Call to Action #2: November 30 Balance Testing - Page 27

On December 01 2012 06:22 MrF wrote:
blizzard is scared of overbalancing so they make stupid useless changes instead o

On December 01 2012 06:31 ShamW0W wrote:


I think there's a HUGE difference between top competitive play and GM level ladder play. Hard to state just how large the difference it since it's incredibly subjective but it's there.

....

On December 01 2012 06:34 zhurai wrote:

except it's a test map.

On December 01 2012 06:32 FeyverN wrote:
These changes might as well not exist.

I don't see the point of the seeker missile change. If you start seeker missile the same time you start building ravens, Ravens will have seeker missile by the time they are built+ gather up energy.

Though, it does allow for other Raven upgrades to be prioritized, such as the +25 energy one.

As for the infestor, it seems negligible.

On December 01 2012 06:31 ShamW0W wrote:


I think there's a HUGE difference between top competitive play and GM level ladder play. Hard to state just how large the difference it since it's incredibly subjective but it's there.

Using statistics from ladder play is tough for various reasons:
Matchmaking exists to try and push people to 50/50 win rates
Playing for money is a MUCH larger motivator for playing optimally than playing for ladder points
Individual players can have multiple accounts across multiple ladders

That's not to say that ladder statistics are useless or irrelevant but with an e-sport you want to balance for the absolute top level of play. The play experience for Diamond and Masters level players is definitely important, I fall into that bucket, but would require a re-design of certain mechanics and I don't think Blizzard is hip to that level of suggestion right now. (yes, I said hip)

On December 01 2012 06:49 nanaoei wrote:
i think it'd be worth it to sit down with a small stadium of professional players and having them test and give input to various changes--this would have to be done in phases.

that... or taking larger leaps to changes while assuming the general pop. of players have still a long way to go before we start seeing perfected play.

the strategies are stale because of the layout of the map, and the maps are stale because of the strategies players use.
how could we make it so interesting and viable maps are more easy to create ?

On December 01 2012 06:41 Tryagain4free wrote:



But what is there to be tested? Are you gonna invest your time to wittness if there is any difference in handling IT eggs? Cause I can't see any significant number of players who are willing to. The last testmap didn't bring any significant and reliable data, cause there were close to zero zergs willing to play the map. And the ones who did, 6 pooled quiie a bit.

So why exactly are they implementing a testmap with nothing to test? And why should you and I or anyone waste time on this placebo map?

On December 01 2012 06:42 LuckoftheIrish wrote:


I'm interested to see how it changes ITs against Storm and Collosus. Maybe it won't be big enough, maybe it won't. The thing with the Infestor nerfs that I think people need to remember is that they have to work in a post-HotS world. When the expansion comes out, Infestors aren't going to be necessary anymore. Viper-based compositions are in a lot of situations just as good. So overnerfing is actually a concern, since there's another support caster being released that'll take prominence.

On December 01 2012 07:03 zhurai wrote:

you're misinterpreting my position.

On November 30 2012 11:12 Cyro wrote:
You cant kill eggs when they have 0 attack priority. Period. If there is a single zergling within attack range, every single unit you have, ranged, melee, trapped or otherwise will shoot at it and overkill it by thousands of damage before turning to shoot at eggs.

IT problem cant be solved by reducing the hp on eggs that dont have attack priority by 20%, im pretty embarassed for blizzard for even thinking that could have a notable effect.

On December 01 2012 07:11 kezz_ wrote:


That's why you focus fire the unit that you think has the highest priority to kill, instead of using attack move.

On December 01 2012 06:50 Hider wrote:


All the factors you stated, shouldn't they even out across races? Hence if terran players play in average 5% worse on ladder (due to no motivation/testing stuff), then zerg will probably play 5% worse as well.
Average pro terran probably have just as many multiple accounts as the average zerg player as well...

Or at least I don't logically see any reasons for why GM results shouldn't be usefull.

2) Regarding redesign, I (unforuntately) think you are correct. It's probably close to impossible balance the game across diamond and top-top level play at the same time. The problem is obvioulsy that zerg/toss is easier to play than terran, and one solution would be to make the infestor/collosus more difficult to use optimally (which I believe they should have tried to test redesign in HOTS) and/or make fungal growth less forgiving (so your marine army don't get killed in an instant if you make a mistake in a nanosecond).

I think HOTS will be an improvement afterall, but it doesn't fix many of the underlying problems (unlike TFT which seemed to completely redesign the faulty design of WC3 vanilla).

So let me conclude that I think that Blizzard is correct in prioritizing highest level, but I believe results from GM players is a more reliable indicator of balance than just large tournmanets due to the much larger sample size. And my theory is that even at the highest level of play terran is underpowered (though it's probably even worse in masters/diamond/plat).

A redesign of the infestor would make terran and protoss easier to play against zerg.
A redesign of the collosus would make protoss more difficult to play optimally aganst terran/zerg.

Thus the game would be more enjoyable (if redesigned correctly) and it would be easier to balance the game across different skill levels.

On December 01 2012 07:12 Scila wrote:


Yes let me just focus fire 40 infested terran eggs 1 by 1. idiot...

On December 01 2012 07:11 kezz_ wrote:


That's why you focus fire the unit that you think has the highest priority to kill, instead of using attack move.

On December 01 2012 07:22 ShamW0W wrote:


To change our discussion to more specifics since we seem to be headed that way, I made a suggestion in the earlier CTA thread that was largely ignored.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=383354&currentpage=62#1236

The tldr; version is to nerf the Infestor so that it's more of a support unit and to buff the Hydralisk to make up for the hole that's left in the Zerg arsenal.