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Northern Ireland26002 Posts
On December 04 2012 00:23 mythandier wrote:
Okay so rather than add to the madness and theorycrafting that makes up this thread, I'll contribute some notes from actually testing the "balance" map. These notes come solely from TvZ practice games. I'm only going to address items applicable to this Call to Action (read: I'm not going to talk about fungal since it's not even on the table for discussion in this instance).
After over 30 test games with mid-masters down through diamond league friends and trying both mech and bio-mech compositions I can say...the HSM buff is a nice thought but doesn't lend itself to changing how the matchup is played. Here's why:
- The early through mid-game still plays out the same way
- The egg buff doesn't change anything. When tossed into siege lines, the tanks may still waste a volley (or 2) if the player wasn't fast enough to notice and focus fire either the infestors (if visible) or other units. Mass IT volleys are still an issue.
- Trying to get ravens earlier than late game reduces other important mid-game gas units (tanks/thors/medivacs) and/or important upgrade timings (+2/+2, stim/shield/cs/siege/blueflame)...As a result, my mid-game is army is actually weaker and taking battles is considerably more difficult
- Actually using HSM mid-game is not even remotely cost effective as mid-game units (roach, ling, bling, muta, infestor) can all very easily dodge incoming HSM or FG just shuts down Ravens before they're in range. Even if the player doesn't effectively dodge the missile(s) the number of units killed is usually so small that it's still inefficient. (note: drone harassment with HSM is not advised as auto-turret is infinitely more efficient/effective)
- As a result of the above, Ravens are still relegated to the late game where it would've been feasible to spend the resources & time to research HSM in the first place. The fact that it's already researched is nice, but doesn't change any timings, or the how the late game plays out
Hope that helps.
Thanks for some tangible testing man! I'm extremely guilty of abstract theorycrafting here, but my rig is broken at the minute so I hope I'm excused 
Also thanks for kind of validating my points (kind of) Something like the Raven change to a theorycrafting fool like myself, could be regarded as bad in terms of not addressing what I think is the root problem. You appear to have tested with an open mind on making it work, and run into the kind of issues that I was thinking about in my little abstract world.
Actually you raised some interesting other points too. I thought the Raven change isn't addressing the issue, because the matchup 'flow' has other issues that need addressed at a fundamental level. I did feel it wouldn't make the transition to the Raven deathball easy to do, but that it would at least make it easier to some degree. For example, having a slight increase in midgame effectiveness, that your testing says isn't the case at all.
Thanks again, proper feedback can only make this thread better.
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On December 03 2012 20:09 phodacbiet wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 19:04 dukem wrote:![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fhRDc.jpg) Pretty bad "split", but got catched off guard really hard. This shouldn't be allowed to happen nonetheless. Kinda like how sometimes people accidentally right click and lose all their mutas to thors. Yes, it was the right clicker's fault but its the exact same thing, "you messed up, now pay the iron price"
You do realize that when you move mutas around they are not clumped up, right?
THors will hit like 3 mutas or somethhing like that, and then the mutas can just move away.
Imagine this: MUtas move around, and at point x they are within 10 range of 1 thor --> then you can't do anything. All your 10 mutas will just die without you being able to do anything.
Great game design?
Don't think so.
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I think there should be a research at the armory that makes it so siege tank does no friendly splash damage. It's pretty stupid that Terran is the only race that have worry about killing their own units with friendly fire, while Zerg don't have to worry about that, and Protoss storm doesn't affect their own units that much because they have so much health.
Either that, or they can keep having siege tank deal friendly splash damage, but then make it so fungal also affect friendly units too.
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In other words, Blizzard is saying that Terran should 2 rax or turtle 30 minutes for mass Ravens and Protoss should won-won-won push or turtle 30 minutes for mass carrier.
HOTS can't get here quickly enough 
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On December 04 2012 01:09 R3DT1D3 wrote:In other words, Blizzard is saying that Terran should 2 rax or turtle 30 minutes for mass Ravens and Protoss should won-won-won push or turtle 30 minutes for mass carrier. HOTS can't get here quickly enough
Well, atm Hots is not looking all that... hot.
