immortal pre-BL pushes off of 3 base if Archons and Sentries are immune to fungal. Hence, the Sentries are not going to die until they run out of forcefield, assuming the Toss doesn't have Bronze level forcefields... and the Archons being immune to fungal means they can tank and deal a lot more damage. - How do Zergs stop double speed prism harass if we can't even fungal the warp prisms? They can fly away from corruptors/mutas easily. - Infestors being immune to fungal is just going to make ZvZ even more of an Infestor oriented match up, if that you can no longer catch enemy Infestors out of position with a fungal... they're basically never going to die unless they run out of energy.
2. Doesn’t feel changing Fungal to a slow will change much to the game
- Units being able to move through a spell as opposed to being rooted will chance a LOT to any competitive game.
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 get the opposite impression then you. He sounds very passionate to me, but wish he would do some more drastic changes .
I do like his thoughts on korean terran and foreign terrans though. Problem with the way korean terrans are and foreign terrans is if you buff terrans to help foreigners out, korean may dominant again because it's just a fact that korean terrans are so fucking good like way way better then any foreign terrans most of the time xD.
I might be wrong, just from past interviews he seems to just say what people want to hear, and just puts an act on in front of the camera. I might be being a bit harsh though.
I said this in the other thread but Ill say it here too:
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?!?
T__T
Edit: also, If they want to buff mech, then I hope they would buff siege tanks damage and remove smart cast.
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?!?
T__T
Well they could add proper moving shot with better stacking...
Wow those were some really good question. It touched on everything that was relevant. I love his answer on saying that they want to give terran differnet strategy rather then units. I completely agree with him on this and with the seeker missle buff.
Unless he's giving the Muta something like a moving shot, I don't really want him touching my beautiful mutalisk....>_>
Anyway, in interviews like this I always tend to sympathize with Browder more. He gets a lot of flack for being incompetent from a knowledge stand point, but in reality, you have to realize that patching too quickly is a terrible, terrible way to create a good game. Yeah, the infestor has been retarded for a while, but realistically nerfing it would've ruined zerg.
Making psionic units immune to fungal seems too much, but it is an interesting idea. Maybe only damage but no root, or only root but no damage? It is worth a try I think.
Right now neural seems only designed for ZvP lategame, so maybe it could use a redesign or removal.
I don't think anyone has ever talked about the corruptor in a positive light. Too strong vs Protoss and Terran high tech units (carrier mothership colo BC) but completely useless otherwise. Every other air unit in the game has multiple uses except the corruptor. Redesign or remove.
I agree with Browder that it also needs to be identified whether or not a player played well or could have done better. A lot of people just blindly hate on balance regardless of player performance.
The Seeker Missile change won't help its usefulness, because even with it, a lot of terrans just cant get the spell off because of fungal + corruptors/ITs. They should change how the spell is cast instead of making it free. For example, increase its range but make the projectile accelerate to its maximum speed. This will allow terran players to almost always get to cast it, but give opponents the chance to evade it.
That mothership redesign is questionable. Why would they do that when they put the core in, where mothersip is a follow-up? I think DB just ment that the vortex wont be in same place as it is now, or just wasnt focused speaking on mothership.
On November 20 2012 16:25 Trasko wrote: Idk if i like the mothership changes... I remember BWC and the BEAUTIFUL archon toilets. Like seriously, they are so epic...
I hope your just joking, nobody I know enjoys the archon toilet let alone how late game zvp is played in general. Archon toilets are dumb just like how zergs most reliable way to win is to turtle - infestor/bl/corr - win.
Will redesign Mothership so it won’t be a serious unit used in professional esports play
What? Removing a unit from competitive play will mean less variety which means less fun to watch. But really though, the Mothership was fun to watch in games. It did add variety.
I don't get wanting to make the Mothership into a joke unit. Maybe redesigning it so it gets used in another way but specifically saying it won't be a serious unit anymore? Blizzard I'm disappointed.
Edit - Also I don't see Archon toilets that bad. I think Sen defended an Archon toilet perfectly, he used spines to block movement from archons (protecting the Brood Lords). It was one of the games in BWC.
Plus, Archon toilet isn't unstoppable if you just spread your units out. Makes for more dynamic play instead of just being able to clump up units with no worry.
On November 20 2012 16:16 Flonomenalz wrote: ... wait a minute.
1. (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
- Please tell me how, as a Zerg, I would stop these Chargelot/Sentry/Immortal/Archon or Stalker/Sentry/Immortal pre-BL pushes off of 3 base if Archons and Sentries are immune to fungal. Hence, the Sentries are not going to die until they run out of forcefield, assuming the Toss doesn't have Bronze level forcefields... and the Archons being immune to fungal means they can tank and deal a lot more damage. - How do Zergs stop double speed prism harass if we can't even fungal the warp prisms? They can fly away from corruptors/mutas easily. - Infestors being immune to fungal is just going to make ZvZ even more of an Infestor oriented match up, if that you can no longer catch enemy Infestors out of position with a fungal... they're basically never going to die unless they run out of energy.
2. Doesn’t feel changing Fungal to a slow will change much to the game
- Units being able to move through a spell as opposed to being rooted will chance a LOT to any competitive game.
Uh... okay.
I actually never thought of how stupid ZvZ would become with that fungal restriction on psionic...>_>
Now THAT was a good interview. Awesome questions. Big Thank you Monk for putting Dustin Browder on the hot seat regarding Infestor/Broodlord. By the looks of things it seems like all of this pressure the community has been putting on Blizzard about this unit composition is finally going to pay off.
In regards to virtually everything said about HOTS I feel like Dustin Browder is on the right track. I love his points about making sure drops stay a big part of the game because playing on beta does feel a bit like drops have lost a ton of effectiveness. I'm happy also that the Thor and Raven are due for new changes finally.
Overall just an awesome interview, well worth the time invested to watch the whole thing. I'm looking forward to playing that balance map whenever it comes out.
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 get the opposite impression then you. He sounds very passionate to me, but wish he would do some more drastic changes .
I do like his thoughts on korean terran and foreign terrans though. Problem with the way korean terrans are and foreign terrans is if you buff terrans to help foreigners out, korean may dominant again because it's just a fact that korean terrans are so fucking good like way way better then any foreign terrans most of the time xD.
I might be wrong, just from past interviews he seems to just say what people want to hear, and just puts an act on in front of the camera. I might be being a bit harsh though.
You should really watch the last minute - he's responding like a professional but how much he loves this game really comes out in there.
Oh, for the medivac they should give them a 150/150 researchable ability that allows medivacs to drop all its load simultaneously. Give this ability a cool down (so that medivac micro isn't too easy) and a different hotkey so that moving drops and individual drops are still the default.
The best thing in this interview is that they are considering to give Terran a second chance in the HOTS. I sincerely hope they can fix the higher tier Terran units that are not used at all and redesign them into something awesome.
On the otherhand, it's probably for the best that the mothership gets nerfed into oblivion and everything else compensates in its place. Trying to balance the late-game around a single, super slow hero unit is going to be a head-ache no matter how they do it. Plus I'm convinced it promotes super passive play when it swings the battle so much in one direction or the other. Both sides are too scared to make a move and have it all go wrong due to Vortex on Zerg or Neural counter-Vortex.
all the zerg whine guys you have to admin that its actually pretty boring watch only zvz in the finals of 80% of the tours, and that zerg lategame IS op, if you disagree something might be wrong on your observation. so they think about ideas HOW to make it different, they wont make EVERYTHING he said, they will do SOME and perhaps rechange some and will make it on test server and then use 20% on real game
dont get panic they just gather idees will test some and in the end YES they will nerf zerg but not with everything ... dont be silly ^^
ALSO they was some big changes on test server, which never made it to normal game because they saw "Oh on high level thats totaly broken" and if something you say IS broken, it will not make it in the game
they could just set mothership as 1 by nexus with 2 or 3 different kind of motherships and make it like 150/150 8 supply. basically turn them in some kind of wc3hero. then you can rebalance the game around that and it naturally gives you tools to leverage to fix matchups independently
On November 20 2012 16:30 lichter wrote: Oh, for the medivac they should give them a 150/150 researchable ability that allows medivacs to drop all its load simultaneously. Give this ability a cool down (so that medivac micro isn't too easy) and a different hotkey so that moving drops and individual drops are still the default.
That would be ridiculous.
Double medi drop late game with 3/3 marines/marauders vs Z or P. Research said ability. Insta drop a base, snipe nexus/hatch/tech/ then leave.
Repeat as needed.
Part of what allows drop defense to be possible is the delay in units coming out.
So, lemme get this straight. If psionic units are immune to fungal, you can keep your sentries alive forever, which means that a 3base colossus push absolutely wrecks face, since sentries are actually useful instead of dying to fungal right away. Therefore, 3-base colossus pre-hive push is way stronger if you preserve the sentry count from a robo -> fast 3base, and you can make a ridiculous push off of 3base.
So the solution to infestor/broodlord being stupid and boring and broken is to make the 3base push that current Protoss use way stronger so they can invest all their gas into sentries for the pre-hive push and turn it from a "I can delay BL until I can establish more infrastructure if I hit my timing just right" to a "if I build enough sentries they'll never die so I just have to make 4 colossi, control my stalkers to deal with corruptors, and FF properly, they just straight-up die" push.
Yeah, that totally fixes everything, because nobody has ever complained about forcefied being a shitty mechanic that completely invalidates Zerg control in the hands of a competent Protoss.
Awesome Interview. I hope they realise how important it is to be able to FG Archons on the way into the Vortex, it is one of the only possible ways out of an Archon Toilet.
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.
On November 20 2012 16:31 Falling wrote: On the otherhand, it's probably for the best that the mothership gets nerfed into oblivion and everything else compensates in its place. Trying to balance the late-game around a single, super slow hero unit is going to be a head-ache no matter how they do it. Plus I'm convinced it promotes super passive play when it swings the battle so much in one direction or the other. Both sides are too scared to make a move and have it all go wrong due to Vortex on Zerg or Neural counter-Vortex.
You don't even need to neural counter Vortex these days. You did when... us Zergs had no idea how to handle the mothership like a month or two ago, but now... using ITs in front of your Broods, and making just 6-8 corruptors to corrupt then target the mothership whenever it moves near, means that more often than not, you can kill it or force a Vortex on your corruptors. Then you split your 15+ Broods, and the second Vortex, at best, can hit 2-4 Brood Lords, which isn't nearly enough.
I agree though, I'd rather the mothership be nerfed into oblivion and see Carriers buffed.
On November 20 2012 16:33 CoR wrote: all the zerg whine guys you have to admin that its actually pretty boring watch only zvz in the finals of 80% of the tours, and that zerg lategame IS op, if you disagree something might be wrong on your observation. so they think about ideas HOW to make it different, they wont make EVERYTHING he said, they will do SOME and perhaps rechange some and will make it on test server and then use 20% on real game
dont get panic they just gather idees will test some and in the end YES they will nerf zerg but not with everything ... dont be silly ^^
ALSO they was some big changes on test server, which never made it to normal game because they saw "Oh on high level thats totaly broken" and if something you say IS broken, it will not make it in the game
Huh 80% of tournaments huh?
Last 5 big tournaments Blizzard WCS - PvP finals last MLG - zvz finals last GSL - TvZ finals Last OSL - PvZ finals Lone star clash 2 - TvZ finals
Dunno doesn't look like 80% zvz in the finals to me just 1 or 20% ^_^.
On November 20 2012 16:30 lichter wrote: Oh, for the medivac they should give them a 150/150 researchable ability that allows medivacs to drop all its load simultaneously. Give this ability a cool down (so that medivac micro isn't too easy) and a different hotkey so that moving drops and individual drops are still the default.
That would be ridiculous.
Double medi drop late game with 3/3 marines/marauders vs Z or P. Research said ability. Insta drop a base, snipe nexus/hatch/tech/ then leave.
Repeat as needed.
Part of what allows drop defense to be possible is the delay in units coming out.
Several ways to try to balance the ability: medivac unable to heal while ability is on cool down; medivac loses x amount of armor when simultaneous drop command is issued until cooldown ends; units dropped this way lose 5 health (because they fall so hard? lol).
Or maybe give medivacs an ability that increases their armor significantly, but slow their movement or drop speed.
It depends what the problem Browder thinks there is about drops: drops being too slow, or drops being too fragile.
Anyway it is just a suggestion. Drop play just isn't as prominent now that players have become so good at defending them, and making harassment like this (and in general, splitting up armies) less efficient just encourages more deathball play
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.
On November 20 2012 16:17 hiro protagonist wrote: I said this in the other thread but Ill say it here too:
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?!?
T__T
Well they could add proper moving shot with better stacking...
My LP record is skipping.
Well, Given Blizzards track record on fixing stacking bugs in SC2 does not lead me to be hopeful of whatever changes they have in mind for the muta. But I will cross my fingers in hopes that it will be moving shot!
I am glad that they are willing to take a chance on such big changes to the game. I think the experimenting that is going on right now is gonna ultimately lead to a more diverse, better game in the long run. even if the short run turns out to be a little hectic
On November 20 2012 16:31 Falling wrote: On the otherhand, it's probably for the best that the mothership gets nerfed into oblivion and everything else compensates in its place. Trying to balance the late-game around a single, super slow hero unit is going to be a head-ache no matter how they do it. Plus I'm convinced it promotes super passive play when it swings the battle so much in one direction or the other. Both sides are too scared to make a move and have it all go wrong due to Vortex on Zerg or Neural counter-Vortex.
Agreed, the mothership in its current form promotes slow, deathball-style play. Arbiters assisted in large fights, but they also helped with base raids, harassing and counterattacking because they were much faster and more disposable than the mothership.
If a mothership-style unit were to be created for use in professional games, it would be more interesting as a faster, more harass-focused unit similar to the arbiter. The mothership in its current form does not make the metagame more fun to watch and play in my opinion.
I disagree with Dustin on fungal slowing units not changing much about the spell.
Once a group of units are fungaled currently, it's a weird situation. The zerg has to check back every four seconds to make sure to chain the fungal in the same location, and whoever is being fungaled has to choose between abandoning their units and focusing on other tasks or trying to move their units away and hoping the zerg does not chain fungal in time.
Making fungal a projectile increases the potential to micro units to avoid fungal, but once they have been fungaled the situation is still the same. Making psionic units immune to fungal also does little to change this situation, because the fungal dynamic is still the same for non-psionic units.
If units were slowed by fungal, the engagement would be more dynamic. The player being fungaled would have the opportunity to spread their units to save some of them or maximize the energy spent by the infestors and the zerg would need to decide where and whether to fungal as the enemy units spread out or retreat.
I think changing fungal to an area of effect slow and damaging spell that would affect any units present in that area during the duration would help change this dynamic. It would affect units once they entered the area and would no longer affect units once they leave the area (like time warp). This would make microing against and casting fungal growth more challenging and strategic. This wasn't my idea, it was from FS11111's comment on this video:
Overall a great interview, and the proposed changes seem to be headed in the right direction.
I love how Browder is so eager, and already knows where the questions will go before monk is done asking them, he's saying "sure, sure, sure, ok shut up lemme answer!"
I do hope we can get them to alter the fungal change from psionic to a slow. It kind of seems like Browder already likes the idea, but needs a little more convincing that it would help with actual fights, rather than just the "edge of danger" situation he describes.
monk should have poked him a bit more on the chain-fungal issue, and how it makes infested terrans infinitely more dangerous than they should be. Great, great interview, otherwise.
On November 20 2012 16:25 NightOfTheDead wrote: That mothership redesign is questionable. Why would they do that when they put the core in, where mothersip is a follow-up? I think DB just ment that the vortex wont be in same place as it is now, or just wasnt focused speaking on mothership.
Just because you have the MS core, doesn't mean you have to get the Mothership. You still need to get the Fleet Beacon AND invest 300/300. And if they redesign the Mothership, maybe it won't be such a desirable investment.
Will redesign Mothership so it won’t be a serious unit used in professional esports play
What? Removing a unit from competitive play will mean less variety which means less fun to watch. But really though, the Mothership was fun to watch in games. It did add variety.
I don't get wanting to make the Mothership into a joke unit. Maybe redesigning it so it gets used in another way but specifically saying it won't be a serious unit anymore? Blizzard I'm disappointed.
The Mothership was supposed to be a 'joke' unit. It just turned out that Vortex was too good/essential.
On November 20 2012 16:30 lichter wrote: Oh, for the medivac they should give them a 150/150 researchable ability that allows medivacs to drop all its load simultaneously. Give this ability a cool down (so that medivac micro isn't too easy) and a different hotkey so that moving drops and individual drops are still the default.
That would be ridiculous.
Double medi drop late game with 3/3 marines/marauders vs Z or P. Research said ability. Insta drop a base, snipe nexus/hatch/tech/ then leave.
Repeat as needed.
Part of what allows drop defense to be possible is the delay in units coming out.
Several ways to try to balance the ability: medivac unable to heal while ability is on cool down; medivac loses x amount of armor when simultaneous drop command is issued until cooldown ends; units dropped this way lose 5 health (because they fall so hard? lol).
Or maybe give medivacs an ability that increases their armor significantly, but slow their movement or drop speed.
It depends what the problem Browder thinks there is about drops: drops being too slow, or drops being too fragile.
Anyway it is just a suggestion. Drop play just isn't as prominent now that players have become so good at defending them, and making harassment like this (and in general, splitting up armies) less efficient just encourages more deathball play
Like I said in my post previous to this, SC2 is severely lacking in good maps. It's not like players weren't good at defending drops in BW, they were amazing, but when the maps are designed larger, with more high ground and positional play encouraged, you were forced to be spread thinner, which made drops and flanks more effective among appropriate routes.
If you want to make drops more effective, design better maps so you can't just sit with 3-4 bases extremely close to each other, thus making base defense easier.
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.
On November 20 2012 16:31 Falling wrote: On the otherhand, it's probably for the best that the mothership gets nerfed into oblivion and everything else compensates in its place. Trying to balance the late-game around a single, super slow hero unit is going to be a head-ache no matter how they do it. Plus I'm convinced it promotes super passive play when it swings the battle so much in one direction or the other. Both sides are too scared to make a move and have it all go wrong due to Vortex on Zerg or Neural counter-Vortex.
Agreed, the mothership in its current form promotes slow, deathball-style play. Arbiters assisted in large fights, but they also helped with base raids, harassing and counterattacking because they were much faster and more disposable than the mothership.
If a mothership-style unit were to be created for use in professional games, it would be more interesting as a faster, more harass-focused unit similar to the arbiter. The mothership in its current form does not make the metagame more fun to watch and play in my opinion.
They would need to redesign the Arbiter's recall ability though. With warpgates and warprisms, Protoss already have 1 option to mass drop wherever they want as long as they have a warpcycle. Giving them recall on the Arbiter is redundant and probably more than a bit OP.
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.
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.
Why in the world would they want to cut neural D: They already nerfed it to hell in WoL despite how cool it is. I was hoping maybe it would get a complete redesign for HotS.
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.
That interview put alot of my worries to rest. Blizzard can be stupid, but they (Dustin Browder and crew) seem to care alot about the game. Sweet interview, thanks
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.
Infestor Broodlord is boring to watch too
I am really considering switching to Terran now, because Z and P matchups are so boring to play -_-''
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.
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.
Infestor Broodlord is boring to watch too
I am really considering switching to Terran now, because Z and P matchups are so boring to play -_-''
Oh I agree. I have said this many times that zerg late game is boring, but it's our only viable way to consistently win, which sucks trust me. It's why I haven't played sc2 much because it's boring to do that style if I want to win zvp consistently. In general zvp is dull to watch :/.
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.
I'm sorry I don't understand what you mean by map design perspective. As far as I know, mapmakers have all the tools necessary.
edit: Oh I see, you seem to be referring to the ladder map pool. This is a misunderstanding, my bad. I tend to ignore the Ladder and focus only on tournament / pro play. Indeed, if the immortal-sentry all-in is an issue on ladder because of the ladder maps design, then Blizzard can definitely do something about it.
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.
Infestor Broodlord is boring to watch too
I am really considering switching to Terran now, because Z and P matchups are so boring to play -_-''
Oh I agree. I have said this many times that zerg late game is boring, but it's our only viable way to consistently win, which sucks trust me. It's why I haven't played sc2 much because it's boring to do that style if I want to win zvp consistently. In general zvp is dull to watch :/.
I kinda feel guilty when I do it, sigh. Really want more variety. Sometimes I just end up cheesing or going for silly builds and lose because I get so bored. I play random too but I've been Z since BW so it is hard for me to let go. I actually randomly complained about it against a friendly opponent yesterday while playing lol
great to hear that the good folks at blizzard admit balance issues. also many changes are comming up (especially in swarm). it feels like a washing mashine in heavy spin cycle. i hope once the cloths come out, they are rather clean instead of marked off in colours. the infestor changes sound like the biggest changes, however i'm also curious about interceptor immunity against fungal. i'm not sure carriers will be used against corrupter/infestor/bl, but seing it comming back (at least vs zerg) would be awesome.
also good to hear, that they care about us (i mean everybody can say that) but i believe him
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.
I'm sorry I don't understand what you mean by map design perspective. As far as I know, mapmakers have all the tools necessary.
Which map makers?
I know GSL/Kespa map makers can solve the issue themselves, I'm talking about for ladder here, which is what 99% of SC2 players are going to be playing on. Ladder maps are, mostly, Blizzard designed maps. If they continue with their current designs, we're going to just see more of the same, which allows this all in to be just as effective.
I have always respected the ability for Blizzard to see how to balance the game. What 99% of players think help result in other problems we don't think about. The way the team comes up with the changes without completely messing everything up is incredible.
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.
I'm sorry I don't understand what you mean by map design perspective. As far as I know, mapmakers have all the tools necessary.
Which map makers?
I know GSL/Kespa map makers can solve the issue themselves, I'm talking about for ladder here, which is what 99% of SC2 players are going to be playing on. Ladder maps are, mostly, Blizzard designed maps. If they continue with their current designs, we're going to just see more of the same, which allows this all in to be just as effective.
yeah sorry about that I just edited my previous post
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.
Sounds like zerg is going to be screwed. Nerfing fungal like that will make the Protoss 3 base pre-hive pushes basically unstoppable. It also won't even change anything in TvZ which is by far the bigger problem matchup. He listened to the Protoss whine despite them winning or taking second in everything with a ton of different players while Terran was relying on 2 players for any results whatsoever. Both of whom are slumping now. Granted he did say these changes weren't guaranteed so hopefully they don't happen.
Terran needs buffs though idk to what exactly. Protoss/zerg need to be changed not buffed/nerfed. IMO something like buffing hydras in a way that helps with pre-hive timings but doesn't completely ruin the timings they should still be viable. Something like a little move speed and hp. Then buff protoss by making the carrier transition easier. Maybe decrease either the time they take to make or the cost. Carrier/High Templar can fight brood infestor with good control. Then I think increase infested terrans energy cost (seen this recommended by a few pros recently).
Also calling corruptors too strong is hilarious. The only units they are cost effective against are mutas and phoenix.
I am saddened that we didn't get to hear anything about Zerg in HOTS at all. Nothing on Vipers they were not even mentioned swarm hosts or ultra buffs.... To make BL no the only engame unit for z
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.
I'm sorry I don't understand what you mean by map design perspective. As far as I know, mapmakers have all the tools necessary.
Which map makers?
I know GSL/Kespa map makers can solve the issue themselves, I'm talking about for ladder here, which is what 99% of SC2 players are going to be playing on. Ladder maps are, mostly, Blizzard designed maps. If they continue with their current designs, we're going to just see more of the same, which allows this all in to be just as effective.
yeah sorry about that I just edited my previous post
haha no problemo, I mostly focus on balancing for top level play as well, but I can't ignore how much I know I play the game, and ladder maps are just... -___-
On November 20 2012 16:31 Falling wrote: On the otherhand, it's probably for the best that the mothership gets nerfed into oblivion and everything else compensates in its place. Trying to balance the late-game around a single, super slow hero unit is going to be a head-ache no matter how they do it. Plus I'm convinced it promotes super passive play when it swings the battle so much in one direction or the other. Both sides are too scared to make a move and have it all go wrong due to Vortex on Zerg or Neural counter-Vortex.
Agreed, the mothership in its current form promotes slow, deathball-style play. Arbiters assisted in large fights, but they also helped with base raids, harassing and counterattacking because they were much faster and more disposable than the mothership.
If a mothership-style unit were to be created for use in professional games, it would be more interesting as a faster, more harass-focused unit similar to the arbiter. The mothership in its current form does not make the metagame more fun to watch and play in my opinion.
Edit: I disagree with Dustin on fungal slowing units. Once a group of units are fungaled, it's a weird situation. The zerg has to check back every four seconds to make sure to chain the fungal in the same location, and whoever is being fungaled has to choose between abandoning their units and focusing on other tasks or trying to move their units away and hoping the zerg does not chain fungal in time.
Making fungal a projectile increases the potential to micro units to avoid fungal, but once they have been fungaled the situation is still the same.
If units were slowed by fungal, the engagement would be more dynamic. The player being fungaled would have the opportunity to spread their units to save some of them or maximize the energy spent by the infestors and the zerg would need to decide where and whether to fungal as the enemy units spread out or retreat.
Overall a great interview, and Dustin's proposed changes seem to be headed in the right direction.
I agree with this completely. Especially vs units like phoenix, which have enough health to eat a few fungals, and if given a chance to keep moving, or even spread out a bit will eat more infestor energy.
Plus that 'line' can often be the difference between vikings being covered by thor volleys or not which can make all the difference with corrupter vs viking fights.
I don't see the projectile making 'much' difference. Everything that does get nabbed dies. Sure, with very fast units 1 or 2 might get away instead of all of them getting caught, but losing half your expensive flying units to fungal is still pretty brutal and effectively ends any sort of harassment.
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.
Also I loled when he says that they watch pro games and critique the losing player. Oh yeah Dustin you sure know what marineking could have done to win against those infestor/broods.
On November 20 2012 16:01 Falling wrote: I wish if they are so adamant to make the mothership as a goofy unit, then give us the Arbiter back. Or some equivalent.
Like, why is it that the Protoss gets stuck with the 'non-serious' unit?
10 mins in. Very nice interview so far
Heh well hydras have been that way in sc2 for a majority of it .
Very informative interview :D
Actually, for some reason people were making roach/hydra/corrupter vs toss even at the end of last year...didnt realize till like february 2012 that hydra's suck.
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.
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...
Anything that helps make the game harder for zerg is good in my opinion. They really need to up the micro requirement for that race and nerfs to infestors are a great way.
They should just make the Mothership have the same abilities as the Mothership Core, except do more damage (and attack air), have more health, and cloak units under it. So it's basically just a lategame upgrade to the same unit. Maybe make it so you can put photon overcharge on the mothership itself.
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 think the balance reached a good place about a year in and was very good until about 6 months ago when it started to go tits up again.
How they can? How they can put the mothership apart in hots, when they have already indirectly buffed, powered the stargate and the fleet beacon tech, lowered the mothership cost from 400\400 to 300\300... ? Its so much easy and "natural" get a mothership in hots, to achieve what browder says, blizz need to nerf ms to the ground ç_ç
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.
I wish he could have been more aggressive with changing how HoTS plays out.
Protoss needs some semiserious changes with regards to its general power throughout the game. They need to fix toss early game by giving stalkers a gentle change then tweak zerg accordingly so that we can go back to when there was a greedy zerg style. Then maps could have some variety without being so damn skewed. Bad maps have had too much of an influence on the design tweeks.
Listening to this interview there are some cool ideas and somethings sound like they've considered everything but their unorthodox changes sometimes feel like they are just ... too out there.
Everyone talking about infestor broodlord as an issue from 6 months ago... Terran whine at lower winrates than what they were at start finally hit a crescendo.
On November 20 2012 17:21 pivor wrote: Like they cant fix Reapers, Thors and Ravens now instead of waiting for HotS to excuse fact that Terrans get only 1 new unit.
Fix them now and it might buff them to the point where Terran becomes OP, possibly for the rest of the competitive life of WoL since HotS in only 4 months away, which is not enough time for any major imbalances to be fixed by patches or figured out by players.
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".
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.
Sentry/Warp Prism/Templars/Infestors immune to Fungal? Well... Why should they do it? PvZ sucks, but that's not a balance, but rather a design issue. Nerfing the infestor like that will just break the Match-up completely, all these timings the Protoss have right now are terribly strong and fucking hard to hold even with the infestor right now. I agree that the late game army of the Zerg are too strong, but PvZ can't be fixed with an infestor nerf, the two races need a redesign to fix this issue - nerfing will just result in a completely broken Match up. Right now, PvZ sucks, but both races have good chances to win the game - just not in the same stage of the game. Yeah, it sucks, but... Doesn't really seem to be imbalanced, in my opinion.
ZvZ gets worse with these changes as well, infestors just won't die anymore at all. Nothing else to add.
TvZ, where the Infestors are the biggest problem, is just absolutely NOt affected by these changes. I'd prefer some kind of buff to the ghost, ghosts should be the counter to infestors and well... atm that's not really the case.
Dunno, but I don't undestand the reason why they should change the infestor like that. :-/
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.
They could just remove the Psionic attribute from certain Protoss units like the Sentry or Warp Prism. This would be a simple change that would affect nothing else, especially since Snipe doesn't affect those two units anyways. Although, Archon pushes might still be kinda strong.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ^_^
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.
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.
I don´t want the medivac to be buffed, because they already do their job really good. A few days ago blizz said something about a unit for healing mech units: how about the raven?
Is it strange that I watch these videos for the TL guy, not the answers? Yeah, this one is different, becasue, for some reason, DB actually said something specific - still, it was amazing to see the real face of monk for the first time (I am sure he could have been seen elswhere, I just missed it). It's kind of strange how I see all the TL people somehow, while knowing them only from their writing ... and it's almost always (the "almost" goes mainly to hot_bid) that the "real" (well, as real as a video) person gives a very different feeling. It would be really interesting to see some of those guys IRL.
There's an easy way to make this Psionic immune thing work.
Remove the Psionic tag from Warp Prisms and Archons.
The only other ability that has any other interaction with the Psionic tag is Snipe and both Warp Prisms and Archons are unable to be Sniped anyway because they are not biological.
On November 20 2012 18:11 Vindicare605 wrote: There's an easy way to make this Psionic immune thing work.
Remove the Psionic tag from Warp Prisms and Archons.
The only other ability that has any other interaction with the Psionic tag is Snipe and both Warp Prisms and Archons are unable to be Sniped anyway because they are not biological.
Archon can't be not psionic. Look at it, the unit screams PSIONIC!!
On November 20 2012 18:11 Vindicare605 wrote: There's an easy way to make this Psionic immune thing work.
Remove the Psionic tag from Warp Prisms and Archons.
The only other ability that has any other interaction with the Psionic tag is Snipe and both Warp Prisms and Archons are unable to be Sniped anyway because they are not biological.
I think Archons are ok. On paper they rape bl's but their range is so short it would be hard to get them in position past the broodlings and whatever ground support is left.
On November 20 2012 17:19 Zealot Lord wrote: I really liked this interview - it seems Dustin Browder is more into the game compared than before, which I'm very very happy to see.
Agreed. He seemed so out of touch in many of his past interviews. All the recent bruhaha must have been a positive motivation for the game hopefully.
The changes will be interesting to test anyways. Ghost and HT combo doesn't seem an answer to broodlord + infestor with the fungal. But ghost seems good to have them before the zerg gets broodlords.
Somehow i feel this is a massive change that may finally provide some very interesting new options for terrans...
Raven rush?
On the other hand, the fungal change won't really do all that much in ZvT i think, unless raven abilities' energy use is changed somewhat (pdd and hsm using a bit less possibly?), though pdd stopping fungal in the first place may be a big one....
Somehow i feel this is a massive change that may finally provide some very interesting new options for terrans...
Raven rush?
Raven rush, and then what? PDDs arent exactly offensive, also fairly useless against everything except queens against zerg (note we talk about a rush here, nice they are good against BLs, but thats not relevant). Autoturrets? They get mopped up quickly, kinda like a joke version of the IT. And finally there is the seeker missile, only good if you have a bunch of them, and even if you got raven energy upgrade you still need to wait quite a while before a seeker missile is available.
So in practise the zerg will have infestors before you got enough ravens with energy to do something useful. And then launching seeker missiles means that raven will die, it will get fungaled, which will be its end.
Yes I think it is a good idea to remove the upgrade, to make room for something like a speed upgrade/casting range upgrade. Or just put them in by default. Hell they wanted something to break siege lines, ravens with alot larger casting range would do that (of course not siege tank level casting range, not even viking range. You can protect them with PDDs during launch. But significantly longer than current range).
Well it only took 2,5 years but it seems like blizzard are finaly moving towards a better style of game. Having said that the game is still fully flawed, but its nice to see that blizzard are finally catching up on problems that any masterleaguer noticed a year ago...
I think making the Terran more streamlined and easier to play would solve many problems as zerg and protoss have a very intuitive interface that makes it easier for them to play and concentrate on the many different things going on in the game. Example would be that you have your buildings selected and then you press the key once and make that unit at all the buildings that are selected. Another one is making a hotkey for directional dropping where you can select a direction to drop off all your units in a line so that you could go focus on other things instead of baby sitting those tiny little actions. Some people will tell me that is what makes the difference between a good player and bad player. Well first of all there has to be people playing the game to see that difference but making things difficult is not the best way to attract players to your game.
"Units don't have counters to those other units" It's not really about hard counters, but units with utility that can handle these units with good control. We need those rather than "counters".
On November 20 2012 18:07 IdrA wrote: Feels Neuraling Motherships is a problem Neural is on the chopping block for Swarm
Will redesign Mothership so it won’t be a serious unit used in professional esports play
I dont see how they could make the mothership unviable in proplay. That woul'd require them to remove Recal, Vortex and cloacking... A better suggestion would've been "We'll change things so that PvZ wont come down to weather a vortex hits or not". I see that Blizz is leaning more towards "air-toss" but that dosnt seem to be working simply due to the corrupter. Which zergs can then just make into broodlords.
nice interview, some stuff gives hope, some stuff not. ''Will work on Mech TvP later on in HotS Beta"is kinda weird, considering the game will be out in less than 4 months. the wol units havent been really touched either. And there is the finishing polish the game needs. I cant see how they want to do this all in the time given. I really hope Im wrong.
On November 20 2012 16:10 Chicane wrote: I really don't know how he doesn't think that changing a fungal to slow wouldn't do much. If he really thinks that, then change it! People will be happy how you can micro against it, and apparently it won't really change the balance so... no reason not to! :D
My thoughts exactly. I'm still not convinced Blizz balance team even plays the game.
On November 20 2012 18:50 eMGmoG wrote: nice interview, some stuff gives hope, some stuff not. ''Will work on Mech TvP later on in HotS Beta"is kinda weird, considering the game will be out in less than 4 months. the wol units havent been really touched either. And there is the finishing polish the game needs. I cant see how they want to do this all in the time given. I really hope Im wrong.
They're already very close in my opinion to making Mech in TvP viable.
Currently Widow Mines don't really function very well as part of a core mech army, they're only really useful for gimmicky harassment or preventing anyone from all inning you so you can play greedy, once it gets into the later stages of the game their usefuleness drops off by a lot.
Siege Tanks are in a decent spot with Battle Hellions able to tank Zealots for them. Their range allows them to mitigate the damage of storm because you're able to focus down templar similar to how you can focus down Infestors.
Immortals and Tempests are the problem units for mech right now, and while I understand that they're supposed to be good counters to mech centered play, both units do that job a little TOO well right now.
Me and BiGbiRd just played a drinking game where u have to drink everytime Dustin says "Riiiighhhtt???" at the end of his sentences. we are so fucked up right now, we went through like 5 beers each in 30 mins.! ! haha
but we love u dusty. u cop a lot of rage from ppl who just wanna see their race thrive, and i commend u for being so positive and loveable in your interviews, and giving everyone insight about why blizzard make some of the decisions they make in regards to balance and design
P.S. If u want mothership to be a gimmicky fun team game unit not meant for e-sports. BRING BAK THE ARBITER IN HOTS PLZ!!! :D :D :D :D
On November 20 2012 18:11 Vindicare605 wrote: There's an easy way to make this Psionic immune thing work.
Remove the Psionic tag from Warp Prisms and Archons.
The only other ability that has any other interaction with the Psionic tag is Snipe and both Warp Prisms and Archons are unable to be Sniped anyway because they are not biological.
Just look at Terrans and how they are pretty much NOT AFFECTED by that change. "Psionic" is a stupid way to divide the targets, because a Ghost is really a terrible unit against Zerg compared to the dps which 8 Infested Terrans can unleash. Snipe doesnt deal nearly enough damage, because it is annouced by an easily recognizable sound, you need more than one of them to kill an Infestor, it isnt instant and you usually need LOTS of Ghosts to counteract the swarm of Infestors. Once the Infestors are dead the Ghost is pretty much an overpriced Marine.
That's weird that warp prism is psionic and raven isn't (after 1000+ I've never noticed that lol). If they do make psionic immune they should definitely make warp prism mechanical instead and consider giving raven psionic
On November 20 2012 18:46 MasterFischer wrote: Best. Interview. Ever.
I LOVE dustin..
I don't understand how ANYBODY can say that dustin doesnt know what he is talking about and doesnt interest in starcraft..
He is SO FUCKING energergized, and he knows everything about the balance.. it seems. He is aware of all of the problems.
Its the same stuff since 2008 interviews, you are acting like you are seeing it for the first time. DB gesticulates in this energized trippy manner, its fun to watch, i always smile watching this. But honestly it gives you nothing. Ye he is entusiastic just like he was when he first introduced SC2 to the public, talking how units will be microable years ago, but it's still the core problem of the game years after.
On November 20 2012 18:46 MasterFischer wrote: Best. Interview. Ever.
I LOVE dustin..
I don't understand how ANYBODY can say that dustin doesnt know what he is talking about and doesnt interest in starcraft..
He is SO FUCKING energergized, and he knows everything about the balance.. it seems. He is aware of all of the problems.
Its the same stuff since 2008 interviews, you are acting like you are seeing it for the first time. DB gesticulates in this energized trippy manner, its fun to watch, i always smile watching this. But honestly it gives you nothing. Ye he is entusiastic just like he was when he first introduced SC2 to the public, talking how units will be microable years ago, but it's still the core problem of the game years after.
No i'm not acting like anything. But Dustin gets too much flame. He is an intelligent man, and he does his job well. You don't know how hard it is being the guy in charge of balance essentially, because everybody is screaming in your ear to nerf that and balance that... I bet you could do his job better? No you couldn't
Units ARE microable, alot of them, and blizzard aren't afraid to admit mistakes, and they WANT to balance alot of the units. Just like dustin says. They are looking alot at unit balance now and in the future. Which is fantastic.
Monk you spent 90% of the interview talking about and asking questions about P and Z, you let Dustin skip on his brood-lord infester answer on the TvZ MU (only ZvZ and PvZ broodlord infester usage was discussed).
