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On December 04 2012 07:13 WHOHawk wrote:
Does anyone else think the issues with infestors revolve a lot around the lack of anti-air options in the zerg arsenal/general lack of versatility in anti-air options. I'm aware that in theory there are a lot of options for zerg anti-air, but they're basically all crappy for one reason or another (hydra - slow, fragile, mutalisk - expensive, fragile, queen - weak, slow, corruptor - expensive, useless once air threat is gone). Infestors are basically the only way to reliably deal with harass (mostly air-based) that doesn't become totally useless once your opponent shifts out of that phase of play or you need to step out of your base.
For the record, as a zerg player, I find the infestor/broodlord late-game just as boring as I'm sure P/T players do, but barring some very specific early and mid-game tech choices by opponents, zerg just really doesn't have the unit versatility to reliably throw much else out there.
Well, partly this and partly that Zerg is generally lacking ranged damage. If you can't bring enough ranged damage to the battlefield, you lose to ranged damage balls (in Zergs case: Stalker/Colossus and Tank/Marine balls). For zerg the only real options to win such combats at max are Broodlords and Infestors. (Ultras if the opponent can't bring enough antiarmored to the battlefield and you engage in a really open position)
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Northern Ireland23760 Posts
On December 04 2012 07:13 WHOHawk wrote:
Does anyone else think the issues with infestors revolve a lot around the lack of anti-air options in the zerg arsenal/general lack of versatility in anti-air options. I'm aware that in theory there are a lot of options for zerg anti-air, but they're basically all crappy for one reason or another (hydra - slow, fragile, mutalisk - expensive, fragile, queen - weak, slow, corruptor - expensive, useless once air threat is gone). Infestors are basically the only way to reliably deal with harass (mostly air-based) that doesn't become totally useless once your opponent shifts out of that phase of play or you need to step out of your base.
For the record, as a zerg player, I find the infestor/broodlord late-game just as boring as I'm sure P/T players do, but barring some very specific early and mid-game tech choices by opponents, zerg just really doesn't have the unit versatility to reliably throw much else out there.
Exactly. It doesn't even matter what level you are, for all I know you could be anywhere from bronze to GM. Zergs are kind of fed up doing the same thing so much.
I do think Zergs have other successful and possible styles too, but their difficulty is often so much higher than coasting on the coattails of BL/Infestor. It's maybe balanced in terms of wins, but it's boring to grind ladder and practice one style. With Protoss it's the exact same frustration, only in a different area (timing attacks). For Terran it's not even frustration in terms of the metagame being stale, it's just, relatively, too hard.
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On December 04 2012 07:18 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2012 06:04 Plansix wrote:On December 04 2012 05:39 Wombat_NI wrote:On December 04 2012 05:22 Plansix wrote:On December 04 2012 05:17 rd wrote:On December 04 2012 05:09 Rabiator wrote:On December 04 2012 03:45 zhurai wrote: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) Bio buff: Marines are reduced in size to 90% so you can stack them even more for insane "dps per area". Maybe they give them bikes to ride on for more speed (they do like to add speed to units). Infestor nerf:Infestors are changed to bright pink color so everyone knows instantly what to target.[/sarcasm off] Honestly it is really sad to see too many people read this "declaration of intent" by some dude and then gather around the fire to sing the "praise almighty Blizzard" song of the stupid worshipper. It's even more sad to see each and every announcement by Blizzard met with the darkest of cynicism. It is a bummer, since they are doing a ton of stuff people have been asking for. Well except make Hellbats make the transformers noise when they change, do back flips when they transform while moving or make them punch fire with their awesome shield fists. But I don’t need changes just for me.(god it would be awesome) Blizzard are doing stuff wrong because they are approaching it wrong. I've actually said I think David Kim knows what we want, vaguely, and roughly why and loves Starcraft/wants it to succeed. However Blizz don't seem to get the underpinning relationship/link between why we want it/how we want it achieved. For example, I want fewer deathballs. Pathing is something that I expect to remain untouched, maybe it's complicated to re-code everything or whatever. In terms of say, changing unit clumping for example, I can logically comprehend why Blizzard wouldn't do that, even if they know what the problem is. If you change unit clumping, you change how every single composition in the game interacts. It might be better, but that will lead to an absolute age where you're not trying to design cool features, but merely trying to rebalance nearly everything in terms of the numbers. My solution to that issue, is figuring out how to address why people actually get pissed off at deathballs, and think of ways to factor that in without touching the engine, or say, macro mechanics. You can do this with very, very simple changes to execute. I've proposed a 'solution' for at least part of the Protoss deathball problem. 1. Why it annoys the player losing to a deathball - The idea of the opposition player having to put in much less work, relative to you. I mean, it's why I think at a design level PvT/TvP is the best functioning matchup, and I practice it from both sides, but wow playing Terran can be frustrating. In the case of PvZ, it's not not being able to beat BL/Infestor that's inherently annoying (although it's hard as hell to engage too), it's that BL/Infestor and consideration of it has reduced modern PvZ down to a level where it's close to just about your ability to execute a timing attack well. 2. How to fix that, without affecting core design. - You make it harder to control for the Protoss player. However there is a net tradeoff in terms of rewarding guys who are good at unit control, and happen to play Protoss (relative to other Protoss as opposed to Terrans). 3. How you would apply the concept- I feel creating a more divergent range of movespeeds in Protoss would not 'fix' deathballs and clumping. However, they would create a bit more skill so that Terrans get less frustrated by losing to A-move armies, but decent Protoss players ALSO get less frustrated because they feel there is more to do in terms of getting an advantage through their army control. 4. How you would specifically do it- In this instance I feel making Collosus way slower, and Zealots have 'Zealot legs' so their passive speed is faster. Part of the reason the Collosus is the only part of the deathball most people actually really hate, it's to do with the difference between Squirtle's Collosus, and say, my Collusus not being relatively large compared to our different skill levels. 5. Why this would improve/mitigate the problem - Divergent movespeeds make stuff harder to move around in a ball. Consider how the deathball operates, with the addition of Templar. They move so much slower than the rest, that you have to stop and reposition every so often, if you want to keep the entire ball together. A slower collosus at the back, and faster passive speed Zealots at the front will naturally split up more than the same composition with the current move speed relationship. This is why Reavers were balanced, they had huge damage output but were slow. Hence this created future cool synergy between the shuttle and the Reaver. The shuttle covered the Reaver's weaknesses, but still requires sick control to use. (imo unintentional design, but awesome when used) This inadvertently splits your army a bit better in certain ways, but also adds positional control. I mean in terms of standing power, mech is rather 'deathballish'. The skill in mech play comes from positioning, so adding a little of that element is good. Also, faster Zealots would function in a more versatile way akin to say, Zerglings than as an A-move unit that doesn't reward good charge use. Yeah you can manually do it, but this is quite unintuitive than having a faster average move speed, but a lower peak. 5. Other benefits to the game that may arise- Faster Zealots with less reliance on charge which is autocast, would be more controllable. Setting up Zealot flanks would be a more highly rewarded skill. Wombat, no offence, but you dislike everything Blizzard does. If they announced that they were giving everyone HotS for free as an apology for the balance mistakes for WoL, you would be pissed that it took them so long to admit it. They are never going to please you, so why bother trying? It's not about pleasing me, at all man  In fact, the kind of problem I'm trying to get across regarding Blizzard and the Community, is kind of analogous to how I don't think you're getting my point. You're not being rude, or disagreeing I just don't think you actually get the idea itself. I used to play WC3 in which Blizzard rule the domain of balance issues with an iron fist. That was fine as well, as a concept and both in how they made a good game in WC3. Basically, many of this game's issues are both caused by, but potentially solvable by the community. You don't listen to ideas based on who said them, or in the tone they used, or how many people that are whining. You incorporate good ideas, because they are good ideas. It's not what Blizzard does that annoys people that annoy me, it's that we're constantly trying to second-guess them. If you want to rule your game with an iron fist and just do it your way, fair enough as long as that's clear. If you want to include the community, include the good ideas of the community, or at least acknowledge your thought processes better. Regardless of outcome, more transparency in Blizzard's actual thinking would be nice. Consider Browder saying he wouldn't change Warpgate fundamentally. I don't mind that, I mean I'd like it to happen but in terms of the ripple effect it would have and the closeness of HoTS now, I can accept that it's difficult as fuck to do. However, it doesn't mean you can't look at other ways of balancing warpgate more subtly, many fucking great ideas are on here to that effect. Most are balanced around creating a tradeoff in having warpgate vs something else, usually increased production from unwarped gates. This solves TWO issues, the idea of expressing an individual philosophy of how you want to play Starcraft, however small, and the idea of enabling Protoss players who are limited by the low macro 'cap' of the race, to push themselves on a bit. Find the good ideas, underpinned by actual reasons or theorycraft, even better if some actual numerical values are there. Don't just listen to the