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On December 03 2012 23:37 Coffee Zombie wrote:
The underlying causes of that is that while other factions can make the swings, Zerg do them much more quickly. Terran can, to a degree, do something similar with macro Orbitals and mass rax or multi-reactor Hellion spam, but the possibilities are still slower, more limited and more resource intensive.
The second factor is simply that in the past Zerg could be forced back to fairness because defending pushes absolutely required larvae. Just the 4 Roaches to ward the contain, while certainly cost-effective, took 5 larvae and required the investment of a larva and some minerals for an Extractor earlier. The Queen holds cost similar amounts of resources, but no larvae and the gas can be used to tech. As a bonus, they do better vs. air and help exert map control via insane amounts of creep. The Queen patch basically broke down the one limiting factor of Zerg brokenness.
(Yours truly is a bug fan, and likes Zerg's potential for brokenness. It just should come from good game sense, judicious use of larvae and good positioning, not as a given due to lack of larva requirements and insane amounts of free map control due to ovie hiding spots. Fair, standard units, a broken economy that can be forced to normalcy via pressure. I have spoken.)
Uh oh Coffee Zombie getting a little cocky after so many good posts  . I would like to use your post to make a few points though:
1. The myth of asymmetrical balance.
This is one of the biggest frustrations that I had with SC2, that the notion that essentially because one race had the ability to be "broken" in one part of the game that this justified the fact that it was allowed to be considerably weaker at the other points of the game. This is so ridiculously untrue, yet it gets repeated again and again to justify patch changes or justifying the "balanced" winrates. It also highlights a curious double standard that exists in SC2. I'm sure to many people the fact that terran and protoss could "force" the early-mid game to zerg back in the pre-queen buff days that to many people this meant that zerg had the comparatively weaker early-mid game than terran and protoss. However, as we see from players like life and leenock, not only can zerg have a strong early game, zerg early game can even be stronger than protoss and terrans in certain respects (especially with the queen buff). Yet even though it has been shown by various zerg players that zerg CAN be a threat early game, blizzard still doesn't take this chance to nerf zerg lategame, because it would ruin the "asymmetrical balance" they have forced in the game.
2. Blizzard's terrible terrible design philosophy.
This doesn't just have to do with "terrible terrible damage" or the excessive micro limiting skills in the game. It also has to deal with how blizzard tries to help players deal with a problem by.... completely eliminating that problem from the game. This has to deal with the fact how so many things in the game have ridiculous hard-counters or easy-mode solutions. For example, when blizzard was first making SC2, they saw that protoss in BW had a hard time dealing with mech. So what did they do? Create a unit that completely countered mech, thus making it so mech could never be a viable strategy again. Blizzard saw that protoss struggled against mutalisks. So what did they do? Gave phoenixes the ability to have +2 range which ended up completely shutting off zerg mid-game air. There are so many situations like this that exist within the game (queen range buff, thor energy bar, etc.) that it shouldn't be a surprise to anybody how much the game has stagnated right now. The ironic thing about all this is that the only times where blizzard has decided to buff something significantly (warp prism and infestors) their usage have exploded on to the scene and blizzard was commended for it. Why can't they do the same thing for the raven?
I think at this point we should just accept the fact that blizzard has "failed" with SC2. Not because SC2 is a failure itself, but because there are so many flaws to SC2's design it is causing SC2 to fail. It becomes clear to me that Blizzard just doesn't understand how to make a dynamic rts, especially when looking at HOTS (infestor broodlord too strong? let's make a unit that completely counters them!). I'm not trying to claim that I am the paragon of insight myself, but with the competitive "offseason" coming up, blizzard should take every chance they can get to experiment and try to make significant changes to the benefit of the game, but nope that would actually make them competent and we can't have that!
(btw I disagree with your assertion that zerg should be allowed to be "broken" if they have limiting factors to it. As I stated earlier, the whole broken asymmetrical balance concept is one of the problem that I have with the game. The game shouldn't be "zerg gets to lategame=zerg wins". Although I'm exaggerating here, this is one of the problem that the game has. SC2 should be like BW in the aspect that all races should have the greedy>safe>aggressive>greedy dynamic in all matchups, not this "zerg is the macro race so it should be allowed to have the strongest lategame" garbage. This was why the 4 hellion opening was so great in the first place, it was a relatively aggressive opening that was somewhat safe, but not to the degree that it could be countered by roaches and a timing attack by zerg. The way it currently seems to be for zerg now is greedy=safe>everything else.)