Does terran not exist anymore or something? how about some questions on mech in TvP hots?
On November 20 2012 18:11 Vindicare605 wrote: There's an easy way to make this Psionic immune thing work.
Remove the Psionic tag from Warp Prisms and Archons.
The only other ability that has any other interaction with the Psionic tag is Snipe and both Warp Prisms and Archons are unable to be Sniped anyway because they are not biological.
Just look at Terrans and how they are pretty much NOT AFFECTED by that change. "Psionic" is a stupid way to divide the targets, because a Ghost is really a terrible unit against Zerg compared to the dps which 8 Infested Terrans can unleash. Snipe doesnt deal nearly enough damage, because it is annouced by an easily recognizable sound, you need more than one of them to kill an Infestor, it isnt instant and you usually need LOTS of Ghosts to counteract the swarm of Infestors. Once the Infestors are dead the Ghost is pretty much an overpriced Marine.
I imagine that adding the Psionic tag to the Raven could be very useful against this Infestor change.
On November 20 2012 19:04 DaveVAH wrote: Monk you spent 90% of the interview talking about and asking questions about P and Z, you let Dustin skip on his brood-lord infester answer on the TvZ MU (only ZvZ and PvZ broodlord infester usage was discussed).
Does terran not exist anymore or something? how about some questions on mech in TvP hots?
On November 20 2012 18:46 MasterFischer wrote: Best. Interview. Ever.
I LOVE dustin..
I don't understand how ANYBODY can say that dustin doesnt know what he is talking about and doesnt interest in starcraft..
He is SO FUCKING energergized, and he knows everything about the balance.. it seems. He is aware of all of the problems.
Its the same stuff since 2008 interviews, you are acting like you are seeing it for the first time. DB gesticulates in this energized trippy manner, its fun to watch, i always smile watching this. But honestly it gives you nothing. Ye he is entusiastic just like he was when he first introduced SC2 to the public, talking how units will be microable years ago, but it's still the core problem of the game years after.
No i'm not acting like anything. But Dustin gets too much flame. He is an intelligent man, and he does his job well. You don't know how hard it is being the guy in charge of balance essentially, because everybody is screaming in your ear to nerf that and balance that... I bet you could do his job better? No you couldn't
Units ARE microable, alot of them, and blizzard aren't afraid to admit mistakes, and they WANT to balance alot of the units. Just like dustin says. They are looking alot at unit balance now and in the future. Which is fantastic.
No im just saying that form is not the essence. I don't like how SC2 has turned out, but im not blaming any person, because i know its more on the Blizzard shoulder's as a whole rather than Browder. Many people hoped that HotS will turn the tables a'la Frozen Throne/ Brood War, but we are seeing Browder and co. are more interested in keeping status quo till it runs dry.
I did not like several statements from Browder throughout following his interviews and no williginess to risk anything, but they had no problems with patching queens and putting the metagame on its head for "people who make their living" from playing this game(hint: hypocrisy). And no, units are very unmicroable for zerg(i play zurg), by unmicroable i mean the aftereffect is not worth the action in a real game scenario (not micro trainer). People are way to focused on determining proper build orders / scouting rather than momentary executions / in-game battle scenarios, which was also a vital part of SC2 predecessor.
You are not gonna blow this of by saying, "Dustin is so entusiasthic in interviews". Thats what i meant.
Terrans having a cold since overlord queen patch, sounds legit. It was good untill they really started talking about the lack of terrans after 20.00, after that it seems he kinda lost it.
Excellent question about the problem of limited map variety because of the necessity to make easy thirds for Protoss. This in my opinion as a mapmaker is one of the two biggest limiting factors for maps (other is lack of highground advantage).
On November 20 2012 19:33 Ragoo wrote: Excellent question about the problem of limited map variety because of the necessity to make easy thirds for Protoss. This in my opinion as a mapmaker is one of the two biggest limiting factors for maps (other is lack of highground advantage).
I'm happy with how vocal and involved DB and DK have been lately. And I feel they are passionate about the game.
But DB saying changing fungal to slow wouldn't do anything? It wouldn't do much, but it would definitely help with air harass at the very least and we only want to make small changes, right?
On another note, everyone talks about fungal so much but I feel that infested terrans are the real problem for late late game.
On November 20 2012 17:35 Fluid wrote: 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".
Idk about Dustin but I remember a recruitment post of jobs on the sc2 balance/design team. The primary requirement was: Diamond or Master RANDOM. And I do believe you need to be gm skilled to play all 3 races at master lvl
So the interviewer is giving Dustin Browder numbers and valid statistics about how they screwed up the game and he's completely denying them with shitty reasonings. Why is this paradigm of incompetence in such an important position?
On November 20 2012 19:37 thezanursic wrote: Believes Immortal/Sentry All-in can be solved by Zerg players without Blizzard intervention /facepalm x several times
Why don't you think it can be solved? The 1/1/1 in PvT was super strong for a while and protoss eventually figured out how to deal with it.
Oh wow infestor nerfs are horrifying! I mean yes while I do agree that infestors are a bit powerful at the moment, changing fungal to a slow, giving it a projectile animation, allowing psionic units to be immune to it, and removing neural would totally crush zerg. And now they're gonna buff medivacs, one of the hardest things to deal with as a zerg and one of the main reasons why we NEED fungal to stop units in place.
Changing fungal to a slow would allow marines and tanks to still load medivacs and allow medivacs to still run away against a ling bling festor army. Zergs would have to chase flying units down with fungals and would no longer be able to use infested terrans to shoot flying units down.
Projectile animations is sounds fine with me, but including it along with all these other nerfs just makes using infestors too difficult and "not worth it" anymore.
The psionic unit buff against the fungal sounds fine until you consider warp prisms, ghosts, and dark templars. They should still allow warp prisms to be caught, and it would be fine if ghosts and DT's wouldnt get stuck/slowed but they should still be revealed.
Neural parasite is hard enough to use as it is, and there are only so few units that zerg could use it against. It's one of the only ways we can combat a mass thor/battlecruiser/carrier etc build. Without it, other races would be able to spam tier 3 units with little fear of being countered.
I really wish Browder would reconsider some of these changes. Hopefully they notice how weak it would make zerg during their testing phase.
On November 20 2012 19:38 happyness wrote: I'm happy with how vocal and involved DB and DK have been lately. And I feel they are passionate about the game.
But DB saying changing fungal to slow wouldn't do anything? It wouldn't do much, but it would definitely help with air harass at the very least and we only want to make small changes, right?
On another note, everyone talks about fungal so much but I feel that infested terrans are the real problem for late late game.
I think his reasoning was spot on regarding this.
In general the change to a slow from a root doesn't really change all that much except in a few rare situations like in the cases of air harassment and dropping.
That said, I think improving those situations is worth changing the spell to a slow where DB says it isn't.
On November 20 2012 19:43 Akatsuki1012 wrote: Oh wow infestor nerfs are horrifying! I mean yes while I do agree that infestors are a bit powerful at the moment, changing fungal to a slow, giving it a projectile animation, allowing psionic units to be immune to it, and removing neural would totally crush zerg. And now they're gonna buff medivacs, one of the hardest things to deal with as a zerg and one of the main reasons why we NEED fungal to stop units in place.
Changing fungal to a slow would allow marines and tanks to still load medivacs and allow medivacs to still run away against a ling bling festor army. Zergs would have to chase flying units down with fungals and would no longer be able to use infested terrans to shoot flying units down.
Projectile animations is sounds fine with me, but including it along with all these other nerfs just makes using infestors too difficult and "not worth it" anymore.
The psionic unit buff against the fungal sounds fine until you consider warp prisms, ghosts, and dark templars. They should still allow warp prisms to be caught, and it would be fine if ghosts and DT's wouldnt get stuck/slowed but they should still be revealed.
Neural parasite is hard enough to use as it is, and there are only so few units that zerg could use it against. It's one of the only ways we can combat a mass thor/battlecruiser/carrier etc build. Without it, other races would be able to spam tier 3 units with little fear of being countered.
I really wish Browder would reconsider some of these changes. Hopefully they notice how weak it would make zerg during their testing phase.
Chill out for a sec you need to take a second to actually listen to the chronology of the changes he was talking about.
The projectile change isn't even going on the WoL testing realms, it's going on the beta realms. He's talking about MAYBE buffing Medivacs for HOTS there's no such plans on the table for WoL.
The only changes that are on the table for the near future (read the next few months) are the psionic immune fungal change and the removing of the research requirement for Ravens.
Blizzard isn't going to hit Zerg with like 4 major nerfs all at once, you don't need to worry about that.
On November 20 2012 17:35 Fluid wrote: 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".
Idk about Dustin but I remember a recruitment post of jobs on the sc2 balance/design team. The primary requirement was: Diamond or Master RANDOM. And I do believe you need to be gm skilled to play all 3 races at master lvl
I wouldn't say that the PRIMARY requirement was a high league rating. There were a lot of other requirements like previous game balance/design experience and knowledge with the map editor, and all this was for an assistant position.
Honestly, expecting game developers to be good at their own game seems to be a bit too high of an expectation and may be the exception rather than the rule.
Wow, I really don't like proposed fungal change. It will make fungal useless. Better to change it radically then this stupid change. Also why is he ignoring Nony's proposed Carrier changes which sounded awesome?!
Sorry if it has been asked, but what exactly is "immune to Fungal"? Do psionic units still take damage and get revealed or has the spell absolutely no effect to them?
Oh and "Doesn’t feel changing Fungal to a slow will change much to the game" It would atleast make it way more exciting to watch...
seems like zerg wont be able to counter every single unit in the game with mass infestor ...let watch them whine into oblivion. Fungal is actually gonan require a bit of skill now .so im gonna have a super fun time telling to zerg,the sky is the limit you guys need to try some stuff up and use raven ! .. oh i mean hydralisk ...oh tables are turn how does it sound ?
"Doesn’t feel changing Fungal to a slow will change much to the game"
what ? being able to spread mutas or viking after a hit. being able to put zealots and archons at the front after a hit being able to move you dropship/waprprism once u get hit
it could change a lot and add to the game. why not try it out man ?
Overall it sounds like things are going in the right direction. As long as this goes towards more smaller engagements rather then the current meta of turtle up on 3 bases then push out and have a few abilities from spellcasters decide the game I am happy.
On November 20 2012 20:06 kinglemon wrote: "Doesn’t feel changing Fungal to a slow will change much to the game"
what ? being able to spread mutas or viking after a hit. being able to put zealots and archons at the front after a hit being able to move you dropship/waprprism once u get hit
it could change a lot and add to the game. why not try it out man ?
becasue thats how fungal was in the first place ....and it slowed you so much that it was almost pointless to move and not shoot ( think it was worst than concusive shell ) and no it didint changed anythinbg you get fungaled back then you still die lol
•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
HUGE change if it goes through. Archons to bully their way towards infestors backed by HTs to storm the hell out of them? Yes please.
I'm quite shocked no one is making a bigger deal about Zerg not needing an evo chamber for Spore Crawlers. Should of asked Dustin about that xD (Maybe he did, if he did I wasn't paying attention..)
What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
On November 20 2012 20:19 SigmaoctanusIV wrote: His answer about Spines and Spores not being able to lift and walk being bad is right, But they should lose life off creep rooted or uprooted.
A simple solution would be to only count rooted / landed buildings towards the victory condition. You can still use racial abilities to relocate your buildings as much as you want, but you won't be able to use it to ensure a victory in a base-race.
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Except that he's always done that (watch early interviews). It's just the way he talks rather than anything related to the current situation. Since he always says "right" alot I decided to open a text editor to keep count before I started watching.
On November 20 2012 20:06 kinglemon wrote: "Doesn’t feel changing Fungal to a slow will change much to the game"
what ? being able to spread mutas or viking after a hit. being able to put zealots and archons at the front after a hit being able to move you dropship/waprprism once u get hit
it could change a lot and add to the game. why not try it out man ?
becasue thats how fungal was in the first place ....and it slowed you so much that it was almost pointless to move and not shoot ( think it was worst than concusive shell ) and no it didint changed anythinbg you get fungaled back then you still die lol
doesn't make sense at all what you are saying. there is no disadvantage in having the option to move your units. the slow rate is also adjustable.
and why is blizzard suddenly searching for a big change instead of a small ? does that mean the game is now officially broken ?
I liked most of what he said, but I still don't feel 1.5 new unit is enough for Terran in HotS. A new expansion shouldn't just be about new meta and balance problems (although that might be the most important things), it should be about fun and new exciting toys too... hope he remembers that.
On November 20 2012 19:37 thezanursic wrote: Believes Immortal/Sentry All-in can be solved by Zerg players without Blizzard intervention /facepalm x several times
Why don't you think it can be solved? The 1/1/1 in PvT was super strong for a while and protoss eventually figured out how to deal with it.
1/1/1 got solved when Immortals got a 1 range buff FYI.
Protoss were bitching really hard about 1/1/1 during that period. Especially when Puma was winning tons of foreign tourneys. Killed tons of nerds using 1/1/1.
I would like to see Fungal getting nerfed but making Psionic units immune to Fungal is borderline stupid. Nerfing fungal like that will just make Immortal/Sentry 2 base all-in and 3 base Collosus/Archons with zealots more ridiculous. Toss were winning a lot of games based on these timing attacks. Now you want to make them even stronger?
Also, warp prism cannot be fungalled?? ......................................... At least make it a 70-80% slow or something.
I like this interview a lot. I liked most of what I heard. However, I do not agree with slow on fungal "wouldn't do anything" it would nerf chain fungal, which is one of the core problems with this spell. If you catch a group of high health, small units, they would be able to split their units instead of definitely losing them to chain fungal. It also allows for more exciting gameplay.
On November 20 2012 20:13 blug wrote: I'm quite shocked no one is making a bigger deal about Zerg not needing an evo chamber for Spore Crawlers. Should of asked Dustin about that xD (Maybe he did, if he did I wasn't paying attention..)
That's because it's not a big deal, at all. Any decent zerg is going to have an evo chamber anyway (for upgrades) by the time any cloaked or air threat is present. This is not a big deal at all. The only reason for this change is because zergs need an ability to deal with early widow mines. That's it.
Will redesign Mothership so it won’t be a serious unit used in professional esports play
...Why?
And if it's not viable for competitive play, what makes them think it'll be useful in casual play?
It doesn't have to be viable or useful. It has to be fun and interesting, but weak enough so that it's a non-factor in balance and race design. Nerf the Mothership, but buff other units to compensate. A player can always build one for fun in a team game or maybe as a BM unit.
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
On November 20 2012 19:04 DaveVAH wrote: Monk you spent 90% of the interview talking about and asking questions about P and Z, you let Dustin skip on his brood-lord infester answer on the TvZ MU (only ZvZ and PvZ broodlord infester usage was discussed).
Does terran not exist anymore or something? how about some questions on mech in TvP hots?
We need more objectivity in these interviews.
I am glad that someone else noticed this. Seems Dustin talked about Terran almost unprompted as Monk was very PvZ and ZvZ focused. I wonder what Monk plays?
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
Rofl, bow down to King Browder and the wonder group, Blizzard. Cloud is right, they are LOST
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
Nope they aren't and it's so clean from every interview they release. DB saying Terrans are losing because of culture and immortal all in / late game pvz not being an issue even after having statistics proving it wrong thrown right in his face =/= Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing.
On November 20 2012 19:04 DaveVAH wrote: Monk you spent 90% of the interview talking about and asking questions about P and Z, you let Dustin skip on his brood-lord infester answer on the TvZ MU (only ZvZ and PvZ broodlord infester usage was discussed).
Does terran not exist anymore or something? how about some questions on mech in TvP hots?
We need more objectivity in these interviews.
I am glad that someone else noticed this. Seems Dustin talked about Terran almost unprompted as Monk was very PvZ and ZvZ focused. I wonder what Monk plays?
They talk about PvZ and ZvZ because those are the only matchups we even see anymore. It's hard to discuss the current Terran metagame because we don't see a lot of it lol.
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
Rofl, bow down to King Browder and the wonder group, Blizzard. Cloud is right, they are LOST
Yea and some gold leaguer is gonna tell them different right?
You got no clue, have you?
Dustin probaly knows a shitton more than you will ever be able to fathom. So why jump on the hate train? Blizzard is adressing alot of the problems in a manner that requires deep analytical process. It's not just as easy as you think it is. Just because you think he's wrong, doesn't make it fucking so. ALOT of pros and top players agree with the problems dustin adresses here and so forth. Hence why the questions are the way they are.
On November 20 2012 19:43 Akatsuki1012 wrote: Oh wow infestor nerfs are horrifying! I mean yes while I do agree that infestors are a bit powerful at the moment, changing fungal to a slow, giving it a projectile animation, allowing psionic units to be immune to it, and removing neural would totally crush zerg. And now they're gonna buff medivacs, one of the hardest things to deal with as a zerg and one of the main reasons why we NEED fungal to stop units in place.
Changing fungal to a slow would allow marines and tanks to still load medivacs and allow medivacs to still run away against a ling bling festor army. Zergs would have to chase flying units down with fungals and would no longer be able to use infested terrans to shoot flying units down.
Projectile animations is sounds fine with me, but including it along with all these other nerfs just makes using infestors too difficult and "not worth it" anymore.
The psionic unit buff against the fungal sounds fine until you consider warp prisms, ghosts, and dark templars. They should still allow warp prisms to be caught, and it would be fine if ghosts and DT's wouldnt get stuck/slowed but they should still be revealed.
Neural parasite is hard enough to use as it is, and there are only so few units that zerg could use it against. It's one of the only ways we can combat a mass thor/battlecruiser/carrier etc build. Without it, other races would be able to spam tier 3 units with little fear of being countered.
I really wish Browder would reconsider some of these changes. Hopefully they notice how weak it would make zerg during their testing phase.
Chill out for a sec you need to take a second to actually listen to the chronology of the changes he was talking about.
The projectile change isn't even going on the WoL testing realms, it's going on the beta realms. He's talking about MAYBE buffing Medivacs for HOTS there's no such plans on the table for WoL.
The only changes that are on the table for the near future (read the next few months) are the psionic immune fungal change and the removing of the research requirement for Ravens.
Blizzard isn't going to hit Zerg with like 4 major nerfs all at once, you don't need to worry about that.
Oh! Phew thanks man, I was really worried for a second there. How about the neural removal? That still worries me a bit. And again, the psionic immunity isn't too bad but I wish it would still reveal cloaked units.
On November 20 2012 19:04 DaveVAH wrote: Monk you spent 90% of the interview talking about and asking questions about P and Z, you let Dustin skip on his brood-lord infester answer on the TvZ MU (only ZvZ and PvZ broodlord infester usage was discussed).
Does terran not exist anymore or something? how about some questions on mech in TvP hots?
We need more objectivity in these interviews.
I am glad that someone else noticed this. Seems Dustin talked about Terran almost unprompted as Monk was very PvZ and ZvZ focused. I wonder what Monk plays?
They talk about PvZ and ZvZ because those are the only matchups we even see anymore. It's hard to discuss the current Terran metagame because we don't see a lot of it lol.
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
Nope they aren't and it's so clean from every interview they release. DB saying Terrans are losing because of culture and immortal all in / late game pvz not being an issue even after having statistics proving it wrong thrown right in his face =/= Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing.
It IS because of cultural differences you clutz.
foreign Terran has always been bad. WAtch the Idra interview, he says the same thing basically...
Korean Terran has always been strong.
WAtch GSL CODE S.... There are 9003492304 terrans in there, all top players in the world. They are just not in WCS, cos they had other things to do, or had a bad day and got an upset.. doesnt mean that they couldnt win WCS as Terran..
Terran needs help, and they are gonna get it, but it's not as bad as people think.
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
Rofl, bow down to King Browder and the wonder group, Blizzard. Cloud is right, they are LOST
Yea and some gold leaguer is gonna tell them different right?
You got no clue, have you?
Dustin probaly knows a shitton more than you will ever be able to fathom. So why jump on the hate train? Blizzard is adressing alot of the problems in a manner that requires deep analytical process. It's not just as easy as you think it is. Just because you think he's wrong, doesn't make it fucking so. ALOT of pros and top players agree with the problems dustin adresses here and so forth. Hence why the questions are the way they are.
Personal insults...check False info...check I'm sure pros agree with some of the issues, just none of the solutions and they are missing the design problems here. Stop blindly worshipping this false god in Blizzard
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Except that he's always done that (watch early interviews). It's just the way he talks rather than anything related to the current situation. Since he always says "right" alot I decided to open a text editor to keep count before I started watching.
Maybe he didnt have a clue then either? There must be a reason why they think it isnt important that you will have different balance between "2 Marines vs 1 Zealot" and "20 Marines vs 10 Zealots" and "60 Marines vs 30 Zealots". Ignoring this simple mathematical problem is a sign of "not thinking it through thoroughly enough" IMO.
It is also a sign of arrogance to NOT start with the first game and then develop things from there on in SMALL STEPS. Thinking "we must make a better game than the previous one and thus add in huge changes" is terribly arrogant and it would have been wiser to improve in small steps only. 1. Add in new movement mechanics and test them with the BW units. If that doesnt feel right SCRAP THE IDEA. 2. Try out unlimited unit selection and test it with BW units. If that doesnt feel right SCRAP THE IDEA. 3. Try out "economic and production speed boosts" for the different races with BW units. If that doesnt feel right SCRAP THE IDEA. 4. ... 99. If all the GENERAL CHANGES work you can start to swap out new units for old ones and check if they work well enough.
Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but you have to be courageous enogh to admit it when you made a mistake and this is where they are totally failing. Either that or they are too dumb to see the problems, but I dont want to be insulting. The deathball is a "universal" problem and should be taken as a sign that some problems with the "general mechanics of the game" exist and thus they should be fixed. Sadly they are too blind to see or admit it, even when it is so easy to see.
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
Nope they aren't and it's so clean from every interview they release. DB saying Terrans are losing because of culture and immortal all in / late game pvz not being an issue even after having statistics proving it wrong thrown right in his face =/= Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing.
It IS because of cultural differences you clutz.
foreign Terran has always been bad. WAtch the Idra interview, he says the same thing basically...
Korean Terran has always been strong.
WAtch GSL CODE S.... There are 9003492304 terrans in there, all top players in the world. They are just not in WCS, cos they had other things to do, or had a bad day and got an upset.. doesnt mean that they couldnt win WCS as Terran..
Terran needs help, and they are gonna get it, but it's not as bad as people think.
No. It's not 'cultural' It's cause Terran is hard to play. Foreign toss and Zerg exist because of fungal growth, infested Terran, warp gate, colossi, and storm. Terran is unforgiving to the nth degree. Terran doesn't need help, Zerg and Protoss need to be made infinitely harder to play, but not worse
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
Rofl, bow down to King Browder and the wonder group, Blizzard. Cloud is right, they are LOST
Yea and some gold leaguer is gonna tell them different right?
You got no clue, have you?
Dustin probaly knows a shitton more than you will ever be able to fathom. So why jump on the hate train? Blizzard is adressing alot of the problems in a manner that requires deep analytical process. It's not just as easy as you think it is. Just because you think he's wrong, doesn't make it fucking so. ALOT of pros and top players agree with the problems dustin adresses here and so forth. Hence why the questions are the way they are.
Personal insults...check False info...check I'm sure pros agree with some of the issues, just none of the solutions and they are missing the design problems here. Stop blindly worshipping this false god in Blizzard
Except for the fact that blizzard is in close contact with the pro community on balance changes. Most of this stuff actually comes from pro feedback. That's why they are TESTING CHANGES.. do u know what that means? TESTING?
Also, they are trying to adress alot of the design problems in HOTS, and a few minor ones in WoL. If you're such a boss at balancing top e-sports rts games, why arent you hired then? Mr. Know-it-all.
Because you're probaly a silver leaguer. Anyway.
Blizzard has already acknowledged that there are some design problems, and they are actively trying to adress it best way they can. Nobody is perfect.
They recognized late-game PvZ is a problem but not the Immortal/Sentry all-in and believed that it can be solved by zergs? The Immortal Sentry is equivalent of the 1/1/1 now seeing the insane win-rate protoss with that build.
Immortal Sentry has been prevalent for a while, it would have been solved by the top Korean pros if that was the case. But it hasn't been solved at all and it is still ridiculously strong.
1/1/1 has been solved(coupled with Immortal 1 range buff). Protoss finally know how to deal with it 1/1/1 is literally obsolete.
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
Rofl, bow down to King Browder and the wonder group, Blizzard. Cloud is right, they are LOST
Yea and some gold leaguer is gonna tell them different right?
You got no clue, have you?
Dustin probaly knows a shitton more than you will ever be able to fathom. So why jump on the hate train? Blizzard is adressing alot of the problems in a manner that requires deep analytical process. It's not just as easy as you think it is. Just because you think he's wrong, doesn't make it fucking so. ALOT of pros and top players agree with the problems dustin adresses here and so forth. Hence why the questions are the way they are.
Personal insults...check False info...check I'm sure pros agree with some of the issues, just none of the solutions and they are missing the design problems here. Stop blindly worshipping this false god in Blizzard
Except for the fact that blizzard is in close contact with the pro community on balance changes. Most of this stuff actually comes from pro feedback. That's why they are TESTING CHANGES.. do u know what that means? TESTING?
Also, they are trying to adress alot of the design problems in HOTS, and a few minor ones in WoL. If you're such a boss at balancing top e-sports rts games, why arent you hired then? Mr. Know-it-all.
Because you're probaly a silver leaguer. Anyway.
Blizzard has already acknowledged that there are some design problems, and they are actively trying to adress it best way they can. Nobody is perfect.
Gold leaguer, silver leaguer...which one is it man!? Blizzard isn't it close contact with pros at all. They should be talking to Korean pros, and that's it.
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
Nope they aren't and it's so clean from every interview they release. DB saying Terrans are losing because of culture and immortal all in / late game pvz not being an issue even after having statistics proving it wrong thrown right in his face =/= Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing.
It IS because of cultural differences you clutz.
foreign Terran has always been bad. WAtch the Idra interview, he says the same thing basically...
Korean Terran has always been strong.
WAtch GSL CODE S.... There are 9003492304 terrans in there, all top players in the world. They are just not in WCS, cos they had other things to do, or had a bad day and got an upset.. doesnt mean that they couldnt win WCS as Terran..
Terran needs help, and they are gonna get it, but it's not as bad as people think.
No. It's not 'cultural' It's cause Terran is hard to play. Foreign toss and Zerg exist because of fungal growth, infested Terran, warp gate, colossi, and storm. Terran is unforgiving to the nth degree. Terran doesn't need help, Zerg and Protoss need to be made infinitely harder to play, but not worse
Terran is hard to play?
Or are the players just bad?
This would mean, that, if u buffed terran somewaht, or nerfed toss and zerg.
We would be seeing korean Terran win every gsl and WCS etc.. because terran is now alot easier to play, and since korean terran is aleady very good.. they would be impossible to beat now... that's what you're saying
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
Rofl, bow down to King Browder and the wonder group, Blizzard. Cloud is right, they are LOST
Yea and some gold leaguer is gonna tell them different right?
You got no clue, have you?
Dustin probaly knows a shitton more than you will ever be able to fathom. So why jump on the hate train? Blizzard is adressing alot of the problems in a manner that requires deep analytical process. It's not just as easy as you think it is. Just because you think he's wrong, doesn't make it fucking so. ALOT of pros and top players agree with the problems dustin adresses here and so forth. Hence why the questions are the way they are.
Personal insults...check False info...check I'm sure pros agree with some of the issues, just none of the solutions and they are missing the design problems here. Stop blindly worshipping this false god in Blizzard
Except for the fact that blizzard is in close contact with the pro community on balance changes. Most of this stuff actually comes from pro feedback. That's why they are TESTING CHANGES.. do u know what that means? TESTING?
Also, they are trying to adress alot of the design problems in HOTS, and a few minor ones in WoL. If you're such a boss at balancing top e-sports rts games, why arent you hired then? Mr. Know-it-all.
Because you're probaly a silver leaguer. Anyway.
Blizzard has already acknowledged that there are some design problems, and they are actively trying to adress it best way they can. Nobody is perfect.
Gold leaguer, silver leaguer...which one is it man!? Blizzard isn't it close contact with pros at all. They should be talking to Korean pros, and that's it.
Yea you're right.. you're absolutely right man.. you got it all figured out? It's just blizz and dustin who are retarded.. But not you. You got it all wrapped up.. Tell you what bro.. why don't you make a 50 page report, on how to perfectly fix starcraft 2 then ? from a design and balance standpoint? I would like to see your suggestions. Honestly, you can just PM me the report or post on b.net.
I'm done talking to you. Because talking to you actually lowers my IQ substantially. That's how unintelligent your arguments are.
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
Nope they aren't and it's so clean from every interview they release. DB saying Terrans are losing because of culture and immortal all in / late game pvz not being an issue even after having statistics proving it wrong thrown right in his face =/= Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing.
So what's your explanation of why korean terrans always have (and still have) experienced arguably more success than P or Z? Just luck? I guess blaming blizzard is a convenient way to ignore the fact that maybe foreigners just don't have the skill to use terran to their full potential.
Also wish everyone would calm down regarding infestor changes; they didn't say all will meet the final cut and some are WoL and some HOTS. And I assume when they say 'immunity to fungal' they mean the root effect; sentries and such will still take damage from it.
I know zerg love their infestors but I don't know how they can argue against the fact that are far to versatile a unit, and BL/infestor every PvZ has done nothing but make the match-up dry.
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
Nope they aren't and it's so clean from every interview they release. DB saying Terrans are losing because of culture and immortal all in / late game pvz not being an issue even after having statistics proving it wrong thrown right in his face =/= Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing.
It IS because of cultural differences you clutz.
foreign Terran has always been bad. WAtch the Idra interview, he says the same thing basically...
Korean Terran has always been strong.
WAtch GSL CODE S.... There are 9003492304 terrans in there, all top players in the world. They are just not in WCS, cos they had other things to do, or had a bad day and got an upset.. doesnt mean that they couldnt win WCS as Terran..
Terran needs help, and they are gonna get it, but it's not as bad as people think.
No. It's not 'cultural' It's cause Terran is hard to play. Foreign toss and Zerg exist because of fungal growth, infested Terran, warp gate, colossi, and storm. Terran is unforgiving to the nth degree. Terran doesn't need help, Zerg and Protoss need to be made infinitely harder to play, but not worse
Terran is hard to play?
Or are the players just bad?
This would mean, that, if u buffed terran somewaht, or nerfed toss and zerg.
We would be seeing korean Terran win every gsl and WCS etc.. because terran is now alot easier to play, and since korean terran is aleady very good.. they would be impossible to beat now... that's what you're saying
You really think its just that foreign Terrans are just bad...? Like seriously? You don't see why there are about 300 foreign zergs, 30 foreign toss, and 3 foreign Terran? You make no connection there? And I didn't say 'nerf' or 'buff' anywhere
On November 20 2012 19:04 DaveVAH wrote: Monk you spent 90% of the interview talking about and asking questions about P and Z, you let Dustin skip on his brood-lord infester answer on the TvZ MU (only ZvZ and PvZ broodlord infester usage was discussed).
Does terran not exist anymore or something? how about some questions on mech in TvP hots?
We need more objectivity in these interviews.
I am glad that someone else noticed this. Seems Dustin talked about Terran almost unprompted as Monk was very PvZ and ZvZ focused. I wonder what Monk plays?
It's mostly because PvZ is the match-up everyone is discussing/worried about atm. I tried to include questions that I see most often discussed in the TL forums, and I think I did a good job with that. There aren't really as many heavily discussed balance-related issues in TvZ atm except late game versus infestor/broodlord. A few months ago after the queen/overlord buff, I would have asked more about TvZ. I will say, however, that I should have pressed him more on TvZ vs infestor/broodlord, but I honestly didn't realize he skipped out on the TvZ aspect of the question.
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
Rofl, bow down to King Browder and the wonder group, Blizzard. Cloud is right, they are LOST
Yea and some gold leaguer is gonna tell them different right?
You got no clue, have you?
Dustin probaly knows a shitton more than you will ever be able to fathom. So why jump on the hate train? Blizzard is adressing alot of the problems in a manner that requires deep analytical process. It's not just as easy as you think it is. Just because you think he's wrong, doesn't make it fucking so. ALOT of pros and top players agree with the problems dustin adresses here and so forth. Hence why the questions are the way they are.
Personal insults...check False info...check I'm sure pros agree with some of the issues, just none of the solutions and they are missing the design problems here. Stop blindly worshipping this false god in Blizzard
Except for the fact that blizzard is in close contact with the pro community on balance changes. Most of this stuff actually comes from pro feedback. That's why they are TESTING CHANGES.. do u know what that means? TESTING?
Also, they are trying to adress alot of the design problems in HOTS, and a few minor ones in WoL. If you're such a boss at balancing top e-sports rts games, why arent you hired then? Mr. Know-it-all.
Because you're probaly a silver leaguer. Anyway.
Blizzard has already acknowledged that there are some design problems, and they are actively trying to adress it best way they can. Nobody is perfect.
Gold leaguer, silver leaguer...which one is it man!? Blizzard isn't it close contact with pros at all. They should be talking to Korean pros, and that's it.
Yea you're right.. you're absolutely right man.. you got it all figured out? It's just blizz and dustin who are retarded.. But not you. You got it all wrapped up.. Tell you what bro.. why don't you make a 50 page report, on how to perfectly fix starcraft 2 then ? from a design and balance standpoint? I would like to see your suggestions. Honestly, you can just PM me the report or post on b.net.
I'm done talking to you. Because talking to you actually lowers my IQ substantially. That's how unintelligent your arguments are.
Damn you should be a politician man! Just insult after insult after insult after insult! And your arguments don't make sense. Should run for president in the US. People would love to watch debates with you in them.
On November 20 2012 19:37 thezanursic wrote: Believes Immortal/Sentry All-in can be solved by Zerg players without Blizzard intervention /facepalm x several times
Why don't you think it can be solved? The 1/1/1 in PvT was super strong for a while and protoss eventually figured out how to deal with it.
Uhm protoss players also got buffs and terran many nerfs before you "figured it out"
On November 20 2012 20:55 FakeDeath wrote: They recognized late-game PvZ is a problem but not the Immortal/Sentry all-in and believed that it can be solved by zergs? The Immortal Sentry is equivalent of the 1/1/1 now seeing the insane win-rate protoss with that build.
Immortal Sentry has been prevalent for a while, it would have been solved by the top Korean pros if that was the case. But it hasn't been solved at all and it is still ridiculously strong.
1/1/1 has been solved(coupled with Immortal 1 range buff). Protoss finally know how to deal with it 1/1/1 is literally obsolete.
DB clearly states that if zergs play a bit more safe they will punish that build. Let's not kid ourselves, zergs have learned to play extremely greedy vs P, starting with a quick 3rd and then power to 50-60 drones. You can't saturate 3 bases and then max out on roaches around 12', and not expect to get punished for it.
Great interview. Currently playing the HOTS beta and I think they are doing a great job. The only issue I have (and DB says it's going to be fixed) is with the terran race in HOTS, specifically how boring it looks. Not to mention the ridiculously powerful yet dirt cheap hellbats. Everything else looks ace.
He's saying all the right things, the thought process seems sound but some of the conclusions just don't follow.
"Here's 3 good reasons fungal slowth would be great and exciting, but we don't think it changes that much. So we'll do something else..." errrmmm....... But all is not lost.
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
Nope they aren't and it's so clean from every interview they release. DB saying Terrans are losing because of culture and immortal all in / late game pvz not being an issue even after having statistics proving it wrong thrown right in his face =/= Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing.
So what's your explanation of why korean terrans always have (and still have) experienced arguably more success than P or Z? Just luck? I guess blaming blizzard is a convenient way to ignore the fact that maybe foreigners just don't have the skill to use terran to their full potential.
Also wish everyone would calm down regarding infestor changes; they didn't say all will meet the final cut and some are WoL and some HOTS. And I assume when they say 'immunity to fungal' they mean the root effect; sentries and such will still take damage from it.
I know zerg love their infestors but I don't know how they can argue against the fact that are far to versatile a unit, and BL/infestor every PvZ has done nothing but make the match-up dry.
What Dustin Browder and David Kim fail to realize (and I can see this from every interview they release such as this one) is that it's also important to balance the difficulty of the game for every race, not just the balance at the very top level (which is constantly changing anyway). If you manage to get all the races close to the same execution and strategical difficulty then the better players will always shine more and the games will naturally be more interesting to watch.
On November 20 2012 19:04 DaveVAH wrote: Monk you spent 90% of the interview talking about and asking questions about P and Z, you let Dustin skip on his brood-lord infester answer on the TvZ MU (only ZvZ and PvZ broodlord infester usage was discussed).
Does terran not exist anymore or something? how about some questions on mech in TvP hots?
We need more objectivity in these interviews.
I am glad that someone else noticed this. Seems Dustin talked about Terran almost unprompted as Monk was very PvZ and ZvZ focused. I wonder what Monk plays?
It's mostly because PvZ is the match-up everyone is discussing/worried about atm. I tried to include questions that I see most often discussed in the TL forums, and I think I did a good job with that. There aren't really as many heavily discussed balance-related issues in TvZ atm except late game versus infestor/broodlord. A few months ago after the queen/overlord buff, I would have asked more about TvZ. I will say, however, that I should have pressed him more on TvZ vs infestor/broodlord, but I honestly didn't realize he skipped out on the TvZ aspect of the question.
Because that's the only matchup you see anymore lol.
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
Rofl, bow down to King Browder and the wonder group, Blizzard. Cloud is right, they are LOST
Yea and some gold leaguer is gonna tell them different right?
You got no clue, have you?
Dustin probaly knows a shitton more than you will ever be able to fathom. So why jump on the hate train? Blizzard is adressing alot of the problems in a manner that requires deep analytical process. It's not just as easy as you think it is. Just because you think he's wrong, doesn't make it fucking so. ALOT of pros and top players agree with the problems dustin adresses here and so forth. Hence why the questions are the way they are.
Personal insults...check False info...check I'm sure pros agree with some of the issues, just none of the solutions and they are missing the design problems here. Stop blindly worshipping this false god in Blizzard
Except for the fact that blizzard is in close contact with the pro community on balance changes. Most of this stuff actually comes from pro feedback. That's why they are TESTING CHANGES.. do u know what that means? TESTING?
Also, they are trying to adress alot of the design problems in HOTS, and a few minor ones in WoL. If you're such a boss at balancing top e-sports rts games, why arent you hired then? Mr. Know-it-all.
Because you're probaly a silver leaguer. Anyway.
Blizzard has already acknowledged that there are some design problems, and they are actively trying to adress it best way they can. Nobody is perfect.
Some of the pro community has gone full on idiot mode when it comes to balancing, and it's pretty obvious that they don't know any better. The VR change for example which started all this deathballing bullshit is the #1 example of this. Terran players were complaining that they couldn't open 1-1-1 expand against P, even though I told various pros that they should open 1 rax/2 rax and much more Marine heavy, because P players were punishing T players for greedy play with VR play.