most vocal minority, if you're going down the road of looking our feedback, select the good stuff. If Blizzard didn't want feedback, they wouldn't be consulting the pro players (unless it's a token move), so it's obvious they're not against the concept of collaborative thinking. Blizzard's problem is trying to please everyone, but not finding the common grounds of complaint that actually annoy everyone. The idea of Terran being 'hard to learn, impossible to master' is an idea of a good fundamental idea. It is the entire reason Korean Terrans have a quasi-mythological status, they are deities walking among among us in some people's eyes. The other idea that is related here, that other races have corresponding strengths/weaknesses but different kind of designs is fine too, it gives that sense of identity that is an expression of your identity as a player. Think of it as a problem caused, not by this idea of design asymmetry, but what I'll call Multi-faceted design asymmetry-Differences in difficulty of certain aspects of the race, Terran is harder mechanically, Zerg requires other skills -Differences in macro mechanics, that are tailored around enhancing or fixing holes that are related first part. Protoss is the 'timing attack' race, and chronoboost strengthens this capacity to do timings. Terran can't produce workers as fast as the other races, so need mules to equalise economy. Lategame, Terran has the cool strategical potential to sacrifice mules. The attempt to achieve 50/50 win ratios with the above 2 reference points at ALL levels [u]Blizzard's Technical Competency[u] Considering that their express intention is a 50/50 winratio, and they employ the other aspects of this design asymmetry, it is clear Blizzard have a lot of chops in actually reaching close to 50/50 ratios . I actually have no idea how they've managed to do this. They can clearly design games well if they achieved this goal, because unlike most of my other theories, it mystifies me. There are so many variables that they've managed to balance statistically, that seem inherently contradictory. However this is at the expense of the MAIN reason that people get annoyed with this game, imo. It's not winning or losing, it's when these things are balanced, but at the expense of variety. It's picking Protoss because you played them in BW, or you like their aesthetics. It's the point you reach where you cannot employ a variety of styles or approaches, due to the constraints of your race, have to go on Team Liquid and steal Parting's builds, just to win games. It's the incredible difficulty of playing Terran to a high level mechanically, but against a Zerg that used to be more prone to pressure and map control techniques slowing them down and losing to BL/Infestor every game. Variety is what enables every single player, to express their own personal desire, or approach to playing the game. When variety is sacrificed for 50/50 balance across all levels and skills, that's the issue. It's variety in various forms that turns a lot of people off SC2. Zerg current 'dominance' for the spectator - Yeah some Zerg antifans for sure. Most people were just sick of having to watch Zerg matches. I would have killed for some good PvT lately, my personal favourite matchup, but also haven't seen much TvT, or TvZ at the stages of the tournaments I've tuned into. Stale metagames Fine in a matchup that is fundamentally 'fair', like PvT. PvT from the T perspective is hard, but there's always a 'shit should have dodged storm better' kind of realisation. PvT is the most balanced matchup at the minute, statistically, but equally one of the better matchups to watch. It's got a stale metagame in terms of the general plan being the same for ages, but the fun in the matchup is execution, trading and the likes. PvZ is stale, but not the kind of matchup you can win by playing straight-up better, it's much more frustrating to be constrained by having to do timing attacks, than it is to play with more midgame aggression and trading. TvZ is the most unfair matchup at least instinctively now, because even when top Terrans are winning, you're never seeing them do it easily, it always seems like they have to play incredibly well, just to compete at all. 'Casual experience- They're actually addressing this, it's all about the problems with Bnet 2.0, but at least they seem to realise this. 'Casuals' maybe won't grind the ladder, but they might hang out and blow off steam. Without clans, and stuff like a better custom system (which they're doing iirc), casuals will not necessarily stay in the game no matter what else you throw at them. All of this stuff is not at the expense of the 'hardcore' players, who will make good use of them too. The problems come from the clash of these principles, a clash motivated imo by Blizzard trying to deal with to the grievances of the community members, ESPECIALLY the overly loud, vocal whiners. The loud whiners tend to complain about specific things like fungal, and things like that. Often, but not always it's in ignorance, wilful or otherwise to other factors that apply. Blizzard are still capable of great design, but they've changed stuff imo just because of retards in the community spouting nonsense, and it's sad  Thus, when 'nerf fungal' becomes a cacophonous roar in the proverbial ears of Blizzard's employees, they just think fuck it, we'll just nerf fungal. Finding a way to do this, finding common grounds that enable better design, which improves the experience of both players casual and pro, that enables the game to improve in certain strategic respects, and simultaneously please both the top GSL player, to the bottom of bronze is entirely possible, if you actually know what parts of the game piss them off.
I am sure that is a response to my comment, but I couldn’t get through it. Every one of your posts is a paragraph after paragraph repeating the same information over and over. They don’t even seem to be in response to the balance changes or the posts you respond to. My post was mostly about how a lot of people have been asking for and like the changes. It also had a section about how the Hellbat would be more awesome if it sounded like a Transformer. I don't know why that warrented an 800 word response, but you posted it.
You don’t seem to be very interested in playing SC2, more commenting on “design” in very long posts. It seems to be this endless feedback loop in the community where people comment on it and how they could make the game better. But all and all it is not every interesting, because it all it says is “everything Blizzard does is bad and here is why.”
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Northern Ireland23760 Posts
On December 04 2012 07:36 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2012 07:18 Wombat_NI wrote:On December 04 2012 06:04 Plansix wrote:On December 04 2012 05:39 Wombat_NI wrote:On December 04 2012 05:22 Plansix wrote:On December 04 2012 05:17 rd wrote:On December 04 2012 05:09 Rabiator wrote:On December 04 2012 03:45 zhurai wrote: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) Bio buff: Marines are reduced in size to 90% so you can stack them even more for insane "dps per area". Maybe they give them bikes to ride on for more speed (they do like to add speed to units). Infestor nerf:Infestors are changed to bright pink color so everyone knows instantly what to target.[/sarcasm off] Honestly it is really sad to see too many people read this "declaration of intent" by some dude and then gather around the fire to sing the "praise almighty Blizzard" song of the stupid worshipper. It's even more sad to see each and every announcement by Blizzard met with the darkest of cynicism. It is a bummer, since they are doing a ton of stuff people have been asking for. Well except make Hellbats make the transformers noise when they change, do back flips when they transform while moving or make them punch fire with their awesome shield fists. But I don’t need changes just for me.(god it would be awesome) Blizzard are doing stuff wrong because they are approaching it wrong. I've actually said I think David Kim knows what we want, vaguely, and roughly why and loves Starcraft/wants it to succeed. However Blizz don't seem to get the underpinning relationship/link between why we want it/how we want it achieved. For example, I want fewer deathballs. Pathing is something that I expect to remain untouched, maybe it's complicated to re-code everything or whatever. In terms of say, changing unit clumping for example, I can logically comprehend why Blizzard wouldn't do that, even if they know what the problem is. If you change unit clumping, you change how every single composition in the game interacts. It might be better, but that will lead to an absolute age where you're not trying to design cool features, but merely trying to rebalance nearly everything in terms of the numbers. My solution to that issue, is figuring out how to address why people actually get pissed off at deathballs, and think of ways to factor that in without touching the engine, or say, macro mechanics. You can do this with very, very simple changes to execute. I've proposed a 'solution' for at least part of the Protoss deathball problem. 1. Why it annoys the player losing to a deathball - The idea of the opposition player having to put in much less work, relative to you. I mean, it's why I think at a design level PvT/TvP is the best functioning matchup, and I practice it from both sides, but wow playing Terran can be frustrating. In the case of PvZ, it's not not being able to beat BL/Infestor that's inherently annoying (although it's hard as hell to engage too), it's that BL/Infestor and consideration of it has reduced modern PvZ down to a level where it's close to just about your ability to execute a timing attack well. 2. How to fix that, without affecting core design. - You make it harder to control for the Protoss player. However there is a net tradeoff in terms of rewarding guys who are good at unit control, and happen to play Protoss (relative to other Protoss as opposed to Terrans). 3. How you would apply the concept- I feel creating a more divergent range of movespeeds in Protoss would not 'fix' deathballs and clumping. However, they would create a bit more skill so that Terrans get less frustrated by losing to A-move armies, but decent Protoss players ALSO get less frustrated because they feel there is more to do in terms of getting an advantage through their army control. 4. How you would specifically do it- In this instance I feel making Collosus way slower, and Zealots have 'Zealot legs' so their passive speed is faster. Part of the reason the Collosus is the only part of the deathball most people actually really hate, it's to do with the difference between Squirtle's Collosus, and say, my Collusus not being relatively large compared to our different skill levels. 