EPTOn December 01 2012 15:00 Wombat_NI wrote:
Actually, you've inadvertently made me fearful now that Infestors won't change, damnit man and I was so hopeful!
They could have changed creep in such a way so the really good spreaders weren't punished, but the bad ones were. The fact they didn't is actually worrying me now because I feel I may have given Blizz too much credit in my earlier posts
Show nested quote +
On December 01 2012 14:52 aksfjh wrote:
Even when Idra agrees with me, I hate the guy.
This was the general consensus among pros at the time though. Zerg had plenty of defensive options, and losses involving a scouted all-in generally had to do with a Zerg mistake instead of a specific weakness.
Blizzard attempted to fix the creep problem back in August, but decided it wasn't necessary. There were feelings in the community that the lack of Zergs winning the most recent tournaments (and MVP winning some) persuaded Blizzard to back off the changes.
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/6873704
On December 01 2012 14:23 Wombat_NI wrote:
This is the video I always use when talking about why the 'Queen patch' was terrible. Idra's actually pretty spot on in this video when he's talking. The idea that, in the absence of good scouting, you need to be able to blindly defend is pretty sensible. You need at least one of either good information, or good capacity to defend without information.
What Blizzard did was improve both Zerg's capacity to scout, and blindly defend. It also had other incidental effects such as making the creep spread of almost every Zerg player a bit better.
The creep should also be looked at, in my view. Someone like Seal or Scarlett who have great creep spread will still be creep-spreading monsters, but some Zergs are coasting on the new trend towards more early Queens giving them almost inevitable improvements in creep spreading proficiency.
On December 01 2012 14:12 aksfjh wrote:
The overlord change was a response to the classic tale that Zergs just didn't have good scouting options in the early game (fast 2 base timings mainly). When the test came out for it, a lot of players, Terran and Protoss alike thought the overlord change was justified and good. It was a subtle change a lot of people saw a need for and saw the reasoning behind.
The queen change(s) were heralded as too much though, and relatively unasked for. Protoss argued a lot about them in regards to zealots, and it was mostly a fruitless and incorrect argument. Terran argued about them because hellions would ALWAYS take damage when applying pressure. The first change (+25 energy) was regarded as bad as a whole for the same reason the range was, the scouting advantage should solve the minor problems Zerg had.
The primary reason I point this out specifically is because it's still regarded as a bad patch that went too far by a huge chunk of the community, but Blizzard hasn't said anything about it or reverting (at least a tiny bit) the changes in the patch. So far, even with some of the most severe kneejerk balance patches, like thor energy and ghost snipe, Blizzard has shown no regret for those patches. There are no hints that they're afraid of changing too much or that they're particularly afraid of long term unintended consequences.
My personal view of the situation is that Blizzard doesn't see a (big) problem with Zerg right now. They're responding to a consistent outcry from the community that Zerg is too powerful, and taking a conciliatory route by nerfing the unit people want nerfed, infestors.
On December 01 2012 13:04 Wombat_NI wrote:
That pattern is correctly identified, and was applicable to how Blizz used to patch for sure. I do feel that their new 'hands-off unless entirely necessary' approach, with a more measured way of balancing is actually a tangible thing, but I might be wrong. I am reading between the lines when it comes to what I feel is motivating Blizz with their attempts to re-balance the infestor, and their reasoning. I might be wrong though, because it's conjecture.
The Queen/overlord change was the last change I feel they made arbitrarily, by that I mean without fitting into the 'Something looks broken, and the community complains' part of your post. The kind of change that was Blizzard trying to fix the game themselves without being based on community grievances (by and large).
When the change was proposed in the abstract form, very few people disagreed with it, conceptually. When it was being tested, few people, even the pros saw a problem with it. I do remember Kawaiirice being a notable exception, and even he didn't disagree with the changes before he actually got to test them.
However, when the pros properly got their hands on the new Queens and speedy overlords, and refined their useage, we have the current (worse imo) metagame of Zergs getting a 'free pass to hive'. I also believe that Blizzard did not want their patch to lead to that either. It was an attempt to change the 'stale' TvZ metagame, but not with the intention of creating another stale metagame that benefited Zerg.
It's that kind of unintentional consequence that I am close to 100% convinced that Blizzard do NOT want to produce with the infestor changes, hence why I am happy for them to change things slowly. Basically, I'd rather them find a solution that is correct and functions properly, than try to apply a solution that is something random and untested, throw it out, see if it works, that might have a huge consequence of the game.
Also, on an unrelated note, it's threads full of whiners like these who convince me that Blizzard will NEVER try to redesign more fundamental concepts, even in LoTV. If people are bashing them for taking their time on a complex change like the Infestor changes, how can we ever, ever expect them to look at something more complex like Warpgates?