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
Nope they aren't and it's so clean from every interview they release. DB saying Terrans are losing because of culture and immortal all in / late game pvz not being an issue even after having statistics proving it wrong thrown right in his face =/= Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing.
So what's your explanation of why korean terrans always have (and still have) experienced arguably more success than P or Z? Just luck? I guess blaming blizzard is a convenient way to ignore the fact that maybe foreigners just don't have the skill to use terran to their full potential.
Also wish everyone would calm down regarding infestor changes; they didn't say all will meet the final cut and some are WoL and some HOTS. And I assume when they say 'immunity to fungal' they mean the root effect; sentries and such will still take damage from it.
I know zerg love their infestors but I don't know how they can argue against the fact that are far to versatile a unit, and BL/infestor every PvZ has done nothing but make the match-up dry.
What Dustin Browder and David Kim fail to realize (and I can see this from every interview they release such as this one) is that it's also important to balance the difficulty of the game for every race, not just the balance at the very top level (which is constantly changing anyway). If you manage to get all the races close to the same execution and strategical difficulty then the better players will always shine more and the games will naturally be more interesting to watch.
How's that? I'm pretty darn sure there were many interviews where Blizzard addressed exactly this, balancing not just for the very top but also everyone else. In fact, they've always gotten flak for that by guys like you who try to twist really anything they say into something to look down upon.
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
Just shows a lot of insecurity, cause they don't really have a clue about what to do anymore and they are crumbling under the pressure of people who want better than we have now.
Yea and I bet you could do an immensely better job, riiight?
Dumbass.
Stop the hating and flaming. Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing. And it's going in the right direction and always has. Stop being part of the problem.
Nope they aren't and it's so clean from every interview they release. DB saying Terrans are losing because of culture and immortal all in / late game pvz not being an issue even after having statistics proving it wrong thrown right in his face =/= Blizz and dustin knows what they're doing.
So what's your explanation of why korean terrans always have (and still have) experienced arguably more success than P or Z? Just luck? I guess blaming blizzard is a convenient way to ignore the fact that maybe foreigners just don't have the skill to use terran to their full potential.
Also wish everyone would calm down regarding infestor changes; they didn't say all will meet the final cut and some are WoL and some HOTS. And I assume when they say 'immunity to fungal' they mean the root effect; sentries and such will still take damage from it.
I know zerg love their infestors but I don't know how they can argue against the fact that are far to versatile a unit, and BL/infestor every PvZ has done nothing but make the match-up dry.
What Dustin Browder and David Kim fail to realize (and I can see this from every interview they release such as this one) is that it's also important to balance the difficulty of the game for every race, not just the balance at the very top level (which is constantly changing anyway). If you manage to get all the races close to the same execution and strategical difficulty then the better players will always shine more and the games will naturally be more interesting to watch.
I can see where you are coming from, but over time as the game develops players are going to get closer and closer to the skill cap naturally, meaning that what is still most important is the balance of the game when played at the highest level, so changing the difficulty of the races is merely a temporary solution that becomes redundant as the skill of players increase anyway. Many korean pros picked terran because they thought it had the highest skill cap and consequently would be the best race when played to perfection, which seems like a better attitude than complaining that terran is too hard to play... Note I do think the difficulty of each race should be approximately equal, and that all races should have a high skill cap, but that is purely because it would be uninteresting if the races weren't reasonably evenly distributed, and not because of people complaining that their race takes too much skill to unlock its full potential.
Edit BTW when Browder said its a 'cultural issue' I'm pretty sure that he meant exactly what you are saying; foreigner's simply are unable to use terran as well as koreans. He wasn't saying it has anything to do with balance..
Btw wasn't protoss considered the 'easiest race' in BW? It doesn't seem to tarnish people's views on BW, so why is it so important in SC2?
I think that the new test map might favor protoss a bit especially since archons can't be fungled and that will open up dt play, some archon timings and a better late game.
On November 20 2012 20:35 Millet wrote: I like this interview a lot. I liked most of what I heard. However, I do not agree with slow on fungal "wouldn't do anything" it would nerf chain fungal, which is one of the core problems with this spell. If you catch a group of high health, small units, they would be able to split their units instead of definitely losing them to chain fungal. It also allows for more exciting gameplay.
On November 20 2012 20:13 blug wrote: I'm quite shocked no one is making a bigger deal about Zerg not needing an evo chamber for Spore Crawlers. Should of asked Dustin about that xD (Maybe he did, if he did I wasn't paying attention..)
That's because it's not a big deal, at all. Any decent zerg is going to have an evo chamber anyway (for upgrades) by the time any cloaked or air threat is present. This is not a big deal at all. The only reason for this change is because zergs need an ability to deal with early widow mines. That's it.
It is though, because now stargate techs and DTs will be that much harder to do. Not all zergs open early evo chamber, some like to power drone. So greedy zergs will get away with more.
I've lost many games having no evo chamber, so have many other zergs.
On November 20 2012 20:55 FakeDeath wrote: They recognized late-game PvZ is a problem but not the Immortal/Sentry all-in and believed that it can be solved by zergs? The Immortal Sentry is equivalent of the 1/1/1 now seeing the insane win-rate protoss with that build.
Immortal Sentry has been prevalent for a while, it would have been solved by the top Korean pros if that was the case. But it hasn't been solved at all and it is still ridiculously strong.
1/1/1 has been solved(coupled with Immortal 1 range buff). Protoss finally know how to deal with it 1/1/1 is literally obsolete.
DB clearly states that if zergs play a bit more safe they will punish that build. Let's not kid ourselves, zergs have learned to play extremely greedy vs P, starting with a quick 3rd and then power to 50-60 drones. You can't saturate 3 bases and then max out on roaches around 12', and not expect to get punished for it.
Well, whatelse should a Zerg do against a FFE? Stay on two bases? I don't think that would be a good idea to be honest :-P Zerg start off with a quick third because they need it to not be completely destroyed imo. Everything beside a fast third base requiree the Zerg to punish the Protoss somehow and... That's pretty damn hard against a FFE. The problems in this entire Match up are infestors and sentries. Solve thse design issues and everything will be fine.
On November 20 2012 19:04 DaveVAH wrote: Monk you spent 90% of the interview talking about and asking questions about P and Z, you let Dustin skip on his brood-lord infester answer on the TvZ MU (only ZvZ and PvZ broodlord infester usage was discussed).
Does terran not exist anymore or something? how about some questions on mech in TvP hots?
We need more objectivity in these interviews.
But I'm wearing a Terran Shirt!
Is that supposed to be funny? That was a serious observation.
Seriously, why is it that people are thinking that they don't listen? They might well have played with the "community proposed changes" in internal builds, realized that they are crap, and moved on?
On November 20 2012 20:55 FakeDeath wrote: They recognized late-game PvZ is a problem but not the Immortal/Sentry all-in and believed that it can be solved by zergs? The Immortal Sentry is equivalent of the 1/1/1 now seeing the insane win-rate protoss with that build.
Immortal Sentry has been prevalent for a while, it would have been solved by the top Korean pros if that was the case. But it hasn't been solved at all and it is still ridiculously strong.
1/1/1 has been solved(coupled with Immortal 1 range buff). Protoss finally know how to deal with it 1/1/1 is literally obsolete.
DB clearly states that if zergs play a bit more safe they will punish that build. Let's not kid ourselves, zergs have learned to play extremely greedy vs P, starting with a quick 3rd and then power to 50-60 drones. You can't saturate 3 bases and then max out on roaches around 12', and not expect to get punished for it.
Great interview. Currently playing the HOTS beta and I think they are doing a great job. The only issue I have (and DB says it's going to be fixed) is with the terran race in HOTS, specifically how boring it looks. Not to mention the ridiculously powerful yet dirt cheap hellbats. Everything else looks ace.
I believe that they want to give the Hellbat a buff.
On November 20 2012 19:04 DaveVAH wrote: Monk you spent 90% of the interview talking about and asking questions about P and Z, you let Dustin skip on his brood-lord infester answer on the TvZ MU (only ZvZ and PvZ broodlord infester usage was discussed).
Does terran not exist anymore or something? how about some questions on mech in TvP hots?
We need more objectivity in these interviews.
But I'm wearing a Terran Shirt!
Is that supposed to be funny? That was a serious observation.
I enjoyed that interview a lot. I'd heard a lot of people talk about Dustin before but didn't really know what to think. He's a really smart guy. I liked the way he subtly addressed so much of the community's whining in a positive way. He knows a lot of the people arguing that "x race is imba" doing have a firm grasp of the epistemology required for proper decision making.
For Monk, don't know if you'll read this but great interview! You asked a lot of gutsy questions that I'm sure satisfied a tonne of nerds watching this video. Bit of constructive criticism: make sure that the questions you ask or examples you bring up are different enough from one another. A bunch of the broodlord/infestor questions were very similar to one another. But overall, it was solid. Don't know how old you are but that had to have been nerve racking and no doubt it'll serve as an experience that will help you in future endevors : )
Good interview! I think monk had about the right questions, seems to reflect the current discussions in the community. DB did dodge TvZ some but on the other hand there was a lot of Infestor and brod lord discussions anyway.
DB is rather smooth during these types of interviews, he has answered the same questions 100 times and can be quite persuasive. I guess they do know what they are doing, slow and steady in the right direction is better than swift and wrong.
On November 20 2012 19:04 DaveVAH wrote: Monk you spent 90% of the interview talking about and asking questions about P and Z, you let Dustin skip on his brood-lord infester answer on the TvZ MU (only ZvZ and PvZ broodlord infester usage was discussed).
Does terran not exist anymore or something? how about some questions on mech in TvP hots?
We need more objectivity in these interviews.
But I'm wearing a Terran Shirt!
Is that supposed to be funny? That was a serious observation.
I already responded on the last page.
No need to be too defensive, you are doing a great job in the interview. There will always be those that complain but I think most people here are very grateful for the work you put in!
On November 20 2012 19:04 DaveVAH wrote: Monk you spent 90% of the interview talking about and asking questions about P and Z, you let Dustin skip on his brood-lord infester answer on the TvZ MU (only ZvZ and PvZ broodlord infester usage was discussed).
Does terran not exist anymore or something? how about some questions on mech in TvP hots?
We need more objectivity in these interviews.
But I'm wearing a Terran Shirt!
Is that supposed to be funny? That was a serious observation.
I already responded on the last page.
No need to be too defensive, you are doing a great job in the interview. There will always be those that complain but I think most people here are very grateful for the work you put in!
Yea, sure. I think his complaint is a completely understandable and reasonable one though, especially if he doesn't know where I'm trying to come from. I'm not going to respond to just any random haters. =P
On November 20 2012 15:46 monk. wrote: Hope you guys also focus on his answers about his approach to the game, and not just the balance changes.
I'm actually not sure what's worse, the fact that he has refused to balance the game for so long or that he actually believes some of the balance issues can be attributed to "cultural differences" or "will solve themselves".
If he has refused to care about the game for so long, until 'later in hots beta', then it's really not a compelling reason for people to care about spectating this game.
Are you kidding? Without neural mass thors will just roll every tvz, even against broods. Also upgraded medivacs would be sooo OP it wouldn't even be funny.
Wow I thought they said psi units couldn't be neuraled, not fungaled. Not allowing them to be fungaled might actually be a huge change, we'll have to see how ghosts and hts can do against them after this, but it might just work.
I was pleasantly surprised with this interview, Browder really seems to have the same things in mind as we do, they're just going about changing this really cautiously.
Also, as much as I had thought Terran needed another unit in HotS, I love what he said about just making all the other less used Terran units and abilities more viable, and that they'll work on TvP mech. Gives me a lot of hope.
Glad he's aware of the Infested Terran problem. Faith in Dustin Browder is slightly restored, after that disgusting comment that "we think infestor/broodlord is fine"
I wish the interviewer would leave personal stuff out of the questioning... that IdrA interview was quite annoying especially when the interviewer started telling IdrA how to defeat Rain and stuff...
On November 20 2012 22:11 the.toninator wrote: Are you kidding? Without neural mass thors will just roll every tvz, even against broods. Also upgraded medivacs would be sooo OP it wouldn't even be funny.
I don't know what world you're living in but mass thors get fucking demolished by brood lords a large majority of the time.
Blizzard will make the same mistake as always. When they try to nerf unit, they always make an overkill, which leaves the unit useless and unused. By the talks it's the case again. He talks about nerfing every single ability of infestors and even removing the remaining nerfed effect on some of the units. IN my opinion, it's an obvious overkill.
neural is a really funky and extremely tough to balance spell, I'm glad they may get rid of it. I was thinking maybe replacing it with some kind of pure support ability like casting something that gives a temporary speed boost to a group of your units. I'm thinking overlords/ultras/hydras/swarm hosts mainly here (overlords so they can actually possibly reach a retreating army to bomb them), just to name a few of the many possible uses, although sped-up banelings may be a little too strong, perhaps it would give banelings that are off of creep the same speed as if they were on creep, and unchange the speed if they are already on creep. I like how many potential tactical maneuvers could be discovered for it.. I bet people could get really creative with it.
Dustin I think didn't realize one major change that would happen as a result of changing Fungal from a root to a slow, is that right now if you get fungaled once, you can keep chaining fungals on same group of units till they're dead and there's not really anything the defender can do about it. With a slow, at least you could slowly split some of them away so they can't be refungaled again and again so easily.
On November 20 2012 22:11 the.toninator wrote: Are you kidding? Without neural mass thors will just roll every tvz, even against broods. Also upgraded medivacs would be sooo OP it wouldn't even be funny.
I don't know what world you're living in but mass thors get fucking demolished by brood lords a large majority of the time.
Really? Picture thor/viking against broodlord corruptor, and whenever your corruptors attack a viking all the thors deal splash to them, and now picture the army capable of that showing up at your doorstep at 15 minutes when you have a max of 5 broods, if any. Thors are really really good units.
On November 20 2012 22:11 the.toninator wrote: Are you kidding? Without neural mass thors will just roll every tvz, even against broods. Also upgraded medivacs would be sooo OP it wouldn't even be funny.
I don't know what world you're living in but mass thors get fucking demolished by brood lords a large majority of the time.
Really? Picture thor/viking against broodlord corruptor, and whenever your corruptors attack a viking all the thors deal splash to them, and now picture the army capable of that showing up at your doorstep at 15 minutes when you have a max of 5 broods, if any. Thors are really really good units.
and now picture Thor/vikings against Brood Corruptor infestors spamming infestend terrans and fungal clumped vikings
On November 20 2012 22:22 Zelniq wrote: neural is a really funky and extremely tough to balance spell, I'm glad they may get rid of it. I was thinking maybe replacing it with some kind of pure support ability like casting something that gives a temporary speed boost to a group of your units. I'm thinking overlords/ultras/hydras/swarm hosts mainly here (overlords so they can actually possibly reach a retreating army to bomb them), just to name a few of the many possible uses, although sped-up banelings may be a little too strong, perhaps it would give banelings that are off of creep the same speed as if they were on creep, and unchange the speed if they are already on creep. I like how many potential tactical maneuvers could be discovered for it.. I bet people could get really creative with it.
I agree, its kinda annoying because Infestor completely overtook baneling role, pre-infestor buff infestors were defensive/supportive units, they were kinda useless because their cost was too high and they only barely scratched protoss unit shields, but their role was more or less right. Your fungals could keep opponents unit and slow his push enabling your demage dealers do their job.
Now defiler was interesting unit, you could not mass it, because of various reasons (gas and APM expensive) and it could not win games by itself (plague was not killing, swarm was a buff). And for constant usage you had to spent apm to keep it churning spells (consume) unlike simply keeping it alive in a clump behind your army. A good example of good spelluser for Zerg
On November 20 2012 22:11 the.toninator wrote: Are you kidding? Without neural mass thors will just roll every tvz, even against broods. Also upgraded medivacs would be sooo OP it wouldn't even be funny.
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
No, what is crazy that you actually counted that. You should find yourself a real hobby, yes?
On November 20 2012 22:11 the.toninator wrote: Are you kidding? Without neural mass thors will just roll every tvz, even against broods. Also upgraded medivacs would be sooo OP it wouldn't even be funny.
I don't know what world you're living in but mass thors get fucking demolished by brood lords a large majority of the time.
Really? Picture thor/viking against broodlord corruptor, and whenever your corruptors attack a viking all the thors deal splash to them, and now picture the army capable of that showing up at your doorstep at 15 minutes when you have a max of 5 broods, if any. Thors are really really good units.
Thors are not as good as you think they are. They are INCREDIBLY vulnerable to BLs and the Z has to make a considerable effort to clump all of their corruptors into a ball for Thors to do very significant damage to the point that you're talking about. Even with vikings. You need WAY more vikings, and sometimes you'll need ravens too. And this idea about a Thor army just all of a sudden showing up and killing off Z at 15 minutes for the most part just does not happen. I would be confident pro T players will back me up on this point. Off the bat, your point was already null and void because nobody uses neural against Thors, ITs are the best tool vs a huge Thor army in terms of infestor abilities.
Blegh, every time i see Dustin Browder give an interview like this I feel he is more and more off. Like what good at all is making fungal not hit psionic, I get he wants to make ht and ghost 'work' as a counter to infestors but that is way too simplistic. Psionic units being rooted now has virtually nothing to do with the problem of infestors, the combination of bl/infestor would remain too strong anyway as ghosts still don't do crap agianst that. It only buffs archons basically which is a pretty much moot point.
Few of the real core issues of the game were touched upon in this interview though. The discussion of PvZ and how it influences map design was good but DB's answers were way too vague and useless anyway, can't he just say something specific for a change.
After year of GomTvT still talking about poor terrans. For me its totally ok to not have millions of terrans in tournaments all over the world. To be honest I turn off every stream if I see TvT....just had that, for a lot of SC2 time and I am fed up with it.
On November 20 2012 22:11 the.toninator wrote: Are you kidding? Without neural mass thors will just roll every tvz, even against broods. Also upgraded medivacs would be sooo OP it wouldn't even be funny.
On November 20 2012 22:11 the.toninator wrote: Are you kidding? Without neural mass thors will just roll every tvz, even against broods. Also upgraded medivacs would be sooo OP it wouldn't even be funny.
Ultras, Look at what Fruitdealer did.
I DO use ultras and neural, because meching players will always hit before I can get enough broods to fight thors. So I need a good surround and good fungals and infested terrans and spines and sometimes I still just die to that push.
Thors are not as good as you think they are. They are INCREDIBLY vulnerable to BLs and the Z has to make a considerable effort to clump all of their corruptors into a ball for Thors to do very significant damage to the point that you're talking about. Even with vikings. You need WAY more vikings, and sometimes you'll need ravens too. And this idea about a Thor army just all of a sudden showing up and killing off Z at 15 minutes for the most part just does not happen. I would be confident pro T players will back me up on this point. Off the bat, your point was already null and void because nobody uses neural against Thors, ITs are the best tool vs a huge Thor army in terms of infestor abilities.
My point isn't void, because I use neural and I'm talking about my own experience. And even like 6-8 thors showing up at the beginning of hive tech with good upgrades kills a LOT, assuming you've taken any damage from hellions or drops(and you have, if the terran is any good) And infested terrans are only overwhelming in huge numbers, otherwise the hellions can just kill them immediately. This isn't just theorycraft, so please don't automatically dismiss my opinion.
I initially disagreed with their approach concerning mothership but if they intend to actually make it a joke unit, I suppose no harm done. Kind of like the scout in Brood War
On November 20 2012 20:21 Rannasha wrote: What's missing in the summary is that Dustin Browder said the word "right" 121 times (give or take a few due to miscounting) during the 32 minute interview. That's once every 16 seconds, including the time that monk was doing the talking.
That's crazy, right?
No, what is crazy that you actually counted that. You should find yourself a real hobby, yes?
I'm a mathematician, so counting stuff is what I do ^^ (aside from being mildly crazy).
On November 20 2012 22:11 the.toninator wrote: Are you kidding? Without neural mass thors will just roll every tvz, even against broods. Also upgraded medivacs would be sooo OP it wouldn't even be funny.
Ultras, Look at what Fruitdealer did.
I DO use ultras and neural, because meching players will always hit before I can get enough broods to fight thors. So I need a good surround and good fungals and infested terrans and spines and sometimes I still just die to that push.
Thors are not as good as you think they are. They are INCREDIBLY vulnerable to BLs and the Z has to make a considerable effort to clump all of their corruptors into a ball for Thors to do very significant damage to the point that you're talking about. Even with vikings. You need WAY more vikings, and sometimes you'll need ravens too. And this idea about a Thor army just all of a sudden showing up and killing off Z at 15 minutes for the most part just does not happen. I would be confident pro T players will back me up on this point. Off the bat, your point was already null and void because nobody uses neural against Thors, ITs are the best tool vs a huge Thor army in terms of infestor abilities.
My point isn't void, because I use neural and I'm talking about my own experience. And even like 6-8 thors showing up at the beginning of hive tech with good upgrades kills a LOT, assuming you've taken any damage from hellions or drops(and you have, if the terran is any good) And infested terrans are only overwhelming in huge numbers, otherwise the hellions can just kill them immediately. This isn't just theorycraft, so please don't automatically dismiss my opinion.
No offense meant, but you don't seem like you know how to play as well as you could if you're building ultras against thors, and using neural when you could be using ITs + a fungal or two to lock hellions in place. And like I said before, even a small army of Thors coming at you at a hive timing can get absolutely crushed by mass roaches, or, what's more common, the roaches counter attack into your base and can get right on top of your production. Then you trade your small-ish Thor army for a base or two of Z's, and the Z kills all or most of your reinforcements and production. Or, you go ALL the way back to your base with your slow ass mech army, and the supply used in roaches is then used to remax on BL/Corruptor while the mech army tries to get back across the map.
Great interview! Dustin sounds very passionate about the game and perhaps the are on the right track. Hopefully this wasn't all just lip service but this interview gave me some hope that we'll see some adjustments soon. Thanks TL/Dustin!
sounds really reasonable and restores some faith for HotS
psionic immune to fungal would be a fantastic change, but it might mean that zerg will need something new to compete with toss, especially midgame. other than that, the only downside that i see is that its not really intuitive, since a lot of newbies will not know what units exactly are psionic
making interceptors immune to fungal is another change that was needed, ++ on that
fungal projectile, strike cannon change and seeker missile change are exactly what the community was asking for
i dont think anyone will be too sad to see neural and mothership go... maybe with neural it would also be better to just nerf it to the ground but keep it in game, like what he proposes for mothership, that way people can still use it in ffas or big team games for fun
i wonder what they wna change about mutas tho, they seem like one of the most well-designed units in the history of starcraft, and as such never required any change since the days of vanilla sc1...
On November 20 2012 22:11 the.toninator wrote: Are you kidding? Without neural mass thors will just roll every tvz, even against broods. Also upgraded medivacs would be sooo OP it wouldn't even be funny.
I can't think of a zerg unit combination, that actually loses to thor only.... And I don't think thats possible.
[B]No offense meant, but you don't seem like you know how to play as well as you could if you're building ultras against thors, and using neural when you could be using ITs + a fungal or two to lock hellions in place. And like I said before, even a small army of Thors coming at you at a hive timing can get absolutely crushed by mass roaches, or, what's more common, the roaches counter attack into your base and can get right on top of your production. Then you trade your small-ish Thor army for a base or two of Z's, and the Z kills all or most of your reinforcements and production. Or, you go ALL the way back to your base with your slow ass mech army, and the supply used in roaches is then used to remax on BL/Corruptor while the mech army tries to get back across the map.
Obviously I'm not playing as well as I could be, do you see me in the GSL? I assure you in practice, it's not that simple. Unless you're a high master/GM zerg who wants to send me replays of you holding off what I'm talking about? I play against meching terrans and obviously I know how to fungal and spam infested terran like anyone else, but every game I don't have neural against it I lose.
The more I play of WOL and the beta and the more interviews I see, the more I realise I'm getting closer and closer to finishing with this game. I've just completely lost faith in blizzard.
The one thing that pisses me off endlessly, when a handful of terrans were massing ghosts and decimating zergs t3 with ease, blizz dropped the nerf hammer without a second thought. Now EVERY zerg is massing infestors and has been decimating EVERYTHING for months and months and blizzard are still so tentative about fixing it. what in the fuck
Did anybody ever think about corrupter get a melee attack? They have high hp and good armor, would make bcs/carriers more viable but they are still a strong aa
On November 20 2012 22:11 the.toninator wrote: Are you kidding? Without neural mass thors will just roll every tvz, even against broods. Also upgraded medivacs would be sooo OP it wouldn't even be funny.
I can't think of a zerg unit combination, that actually loses to thor only.... And I don't think thats possible.
I'm not talking about ONLY thors, I'm talking about a mech army with a ton of thors in it. There's a difference, and I'm talking about the one where I can't just build zerglings to counter it.
[B]No offense meant, but you don't seem like you know how to play as well as you could if you're building ultras against thors, and using neural when you could be using ITs + a fungal or two to lock hellions in place. And like I said before, even a small army of Thors coming at you at a hive timing can get absolutely crushed by mass roaches, or, what's more common, the roaches counter attack into your base and can get right on top of your production. Then you trade your small-ish Thor army for a base or two of Z's, and the Z kills all or most of your reinforcements and production. Or, you go ALL the way back to your base with your slow ass mech army, and the supply used in roaches is then used to remax on BL/Corruptor while the mech army tries to get back across the map.
Obviously I'm not playing as well as I could be, do you see me in the GSL? I assure you in practice, it's not that simple. Unless you're a high master/GM zerg who wants to send me replays of you holding off what I'm talking about? I play against meching terrans and obviously I know how to fungal and spam infested terran like anyone else, but every game I don't have neural against it I lose.
I actually play T, so I am looking at this from the other side of the situation than you. It is actually very simple not to build Ultras vs what you know is going to be a mostly Thor army, or even an army with a decent amount of Thors. I don't know why you would attempt to counter a "mass-Thor" army (when there really is no viability in that anyway) with the unit Thors are meant to counter in the Z race: ultralisks. And don't dismiss that point by saying "Oh well I'm not playing in the GSL obv!" No shit man!
I'm so happy to hear them shy away from the mothership. The idea of a hero unit in SC has always bothered me. I Hope they replace neural with an energy draining spell and nerf fungal further than what they are intending to do. Other than that I'm happy with where they want to take the game. If mech becomes viable, I might actually watch TvP.
Even as a terran, I dislike the idea of having HSM already researched . Blizzard should not make strong units/abilities easy to tech to, because it pushes players to skip mid-game play and go straight for the 'do or die 200 supply mega army', pretty much what all the zergs do these days. On top of that, the current maps and the whole idea of having a 3rd free base really doesn't help, no wonder all the games look the same. Instead of making HSM researched, force zergs to research fungal once their hive is up.
Anyone that expect´s a none full time pro to have better responses and ideas within a few seconds while being put on the spot over a wide range of different issues and aspects of SC2 considering all races and match up are unrealistic.
Of course you can handpick like one thing out of the many things he mentions and go, well what about situation x in match up y, how could he NOT have thought about that?! Okay it is good with feedback but in general people should acknowledge how hard it is to balance three very diverse races in six different match ups in a extremely competitive environment. Where thousands of smart people are constantly looking for every crack they see and abuse it to the maximum potential.
I think it over all all sounded very promising. They want to make the game more diverse, more fun and having more skilled options. They get that the game will not be perfectly balanced but they want to have a diverse and interesting "tool box" to start with and then go for a more refined balance once it is established.
I think he could start working on nerfing his amount of riiights though x)
I actually play T, so I am looking at this from the other side of the situation than you. It is actually very simple not to build Ultras vs what you know is going to be a mostly Thor army, or even an army with a decent amount of Thors. I don't know why you would attempt to counter a "mass-Thor" army (when there really is no viability in that anyway) with the unit Thors are meant to counter in the Z race: ultralisks. And don't dismiss that point by saying "Oh well I'm not playing in the GSL obv!" No shit man!
There is, maybe you should try it. And I was telling you things I've tried to do that DIDN'T work, you're getting off track. My point was that 1. A lot of thors(with tanks and hellions obviously, no one just builds one unit to fight with unless it's marines) is powerful before you have a lot of broodlords. 2. Neural/infested terrans are the only things good against large numbers of powerful units units like thors(again, before hive). That's why, as a zerg, it sucks that both of those options are potentially going to be taken away according to the Rock in this interview. That was it.
So you cant fungal DTs, archons and warp prism, that so terrible. Warp Prism with speed already outspeed the corruptors, theres will be no way for a zerg to stop drops, imagine even DT drops...Also Zealot/archon pushes will be way stonger if u cant fungal archons. Some of that stuff doesnt make sense..
Good interview, very good questions, very... ehr, interesting answers. I'd really like to know what was passing trough your mind when hearing them, Monk: personally I would have raged hard, but I won't ever be an interviewer, luckly enough! If my impression is correct you can be a sneaky individual, especially considering Parting's issue. But maybe it's just my impression, it's up to you to confirm or not.
About Dustin... I don't know, seriously: on one side apparently I fail to realise that balancing is harder than what I expect and that he must be an intelligent guy (and we cannot judge someone we don't know with some interviews on the internet), but on the other side his approach always leaves me speechless. It's not his political approach when answering, it's the fact that he doesn't even consider some things as a problem, at all. I'm pretty sure that up until now he didn't even have an idea about the issue you point out at around 03:54, nor he did paid particular attention to the maps except for their overall dimensions. I also don't think he has a real idea about the progamers scene, if we exclude the important matches in GSL and semifnals/finals all around, nor he has even played a game as a zerg against a won-won-won.
About statistics, the issue is way more complex: oftentimes we don't take many things in consideration, such as the players' openings in every game... I can see why Dustin is taking it slow.
But as always, the real issue stays around: there are units who can change the match despite the opponents' skill, like Morrow and a moltitude of users already pointed out in the past. The mothership and the infestors are finally being targeted (?), the sentry instead is obviously and conveniently ignored. Browder talks about "baiting FFs", as it could work, for example, against good proplayers who are committing to an all-in. Not buying it.
On the good side of things I like his talking about design instead of balancing for HoTS: issues like the sentry one have to be prevented instead of being solved, since I don't see any hint about Blizzard fixing it. We can hope, at least, that the expansion won't bring other design problem as well. It's a good step in the right direction, at least.
The correction on the zerg side look strange, at least regarding neural parasyte. Nothing is really said about the infested terran and while fungal is slightly broken (at least imo) we have still to realise that's the only way zerg can limit the forcefield hellfest. I can't still see why a slow effect instead of a complete freeze wouldn't work, especially considering that not all battles are on creep. The projectile animation seems more than reasonable, not being able to freeze/slow warp prisms or medivacs is absolute bullshit. Again, great interview even if it leaves me with a bad feeling overall
On November 20 2012 23:31 MavivaM wrote: Good interview, very good questions, very... ehr, interesting answers. I'd really like to know what was passing trough your mind when hearing them, Monk: personally I would have raged hard, but I won't ever be an interviewer, luckly enough! If my impression is correct you can be a sneaky individual, especially considering Parting's issue. But maybe it's just my impression, it's up to you to confirm or not.
About Dustin... I don't know, seriously: on one side apparently I fail to realise that balancing is harder than what I expect and that he must be an intelligent guy (and we cannot judge someone we don't know with some interviews on the internet), but on the other side his approach always leaves me speechless. It's not his political approach when answering, it's the fact that he doesn't even consider some things as a problem, at all. I'm pretty sure that up until now he didn't even have an idea about the issue you point out at around 03:54, nor he did paid particular attention to the maps except for their overall dimensions. I also don't think he has a real idea about the progamers scene, if we exclude the important matches in GSL and semifnals/finals all around, nor he has even played a game as a zerg against a won-won-won.
About statistics, the issue is way more complex: oftentimes we don't take many things in consideration, such as the players' openings in every game... I can see why Dustin is taking it slow.
But as always, the real issue stays around: there are units who can change the match despite the opponents' skill, like Morrow and a moltitude of users already pointed out in the past. The mothership and the infestors are finally being targeted (?), the sentry instead is obviously and conveniently ignored. Browder talks about "baiting FFs", as it could work, for example, against good proplayers who are committing to an all-in. Not buying it.
On the good side of things I like his talking about design instead of balancing for HoTS: issues like the sentry one have to be prevented instead of being solved, since I don't see any hint about Blizzard fixing it. We can hope, at least, that the expansion won't bring other design problem as well. It's a good step in the right direction, at least.
The correction on the zerg side look strange, at least regarding neural parasyte. Nothing is really said about the infested terran and while fungal is slightly broken (at least imo) we have still to realise that's the only way zerg can limit the forcefield hellfest. I can't still see why a slow effect instead of a complete freeze wouldn't work, especially considering that not all battles are on creep. The projectile animation seems more than reasonable, not being able to freeze/slow warp prisms or medivacs is absolute bullshit. Again, great interview even if it leaves me with a bad feeling overall
Your expectations is stupid high, he was asked like 50 different questions considering everthing from certain situations in different matchups, map issues to over arching ideas of development of races in HoTS and is expected to answer within a second.
Saying, "how could he not have thought about this specific thing" is very easy. One thing, and you have potentially hours to adjust and edit the response to perfection.
Doing an interview regarding a wide and complex matters and being put on the spot over and over, that is very hard. Very few people on this forum would be able to do it even remotely as well and I think that a certain acknowledgment is in order.
Although that is a very rare phenomena on TL and the internet in general.
Hm... With a slow instead of a immobilize, would fungal still prevent Stalkers from blinking? I mean, few month back, before the Zerg realized that infestors are actually fucking awesome, (and it took a long time for them to realize, tbh) Blink Stalker All-ins were kinda impossible to hold if well executed. Blink micro just destroyed everything as long as the Zerg didn't have any infestors.
On November 20 2012 23:45 theSAiNT wrote: Does he come across as stupid in person as he does based on his answers? (Why do people assume he's intelligent?)
I think it is one of these things that comes easier to people that are intelligent x) Seriously, I would like to see you do such an interview, then I think you would realize why people think he is intelligent.
Ghost can never be an answer to Infestor cause there's no way in hell it's getting anywhere near close enough to cast EMP on the infestors unless you have cloak and your opponent doesn't have detection, but if he doesn't then he deserves to lose anyway.
Yay go TL. Really nice interview, made me look really forward to their balancing. My personal favorite is the non intentional slap towards the community (No way did he meant it offensively) about making Fungal easier to use, because the community said it is bad. And now it turned out that the community caused one of the biggest flaws in the game. What I dislike the most about Fungal was there since the spell was made a lockdown. Though I see it how I want, because there is many stuff the community ruined for me personally by making units to easy to use for my taste. Still bitter about the Immortal range buff, but it is good to know that because of this the Immortal is causing a ton of headaches everywhere. But thats how community supported game development works, at the end not everyone will like one part or the other. But it will be a game that the majority can approve. But it still feels good to say told you so.
Browder mentioned the problem of interceptors dying to fungal. He also mentioned that changing fungal from a lockdown to a slow spell wouldn't make that much of a difference. Wouldn't only slowing down interceptors and not rendering them useless be a BIG change? I would love to hear what Browder has to say on the matter.
I actually play T, so I am looking at this from the other side of the situation than you. It is actually very simple not to build Ultras vs what you know is going to be a mostly Thor army, or even an army with a decent amount of Thors. I don't know why you would attempt to counter a "mass-Thor" army (when there really is no viability in that anyway) with the unit Thors are meant to counter in the Z race: ultralisks. And don't dismiss that point by saying "Oh well I'm not playing in the GSL obv!" No shit man!
There is, maybe you should try it. And I was telling you things I've tried to do that DIDN'T work, you're getting off track. My point was that 1. A lot of thors(with tanks and hellions obviously, no one just builds one unit to fight with unless it's marines) is powerful before you have a lot of broodlords. 2. Neural/infested terrans are the only things good against large numbers of powerful units units like thors(again, before hive). That's why, as a zerg, it sucks that both of those options are potentially going to be taken away according to the Rock in this interview. That was it.
Your argument is fundamentally flawed because by the time T has enough thors + hellions + tanks to be dangerous enough to kill you, you should have the BL/Corruptor/Infestor comp to counter it unless you've done a terrible job defending hellions which only takes spine crawlers at each base or roaches. You as the zerg player should be able to get that composition up just as quickly as a T who needs like 7-8 factories. And neural/infested Terrans are not the only good thing against Thors before Hive, ever heard of roach counters like I just posted about? or surrounds? counter attacks? mutalisk magic boxing before there is a critical mass of thors? You are not suddenly going to lose every time vs mech because you get weaker free units possibly from ITs, or because a spell that puts you within range to get your infestor owned anyway is getting removed.
Edit: And there is no such thing as a "large amount of Thors" before Hive unless you've done nothing but mass Thors the entire game, or the Z player is deliberately not getting Hive to mass roaches or something
On November 20 2012 23:31 MavivaM wrote: Good interview, very good questions, very... ehr, interesting answers. I'd really like to know what was passing trough your mind when hearing them, Monk: personally I would have raged hard, but I won't ever be an interviewer, luckly enough! If my impression is correct you can be a sneaky individual, especially considering Parting's issue. But maybe it's just my impression, it's up to you to confirm or not.
About Dustin... I don't know, seriously: on one side apparently I fail to realise that balancing is harder than what I expect and that he must be an intelligent guy (and we cannot judge someone we don't know with some interviews on the internet), but on the other side his approach always leaves me speechless. It's not his political approach when answering, it's the fact that he doesn't even consider some things as a problem, at all. I'm pretty sure that up until now he didn't even have an idea about the issue you point out at around 03:54, nor he did paid particular attention to the maps except for their overall dimensions. I also don't think he has a real idea about the progamers scene, if we exclude the important matches in GSL and semifnals/finals all around, nor he has even played a game as a zerg against a won-won-won.
About statistics, the issue is way more complex: oftentimes we don't take many things in consideration, such as the players' openings in every game... I can see why Dustin is taking it slow.
But as always, the real issue stays around: there are units who can change the match despite the opponents' skill, like Morrow and a moltitude of users already pointed out in the past. The mothership and the infestors are finally being targeted (?), the sentry instead is obviously and conveniently ignored. Browder talks about "baiting FFs", as it could work, for example, against good proplayers who are committing to an all-in. Not buying it.
On the good side of things I like his talking about design instead of balancing for HoTS: issues like the sentry one have to be prevented instead of being solved, since I don't see any hint about Blizzard fixing it. We can hope, at least, that the expansion won't bring other design problem as well. It's a good step in the right direction, at least.
The correction on the zerg side look strange, at least regarding neural parasyte. Nothing is really said about the infested terran and while fungal is slightly broken (at least imo) we have still to realise that's the only way zerg can limit the forcefield hellfest. I can't still see why a slow effect instead of a complete freeze wouldn't work, especially considering that not all battles are on creep. The projectile animation seems more than reasonable, not being able to freeze/slow warp prisms or medivacs is absolute bullshit. Again, great interview even if it leaves me with a bad feeling overall
Your expectations is stupid high, he was asked like 50 different questions considering everthing from certain situations in different matchups, map issues to over arching ideas of development of races in HoTS and is expected to answer within a second.