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On December 03 2012 23:12 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 22:42 Rabiator wrote:On December 03 2012 19:36 FrogOfWar wrote:On December 03 2012 19:23 Rabiator wrote:On December 03 2012 19:16 avilo wrote:On December 03 2012 19:10 kmh wrote:
dukem, why not? you done goofed. Probably because it's terrible game design for your opponent to be able to click F once and then snare down all of your units repeatedly without any chance for micro to decide the outcome. In above screenshot the game is basically insta-gg. Now imagine if the spell worked something like the SC1 queen's ensnare, and only slowed the units down. Now now Avilo ... dont start suggesting such heresy of replacing the shit of SC2 with the working stuff of BW. You might get burned alive by braindead "everything new MUST BE BETTER" new-tech-worshippers and "I believe in Blizzard" fanboys. After sooo many flames you probably have developed quite an immunity to fire though. I wonder when Blizzard will finally understand that there are only so many ways to add spells to the game and that they cant put in "nifty new stuff" without making that ridiculous, useless or totally overpowered. They CANT invent the "wheel 2.0", because the wheel is already perfect. It only goes downhill from there and thats what we got: Innovation in placed where we didnt need it. Going back to things that work is a sensible thing, but Blizzard is either too proud or too dumb to recognize that the one thing mech needs is called Goliath and it could easily replace the stupid immobile Thor. It seems to me that it's pretty much a community consensus by now that making fungal a slow would be a good remedy of the current situation. No need to resort to name-calling because some people hold the view that Brood War isn't exactly the wheel. That doesn't make any sense anyway. If Brood War as a whole is the wheel, it was already a mistake to even develop SC2. And single units can't be the wheel becausey the need to work in a totally different environment. I highly doubt people would be happy if they replaced fungal with BW plague. Brood War is NOT the wheel "as a whole", but many of the units of it were. As a result we have gotten non-circular-wheels in SC2 because Blizzard devs are trying to "be different no matter what". Since you cant make things that much better than the simple BW design they have a problem. How many units dont "feel right" in SC2? The Thor doesnt do what it is supposed to do; neither Carriers nor Battlecruisers are really the "big and tough T3 spaceships" they were in BW; the Void Ray always hovers between too weak or too powerful; the Viking and Banshee are somewhat too limited in their utility; the Hydralisk seems a tad too weak while the Broodlord seems a lot too strong ... Especially the wonky unit design for HotS shows how easily they go "over the top" with their unit design because it has to be something totally new. The game got too complicated due to the "bonus damage system", which makes many units pretty much useless against half of the other army. This rock-paper-scissors principle doesnt work as an advantage for the game but rather limits units in their usefulness. It should be renamed from "bonus damage" (which is positive) to "limited damage" to represent the true nature of it. One of the reasons why Zerg are good and having an easy time is that they have the least bonus damage of the three races. One of the reasons why Siege Tanks are junk is the fact that they have "limited damage". On December 03 2012 22:28 ETisME wrote:On December 03 2012 22:23 Wombat_NI wrote:On December 03 2012 21:40 Tritanis wrote:
Why can't blizz balance the game so that every end-game army is equal, like in BW. TvP is a race against time for terran, as is PvZ and TvZ for the zerg opponents... Because Zerg macro mechanics allow them to reach the point of equal armies faster than their equivalents for the other race. That's pretty much how the game is now, if you're talking optimal superlategame compositions. equal army? it takes a long time to get broodlords/ultras out. it doesn't matter what race you are, if you lose the deathball fight kind of unevenly, you will lose because you can't remax into an equal value army to defend. No it doesnt take that long to the the Broodlord/Infestor army out, because Zerg have the highest economy due to map control and only through denying that - endless harrass - can you win as Protoss or Terran. "Dont let them get there" is a stupid way to balance an overpowered unit mix for one race. Yeah that's correct man, your analysis, at least in my view. I was thinking about the issue earlier, and kind of had a theory as to why that pattern, while evident in other matchups, is only really applicable to Zerg as