That is something that many people, even Protoss players like me would like to see, although I know it's stated that this option is currently off the table according to Browder
On December 01 2012 12:37 aksfjh wrote:
It's implicit. In the past, the timetable has been:
1) Something looks broken, and the community complains
2) We wait for Blizzard acknowledgement, sometimes it takes more than 6 months
3) Blizzard notes that they're looking at it, sometimes offers a general direction of their response
4) Blizzard comes out with a test map (or PTR long ago)
5) If needed, Blizzard comes up with a revised test map that reverts or adds changes
6) Blizzard releases patch
We have yet to see an "isolated" approach to balance. It has always been direct changes, and iterative changes. By taking out the fungal change and only going back to IT, they have implicitly decided that fungal isn't the problem, nor is the infestor as a whole.
On December 01 2012 12:15 Wombat_NI wrote:
If the change does nothing, Blizzard will see that it does nothing and look at other ways of tweaking the Infestor. It's not bad to identify this, at all.
@ZAINs and aksfjh
As I see it, they're not saying say, fungal is fine. They're saying the specific changes they were trying didn't work, that they didn't have the desired, proportional change that Blizzard were looking for.
At no point have I seen a Blizzard employee come out since this process started and said 'fungal is fine', or that the infestor is fine overall.
On December 01 2012 12:04 Corrosive wrote:
because this change does literally nothing.
On December 01 2012 11:19 Wombat_NI wrote:
I actually cannot believe how retarded people are being about this. I genuinely can't, even posters I normally respect are posting nonsense here.
The reason (most) of us bitch about the infestor isn't due to fungal being too good, or infested terrans being too good, but that they are too good, and too versatile, taking away the infestor being a useful support unit, and making it obligatory.
It's patently, fucking, obvious, that Blizzard are tweaking small things with each of the infestor's abilities to try and figure out to what degree they can nerf each of them, while maintaining the utility of the infestor.
If the infestor was like the ghost, when snipe was dominating everything, they WOULD nerf that one ability, 100%. I am convinced of this. However, the infestor being 'overpowered' is in relation to both of its abilities, either that they're too good individually, or too good for one caster to have both, in its current form.
Blizzard are obviously trying to isolate the two spells in these testing maps, and trying to find values that balance them, independently. They aren't retarded, they know that they could straight up nerf the infestor, and how they could do that. They are merely trying to think about how this is done, and to what degree this is done through testing out a multitude of ideas.
Imagine if the marine was thought of as overpowered, in that the community overwhelming thought so, and demanded action. Any kind of nerf would be enormously complex because the marine affects every single Terran matchup, and close to every single Terran composition. Thus it would have to be a careful, considered process of balancing due to the HUGE impact that getting it wrong would have.
Why is this a bad approach? Can somebody please tell me why? I am genuinely curious.
I actually cannot believe how retarded people are being about this. I genuinely can't, even posters I normally respect are posting nonsense here.
The reason (most) of us bitch about the infestor isn't due to fungal being too good, or infested terrans being too good, but that they are too good, and too versatile, taking away the infestor being a useful support unit, and making it obligatory.
It's patently, fucking, obvious, that Blizzard are tweaking small things with each of the infestor's abilities to try and figure out to what degree they can nerf each of them, while maintaining the utility of the infestor.
If the infestor was like the ghost, when snipe was dominating everything, they WOULD nerf that one ability, 100%. I am convinced of this. However, the infestor being 'overpowered' is in relation to both of its abilities, either that they're too good individually, or too good for one caster to have both, in its current form.
Blizzard are obviously trying to isolate the two spells in these testing maps, and trying to find values that balance them, independently. They aren't retarded, they know that they could straight up nerf the infestor, and how they could do that. They are merely trying to think about how this is done, and to what degree this is done through testing out a multitude of ideas.
Imagine if the marine was thought of as overpowered, in that the community overwhelming thought so, and demanded action. Any kind of nerf would be enormously complex because the marine affects every single Terran matchup, and close to every single Terran composition. Thus it would have to be a careful, considered process of balancing due to the HUGE impact that getting it wrong would have.
Why is this a bad approach? Can somebody please tell me why? I am genuinely curious.
because this change does literally nothing.
If the change does nothing, Blizzard will see that it does nothing and look at other ways of tweaking the Infestor. It's not bad to identify this, at all.
@ZAINs and aksfjh
As I see it, they're not saying say, fungal is fine. They're saying the specific changes they were trying didn't work, that they didn't have the desired, proportional change that Blizzard were looking for.
At no point have I seen a Blizzard employee come out since this process started and said 'fungal is fine', or that the infestor is fine overall.
It's implicit. In the past, the timetable has been:
1) Something looks broken, and the community complains
2) We wait for Blizzard acknowledgement, sometimes it takes more than 6 months
3) Blizzard notes that they're looking at it, sometimes offers a general direction of their response
4) Blizzard comes out with a test map (or PTR long ago)
5) If needed, Blizzard comes up with a revised test map that reverts or adds changes
6) Blizzard releases patch
We have yet to see an "isolated" approach to balance. It has always been direct changes, and iterative changes. By taking out the fungal change and only going back to IT, they have implicitly decided that fungal isn't the problem, nor is the infestor as a whole.
That pattern is correctly identified, and was applicable to how Blizz used to patch for sure. I do feel that their new 'hands-off unless entirely necessary' approach, with a more measured way of balancing is actually a tangible thing, but I might be wrong. I am reading between the lines when it comes to what I feel is motivating Blizz with their attempts to re-balance the infestor, and their reasoning. I might be wrong though, because it's conjecture.