Saying, "how could he not have thought about this specific thing" is very easy. One thing, and you have potentially hours to adjust and edit the response to perfection.
Doing an interview regarding a wide and complex matters and being put on the spot over and over, that is very hard. Very few people on this forum would be able to do it even remotely as well and I think that a certain acknowledgment is in order.
Although that is a very rare phenomena on TL and the internet in general.
Probably I have expressed myself badly. I'm not playing the "a-ha! Gotcha, you didn't talk about this issue!" game, I'm saying that the game has some major issues that he should know about (since he calims to read TL threads I'm pretty sure he knows about, for example, the recent Morrow's post), but he never address them. Because he doesn't even see them as a problem, unlike many other users. Or he doesn't WANT to treat them as a problem, because redoing something related to the game design would be too hard. The good thing about HoTS it's that now people can try the beta while having the current WoL meta in mind unlike with the SC2 launch, so there shouldn't be anymore of those issues. The old one stay: mothership and infestor may be changed (still putting a "?") because we're not come to the result, the sentry stays that way. It's not minor nitpicking, at least imo: the sentry it's the death of every solid play from a P opponent, and afaik he never considered it a problem.
Gotta love this new attitude of theirs. I'm really hyped about being able to see exactly what they have planned. Their methodology looks good, and I'm interested to see how some of these proposed changes pan out. I just hope that they are properly willing to reconsider Zerg's ability to handle the Immo/Sentry all-in, because I think that's very nearly reached 1/1/1 levels of problematic (I can say with a straight face that it's the best way to PvZ at present).
haha, i remember the interview where he was asked if they would see the problem that ZvP would late game rest only on the motherships and the Zergs attempt to neural it vs Archon toilet, and even though nearly every ZvP in europe would go that way he said that they didn't know and didn't think of it as a problem, that it was just a gimmick rarely ever used.
On November 20 2012 16:30 lichter wrote: Oh, for the medivac they should give them a 150/150 researchable ability that allows medivacs to drop all its load simultaneously. Give this ability a cool down (so that medivac micro isn't too easy) and a different hotkey so that moving drops and individual drops are still the default.
That would be ridiculous.
Double medi drop late game with 3/3 marines/marauders vs Z or P. Research said ability. Insta drop a base, snipe nexus/hatch/tech/ then leave.
Repeat as needed.
Part of what allows drop defense to be possible is the delay in units coming out.
Hahahaha mutas chasing down 2 medivacs that just left the base from harass. Both of them instantly drop 16 stimmed marines to insta kill the flock <3
That would be the most broken change EVERRRRRRRRRRRRR
It all sounds good accept losing my favorite abilitie , nueral parastie =[ =[ We love neural it such a exciting abilitie, just make it not work against mothership and everything will be good!
I dont know what to make of his comments on foreigner terran vs korean terran. When korean terrans dominated so hard some people were saying that the korean terrans have learnt to master their race faster and there are just alot of very good players who happen to play terran, and that terran rewards micro and innovation. Some balance issues were obviously legit but balance wasnt the main reason. The majority of the community, aswell as blizzard, seemed to think this was nonsense and terrans were dominating purely because of imbalance. Now Dustin is coming out and saying that korean terrans are on a different level and foreigner terrans suffering is a "cultural" thing. Im afraid blizzard actually purposely over nerfed terran directly and indirectly to adress korean terrans dominating, not to purely adress imbalance. Now its like they are afraid of these korean terrans and their skill so they are reluctant to adress actual imbalance issues terrans are suffering from.
For that psionic thing to work, they need to remove the keyword from the Warp Prism, minimum. Also, it'd make sense from a gameplay standpoint (if not from a lore standpoint) to make the Raven psionic, so fungal basically ignores all casters, plus the weirdness that is DTs and archons (which really should have psionic removed as well, but then you can't snipe DTs, argh). This interestingly also makes Banshees the only cloaked unit you can snag with fungal now.
Honestly, it'd be cleaner from a balance standpoint to just make a new keyword like "caster" and make fungal not affect casters (literally), if that's their primary aim. Or maybe something less magicky, like "specialist". It's not as lore-charged, but that's a double-edged sword.
On November 20 2012 16:30 lichter wrote: Oh, for the medivac they should give them a 150/150 researchable ability that allows medivacs to drop all its load simultaneously. Give this ability a cool down (so that medivac micro isn't too easy) and a different hotkey so that moving drops and individual drops are still the default.
That would be ridiculous.
Double medi drop late game with 3/3 marines/marauders vs Z or P. Research said ability. Insta drop a base, snipe nexus/hatch/tech/ then leave.
Repeat as needed.
Part of what allows drop defense to be possible is the delay in units coming out.
Hahahaha mutas chasing down 2 medivacs that just left the base from harass. Both of them instantly drop 16 stimmed marines to insta kill the flock <3
That would be the most broken change EVERRRRRRRRRRRRR
Hmm... maybe it WOULD be acceptable if it cost energy. Like, 150 energy. There was another ability that allowed you to instantly put a ton of units into the enemy base that cost 150 energy... what was it again?
RIP Arbiter, but you get my point. Energy cost can make it balanced, because it means you can't do it constantly, and it lowers the Medivac's ability to heal.
On November 20 2012 16:05 Snake.69 wrote: How in hell can we stop immortal sentry all in if sentries are immune to fungal? ....
Unless by "we" you mean the top zerg in the world, who cares? Watch this season's GSL before commenting that that push is so difficult to hold. The top level zergs have generally been stopping that push more than they're losing to it.
On November 21 2012 00:19 Fjodorov wrote: I dont know what to make of his comments on foreigner terran vs korean terran. When korean terrans dominated so hard some people were saying that the korean terrans have learnt to master their race faster and there are just alot of very good players who happen to play terran, and that terran rewards micro and innovation. Some balance issues were obviously legit but balance wasnt the main reason. The majority of the community, aswell as blizzard, seemed to think this was nonsense and terrans were dominating purely because of imbalance. Now Dustin is coming out and saying that korean terrans are on a different level and foreigner terrans suffering is a "cultural" thing. Im afraid blizzard actually purposely over nerfed terran directly and indirectly to adress korean terrans dominating, not to purely adress imbalance. Now its like they are afraid of these korean terrans and their skill so they are reluctant to adress actual imbalance issues terrans are suffering from.
I'm afraid that if the problem you're having as a player is that other people are making your race seem overpowered and you can't play to their standards, then the only solution that's acceptable is "L2P". What I think happened is that Terran was a little overnerfed on the Korean level, and that this has caused problems throughout the scene. But really, European Terrans do need to step up their game, because the Koreans just make them look silly with maybe one or two exceptions. But saying that GOMTVT was acceptable is as bad as saying our current GOMZVZ is acceptable. Neither are healthy, and I'll be happy to see the back of them.
On November 20 2012 16:05 Snake.69 wrote: How in hell can we stop immortal sentry all in if sentries are immune to fungal? ....
Unless by "we" you mean the top zerg in the world, who cares? Watch this season's GSL before commenting that that push is so difficult to hold. The top level zergs have generally been stopping that push more than they're losing to it.
Parting's Immo/Sentry has been getting better and better as he's been improving his control. He may not yet have the perfect all-in, but he's getting close.
On November 20 2012 21:10 aTnClouD wrote: What Dustin Browder and David Kim fail to realize (and I can see this from every interview they release such as this one) is that it's also important to balance the difficulty of the game for every race, not just the balance at the very top level (which is constantly changing anyway). If you manage to get all the races close to the same execution and strategical difficulty then the better players will always shine more and the games will naturally be more interesting to watch.
Hmm... You have been missing some of their Blue Posts/Interviews then. They have specifically said they want to add more Micro to Protoss and Zerg in HotS, and give Terran more easier to units that don't require as much micro. I.E. they want to increase the skill required for Zerg and Protoss, and not increase it (as much) for Terran. We see this with the Oracle (as well as Stargate play being stronger in general with the MSC, because we can all agree it is much more apm intensive than Robo play), we see this with the Viper, and more than anything else we see this with the Widow Mine. That unit requires a lot more micro/multitask to deal with then to use, in most situations. We also see this a bit with the Hellbat.
I don't think they want to come out and say "Terran is harder to play than Zerg or Protoss right now", even if they believe this is true in many situations. Although I'm sure it would make you and other (mostly foreign) Pro Terrans feel like Blizz understands your frustration, you must admit it would lead to a lot of negativity in general with the community if they so blatantly said this. They have implied it, and are working to solve it, and I think that's enough (I know, easy for me to say as someone whose living doesn't rely on these kinds of issues).
That said, I don't envy their position. Balancing not only the game but also the skill required for each race is a nightmare. It's not like BW where a lot of the skill required was built into the game itself, not completely defined by each races unique macro-mechanics and units like in SC2.
That was actually a really good interview. In depth questions and Browder, while obviously being somewhat careful, gave some genuine insight into his thought processes.
Not entirely convinced on some of his answers, but then that would be expecting vastly too much.
On November 21 2012 00:53 ZjiublingZ wrote: That said, I don't envy their position. Balancing not only the game but also the skill required for each race is a nightmare. It's not like BW where a lot of the skill required was built into the game itself, not completely defined by each races unique macro-mechanics and units like in SC2.
That's actually a really interesting point that I haven't seen before about BW/SC2 differences. Kudos.
On November 20 2012 16:05 Snake.69 wrote: How in hell can we stop immortal sentry all in if sentries are immune to fungal? ....
Unless by "we" you mean the top zerg in the world, who cares? Watch this season's GSL before commenting that that push is so difficult to hold. The top level zergs have generally been stopping that push more than they're losing to it.
Parting's Immo/Sentry has been getting better and better as he's been improving his control. He may not yet have the perfect all-in, but he's getting close.
Yet in this GSL he didn't use it all that much, which must mean he considers his changes of winning with it lower than if he were to hit a good 3 base pre-hive timing. Wonwonwon seems to be over its peak already in Korea, otherwise everyone would be doing it every game, like the good old 1/1/1.
In WCS he used it mainly against foreigners, explaining that if its hard to stop for koreans, foreigners aren't going to be able to. Rolling Sen or Scarlett with it, as good as they are, is not indicative of PvZ at the highest level. The WCS mappool helped too tho.
I think this is a better aproach: - Fungal is a proyectil but is fast (~0.3s) - Fungal slows 50% With the proyectil some units will escape and with the slow the enemy can separate units so some units are able to escape from chain fungal.
I wish Blizzard made it so units that have been fungaled can't be fungaled again for another 5+ seconds AND fungal is a slow. That way there is no stacking and not another projectile spell in SC2...
On November 20 2012 16:05 Snake.69 wrote: How in hell can we stop immortal sentry all in if sentries are immune to fungal? ....
Unless by "we" you mean the top zerg in the world, who cares? Watch this season's GSL before commenting that that push is so difficult to hold. The top level zergs have generally been stopping that push more than they're losing to it.
Parting's Immo/Sentry has been getting better and better as he's been improving his control. He may not yet have the perfect all-in, but he's getting close.
Yet in this GSL he didn't use it all that much, which must mean he considers his changes of winning with it lower than if he were to hit a good 3 base pre-hive timing. Wonwonwon seems to be over its peak already in Korea, otherwise everyone would be doing it every game, like the good old 1/1/1.
In WCS he used it mainly against foreigners, explaining that if its hard to stop for koreans, foreigners aren't going to be able to. Rolling Sen or Scarlett with it, as good as they are, is not indicative of PvZ at the highest level. The WCS mappool helped too tho.
It's also worth noting that he won the tournament he all-inned, and lost the tournament he didn't. It's impossible to say anything conclusive from this, but I think that the build isn't past its prime. Parting may be overestimating the competition.
On November 20 2012 16:05 Snake.69 wrote: How in hell can we stop immortal sentry all in if sentries are immune to fungal? ....
Unless by "we" you mean the top zerg in the world, who cares? Watch this season's GSL before commenting that that push is so difficult to hold. The top level zergs have generally been stopping that push more than they're losing to it.
Parting's Immo/Sentry has been getting better and better as he's been improving his control. He may not yet have the perfect all-in, but he's getting close.
Yet in this GSL he didn't use it all that much, which must mean he considers his changes of winning with it lower than if he were to hit a good 3 base pre-hive timing. Wonwonwon seems to be over its peak already in Korea, otherwise everyone would be doing it every game, like the good old 1/1/1.
In WCS he used it mainly against foreigners, explaining that if its hard to stop for koreans, foreigners aren't going to be able to. Rolling Sen or Scarlett with it, as good as they are, is not indicative of PvZ at the highest level. The WCS mappool helped too tho.
It's also worth noting that he won the tournament he all-inned, and lost the tournament he didn't. It's impossible to say anything conclusive from this, but I think that the build isn't past its prime. Parting may be overestimating the competition.
His Korean practice partners probably beat it regularly.
On November 20 2012 16:05 Snake.69 wrote: How in hell can we stop immortal sentry all in if sentries are immune to fungal? ....
Unless by "we" you mean the top zerg in the world, who cares? Watch this season's GSL before commenting that that push is so difficult to hold. The top level zergs have generally been stopping that push more than they're losing to it.
Parting's Immo/Sentry has been getting better and better as he's been improving his control. He may not yet have the perfect all-in, but he's getting close.
Yet in this GSL he didn't use it all that much, which must mean he considers his changes of winning with it lower than if he were to hit a good 3 base pre-hive timing. Wonwonwon seems to be over its peak already in Korea, otherwise everyone would be doing it every game, like the good old 1/1/1.
In WCS he used it mainly against foreigners, explaining that if its hard to stop for koreans, foreigners aren't going to be able to. Rolling Sen or Scarlett with it, as good as they are, is not indicative of PvZ at the highest level. The WCS mappool helped too tho.
It's also worth noting that he won the tournament he all-inned, and lost the tournament he didn't. It's impossible to say anything conclusive from this, but I think that the build isn't past its prime. Parting may be overestimating the competition.
His Korean practice partners probably beat it regularly.
The last official word we had of it was that he'd played dozens of games and lost none. My guess is that he was expecting that people would overprepare for it or maybe figure out some magical counter, and he would be able to abuse that by not all-inning. Whatever his plan was, it didn't pan out.
I think its great that they are waiting for bigger sample sizes of games for nerfs. If only they had done that in the past with thor strike cannon. I feel like they saw thorzain use it vs nony/mc during tsl3 and just decided to nerf it right away. They should just bring it back to what it was during tsl3.
On November 20 2012 16:05 arcane1129 wrote: Infestors wouldn't be able to fungal archons, sentries, warp prisms, and DTs? I'm fine with say ghosts and high templars being immune but those 4 in particular would suck for zerg players...
You mean zerg would have to adapt and not just make infestors, and on top of it all, has to have detection at every base in lategame? BLASPHEMY!
On November 20 2012 22:22 Zelniq wrote: neural is a really funky and extremely tough to balance spell, I'm glad they may get rid of it. I was thinking maybe replacing it with some kind of pure support ability like casting something that gives a temporary speed boost to a group of your units. I'm thinking overlords/ultras/hydras/swarm hosts mainly here (overlords so they can actually possibly reach a retreating army to bomb them), just to name a few of the many possible uses, although sped-up banelings may be a little too strong, perhaps it would give banelings that are off of creep the same speed as if they were on creep, and unchange the speed if they are already on creep. I like how many potential tactical maneuvers could be discovered for it.. I bet people could get really creative with it.
Dustin I think didn't realize one major change that would happen as a result of changing Fungal from a root to a slow, is that right now if you get fungaled once, you can keep chaining fungals on same group of units till they're dead and there's not really anything the defender can do about it. With a slow, at least you could slowly split some of them away so they can't be refungaled again and again so easily.
Cool idea about the support type spell. I'm struggling to think of any "blessing type" spell that actually have both a direct offensive purpose and a lasting effect on other units. Guardian shield is sort of like that but it only mitigates damage it does not increase it. Stim also kind of falls into that category although the drawback is a pretty significant hit to health.
On November 21 2012 01:45 wangstra wrote: "Thinks Corruptors are a bigger problem vs Carriers rather than Infestors"
While corruptors do take down carriers really quickly, creator's gsl game today showcases why with enough infestors, it doesn't matter.
Carriers would be very strong against Zerg if it weren't for Corruptors. If there were no Corruptors to chase down and kill Carriers, then it would be possible to split them up into task squads of a few Carriers and maybe a couple of Colossi or a Speed Prism with HTs. That gets much harder for Zerg to deal with. Hell, even if you maintain the one army, Carrier splitting starts to yield amazing results (instead of providing easy targets).
On November 20 2012 16:05 arcane1129 wrote: Infestors wouldn't be able to fungal archons, sentries, warp prisms, and DTs? I'm fine with say ghosts and high templars being immune but those 4 in particular would suck for zerg players...
You mean zerg would have to adapt and not just make infestors, and on top of it all, has to have detection at every base in lategame? BLASPHEMY!
I am still waiting for my all HT build to become standard. You just macro up to three bases as a protoss, build only zealots, then BANG, HTs into mass carriers for victory. #terribleplan
On November 21 2012 02:03 StreaK wrote: how about a dmatrix spell on the medivacs that requires like fcore for upgrade?
They just need a similar upgrade at the late game, like one that lets them drop all their units at once, rather than one at a time(just like pick up). It could also let them pick up deployed tanks and drop them while deployed. Give Marine king the ability to show us how to micro some mech.
On November 20 2012 16:05 Snake.69 wrote: How in hell can we stop immortal sentry all in if sentries are immune to fungal? ....
Unless by "we" you mean the top zerg in the world, who cares? Watch this season's GSL before commenting that that push is so difficult to hold. The top level zergs have generally been stopping that push more than they're losing to it.
Parting's Immo/Sentry has been getting better and better as he's been improving his control. He may not yet have the perfect all-in, but he's getting close.
Parting was curb stomped by Sniper trying that build and every single immortal sentry push has failed in this GSL except for a prolonged one by Seed if I'm not mistaken. Just today the best or second best protoss in the world was embarrassed when he tried that push. The best Zerg do not seem to be losing to that build very often. The best zergs have more or less "solved" it where "solving" it means that if you scout it you should generally beat it. If you or some random GM zerg in EU or NA has trouble beating it, who cares? I certainly hope that Blizzard does not.
On November 20 2012 16:05 Snake.69 wrote: How in hell can we stop immortal sentry all in if sentries are immune to fungal? ....
Unless by "we" you mean the top zerg in the world, who cares? Watch this season's GSL before commenting that that push is so difficult to hold. The top level zergs have generally been stopping that push more than they're losing to it.
Parting's Immo/Sentry has been getting better and better as he's been improving his control. He may not yet have the perfect all-in, but he's getting close.
Parting was curb stomped by Sniper trying that build and every single immortal sentry push has failed in this GSL except for a prolonged one by Seed if I'm not mistaken. Just today the best or second best protoss in the world was embarrassed when he tried that push. The best Zerg do not seem to be losing to that build very often. The best zergs have more or less "solved" it where "solving" it means that if you scout it you should generally beat it. If you or some random GM zerg in EU or NA has trouble beating it, who cares? I certainly hope that Blizzard does not.
I"ve seen many times protoss beat zerg in late game (infestor broodlord), didnt you? It's possible, so who cares? I hope blizzard does not... Doesn't that sound familiar?
On November 20 2012 16:05 Snake.69 wrote: How in hell can we stop immortal sentry all in if sentries are immune to fungal? ....
Unless by "we" you mean the top zerg in the world, who cares? Watch this season's GSL before commenting that that push is so difficult to hold. The top level zergs have generally been stopping that push more than they're losing to it.
Parting's Immo/Sentry has been getting better and better as he's been improving his control. He may not yet have the perfect all-in, but he's getting close.
Parting was curb stomped by Sniper trying that build and every single immortal sentry push has failed in this GSL except for a prolonged one by Seed if I'm not mistaken. Just today the best or second best protoss in the world was embarrassed when he tried that push. The best Zerg do not seem to be losing to that build very often. The best zergs have more or less "solved" it where "solving" it means that if you scout it you should generally beat it. If you or some random GM zerg in EU or NA has trouble beating it, who cares? I certainly hope that Blizzard does not.
Agreed, it is a build that takes advantage of the current meta game of rushing to BL or mass roaches, which is what every NA and EU player does. It may be shocking, but Korean zergs many know a few more openings that are less prone to this specific all in. Its not like there is any protoss at Parting's level in NA.
So in short, it was the players not the game. Parting came to BWC saying "I have seen your NA and EU ways and I have cooked up something special for you. You will love it. It will rock the very fiber of your being and make you wonder how you ever got to China."
On November 20 2012 16:05 Snake.69 wrote: How in hell can we stop immortal sentry all in if sentries are immune to fungal? ....
Unless by "we" you mean the top zerg in the world, who cares? Watch this season's GSL before commenting that that push is so difficult to hold. The top level zergs have generally been stopping that push more than they're losing to it.
Parting's Immo/Sentry has been getting better and better as he's been improving his control. He may not yet have the perfect all-in, but he's getting close.
Parting was curb stomped by Sniper trying that build and every single immortal sentry push has failed in this GSL except for a prolonged one by Seed if I'm not mistaken. Just today the best or second best protoss in the world was embarrassed when he tried that push. The best Zerg do not seem to be losing to that build very often. The best zergs have more or less "solved" it where "solving" it means that if you scout it you should generally beat it. If you or some random GM zerg in EU or NA has trouble beating it, who cares? I certainly hope that Blizzard does not.
The best players werent losing to 1/1/1 either when they patched.
Immortal sentry all-in isn't really OP. Refer to Suppy vs Parting game 1 in which this is very much prepared for. I'd say the 3 base pre-hive timing is much stronger which Creator/Rain/Seed do really well.
On November 20 2012 16:05 Snake.69 wrote: How in hell can we stop immortal sentry all in if sentries are immune to fungal? ....
Unless by "we" you mean the top zerg in the world, who cares? Watch this season's GSL before commenting that that push is so difficult to hold. The top level zergs have generally been stopping that push more than they're losing to it.
Parting's Immo/Sentry has been getting better and better as he's been improving his control. He may not yet have the perfect all-in, but he's getting close.
Parting was curb stomped by Sniper trying that build and every single immortal sentry push has failed in this GSL except for a prolonged one by Seed if I'm not mistaken. Just today the best or second best protoss in the world was embarrassed when he tried that push. The best Zerg do not seem to be losing to that build very often. The best zergs have more or less "solved" it where "solving" it means that if you scout it you should generally beat it. If you or some random GM zerg in EU or NA has trouble beating it, who cares? I certainly hope that Blizzard does not.
The best players werent losing to 1/1/1 either when they patched.
The world is a better place with range 6 immortals. Range 5 immortals were just dumb and did not work in a stalker/sentry army.
On November 20 2012 16:05 Snake.69 wrote: How in hell can we stop immortal sentry all in if sentries are immune to fungal? ....
Unless by "we" you mean the top zerg in the world, who cares? Watch this season's GSL before commenting that that push is so difficult to hold. The top level zergs have generally been stopping that push more than they're losing to it.
Parting's Immo/Sentry has been getting better and better as he's been improving his control. He may not yet have the perfect all-in, but he's getting close.
Parting was curb stomped by Sniper trying that build and every single immortal sentry push has failed in this GSL except for a prolonged one by Seed if I'm not mistaken. Just today the best or second best protoss in the world was embarrassed when he tried that push. The best Zerg do not seem to be losing to that build very often. The best zergs have more or less "solved" it where "solving" it means that if you scout it you should generally beat it. If you or some random GM zerg in EU or NA has trouble beating it, who cares? I certainly hope that Blizzard does not.
I"ve seen many times protoss beat zerg in late game (infestor broodlord), didnt you? It's possible, so who cares? I hope blizzard does not... Doesn't that sound familiar?
I'm not sure I understand your post. The point of my post is that balance changes should be made based on the very best players, who do not with very, very few exceptions include any foreigners. The very best zergs are not having problems with the sentry-immortal push; thus there isn't a balance problem that Blizzard should go care about. I don't care at all whether Sen, Scarlett, Ret, etc. have problems with the push. Now you might think that those pushes aren't interesting, etc. and want a change for that reason, and I don't strenuously disagree if that's your point.
On November 20 2012 16:05 Snake.69 wrote: How in hell can we stop immortal sentry all in if sentries are immune to fungal? ....
Unless by "we" you mean the top zerg in the world, who cares? Watch this season's GSL before commenting that that push is so difficult to hold. The top level zergs have generally been stopping that push more than they're losing to it.
Parting's Immo/Sentry has been getting better and better as he's been improving his control. He may not yet have the perfect all-in, but he's getting close.
Parting was curb stomped by Sniper trying that build and every single immortal sentry push has failed in this GSL except for a prolonged one by Seed if I'm not mistaken. Just today the best or second best protoss in the world was embarrassed when he tried that push. The best Zerg do not seem to be losing to that build very often. The best zergs have more or less "solved" it where "solving" it means that if you scout it you should generally beat it. If you or some random GM zerg in EU or NA has trouble beating it, who cares? I certainly hope that Blizzard does not.
The best players werent losing to 1/1/1 either when they patched.
The world is a better place with range 6 immortals. Range 5 immortals were just dumb and did not work in a stalker/sentry army.
Not saying I am an expert or anything, but I was reading Sen's interview after WCS and he was saying he was very confident vs the Immortal-Sentry all-in. He just screwed up in games 2 and 3. Also was able to hold it off in game 1 but lost because of other mistakes
Love the idea of giving Ravens seeker missile immediately and chopping neural. I also completely agree that the difference between Koreans and foreigners is what causes Terrans to be such a Korean-heavy race, though it's sort of a hard thing to put your finger on
On November 21 2012 02:44 DavoS wrote: Love the idea of giving Ravens seeker missile immediately and chopping neural. I also completely agree that the difference between Koreans and foreigners is what causes Terrans to be such a Korean-heavy race, though it's sort of a hard thing to put your finger on
On November 20 2012 23:54 Shinespark wrote: Ghost can never be an answer to Infestor cause there's no way in hell it's getting anywhere near close enough to cast EMP on the infestors unless you have cloak and your opponent doesn't have detection, but if he doesn't then he deserves to lose anyway.
On November 21 2012 02:12 Bellazuk wrote: 1 GSL title 1 MLG Title for a Zerg, Blizzard go wild on nerfs. 14 Titles for T, just KR Terran so doesn't matter.
Your stats seem a little off to me there old chap.
On November 21 2012 02:44 DavoS wrote: Love the idea of giving Ravens seeker missile immediately and chopping neural. I also completely agree that the difference between Koreans and foreigners is what causes Terrans to be such a Korean-heavy race, though it's sort of a hard thing to put your finger on
It is a lot of things, but I think Koreans are far more willing to shamelessly all-in to crush their opponent. That sort of playstyle helps keep a lot of the greed that NA players are complaining about in check. If you look at BWC, Parting ripped through Zergs using a super refined all-in, which clearly took hundreds of hours of practice to prefect. The first thing that happens after his win, a 25 page thread started by a professional player about the problems with force fields.
Some Koreans may whine about balance, but the mind set that peopel talk about is simply: "When you lose, it is your fault."
On November 21 2012 02:44 DavoS wrote: Love the idea of giving Ravens seeker missile immediately and chopping neural. I also completely agree that the difference between Koreans and foreigners is what causes Terrans to be such a Korean-heavy race, though it's sort of a hard thing to put your finger on
It is a lot of things, but I think Koreans are far more willing to shamelessly all-in to crush their opponent. That sort of playstyle helps keep a lot of the greed that NA players are complaining about in check. If you look at BWC, Parting ripped through Zergs using a super refined all-in, which clearly took hundreds of hours of practice to prefect. The first thing that happens after his win, a 25 page thread started by a professional player about the problems with force fields.
Some Koreans may whine about balance, but the mind set that peopel talk about is simply: "When you lose, it is your fault."
I think it has more to do with the skill difference between Koreans and non-Koreans. Terran has the best harassment options and and a top quality player can really do amazing damage with the tools Terran has on offer while macroing flawlessly behind it all, may be difficult to perform but skilled guys playing full-time can erally get into it.
Would be nice if all the races had a similar difficulty level but sadly its not the case, best except it though as I think not alot is going to change in hots in this aspect.
On November 21 2012 02:12 Bellazuk wrote: 1 GSL title 1 MLG Title for a Zerg, Blizzard go wild on nerfs. 14 Titles for T, just KR Terran so doesn't matter.
Your stats seem a little off to me there old chap.
They were a little, but these are the states from the wiki (GSL Results): There are some very obvious issues with Z at the moment, but Zerg has performed less than both protoss and Terran over-all, Korean-Terrans netting mroe than double the amount of top-3 finishes than both zerg and Protoss.
On November 21 2012 03:19 Laneir wrote: Great inteview bro interesting to see what he says about sent immortal all in
I feel like if he thought he could nerf it he would. I mean what do you nerf to deal with sentry immortal all in exactly becaue each piece is sort of important in different parts of both that match up and other matchups.
On November 21 2012 02:44 DavoS wrote: Love the idea of giving Ravens seeker missile immediately and chopping neural. I also completely agree that the difference between Koreans and foreigners is what causes Terrans to be such a Korean-heavy race, though it's sort of a hard thing to put your finger on
Even korean terrans are losing now =/
Indeed with today's GSL results, yet another Terran gets knocked out of Code S!!!
On November 21 2012 02:12 Bellazuk wrote: 1 GSL title 1 MLG Title for a Zerg, Blizzard go wild on nerfs. 14 Titles for T, just KR Terran so doesn't matter.
More like a year of domination for both races overall. Open your damn eyes and remember we have 1 GSL in the time we had 3 before.
I also don't know if it's just that recently interviews are better, or dustin and david are aware of all the rage lately, and are trying to be more detailed and clear and informative in their answers
but anyways, really love how I feel like I'm getting much more "information"
Perhaps it's because recently the questions are more about the balance and design, rather than features like "when is X coming"
Anyways, awesome answers dustin, and thanks for the interview
i'm getting so hyped for the patch changes grrr lol
On November 21 2012 03:53 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Really great interviews
I also don't know if it's just that recently interviews are better, or dustin and david are aware of all the rage lately, and are trying to be more detailed and clear and informative in their answers
but anyways, really love how I feel like I'm getting much more "information"
Perhaps it's because recently the questions are more about the balance and design, rather than features like "when is X coming"
Anyways, awesome answers dustin, and thanks for the interview
i'm getting so hyped for the patch changes grrr lol
To be honest, I think the interviewers are just asking better questions. Props to monk.
On November 21 2012 02:12 Bellazuk wrote: 1 GSL title 1 MLG Title for a Zerg, Blizzard go wild on nerfs. 14 Titles for T, just KR Terran so doesn't matter.
Your stats seem a little off to me there old chap.
They were a little, but these are the states from the wiki (GSL Results): There are some very obvious issues with Z at the moment, but Zerg has performed less than both protoss and Terran over-all, Korean-Terrans netting mroe than double the amount of top-3 finishes than both zerg and Protoss.
You choosing to inlude 3rd and 4th place finishes is a bit arbitrary. But I guess if you want to make it look like P is doing better than Z then you'd do that. As P I'd argue that only 1st place finishes matter and that Z and T have been doing fine historically, but that'd you'd need to buff P lol.
Disclaimer: I'm not being serious, I'm rather saying these numbers don't say a lot. Meta game is changing so fast anyways, that it doesn't make much sense to look at numbers older than a season or so.
Awesome interview! This was the first time I'd seen monk. give an interview. Really enjoyed the specific questions and the pacing DB giving honest answers as always. Right?
On November 21 2012 02:44 DavoS wrote: Love the idea of giving Ravens seeker missile immediately and chopping neural. I also completely agree that the difference between Koreans and foreigners is what causes Terrans to be such a Korean-heavy race, though it's sort of a hard thing to put your finger on
Even korean terrans are losing now =/
Indeed with today's GSL results, yet another Terran gets knocked out of Code S!!!
And another goes through... because that's what happens in TvT
Awesome job on the interview, man. Really solid and knowledgeable. Mr Browder did a great job answering the questions in depth and being open to feedback, too. Overall awesome dialogue. One thing I hoped you would have asked him about in terms of design philosophy is the anti-micro nature of many units, and the lack of cool micro potential that currently exists, especially in new units like the Hellbat. I'd like to see that in a future interview.
Good stuff, I don't really like the part about mothership not being used in professional play. Every unit should be important for something in an RTS. Sure BW messed up on the scout but that doesn't mean it wasn't trying to fill a roll.
On November 21 2012 04:16 Confuse wrote: Good stuff, I don't really like the part about mothership not being used in professional play. Every unit should be important for something in an RTS. Sure BW messed up on the scout but that doesn't mean it wasn't trying to fill a roll.
I think they're probably exaggerating that a bit, it'll probably still have some intentional use.
On November 21 2012 02:44 DavoS wrote: Love the idea of giving Ravens seeker missile immediately and chopping neural. I also completely agree that the difference between Koreans and foreigners is what causes Terrans to be such a Korean-heavy race, though it's sort of a hard thing to put your finger on
It is a lot of things, but I think Koreans are far more willing to shamelessly all-in to crush their opponent. That sort of playstyle helps keep a lot of the greed that NA players are complaining about in check. If you look at BWC, Parting ripped through Zergs using a super refined all-in, which clearly took hundreds of hours of practice to prefect. The first thing that happens after his win, a 25 page thread started by a professional player about the problems with force fields.
Some Koreans may whine about balance, but the mind set that peopel talk about is simply: "When you lose, it is your fault."
I think it has more to do with the skill difference between Koreans and non-Koreans. Terran has the best harassment options and and a top quality player can really do amazing damage with the tools Terran has on offer while macroing flawlessly behind it all, may be difficult to perform but skilled guys playing full-time can erally get into it.
Would be nice if all the races had a similar difficulty level but sadly its not the case, best except it though as I think not alot is going to change in hots in this aspect.
You are further feeding into the argument that NA and EU players are more likely to blame the game, rather than use all means to win any game. Claiming the other races are easier and you are crippled by the difficult of your race is not a very good reason for why you lost a game. It holds you back.
when i watch these interviews i feel sad as a terran player,
"it is what it is"
if they had had that attitude during P or Z dark ages, the community would have gone apeshit on him.. but it's terran, so "it is what it is"
i wonder if when they ask themselves, "could this player have played better?" if they are considering times when ST Life donating free infestors to missile turrets/bunkers and winning the game by a huge margin or zerg player just losing tons of drones and tech structure to warp prism harass. yes, everyone can always play better. it is stupid to balance based on this rationale because better is a relative term and their perception will always be flawed .
sc2 is an impossible videogame to master, to balance it based on "could they have played better?" give you justification to not make any changes ever. Everyone could have played better in every single game they have ever played. that is just the nature of sc2. were they asking themselves this question when terrans were trading hellions for drones pre queen patch? or did they just see that and think "man that's really cheesy" and nerf it.
sorry for the QQ TL community, i just can't stand most of the stuff this guy says. there is a reason we have a stale metagame and it is this man right here
Props to Monk, great interview. I really like Dustin Browder, you get a sense that he's in touch with concerns and just really cares. Sure he isn't perfect, but I think he deserves a lot more credit from his naysayers.
Hey i thought about fungal growth a little bit and came to the conclusion that a counter spell would be a fun way to deal with it. Something like dispel (i.e. dispelling roots, exploding wisp, etc) in Warcraft. Of course many people here may not like warcraft but it created these exciting back and forth situations.
This would also incorporate more depth and skill into the game. Players would need to position the dispelling unit before the fight correctly. This makes hit and run tactics more viable. Imagine ghost emp to dispel fungal. The ghost would have another use instead of only sniping and emp'ing the infestor directly. It makes for a slightly less extreme balance solution as units would get damaged but would't die instantly all the time while infestors would stay alive all together (zerg is not damaged directly. They'd only lose energy).
Give the high templar something similar and we have a reason to build these casters more (ghosts, HT's, ...). HT's also fulfill the role to provide aoe damage vs zerg.
I don't know if this idea is terrible but it still could be adjusted easily. Make it an upgrade. Make it gas heavy. I dont know. HT's and Ghost already are expensive. You could also give a spell like this to a new protoss unit in Hots...
In my opinion it could be a good solution to these fail/win situations.
Browder doesn't get why slow instead of root would help. He seems to assume that the benfit would be to run away very slowly, which I agree would be pointless. The major benefit would be to split just enough so that your units can't be chain fungled. Or perhaps move back just enough that you are covered by the rest of your army.
so many of these ideas rub me the wrong way. why remove tools? it just strikes me as a really dumb shortsighted idea to just pull things out of the game like neural and essentially the mothership instead of continuing to work with their balance and tweak their mechanics. i'm afraid they're gonna end up boxing the game into a corner.
On November 21 2012 04:45 Willzzz wrote: Browder doesn't get why slow instead of root would help. He seems to assume that the benfit would be to run away very slowly, which I agree would be pointless. The major benefit would be to split just enough so that your units can't be chain fungled. Or perhaps move back just enough that you are covered by the rest of your army.
he doesn't get it because he doesn't want to get it blizzard has demonstrated for a while now that they have a very specific vision of how this game should be played and they tend to not be willing to change things that would mess with that.
These possible changes make for an interesting read. The psionic change for fungle and making it a projectile might change a lot. We will probably see more changes for terran soon.
On November 21 2012 04:49 Doc Daneeka wrote: so many of these ideas rub me the wrong way. why remove tools? it just strikes me as a really dumb shortsighted idea to just pull things out of the game like neural and essentially the mothership instead of continuing to work with their balance and tweak their mechanics. i'm afraid they're gonna end up boxing the game into a corner.
i'm sure if they remove neural they'll add something to replace it.
I've just started watching SC2 games again starting with the VODS from the latest MLG and God are ZvX games horrible...Leenok Bomber stands out with 40 Infestors at one point. I hope they fix Infestors ASAP, the game has never been worse to watch.
im thinking it's time for the community to use the editor and create our own WOL. i see all of these changes making very little difference and creating a metric crap ton of unintended balance consequences
I did not watch the entire interview however i looked at their ideas and i find none to be terrible to start redisigning the flaws in this game i find dustin browders view quite skewed in the first 3-5 minutes of the interview when he says mvp is only 3-5% better then other people i disagree completely i think not jet lag ect leading to upsets i think this game is extremely more luck dependent then broodwar due to how you control stuff also as it being imbalanced imo in certain matchups (tvz) its almost as if he enjoys this luck factor which as a spectator isnt that bad but a designing point of view i think their mindset is extremely flawed also when you take a econmic risk in this game its generally rewarded WAY more then BW due to having extra mule for CC extra chrono on probes for extra nexus and extra injects for a hatch WHY add so much capabilitys to the main buildings so that unscouted you get extremely ahead quicker which leads to needing MORE precise scouting= leading to more luck due to not 100% perfect scouting which is somewhat players fault but at certain parts in the game its literally impossible to scout and see anything if opponents are not even good just compatent its simple flaws like this that lead the game to become way more luck imo and thats why you see worse players winning due to incorrect blind builds which i think are magnified more in sc2 then BW which leads way worse players having the possibility of winning
(dont mean to say this is the only flaw in the game just showing a example of one of the many failed ideas that blizzard implemented into sc2 and wont even bring up changing just furthering proof that they have no clue how to actuelly balance a game they literally just add units and say this looks cool or this ability seems nice then not listen to the people with way more gametime played)
dustin browder himself said for the first 10-15 minutes he can play at a pro level? WTF someone with this clouded of a mind should not be in the position he is today not saying its all his fault but clearly he does a poor job
If there wasn't such a unit like the Mothership that can win a game with a single cast of a single spell, then stealing it wouldn't become a problem. I don't understand why they want to get rid of Neural.