5. Why this would improve/mitigate the problem - Divergent movespeeds make stuff harder to move around in a ball. Consider how the deathball operates, with the addition of Templar. They move so much slower than the rest, that you have to stop and reposition every so often, if you want to keep the entire ball together. A slower collosus at the back, and faster passive speed Zealots at the front will naturally split up more than the same composition with the current move speed relationship. This is why Reavers were balanced, they had huge damage output but were slow. Hence this created future cool synergy between the shuttle and the Reaver. The shuttle covered the Reaver's weaknesses, but still requires sick control to use. (imo unintentional design, but awesome when used) This inadvertently splits your army a bit better in certain ways, but also adds positional control. I mean in terms of standing power, mech is rather 'deathballish'. The skill in mech play comes from positioning, so adding a little of that element is good. Also, faster Zealots would function in a more versatile way akin to say, Zerglings than as an A-move unit that doesn't reward good charge use. Yeah you can manually do it, but this is quite unintuitive than having a faster average move speed, but a lower peak. 5. Other benefits to the game that may arise- Faster Zealots with less reliance on charge which is autocast, would be more controllable. Setting up Zealot flanks would be a more highly rewarded skill. Wombat, no offence, but you dislike everything Blizzard does. If they announced that they were giving everyone HotS for free as an apology for the balance mistakes for WoL, you would be pissed that it took them so long to admit it. They are never going to please you, so why bother trying? It's not about pleasing me, at all man In fact, the kind of problem I'm trying to get across regarding Blizzard and the Community, is kind of analogous to how I don't think you're getting my point. You're not being rude, or disagreeing I just don't think you actually get the idea itself. I used to play WC3 in which Blizzard rule the domain of balance issues with an iron fist. That was fine as well, as a concept and both in how they made a good game in WC3. Basically, many of this game's issues are both caused by, but potentially solvable by the community. You don't listen to ideas based on who said them, or in the tone they used, or how many people that are whining. You incorporate good ideas, because they are good ideas. It's not what Blizzard does that annoys people that annoy me, it's that we're constantly trying to second-guess them. If you want to rule your game with an iron fist and just do it your way, fair enough as long as that's clear. If you want to include the community, include the good ideas of the community, or at least acknowledge your thought processes better. Regardless of outcome, more transparency in Blizzard's actual thinking would be nice. Consider Browder saying he wouldn't change Warpgate fundamentally. I don't mind that, I mean I'd like it to happen but in terms of the ripple effect it would have and the closeness of HoTS now, I can accept that it's difficult as fuck to do. However, it doesn't mean you can't look at other ways of balancing warpgate more subtly, many fucking great ideas are on here to that effect. Most are balanced around creating a tradeoff in having warpgate vs something else, usually increased production from unwarped gates. This solves TWO issues, the idea of expressing an individual philosophy of how you want to play Starcraft, however small, and the idea of enabling Protoss players who are limited by the low macro 'cap' of the race, to push themselves on a bit. Find the good ideas, underpinned by actual reasons or theorycraft, even better if some actual numerical values are there. Don't just listen to the most vocal minority, if you're going down the road of looking our feedback, select the good stuff. If Blizzard didn't want feedback, they wouldn't be consulting the pro players (unless it's a token move), so it's obvious they're not against the concept of collaborative thinking. Blizzard's problem is trying to please everyone, but not finding the common grounds of complaint that actually annoy everyone. The idea of Terran being 'hard to learn, impossible to master' is an idea of a good fundamental idea. It is the entire reason Korean Terrans have a quasi-mythological status, they are deities walking among among us in some people's eyes. The other idea that is related here, that other races have corresponding strengths/weaknesses but different kind of designs is fine too, it gives that sense of identity that is an expression of your identity as a player. Think of it as a problem caused, not by this idea of design asymmetry, but what I'll call Multi-faceted design asymmetry-Differences in difficulty of certain aspects of the race, Terran is harder mechanically, Zerg requires other skills -Differences in macro mechanics, that are tailored around enhancing or fixing holes that are related first part. Protoss is the 'timing attack' race, and chronoboost strengthens this capacity to do timings. Terran can't produce workers as fast as the other races, so need mules to equalise economy. Lategame, Terran has the cool strategical potential to sacrifice mules. The attempt to achieve 50/50 win ratios with the above 2 reference points at ALL levels [u]Blizzard's Technical Competency[u] Considering that their express intention is a 50/50 winratio, and they employ the other aspects of this design asymmetry, it is clear Blizzard have a lot of chops in actually reaching close to 50/50 ratios . I actually have no idea how they've managed to do this. They can clearly design games well if they achieved this goal, because unlike most of my other theories, it mystifies me. There are so many variables that they've managed to balance statistically, that seem inherently contradictory. However this is at the expense of the MAIN reason that people get annoyed with this game, imo. It's not winning or losing, it's when these things are balanced, but at the expense of variety. It's picking Protoss because you played them in BW, or you like their aesthetics. It's the point you reach where you cannot employ a variety of styles or approaches, due to the constraints of your race, have to go on Team Liquid and steal Parting's builds, just to win games. It's the incredible difficulty of playing Terran to a high level mechanically, but against a Zerg that used to be more prone to pressure and map control techniques slowing them down and losing to BL/Infestor every game. Variety is what enables every single player, to express their own personal desire, or approach to playing the game. When variety is sacrificed for 50/50 balance across all levels and skills, that's the issue. It's variety in various forms that turns a lot of people off SC2. Zerg current 'dominance' for the spectator - Yeah some Zerg antifans for sure. Most people were just sick of having to watch Zerg matches. I would have killed for some good PvT lately, my personal favourite matchup, but also haven't seen much TvT, or TvZ at the stages of the tournaments I've tuned into. Stale metagames Fine in a matchup that is fundamentally 'fair', like PvT. PvT from the T perspective is hard, but there's always a 'shit should have dodged storm better' kind of realisation. PvT is the most balanced matchup at the minute, statistically, but equally one of the better matchups to watch. It's got a stale metagame in terms of the general plan being the same for ages, but the fun in the matchup is execution, trading and the likes. PvZ is stale, but not the kind of matchup you can win by playing straight-up better, it's much more frustrating to be constrained by having to do timing attacks, than it is to play with more midgame aggression and trading. TvZ is the most unfair matchup at least instinctively now, because even when top Terrans are winning, you're never seeing them do it easily, it always seems like they have to play incredibly well, just to compete at all. 'Casual experience- They're actually addressing this, it's all about the problems with Bnet 2.0, but at least they seem to realise this. 'Casuals' maybe won't grind the ladder, but they might hang out and blow off steam. Without clans, and stuff like a better custom system (which they're doing iirc), casuals will not necessarily stay in the game no matter what else you throw at them. All of this stuff is not at the expense of the 'hardcore' players, who will make good use of them too. The problems come from the clash of these principles, a clash motivated imo by Blizzard trying to deal with to the grievances of the community members, ESPECIALLY the overly loud, vocal whiners. The loud whiners tend to complain about specific things like fungal, and things like that. Often, but not always it's in ignorance, wilful or otherwise to other factors that apply. Blizzard are still capable of great design, but they've changed stuff imo just because of retards in the community spouting nonsense, and it's sad Thus, when 'nerf fungal' becomes a cacophonous roar in the proverbial ears of Blizzard's employees, they just think fuck it, we'll just nerf fungal. Finding a way to do this, finding common grounds that enable better design, which improves the experience of both players casual and pro, that enables the game to improve in certain strategic respects, and simultaneously please both the top GSL player, to the bottom of bronze is entirely possible, if you actually know what parts of the game piss them off. I am sure that is a response to my comment, but I couldn’t get through it. Every one of your posts is a paragraph after paragraph repeating the same information over and over. They don’t even seem to be in response to the balance changes or the posts you respond to. My post was mostly about how a lot of people have been asking for and like the changes. It also had a section about how the Hellbat would be more awesome if it sounded like a Transformer. I don't know why that warrented an 800 word response, but you posted it. You don’t seem to be very interested in playing SC2, more commenting on “design” in very long posts. It seems to be this endless feedback loop in the community where people comment on it and how they could make the game better. But all and all it is not every interesting, because it all it says is “everything Blizzard does is bad and here is why.”
Well that's your fault, don't make out like it's my responsibility to play devil's advocate vs my own posts to pick out other people's misinterpretations of it.
TLDR: Trying to fix balance by dealing in reference abstract theory, or specific unit interactions is not going to fix imbalance.
Blizzard are only doing this because of the feedback they are getting from the community. This is not their fault as a developer of great games, and a company of intelligent folks.
I'm proposing a way to try and workaround this, with the aim of helping Blizzard by making their job easier. The game would be better as a result of their decisions, not our suggestions, they'd just have better data or alternative ways of thinking about the game at their disposal.
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On December 04 2012 05:19 -JoKeR- wrote:
I am expecting the absolute worst proposed changes yet from blizzard in the next few weeks.