a 'rule'. Protoss shows the kind of relationship that you describe with Terran in the bolded point. However, Protoss, when it comes to PvZ do not at all fit that pattern. They used to however, in the days of Roach/Hydra/Corruptor vs Collosus/Void! Zerg however, have that phenomenon you described, but defining both their non-mirror matchups. Anywhere, here's the reference point that I used to form the theory. The 'ETA' Concept This concept, in terms of ETA is pretty on the money in terms of how it applies to general good Starcraft practice. However, I don't feel it fully gives you the tools to consider Zerg's current balance woes, in the thread. If you make a small tweak to the concept, you can make it applicable to the trend I was describing. I think the issue with that thread is that it is based in really sound theory, but it makes the assumption that ETA is exploitable equally by each race. I don't think this is the case, I think Zerg are figuring out ways to distort it. I mean, visually imagine ETA as being an equilateral triangle, with the letters corresponding to each concept being positioned within it. If you accept this conception of the relationship, and subsequently how it relates to the races as being inherently symmetrical Zerg should not be functioning as it currently does. The final sort of hoop I jumped through is trying to figure, what specifically enabled Zerg to do this and I think it's the combination of their larva, and their production mechanics. The idea of ETA is sound, but Zergs ability to focus heavily on one aspect of it (especially economy) enables the subsequent advantages to snowball more than chronoboost and mules allow Protoss and Terran to do. If you want a kind of, visualisation of this concept, here it is. Consider re-evaluating the relationship between the ETA concept and the applicability to interracial matchups. In the case of Zerg, it is not longer an equilateral triangle, but a form of uneven triangle. Zergs can push and distort the ETA ratio (which theoretically in importance = 1:1:1 ratio) in one direction, say economy. However, the change to economy and how it affects say, the 'army' part isn't directly correlative. Zerg push their economy advantage to a certain direction, but it's not balanced by the corresponding disadvantage 'snapping back' in the other direction, once the Zerg decides to focus on another aspect, say 'tech'. Other races produce and tech and build workers simultaneously, so anything they do at any specific point kind of has a more equalising, or cost/benefit kind of relationship. In the case of Zerg, a huge, huge economy advantage gives them a much bigger overall advantage in terms of later advantages in BOTH tech and army. This idea isn't imbalanced at its heart, I like the underlying concept of Zergs taking risks to gain huge advantages. What I don't like is in terms of how it's functioning currently. To me, instinctively and based on no real data, it just feels like Zergs are figuring out how to play really really greedily, but also safely if that makes sense. The only way I'm seeing players try to deal with this is via hitting specific refined timing attacks, especially in the case of Protoss v Zerg. While it is possible to beat Zerg in 'straight up' macro games for sure, it's kind of difficult to do. Consider also that Zerg is meant to be the kind of, 'reactiv'e race. When the the drone or army conundrum used to be much harder to judge, this was very much the case. In the current metagame, it seems that kind of concept of cutting corners for later advantages has almost been made 'safe' to non-committal pressures and pokes. Also consider that the reactive race is currently being approached with the mentality that both Protoss and Terran have to react to what the Zerg is doing!
While I agree with you that the asymmetric distribution of boost potential - for both economy and production - causes a big problem, I dont think it is the biggest factor to be blamed. The biggest blame lies with the ability to stack your units into a tight bunch and reach a critical number. The point where Zealots without charge cant reach a clump of Marines for example or the point where the summed up energy regeneration for a clump of Infestors means that there are always 3-4 Fungals available for a lockdown.
The way to fix this is easy ... just limit the units in range for a fight through forced spreading while moving and a 12 unit limit for unit selection.
- Fewer Marines in range = Zealots have a chance to reach the Marines and thus the Marines have to run.
- Fewer Infestors in a clump = they can run out of energy and become dead weight.
In short: We need to have more BW in SC2 (minus the clunky 8-direction movement system, but including the bumping into each other and moving left/right a bit).