On November 21 2012 04:49 Doc Daneeka wrote: so many of these ideas rub me the wrong way. why remove tools? it just strikes me as a really dumb shortsighted idea to just pull things out of the game like neural and essentially the mothership instead of continuing to work with their balance and tweak their mechanics. i'm afraid they're gonna end up boxing the game into a corner.
i'm sure if they remove neural they'll add something to replace it.
maybe, and i'll reserve judgement on that for when they actually attempt to replace/remove it.... but just given what we have to work with now (as in, not trying to speculate what they might replace it with) it sounds like a bad idea to me.
about the mothership, here's an idea: if you don't want a unit used in competitive play, don't put it in multiplayer. also HotS is being balanced with the mothership core as a major part of it, and they're making stargate play more appealing, so they're basically asking for the mothership proper to be used. it'll be within reach far far more often that it was in the earlier stages of WoL. it sounds like he hasn't thought this out very well. i'm also personally convinced the mothership has the potential to be, in the long run (as in years down the road - we DO want this game to have a long lifespan, correct?) a very viable part of late and super late game play and part of what will drastically differentiate the experience of playing protoss from the other two races, but if and only if blizzard goes forward with the expectation that the unit will be used.
unfortunately for this game, it's all about keeping the tournament scene alive RIGHT NOW, and so the bottom line is balancing win rates. that just is what it is but i think it's hurting the game in the long run, particularly when i hear them say stuff like this.
I watched the entire interview, or should I call it a discussion about ZVP.... I mean if you are terran this interview is almost worthless, except to say that we are so diverse and if we don't show in big numbers in tournaments it must be jet lag. And the changes he did mention for terrans are seeker missle wont need research "but that won't change anything" and 250mm cannon might be changed. In a 32min interview, it was 30 mins of P and Z discussion and then 2 minutes to say terrans are getting shit basically. If Dustin thinks terrans are even close to excited for HOTS or happy with the current state of WoL then I give up. Terran is not more diverse, how so? Right now our builds are focused on tier 1 and 1.5, maybe some tier 2 peppered in there. Raven = worthless, BC = worthless, Ghost = worthless vs Z and not great vs feedback, banshee = worthless past 8 min, Thor = worthless except maybe against mutas in tvz mech. How is it possible that this how he sees it. Clearly he hasn't built any of the units i described and had one feedback take a massive of amount of health off a thor. I could go on and on, I will just say if you are terran dont watch this interview or buy hots. HOTS for terran is basically the same units as WOL but more shit to deal with from the other races. Worthless these people are.
All I heard in this interview is that Zerg op Zerg op Zerg op and that's bull crap the zerg isn't op I feel its under powered because of what other races can do and if other races weren't so dumb. And clump units together and make them fungal able of the mother ship neural situation not send their mother ship to the front of their army the mother ship has more range then neural and goes automatically and neural has a delay so all this crap about changing the infestor is bull crap for the first time scence the beta we have a unit that sustains equality between the game and Zerg players shouldn't be punished for finding out this unit that is what we need and have to use to win cause if you look at most games we do not use infestors we auto lose against death ball bio tank and the most bull shit composition mass air for Protoss with mother ship and storms is stead of looking at the Zerg and blaming the Zerg you should be look at Zerg players and loving them because unlike the other races the found a unit that is the best in their race and use it so instead of changeling them other races shouldn't be dumb asses and have their unit be fungalable because you should know Zerg is going infestors and if they aren't usually it's baneling lung muta so please stop just saying Zerg op Zerg op this needs to be changed no it doesn't need to be changed you need to change and play better
Terran getting a shit deal, but about half the discussion is about the infestor, I hope they make the change that psionic units are not affected by fungal, or at least if they are they could move, dealing with a large number of infestor is insanely stupid. Keep the neural I dont care, not a toss. Infestor broodlord needs an answer and it should come soon.
On November 21 2012 05:17 paradiset16 wrote: All I heard in this interview is that Zerg op Zerg op Zerg op and that's bull crap the zerg isn't op I feel its under powered because of what other races can do and if other races weren't so dumb. And clump units together and make them fungal able of the mother ship neural situation not send their mother ship to the front of their army the mother ship has more range then neural and goes automatically and neural has a delay so all this crap about changing the infestor is bull crap for the first time scence the beta we have a unit that sustains equality between the game and Zerg players shouldn't be punished for finding out this unit that is what we need and have to use to win cause if you look at most games we do not use infestors we auto lose against death ball bio tank and the most bull shit composition mass air for Protoss with mother ship and storms is stead of looking at the Zerg and blaming the Zerg you should be look at Zerg players and loving them because unlike the other races the found a unit that is the best in their race and use it so instead of changeling them other races shouldn't be dumb asses and have their unit be fungalable because you should know Zerg is going infestors and if they aren't usually it's baneling lung muta so please stop just saying Zerg op Zerg op this needs to be changed no it doesn't need to be changed you need to change and play better
If all the other races are so dumb, maybe you could enlighten us about how we can fight the infestor better? I think you would be surprised if you tried playing terran and protoss for a game or 20 each.
On a different note I think some puctuation would do your text good!
yes please paradise, tell us what the koreans practicing for 8 hours per day missed. i'm sure your insight as a zerg player will be more valuable than these professional players who can play at GM level as random..
On November 21 2012 05:17 paradiset16 wrote: All I heard in this interview is that Zerg op Zerg op Zerg op and that's bull crap the zerg isn't op I feel its under powered because of what other races can do and if other races weren't so dumb. And clump units together and make them fungal able of the mother ship neural situation not send their mother ship to the front of their army the mother ship has more range then neural and goes automatically and neural has a delay so all this crap about changing the infestor is bull crap for the first time scence the beta we have a unit that sustains equality between the game and Zerg players shouldn't be punished for finding out this unit that is what we need and have to use to win cause if you look at most games we do not use infestors we auto lose against death ball bio tank and the most bull shit composition mass air for Protoss with mother ship and storms is stead of looking at the Zerg and blaming the Zerg you should be look at Zerg players and loving them because unlike the other races the found a unit that is the best in their race and use it so instead of changeling them other races shouldn't be dumb asses and have their unit be fungalable because you should know Zerg is going infestors and if they aren't usually it's baneling lung muta so please stop just saying Zerg op Zerg op this needs to be changed no it doesn't need to be changed you need to change and play better
So when all your infestors get emped because there in a big clump when new patch hits can we say lol your bad split infestors noob? wtf zerg INTIRE RACE OF PLAYERS SUCK OMG instead of saying how great you and other zergs are open your mind to the REAL game if you cant see whats going on then you should be forced to play TVZ until your eyes bleed
paradiset16, if you could also pick up a copy of Elements of Style before responding, that would be great. Just focus on the section about complete sentences and we should be in the clear.
I also want to hear how other races are dumb. Explain to me how you know more than Grubby, I want to hear this.
On November 20 2012 16:30 lichter wrote: Oh, for the medivac they should give them a 150/150 researchable ability that allows medivacs to drop all its load simultaneously. Give this ability a cool down (so that medivac micro isn't too easy) and a different hotkey so that moving drops and individual drops are still the default.
So zerg has to react even faster cause 8 marines fall out instantly stim killed 5-6 drones multi prong drops would be even more deadly 1 at a time is manageable for both sides .
i dunno why it's necessary to buff medivacs just because drop play isn't as fashionable or meta as it was awhile ago. they're already pretty nuts. i mean maybe, but it's not the first thing i'd think of when brainstorming ways to change the game for sure.
On November 20 2012 16:30 lichter wrote: Oh, for the medivac they should give them a 150/150 researchable ability that allows medivacs to drop all its load simultaneously. Give this ability a cool down (so that medivac micro isn't too easy) and a different hotkey so that moving drops and individual drops are still the default.
That would be ridiculous.
Double medi drop late game with 3/3 marines/marauders vs Z or P. Research said ability. Insta drop a base, snipe nexus/hatch/tech/ then leave.
Repeat as needed.
Part of what allows drop defense to be possible is the delay in units coming out.
Hahahaha mutas chasing down 2 medivacs that just left the base from harass. Both of them instantly drop 16 stimmed marines to insta kill the flock <3
That would be the most broken change EVERRRRRRRRRRRRR
Hmm... maybe it WOULD be acceptable if it cost energy. Like, 150 energy. There was another ability that allowed you to instantly put a ton of units into the enemy base that cost 150 energy... what was it again?
RIP Arbiter, but you get my point. Energy cost can make it balanced, because it means you can't do it constantly, and it lowers the Medivac's ability to heal.
Nope. Maybe making it unloading 2 units per "drop" instead of 1 would be interesting, but not needed.
On November 21 2012 04:41 Mczeppo wrote: Hey i thought about fungal growth a little bit and came to the conclusion that a counter spell would be a fun way to deal with it. Something like dispel (i.e. dispelling roots, exploding wisp, etc) in Warcraft. Of course many people here may not like warcraft but it created these exciting back and forth situations.
This would also incorporate more depth and skill into the game. Players would need to position the dispelling unit before the fight correctly. This makes hit and run tactics more viable. Imagine ghost emp to dispel fungal. The ghost would have another use instead of only sniping and emp'ing the infestor directly. It makes for a slightly less extreme balance solution as units would get damaged but would't die instantly all the time while infestors would stay alive all together (zerg is not damaged directly. They'd only lose energy).
Give the high templar something similar and we have a reason to build these casters more (ghosts, HT's, ...). HT's also fulfill the role to provide aoe damage vs zerg.
I don't know if this idea is terrible but it still could be adjusted easily. Make it an upgrade. Make it gas heavy. I dont know. HT's and Ghost already are expensive. You could also give a spell like this to a new protoss unit in Hots...
In my opinion it could be a good solution to these fail/win situations.
50 energy AoE Dispel ability on the Medivac could be cool. B)
"Blizzard is aware of the restrictions on map design caused by the Stephano Roach style, but doesn’t think it can/will be fixed in WoL, will work on for HotS" geeez they dont seem to understand why map restrictions are how they are nowadays. its not about a specific playstyle XY, its about the race design around FF/tight choke/easy accessible 3rd because gateway units suck because of warpin....
On November 21 2012 05:57 chatuka wrote: give more strength to weaker units.. give terran players more options to fight zerg. Protoss need the void ray and Fenix relevant again.
it's pretty common sense that zerg has a lot of usable pieces and other races don't have the variety of units that zerg has.
Zerg has a variety of unit ? Roach hydra and muta and almost useless against a decent terran, and against toss, roach are usefull the first 10min of the game, lingz got depop almost instant aganist colossi or ht, hydra, well you know how hydra are usefull and muta are not viable, if you nerf infest what's left for ZvP ?
On November 21 2012 06:00 SarcasmMonster wrote: Should have asked him about Colossi during the "boring units" question.
For the love of god, no. I want all grown up, professional questions about stuff that matters.
I mean, monk brought up the Infestor as his example. Since it's getting nerfed anyways, it's time to switch our QQ stream to the Colossus. Just because the Infestor is getting nerfed, doesn't mean I'm finished QQing
next time i see a 20min+ interview with DB i will put it on side and keep it for when i want to do some birge drinking. take a shot everytime DB says "Riiiiiiiiight".
On November 21 2012 05:17 paradiset16 wrote: All I heard in this interview is that Zerg op Zerg op Zerg op and that's bull crap the zerg isn't op I feel its under powered because of what other races can do and if other races weren't so dumb. And clump units together and make them fungal able of the mother ship neural situation not send their mother ship to the front of their army the mother ship has more range then neural and goes automatically and neural has a delay so all this crap about changing the infestor is bull crap for the first time scence the beta we have a unit that sustains equality between the game and Zerg players shouldn't be punished for finding out this unit that is what we need and have to use to win cause if you look at most games we do not use infestors we auto lose against death ball bio tank and the most bull shit composition mass air for Protoss with mother ship and storms is stead of looking at the Zerg and blaming the Zerg you should be look at Zerg players and loving them because unlike the other races the found a unit that is the best in their race and use it so instead of changeling them other races shouldn't be dumb asses and have their unit be fungalable because you should know Zerg is going infestors and if they aren't usually it's baneling lung muta so please stop just saying Zerg op Zerg op this needs to be changed no it doesn't need to be changed you need to change and play better
If all the other races are so dumb, maybe you could enlighten us about how we can fight the infestor better? I think you would be surprised if you tried playing terran and protoss for a game or 20 each.
On a different note I think some puctuation would do your text good!
. . Ok the Amin thing that differs between races that makes other races dumb is that they don't have the mental stability to just figure out what to do when they have. The ability that the races have to Harrass and expand and just build an army is substantial to what Zerg can only do they can ONLY rather all in or expand and go to the late game they can't harass they can't lost a BASE!!!!! And still win what Terran can do : go marine murader drops with expos and building a good army of tanks and bio with vicking if you see Burt lords , and o shit doesn't Terran have a spell caster that can do emp and take away all energy from and spell caster o shit why don't they use this and then the bio and tanks and Vikings can't get fungled ooh look at that !!!!!!! And or right now Thor vicking is one o the best compositions you can do Protos: first thing wasn't the bwc finals 2 Protoss wow look at that and they don't need and thing the have the best units and they use them but don't use them to the fullest blink stalkers are the most bull shit unit every I never knew they were able to turn into immortals when they get blink and the do a shit ton of damage also if proposes are complaining about getting neural end and then vortex is gone don't be a dumb ass and send the mother ship to the front of your army they had more range than neural and it's a automatic spell no delay like neural And there you go and that's what you can do !!!!!!!!! : also Protoss can just have 8-12 hightemplar and mass storm any army will just melt and o look high Templar also has a spell that can actually kill infestors and and are better range than infestors so I don't know why you all complain and bitch I'm sick of hearing this bitching
On November 21 2012 05:17 paradiset16 wrote: All I heard in this interview is that Zerg op Zerg op Zerg op and that's bull crap the zerg isn't op I feel its under powered because of what other races can do and if other races weren't so dumb. And clump units together and make them fungal able of the mother ship neural situation not send their mother ship to the front of their army the mother ship has more range then neural and goes automatically and neural has a delay so all this crap about changing the infestor is bull crap for the first time scence the beta we have a unit that sustains equality between the game and Zerg players shouldn't be punished for finding out this unit that is what we need and have to use to win cause if you look at most games we do not use infestors we auto lose against death ball bio tank and the most bull shit composition mass air for Protoss with mother ship and storms is stead of looking at the Zerg and blaming the Zerg you should be look at Zerg players and loving them because unlike the other races the found a unit that is the best in their race and use it so instead of changeling them other races shouldn't be dumb asses and have their unit be fungalable because you should know Zerg is going infestors and if they aren't usually it's baneling lung muta so please stop just saying Zerg op Zerg op this needs to be changed no it doesn't need to be changed you need to change and play better
So when all your infestors get emped because there in a big clump when new patch hits can we say lol your bad split infestors noob? wtf zerg INTIRE RACE OF PLAYERS SUCK OMG instead of saying how great you and other zergs are open your mind to the REAL game if you cant see whats going on then you should be forced to play TVZ until your eyes bleed
There's no problem with that cause terrains are just not smart enough to use the unit that counters the main unit they are losing to they just cry overpowered over powered instead of doing what zeros do and just adapt to whatever comes there way
On November 21 2012 06:36 SNSDBWooger wrote: Cultural differences.. Is Monk protoss ? Nothing about terran. Nobody plays terran anymore so let's talk about pvz only.
They did and in Korea terrans aren't struggling and NA ther are. They said the difference between foreign and Korean terrans is big so it's hard to balance because you make terrans easier for foreigners then Korean terrans will dominate like before. He made a really good point that foreign terrans will hate but it was very true
I really don't know how anyone could disagree or be upset with his stance. I wouldn't make all his same decisions but... that's why he's him and I'm me. I think he's a smart guy and does a pretty darn good job.
On November 20 2012 18:07 IdrA wrote: Feels Neuraling Motherships is a problem Neural is on the chopping block for Swarm
Will redesign Mothership so it won’t be a serious unit used in professional esports play
I feel like this is actually a good point, which I'm assuming most people didn't notice/it got drowned out in all the balance complaints. If they feel neural on mothership is a problem, and are willing to get rid of neural because of it, yet are changing the mothership to not be a competitive unit, why the fuck would they even think of getting rid of neural?
On November 21 2012 06:36 SNSDBWooger wrote: Cultural differences.. Is Monk protoss ? Nothing about terran. Nobody plays terran anymore so let's talk about pvz only.
They did and in Korea terrans aren't struggling and NA ther are. They said the difference between foreign and Korean terrans is big so it's hard to balance because you make terrans easier for foreigners then Korean terrans will dominate like before. He made a really good point that foreign terrans will hate but it was very true
I guess you missed all the interviews with korean terrans saying how they cant win vs zerg anymore. Do you actually think that foreigner zerg and protoss are just so much more skilled than foreigner terran?
On November 21 2012 05:57 chatuka wrote: give more strength to weaker units.. give terran players more options to fight zerg. Protoss need the void ray and Fenix relevant again.
it's pretty common sense that zerg has a lot of usable pieces and other races don't have the variety of units that zerg has.
Zerg has a variety of unit ? Roach hydra and muta and almost useless against a decent terran, and against toss, roach are usefull the first 10min of the game, lingz got depop almost instant aganist colossi or ht, hydra, well you know how hydra are usefull and muta are not viable, if you nerf infest what's left for ZvP ?
Are you actually going to insinuate that a nerf to the infestor would render it entirely unuseable -- let alone that zerg has no effective units against Protoss? It's amazing how your strawman Protoss seemingly have all the answers to every unit 100% of the time.
I haven't read every single post, but I would like to chime in that I love this article and interview. The changes and philosophy behind them all exhibit serious thought and care for the game. I can't wait to play the PTR maps for these changes to see what happens.
As always, a great game continuously being made better by a company that cares. Awesome.
On November 21 2012 05:17 paradiset16 wrote: All I heard in this interview is that Zerg op Zerg op Zerg op and that's bull crap the zerg isn't op I feel its under powered because of what other races can do and if other races weren't so dumb. And clump units together and make them fungal able of the mother ship neural situation not send their mother ship to the front of their army the mother ship has more range then neural and goes automatically and neural has a delay so all this crap about changing the infestor is bull crap for the first time scence the beta we have a unit that sustains equality between the game and Zerg players shouldn't be punished for finding out this unit that is what we need and have to use to win cause if you look at most games we do not use infestors we auto lose against death ball bio tank and the most bull shit composition mass air for Protoss with mother ship and storms is stead of looking at the Zerg and blaming the Zerg you should be look at Zerg players and loving them because unlike the other races the found a unit that is the best in their race and use it so instead of changeling them other races shouldn't be dumb asses and have their unit be fungalable because you should know Zerg is going infestors and if they aren't usually it's baneling lung muta so please stop just saying Zerg op Zerg op this needs to be changed no it doesn't need to be changed you need to change and play better
If all the other races are so dumb, maybe you could enlighten us about how we can fight the infestor better? I think you would be surprised if you tried playing terran and protoss for a game or 20 each.
On a different note I think some puctuation would do your text good!
. . Ok the Amin thing that differs between races that makes other races dumb is that they don't have the mental stability to just figure out what to do when they have. The ability that the races have to Harrass and expand and just build an army is substantial to what Zerg can only do they can ONLY rather all in or expand and go to the late game they can't harass they can't lost a BASE!!!!! And still win what Terran can do : go marine murader drops with expos and building a good army of tanks and bio with vicking if you see Burt lords , and o shit doesn't Terran have a spell caster that can do emp and take away all energy from and spell caster o shit why don't they use this and then the bio and tanks and Vikings can't get fungled ooh look at that !!!!!!! And or right now Thor vicking is one o the best compositions you can do Protos: first thing wasn't the bwc finals 2 Protoss wow look at that and they don't need and thing the have the best units and they use them but don't use them to the fullest blink stalkers are the most bull shit unit every I never knew they were able to turn into immortals when they get blink and the do a shit ton of damage also if proposes are complaining about getting neural end and then vortex is gone don't be a dumb ass and send the mother ship to the front of your army they had more range than neural and it's a automatic spell no delay like neural And there you go and that's what you can do !!!!!!!!! : also Protoss can just have 8-12 hightemplar and mass storm any army will just melt and o look high Templar also has a spell that can actually kill infestors and and are better range than infestors so I don't know why you all complain and bitch I'm sick of hearing this bitching
I don't want to be overly critical, but this and your last two posts were almost unreadable. Please use . and , and paragraphs, they are your friends <3
On November 21 2012 05:17 paradiset16 wrote: All I heard in this interview is that Zerg op Zerg op Zerg op and that's bull crap the zerg isn't op I feel its under powered because of what other races can do and if other races weren't so dumb. And clump units together and make them fungal able of the mother ship neural situation not send their mother ship to the front of their army the mother ship has more range then neural and goes automatically and neural has a delay so all this crap about changing the infestor is bull crap for the first time scence the beta we have a unit that sustains equality between the game and Zerg players shouldn't be punished for finding out this unit that is what we need and have to use to win cause if you look at most games we do not use infestors we auto lose against death ball bio tank and the most bull shit composition mass air for Protoss with mother ship and storms is stead of looking at the Zerg and blaming the Zerg you should be look at Zerg players and loving them because unlike the other races the found a unit that is the best in their race and use it so instead of changeling them other races shouldn't be dumb asses and have their unit be fungalable because you should know Zerg is going infestors and if they aren't usually it's baneling lung muta so please stop just saying Zerg op Zerg op this needs to be changed no it doesn't need to be changed you need to change and play better
If all the other races are so dumb, maybe you could enlighten us about how we can fight the infestor better? I think you would be surprised if you tried playing terran and protoss for a game or 20 each.
On a different note I think some puctuation would do your text good!
. . Ok the Amin thing that differs between races that makes other races dumb is that they don't have the mental stability to just figure out what to do when they have. The ability that the races have to Harrass and expand and just build an army is substantial to what Zerg can only do they can ONLY rather all in or expand and go to the late game they can't harass they can't lost a BASE!!!!! And still win what Terran can do : go marine murader drops with expos and building a good army of tanks and bio with vicking if you see Burt lords , and o shit doesn't Terran have a spell caster that can do emp and take away all energy from and spell caster o shit why don't they use this and then the bio and tanks and Vikings can't get fungled ooh look at that !!!!!!! And or right now Thor vicking is one o the best compositions you can do Protos: first thing wasn't the bwc finals 2 Protoss wow look at that and they don't need and thing the have the best units and they use them but don't use them to the fullest blink stalkers are the most bull shit unit every I never knew they were able to turn into immortals when they get blink and the do a shit ton of damage also if proposes are complaining about getting neural end and then vortex is gone don't be a dumb ass and send the mother ship to the front of your army they had more range than neural and it's a automatic spell no delay like neural And there you go and that's what you can do !!!!!!!!! : also Protoss can just have 8-12 hightemplar and mass storm any army will just melt and o look high Templar also has a spell that can actually kill infestors and and are better range than infestors so I don't know why you all complain and bitch I'm sick of hearing this bitching
This is literally one of the worst posts I've ever read on this forum. Absolutely no effort at all put into making it readable, and has completely subjective feelings on compositions and counters that don't even make sense, along with insulting the entire playerbase of two races.
On November 20 2012 18:07 IdrA wrote: Feels Neuraling Motherships is a problem Neural is on the chopping block for Swarm
Will redesign Mothership so it won’t be a serious unit used in professional esports play
I feel like this is actually a good point, which I'm assuming most people didn't notice/it got drowned out in all the balance complaints. If they feel neural on mothership is a problem, and are willing to get rid of neural because of it, yet are changing the mothership to not be a competitive unit, why the fuck would they even think of getting rid of neural?
Like it was said in the interview, Neural isn't really used alot. So they might add in something different. Lately I am seeing a ton of Situation though, where Neural would basically end the game and silence complains about Infested Terrans and Fungal. Well still fun to make a Terran or Toss scream, because they didn't build units that can snipe an Infestor that is using Neural.
On November 21 2012 02:12 Bellazuk wrote: 1 GSL title 1 MLG Title for a Zerg, Blizzard go wild on nerfs. 14 Titles for T, just KR Terran so doesn't matter.
Your stats seem a little off to me there old chap.
They were a little, but these are the states from the wiki (GSL Results): There are some very obvious issues with Z at the moment, but Zerg has performed less than both protoss and Terran over-all, Korean-Terrans netting mroe than double the amount of top-3 finishes than both zerg and Protoss.
I'm sorry but these stats are still completely invalid. Why do people continuously cite stats from different patches?? The only stats that are currently worth mentioning are stats that specifically and exclusively pertain to the current patch!! What's the fact that Terran was vastly OP 2 years ago have anything to do with current balance??? Nothing.
Come back to the table to talk stats when the stats you have are relevant to the topic at hand..
On November 21 2012 02:12 Bellazuk wrote: 1 GSL title 1 MLG Title for a Zerg, Blizzard go wild on nerfs. 14 Titles for T, just KR Terran so doesn't matter.
Your stats seem a little off to me there old chap.
They were a little, but these are the states from the wiki (GSL Results): There are some very obvious issues with Z at the moment, but Zerg has performed less than both protoss and Terran over-all, Korean-Terrans netting mroe than double the amount of top-3 finishes than both zerg and Protoss.
I'm sorry but these stats are still completely invalid. Why do people continuously cite stats from different patches?? The only stats that are currently worth mentioning are stats that specifically and exclusively pertain to the current patch!! What's the fact that Terran was vastly OP 2 years ago have anything to do with current balance??? Nothing.
Come back to the table to talk stats when the stats you have are relevant to the topic at hand..
You just don't get it man! Terran used to be OP, so why not make the other races OP? Isn't that only fair??
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
Why wouldn't they just add the "HotS only" nerf to WoL too?
On November 21 2012 05:57 chatuka wrote: give more strength to weaker units.. give terran players more options to fight zerg. Protoss need the void ray and Fenix relevant again.
it's pretty common sense that zerg has a lot of usable pieces and other races don't have the variety of units that zerg has.
Zerg has a variety of unit ? Roach hydra and muta and almost useless against a decent terran, and against toss, roach are usefull the first 10min of the game, lingz got depop almost instant aganist colossi or ht, hydra, well you know how hydra are usefull and muta are not viable, if you nerf infest what's left for ZvP ?
Are you actually going to insinuate that a nerf to the infestor would render it entirely unuseable -- let alone that zerg has no effective units against Protoss? It's amazing how your strawman Protoss seemingly have all the answers to every unit 100% of the time.
Nerfing the infestor would not render them unusable if it's done properly but you can't really disagree that most of zergs units except for the infestor and the BL pretty much suck against Protoss. There was a reason why prior to the infestor buff, the army referred as "the deathball" was the protoss late game.
Now that doesn't mean it will be the same in HOTS, hydra with speed and vipers might be enough to make up for a significant and interesting nerf to the infestor (though I hope it's not the Psionic stuff ).
Thanks for the interview. It's always nice to hear what's happening on Blizzard's side of things. Just hoping that they can continue to make the play as interesting as possible for HotS
I have no idea why there was so little Terran brought up in this interview considering the tourney they happen to be at has virtually no Terrans, and the last 8+ months of "statistics" + analyzing the metagame can prove 100% that there are huge balance issues for Terran the most of any race right now.
On November 21 2012 05:57 chatuka wrote: give more strength to weaker units.. give terran players more options to fight zerg. Protoss need the void ray and Fenix relevant again.
it's pretty common sense that zerg has a lot of usable pieces and other races don't have the variety of units that zerg has.
Zerg has a variety of unit ? Roach hydra and muta and almost useless against a decent terran, and against toss, roach are usefull the first 10min of the game, lingz got depop almost instant aganist colossi or ht, hydra, well you know how hydra are usefull and muta are not viable, if you nerf infest what's left for ZvP ?
Are you actually going to insinuate that a nerf to the infestor would render it entirely unuseable -- let alone that zerg has no effective units against Protoss? It's amazing how your strawman Protoss seemingly have all the answers to every unit 100% of the time.
Remember the time pre-infestor-buff? The Protoss Deathball was almost as scary as the Zerg Deathball is right now. They buffed the infestor and somehow the problem was solved. I agree, an Infestor nerf would not make him useless - but it's just a fact that Zerg have a terribly hard time to fight a Protoss army without tons of infestors. The entire Late Game of the Zerg relies on a strong infestor, because everything else is just countered by a Protoss deathball. Combined with the Protoss' strength in the earlier game of the game, I think this makes the balancing quite hard and one little mistake might break the Match Up completely.
On November 21 2012 02:12 Bellazuk wrote: 1 GSL title 1 MLG Title for a Zerg, Blizzard go wild on nerfs. 14 Titles for T, just KR Terran so doesn't matter.
Your stats seem a little off to me there old chap.
They were a little, but these are the states from the wiki (GSL Results): There are some very obvious issues with Z at the moment, but Zerg has performed less than both protoss and Terran over-all, Korean-Terrans netting mroe than double the amount of top-3 finishes than both zerg and Protoss.
I'm sorry but these stats are still completely invalid. Why do people continuously cite stats from different patches?? The only stats that are currently worth mentioning are stats that specifically and exclusively pertain to the current patch!! What's the fact that Terran was vastly OP 2 years ago have anything to do with current balance??? Nothing.
Come back to the table to talk stats when the stats you have are relevant to the topic at hand..
You just don't get it man! Terran used to be OP, so why not make the other races OP? Isn't that only fair??
Yeah its almost like thats what people are arguing.. Instead of just giving up something here and there to find a perfect game balance its like "Well, Terran was OP for a while, now we need to be OP for 2 years"... Unreal.
On November 21 2012 08:11 avilo wrote: I have no idea why there was so little Terran brought up in this interview considering the tourney they happen to be at has virtually no Terrans, and the last 8+ months of "statistics" + analyzing the metagame can prove 100% that there are huge balance issues for Terran the most of any race right now.
I don't know how monk chose his questions. I'm guessing he's a .
has been the dominating race from WOL launch until around May 2012. Even then, the imbalance wasn't really obvious until around/after September 2012. (Statisically anyways, since that's what you are talking about).
It seemed to me the questions were little too focused on certain things and other were just omitted. It just felt little biased. But good answers by Rock.
On November 21 2012 08:11 avilo wrote: I have no idea why there was so little Terran brought up in this interview considering the tourney they happen to be at has virtually no Terrans, and the last 8+ months of "statistics" + analyzing the metagame can prove 100% that there are huge balance issues for Terran the most of any race right now.
I don't know how monk chose his questions. I'm guessing he's a .
has been the dominating race from WOL launch until around May 2012. Even then, the imbalance wasn't really obvious until around/after September 2012. (Statisically anyways, since that's what you are talking about).
Statistically in what match-up and for whom? Because outside of Korea, winrates have been in Terran disfavor pretty consistently since the patch. In Korea, the winrates have actually gone up since the start of the patch (see WCS Korean qualifier) and only this season of GSL is showing a pretty big swing in the zerg's favor against Terran. The last one had a very good balance even though Life kinda destroyed everyone (just like MVP and Taeja had a big influence on winrates earlier this year) and so did last MLG in pool and championship play.
This still begs the question as to why foreign Terran struggle so much...
On November 21 2012 05:57 chatuka wrote: give more strength to weaker units.. give terran players more options to fight zerg. Protoss need the void ray and Fenix relevant again.
it's pretty common sense that zerg has a lot of usable pieces and other races don't have the variety of units that zerg has.
Zerg has a variety of unit ? Roach hydra and muta and almost useless against a decent terran, and against toss, roach are usefull the first 10min of the game, lingz got depop almost instant aganist colossi or ht, hydra, well you know how hydra are usefull and muta are not viable, if you nerf infest what's left for ZvP ?
Are you actually going to insinuate that a nerf to the infestor would render it entirely unuseable -- let alone that zerg has no effective units against Protoss? It's amazing how your strawman Protoss seemingly have all the answers to every unit 100% of the time.
Remember the time pre-infestor-buff? The Protoss Deathball was almost as scary as the Zerg Deathball is right now. They buffed the infestor and somehow the problem was solved. I agree, an Infestor nerf would not make him useless - but it's just a fact that Zerg have a terribly hard time to fight a Protoss army without tons of infestors. The entire Late Game of the Zerg relies on a strong infestor, because everything else is just countered by a Protoss deathball. Combined with the Protoss' strength in the earlier game of the game, I think this makes the balancing quite hard and one little mistake might break the Match Up completely.
The current late game takes ridiculously fast hives in response to ridiculously fast thirds, allowing zerg to mass infestor. They were perfectly fine maxing out to deal with pressure/deal pressure while they teched to hive and expanded. Zerg didn't know how good infestors were pre-nerf either. The DPS increase makes a big difference with marines to mitigate healing efficiency, but protoss units not so much. They just wouldn't kill them as quickly with infestor ling. They still kill them pretty fast, and can still achieve insane economies to remax much faster than a Protoss. You make it sound like the moment infestors would be nerfed PvZ would flip on it's head.
On November 21 2012 08:11 avilo wrote: I have no idea why there was so little Terran brought up in this interview considering the tourney they happen to be at has virtually no Terrans, and the last 8+ months of "statistics" + analyzing the metagame can prove 100% that there are huge balance issues for Terran the most of any race right now.
I don't know how monk chose his questions. I'm guessing he's a .
has been the dominating race from WOL launch until around May 2012. Even then, the imbalance wasn't really obvious until around/after September 2012. (Statisically anyways, since that's what you are talking about).
Statistically in what match-up and for whom? Because outside of Korea, winrates have been in Terran disfavor pretty consistently since the patch. In Korea, the winrates have actually gone up since the start of the patch (see WCS Korean qualifier) and only this season of GSL is showing a pretty big swing in the zerg's favor against Terran. The last one had a very good balance even though Life kinda destroyed everyone (just like MVP and Taeja had a big influence on winrates earlier this year) and so did last MLG in pool and championship play.
This still begs the question as to why foreign Terran struggle so much...
I'm talking about statisically for all matchups in the international scene.
On November 21 2012 08:40 DwindleFlip wrote: Dustin Browder just doesnt get it. He really thinks you must be Korean to win with terran? This is ridiculous. Fire him immediately Blizzard.
Yeah, you gotta be really good at Terran to win -- against other Koreans, who are also very good.
On November 21 2012 08:40 DwindleFlip wrote: Dustin Browder just doesnt get it. He really thinks you must be Korean to win with terran? This is ridiculous. Fire him immediately Blizzard.
He never said that. He just compared foreign terrans and then korean terrans. By foreign terrans you would think terran is by far the worst race in the game, look at korean terrans and the stats are completely opposite.
They are saying it's hard to buff terran to help foreign terrans because terran is not struggling in korea. A small buff to terran may help foreign terrans compete more but then puts terran in korea at uber domination mode.
Just look at early sc2, foreign terrans have almost always struggled, but then korean terrans still dominated everything.
On November 21 2012 05:17 paradiset16 wrote: All I heard in this interview is that Zerg op Zerg op Zerg op and that's bull crap the zerg isn't op I feel its under powered because of what other races can do and if other races weren't so dumb. And clump units together and make them fungal able of the mother ship neural situation not send their mother ship to the front of their army the mother ship has more range then neural and goes automatically and neural has a delay so all this crap about changing the infestor is bull crap for the first time scence the beta we have a unit that sustains equality between the game and Zerg players shouldn't be punished for finding out this unit that is what we need and have to use to win cause if you look at most games we do not use infestors we auto lose against death ball bio tank and the most bull shit composition mass air for Protoss with mother ship and storms is stead of looking at the Zerg and blaming the Zerg you should be look at Zerg players and loving them because unlike the other races the found a unit that is the best in their race and use it so instead of changeling them other races shouldn't be dumb asses and have their unit be fungalable because you should know Zerg is going infestors and if they aren't usually it's baneling lung muta so please stop just saying Zerg op Zerg op this needs to be changed no it doesn't need to be changed you need to change and play better
If all the other races are so dumb, maybe you could enlighten us about how we can fight the infestor better? I think you would be surprised if you tried playing terran and protoss for a game or 20 each.
On a different note I think some puctuation would do your text good!
. . Ok the Amin thing that differs between races that makes other races dumb is that they don't have the mental stability to just figure out what to do when they have. The ability that the races have to Harrass and expand and just build an army is substantial to what Zerg can only do they can ONLY rather all in or expand and go to the late game they can't harass they can't lost a BASE!!!!! And still win what Terran can do : go marine murader drops with expos and building a good army of tanks and bio with vicking if you see Burt lords , and o shit doesn't Terran have a spell caster that can do emp and take away all energy from and spell caster o shit why don't they use this and then the bio and tanks and Vikings can't get fungled ooh look at that !!!!!!! And or right now Thor vicking is one o the best compositions you can do Protos: first thing wasn't the bwc finals 2 Protoss wow look at that and they don't need and thing the have the best units and they use them but don't use them to the fullest blink stalkers are the most bull shit unit every I never knew they were able to turn into immortals when they get blink and the do a shit ton of damage also if proposes are complaining about getting neural end and then vortex is gone don't be a dumb ass and send the mother ship to the front of your army they had more range than neural and it's a automatic spell no delay like neural And there you go and that's what you can do !!!!!!!!! : also Protoss can just have 8-12 hightemplar and mass storm any army will just melt and o look high Templar also has a spell that can actually kill infestors and and are better range than infestors so I don't know why you all complain and bitch I'm sick of hearing this bitching
uhhhh
wat?
If this is a legit post... which I find extremely hard to believe... then I don't even. It's not even like you can blame all of that on typing mistakes, you used the term "Burt lords" among other things.