Here's my predictions:
Zerg:
+ Show Spoiler + -Fixed a bug where Zerg players actually had to play the game to win it.
Protoss:
+ Show Spoiler +
Terran
+ Show Spoiler +-Rax build time increased 15 seconds
-Bunker build time increased 10 seconds
-Buildings now require 2 building SCVs. They will retain their original cost.
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On December 01 2012 14:05 HyDrA_solic wrote:
I'm Zerg and I'm saying this for ever:
Changes;
@Fungal
- Reduce move speed in 75%
- Can't affect Caster type /ghost, raven, High Templar, Mothership, Infestor
- Infestors cost 3supply
@Infested Terran
- Can't share upgrades carapace and ranged
@Broodlings
- Can't share upgrades carapace and melee
I still think Ghosts can be the awnser in TvZ. In those first engages where Zergs have no Overseer, just a blast of EMP's will do wonders.. And still after sniping the seers.
Anyone?
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Northern Ireland23760 Posts
Quite like some of the ideas man in terms of they are addressing the combination of factors that are annoying people about Zergs.
Correct approach, no idea if those changes would actually lead to a balance ZvT, or take too much away from Zerg?
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BAHAHAHAHA!!!
Awww so when it was ghosts you made them useless but when it comes to Infestors a puny 20 Health decrease, are they serious T.T
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On December 04 2012 06:04 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2012 05:39 Wombat_NI wrote:On December 04 2012 05:22 Plansix wrote:On December 04 2012 05:17 rd wrote:On December 04 2012 05:09 Rabiator wrote:On December 04 2012 03:45 zhurai wrote: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) Bio buff: Marines are reduced in size to 90% so you can stack them even more for insane "dps per area". Maybe they give them bikes to ride on for more speed (they do like to add speed to units). Infestor nerf:Infestors are changed to bright pink color so everyone knows instantly what to target.[/sarcasm off] Honestly it is really sad to see too many people read this "declaration of intent" by some dude and then gather around the fire to sing the "praise almighty Blizzard" song of the stupid worshipper. It's even more sad to see each and every announcement by Blizzard met with the darkest of cynicism. It is a bummer, since they are doing a ton of stuff people have been asking for. Well except make Hellbats make the transformers noise when they change, do back flips when they transform while moving or make them punch fire with their awesome shield fists. But I don’t need changes just for me.(god it would be awesome) Blizzard are doing stuff wrong because they are approaching it wrong. I've actually said I think David Kim knows what we want, vaguely, and roughly why and loves Starcraft/wants it to succeed. However Blizz don't seem to get the underpinning relationship/link between why we want it/how we want it achieved. For example, I want fewer deathballs. Pathing is something that I expect to remain untouched, maybe it's complicated to re-code everything or whatever. In terms of say, changing unit clumping for example, I can logically comprehend why Blizzard wouldn't do that, even if they know what the problem is. If you change unit clumping, you change how every single composition in the game interacts. It might be better, but that will lead to an absolute age where you're not trying to design cool features, but merely trying to rebalance nearly everything in terms of the numbers. My solution to that issue, is figuring out how to address why people actually get pissed off at deathballs, and think of ways to factor that in without touching the engine, or say, macro mechanics. You can do this with very, very simple changes to execute. I've proposed a 'solution' for at least part of the Protoss deathball problem. 1. Why it annoys the player losing to a deathball - The idea of the opposition player having to put in much less work, relative to you. I mean, it's why I think at a design level PvT/TvP is the best functioning matchup, and I practice it from both sides, but wow playing Terran can be frustrating. In the case of PvZ, it's not not being able to beat BL/Infestor that's inherently annoying (although it's hard as hell to engage too), it's that BL/Infestor and consideration of it has reduced modern PvZ down to a level where it's close to just about your ability to execute a timing attack well. 2. How to fix that, without affecting core design. - You make it harder to control for the Protoss player. However there is a net tradeoff in terms of rewarding guys who are good at unit control, and happen to play Protoss (relative to other Protoss as opposed to Terrans). 3. How you would apply the concept- I feel creating a more divergent range of movespeeds in Protoss would not 'fix' deathballs and clumping. However, they would create a bit more skill so that Terrans get less frustrated by losing to A-move armies, but decent Protoss players ALSO get less frustrated because they feel there is more to do in terms of getting an advantage through their army control. 4. How you would specifically do it- In this instance I feel making Collosus way slower, and Zealots have 'Zealot legs' so their passive speed is faster. Part of the reason the Collosus is the only part of the deathball most people actually really hate, it's to do with the difference between Squirtle's Collosus, and say, my Collusus not being relatively large compared to our different skill levels. 5. Why this would improve/mitigate the problem - Divergent movespeeds make stuff harder to move around in a ball. Consider how the deathball operates, with the addition of Templar. They move so much slower than the rest, that you have to stop and reposition every so often, if you want to keep the entire ball together. A slower collosus at the back, and faster passive speed Zealots at the front will naturally split up more than the same composition with the current move speed relationship. This is why Reavers were balanced, they had huge damage output but were slow. Hence this created future cool synergy between the shuttle and the Reaver. The shuttle covered the Reaver's weaknesses, but still requires sick control to use. (imo unintentional design, but awesome when used) This inadvertently splits your army a bit better in certain ways, but also adds positional control. I mean in terms of standing power, mech is rather 'deathballish'. The skill in mech play comes from positioning, so adding a little of that element is good. Also, faster Zealots would function in a more versatile way akin to say, Zerglings than as an A-move unit that doesn't reward good charge use. Yeah you can manually do it, but this is quite unintuitive than having a faster average move speed, but a lower peak. 5. Other benefits to the game that may arise- Faster Zealots with less reliance on charge which is autocast, would be more controllable. Setting up Zealot flanks would be a more highly rewarded skill. Wombat, no offence, but you dislike everything Blizzard does. If they announced that they were giving everyone HotS for free as an apology for the balance mistakes for WoL, you would be pissed that it took them so long to admit it. They are never going to please you, so why bother trying?
Come on ... go through that list and find something to criticise. It is long enough and stupid enough so you should find several things that wont work. If you can find nothing then you arent critical enough and should try harder instead of criticising people for being critical of Blizzard ... who have been really stupid with their responses and actions for months now. If you cant come up with anything you might want to look at my list HERE ...
My favorite ones are the Tempest and the Ultralisk ...
Alternatively you could come up with reasons why these proposed changes - which should be criticised for not being precise enough anyways (Blizzard should just not say anything until they know exactly what they want to change and how!) - are good ... something more than "I like it". So far none of people who have criticised me for being critical of Blizzard has really answered any of the lists I made, but maybe you are the first.
On December 04 2012 05:17 rd wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2012 05:09 Rabiator wrote:On December 04 2012 03:45 zhurai wrote: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) Bio buff: Marines are reduced in size to 90% so you can stack them even more for insane "dps per area". Maybe they give them bikes to ride on for more speed (they do like to add speed to units). Infestor nerf:Infestors are changed to bright pink color so everyone knows instantly what to target.[/sarcasm off] Honestly it is really sad to see too many people read this "declaration of intent" by some dude and then gather around the fire to sing the "praise almighty Blizzard" song of the stupid worshipper. It's even more sad to see each and every announcement by Blizzard met with the darkest of cynicism. Apparently you can't be optimistic without being a stupid Blizzard worshipper.
People who arent critical enough have been the reasons for many wars while the critics have been booed at. It is the same principle here and "being proven right eventually" wont make us happy, because the game will be ruined then.
Blizzard is currently screwing up the game by making it too complex and too fast. The incredibly high unit density already makes the "kill speed" rather high, so you can only react properly if you are a kid who does nothing else every day. This is not good, because it is a GAME and should be about FUN instead of clicking fast enough. It isnt an action game - which I accused them of years ago already - it is a strategy game and thus should focus more about "the right plan" and not "the right clicks".
I have added the link to my criticisms of the "declaration of intent" by David Kim in the first reply here and maybe some more people can go down the list and ask themselves "Is this really good for the game?" Anyone who doesnt really find anything bad is kinda stupid IMO and that isnt a good sign. Even justifying the changes through some reasoning would work for me ...
How can you justify "buffing bio for late game" if you nerf the Infestor properly? Wouldnt it be much simpler to nerf the new things to make things work instead?
What is the reason for giving units more speed and how will that make it better for casuals to play for example?
Why do Tempests and Ultralisks have to be good against EVERYTHING while other units - like the Siege Tank - are limited by "bonus" damage?
There are LOTS of bad apples in that stupid list and people who find nothing are just indoctrinated fanboys who will happily run after every stick their master Browder/Kim throws for them while barking joyfully. I am sad to have reached this point, but can you honestly say that I am wrong?