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On December 04 2012 01:17 KamikazeDurrrp wrote:Uh oh Coffee Zombie getting a little cocky after so many good posts . I would like to use your post to make a few points though: I think at this point we should just accept the fact that blizzard has "failed" with SC2. Not because SC2 is a failure itself, but because there are so many flaws to SC2's design it is causing SC2 to fail. It becomes clear to me that Blizzard just doesn't understand how to make a dynamic rts, especially when looking at HOTS (infestor broodlord too strong? let's make a unit that completely counters them!). I'm not trying to claim that I am the paragon of insight myself, but with the competitive "offseason" coming up, blizzard should take every chance they can get to experiment and try to make significant changes to the benefit of the game, but nope that would actually make them competent and we can't have that! (btw I disagree with your assertion that zerg should be allowed to be "broken" if they have limiting factors to it. As I stated earlier, the whole broken asymmetrical balance concept is one of the problem that I have with the game. The game shouldn't be "zerg gets to lategame=zerg wins". Although I'm exaggerating here, this is one of the problem that the game has. SC2 should be like BW in the aspect that all races should have the greedy>safe>aggressive>greedy dynamic in all matchups, not this "zerg is the macro race so it should be allowed to have the strongest lategame" garbage. This was why the 4 hellion opening was so great in the first place, it was a relatively aggressive opening that was somewhat safe, but not to the degree that it could be countered by roaches and a timing attack by zerg. The way it currently seems to be for zerg now is greedy=safe>everything else.)
Thank you 
To the bolded parts, YES. Blizzard just doesn't seem to have a clue as to how proper RTS unit/faction design should be handled. It also kind of feels like they want to be esports and succeed because they declare that, completely ignoring the much-increased burden on the design and balance of the game such aspirations require.
As to the second quoted paragraph, you misunderstand me. I am not saying Zerg should have a doom comp like they have now or anything. Blizzard's idea of asymmetrical time-sensitive balance at the faction level is the height of retardation and I want nothing to do with it. Whether you're strong early, mid or late should be something your build decides, not the faction you want to play.
What I meant by that is that I enjoy the fact that a Zerg has the potential to "go broken" by droning like a madman. In the past, before the atrocity that is the Queendralisk (production, antiground, antiair, map control, healing in one package at no larvae? Eh O_o' ), that brokenness was curtailed by forcing the Zerg to invest larvae in army to defend light pressure like the Hellion contain or Zealot pokes. End result, Zerg built army, workers and teched all at the same time and the game ended up being perfectly normal (in an ideal world where unit and faction design was otherwise sane). But if you had great control or gamesense you could do the impossible and turn into a bona fide monster from Hell. A bit like how if your Marine micro is insane you can actually counter banelings. Something that most of the time doesn't happen, but is still the forbidden fruit hanging in there. Normal units, normal tech, when pressured normal economy. Due to some stroke of brilliance, an economy that can go nuts for a while.
Did that manage to clarify anything?
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On December 04 2012 00:49 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2012 00:23 mythandier wrote:
Okay so rather than add to the madness and theorycrafting that makes up this thread, I'll contribute some notes from actually testing the "balance" map. These notes come solely from TvZ practice games. I'm only going to address items applicable to this Call to Action (read: I'm not going to talk about fungal since it's not even on the table for discussion in this instance).
After over 30 test games with mid-masters down through diamond league friends and trying both mech and bio-mech compositions I can say...the HSM buff is a nice thought but doesn't lend itself to changing how the matchup is played. Here's why:
- The early through mid-game still plays out the same way
- The egg buff doesn't change anything. When tossed into siege lines, the tanks may still waste a volley (or 2) if the player wasn't fast enough to notice and focus fire either the infestors (if visible) or other units. Mass IT volleys are still an issue.
- Trying to get ravens earlier than late game reduces other important mid-game gas units (tanks/thors/medivacs) and/or important upgrade timings (+2/+2, stim/shield/cs/siege/blueflame)...As a result, my mid-game is army is actually weaker and taking battles is considerably more difficult
- Actually using HSM mid-game is not even remotely cost effective as mid-game units (roach, ling, bling, muta, infestor) can all very easily dodge incoming HSM or FG just shuts down Ravens before they're in range. Even if the player doesn't effectively dodge the missile(s) the number of units killed is usually so small that it's still inefficient. (note: drone harassment with HSM is not advised as auto-turret is infinitely more efficient/effective)
- As a result of the above, Ravens are still relegated to the late game where it would've been feasible to spend the resources & time to research HSM in the first place. The fact that it's already researched is nice, but doesn't change any timings, or the how the late game plays out
Hope that helps. Thanks for some tangible testing man! I'm extremely guilty of abstract theorycrafting here, but my rig is broken at the minute so I hope I'm excused Also thanks for kind of validating my points (kind of) Something like the Raven change to a theorycrafting fool like myself, could be regarded as bad in terms of not addressing what I think is the root problem. You appear to have tested with an open mind on making it work, and run into the kind of issues that I was thinking about in my little abstract world. Actually you raised some interesting other points too. I thought the Raven change isn't addressing the issue, because the matchup 'flow' has other issues that need addressed at a fundamental level. I did feel it wouldn't make the transition to the Raven deathball easy to do, but that it would at least make it easier to some degree. For example, having a slight increase in midgame effectiveness, that your testing says isn't the case at all. Thanks again, proper feedback can only make this thread better.