On November 21 2012 05:17 paradiset16 wrote: All I heard in this interview is that Zerg op Zerg op Zerg op and that's bull crap the zerg isn't op I feel its under powered because of what other races can do and if other races weren't so dumb. And clump units together and make them fungal able of the mother ship neural situation not send their mother ship to the front of their army the mother ship has more range then neural and goes automatically and neural has a delay so all this crap about changing the infestor is bull crap for the first time scence the beta we have a unit that sustains equality between the game and Zerg players shouldn't be punished for finding out this unit that is what we need and have to use to win cause if you look at most games we do not use infestors we auto lose against death ball bio tank and the most bull shit composition mass air for Protoss with mother ship and storms is stead of looking at the Zerg and blaming the Zerg you should be look at Zerg players and loving them because unlike the other races the found a unit that is the best in their race and use it so instead of changeling them other races shouldn't be dumb asses and have their unit be fungalable because you should know Zerg is going infestors and if they aren't usually it's baneling lung muta so please stop just saying Zerg op Zerg op this needs to be changed no it doesn't need to be changed you need to change and play better
If all the other races are so dumb, maybe you could enlighten us about how we can fight the infestor better? I think you would be surprised if you tried playing terran and protoss for a game or 20 each.
On a different note I think some puctuation would do your text good!
. . Ok the Amin thing that differs between races that makes other races dumb is that they don't have the mental stability to just figure out what to do when they have. The ability that the races have to Harrass and expand and just build an army is substantial to what Zerg can only do they can ONLY rather all in or expand and go to the late game they can't harass they can't lost a BASE!!!!! And still win what Terran can do : go marine murader drops with expos and building a good army of tanks and bio with vicking if you see Burt lords , and o shit doesn't Terran have a spell caster that can do emp and take away all energy from and spell caster o shit why don't they use this and then the bio and tanks and Vikings can't get fungled ooh look at that !!!!!!! And or right now Thor vicking is one o the best compositions you can do Protos: first thing wasn't the bwc finals 2 Protoss wow look at that and they don't need and thing the have the best units and they use them but don't use them to the fullest blink stalkers are the most bull shit unit every I never knew they were able to turn into immortals when they get blink and the do a shit ton of damage also if proposes are complaining about getting neural end and then vortex is gone don't be a dumb ass and send the mother ship to the front of your army they had more range than neural and it's a automatic spell no delay like neural And there you go and that's what you can do !!!!!!!!! : also Protoss can just have 8-12 hightemplar and mass storm any army will just melt and o look high Templar also has a spell that can actually kill infestors and and are better range than infestors so I don't know why you all complain and bitch I'm sick of hearing this bitching
uhhhh
wat?
If this is a legit post... which I find extremely hard to believe... then I don't even. It's not even like you can blame all of that on typing mistakes, you used the term "Burt lords" among other things.
this has to be one of the funniest things ive ever read on tl. ffs i still cant stop laughing...burt lords hahaha
On November 21 2012 08:11 avilo wrote: I have no idea why there was so little Terran brought up in this interview considering the tourney they happen to be at has virtually no Terrans, and the last 8+ months of "statistics" + analyzing the metagame can prove 100% that there are huge balance issues for Terran the most of any race right now.
I don't know how monk chose his questions. I'm guessing he's a .
has been the dominating race from WOL launch until around May 2012. Even then, the imbalance wasn't really obvious until around/after September 2012. (Statisically anyways, since that's what you are talking about).
Statistically in what match-up and for whom? Because outside of Korea, winrates have been in Terran disfavor pretty consistently since the patch. In Korea, the winrates have actually gone up since the start of the patch (see WCS Korean qualifier) and only this season of GSL is showing a pretty big swing in the zerg's favor against Terran. The last one had a very good balance even though Life kinda destroyed everyone (just like MVP and Taeja had a big influence on winrates earlier this year) and so did last MLG in pool and championship play.
This still begs the question as to why foreign Terran struggle so much...
I'm talking about statisically for all matchups in the international scene.
So how did you make conclusion that Terran was dominating till May 2012 from this graph? http://imgur.com/a/1iwo8
On November 21 2012 09:09 EsX_Raptor wrote: Would somebody explain to me what he meant when he talks about map restrictions due to Stephano's Roach style?
protoss needs small choke for their third or they cant hold it against zerg basically
but its not really about "stephano roach max style"
thats kind of just him tryign to sound informed
its more of an issue with zergs rate of production and needing forcefields to stay alive when they attack you in two places
edit: not a small choke, but like a "forcefieldable choke"
the best example i can give is the difference between the third base on ohana (close to other bases, you can forcefield against your nexus and ramp to make a wall) and the third base on something like... antiga or maybe dual sight. on these maps to travel from your nat to your 3rd you have to put yourself in a vulnerable place where forcefields cannot guard you as easily
I would prefer that next time TL interviews Rock, there are a few more positive questions. There is a lot of frustration with the game right now but it appears we are ungrateful for their hard work.
Props to Dustin for his passionate and very detailed responses.
On November 21 2012 09:26 MrHavix wrote: I would prefer that next time TL interviews Rock, there are a few more positive questions. There is a lot of frustration with the game right now but it appears we are ungrateful for their hard work.
Props to Dustin for his passionate and very detailed responses.
its okay to be ungrateful if you are a customer imo
On November 21 2012 09:09 EsX_Raptor wrote: Would somebody explain to me what he meant when he talks about map restrictions due to Stephano's Roach style?
He's referring to the fact that, in order to take and hold a third base in PvZ, the third base needs to be somewhat close to the natural, with entrances that can be easily defended with forcefield, due to the fact that zerg can simply have too many units for protoss to defend against otherwise. Protoss units are too weak (by this I mean that they aren't horrendously overpowered), and the race's production is too slow to hold against zerg on open ground, so you need forcefields to take a third base. Because zerg units are faster than protoss units, protoss needs to be able to bounce between his natural and third base quickly, which means the third has to be close. This means maps have to have a ridiculously easy to take third base in order for PvZ to even be playable.
PvT is pretty okay on almost any map to be honest, although drop play can be really tough to deal with if the third is a large distance away. TvZ is fine on most maps because of planetary fortresses, so it's really PvZ that restricts the map pool.
It's also a big reason why gold bases can't work: zerg can take them almost risk free early on in PvZ but Protoss will never gain ANY benefit from a gold base, since he can't generally take it at all until he's done making workers anyway, and gold bases when fully saturated aren't much different than any other base.
TLDR: Any map without a close and super easy to defend third base is unplayable PvZ.
Awesome interview, really cool to hear what their focus will be on coming up. This means we should all be focused on playing and giving feedback to the things he mentioned here.
I highly suggest messing with late-game Air build times. Raven and Void Ray could use a 5-10 second build time reduction.. Carrier about 20 seconds, and Battlecruiser 10 or 15.
Not only is this is a better buff to get all these units in play more often, but it evens out the late game vs Zergs. The tech switching ability Zerg has is almost instantaneous, just need to add one building. They don't need to add 5 Stargates or Starports and abandon their other buildings, they just add one building and pump from the same ones they were using. I understand this is part of the race imbalance that makes the game interesting, but right now any XvZ build simply has to end before late game, and this is the exact reason why. To buff the build times (whether by a few seconds for the Raven or quite a few for the Carrier) will bring them back into late-game play, without really ruining any current matchup balance.
A few other suggestions: Haywire Missile upgrade on the Thor instead of Strike Cannons. (provides Terran another option to deal with Immortal besides ghosts, which are considered better for Bio play. Would arrive late enough to not be overpowered.) Oracle Time Warp slows attack speed, not movement speed. (would be more useful as a defense spell instead of a trap spell. would help vs air units like corruptors and vikings from sniping Colossi, and vs ground units like marines and infestedterrans from sniping buildings.) Infestor Fungal Growth slows Air movement speed, while still rooting Ground. II can't think of a reason this does not make sense, especially with Hydra/Viper for air defense. The ability to snag any Air unit anywhere is what makes Fungal so powerful, and Viper Abduct can still accomplish this.) Mothership has Shield Battery ability. (would make it a more micro-intensive unit, instead of taking it out of the competitive game. would provide a choice between Battery or Vortex, and also make it a harder choice whether to upgrade the MsCore.)
I just realized, if fungal projectile is put back in, then Blizzard has (the first time for SC2?) been right about something that most of the community (or those that are vocal at least) hasn't. I mean, it's the only "provable" thing I think, since it'll be the only change tested/suggested but not implemented because of disapproval from the community.
Which is great, cus then i can use that as an example for where they do listen to the community, but the community isn't always right (to argue against people who keep QQing about how they don't listen or should I say completely obey everything the community wants at any point in time, how they stare blindly at stats and not gameplay, how they didn't accept the suggested path finding changes which people said will add significant change to gameplay,blah blah blah)
blargh, still so excited for all the patches for WoL/HotS etc ;O
On November 21 2012 08:11 avilo wrote: I have no idea why there was so little Terran brought up in this interview considering the tourney they happen to be at has virtually no Terrans, and the last 8+ months of "statistics" + analyzing the metagame can prove 100% that there are huge balance issues for Terran the most of any race right now.
I don't know how monk chose his questions. I'm guessing he's a .
has been the dominating race from WOL launch until around May 2012. Even then, the imbalance wasn't really obvious until around/after September 2012. (Statisically anyways, since that's what you are talking about).
Statistically in what match-up and for whom? Because outside of Korea, winrates have been in Terran disfavor pretty consistently since the patch. In Korea, the winrates have actually gone up since the start of the patch (see WCS Korean qualifier) and only this season of GSL is showing a pretty big swing in the zerg's favor against Terran. The last one had a very good balance even though Life kinda destroyed everyone (just like MVP and Taeja had a big influence on winrates earlier this year) and so did last MLG in pool and championship play.
This still begs the question as to why foreign Terran struggle so much...
I'm talking about statisically for all matchups in the international scene.
So how did you make conclusion that Terran was dominating till May 2012 from this graph? http://imgur.com/a/1iwo8
Because May 2012 is the first time in 22 months that win rate dips below 50%. I don't think it's that controversial to say that is very dominant for an extremely long time.
On November 21 2012 09:33 frostalgia wrote: Awesome interview, really cool to hear what their focus will be on coming up. This means we should all be focused on playing and giving feedback to the things he mentioned here.
I highly suggest messing with late-game Air build times. Raven and Void Ray could use a 5-10 second build time reduction.. Carrier about 20 seconds, and Battlecruiser 10 or 15.
Not only is this is a better buff to get all these units in play more often, but it evens out the late game vs Zergs. The tech switching ability Zerg has is almost instantaneous, just need to add one building. They don't need to add 5 Stargates or Starports and abandon their other buildings, they just add one building and pump from the same ones they were using. I understand this is part of the race imbalance that makes the game interesting, but right now any XvZ build simply has to end before late game, and this is the exact reason why. To buff the build times (whether by a few seconds for the Raven or quite a few for the Carrier) will bring them back into late-game play, without really ruining any current matchup balance.
A few other suggestions: Haywire Missile upgrade on the Thor instead of Strike Cannons. (provides Terran another option to deal with Immortal besides ghosts, which are considered better for Bio play. Would arrive late enough to not be overpowered.) Oracle Time Warp slows attack speed, not movement speed. (would be more useful as a defense spell instead of a trap spell. would help vs air units like corruptors and vikings, and instead allow Fungal to slow Air units, while still rooting Ground.) Mothership has Shield Battery ability. (would make it a more micro-intensive unit, instead of taking it out of the competitive game. would provide a choice between Battery or Vortex, and also make it a harder choice whether to upgrade the MsCore.)
Thors shouldn't be a counter to immortals, that's the reason strike cannon was nerfed in the first place. Terran has a powerful option to deal with immortals already: it's called the ghost. One EMP and immortals become ridiculously vulnerable to tanks. The change in cost from 150/150 to 200/100 of the ghost was a mech buff. You say you want another option, but you frankly don't really need one, ghosts are just that good. Yes they're expensive on the gas, but they cost less than immortal does and cost a lot less supply, they pair exquisitely with mech. If the thor was strong against immortals, I'm not sure how protoss would respond to thors. Air can also punish immortals as well.
Widow mines are great early game, but I think in the HOTS beta too many terrans rely on them for too long. Using them as a bridge unit early on to secure a third base should give you the gas count you need to add ghosts in, since generally the issue is that you take a later third with mech and then have no gas for them.
Best change I think mech should receive is a drop in the tank's supply cost from 3 to 2. Wouldn't change TvZ much (broods are usually out by the time mech hits max anyway, and then terran wants to change his composition) but it would be a nice change in PvT. Siege tanks are the best part about TvT anyway.
On November 21 2012 09:26 MrHavix wrote: I would prefer that next time TL interviews Rock, there are a few more positive questions. There is a lot of frustration with the game right now but it appears we are ungrateful for their hard work.
Props to Dustin for his passionate and very detailed responses.
its okay to be ungrateful if you are a customer imo
Really good interview, it didn't feel long or dragged out because lots of questions where asked and many issues where brought up.
I'm not sure what to make of it though, in the interview DB and crew sound like well informed and passionate people, DB in particular looks full of energy and enthusiastic when he talks about the game. He finally sounds aware of all the issues regarding the MUs and how they play out, and he didn't quote any bullshit statistics this time, he sounded like he actually watched a lot of games.
However I'm still concerned because, I don't think Blizzard knows the best ways to really balance the game. Last time I watched a DB interview he again seemed enthusiastic and well informed, but the changes Blizzard elected to do just didn't make any sense. Some of the changes to units and abilities they've done in HoTS also gave the impression that Blizzard is clueless, in that they don't have a strong core design philosophy for each race or a grasp of what the real problem is, and they where just trowing ideas around to see what would stick.
The real issue is the prevalence of cheep and early to acquire micro hampering abilities have become a staple part of armies, but in turn these have wide reaching repercussions that affect every facet of design and gameplay. While they might be aware of these they still feel too reluctant to act directly against these abilities, even though they directly affect every facet of gameplay.
TLDR. I feel that Blizzard doesn't have a clear vision, a plan, an overarching design for how they want their races to work and it makes them at times look clueless and/or buff/nerf units in weird ways. It feels like they have some awareness of what the issues are, but either aren't truly aware of the real underlying problem and thus want to avoid direct changes, or they are aware of the problems but don't want to alter their flawed game design.
On November 21 2012 05:17 paradiset16 wrote: All I heard in this interview is that Zerg op Zerg op Zerg op and that's bull crap the zerg isn't op I feel its under powered because of what other races can do and if other races weren't so dumb. And clump units together and make them fungal able of the mother ship neural situation not send their mother ship to the front of their army the mother ship has more range then neural and goes automatically and neural has a delay so all this crap about changing the infestor is bull crap for the first time scence the beta we have a unit that sustains equality between the game and Zerg players shouldn't be punished for finding out this unit that is what we need and have to use to win cause if you look at most games we do not use infestors we auto lose against death ball bio tank and the most bull shit composition mass air for Protoss with mother ship and storms is stead of looking at the Zerg and blaming the Zerg you should be look at Zerg players and loving them because unlike the other races the found a unit that is the best in their race and use it so instead of changeling them other races shouldn't be dumb asses and have their unit be fungalable because you should know Zerg is going infestors and if they aren't usually it's baneling lung muta so please stop just saying Zerg op Zerg op this needs to be changed no it doesn't need to be changed you need to change and play better
If all the other races are so dumb, maybe you could enlighten us about how we can fight the infestor better? I think you would be surprised if you tried playing terran and protoss for a game or 20 each.
On a different note I think some puctuation would do your text good!
. . Ok the Amin thing that differs between races that makes other races dumb is that they don't have the mental stability to just figure out what to do when they have. The ability that the races have to Harrass and expand and just build an army is substantial to what Zerg can only do they can ONLY rather all in or expand and go to the late game they can't harass they can't lost a BASE!!!!! And still win what Terran can do : go marine murader drops with expos and building a good army of tanks and bio with vicking if you see Burt lords , and o shit doesn't Terran have a spell caster that can do emp and take away all energy from and spell caster o shit why don't they use this and then the bio and tanks and Vikings can't get fungled ooh look at that !!!!!!! And or right now Thor vicking is one o the best compositions you can do Protos: first thing wasn't the bwc finals 2 Protoss wow look at that and they don't need and thing the have the best units and they use them but don't use them to the fullest blink stalkers are the most bull shit unit every I never knew they were able to turn into immortals when they get blink and the do a shit ton of damage also if proposes are complaining about getting neural end and then vortex is gone don't be a dumb ass and send the mother ship to the front of your army they had more range than neural and it's a automatic spell no delay like neural And there you go and that's what you can do !!!!!!!!! : also Protoss can just have 8-12 hightemplar and mass storm any army will just melt and o look high Templar also has a spell that can actually kill infestors and and are better range than infestors so I don't know why you all complain and bitch I'm sick of hearing this bitching
I don't want to be overly critical, but this and your last two posts were almost unreadable. Please use . and , and paragraphs, they are your friends <3
1st is dont care what you think i used an ipad to type all this not my regular keyboard. i had auto correct fucking me over every 2 seconds and just didnt care because this bull shit about all you people screaming over powered over powered is bull shit. back when zergs didnt have infestors we did this about the protos death ball and what to do and finaly we get a viable unit that can do what we need it do do and you dont even use them and you just want to get ride of them!!!!!
On November 21 2012 05:17 paradiset16 wrote: All I heard in this interview is that Zerg op Zerg op Zerg op and that's bull crap the zerg isn't op I feel its under powered because of what other races can do and if other races weren't so dumb. And clump units together and make them fungal able of the mother ship neural situation not send their mother ship to the front of their army the mother ship has more range then neural and goes automatically and neural has a delay so all this crap about changing the infestor is bull crap for the first time scence the beta we have a unit that sustains equality between the game and Zerg players shouldn't be punished for finding out this unit that is what we need and have to use to win cause if you look at most games we do not use infestors we auto lose against death ball bio tank and the most bull shit composition mass air for Protoss with mother ship and storms is stead of looking at the Zerg and blaming the Zerg you should be look at Zerg players and loving them because unlike the other races the found a unit that is the best in their race and use it so instead of changeling them other races shouldn't be dumb asses and have their unit be fungalable because you should know Zerg is going infestors and if they aren't usually it's baneling lung muta so please stop just saying Zerg op Zerg op this needs to be changed no it doesn't need to be changed you need to change and play better
If all the other races are so dumb, maybe you could enlighten us about how we can fight the infestor better? I think you would be surprised if you tried playing terran and protoss for a game or 20 each.
On a different note I think some puctuation would do your text good!
. . Ok the Amin thing that differs between races that makes other races dumb is that they don't have the mental stability to just figure out what to do when they have. The ability that the races have to Harrass and expand and just build an army is substantial to what Zerg can only do they can ONLY rather all in or expand and go to the late game they can't harass they can't lost a BASE!!!!! And still win what Terran can do : go marine murader drops with expos and building a good army of tanks and bio with vicking if you see Burt lords , and o shit doesn't Terran have a spell caster that can do emp and take away all energy from and spell caster o shit why don't they use this and then the bio and tanks and Vikings can't get fungled ooh look at that !!!!!!! And or right now Thor vicking is one o the best compositions you can do Protos: first thing wasn't the bwc finals 2 Protoss wow look at that and they don't need and thing the have the best units and they use them but don't use them to the fullest blink stalkers are the most bull shit unit every I never knew they were able to turn into immortals when they get blink and the do a shit ton of damage also if proposes are complaining about getting neural end and then vortex is gone don't be a dumb ass and send the mother ship to the front of your army they had more range than neural and it's a automatic spell no delay like neural And there you go and that's what you can do !!!!!!!!! : also Protoss can just have 8-12 hightemplar and mass storm any army will just melt and o look high Templar also has a spell that can actually kill infestors and and are better range than infestors so I don't know why you all complain and bitch I'm sick of hearing this bitching
uhhhh
wat?
If this is a legit post... which I find extremely hard to believe... then I don't even. It's not even like you can blame all of that on typing mistakes, you used the term "Burt lords" among other things.
i dont care what you think you can fuck off i was usiing an ipad that auto correct was fucking me over every 2 second when i was typing what i wanted to say, but it kept doing it and i dont care what you think your a dumb ass thats probably in bronze so please go learn how to play and then come back. thanks
Thors shouldn't be a counter to immortals, that's the reason strike cannon was nerfed in the first place. Terran has a powerful option to deal with immortals already: it's called the ghost. One EMP and immortals become ridiculously vulnerable to tanks. The change in cost from 150/150 to 200/100 of the ghost was a mech buff. You say you want another option, but you frankly don't really need one, ghosts are just that good. Yes they're expensive on the gas, but they cost less than immortal does and cost a lot less supply, they pair exquisitely with mech. If the thor was strong against immortals, I'm not sure how protoss would respond to thors. Air can also punish immortals as well.
Widow mines are great early game, but I think in the HOTS beta too many terrans rely on them for too long. Using them as a bridge unit early on to secure a third base should give you the gas count you need to add ghosts in, since generally the issue is that you take a later third with mech and then have no gas for them.
Best change I think mech should receive is a drop in the tank's supply cost from 3 to 2. Wouldn't change TvZ much (broods are usually out by the time mech hits max anyway, and then terran wants to change his composition) but it would be a nice change in PvT. Siege tanks are the best part about TvT anyway.
Valid point.. Haywire Missle should just be a normal attack vs Immortals then, the Hardened shields should work on them. It would still be a better upgrade than Strike Cannon is right now, and would make Thor have a different feel to it.
I don't know how I feel about changing Tanks from 3 to 2 supply.. it would have to be balanced with 3 supply Widow Mines or something to that effect.
On November 21 2012 05:17 paradiset16 wrote: All I heard in this interview is that Zerg op Zerg op Zerg op and that's bull crap the zerg isn't op I feel its under powered because of what other races can do and if other races weren't so dumb. And clump units together and make them fungal able of the mother ship neural situation not send their mother ship to the front of their army the mother ship has more range then neural and goes automatically and neural has a delay so all this crap about changing the infestor is bull crap for the first time scence the beta we have a unit that sustains equality between the game and Zerg players shouldn't be punished for finding out this unit that is what we need and have to use to win cause if you look at most games we do not use infestors we auto lose against death ball bio tank and the most bull shit composition mass air for Protoss with mother ship and storms is stead of looking at the Zerg and blaming the Zerg you should be look at Zerg players and loving them because unlike the other races the found a unit that is the best in their race and use it so instead of changeling them other races shouldn't be dumb asses and have their unit be fungalable because you should know Zerg is going infestors and if they aren't usually it's baneling lung muta so please stop just saying Zerg op Zerg op this needs to be changed no it doesn't need to be changed you need to change and play better
If all the other races are so dumb, maybe you could enlighten us about how we can fight the infestor better? I think you would be surprised if you tried playing terran and protoss for a game or 20 each.
On a different note I think some puctuation would do your text good!
. . Ok the Amin thing that differs between races that makes other races dumb is that they don't have the mental stability to just figure out what to do when they have. The ability that the races have to Harrass and expand and just build an army is substantial to what Zerg can only do they can ONLY rather all in or expand and go to the late game they can't harass they can't lost a BASE!!!!! And still win what Terran can do : go marine murader drops with expos and building a good army of tanks and bio with vicking if you see Burt lords , and o shit doesn't Terran have a spell caster that can do emp and take away all energy from and spell caster o shit why don't they use this and then the bio and tanks and Vikings can't get fungled ooh look at that !!!!!!! And or right now Thor vicking is one o the best compositions you can do Protos: first thing wasn't the bwc finals 2 Protoss wow look at that and they don't need and thing the have the best units and they use them but don't use them to the fullest blink stalkers are the most bull shit unit every I never knew they were able to turn into immortals when they get blink and the do a shit ton of damage also if proposes are complaining about getting neural end and then vortex is gone don't be a dumb ass and send the mother ship to the front of your army they had more range than neural and it's a automatic spell no delay like neural And there you go and that's what you can do !!!!!!!!! : also Protoss can just have 8-12 hightemplar and mass storm any army will just melt and o look high Templar also has a spell that can actually kill infestors and and are better range than infestors so I don't know why you all complain and bitch I'm sick of hearing this bitching
This is literally one of the worst posts I've ever read on this forum. Absolutely no effort at all put into making it readable, and has completely subjective feelings on compositions and counters that don't even make sense, along with insulting the entire playerbase of two races.
Please stop making my brain hurt.
yes i insulted the playerbase for the 2 races cause if they are truly good and know it they would be able to learn adapt and make the changes they need to win and be able to counter WAHTEVER the other player does if they play correctly and i dont care what you think about my post and what you think about the game the compositions im talking abnout are able to be viable if you keep droping with marine murader and do it while expanding and building your army as terran zerg can not beat it cause the brood lord army is so slow it cant defend drops and just to defend it with static d you need 2 spores and 6-8 spines because marine murader is just ...... in dps and fuck off i dont care what you think peace <3
Blizz really need to accompany Hydra buffs with the Infestor nerf, just for the sake of my sanity when it comes to reading Zerg whine.
It's unbelievable that people think "projectile fungal" is a ridiculous change. Fungal growth is currently an instant cast spell that just requires you to aim, and that group of enemies is essentially dead because of chain fungals, projectile fungals help mitigate the effectiveness of fungal and chain fungals, which is really what the game needs.
Also, people need to realise that infestors are a support unit, that means it isn't meant to be a front line attack unit that is massed like it currently is.
That is why a Hydra buff should be accompanied with the infestor nerf, if "drops" and "mass muta" are a problem, because neither should be solved by a support spellcaster.
It's unfathomable that fungal growth is a counter to every single unit in the game, and people think its fine as it is.
On November 20 2012 19:04 DaveVAH wrote: Monk you spent 90% of the interview talking about and asking questions about P and Z, you let Dustin skip on his brood-lord infester answer on the TvZ MU (only ZvZ and PvZ broodlord infester usage was discussed).
Does terran not exist anymore or something? how about some questions on mech in TvP hots?
We need more objectivity in these interviews.
I am glad that someone else noticed this. Seems Dustin talked about Terran almost unprompted as Monk was very PvZ and ZvZ focused. I wonder what Monk plays?
It's mostly because PvZ is the match-up everyone is discussing/worried about atm. I tried to include questions that I see most often discussed in the TL forums, and I think I did a good job with that. There aren't really as many heavily discussed balance-related issues in TvZ atm except late game versus infestor/broodlord. A few months ago after the queen/overlord buff, I would have asked more about TvZ. I will say, however, that I should have pressed him more on TvZ vs infestor/broodlord, but I honestly didn't realize he skipped out on the TvZ aspect of the question.
Understood. Not saying it wasn't a great interview though. I really enjoyed it (watched it twice), I just wanted a little more Terran as a T player myself. Thanks for doing the interview and the efforts made to put it up as soon as could be under the circumstances.
DB tries to make it seem like BWC having only 4 terrans is an isolated incident, which it isnt. And all this nonsense about korean terrans being fine in TvZ...
TvZ winrate this season in GSL Code S: 18-34 34.6% And code A TvZ is 33% right now.
On November 21 2012 10:13 Consummate wrote: Blizz really need to accompany Hydra buffs with the Infestor nerf, just for the sake of my sanity when it comes to reading Zerg whine.
It's unbelievable that people think "projectile fungal" is a ridiculous change. Fungal growth is currently an instant cast spell that just requires you to aim, and that group of enemies is essentially dead because of chain fungals, projectile fungals help mitigate the effectiveness of fungal and chain fungals, which is really what the game needs.
Also, people need to realise that infestors are a support unit, that means it isn't meant to be a front line attack unit that is massed like it currently is.
That is why a Hydra buff should be accompanied with the infestor nerf, if "drops" and "mass muta" are a problem, because neither should be solved by a support spellcaster.
It's unfathomable that fungal growth is a counter to every single unit in the game, and people think its fine as it is.
you hate zergs whine i hate people like you whine about the infestor and how good it is and just because we use it you go on rampages awwww the infestor OP OP OP OP Op when it is not fungal growth isnt that good it is a viable spell but if you are truly a good player you should learn adapt and change you play style just as all zergs have and you have the ability to shut down all infestor use so i dont know why it needs a nerf it is the only good unit we have that is viable ling arent viable verse groups of marines muraders and the arent viable against mech and also roaches jut evaporate to tank fire its unbelivable so please if you want to stop hear "zergs whining" when they arent they just want to keep the only unit that makes play not borring and have us lose 24/7, you should stop whining about how over powered the infestor is when its not. <3
On November 21 2012 05:17 paradiset16 wrote: All I heard in this interview is that Zerg op Zerg op Zerg op and that's bull crap the zerg isn't op I feel its under powered because of what other races can do and if other races weren't so dumb. And clump units together and make them fungal able of the mother ship neural situation not send their mother ship to the front of their army the mother ship has more range then neural and goes automatically and neural has a delay so all this crap about changing the infestor is bull crap for the first time scence the beta we have a unit that sustains equality between the game and Zerg players shouldn't be punished for finding out this unit that is what we need and have to use to win cause if you look at most games we do not use infestors we auto lose against death ball bio tank and the most bull shit composition mass air for Protoss with mother ship and storms is stead of looking at the Zerg and blaming the Zerg you should be look at Zerg players and loving them because unlike the other races the found a unit that is the best in their race and use it so instead of changeling them other races shouldn't be dumb asses and have their unit be fungalable because you should know Zerg is going infestors and if they aren't usually it's baneling lung muta so please stop just saying Zerg op Zerg op this needs to be changed no it doesn't need to be changed you need to change and play better
If all the other races are so dumb, maybe you could enlighten us about how we can fight the infestor better? I think you would be surprised if you tried playing terran and protoss for a game or 20 each.
On a different note I think some puctuation would do your text good!
. . Ok the Amin thing that differs between races that makes other races dumb is that they don't have the mental stability to just figure out what to do when they have. The ability that the races have to Harrass and expand and just build an army is substantial to what Zerg can only do they can ONLY rather all in or expand and go to the late game they can't harass they can't lost a BASE!!!!! And still win what Terran can do : go marine murader drops with expos and building a good army of tanks and bio with vicking if you see Burt lords , and o shit doesn't Terran have a spell caster that can do emp and take away all energy from and spell caster o shit why don't they use this and then the bio and tanks and Vikings can't get fungled ooh look at that !!!!!!! And or right now Thor vicking is one o the best compositions you can do Protos: first thing wasn't the bwc finals 2 Protoss wow look at that and they don't need and thing the have the best units and they use them but don't use them to the fullest blink stalkers are the most bull shit unit every I never knew they were able to turn into immortals when they get blink and the do a shit ton of damage also if proposes are complaining about getting neural end and then vortex is gone don't be a dumb ass and send the mother ship to the front of your army they had more range than neural and it's a automatic spell no delay like neural And there you go and that's what you can do !!!!!!!!! : also Protoss can just have 8-12 hightemplar and mass storm any army will just melt and o look high Templar also has a spell that can actually kill infestors and and are better range than infestors so I don't know why you all complain and bitch I'm sick of hearing this bitching
I don't want to be overly critical, but this and your last two posts were almost unreadable. Please use . and , and paragraphs, they are your friends <3
1st is dont care what you think i used an ipad to type all this not my regular keyboard. i had auto correct fucking me over every 2 seconds and just didnt care because this bull shit about all you people screaming over powered over powered is bull shit. back when zergs didnt have infestors we did this about the protos death ball and what to do and finaly we get a viable unit that can do what we need it do do and you dont even use them and you just want to get ride of them!!!!!
then don't expect anyone to take your posts seriously when it's a massive run on sentence with a bunch of "!!!!!!" randomly thrown in. calm down and wait until you have a keyboard you can use to organize well-constructed arguments.
On November 21 2012 10:13 Consummate wrote: Blizz really need to accompany Hydra buffs with the Infestor nerf, just for the sake of my sanity when it comes to reading Zerg whine.
It's unbelievable that people think "projectile fungal" is a ridiculous change. Fungal growth is currently an instant cast spell that just requires you to aim, and that group of enemies is essentially dead because of chain fungals, projectile fungals help mitigate the effectiveness of fungal and chain fungals, which is really what the game needs.
Also, people need to realise that infestors are a support unit, that means it isn't meant to be a front line attack unit that is massed like it currently is.
That is why a Hydra buff should be accompanied with the infestor nerf, if "drops" and "mass muta" are a problem, because neither should be solved by a support spellcaster.
It's unfathomable that fungal growth is a counter to every single unit in the game, and people think its fine as it is.
you hate zergs whine i hate people like you whine about the infestor and how good it is and just because we use it you go on rampages awwww the infestor OP OP OP OP Op when it is not fungal growth isnt that good it is a viable spell but if you are truly a good player you should learn adapt and change you play style just as all zergs have and you have the ability to shut down all infestor use so i dont know why it needs a nerf it is the only good unit we have that is viable ling arent viable verse groups of marines muraders and the arent viable against mech and also roaches jut evaporate to tank fire its unbelivable so please if you want to stop hear "zergs whining" when they arent they just want to keep the only unit that makes play not borring and have us lose 24/7, you should stop whining about how over powered the infestor is when its not. <3
and now you're just outright being an asshole to people. please stop.
On November 21 2012 11:20 Dontkillme wrote: Blizzard is listening to us <3 Much love
Actually I think they've been ignoring us more than listening -- which is a good thing, considering the infestor would have been nerfed to oblivion months ago if they had. They deserve some credit too, I think.
On November 21 2012 05:17 paradiset16 wrote: All I heard in this interview is that Zerg op Zerg op Zerg op and that's bull crap the zerg isn't op I feel its under powered because of what other races can do and if other races weren't so dumb. And clump units together and make them fungal able of the mother ship neural situation not send their mother ship to the front of their army the mother ship has more range then neural and goes automatically and neural has a delay so all this crap about changing the infestor is bull crap for the first time scence the beta we have a unit that sustains equality between the game and Zerg players shouldn't be punished for finding out this unit that is what we need and have to use to win cause if you look at most games we do not use infestors we auto lose against death ball bio tank and the most bull shit composition mass air for Protoss with mother ship and storms is stead of looking at the Zerg and blaming the Zerg you should be look at Zerg players and loving them because unlike the other races the found a unit that is the best in their race and use it so instead of changeling them other races shouldn't be dumb asses and have their unit be fungalable because you should know Zerg is going infestors and if they aren't usually it's baneling lung muta so please stop just saying Zerg op Zerg op this needs to be changed no it doesn't need to be changed you need to change and play better
If all the other races are so dumb, maybe you could enlighten us about how we can fight the infestor better? I think you would be surprised if you tried playing terran and protoss for a game or 20 each.
On a different note I think some puctuation would do your text good!
. . Ok the Amin thing that differs between races that makes other races dumb is that they don't have the mental stability to just figure out what to do when they have. The ability that the races have to Harrass and expand and just build an army is substantial to what Zerg can only do they can ONLY rather all in or expand and go to the late game they can't harass they can't lost a BASE!!!!! And still win what Terran can do : go marine murader drops with expos and building a good army of tanks and bio with vicking if you see Burt lords , and o shit doesn't Terran have a spell caster that can do emp and take away all energy from and spell caster o shit why don't they use this and then the bio and tanks and Vikings can't get fungled ooh look at that !!!!!!! And or right now Thor vicking is one o the best compositions you can do Protos: first thing wasn't the bwc finals 2 Protoss wow look at that and they don't need and thing the have the best units and they use them but don't use them to the fullest blink stalkers are the most bull shit unit every I never knew they were able to turn into immortals when they get blink and the do a shit ton of damage also if proposes are complaining about getting neural end and then vortex is gone don't be a dumb ass and send the mother ship to the front of your army they had more range than neural and it's a automatic spell no delay like neural And there you go and that's what you can do !!!!!!!!! : also Protoss can just have 8-12 hightemplar and mass storm any army will just melt and o look high Templar also has a spell that can actually kill infestors and and are better range than infestors so I don't know why you all complain and bitch I'm sick of hearing this bitching
I don't want to be overly critical, but this and your last two posts were almost unreadable. Please use . and , and paragraphs, they are your friends <3
1st is dont care what you think i used an ipad to type all this not my regular keyboard. i had auto correct fucking me over every 2 seconds and just didnt care because this bull shit about all you people screaming over powered over powered is bull shit. back when zergs didnt have infestors we did this about the protos death ball and what to do and finaly we get a viable unit that can do what we need it do do and you dont even use them and you just want to get ride of them!!!!!
then don't expect anyone to take your posts seriously when it's a massive run on sentence with a bunch of "!!!!!!" randomly thrown in. calm down and wait until you have a keyboard you can use to organize well-constructed arguments.
just be quite you are not the most gramatical and most intillectual human being on this earth with the most out scene and most well constructed sentences. i dont put and periods or any gramatical corrections in them cause i dont find them needed and people like you i dont need to care about my post cause you have no argumanet and or diffrences in what hapeneds in my posts. it not like o the great an all mighty draken reads my posts i must be famouse now so just go away you dont matter to my confersation
On November 21 2012 10:13 Consummate wrote: Blizz really need to accompany Hydra buffs with the Infestor nerf, just for the sake of my sanity when it comes to reading Zerg whine.
It's unbelievable that people think "projectile fungal" is a ridiculous change. Fungal growth is currently an instant cast spell that just requires you to aim, and that group of enemies is essentially dead because of chain fungals, projectile fungals help mitigate the effectiveness of fungal and chain fungals, which is really what the game needs.
Also, people need to realise that infestors are a support unit, that means it isn't meant to be a front line attack unit that is massed like it currently is.
That is why a Hydra buff should be accompanied with the infestor nerf, if "drops" and "mass muta" are a problem, because neither should be solved by a support spellcaster.
It's unfathomable that fungal growth is a counter to every single unit in the game, and people think its fine as it is.
you hate zergs whine i hate people like you whine about the infestor and how good it is and just because we use it you go on rampages awwww the infestor OP OP OP OP Op when it is not fungal growth isnt that good it is a viable spell but if you are truly a good player you should learn adapt and change you play style just as all zergs have and you have the ability to shut down all infestor use so i dont know why it needs a nerf it is the only good unit we have that is viable ling arent viable verse groups of marines muraders and the arent viable against mech and also roaches jut evaporate to tank fire its unbelivable so please if you want to stop hear "zergs whining" when they arent they just want to keep the only unit that makes play not borring and have us lose 24/7, you should stop whining about how over powered the infestor is when its not. <3
and now you're just outright being an asshole to people. please stop.
in this post im not being an all out ass hole im giving my opinion in what this person is say i have the right to and i will not stop posting on this crap that all protoses and terrans just scream zerg op zerg op like your self.
Great interview. I love the new Blizzard. More open and honest. I still want them to say "In HotS we will change/remove fungal/forcefield/vortex/etc. to allow for more options for every matchup."
On November 21 2012 04:32 CcFxCumstein wrote: Doesn't look like Monk knows too much about whats happening in PvZ atm. Immortal sentry push is not really as good as he thinks. Watch GSL
On November 21 2012 08:11 avilo wrote: I have no idea why there was so little Terran brought up in this interview considering the tourney they happen to be at has virtually no Terrans, and the last 8+ months of "statistics" + analyzing the metagame can prove 100% that there are huge balance issues for Terran the most of any race right now.
I don't know how monk chose his questions. I'm guessing he's a .
has been the dominating race from WOL launch until around May 2012. Even then, the imbalance wasn't really obvious until around/after September 2012. (Statisically anyways, since that's what you are talking about).