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On December 04 2012 10:53 HyDrA_solic wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2012 14:05 HyDrA_solic wrote:
I'm Zerg and I'm saying this for ever:
Changes;
@Fungal
- Reduce move speed in 75%
- Can't affect Caster type /ghost, raven, High Templar, Mothership, Infestor
- Infestors cost 3supply
@Infested Terran
- Can't share upgrades carapace and ranged
@Broodlings
- Can't share upgrades carapace and melee
I still think Ghosts can be the awnser in TvZ. In those first engages where Zergs have no Overseer, just a blast of EMP's will do wonders.. And still after sniping the seers. Anyone?
Yes those would actually be ideal.
Many already called you out on it. I'd employ heavy use of ad-hominem here (asking people to "learn to split" when your tools are insanely overpowered is almost as bad imo) but I've decided it's not worth getting banned just to insult a zerg who obviously has no idea what he's talking about. Using WCG, DH Open and IEM Singapore as examples? You are funny.
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Northern Ireland23760 Posts
I am fucking optimistic, I think Blizzard with the RIGHT feedback would do a good job, i.e they're smart guys and good technical developers. Jesus. It's a matter of clearing up the inconsistency in approach, stuff they do makes no sense relative to previous actions, but they never come out and go 'KEKE GUYS, CHANGED OUR MINDS'
Take a look at WHY people get pissed at Blizz. Terran is balanced at the level of Korean Terrans, relatively for ages, got a ton of nerfs, becomes hard as fuck to play for people who aren't mechanically solid. Specific builds and styles are nerfed with the perception that it was because say, MVP used them.
Blizzard gives Zerg the Queen buff when ZvT was the closest to 50/50 in age, I think 51-49, relative to Korean Zergs
Zergs start tearing it up because of a patch they didn't need.
Balancing for the Korean Code S level is fine, if you apply that idea consistently or at least semi-consistently. All we ever hear are 'the win rates are quite balanced' and that's it. There's more actual detail in the TLPD collation posts!
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Northern Ireland23760 Posts
On December 04 2012 12:41 xAdra wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2012 10:53 HyDrA_solic wrote:On December 01 2012 14:05 HyDrA_solic wrote:
I'm Zerg and I'm saying this for ever:
Changes;
@Fungal
- Reduce move speed in 75%
- Can't affect Caster type /ghost, raven, High Templar, Mothership, Infestor
- Infestors cost 3supply
@Infested Terran
- Can't share upgrades carapace and ranged
@Broodlings
- Can't share upgrades carapace and melee
I still think Ghosts can be the awnser in TvZ. In those first engages where Zergs have no Overseer, just a blast of EMP's will do wonders.. And still after sniping the seers. Anyone? Yes those would actually be ideal. Many already called you out on it. I'd employ heavy use of ad-hominem here (asking people to "learn to split" when your tools are insanely overpowered is almost as bad imo) but I've decided it's not worth getting banned just to insult a zerg who obviously has no idea what he's talking about. Using WCG, DH Open and IEM Singapore as examples? You are funny.
Think of your 'learn to split' idea. It's just as frustrating, if not as difficult to still win for a Protoss when he's told 'just macro' and his entire PvZ matchup is predicated around 2 base timings or 3 base pre-brood timings.
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Northern Ireland23760 Posts
Look, I'm an average player by all means, but criticise my design critiques or whatever. Don't criticise either my 'anti-Blizzard' sentiment or if the actual endevour would work.
I predicted 100% correctly the warhound was going to destroy TvP in its conceived form just based on its design. I didn't even predict the numbers being quite so ridiculous. There's this misconception that theorycraft is just some kind of masturbatory intellectual exercise, whereas playing the game is somehow indicative of proficiency or understanding the game.
Fixing the game to be fun/enjoyable/challenging is hard to do, I accept this. There's just the assumption that to make it say, more challenging, you necessarily make it LESS fun. Giving extra strategic, conscious options that you can make will improve the experience for all three groups of players, to the detriment of none. This isn't stuff like giving units, it's stuff like enabling Protoss to harass better, or to play straight macro slugfests better, or to make playing TvZ such a terrifying experience of foreboding, because if you fuck up once with your micro you can straight up die.
Some of this is 100% being addressed for sure as well. However, lots of Blizzard's changes look to be 'here's the casual changes', and 'heres the changes hardcore guys will like' If you approach it in terms of trying to deal with both simultaneously with each decision, you make the game fundamentally better.
It's why I am also routinely criticised for being elitist for criticising things that are 'casual' friendly, and trying to 'dumb down the game' when I suggest other things. If I'm not trying to look at stuff in a universal kind of way, how can I be characterised as both, accurately?
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On December 04 2012 10:53 HyDrA_solic wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2012 14:05 HyDrA_solic wrote:
I'm Zerg and I'm saying this for ever:
Changes;
@Fungal
- Reduce move speed in 75%
- Can't affect Caster type /ghost, raven, High Templar, Mothership, Infestor
- Infestors cost 3supply
@Infested Terran
- Can't share upgrades carapace and ranged
@Broodlings
- Can't share upgrades carapace and melee
I still think Ghosts can be the awnser in TvZ. In those first engages where Zergs have no Overseer, just a blast of EMP's will do wonders.. And still after sniping the seers. Anyone?
Like all of these except for:
- Infestors at 3 supply: Too much if it's in conjunction with the other nerfs.
- Broodlings no longer being able to share upgrades: Silly. That's where the dps for the broods comes from. Not to mention, BL were never really the problem it's the infestor support. BL deserve to be powerful as they're probably the most inaccessible unit in the game, and in WoL are Zerg's only reliable means of finishing off turtles.
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the egg hp nerf seems kind of random
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On December 04 2012 12:24 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2012 06:04 Plansix wrote:On December 04 2012 05:39 Wombat_NI wrote:On December 04 2012 05:22 Plansix wrote:On December 04 2012 05:17 rd wrote:On December 04 2012 05:09 Rabiator wrote:On December 04 2012 03:45 zhurai wrote: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) Bio buff: Marines are reduced in size to 90% so you can stack them even more for insane "dps per area". Maybe they give them bikes to ride on for more speed (they do like to add speed to units). Infestor nerf:Infestors are changed to bright pink color so everyone knows instantly what to target.[/sarcasm off] Honestly it is really sad to see too many people read this "declaration of intent" by some dude and then gather around the fire to sing the "praise almighty Blizzard" song of the stupid worshipper. It's even more sad to see each and every announcement by Blizzard met with the darkest of cynicism. It is a bummer, since they are doing a ton of stuff people have been asking for. Well except make Hellbats make the transformers noise when they change, do back flips when they transform while moving or make them punch fire with their awesome shield fists. But I don’t need changes just for me.(god it would be awesome) Blizzard are doing stuff wrong because they are approaching it wrong. I've actually said I think David Kim knows what we want, vaguely, and roughly why and loves Starcraft/wants it to succeed. However Blizz don't seem to get the underpinning relationship/link between why we want it/how we want it achieved. For example, I want fewer deathballs. Pathing is something that I expect to remain untouched, maybe it's complicated to re-code everything or whatever. In terms of say, changing unit clumping for example, I can logically comprehend why Blizzard wouldn't do that, even if they know what the problem is. If you change unit clumping, you change how every single composition in the game interacts. It might be better, but that will lead to an absolute age where you're not trying to design cool features, but merely trying to rebalance nearly everything in terms of the numbers. My solution to that issue, is figuring out how to address why people actually get pissed off at deathballs, and think of ways to factor that in without touching the engine, or say, macro mechanics. You can do this with very, very simple changes to execute. I've proposed a 'solution' for at least part of the Protoss deathball problem. 1. Why it annoys the player losing to a deathball - The idea of the opposition player having to put in much less work, relative to you. I mean, it's why I think at a design level PvT/TvP is the best functioning matchup, and I practice it from both sides, but wow playing Terran can be frustrating. In the case of PvZ, it's not not being able to beat BL/Infestor that's inherently annoying (although it's hard as hell to engage too), it's that BL/Infestor and consideration of it has reduced modern PvZ down to a level where it's close to just about your ability to execute a timing attack well. 2. How to fix that, without affecting core design. - You make it harder to control for the Protoss player. However there is a net tradeoff in terms of rewarding guys who are good at unit control, and happen to play Protoss (relative to other Protoss as opposed to Terrans). 3. How you would apply the concept- I feel creating a more divergent range of movespeeds in Protoss would not 'fix' deathballs and clumping. However, they would create a bit more skill so that Terrans get less frustrated by losing to A-move armies, but decent Protoss players ALSO get less frustrated because they feel there is more to do in terms of getting an advantage through their army control. 4. How you would specifically do it- In this instance I feel making Collosus way slower, and Zealots have 'Zealot legs' so their passive speed is faster. Part of the reason the Collosus is the only part of the deathball most people actually really hate, it's to do with the difference between Squirtle's Collosus, and say, my Collusus not being relatively large compared to our different skill levels. 