Hey, no problem. I continue to see that the vast majority of posts here are either:
a) unrelated to this actual test map
b) completely dismissive without any attempt to at least try it
c) an attempt to theorycraft based on how people assume it will play without actually playing it
Not that a lot of the dissatisfaction isn't without merit...but at least the company is giving us a chance to help them test their ideas out. If we don't actively participate in the tests (and instead sit around QQing and theorycrafting) to provide feedback based on actual tests then we're basically giving them a reason to not even open up the Call To Action test maps.
I, for one, appreciate the opportunity to help test (and by test I mean play the map dozens of times against equally skilled opponents) -- even if the current iteration of the balance test isn't conducive for actually improving the state of the game.
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On December 04 2012 02:01 Coffee Zombie wrote:
... before the atrocity that is the Queendralisk (production, antiground, antiair, map control, healing in one package at no larvae? Eh O_o' ), that brokenness was curtailed by forcing the Zerg to invest larvae in army to defend light pressure like the Hellion contain or Zealot pokes. End result, Zerg built army, workers and teched all at the same time and the game ended up being perfectly normal (in an ideal world where unit and faction design was otherwise sane).
That still isnt a good way to "balance units", because it doesnt balance units ... it balances game mechanics of spawn larvae, warp gate, reactor, chronoboost and MULE. This is one of the two big failures of Blizzard and it can be affected by the maps, which isnt a good thing to have either.
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Northern Ireland26002 Posts
Holy shit, so many good posts to respond to, I'll get round to it when I have time Such a rare thrill on TL these days.
Ok guys on another issue, I'm launching a kind of attempt to incorporate all our shared design concerns that may differ, into a kind of coherent overall, deliverable and understandable format. We all share the same concern/mentality that design is a much bigger problem in terms of how it manifests as balance, than balance as its being approached currently. Blizzard are cutting off their arms because they've broken a nail. Yes it may deal with that specific issue, but in a disproportionate way and also a way that doesn't actually refer to the underlying problem.
To this end, I've created a thread, to discuss that idea and how viable it is. Basically a thread to see if it's worth making an actual thread. Link is below, and I'd love to hear feedback either in the thread or via PM, no matter how critical
Wombat's alternative ideas on how to improve the design flaw/balance issue relation
In terms of ego, I genuinely couldn't give a shit if you think it's ridiculously overambitious, or logically flawed as an idea, but I need the feedback!
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Don't you guys think that they are missing the point a bit with the raven buff? I mean the seeker missile research isn't a huge issue IMO. It's more that the raven has to sit still for such a long time to gain energy to actually be useful.
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On December 04 2012 03:15 TAAF wrote:
Don't you guys think that they are missing the point a bit with the raven buff? I mean the seeker missile research isn't a huge issue IMO. It's more that the raven has to sit still for such a long time to gain energy to actually be useful.
Nope. They said right from the start that the raven change isn't meant to be something huge.
They really dont want to destroy the metagame by making new stuff available
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On December 04 2012 03:26 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2012 03:15 TAAF wrote:
Don't you guys think that they are missing the point a bit with the raven buff? I mean the seeker missile research isn't a huge issue IMO. It's more that the raven has to sit still for such a long time to gain energy to actually be useful.
Nope. They said right from the start that the raven change isn't meant to be something huge. They really dont want to destroy the metagame by making new stuff available
Yeah, the HSC is pretty awesome normally, just takes to long to get going. When 2-3 of them hit anything, its ground breaking how much damage they do.