I choose them after conferring with a large variety of people. I talked to 1 high level T, 1 high level Z, and 2 high level Ps. I also talked with a large number of staff on TL, and in the end I spent 4 hours coming up with and compiling these specific questions. Ver specifically actually contributed about 9 questions, about 6 of which I used. I did ask him about why foreigner Terrans are doing poorly, why there are so few Terrans in WCS, and fungal in ZvT. I asked about why Terran doesn't have more units in HotS. I also asked about infestor/broodlord in TvZ, but unfortunately he only focused on ZvZ and I didn't push him on it. I'm not aware of any other really big/major specific issues in TvZ, so I honestly don't know what else I could have asked.
On November 21 2012 10:13 Consummate wrote: Blizz really need to accompany Hydra buffs with the Infestor nerf, just for the sake of my sanity when it comes to reading Zerg whine.
It's unbelievable that people think "projectile fungal" is a ridiculous change. Fungal growth is currently an instant cast spell that just requires you to aim, and that group of enemies is essentially dead because of chain fungals, projectile fungals help mitigate the effectiveness of fungal and chain fungals, which is really what the game needs.
Also, people need to realise that infestors are a support unit, that means it isn't meant to be a front line attack unit that is massed like it currently is.
That is why a Hydra buff should be accompanied with the infestor nerf, if "drops" and "mass muta" are a problem, because neither should be solved by a support spellcaster.
It's unfathomable that fungal growth is a counter to every single unit in the game, and people think its fine as it is.
you hate zergs whine i hate people like you whine about the infestor and how good it is and just because we use it you go on rampages awwww the infestor OP OP OP OP Op when it is not fungal growth isnt that good it is a viable spell but if you are truly a good player you should learn adapt and change you play style just as all zergs have and you have the ability to shut down all infestor use so i dont know why it needs a nerf it is the only good unit we have that is viable ling arent viable verse groups of marines muraders and the arent viable against mech and also roaches jut evaporate to tank fire its unbelivable so please if you want to stop hear "zergs whining" when they arent they just want to keep the only unit that makes play not borring and have us lose 24/7, you should stop whining about how over powered the infestor is when its not. <3
and now you're just outright being an asshole to people. please stop.
in this post im not being an all out ass hole im giving my opinion in what this person is say i have the right to and i will not stop posting on this crap that all protoses and terrans just scream zerg op zerg op like your self.
I find it appalling that your first language is English, considering you're from USA. Regardless, your writing style is pejorative and demeans you further in the eyes of those who are reading. You only seem as intelligent as your diction.
Also, if the power of fungal growth and infested terran should not be abated, then perhaps you can show us the use of counters to these spells -- counters that are practical, bolstered by an actual replay.
On November 21 2012 08:11 avilo wrote: I have no idea why there was so little Terran brought up in this interview considering the tourney they happen to be at has virtually no Terrans, and the last 8+ months of "statistics" + analyzing the metagame can prove 100% that there are huge balance issues for Terran the most of any race right now.
I don't know how monk chose his questions. I'm guessing he's a .
has been the dominating race from WOL launch until around May 2012. Even then, the imbalance wasn't really obvious until around/after September 2012. (Statisically anyways, since that's what you are talking about).
I choose them after conferring with a large variety of people. I talked to 1 high level T, 1 high level Z, and 2 high level Ps. I also talked with a large number of staff on TL, and in the end I spent 4 hours coming up with and compiling these specific questions. Ver specifically actually contributed about 9 questions, about 6 of which I used. I did ask him about why foreigner Terrans are doing poorly, why there are so few Terrans in WCS, and fungal in ZvT. I asked about why Terran doesn't have more units in HotS. I also asked about infestor/broodlord in TvZ, but unfortunately he only focused on ZvZ and I didn't push him on it. I'm not aware of any other really big/major specific issues in TvZ, so I honestly don't know what else I could have asked.
The variety of questions was good and pretty balanced imo. I'm really surprised/happy you guys were able to get a 30 minute interview, so much shit was answered and DB seems to have stepped up his game for interviews (his previous interviews were always good, but some things that were slightly vague or some things that weren't talked about in excruciating detail always seem to end up causing people to say things like "they never listen" or "they don't understand this" etc. etc.)
i feel that fungal with a slow, and spreading effect like plague in BW would be awesome, would give more micro opportunities to the game. That way you can be able to micro out of it to reduce damage if you're good enough, yet it gives a fun spell to the casual players to use :D. Also i think they shouldn't be able to nerual flying units but they can nerual ground (even colosus) and give nerual range 9 again! i think it would make ht more of a key in the match up and micro battles to control the big units ^_^ just my opinion though. and i am open to hear the cons of said opinion. P.S i am not a zerg player
On November 20 2012 19:04 DaveVAH wrote: Monk you spent 90% of the interview talking about and asking questions about P and Z, you let Dustin skip on his brood-lord infester answer on the TvZ MU (only ZvZ and PvZ broodlord infester usage was discussed).
Does terran not exist anymore or something? how about some questions on mech in TvP hots?
We need more objectivity in these interviews.
But I'm wearing a Terran Shirt!
Is that supposed to be funny? That was a serious observation.
Calm down dude, I thought it was pretty funny tbh.
On November 21 2012 08:11 avilo wrote: I have no idea why there was so little Terran brought up in this interview considering the tourney they happen to be at has virtually no Terrans, and the last 8+ months of "statistics" + analyzing the metagame can prove 100% that there are huge balance issues for Terran the most of any race right now.
I don't know how monk chose his questions. I'm guessing he's a .
has been the dominating race from WOL launch until around May 2012. Even then, the imbalance wasn't really obvious until around/after September 2012. (Statisically anyways, since that's what you are talking about).
Statistically in what match-up and for whom? Because outside of Korea, winrates have been in Terran disfavor pretty consistently since the patch. In Korea, the winrates have actually gone up since the start of the patch (see WCS Korean qualifier) and only this season of GSL is showing a pretty big swing in the zerg's favor against Terran. The last one had a very good balance even though Life kinda destroyed everyone (just like MVP and Taeja had a big influence on winrates earlier this year) and so did last MLG in pool and championship play.
This still begs the question as to why foreign Terran struggle so much...
I'm talking about statisically for all matchups in the international scene.
So how did you make conclusion that Terran was dominating till May 2012 from this graph? http://imgur.com/a/1iwo8
Because May 2012 is the first time in 22 months that win rate dips below 50%. I don't think it's that controversial to say that is very dominant for an extremely long time.
Long time and till May 2012 is not the sam thing. I would not call Terran dominant in 2012 based on these graphs. Also ZvT was an 54% level since May so i dont know how you concluded that problem occured around september especially since we dont have semptemer winrates. I would add that last time when T had 54%+ in TvZ was in July 2011.
The interview was great and the questions pretty precise. That being said the time constraint surely limited it to "only a few questions out of a huge cauldron filled with them" and thus the whole thing becomes somewhat useless again. Sure they see the problems with builds XYZ and dont want to do anything hasty while trying to fix those problems. Thats the wise thing to do, but the biggest question is: Are they also looking at the BIG PICTURE, which is the GENERAL GAMEPLAY like ... - the asymmetric production speed boosts and - the tight movement mechanic and very high concentration of infantry ... as possible causes for problems? If they do so seriously then thats great, if they keep on ignoring it - as it seems from the answer on the dynamic unit movement suggestion - then that is very worrying and a bad indication on their ability to balance the game.
On November 21 2012 17:11 Rabiator wrote: Are they also looking at the BIG PICTURE, which is the GENERAL GAMEPLAY like ... - the asymmetric production speed boosts and - the tight movement mechanic and very high concentration of infantry ... as possible causes for problems? If they do so seriously then thats great, if they keep on ignoring it - as it seems from the answer on the dynamic unit movement suggestion - then that is very worrying and a bad indication on their ability to balance the game.
It's not only about balance. Different races should not only look different, but also be actually different and they should create local imbalance.
The tight movement has ups and downs, a downside is the effect of AOE damage.
To TeamLiquid: Please keep the feedback coming and please play beta!
I would be happy to get a damn key. Even pre-ordering the game did not help.. I feel bad about this whole beta thing, I bought every single Blizz game since WC2 besides WOW, helped alot in previous betas, pre-ordered the game, and for some unknown reason I won't get picked
Good interview but i would have liked a question or two about creep. I would like to know if they would consider reducing the time it takes for creep to recede. With creep covering huge parts of the map it takes alot of scans just o clear some of it. On top of that it takes so long for the creep to actually recede its giving zerg perhaps to much time. We are seeing pro terrans just ignore creep now and take there chances walking out on the creep because otherwise they will never be able to push before BL/infestor. This causes alot of very one-sided battles where terrans get caught unsieged and a 200/200 army gets destroyed in seconds.
On November 21 2012 17:11 Rabiator wrote: Are they also looking at the BIG PICTURE, which is the GENERAL GAMEPLAY like ... - the asymmetric production speed boosts and - the tight movement mechanic and very high concentration of infantry ... as possible causes for problems? If they do so seriously then thats great, if they keep on ignoring it - as it seems from the answer on the dynamic unit movement suggestion - then that is very worrying and a bad indication on their ability to balance the game.
It's not only about balance. Different races should not only look different, but also be actually different and they should create local imbalance.
The tight movement has ups and downs, a downside is the effect of AOE damage.
The biggest problem is that you have to balance the game for "few vs few" AND "lots vs lots" ... and this makes it rather terrible. The deathball is a terribly efficient, but equally boring way to play the game and the tight movement and large numbers of units really make micro something that happens only in the first few minutes. This is something they dont seem to think about ... how to get more micro opportunities into the game and even if they would implement "Nony's Carrier micro" I doubt it would make a difference at all, because you will still lose the Interceptors too easily to a tight clump of ground units.
So please Dustin and your merry bunch of devs ... think about the general gameplay more and dont hesitate to admit failings there!
On November 21 2012 17:11 Rabiator wrote: Are they also looking at the BIG PICTURE, which is the GENERAL GAMEPLAY like ... - the asymmetric production speed boosts and - the tight movement mechanic and very high concentration of infantry ... as possible causes for problems? If they do so seriously then thats great, if they keep on ignoring it - as it seems from the answer on the dynamic unit movement suggestion - then that is very worrying and a bad indication on their ability to balance the game.
It's not only about balance. Different races should not only look different, but also be actually different and they should create local imbalance.
The tight movement has ups and downs, a downside is the effect of AOE damage.
The biggest problem is that you have to balance the game for "few vs few" AND "lots vs lots" ... and this makes it rather terrible. The deathball is a terribly efficient, but equally boring way to play the game and the tight movement and large numbers of units really make micro something that happens only in the first few minutes. This is something they dont seem to think about ... how to get more micro opportunities into the game and even if they would implement "Nony's Carrier micro" I doubt it would make a difference at all, because you will still lose the Interceptors too easily to a tight clump of ground units.
So please Dustin and your merry bunch of devs ... think about the general gameplay more and dont hesitate to admit failings there!
He did say that they "were not so proud that they wouldn't change it if the community found that made movement better". I think people are taking his comment to say that clumping is awesome(which it kinda is for the player, we need those tiny balls of DPS) and Blizzard won't change it. I took his comments in relation to the specific change found by the community member and how that changed the game. I don't think the was talking about SC2 as a whole or that they were dead set on the current pathing. I get the impression that they do not see a clear way to address the issue, since the players control the units and may just clump them up no matter what change they make.
Forcing players to use units on several screens is a easier way to break up the ball. Units like the tempest, swarmhost and oracle will force players to focus on more than just their army and macroing.
On November 21 2012 17:11 Rabiator wrote: Are they also looking at the BIG PICTURE, which is the GENERAL GAMEPLAY like ... - the asymmetric production speed boosts and - the tight movement mechanic and very high concentration of infantry ... as possible causes for problems? If they do so seriously then thats great, if they keep on ignoring it - as it seems from the answer on the dynamic unit movement suggestion - then that is very worrying and a bad indication on their ability to balance the game.
It's not only about balance. Different races should not only look different, but also be actually different and they should create local imbalance.
The tight movement has ups and downs, a downside is the effect of AOE damage.
The biggest problem is that you have to balance the game for "few vs few" AND "lots vs lots" ... and this makes it rather terrible. The deathball is a terribly efficient, but equally boring way to play the game and the tight movement and large numbers of units really make micro something that happens only in the first few minutes. This is something they dont seem to think about ... how to get more micro opportunities into the game and even if they would implement "Nony's Carrier micro" I doubt it would make a difference at all, because you will still lose the Interceptors too easily to a tight clump of ground units.
So please Dustin and your merry bunch of devs ... think about the general gameplay more and dont hesitate to admit failings there!
He did say that they "were not so proud that they wouldn't change it if the community found that made movement better". I think people are taking his comment to say that clumping is awesome(which it kinda is for the player, we need those tiny balls of DPS) and Blizzard won't change it. I took his comments in relation to the specific change found by the community member and how that changed the game. I don't think the was talking about SC2 as a whole or that they were dead set on the current pathing. I get the impression that they do not see a clear way to address the issue, since the players control the units and may just clump them up no matter what change they make.
Forcing players to use units on several screens is a easier way to break up the ball. Units like the tempest, swarmhost and oracle will force players to focus on more than just their army and macroing.
I always have their (his??) response to the dynamic unit movement suggestion in the back of my head. Until I hear a clear "clumped up units are bad and we will do something about it" from them that is the basis of my opinion of them. This answer supports that terrible first response.
IF they made spread out units the standard, but added the option to clump them up if the player chooses, they could add in "penalties" or "risks" to using clumped units. This would be the ideal solution IMO ... just give players the choice and the risk instead of forcing clumped up units and nerfing all potential penalties. If the Siege Tank easily destroys large and tight groups of Zerg there will be a need for them to actually use Vipers and abduct to break that up; the same would work for using hallucinated Immortals to take the tank shots while charging in with the real stuff or other "tricksy tactic" people can come up with. More abilities will be required and could be added to the game ... well you could just use a few Tempest to do that, but I hope we can agree that that unit is boring.
On November 20 2012 15:41 TeamLiquid ESPORTS wrote:
To TeamLiquid: Please keep the feedback coming and please play beta!
Fewer and fewer people (pros) do that ... at least when I am looking at the "Live Streams" list.
On November 21 2012 09:43 Destructicon wrote: I feel that Blizzard doesn't have a clear vision, a plan, an overarching design for how they want their races to work and it makes them at times look clueless and/or buff/nerf units in weird ways. It feels like they have some awareness of what the issues are, but either aren't truly aware of the real underlying problem and thus want to avoid direct changes, or they are aware of the problems but don't want to alter their flawed game design.
Very insightful comment and I feel the same way. It really does seem like blizzard doesn't have a clear vision overall of how they want each race to be played. . Or at least they have lost sight of that vision a bit, because stuff is getting nerfed/buffed in very strange ways. The fungal not hurting psionic is a perfect example. That really makes no sense at all and as a toss player it would make any kind of sentry timings rediculously easy, as you would never fear your sentrys being destroyed. Blizz would do good to make changes according to the original intent of the races rather than make them according to balance issues strictly speaking. Im not saying don't patch something broken, obviously, as im really getting sick of the deathclock till hive tech, but its possible for blizz to make changes to each race without sacrificing the feel of the game. . I mean I can't be the only one who sees some of these changes and it almost feels like they are breaking the 4th wall. . Just really abritrary changes that imo take the 'starcraft universe' feel out of the game.
On November 22 2012 04:35 Channel Pressure wrote: Totally agree with the immortal sentry comment's by browder/blizz
Totally agree with it as well. I'm glad they took this approach. Last year they were just nerfing and nerfing before giving the players a chance to solve strong builds.
I'm very interested in mutalisk/void ray changes. Those units seem difficult to "balance", wonder what they came up with.
On November 22 2012 04:35 Channel Pressure wrote: Totally agree with the immortal sentry comment's by browder/blizz
Totally agree with it as well. I'm glad they took this approach. Last year they were just nerfing and nerfing before giving the players a chance to solve strong builds.
I'm very interested in mutalisk/void ray changes. Those units seem difficult to "balance", wonder what they came up with.
Personally I am more interested in how they will try to make mech and air viable ...
Mutalisks shouldnt really be changed from their short range+bounce attacks IMO, so I am interested in what they do there as well. I dont keep my hopes high though and dread the day when they totally change them into something unrecognizable.
On November 21 2012 17:11 Rabiator wrote: Are they also looking at the BIG PICTURE, which is the GENERAL GAMEPLAY like ... - the asymmetric production speed boosts and - the tight movement mechanic and very high concentration of infantry ... as possible causes for problems? If they do so seriously then thats great, if they keep on ignoring it - as it seems from the answer on the dynamic unit movement suggestion - then that is very worrying and a bad indication on their ability to balance the game.
It's not only about balance. Different races should not only look different, but also be actually different and they should create local imbalance.
The tight movement has ups and downs, a downside is the effect of AOE damage.
The biggest problem is that you have to balance the game for "few vs few" AND "lots vs lots" ... and this makes it rather terrible. The deathball is a terribly efficient, but equally boring way to play the game and the tight movement and large numbers of units really make micro something that happens only in the first few minutes. This is something they dont seem to think about ... how to get more micro opportunities into the game and even if they would implement "Nony's Carrier micro" I doubt it would make a difference at all, because you will still lose the Interceptors too easily to a tight clump of ground units.
So please Dustin and your merry bunch of devs ... think about the general gameplay more and dont hesitate to admit failings there!
Interestingly, the advantage shifts with the numbers, generally melee units lose ground and ranged untis gain ground when numbers get higher on both sides. I think this is in general a good thing. It's not just "unit A counters unit B", it also depends on the numbers (and positioning, the upgrades, micromanagement and so on.) This makes the game more complex, since the response to a certain thread could be "build some cost-efficient units type A" or "build a lot of cost-inefficient units type B which gain efficiency through numbers though."
The shifting unit balance adds a lot of depth imo.
In my opinion, the core issue is not the option to make a deathball, but the lack of better strategies in many cases. A deathball should be vulnerable to AOE damage and/or slow moving to that counterattacks or drops can force the player to leave some defense in the base.
There are some options already, for example a number of ghosts can EMP a protoss deathball and weaken it considerably.
On November 21 2012 17:11 Rabiator wrote: Are they also looking at the BIG PICTURE, which is the GENERAL GAMEPLAY like ... - the asymmetric production speed boosts and - the tight movement mechanic and very high concentration of infantry ... as possible causes for problems? If they do so seriously then thats great, if they keep on ignoring it - as it seems from the answer on the dynamic unit movement suggestion - then that is very worrying and a bad indication on their ability to balance the game.
It's not only about balance. Different races should not only look different, but also be actually different and they should create local imbalance.
The tight movement has ups and downs, a downside is the effect of AOE damage.
The biggest problem is that you have to balance the game for "few vs few" AND "lots vs lots" ... and this makes it rather terrible. The deathball is a terribly efficient, but equally boring way to play the game and the tight movement and large numbers of units really make micro something that happens only in the first few minutes. This is something they dont seem to think about ... how to get more micro opportunities into the game and even if they would implement "Nony's Carrier micro" I doubt it would make a difference at all, because you will still lose the Interceptors too easily to a tight clump of ground units.
So please Dustin and your merry bunch of devs ... think about the general gameplay more and dont hesitate to admit failings there!
Interestingly, the advantage shifts with the numbers, generally melee units lose ground and ranged untis gain ground when numbers get higher on both sides. I think this is in general a good thing. It's not just "unit A counters unit B", it also depends on the numbers (and positioning, the upgrades, micromanagement and so on.) This makes the game more complex, since the response to a certain thread could be "build some cost-efficient units type A" or "build a lot of cost-inefficient units type B which gain efficiency through numbers though."
The shifting unit balance adds a lot of depth imo.
In my opinion, the core issue is not the option to make a deathball, but the lack of better strategies in many cases. A deathball should be vulnerable to AOE damage and/or slow moving to that counterattacks or drops can force the player to leave some defense in the base.
There are some options already, for example a number of ghosts can EMP a protoss deathball and weaken it considerably.
This is where we differ in our judgement, because not only do you need to look at infantry - and the "Marines vs Zealots" example is rather simple - but also include things like Siege Tanks and Colossi and Fungal and Storm and Banelings in your deliberations. Due to the varied nature of these units it is a really really terrible idea to have a game balanced around such a concept. Against "too few" these units will be "too strong" and against "too many" these units will be like paper. Bad idea.
"Added depth" is just another empty phrase IMO. What kind of "depth" does this shifting balance add? Deathball (tight unit clumping) is efficient? Yeah, well we knew that already. Here is a quote of something I wrote in another thread, which might help explain why tight unit clumping is so terrible:
In todays code A morning cast Wolf said something like "Stalker and Marine have the same dps", BUT if you compare them as a clump of units the Marines come out on top, because they can stack much tighter than the Stalkers. This will give them an edge the bigger the stacks get and probably makes up a lot of the weakness which Stalkers seem to have. If only Blizzard would understand ...
Is it really a good thing that Marines "gain dps" in a clump when compared to Stalkers? I dont think so. Stalkers cost more than Marines and should be more durable, but the higher clump dps of the Marine make them less durable in a direct comparison.
With tight unit clumping you cant "fix" the Siege Tank, because it would become overpowered with more dps. Without a reasonable Siege Tank you cant make mech viable. With tight unit clumping you have maximized infantry dps against anything "big" and this makes these big things really less viable. Thats why I would see REDUCED DEPTH due to unit clumping, because "the big ones" are really not worth it (mech, Battlecruiser, Carrier, Ultralisk).
Less is more and at least you understand the problem and the math behind it, even if you come to the opposite conclusion.
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?
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?
This has been tried already in a community mod, but simply increasing the radius of the units is a terrible solution, because it prevents clumping. The game should FORCE SPREAD while moving and allow clustering through micro. Add to this an increase in AoE damage and you get flexibility AND choice for the players (and viewers) AND you have a potential gain through clumping which is balanced by the potentially deadly AoE damage.
Anything less would be a terrible compsomise which makes the game worse.
On November 26 2012 08:21 moxie wrote: It's okay. Make some infestor changes, but then just make lings have speed without an upgrade.
- moxie
You didn't think that one through. That would completely break the entire game. Protoss would actually just die to 6pools every single game (since they can't completely wall off without having to sacrifice a structure later on and a zealot wouldn't be out in time to block off speedlings unless you did something crazy like a 10 gate), as would most Terrans unless they cut a worker to wall off fast.
On November 26 2012 08:21 moxie wrote: It's okay. Make some infestor changes, but then just make lings have speed without an upgrade.
- moxie
You didn't think that one through. That would completely break the entire game. Protoss would actually just die to 6pools every single game (since they can't completely wall off without having to sacrifice a structure later on and a zealot wouldn't be out in time to block off speedlings unless you did something crazy like a 10 gate), as would most Terrans unless they cut a worker to wall off fast.
You know, I'd almost like to see that go through just to laugh at it. Provided I get +1 weapons for free as well.
Believes there’s cultural differences between countries that makes Korean Terrans and foreigner Terrans different
Great, so they put a lot of stake in foreigner concerns for P and Z for 2 years, but turn around and essentially claim the only Terran feedback they care about are from Koreans. No wonder mech is still awful in HotS.
I died today to a well executed all in for the first time, day break vs a random toss
I realized that the random toss was off racing and playing protoss perfectly anyway at diamond level
I also realized that although i scouted this gimmicky trash early i made an extra 5 drones and died
I was out of position, so about 1/4thof hatchery was dead before i engaged, then i realised that his 1 1 is stronger then mine so it didn't matter to begin with
I ALSO realized that now with these alleged infestor nerfs we might be fucked late game to.
I also realized i was shedding a silly amount of tears, especially when he proceeded to bad manner me and call me bad even though i only made an extra 4 drones.
I forgot about the rules, let's just call this a cry for help and not a balance whine. for god sakes these people have a history of making terrible decisions and considering a large portion of the community, obviously more then 50%, is protoss or terran we might end up being screwed. perhaps a slow would be better than a projectile? i don't mind a projectile OR slow, but if they make it useless vs psionic zergs might as well just stop playing.
On November 27 2012 06:04 starchosengirl wrote: I died today to a well executed all in for the first time, day break vs a random toss
I realized that the random toss was off racing and playing protoss perfectly anyway at diamond level
I also realized that although i scouted this gimmicky trash early i made an extra 5 drones and died
I was out of position, so about 1/4thof hatchery was dead before i engaged, then i realised that his 1 1 is stronger then mine so it didn't matter to begin with
I ALSO realized that now with these alleged infestor nerfs we might be fucked late game to.
I also realized i was shedding a silly amount of tears, especially when he proceeded to bad manner me and call me bad even though i only made an extra 4 drones.
I forgot about the rules, let's just call this a cry for help and not a balance whine. for god sakes these people have a history of making terrible decisions and considering a large portion of the community, obviously more then 50%, is protoss or terran we might end up being screwed. perhaps a slow would be better than a projectile? i don't mind a projectile OR slow, but if they make it useless vs psionic zergs might as well just stop playing.
must be a cultural thing...if you lived in europe you could be good with zerg. if you lived in korea you could be good with all three races. have you tried switching to protoss? australians have a strong history with protoss llike Legionnaire. i hope db terran comments get used in LR and interview threads like partings soul reference.
honestly blizzrard wont nerf zerg, this is just a test map but they wont do anything, only trying to quell the complaints. random foreign zergs winning things is good for them cause korean domination kills the international scene.
i heard koreans have been smashing heads recently vs top eu/na teams and that scene could start to see a decline. with nexon distributing dota2 to korea who knows whats gonna happen.
So, it's been a while now, when will blizzard balance WOL? When do they balance TvZ/PvZ lategame? Or are they going to play it off now that everything is OK? These are questions we all should be asking right now. Blizzard seems quite quiet after WCS.
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?
This has been tried already in a community mod, but simply increasing the radius of the units is a terrible solution, because it prevents clumping. The game should FORCE SPREAD while moving and allow clustering through micro. Add to this an increase in AoE damage and you get flexibility AND choice for the players (and viewers) AND you have a potential gain through clumping which is balanced by the potentially deadly AoE damage.
Anything less would be a terrible compsomise which makes the game worse.
But the Dev Team has been reducing AoE damage since day 1, they reduced tank damage, collosus dmg,emp radius,fungal radius, etc,etc.
High damage worked in BW because the clumping wasnt so hardcore as in SC2.
Im just saying AoE damage and cumpling are tied together.
IMHO, they will never fix the death ball issue until they drop the mentality: "but what about bronze leaguers?, we need to make easy for them", its a shame how after 2 years bronze leaguers are still top priority.
On November 27 2012 11:05 avilo wrote: So, it's been a while now, when will blizzard balance WOL? When do they balance TvZ/PvZ lategame? Or are they going to play it off now that everything is OK? These are questions we all should be asking right now. Blizzard seems quite quiet after WCS.
They will stop balancing WoL in order to push everyone into HotS.
On November 26 2012 08:21 moxie wrote: It's okay. Make some infestor changes, but then just make lings have speed without an upgrade.
- moxie
You didn't think that one through. That would completely break the entire game. Protoss would actually just die to 6pools every single game (since they can't completely wall off without having to sacrifice a structure later on and a zealot wouldn't be out in time to block off speedlings unless you did something crazy like a 10 gate), as would most Terrans unless they cut a worker to wall off fast.
You know, I'd almost like to see that go through just to laugh at it. Provided I get +1 weapons for free as well.
Sorta interesting. It would certainly exaggerate the units' traits.
didn't the queen range and overlord buff take like 3 days of ptr before they implemented it? realistically nobody is playing this test map anyway so any data they get from it is trivial at best
On November 27 2012 13:39 artosismermaid wrote: didn't the queen range and overlord buff take like 3 days of ptr before they implemented it? realistically nobody is playing this test map anyway so any data they get from it is trivial at best
People are complaining that Protoss are simply rushing the Zerg on the test map now without fear of Fungals for their Sentries, so the data is useless anyways or rather: It tells us what you could have known after some mediocre amount of thinking: that the change to Fungal is stupid.
Seeker Missile not requiring an upgrade is not a real change either, since that spell takes soooooooooo much energy that you can get the research done in time anyways. The spell endangers the caster - unlike the 9 range Fungal - and thats the problem, not the research.
I'd say this is another example of "we just change things randomly here at Blizzard".
On November 27 2012 13:39 artosismermaid wrote: didn't the queen range and overlord buff take like 3 days of ptr before they implemented it? realistically nobody is playing this test map anyway so any data they get from it is trivial at best
People are complaining that Protoss are simply rushing the Zerg on the test map now without fear of Fungals for their Sentries, so the data is useless anyways or rather: It tells us what you could have known after some mediocre amount of thinking: that the change to Fungal is stupid.
Yes, i am very curious as to how they actually "collect data" on this map. It seems very placebo and that they cannot possibly be able to collect on these unit.. What will they do? Parse the data for the replays to see if and when people made ravens? I feel that this isn't data, and that if they really wanted to know i feel they would get better results by not making the map public and instead inviting pros to discuss with their team
I asked people on TL and on bnet, why they will make no PTR for this patch, we only get to play it on a broken version of antiga only? The majority response was that "no one would play it if it was on the PTR," but if no one is playing this test map as well, what is the difference? I feel that if they do it in this way, they should have TEN maps, each with different balance changes. Something like that. The community would then be able to "give feedback" by playing the map with "better" changes more . The problem is, when i queue for the games there, all of the master players do not play this. So i end up facing against noobs (no friends really on my current server) and its hard to tell if the changes are smart. Not only that, the map is antiga, which has a totally different metagame than the other maps :/
I quite enjoyed this, I think it needs to be a regular thing like once a month or once a quarter to keep us updated on what they're listening too in the community and how they're going about addressing it.
On November 27 2012 13:39 artosismermaid wrote: didn't the queen range and overlord buff take like 3 days of ptr before they implemented it? realistically nobody is playing this test map anyway so any data they get from it is trivial at best
People are complaining that Protoss are simply rushing the Zerg on the test map now without fear of Fungals for their Sentries, so the data is useless anyways or rather: It tells us what you could have known after some mediocre amount of thinking: that the change to Fungal is stupid.
Yes, i am very curious as to how they actually "collect data" on this map. It seems very placebo and that they cannot possibly be able to collect on these unit.. What will they do? Parse the data for the replays to see if and when people made ravens? I feel that this isn't data, and that if they really wanted to know i feel they would get better results by not making the map public and instead inviting pros to discuss with their team
I asked people on TL and on bnet, why they will make no PTR for this patch, we only get to play it on a broken version of antiga only? The majority response was that "no one would play it if it was on the PTR," but if no one is playing this test map as well, what is the difference? I feel that if they do it in this way, they should have TEN maps, each with different balance changes. Something like that. The community would then be able to "give feedback" by playing the map with "better" changes more . The problem is, when i queue for the games there, all of the master players do not play this. So i end up facing against noobs (no friends really on my current server) and its hard to tell if the changes are smart. Not only that, the map is antiga, which has a totally different metagame than the other maps :/
"Placebo" is exactly what I would describe the introduction and swift and unchanged removal of the Warhound as. How they figure out any "data" from ladder maps is beyond me. You HAVE TO judge any game as "interesting and worthy to remember" or "boring and a waste of time". Finding the right way to balance and fix the game has far less to do with actual data than it has with thinking about it and making the right decisions. Only after this general decision - such as "keep the deathball or try to get rid of it" - has been made are specific adjustments for/against builds necessary ... which could use the data collected from Blizzards ladder-data-gathering.
The big question is: Can the game be balanced by adjusting units alone OR is it necessary to tackle it by changing the general mechanics to make balancing by units easier. Personally I believe they need to severely change the general game mechanics to make it more interesting, but sadly the propaganda of "everything new is automatically better" and "everything that makes the game easier to play" has to be good" is hard to overcome.
Although people dont want to admit it, Dustin knows a lot more about this game than anyone gives him credit for. People think they have all the answers but they havent put near the time thinking about this game as the developers have. Have a little faith. WoL was a success imho (I've been playing for 2.5 years and it still isnt boring) and I would be really surprised if HotS did anything but elevate the game.
On November 27 2012 13:39 artosismermaid wrote: didn't the queen range and overlord buff take like 3 days of ptr before they implemented it? realistically nobody is playing this test map anyway so any data they get from it is trivial at best
People are complaining that Protoss are simply rushing the Zerg on the test map now without fear of Fungals for their Sentries, so the data is useless anyways or rather: It tells us what you could have known after some mediocre amount of thinking: that the change to Fungal is stupid.
Yes, i am very curious as to how they actually "collect data" on this map. It seems very placebo and that they cannot possibly be able to collect on these unit.. What will they do? Parse the data for the replays to see if and when people made ravens? I feel that this isn't data, and that if they really wanted to know i feel they would get better results by not making the map public and instead inviting pros to discuss with their team
I asked people on TL and on bnet, why they will make no PTR for this patch, we only get to play it on a broken version of antiga only? The majority response was that "no one would play it if it was on the PTR," but if no one is playing this test map as well, what is the difference? I feel that if they do it in this way, they should have TEN maps, each with different balance changes. Something like that. The community would then be able to "give feedback" by playing the map with "better" changes more . The problem is, when i queue for the games there, all of the master players do not play this. So i end up facing against noobs (no friends really on my current server) and its hard to tell if the changes are smart. Not only that, the map is antiga, which has a totally different metagame than the other maps :/
"Placebo" is exactly what I would describe the introduction and swift and unchanged removal of the Warhound as. How they figure out any "data" from ladder maps is beyond me. You HAVE TO judge any game as "interesting and worthy to remember" or "boring and a waste of time". Finding the right way to balance and fix the game has far less to do with actual data than it has with thinking about it and making the right decisions. Only after this general decision - such as "keep the deathball or try to get rid of it" - has been made are specific adjustments for/against builds necessary ... which could use the data collected from Blizzards ladder-data-gathering.
The big question is: Can the game be balanced by adjusting units alone OR is it necessary to tackle it by changing the general mechanics to make balancing by units easier. Personally I believe they need to severely change the general game mechanics to make it more interesting, but sadly the propaganda of "everything new is automatically better" and "everything that makes the game easier to play" has to be good" is hard to overcome.
I think we can safely assume the Warhound was on the chopping block well before the beta was started and the feedback was the nail in the coffin. The unit was a pile of trash and making it intresting did not seem worth anyones time. Personally, I much happier that Blizzard seems open to revamping units like the voidray, carrier, BC and raven. Players as a whole already know how these units "could be useful" but some feature is holding them back. Making those units is a better course for Blizzard and the game.
As for the test maps, I don't know how they collect data off of those maps. I feel Blizzard has a reasonable idea how a specific change will alter the metagame, but they release the test map to make sure it will not destroy the metagame or break something.
On November 28 2012 02:02 arcHoniC wrote: Although people dont want to admit it, Dustin knows a lot more about this game than anyone gives him credit for. People think they have all the answers but they havent put near the time thinking about this game as the developers have. Have a little faith. WoL was a success imho (I've been playing for 2.5 years and it still isnt boring) and I would be really surprised if HotS did anything but elevate the game.
If he knows that much, he should show it more in interviews (David Kim as well). His answers are just complete bullshit. And that they didn't think of sentries being a little too strong if fungal doesn't hit them tells us the whole story: They have know idea of what they are actually doing. (I didn't think of that too, because I didn't know Sentry was psionic since it never was relevant until now, but as a game designer of this game you should know!).
And the comment about needing more data of terran being weak. No Zergs in Ro8 of one single tournament (GSL Season 2 Code S) -> immediate buff (queen range/overlord speed) No Protoss in Ro8 of one single tournament (GSL October 2011 Code S) -> immediate buff (immortal range/upgrade costs)
Well now that terrans get smashed all over the place? Wait and see!
On November 28 2012 02:02 arcHoniC wrote: Although people dont want to admit it, Dustin knows a lot more about this game than anyone gives him credit for. People think they have all the answers but they havent put near the time thinking about this game as the developers have. Have a little faith. WoL was a success imho (I've been playing for 2.5 years and it still isnt boring) and I would be really surprised if HotS did anything but elevate the game.
How you can still have faith when the game clearly has systematic problems AND the answers of the developers are stupid as heck AND the actions of the development team for the expansion are changing units almost erratically or at random is beyond me.
Maybe you are gifted in that you are able to ignore them [ignorance is bliss after all], but they do exist and you dont need "proof" or "data" for them, because they are pretty obvious and easy to understand if you simply look. The only hard part is getting away from the "everything is going to be great" propaganda which Dustin spreads and to get a pretty objective point of view of the game not blinding yourself by "oh this unit is OP" or "this build is too tough" opinions. Here are some general questions to think about and they arent specific to any race:
Do you think it is a good idea to have the balance between units depend upon the numbers of them present? This is the "Marines can stack up tighter and thus have a higher dps per area compared to Stalkers" question.
Do you think "critical number" is a good thing in an RTS, where you are getting beyond a certain number of units and are able to one-shot big and expensive units OR get near invulnerable against large groups of units? Having lots of Infestors in a tight clump so you ALWAYS have a few Fungals available to stop any enemy units so they can be killed by your damage units is one example. Having enough Stalkers to one-shot Broodlords is another example ... but the game almost REQUIRES you to have that many.
Do you think the deathball - all units in a tight clump to battle against your opponents clump - is a good way to have in an RTS to the point that other tactics (spreading out and sieging an opponents base for example) are downright inefficient? This is a question of taste, but isnt choice better for the game? If the deathball was made harder and other ways of playing became equally viable it would add more options for the players.
What is exciting in the game? Are those abilities limited by being "too efficient" against tight clumps of units? In Broodwar there was the Reaver and it dealt 100 damage each shot which was A LOT, but there were two costs for it in the form of resources and the somewhat random nature. In SC2 this couldnt be done, because it would be totally overpowered ...
Are "bigger battles" with "bigger explosions" more exciting or can small engagements be just as exciting? This is the point where I keep on mentioning the BW pros, who are able to micro their own 2 Zerglings so well that they win a battle against an opponents 2 Zerglings without losing one of their own. Its also a question of "which type of micro do you prefer? shifting clumps of units into a concave OR moving individual units for higher efficiency?".
Do you think that watching big clumps of units - especially Roaches - battling each other is interesting for a viewer? This is where I always quote "the shark and the fish swarm" problem, where the shark is unable to focus on a fish, because there simply are too many.
Lots of questions which all deal with a fundamental problem of SC2 ... the deathball / tight unit clumping and the general size of armies in the games. The experience of Dustin Browder doesnt mean anything if he is coming to the wrong conclusions and this is very likely if he never ever "takes a step back" from designing new units or trying to balance existing units or simply dealing with the day-to-day details of his job. You need to step back and take a deep breath on a project of this size and ask yourself "Am I overlooking something?" while trying to be objective about it. I think he doesnt do this ... and thus he is bound to fail no matter what his experience with game design is.
Even though WoL was a success it doesnt mean it couldnt be better. At the beginning there were soooo many things the community criticised (BNet0.2, no LAN, Facebook integration, chat channels, custom map system, ...) and most of them havent been improved one bit. This has cost Blizzard A LOT of reputation and probably damaged the success of HotS.