5. Why this would improve/mitigate the problem - Divergent movespeeds make stuff harder to move around in a ball. Consider how the deathball operates, with the addition of Templar. They move so much slower than the rest, that you have to stop and reposition every so often, if you want to keep the entire ball together. A slower collosus at the back, and faster passive speed Zealots at the front will naturally split up more than the same composition with the current move speed relationship. This is why Reavers were balanced, they had huge damage output but were slow. Hence this created future cool synergy between the shuttle and the Reaver. The shuttle covered the Reaver's weaknesses, but still requires sick control to use. (imo unintentional design, but awesome when used) This inadvertently splits your army a bit better in certain ways, but also adds positional control. I mean in terms of standing power, mech is rather 'deathballish'. The skill in mech play comes from positioning, so adding a little of that element is good. Also, faster Zealots would function in a more versatile way akin to say, Zerglings than as an A-move unit that doesn't reward good charge use. Yeah you can manually do it, but this is quite unintuitive than having a faster average move speed, but a lower peak. 5. Other benefits to the game that may arise- Faster Zealots with less reliance on charge which is autocast, would be more controllable. Setting up Zealot flanks would be a more highly rewarded skill. Wombat, no offence, but you dislike everything Blizzard does. If they announced that they were giving everyone HotS for free as an apology for the balance mistakes for WoL, you would be pissed that it took them so long to admit it. They are never going to please you, so why bother trying? Come on ... go through that list and find something to criticise. It is long enough and stupid enough so you should find several things that wont work. If you can find nothing then you arent critical enough and should try harder instead of criticising people for being critical of Blizzard ... who have been really stupid with their responses and actions for months now. If you cant come up with anything you might want to look at my list HERE ... My favorite ones are the Tempest and the Ultralisk ... Alternatively you could come up with reasons why these proposed changes - which should be criticised for not being precise enough anyways (Blizzard should just not say anything until they know exactly what they want to change and how!) - are good ... something more than "I like it". So far none of people who have criticised me for being critical of Blizzard has really answered any of the lists I made, but maybe you are the first. Show nested quote +On December 04 2012 05:17 rd wrote:On December 04 2012 05:09 Rabiator wrote:On December 04 2012 03:45 zhurai wrote: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) Bio buff: Marines are reduced in size to 90% so you can stack them even more for insane "dps per area". Maybe they give them bikes to ride on for more speed (they do like to add speed to units). Infestor nerf:Infestors are changed to bright pink color so everyone knows instantly what to target.[/sarcasm off] Honestly it is really sad to see too many people read this "declaration of intent" by some dude and then gather around the fire to sing the "praise almighty Blizzard" song of the stupid worshipper. It's even more sad to see each and every announcement by Blizzard met with the darkest of cynicism. Apparently you can't be optimistic without being a stupid Blizzard worshipper. People who arent critical enough have been the reasons for many wars while the critics have been booed at. It is the same principle here and "being proven right eventually" wont make us happy, because the game will be ruined then. Blizzard is currently screwing up the game by making it too complex and too fast. The incredibly high unit density already makes the "kill speed" rather high, so you can only react properly if you are a kid who does nothing else every day. This is not good, because it is a GAME and should be about FUN instead of clicking fast enough. It isnt an action game - which I accused them of years ago already - it is a strategy game and thus should focus more about "the right plan" and not "the right clicks". I have added the link to my criticisms of the "declaration of intent" by David Kim in the first reply here and maybe some more people can go down the list and ask themselves "Is this really good for the game?" Anyone who doesnt really find anything bad is kinda stupid IMO and that isnt a good sign. Even justifying the changes through some reasoning would work for me ... How can you justify "buffing bio for late game" if you nerf the Infestor properly? Wouldnt it be much simpler to nerf the new things to make things work instead? What is the reason for giving units more speed and how will that make it better for casuals to play for example? Why do Tempests and Ultralisks have to be good against EVERYTHING while other units - like the Siege Tank - are limited by "bonus" damage? There are LOTS of bad apples in that stupid list and people who find nothing are just indoctrinated fanboys who will happily run after every stick their master Browder/Kim throws for them while barking joyfully. I am sad to have reached this point, but can you honestly say that I am wrong?
There is a fairly large difference being critical and cynically mocking every update from Blizzard. I mean again, you literally re-establish the same strawman of anyone who doesn't appear to agree with you entirely as some brain-dead Blizzard fan incapable of embracing what is clearly sound logic emanating from your enlightened view into Blizzard.
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On December 04 2012 13:17 rd wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2012 12:24 Rabiator wrote:On December 04 2012 06:04 Plansix wrote:On December 04 2012 05:39 Wombat_NI wrote:On December 04 2012 05:22 Plansix wrote:On December 04 2012 05:17 rd wrote:On December 04 2012 05:09 Rabiator wrote:On December 04 2012 03:45 zhurai wrote: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) Bio buff: Marines are reduced in size to 90% so you can stack them even more for insane "dps per area". Maybe they give them bikes to ride on for more speed (they do like to add speed to units). Infestor nerf:Infestors are changed to bright pink color so everyone knows instantly what to target.[/sarcasm off] Honestly it is really sad to see too many people read this "declaration of intent" by some dude and then gather around the fire to sing the "praise almighty Blizzard" song of the stupid worshipper. It's even more sad to see each and every announcement by Blizzard met with the darkest of cynicism. It is a bummer, since they are doing a ton of stuff people have been asking for. Well except make Hellbats make the transformers noise when they change, do back flips when they transform while moving or make them punch fire with their awesome shield fists. But I don’t need changes just for me.(god it would be awesome) Blizzard are doing stuff wrong because they are approaching it wrong. I've actually said I think David Kim knows what we want, vaguely, and roughly why and loves Starcraft/wants it to succeed. However Blizz don't seem to get the underpinning relationship/link between why we want it/how we want it achieved. For example, I want fewer deathballs. Pathing is something that I expect to remain untouched, maybe it's complicated to re-code everything or whatever. In terms of say, changing unit clumping for example, I can logically comprehend why Blizzard wouldn't do that, even if they know what the problem is. If you change unit clumping, you change how every single composition in the game interacts. It might be better, but that will lead to an absolute age where you're not trying to design cool features, but merely trying to rebalance nearly everything in terms of the numbers. My solution to that issue, is figuring out how to address why people actually get pissed off at deathballs, and think of ways to factor that in without touching the engine, or say, macro mechanics. You can do this with very, very simple changes to execute. I've proposed a 'solution' for at least part of the Protoss deathball problem. 1. Why it annoys the player losing to a deathball - The idea of the opposition player having to put in much less work, relative to you. I mean, it's why I think at a design level PvT/TvP is the best functioning matchup, and I practice it from both sides, but wow playing Terran can be frustrating. In the case of PvZ, it's not not being able to beat BL/Infestor that's inherently annoying (although it's hard as hell to engage too), it's that BL/Infestor and consideration of it has reduced modern PvZ down to a level where it's close to just about your ability to execute a timing attack well. 2. How to fix that, without affecting core design. - You make it harder to control for the Protoss player. However there is a net tradeoff in terms of rewarding guys who are good at unit control, and happen to play Protoss (relative to other Protoss as opposed to Terrans). 3. How you would apply the concept- I feel creating a more divergent range of movespeeds in Protoss would not 'fix' deathballs and clumping. However, they would create a bit more skill so that Terrans get less frustrated by losing to A-move armies, but decent Protoss players ALSO get less frustrated because they feel there is more to do in terms of getting an advantage through their army control. 4. How you would specifically do it- In this instance I feel making Collosus way slower, and Zealots have 'Zealot legs' so their passive speed is faster. Part of the reason the Collosus is the only part of the deathball most people actually really hate, it's to do with the difference between Squirtle's Collosus, and say, my Collusus not being relatively large compared to our different skill levels. 