This whole egg thing seems to be an information gathering trip for Blizzard. I sware someone in their office was like "Lets give infested terrans and the eggs less HP" and they realised they have no idea what that would do. I respect that they are at least tested out different levels of nerfs.
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On December 03 2012 14:42 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 14:36 ETisME wrote:
I generally disagree. It's not interesting to watch how zerg is contained in 2 bases while the terran goes safe quick 3rd. The games usually led to different kind of 2 bases all in or zerg's roach baneling bust too A Zerg being contained by 6 Hellions was doing so willingly, because he had the choice to make 3 Roaches to get rid of said contain.
Yes and this is all it takes. Hell, even just making extra queens is sufficient with good building placement.
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remake infestors, make them hardcounters to other casters by giving them feedback, remove ITs and give fungal a slow + reduce the damage by quite a lot. Instead of root, that way Zerg ground army will be viable again against Sentries and medivacs
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On December 03 2012 15:18 ContactKilla wrote:
Lol zerg
I think he might be paraphrasing Ryung.
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On December 03 2012 17:17 Coffee Zombie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 17:05 rd wrote:On December 03 2012 16:47 Wombat_NI wrote:On December 03 2012 16:25 the_business_og wrote:
tbh its just (fucking) lazy on blizzards part, for the last maybe 4 months-6 moths? they have been saying they are waiting for the meta game to change and adapt to infestors, and when they finally can no longer deny the clamor for balance change, they come out with minimal changes which do not only not fix inherent game design problems of the infestor, but also they give changes that serve nothing more than to band aid the problem till HOTS. the problem is the wound is still bleeding,HSM is a good change, but the egg chance literally changes nothing. they make claims like global statistics are balanced but they show us no proof, they expect us to take their word for it Let me see the statistics and link a source... its common procedure.
As i see it, they are three major problems with the WOL:
1. Infestor is too powerful, and all-purpose unit
2. Late Game PvZ is a based on one or two key spells in an engagement, made worse by a well timed Neural Parasite which gives zerg ability to hold both keys to win
3. Siege Tanks don't control space well enough, and thus Late game T suffers
Not only is this lazy of blizzard, worse, its greedy. They know people LOVE sc2, and will spring for HOTS regardless of badly they fucked up the game design of WOL. They've left it for dead and are focusing their attention on HOTS, but its so wrong and fucked up to dedicated WOL players. Blizzard shouldnt be able to fuck up so badly and then make shit tons of money of the expansion... you cant have you cake and eat it too. All Blizzard would have to do is hire a couple of people to do community research as a full time job, literally all they're paid to do. Their task is not to find out what people's problems are with the game, in a 'Z OP' way, but to find interesting/constructive posts regarding stuff Blizzard hadn't considered. Their sole role: Find things that Blizz hadn't previously considered in their thinking, no matter the source. Relay/discuss this issue directly to the design team so the design team can at least try to implement certain things It's almost as if you assume the community more often than not has any worthwhile suggestions that aren't emotion fueled, that these ideas would be superior enough to merit the money being spent to find them, that their team is incapable/they're incapable of hiring a team to come up with them, that they probably wouldn't disagree with the vast majority of suggestions either way, that they don't look at the community and are apparently missing the "gems" spawned from the community. I could go on. Blizzard apologists never get old. Wait, no, they do. And yes, there are many good ideas floating around the forums that I'd say are much better than the ones Blizzard has come up with. It's pretty plain to see they live in Fairy Tale Land with little to no connection to actual reality. And even if they didn't, outside input is damn helpful - precisely because even a small group of smart people can scarcely come up with a lot of differing points of view. You need widespread exchange of ideas for that to happen.
I can't help but agree with this. Blizzard is not employing ideas that some pros like Kawaii Rice in this thread have mentioned. And it's not like it's one pro in one thread either. And it's not like even pros have great ideas with respect to balance. Why shouldn't Blizzard benefit from access to more information/new ideas from people who know this game?
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5. Buff Bio in the late game - with the addition of new units in HotS, we feel Bio in the late game is a bit weak.
-5 bunker build time?
4. Nerf Infestor quite heavily
-1 damage on the fungal growth?
seriously these "Hey we're going to nerf X" has no meaning if they actually don't do anything about it, (I'm not too optimistic given their past record)
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EPT