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?
This has been tried already in a community mod, but simply increasing the radius of the units is a terrible solution, because it prevents clumping. The game should FORCE SPREAD while moving and allow clustering through micro. Add to this an increase in AoE damage and you get flexibility AND choice for the players (and viewers) AND you have a potential gain through clumping which is balanced by the potentially deadly AoE damage.
Anything less would be a terrible compsomise which makes the game worse.
But the Dev Team has been reducing AoE damage since day 1, they reduced tank damage, collosus dmg,emp radius,fungal radius, etc,etc.
High damage worked in BW because the clumping wasnt so hardcore as in SC2.
Im just saying AoE damage and cumpling are tied together.
IMHO, they will never fix the death ball issue until they drop the mentality: "but what about bronze leaguers?, we need to make easy for them", its a shame how after 2 years bronze leaguers are still top priority.
If they actually cared about bronze leaguers, you'd think they would have buffed Terran some time in the past 10 months...
it's too bad such a motivated worker doesn't get shit on what's happening around in his own game and actually manages to sound like a retard when hes talking about it
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?
This has been tried already in a community mod, but simply increasing the radius of the units is a terrible solution, because it prevents clumping. The game should FORCE SPREAD while moving and allow clustering through micro. Add to this an increase in AoE damage and you get flexibility AND choice for the players (and viewers) AND you have a potential gain through clumping which is balanced by the potentially deadly AoE damage.
Anything less would be a terrible compsomise which makes the game worse.
But the Dev Team has been reducing AoE damage since day 1, they reduced tank damage, collosus dmg,emp radius,fungal radius, etc,etc.
High damage worked in BW because the clumping wasnt so hardcore as in SC2.
Im just saying AoE damage and cumpling are tied together.
IMHO, they will never fix the death ball issue until they drop the mentality: "but what about bronze leaguers?, we need to make easy for them", its a shame how after 2 years bronze leaguers are still top priority.
If they actually cared about bronze leaguers, you'd think they would have buffed Terran some time in the past 10 months...
For Bronze league it isnt necessary to buff or nerf a race, but rather to make the game equally difficult to play. Using a bunch of Banelings againts Marines is EASY, defending against that by splitting your units is HARD. This is the biggest problem for the lower leagues. In addition there is that problem of not scouting and then being overrrun by an easily produced horde of units due to the turbo boosts for production. Sadly they are either afraid to do anything about this or they dont notice this or they dont care.
Specific racial adjustment are only useful after these general problems have been solved.
@Rabiator: No game can be balanced and "equally hard to play for the 3 races" at every level. Lower leaguers can either change race if theirs is too hard, or learn to play better.
On November 29 2012 04:33 Salteador Neo wrote: @Rabiator: No game can be balanced and "equally hard to play for the 3 races" at every level. Lower leaguers can either change race if theirs is too hard, or learn to play better.
Thats the stupid way to answer the problem ... "l2p" ... and it is also not true.
The thing is that Broodwar was NOT that different to master because the units didnt have that many gimmicks AND you didnt have those masses of units which REQUIRE that you have precise and good control. BW was much easier on the newbie while offering lots of chances to learn nifty tricks if you had the patience and skill for it. Soooo ... if it has been done once already, why cant SC2 do it? The answer to this is easy: Blizzard / Browder cant stand taking a few steps back to tune down SC2s overdone focus on mass combat.
On November 29 2012 04:33 Salteador Neo wrote: @Rabiator: No game can be balanced and "equally hard to play for the 3 races" at every level. Lower leaguers can either change race if theirs is too hard, or learn to play better.
Thats the stupid way to answer the problem ... "l2p" ... and it is also not true.
The thing is that Broodwar was NOT that different to master because the units didnt have that many gimmicks AND you didnt have those masses of units which REQUIRE that you have precise and good control. BW was much easier on the newbie while offering lots of chances to learn nifty tricks if you had the patience and skill for it. Soooo ... if it has been done once already, why cant SC2 do it? The answer to this is easy: Blizzard / Browder cant stand taking a few steps back to tune down SC2s overdone focus on mass combat.
I am sorry, I blacked out when you used the words “BW was much easier on the newbie” and that BW “didnt have those masses of units which REQUIRE that you have precise and good control.” My brain was unable to understand that language without damaging itself.
On November 29 2012 04:33 Salteador Neo wrote: @Rabiator: No game can be balanced and "equally hard to play for the 3 races" at every level. Lower leaguers can either change race if theirs is too hard, or learn to play better.
Thats the stupid way to answer the problem ... "l2p" ... and it is also not true.
The thing is that Broodwar was NOT that different to master because the units didnt have that many gimmicks AND you didnt have those masses of units which REQUIRE that you have precise and good control. BW was much easier on the newbie while offering lots of chances to learn nifty tricks if you had the patience and skill for it. Soooo ... if it has been done once already, why cant SC2 do it? The answer to this is easy: Blizzard / Browder cant stand taking a few steps back to tune down SC2s overdone focus on mass combat.
BW was hard as hell on the newbie lol, dunno what you are talking about. Also Terran on low levels was hella harder than the rest, while Protoss was the easier in pretty much every level (and I'm a huge Protoss fan since Bisu).
L2P is the only response I can think of to someone who asks for the game to be balanced around low level play...
On November 29 2012 04:33 Salteador Neo wrote: @Rabiator: No game can be balanced and "equally hard to play for the 3 races" at every level. Lower leaguers can either change race if theirs is too hard, or learn to play better.
Thats the stupid way to answer the problem ... "l2p" ... and it is also not true.
The thing is that Broodwar was NOT that different to master because the units didnt have that many gimmicks AND you didnt have those masses of units which REQUIRE that you have precise and good control. BW was much easier on the newbie while offering lots of chances to learn nifty tricks if you had the patience and skill for it. Soooo ... if it has been done once already, why cant SC2 do it? The answer to this is easy: Blizzard / Browder cant stand taking a few steps back to tune down SC2s overdone focus on mass combat.
BW was hard as hell on the newbie lol, dunno what you are talking about. Also Terran on low levels was hella harder than the rest, while Protoss was the easier in pretty much every level (and I'm a huge Protoss fan since Bisu).
L2P is the only response I can think of to someone who asks for the game to be balanced around low level play...
BW was EQUALLY HARD to learn for all three races ...
BW was also simpler to learn, because there were no low level gimmicks which affected the basic units. No Forcefields, no Banelings to be wary of rolling into your masses of units, no Blink to learn to master for the Dragoons ... NOTHING. Thus it IS easier to learn than SC2.
On November 29 2012 04:33 Salteador Neo wrote: @Rabiator: No game can be balanced and "equally hard to play for the 3 races" at every level. Lower leaguers can either change race if theirs is too hard, or learn to play better.
Thats the stupid way to answer the problem ... "l2p" ... and it is also not true.
The thing is that Broodwar was NOT that different to master because the units didnt have that many gimmicks AND you didnt have those masses of units which REQUIRE that you have precise and good control. BW was much easier on the newbie while offering lots of chances to learn nifty tricks if you had the patience and skill for it. Soooo ... if it has been done once already, why cant SC2 do it? The answer to this is easy: Blizzard / Browder cant stand taking a few steps back to tune down SC2s overdone focus on mass combat.
BW was hard as hell on the newbie lol, dunno what you are talking about. Also Terran on low levels was hella harder than the rest, while Protoss was the easier in pretty much every level (and I'm a huge Protoss fan since Bisu).
L2P is the only response I can think of to someone who asks for the game to be balanced around low level play...
BW was EQUALLY HARD to learn for all three races ...
BW was also simpler to learn, because there were no low level gimmicks which affected the basic units. No Forcefields, no Banelings to be wary of rolling into your masses of units, no Blink to learn to master for the Dragoons ... NOTHING. Thus it IS easier to learn than SC2.
Everyone has an equal capacity to improve and surpass the opponents they're rated against. It doesn't matter how difficult it might be to micro against banelings for a low level Terran, as they will be paired with a Zerg who's win/loss would likely reveal they're worse than an average Zerg of comparable skill level to that Terran, creating even games and an even chance to get better. If Terrans are actually losing significant losses to Zerg who seemingly destroy them, then they'd have to be winning a significant portion of their TvT's and TvP's.
The irony of such criticisms against the Blizzard team when they designed a ladder system that can't be significantly imbalanced without falling into one of the extreme ends of the MMR spectrum.
On November 29 2012 04:33 Salteador Neo wrote: @Rabiator: No game can be balanced and "equally hard to play for the 3 races" at every level. Lower leaguers can either change race if theirs is too hard, or learn to play better.
Thats the stupid way to answer the problem ... "l2p" ... and it is also not true.
The thing is that Broodwar was NOT that different to master because the units didnt have that many gimmicks AND you didnt have those masses of units which REQUIRE that you have precise and good control. BW was much easier on the newbie while offering lots of chances to learn nifty tricks if you had the patience and skill for it. Soooo ... if it has been done once already, why cant SC2 do it? The answer to this is easy: Blizzard / Browder cant stand taking a few steps back to tune down SC2s overdone focus on mass combat.
BW was hard as hell on the newbie lol, dunno what you are talking about. Also Terran on low levels was hella harder than the rest, while Protoss was the easier in pretty much every level (and I'm a huge Protoss fan since Bisu).
L2P is the only response I can think of to someone who asks for the game to be balanced around low level play...
BW was EQUALLY HARD to learn for all three races ...
BW was also simpler to learn, because there were no low level gimmicks which affected the basic units. No Forcefields, no Banelings to be wary of rolling into your masses of units, no Blink to learn to master for the Dragoons ... NOTHING. Thus it IS easier to learn than SC2.
Everyone has an equal capacity to improve and surpass the opponents they're rated against. It doesn't matter how difficult it might be to micro against banelings for a low level Terran, as they will be paired with a Zerg who's win/loss would likely reveal they're worse than an average Zerg of comparable skill level to that Terran, creating even games and an even chance to get better. If Terrans are actually losing significant losses to Zerg who seemingly destroy them, then they'd have to be winning a significant portion of their TvT's and TvP's.
The irony of such criticisms against the Blizzard team when they designed a ladder system that can't be significantly imbalanced without falling into one of the extreme ends of the MMR spectrum.
Thats not really the point .... the LADDER ... and being paired against people who are placed equally high on the ladder still makes Banelings EASY to use and evading them HARD. Its an easy excuse for not acknowledging the difference needed. Where is the equivalent for Terran, where they are pointing a gun at Zerg and say "make the right move THIS SECOND or die"? There is no equivalent and this creates the imbalance in the gameplay.
If I want to have fun in the game - as a casual - and such imbalance is in it then I wont have fun playing as the Terran. Sure, the Zerg will have his fun, but the Terran? Only if he is a masochist. So Blizzard made the races "unequal" in the skill required / the effort required to play it and this sucks for casuals in addition to giving Zerg players a nice advantage by having less work to perform.
On November 28 2012 02:02 arcHoniC wrote: Although people dont want to admit it, Dustin knows a lot more about this game than anyone gives him credit for. People think they have all the answers but they havent put near the time thinking about this game as the developers have. Have a little faith. WoL was a success imho (I've been playing for 2.5 years and it still isnt boring) and I would be really surprised if HotS did anything but elevate the game.
If he knows that much, he should show it more in interviews (David Kim as well). His answers are just complete bullshit. And that they didn't think of sentries being a little too strong if fungal doesn't hit them tells us the whole story: They have know idea of what they are actually doing. (I didn't think of that too, because I didn't know Sentry was psionic since it never was relevant until now, but as a game designer of this game you should know!).
And the comment about needing more data of terran being weak. No Zergs in Ro8 of one single tournament (GSL Season 2 Code S) -> immediate buff (queen range/overlord speed) No Protoss in Ro8 of one single tournament (GSL October 2011 Code S) -> immediate buff (immortal range/upgrade costs)
Well now that terrans get smashed all over the place? Wait and see!
Although, if we're going only by GSL, Terran is fine. There are two of them in the Ro4 this season.
On November 29 2012 04:33 Salteador Neo wrote: @Rabiator: No game can be balanced and "equally hard to play for the 3 races" at every level. Lower leaguers can either change race if theirs is too hard, or learn to play better.
Thats the stupid way to answer the problem ... "l2p" ... and it is also not true.
The thing is that Broodwar was NOT that different to master because the units didnt have that many gimmicks AND you didnt have those masses of units which REQUIRE that you have precise and good control. BW was much easier on the newbie while offering lots of chances to learn nifty tricks if you had the patience and skill for it. Soooo ... if it has been done once already, why cant SC2 do it? The answer to this is easy: Blizzard / Browder cant stand taking a few steps back to tune down SC2s overdone focus on mass combat.
BW was hard as hell on the newbie lol, dunno what you are talking about. Also Terran on low levels was hella harder than the rest, while Protoss was the easier in pretty much every level (and I'm a huge Protoss fan since Bisu).
L2P is the only response I can think of to someone who asks for the game to be balanced around low level play...
BW was EQUALLY HARD to learn for all three races ...
BW was also simpler to learn, because there were no low level gimmicks which affected the basic units. No Forcefields, no Banelings to be wary of rolling into your masses of units, no Blink to learn to master for the Dragoons ... NOTHING. Thus it IS easier to learn than SC2.
Lol, no. Protoss was WAY easier than the others to at the "real" newbie level.
He is correct. Protoss was easier and perhaps even more enjoyable for a beginner in Starcraft. Maybe it was because you could win as a protoss without worrying too much about your macro, as protoss was about having 'fewer but stronger' units. In any case, early game protoss was always strong. One zealot > two marines.
It was really interesting to hear Dustin's answers on some of the questions answered. I hope he does interviews on a regular basis henceforth.
On November 29 2012 04:33 Salteador Neo wrote: @Rabiator: No game can be balanced and "equally hard to play for the 3 races" at every level. Lower leaguers can either change race if theirs is too hard, or learn to play better.
Thats the stupid way to answer the problem ... "l2p" ... and it is also not true.
The thing is that Broodwar was NOT that different to master because the units didnt have that many gimmicks AND you didnt have those masses of units which REQUIRE that you have precise and good control. BW was much easier on the newbie while offering lots of chances to learn nifty tricks if you had the patience and skill for it. Soooo ... if it has been done once already, why cant SC2 do it? The answer to this is easy: Blizzard / Browder cant stand taking a few steps back to tune down SC2s overdone focus on mass combat.
BW was hard as hell on the newbie lol, dunno what you are talking about. Also Terran on low levels was hella harder than the rest, while Protoss was the easier in pretty much every level (and I'm a huge Protoss fan since Bisu).
L2P is the only response I can think of to someone who asks for the game to be balanced around low level play...
BW was EQUALLY HARD to learn for all three races ...
BW was also simpler to learn, because there were no low level gimmicks which affected the basic units. No Forcefields, no Banelings to be wary of rolling into your masses of units, no Blink to learn to master for the Dragoons ... NOTHING. Thus it IS easier to learn than SC2.
Lol, no. Protoss was WAY easier than the others to at the "real" newbie level.
Why? Zealots, strong! :p
There was no "oh shit, act NOW or die" thing among the basic units, there was no "forcefield placement" to learn and no "concussive shell slow-kiting" either. The basic units - Marine/Hydralisk/Dragoon - were relatively equal in their difficulty to use ... no matter which one of them was stronger or weaker. Thus the difference between playing the races wasnt as huge as it is in SC2.
In addition to this the gameplay-limitation of "12 units per control group" made sure that relatively equal numbers of units were facing each other. This kept the "kill speed" slow and manageable for lower level players. Compared to this the easily massed units in SC2 make sure that you can screw up easily and lose half your army in a short time.
tl;dr "Difficulty to use" isnt the same as "powerful" ...
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?
This has been tried already in a community mod, but simply increasing the radius of the units is a terrible solution, because it prevents clumping. The game should FORCE SPREAD while moving and allow clustering through micro. Add to this an increase in AoE damage and you get flexibility AND choice for the players (and viewers) AND you have a potential gain through clumping which is balanced by the potentially deadly AoE damage.
Anything less would be a terrible compsomise which makes the game worse.
But the Dev Team has been reducing AoE damage since day 1, they reduced tank damage, collosus dmg,emp radius,fungal radius, etc,etc.
High damage worked in BW because the clumping wasnt so hardcore as in SC2.
Im just saying AoE damage and cumpling are tied together.
IMHO, they will never fix the death ball issue until they drop the mentality: "but what about bronze leaguers?, we need to make easy for them", its a shame how after 2 years bronze leaguers are still top priority.
If they actually cared about bronze leaguers, you'd think they would have buffed Terran some time in the past 10 months...
bronze terrans are doing fine? All terrans are down there. The problem is diamond/master/gm where there is barely any left.
On November 29 2012 04:33 Salteador Neo wrote: @Rabiator: No game can be balanced and "equally hard to play for the 3 races" at every level. Lower leaguers can either change race if theirs is too hard, or learn to play better.
Thats the stupid way to answer the problem ... "l2p" ... and it is also not true.
The thing is that Broodwar was NOT that different to master because the units didnt have that many gimmicks AND you didnt have those masses of units which REQUIRE that you have precise and good control. BW was much easier on the newbie while offering lots of chances to learn nifty tricks if you had the patience and skill for it. Soooo ... if it has been done once already, why cant SC2 do it? The answer to this is easy: Blizzard / Browder cant stand taking a few steps back to tune down SC2s overdone focus on mass combat.
BW was hard as hell on the newbie lol, dunno what you are talking about. Also Terran on low levels was hella harder than the rest, while Protoss was the easier in pretty much every level (and I'm a huge Protoss fan since Bisu).
L2P is the only response I can think of to someone who asks for the game to be balanced around low level play...
BW was EQUALLY HARD to learn for all three races ...
BW was also simpler to learn, because there were no low level gimmicks which affected the basic units. No Forcefields, no Banelings to be wary of rolling into your masses of units, no Blink to learn to master for the Dragoons ... NOTHING. Thus it IS easier to learn than SC2.
Everyone has an equal capacity to improve and surpass the opponents they're rated against. It doesn't matter how difficult it might be to micro against banelings for a low level Terran, as they will be paired with a Zerg who's win/loss would likely reveal they're worse than an average Zerg of comparable skill level to that Terran, creating even games and an even chance to get better. If Terrans are actually losing significant losses to Zerg who seemingly destroy them, then they'd have to be winning a significant portion of their TvT's and TvP's.
The irony of such criticisms against the Blizzard team when they designed a ladder system that can't be significantly imbalanced without falling into one of the extreme ends of the MMR spectrum.
Thats not really the point .... the LADDER ... and being paired against people who are placed equally high on the ladder still makes Banelings EASY to use and evading them HARD. Its an easy excuse for not acknowledging the difference needed. Where is the equivalent for Terran, where they are pointing a gun at Zerg and say "make the right move THIS SECOND or die"? There is no equivalent and this creates the imbalance in the gameplay.
If I want to have fun in the game - as a casual - and such imbalance is in it then I wont have fun playing as the Terran. Sure, the Zerg will have his fun, but the Terran? Only if he is a masochist. So Blizzard made the races "unequal" in the skill required / the effort required to play it and this sucks for casuals in addition to giving Zerg players a nice advantage by having less work to perform.
Why do you insist on saying that marines should be viable to a-move against banelings? It's a gimmick that they can be split and be super cost effective against blings. Maybe try something that doesn't require splitting like mech? I'd imagine a low level zerg would feel the same way about mech as you do about blings.
On November 29 2012 04:33 Salteador Neo wrote: @Rabiator: No game can be balanced and "equally hard to play for the 3 races" at every level. Lower leaguers can either change race if theirs is too hard, or learn to play better.
Thats the stupid way to answer the problem ... "l2p" ... and it is also not true.
The thing is that Broodwar was NOT that different to master because the units didnt have that many gimmicks AND you didnt have those masses of units which REQUIRE that you have precise and good control. BW was much easier on the newbie while offering lots of chances to learn nifty tricks if you had the patience and skill for it. Soooo ... if it has been done once already, why cant SC2 do it? The answer to this is easy: Blizzard / Browder cant stand taking a few steps back to tune down SC2s overdone focus on mass combat.
BW was hard as hell on the newbie lol, dunno what you are talking about. Also Terran on low levels was hella harder than the rest, while Protoss was the easier in pretty much every level (and I'm a huge Protoss fan since Bisu).
L2P is the only response I can think of to someone who asks for the game to be balanced around low level play...
BW was EQUALLY HARD to learn for all three races ...
BW was also simpler to learn, because there were no low level gimmicks which affected the basic units. No Forcefields, no Banelings to be wary of rolling into your masses of units, no Blink to learn to master for the Dragoons ... NOTHING. Thus it IS easier to learn than SC2.
Everyone has an equal capacity to improve and surpass the opponents they're rated against. It doesn't matter how difficult it might be to micro against banelings for a low level Terran, as they will be paired with a Zerg who's win/loss would likely reveal they're worse than an average Zerg of comparable skill level to that Terran, creating even games and an even chance to get better. If Terrans are actually losing significant losses to Zerg who seemingly destroy them, then they'd have to be winning a significant portion of their TvT's and TvP's.
The irony of such criticisms against the Blizzard team when they designed a ladder system that can't be significantly imbalanced without falling into one of the extreme ends of the MMR spectrum.
Thats not really the point .... the LADDER ... and being paired against people who are placed equally high on the ladder still makes Banelings EASY to use and evading them HARD. Its an easy excuse for not acknowledging the difference needed. Where is the equivalent for Terran, where they are pointing a gun at Zerg and say "make the right move THIS SECOND or die"? There is no equivalent and this creates the imbalance in the gameplay.
If I want to have fun in the game - as a casual - and such imbalance is in it then I wont have fun playing as the Terran. Sure, the Zerg will have his fun, but the Terran? Only if he is a masochist. So Blizzard made the races "unequal" in the skill required / the effort required to play it and this sucks for casuals in addition to giving Zerg players a nice advantage by having less work to perform.
Why do you insist on saying that marines should be viable to a-move against banelings? It's a gimmick that they can be split and be super cost effective against blings. Maybe try something that doesn't require splitting like mech? I'd imagine a low level zerg would feel the same way about mech as you do about blings.
Errr ... WHAT?
All I am saying is that BANELINGS are an A-MOVE unit which has to be countered by a split second reaction and that the other two races DONT have such a mechanic. This makes the races very much different to use ... Zerg = ez-mode, Terran = hard. Protoss have Forcefield and arent usually targeted by Banelings anyways and a ZvZ has the same difficulty on both side ... except if you dont build Banelings.
This difference to use the races is the reason why SC2 is unfriendly to learn for newbies and low-leaguers .... contrary to BW, which didnt have such low-tier special abilities.
If anything the Banelings need to be changed to be less of an "do the right thing NOW or die" unit to stop this one-sided-burden-of-micro and even out the playing difficulty of the races.
On November 29 2012 04:33 Salteador Neo wrote: @Rabiator: No game can be balanced and "equally hard to play for the 3 races" at every level. Lower leaguers can either change race if theirs is too hard, or learn to play better.
Thats the stupid way to answer the problem ... "l2p" ... and it is also not true.
The thing is that Broodwar was NOT that different to master because the units didnt have that many gimmicks AND you didnt have those masses of units which REQUIRE that you have precise and good control. BW was much easier on the newbie while offering lots of chances to learn nifty tricks if you had the patience and skill for it. Soooo ... if it has been done once already, why cant SC2 do it? The answer to this is easy: Blizzard / Browder cant stand taking a few steps back to tune down SC2s overdone focus on mass combat.
BW was hard as hell on the newbie lol, dunno what you are talking about. Also Terran on low levels was hella harder than the rest, while Protoss was the easier in pretty much every level (and I'm a huge Protoss fan since Bisu).
L2P is the only response I can think of to someone who asks for the game to be balanced around low level play...
BW was EQUALLY HARD to learn for all three races ...
BW was also simpler to learn, because there were no low level gimmicks which affected the basic units. No Forcefields, no Banelings to be wary of rolling into your masses of units, no Blink to learn to master for the Dragoons ... NOTHING. Thus it IS easier to learn than SC2.
Everyone has an equal capacity to improve and surpass the opponents they're rated against. It doesn't matter how difficult it might be to micro against banelings for a low level Terran, as they will be paired with a Zerg who's win/loss would likely reveal they're worse than an average Zerg of comparable skill level to that Terran, creating even games and an even chance to get better. If Terrans are actually losing significant losses to Zerg who seemingly destroy them, then they'd have to be winning a significant portion of their TvT's and TvP's.
The irony of such criticisms against the Blizzard team when they designed a ladder system that can't be significantly imbalanced without falling into one of the extreme ends of the MMR spectrum.
Thats not really the point .... the LADDER ... and being paired against people who are placed equally high on the ladder still makes Banelings EASY to use and evading them HARD. Its an easy excuse for not acknowledging the difference needed. Where is the equivalent for Terran, where they are pointing a gun at Zerg and say "make the right move THIS SECOND or die"? There is no equivalent and this creates the imbalance in the gameplay.
If I want to have fun in the game - as a casual - and such imbalance is in it then I wont have fun playing as the Terran. Sure, the Zerg will have his fun, but the Terran? Only if he is a masochist. So Blizzard made the races "unequal" in the skill required / the effort required to play it and this sucks for casuals in addition to giving Zerg players a nice advantage by having less work to perform.
So then you have no point? I just explained how Terrans get even opponents giving them a 40-60% chance on average to beat every zerg they face -- regardless of how imbalanced -- which the ladder will compensate for. It's pretty much the definition of a system made for casuals, giving them all equal opportunities. Even when they aren't good enough yet to deal with an equal opponent with any kind of advantage, they can improve and get better to reach that level. It's unrealistic, and fairly redundant otherwise to nitpick the shit out of the most miniscule discrepancies that are largely irrelevant.
If you can't have fun in the game because the mere concept of banelings makes you angry, regardless of how unrelated it may be on the reality of your experiences, you're probably prone to strawman any unit as your downfall on ladder in a perfectly balanced world.
I hope you're not implying Blizzard intentionally creates imbalance, either.
On November 29 2012 04:33 Salteador Neo wrote: @Rabiator: No game can be balanced and "equally hard to play for the 3 races" at every level. Lower leaguers can either change race if theirs is too hard, or learn to play better.
Thats the stupid way to answer the problem ... "l2p" ... and it is also not true.
The thing is that Broodwar was NOT that different to master because the units didnt have that many gimmicks AND you didnt have those masses of units which REQUIRE that you have precise and good control. BW was much easier on the newbie while offering lots of chances to learn nifty tricks if you had the patience and skill for it. Soooo ... if it has been done once already, why cant SC2 do it? The answer to this is easy: Blizzard / Browder cant stand taking a few steps back to tune down SC2s overdone focus on mass combat.
BW was hard as hell on the newbie lol, dunno what you are talking about. Also Terran on low levels was hella harder than the rest, while Protoss was the easier in pretty much every level (and I'm a huge Protoss fan since Bisu).
L2P is the only response I can think of to someone who asks for the game to be balanced around low level play...
BW was EQUALLY HARD to learn for all three races ...
BW was also simpler to learn, because there were no low level gimmicks which affected the basic units. No Forcefields, no Banelings to be wary of rolling into your masses of units, no Blink to learn to master for the Dragoons ... NOTHING. Thus it IS easier to learn than SC2.
Everyone has an equal capacity to improve and surpass the opponents they're rated against. It doesn't matter how difficult it might be to micro against banelings for a low level Terran, as they will be paired with a Zerg who's win/loss would likely reveal they're worse than an average Zerg of comparable skill level to that Terran, creating even games and an even chance to get better. If Terrans are actually losing significant losses to Zerg who seemingly destroy them, then they'd have to be winning a significant portion of their TvT's and TvP's.
The irony of such criticisms against the Blizzard team when they designed a ladder system that can't be significantly imbalanced without falling into one of the extreme ends of the MMR spectrum.
Thats not really the point .... the LADDER ... and being paired against people who are placed equally high on the ladder still makes Banelings EASY to use and evading them HARD. Its an easy excuse for not acknowledging the difference needed. Where is the equivalent for Terran, where they are pointing a gun at Zerg and say "make the right move THIS SECOND or die"? There is no equivalent and this creates the imbalance in the gameplay.
If I want to have fun in the game - as a casual - and such imbalance is in it then I wont have fun playing as the Terran. Sure, the Zerg will have his fun, but the Terran? Only if he is a masochist. So Blizzard made the races "unequal" in the skill required / the effort required to play it and this sucks for casuals in addition to giving Zerg players a nice advantage by having less work to perform.
So then you have no point? I just explained how Terrans get even opponents giving them a 40-60% chance on average to beat every zerg they face -- regardless of how imbalanced -- which the ladder will compensate for. It's pretty much the definition of a system made for casuals, giving them all equal opportunities. Even when they aren't good enough yet to deal with an equal opponent with any kind of advantage, they can improve and get better to reach that level. It's unrealistic, and fairly redundant otherwise to nitpick the shit out of the most miniscule discrepancies that are largely irrelevant.
If you can't have fun in the game because the mere concept of banelings makes you angry, regardless of how unrelated it may be on the reality of your experiences, you're probably prone to strawman any unit as your downfall on ladder in a perfectly balanced world.
I hope you're not implying Blizzard intentionally creates imbalance, either.
Didnt you read? The LADDER isnt important, because its about how easy the races are used. Even at pro levels its harder to split Marines than it is to use Banelings. This discrepancy is worst at low level of skill, because Banelings are a-move.
If the ladder just adjusts who meets who that is a nice "cheat" of Blizzard to give everyone a 50/50 win-loss ratio so it DOES NOT MATTER, because it doesnt really put players of "equal skill" against each other since ZERG IS EASIER TO PLAY. Broodwar did NOT have that problem since there were no low-tier special gimmicks which were THAT different to use/fight against.
Banelings aren't the best example of an A-move units imo. A-moving them isn't effective because they will explode on Marauders or Tank instead of exploding on Marines. In top of that, Zerg have to split them because if they don't, one Tanks volley can kill 10 Banelings at once. As a lot of people tell you, if you have problem fighting Baneling with Marines in wood league, then, don't fight baneling with Marines. Terrans don't have to play bio to win vs Zerg and mech is very good in lower leagues.
On November 29 2012 04:33 Salteador Neo wrote: @Rabiator: No game can be balanced and "equally hard to play for the 3 races" at every level. Lower leaguers can either change race if theirs is too hard, or learn to play better.
Thats the stupid way to answer the problem ... "l2p" ... and it is also not true.
The thing is that Broodwar was NOT that different to master because the units didnt have that many gimmicks AND you didnt have those masses of units which REQUIRE that you have precise and good control. BW was much easier on the newbie while offering lots of chances to learn nifty tricks if you had the patience and skill for it. Soooo ... if it has been done once already, why cant SC2 do it? The answer to this is easy: Blizzard / Browder cant stand taking a few steps back to tune down SC2s overdone focus on mass combat.
BW was hard as hell on the newbie lol, dunno what you are talking about. Also Terran on low levels was hella harder than the rest, while Protoss was the easier in pretty much every level (and I'm a huge Protoss fan since Bisu).
L2P is the only response I can think of to someone who asks for the game to be balanced around low level play...
BW was EQUALLY HARD to learn for all three races ...
BW was also simpler to learn, because there were no low level gimmicks which affected the basic units. No Forcefields, no Banelings to be wary of rolling into your masses of units, no Blink to learn to master for the Dragoons ... NOTHING. Thus it IS easier to learn than SC2.
Everyone has an equal capacity to improve and surpass the opponents they're rated against. It doesn't matter how difficult it might be to micro against banelings for a low level Terran, as they will be paired with a Zerg who's win/loss would likely reveal they're worse than an average Zerg of comparable skill level to that Terran, creating even games and an even chance to get better. If Terrans are actually losing significant losses to Zerg who seemingly destroy them, then they'd have to be winning a significant portion of their TvT's and TvP's.
The irony of such criticisms against the Blizzard team when they designed a ladder system that can't be significantly imbalanced without falling into one of the extreme ends of the MMR spectrum.
Thats not really the point .... the LADDER ... and being paired against people who are placed equally high on the ladder still makes Banelings EASY to use and evading them HARD. Its an easy excuse for not acknowledging the difference needed. Where is the equivalent for Terran, where they are pointing a gun at Zerg and say "make the right move THIS SECOND or die"? There is no equivalent and this creates the imbalance in the gameplay.
If I want to have fun in the game - as a casual - and such imbalance is in it then I wont have fun playing as the Terran. Sure, the Zerg will have his fun, but the Terran? Only if he is a masochist. So Blizzard made the races "unequal" in the skill required / the effort required to play it and this sucks for casuals in addition to giving Zerg players a nice advantage by having less work to perform.
So then you have no point? I just explained how Terrans get even opponents giving them a 40-60% chance on average to beat every zerg they face -- regardless of how imbalanced -- which the ladder will compensate for. It's pretty much the definition of a system made for casuals, giving them all equal opportunities. Even when they aren't good enough yet to deal with an equal opponent with any kind of advantage, they can improve and get better to reach that level. It's unrealistic, and fairly redundant otherwise to nitpick the shit out of the most miniscule discrepancies that are largely irrelevant.
If you can't have fun in the game because the mere concept of banelings makes you angry, regardless of how unrelated it may be on the reality of your experiences, you're probably prone to strawman any unit as your downfall on ladder in a perfectly balanced world.
I hope you're not implying Blizzard intentionally creates imbalance, either.
Didnt you read? The LADDER isnt important, because its about how easy the races are used. Even at pro levels its harder to split Marines than it is to use Banelings. This discrepancy is worst at low level of skill, because Banelings are a-move.
If the ladder just adjusts who meets who that is a nice "cheat" of Blizzard to give everyone a 50/50 win-loss ratio so it DOES NOT MATTER, because it doesnt really put players of "equal skill" against each other since ZERG IS EASIER TO PLAY. Broodwar did NOT have that problem since there were no low-tier special gimmicks which were THAT different to use/fight against.
Everyone can find specific points in every match up that were one player needs to micro more than the other. Saying that X-race has to micro(and I don’t consider backing up against a melee range unit robust micro) more than Y-race does not prove that one race is harder than the other. The other race could easily find a similar example. Micro is a back and forth affair. One player makes a move and the other player responds. Some units are put on attack-move so the player can focus on controlling others.
Also, there are a number of people actually played BW on a higher level who would not agree that all three races were equally easy to play. I know you like they claim they were all equally challenging, but there are few facts to support this claim.
On November 29 2012 04:33 Salteador Neo wrote: @Rabiator: No game can be balanced and "equally hard to play for the 3 races" at every level. Lower leaguers can either change race if theirs is too hard, or learn to play better.
Thats the stupid way to answer the problem ... "l2p" ... and it is also not true.
The thing is that Broodwar was NOT that different to master because the units didnt have that many gimmicks AND you didnt have those masses of units which REQUIRE that you have precise and good control. BW was much easier on the newbie while offering lots of chances to learn nifty tricks if you had the patience and skill for it. Soooo ... if it has been done once already, why cant SC2 do it? The answer to this is easy: Blizzard / Browder cant stand taking a few steps back to tune down SC2s overdone focus on mass combat.
BW was hard as hell on the newbie lol, dunno what you are talking about. Also Terran on low levels was hella harder than the rest, while Protoss was the easier in pretty much every level (and I'm a huge Protoss fan since Bisu).
L2P is the only response I can think of to someone who asks for the game to be balanced around low level play...
BW was EQUALLY HARD to learn for all three races ...
BW was also simpler to learn, because there were no low level gimmicks which affected the basic units. No Forcefields, no Banelings to be wary of rolling into your masses of units, no Blink to learn to master for the Dragoons ... NOTHING. Thus it IS easier to learn than SC2.
Everyone has an equal capacity to improve and surpass the opponents they're rated against. It doesn't matter how difficult it might be to micro against banelings for a low level Terran, as they will be paired with a Zerg who's win/loss would likely reveal they're worse than an average Zerg of comparable skill level to that Terran, creating even games and an even chance to get better. If Terrans are actually losing significant losses to Zerg who seemingly destroy them, then they'd have to be winning a significant portion of their TvT's and TvP's.
The irony of such criticisms against the Blizzard team when they designed a ladder system that can't be significantly imbalanced without falling into one of the extreme ends of the MMR spectrum.
Thats not really the point .... the LADDER ... and being paired against people who are placed equally high on the ladder still makes Banelings EASY to use and evading them HARD. Its an easy excuse for not acknowledging the difference needed. Where is the equivalent for Terran, where they are pointing a gun at Zerg and say "make the right move THIS SECOND or die"? There is no equivalent and this creates the imbalance in the gameplay.
If I want to have fun in the game - as a casual - and such imbalance is in it then I wont have fun playing as the Terran. Sure, the Zerg will have his fun, but the Terran? Only if he is a masochist. So Blizzard made the races "unequal" in the skill required / the effort required to play it and this sucks for casuals in addition to giving Zerg players a nice advantage by having less work to perform.
So then you have no point? I just explained how Terrans get even opponents giving them a 40-60% chance on average to beat every zerg they face -- regardless of how imbalanced -- which the ladder will compensate for. It's pretty much the definition of a system made for casuals, giving them all equal opportunities. Even when they aren't good enough yet to deal with an equal opponent with any kind of advantage, they can improve and get better to reach that level. It's unrealistic, and fairly redundant otherwise to nitpick the shit out of the most miniscule discrepancies that are largely irrelevant.
If you can't have fun in the game because the mere concept of banelings makes you angry, regardless of how unrelated it may be on the reality of your experiences, you're probably prone to strawman any unit as your downfall on ladder in a perfectly balanced world.
I hope you're not implying Blizzard intentionally creates imbalance, either.
Didnt you read? The LADDER isnt important, because its about how easy the races are used. Even at pro levels its harder to split Marines than it is to use Banelings. This discrepancy is worst at low level of skill, because Banelings are a-move.
If the ladder just adjusts who meets who that is a nice "cheat" of Blizzard to give everyone a 50/50 win-loss ratio so it DOES NOT MATTER, because it doesnt really put players of "equal skill" against each other since ZERG IS EASIER TO PLAY. Broodwar did NOT have that problem since there were no low-tier special gimmicks which were THAT different to use/fight against.
I'm not sure you're getting it. The ladder is extremely relevant. It creates even matches; each player has a ~50% chance to win regardless of any implicit imbalance. Zerg who defeat Terrans of equal skill level (not equal MMR) more often than not will be rated higher, and these Terrans won't be fighting Zerg such that their winrate against them wouldn't plummet below 40% outside of extreme circumstances. The bias you exhume is nauseating. I just explained why it's a non-issue and now it's a cheat. Lol. I suggest that these casuals try another game whom's forum they can bitch on if they can't queue on ladder because they earnestly think it's a single unit that's holding them back. If it wasn't the baneling it'd be something else -- anything to explain why their ~50% winrate isn't 80%.
EPT![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/9/9d/Ticon_small.png)
WoL
Terran
Zerg
Protoss![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/c/c9/Zicon_small.png)
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rools*