5. Why this would improve/mitigate the problem - Divergent movespeeds make stuff harder to move around in a ball. Consider how the deathball operates, with the addition of Templar. They move so much slower than the rest, that you have to stop and reposition every so often, if you want to keep the entire ball together. A slower collosus at the back, and faster passive speed Zealots at the front will naturally split up more than the same composition with the current move speed relationship. This is why Reavers were balanced, they had huge damage output but were slow. Hence this created future cool synergy between the shuttle and the Reaver. The shuttle covered the Reaver's weaknesses, but still requires sick control to use. (imo unintentional design, but awesome when used) This inadvertently splits your army a bit better in certain ways, but also adds positional control. I mean in terms of standing power, mech is rather 'deathballish'. The skill in mech play comes from positioning, so adding a little of that element is good. Also, faster Zealots would function in a more versatile way akin to say, Zerglings than as an A-move unit that doesn't reward good charge use. Yeah you can manually do it, but this is quite unintuitive than having a faster average move speed, but a lower peak. 5. Other benefits to the game that may arise- Faster Zealots with less reliance on charge which is autocast, would be more controllable. Setting up Zealot flanks would be a more highly rewarded skill. Wombat, no offence, but you dislike everything Blizzard does. If they announced that they were giving everyone HotS for free as an apology for the balance mistakes for WoL, you would be pissed that it took them so long to admit it. They are never going to please you, so why bother trying? Come on ... go through that list and find something to criticise. It is long enough and stupid enough so you should find several things that wont work. If you can find nothing then you arent critical enough and should try harder instead of criticising people for being critical of Blizzard ... who have been really stupid with their responses and actions for months now. If you cant come up with anything you might want to look at my list HERE ... My favorite ones are the Tempest and the Ultralisk ... Alternatively you could come up with reasons why these proposed changes - which should be criticised for not being precise enough anyways (Blizzard should just not say anything until they know exactly what they want to change and how!) - are good ... something more than "I like it". So far none of people who have criticised me for being critical of Blizzard has really answered any of the lists I made, but maybe you are the first. On December 04 2012 05:17 rd wrote:On December 04 2012 05:09 Rabiator wrote:On December 04 2012 03:45 zhurai wrote: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) Bio buff: Marines are reduced in size to 90% so you can stack them even more for insane "dps per area". Maybe they give them bikes to ride on for more speed (they do like to add speed to units). Infestor nerf:Infestors are changed to bright pink color so everyone knows instantly what to target.[/sarcasm off] Honestly it is really sad to see too many people read this "declaration of intent" by some dude and then gather around the fire to sing the "praise almighty Blizzard" song of the stupid worshipper. It's even more sad to see each and every announcement by Blizzard met with the darkest of cynicism. Apparently you can't be optimistic without being a stupid Blizzard worshipper. People who arent critical enough have been the reasons for many wars while the critics have been booed at. It is the same principle here and "being proven right eventually" wont make us happy, because the game will be ruined then. Blizzard is currently screwing up the game by making it too complex and too fast. The incredibly high unit density already makes the "kill speed" rather high, so you can only react properly if you are a kid who does nothing else every day. This is not good, because it is a GAME and should be about FUN instead of clicking fast enough. It isnt an action game - which I accused them of years ago already - it is a strategy game and thus should focus more about "the right plan" and not "the right clicks". I have added the link to my criticisms of the "declaration of intent" by David Kim in the first reply here and maybe some more people can go down the list and ask themselves "Is this really good for the game?" Anyone who doesnt really find anything bad is kinda stupid IMO and that isnt a good sign. Even justifying the changes through some reasoning would work for me ... How can you justify "buffing bio for late game" if you nerf the Infestor properly? Wouldnt it be much simpler to nerf the new things to make things work instead? What is the reason for giving units more speed and how will that make it better for casuals to play for example? Why do Tempests and Ultralisks have to be good against EVERYTHING while other units - like the Siege Tank - are limited by "bonus" damage? There are LOTS of bad apples in that stupid list and people who find nothing are just indoctrinated fanboys who will happily run after every stick their master Browder/Kim throws for them while barking joyfully. I am sad to have reached this point, but can you honestly say that I am wrong? There is a fairly large difference being critical and cynically mocking every update from Blizzard. I mean again, you literally re-establish the same strawman of anyone who doesn't appear to agree with you entirely as some brain-dead Blizzard fan incapable of embracing what is clearly sound logic emanating from your enlightened view into Blizzard.
... and you again prove me right by not arguing and looking at the criticisms I make of their announcement/proposed changes/declaration of intent. You are more interested in trying to prove me wrong because I say you arent arguing than actually proving my reasoning to be wrong.
Soooo ... please go through the list of the announcement and list why these changes are GOOD and NECESSARY and the RIGHT WAY TO DO IT. Personally I believe you shouldnt need to balance a game that works with a sledgehammer but rather with a small chisel. Since they use the sledgehammer I am guessing it doesnt work.
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On December 04 2012 12:48 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2012 12:41 xAdra wrote:On December 04 2012 10:53 HyDrA_solic wrote:On December 01 2012 14:05 HyDrA_solic wrote:
I'm Zerg and I'm saying this for ever:
Changes;
@Fungal
- Reduce move speed in 75%
- Can't affect Caster type /ghost, raven, High Templar, Mothership, Infestor
- Infestors cost 3supply
@Infested Terran
- Can't share upgrades carapace and ranged
@Broodlings
- Can't share upgrades carapace and melee
I still think Ghosts can be the awnser in TvZ. In those first engages where Zergs have no Overseer, just a blast of EMP's will do wonders.. And still after sniping the seers. Anyone? Yes those would actually be ideal. Many already called you out on it. I'd employ heavy use of ad-hominem here (asking people to "learn to split" when your tools are insanely overpowered is almost as bad imo) but I've decided it's not worth getting banned just to insult a zerg who obviously has no idea what he's talking about. Using WCG, DH Open and IEM Singapore as examples? You are funny. Think of your 'learn to split' idea. It's just as frustrating, if not as difficult to still win for a Protoss when he's told 'just macro' and his entire PvZ matchup is predicated around 2 base timings or 3 base pre-brood timings.
I know exactly what you mean. I'm a protoss player too.
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On December 04 2012 15:27 Rabiator wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2012 13:17 rd wrote:On December 04 2012 12:24 Rabiator wrote:On December 04 2012 06:04 Plansix wrote:On December 04 2012 05:39 Wombat_NI wrote:On December 04 2012 05:22 Plansix wrote:On December 04 2012 05:17 rd wrote:On December 04 2012 05:09 Rabiator wrote:On December 04 2012 03:45 zhurai wrote: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) Bio buff: Marines are reduced in size to 90% so you can stack them even more for insane "dps per area". Maybe they give them bikes to ride on for more speed (they do like to add speed to units). Infestor nerf:Infestors are changed to bright pink color so everyone knows instantly what to target.[/sarcasm off] Honestly it is really sad to see too many people read this "declaration of intent" by some dude and then gather around the fire to sing the "praise almighty Blizzard" song of the stupid worshipper. It's even more sad to see each and every announcement by Blizzard met with the darkest of cynicism. It is a bummer, since they are doing a ton of stuff people have been asking for. Well except make Hellbats make the transformers noise when they change, do back flips when they transform while moving or make them punch fire with their awesome shield fists. But I don’t need changes just for me.(god it would be awesome) Blizzard are doing stuff wrong because they are approaching it wrong. I've actually said I think David Kim knows what we want, vaguely, and roughly why and loves Starcraft/wants it to succeed. However Blizz don't seem to get the underpinning relationship/link between why we want it/how we want it achieved. For example, I want fewer deathballs. Pathing is something that I expect to remain untouched, maybe it's complicated to re-code everything or whatever. In terms of say, changing unit clumping for example, I can logically comprehend why Blizzard wouldn't do that, even if they know what the problem is. If you change unit clumping, you change how every single composition in the game interacts. It might be better, but that will lead to an absolute age where you're not trying to design cool features, but merely trying to rebalance nearly everything in terms of the numbers. My solution to that issue, is figuring out how to address why people actually get pissed off at deathballs, and think of ways to factor that in without touching the engine, or say, macro mechanics. You can do this with very, very simple changes to execute. I've proposed a 'solution' for at least part of the Protoss deathball problem. 1. Why it annoys the player losing to a deathball - The idea of the opposition player having to put in much less work, relative to you. I mean, it's why I think at a design level PvT/TvP is the best functioning matchup, and I practice it from both sides, but wow playing Terran can be frustrating. In the case of PvZ, it's not not being able to beat BL/Infestor that's inherently annoying (although it's hard as hell to engage too), it's that BL/Infestor and consideration of it has reduced modern PvZ down to a level where it's close to just about your ability to execute a timing attack well. 2. How to fix that, without affecting core design. - You make it harder to control for the Protoss player. However there is a net tradeoff in terms of rewarding guys who are good at unit control, and happen to play Protoss (relative to other Protoss as opposed to Terrans). 3. How you would apply the concept- I feel creating a more divergent range of movespeeds in Protoss would not 'fix' deathballs and clumping. However, they would create a bit more skill so that Terrans get less frustrated by losing to A-move armies, but decent Protoss players ALSO get less frustrated because they feel there is more to do in terms of getting an advantage through their army control. 4. How you would specifically do it- In this instance I feel making Collosus way slower, and Zealots have 'Zealot legs' so their passive speed is faster. Part of the reason the Collosus is the only part of the deathball most people actually really hate, it's to do with the difference between Squirtle's Collosus, and say, my Collusus not being relatively large compared to our different skill levels. 