The Queen/overlord change was the last change I feel they made arbitrarily, by that I mean without fitting into the 'Something looks broken, and the community complains' part of your post. The kind of change that was Blizzard trying to fix the game themselves without being based on community grievances (by and large).
When the change was proposed in the abstract form, very few people disagreed with it, conceptually. When it was being tested, few people, even the pros saw a problem with it. I do remember Kawaiirice being a notable exception, and even he didn't disagree with the changes before he actually got to test them.
However, when the pros properly got their hands on the new Queens and speedy overlords, and refined their useage, we have the current (worse imo) metagame of Zergs getting a 'free pass to hive'. I also believe that Blizzard did not want their patch to lead to that either. It was an attempt to change the 'stale' TvZ metagame, but not with the intention of creating another stale metagame that benefited Zerg.
It's that kind of unintentional consequence that I am close to 100% convinced that Blizzard do NOT want to produce with the infestor changes, hence why I am happy for them to change things slowly. Basically, I'd rather them find a solution that is correct and functions properly, than try to apply a solution that is something random and untested, throw it out, see if it works, that might have a huge consequence of the game.
Also, on an unrelated note, it's threads full of whiners like these who convince me that Blizzard will NEVER try to redesign more fundamental concepts, even in LoTV. If people are bashing them for taking their time on a complex change like the Infestor changes, how can we ever, ever expect them to look at something more complex like Warpgates?
That is something that many people, even Protoss players like me would like to see, although I know it's stated that this option is currently off the table according to Browder
The overlord change was a response to the classic tale that Zergs just didn't have good scouting options in the early game (fast 2 base timings mainly). When the test came out for it, a lot of players, Terran and Protoss alike thought the overlord change was justified and good. It was a subtle change a lot of people saw a need for and saw the reasoning behind.
The queen change(s) were heralded as too much though, and relatively unasked for. Protoss argued a lot about them in regards to zealots, and it was mostly a fruitless and incorrect argument. Terran argued about them because hellions would ALWAYS take damage when applying pressure. The first change (+25 energy) was regarded as bad as a whole for the same reason the range was, the scouting advantage should solve the minor problems Zerg had.
The primary reason I point this out specifically is because it's still regarded as a bad patch that went too far by a huge chunk of the community, but Blizzard hasn't said anything about it or reverting (at least a tiny bit) the changes in the patch. So far, even with some of the most severe kneejerk balance patches, like thor energy and ghost snipe, Blizzard has shown no regret for those patches. There are no hints that they're afraid of changing too much or that they're particularly afraid of long term unintended consequences.
My personal view of the situation is that Blizzard doesn't see a (big) problem with Zerg right now. They're responding to a consistent outcry from the community that Zerg is too powerful, and taking a conciliatory route by nerfing the unit people want nerfed, infestors.
This is the video I always use when talking about why the 'Queen patch' was terrible. Idra's actually pretty spot on in this video when he's talking. The idea that, in the absence of good scouting, you need to be able to blindly defend is pretty sensible. You need at least one of either good information, or good capacity to defend without information.
What Blizzard did was improve both Zerg's capacity to scout, and blindly defend. It also had other incidental effects such as making the creep spread of almost every Zerg player a bit better.
The creep should also be looked at, in my view. Someone like Seal or Scarlett who have great creep spread will still be creep-spreading monsters, but some Zergs are coasting on the new trend towards more early Queens giving them almost inevitable improvements in creep spreading proficiency.
Even when Idra agrees with me, I hate the guy.
This was the general consensus among pros at the time though. Zerg had plenty of defensive options, and losses involving a scouted all-in generally had to do with a Zerg mistake instead of a specific weakness.
Blizzard attempted to fix the creep problem back in August, but decided it wasn't necessary. There were feelings in the community that the lack of Zergs winning the most recent tournaments (and MVP winning some) persuaded Blizzard to back off the changes.
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/6873704
Actually, you've inadvertently made me fearful now that Infestors won't change, damnit man and I was so hopeful!
They could have changed creep in such a way so the really good spreaders weren't punished, but the bad ones were. The fact they didn't is actually worrying me now because I feel I may have given Blizz too much credit in my earlier posts
(GSL Spoilers)
+ Show Spoiler +
Well, it should give you hope that IPL 5 is EXTREMELY Zerg favored right now and a ZvZ GSL finals. Of course, we still have to worry about Blizzard pulling some extreme BS out of their ass saying, "Those games exemplified more solid play to beat their opponents. We saw no evidence of IMBA IMBA IMBA IMBA IMBA IMBA IMBA." I really think the backlash at this point, with a top Korean outburst like that, will be serious enough for Blizzards impressions that Zerg doesn't have an advantage to fade.
I personally hope for a deviation from the "balance testing, balance testing revision, patch application" pattern we've seen for the past year. We definitely need something stronger than they're trying right now, along the lines of what you've been suggesting, a nerf to both spells, and/or a nerf to supply.
. YAY for the slight decrease in egg health WOOT. =/