5. Why this would improve/mitigate the problem - Divergent movespeeds make stuff harder to move around in a ball. Consider how the deathball operates, with the addition of Templar. They move so much slower than the rest, that you have to stop and reposition every so often, if you want to keep the entire ball together. A slower collosus at the back, and faster passive speed Zealots at the front will naturally split up more than the same composition with the current move speed relationship. This is why Reavers were balanced, they had huge damage output but were slow. Hence this created future cool synergy between the shuttle and the Reaver. The shuttle covered the Reaver's weaknesses, but still requires sick control to use. (imo unintentional design, but awesome when used) This inadvertently splits your army a bit better in certain ways, but also adds positional control. I mean in terms of standing power, mech is rather 'deathballish'. The skill in mech play comes from positioning, so adding a little of that element is good. Also, faster Zealots would function in a more versatile way akin to say, Zerglings than as an A-move unit that doesn't reward good charge use. Yeah you can manually do it, but this is quite unintuitive than having a faster average move speed, but a lower peak. 5. Other benefits to the game that may arise- Faster Zealots with less reliance on charge which is autocast, would be more controllable. Setting up Zealot flanks would be a more highly rewarded skill. Wombat, no offence, but you dislike everything Blizzard does. If they announced that they were giving everyone HotS for free as an apology for the balance mistakes for WoL, you would be pissed that it took them so long to admit it. They are never going to please you, so why bother trying? Come on ... go through that list and find something to criticise. It is long enough and stupid enough so you should find several things that wont work. If you can find nothing then you arent critical enough and should try harder instead of criticising people for being critical of Blizzard ... who have been really stupid with their responses and actions for months now. If you cant come up with anything you might want to look at my list HERE ... My favorite ones are the Tempest and the Ultralisk ... Alternatively you could come up with reasons why these proposed changes - which should be criticised for not being precise enough anyways (Blizzard should just not say anything until they know exactly what they want to change and how!) - are good ... something more than "I like it". So far none of people who have criticised me for being critical of Blizzard has really answered any of the lists I made, but maybe you are the first. On December 04 2012 05:17 rd wrote:On December 04 2012 05:09 Rabiator wrote:On December 04 2012 03:45 zhurai wrote: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) Bio buff: Marines are reduced in size to 90% so you can stack them even more for insane "dps per area". Maybe they give them bikes to ride on for more speed (they do like to add speed to units). Infestor nerf:Infestors are changed to bright pink color so everyone knows instantly what to target.[/sarcasm off] Honestly it is really sad to see too many people read this "declaration of intent" by some dude and then gather around the fire to sing the "praise almighty Blizzard" song of the stupid worshipper. It's even more sad to see each and every announcement by Blizzard met with the darkest of cynicism. Apparently you can't be optimistic without being a stupid Blizzard worshipper. People who arent critical enough have been the reasons for many wars while the critics have been booed at. It is the same principle here and "being proven right eventually" wont make us happy, because the game will be ruined then. Blizzard is currently screwing up the game by making it too complex and too fast. The incredibly high unit density already makes the "kill speed" rather high, so you can only react properly if you are a kid who does nothing else every day. This is not good, because it is a GAME and should be about FUN instead of clicking fast enough. It isnt an action game - which I accused them of years ago already - it is a strategy game and thus should focus more about "the right plan" and not "the right clicks". I have added the link to my criticisms of the "declaration of intent" by David Kim in the first reply here and maybe some more people can go down the list and ask themselves "Is this really good for the game?" Anyone who doesnt really find anything bad is kinda stupid IMO and that isnt a good sign. Even justifying the changes through some reasoning would work for me ... How can you justify "buffing bio for late game" if you nerf the Infestor properly? Wouldnt it be much simpler to nerf the new things to make things work instead? What is the reason for giving units more speed and how will that make it better for casuals to play for example? Why do Tempests and Ultralisks have to be good against EVERYTHING while other units - like the Siege Tank - are limited by "bonus" damage? There are LOTS of bad apples in that stupid list and people who find nothing are just indoctrinated fanboys who will happily run after every stick their master Browder/Kim throws for them while barking joyfully. I am sad to have reached this point, but can you honestly say that I am wrong? There is a fairly large difference being critical and cynically mocking every update from Blizzard. I mean again, you literally re-establish the same strawman of anyone who doesn't appear to agree with you entirely as some brain-dead Blizzard fan incapable of embracing what is clearly sound logic emanating from your enlightened view into Blizzard. ... and you again prove me right by not arguing and looking at the criticisms I make of their announcement/proposed changes/declaration of intent. You are more interested in trying to prove me wrong because I say you arent arguing than actually proving my reasoning to be wrong. Soooo ... please go through the list of the announcement and list why these changes are GOOD and NECESSARY and the RIGHT WAY TO DO IT. Personally I believe you shouldnt need to balance a game that works with a sledgehammer but rather with a small chisel. Since they use the sledgehammer I am guessing it doesnt work.
Lol? Theres no reason to be had in mocking opinions that differ from yours because you disagree and are an over the top cynic. I don't care to disprove your reasoning. I merely pointed out the ridiculous irony in labeling a post disagreeing with yours "sad" despite the cynicism in brandishing dissent as fanboyism, and you respond with a wall of text going over shit I have no need to go over.
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On December 03 2012 17:54 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On December 03 2012 17:39 aZealot wrote:
I think you miss his point Wombat. You may believe your voice is easily differentiated from the mass of other voices on TL (and elsewhere). I'm not really sure how you can come to that point regardless, a good forum profile means shit. How is Blizzard supposed to consistently pick out the occasional pearl (if that is indeed what it is) from the mass of swine swill that is the usual balance/design offering on TL? They'd have to be masochists to do so, and those dedicated couple of personnel (poor sods) trawling through TL and other community sites would be reaching for sharp blades and rolling up their sleeves real quick.
So much of community "input" is little more than whine of the week, or moan of the month - forever changing contemptible crap. There may be, and I'm not sure about this, something for the Blizzard development team to take on board among all of that. Something they must be told for the good of the game (etc). But I find it difficult to blame them if they don't or won't. Not at all correct man to say that. I have actually said exactly what you are talking about, in a different way. I mean bar my phraseology being different to yours, I could have made that post. I acknowledge the problem exists, and how the problem impacts us. I.e, that good posts get buried etc. I just consider it a false dichotomy, it doesn't have to be 'Blizzard can do it themselves' vs 'We know better' at all. Blizzard, merely by consulting pros shows that, unless it's purely to placate the community, that they welcome input! However I'd imagine they find sifting through it hard (because of all the reasons you outlined). The solution is 100% there, at least theoretically if you think a little laterally. Hire a person to sift through that. They wouldn't even have to know much about Starcraft, just bring ideas to Blizzard that aren't necessarily good, or necessarily bad, but something that they haven't considered. Yeah it might suck, hell, it's a job right? I wouldn't expect them to do it for free, it would be hell. If anybody can tell me that that wouldn't at least bridge the gap between the good ideas of the 'silent minority' being transmitted, and them being received, to at least some degree I would be mightily impressed as to them finding a reason why.
Sorry for the late-ish response. Work has been crazy recently, will continue to be so, and I don't have time to trawl the forums: just skim and post occasionally.
You don't appear to see the problem in that suggestion, compounded as it is by all the factors I previously outlined. Mainly, how to identify the "good" ideas. On what metric are these to be identified? The validity of the ideas? Their testing? Their implementation? Some solutions may only appear to be solutions in terms of a current problem in the meta-game or a problem in a specific match-up. Some ideas while good may actually turn out to be bad later. The fact that, to put it bluntly, you are convinced you shit gold, does not necessarily make it so that you do. Or, even if you do, that Blizzard could and should justify sifting through layers of shit to get to your scattered gold nuggets. Rationally, they have no incentive to do so.
I'm more and more convinced that Blizzard should ignore the community as far as possible when it comes to balance/design, and lend only a selective and measured ear to all suggestions screamed in its direction. Does this mean that Blizzard know more about the game than the community (extending far past TL)? Not necessarily - and in comparison to the dispersed aggregated knowledge of the overall community, probably not. But that's a long way from discounting what they do know.
That said, the real answer, in my view, to many issues of balance and design when it comes to as complex a game as SC2 is, "I don't know". Given that, and whatever resource restrictions the Blizzard development team operate under in the real world, I am happy to leave the overall fate of the game in Blizzard's hands. Now, does this mean that the game will be better than if it was developed by the "community"? I don't know. But having observed this community for almost 2 years now, and having taken part myself in many a design circle jerk, I am skeptical about the next SC2 Messiah popping up on the forums convinced that he knows the way to SC2 Nirvana where the game is always innovative and fun and balanced all of the time. Even if Blizzard do indeed screw SC2 up, I am doubtful, very doubtful, that "the community" could and would do any better.
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EPT
