[D]That Protoss Elephant - Page 17

On April 17 2013 05:27 Bam Lee wrote:
I guess we can discuss this all day but until we find a concrete solution to the problem it will never be fixed. I doubt blizzard is even working on remaking protoss, so if we want change we would have to find a concrete solution with numbers and actually design it ourselves to force a change

On April 17 2013 07:19 Cloak wrote:


We can hope they get a little crazy for LotV. It is the Protoss expansion. If someone can find a way to leak nitrous oxide in their office, anything could happen.

On April 17 2013 07:10 ThaReckoning wrote:


This is the worst thing you can do when designing a competitive game. You always balance things assuming a perfect player would abuse it to it's most devastating potential.

On April 17 2013 09:06 TheNumberE wrote:
All I'm going to say is that its extremely naive and bold to come out and say that Protoss has no new strategies and very whiny indeed to discredit blizzard so by saying things like Protoss is no better designed than the WOL Beta. One strategy off the very top of my head involving the MSC is making blink aggression or all ins EXTREMELY more powerful on maps such as star station with more surface area around the skirt of your base; as its not nearly the investment as it was before in dropping the robo as well as twilight and chronos on observer and the blink upgrade ->furthermore; it forces the Terran to make siege tanks and deviate their strategic play away from double upgrade fast 3CC etc (Or at least is the soloution that I have in dealing with pushes on those kinds of map), which is a lot different from WOL in making a few turrets to deny observer scouting and a bunker to deny the blink up -> strategies are part in parcel of the units the more important factors are the map pools. In addition it's 6 weeks into game launch come on dude; if you have a knowledge of RTS than you should know after an expansion drops it takes time for even most professional players to develop more strategies because they have a previous style of play in mind from the vanilla and they want to tailor kinds of play from how they used to play the match ups; there is a previous bias. In short a premature crucifixion of blizzard. Give the game 6 months and then you can spray all you'd like.

On April 16 2013 21:04 Big J wrote:


I disagree. If Protoss had more powerful commited allins and agression of warpgate but was balanced to actually be agressive, all that would change is that Z/T would have to play less greedy (and maybe small adjustments would have to be made, but stuff like +50bunker HP, preresearched concussive shells, a cheaper roach warren and -10seconds build time on spines shouldn't break the game, right?).
But if 3gate aggression and 4gate allins would be the norm, Terrans could just open more safely with marauders and siegetanks and zerg builds would be 2base with a spine and roach/ling and Protoss would eventually have to retreat.
Similar for any 6-8gates. Etc.
Don't get me wrong, I believe warpgates are a powerful tool. But we are talking about a 20-30second advantage with a proxy pylon over reinforcing by rallying in a gateway unit rush. Which is not that huge.

Going back to units drawbacks of basic units:
Zerglings drawbacks are melee, no AA and splash vulnerability - basically endgame straight up engagement disadvantages and they don't offer AA. But they are good fighters in the early-mid game.
Roaches drawbacks are low range, no AA, bad supply ratio - basically you don't get enough of them into the combat in the lategame and they don't offer AA. But they are good fighters in the early-mid game.

Stalkers drawbacks are cost and damage output. Basically, they are bad fighters cost for cost.
Zealots drawbacks are melee, missing AA, missing mobility. They are kind of bad fighters in big mid-lategame engagements and don't offer a lot of mapcontrol potential.

Marines... well, they are vulnerable to massive splash and missing mobility prestim/medivac.
Marauders drawbacks are vulnerability to non-armored units and missing antiair and missing mobility prestim/medivac. Basically they are only good for as long as you can properly support them.
Similarily hydras, banelings, medivacs, hellions, mines are all rather good engagement units in the right composition/situation and rather mobile. While Sentries and Immortals are again rather on the immobile side and - though the immortal is a really good *inyourfaceunit* - not really strong damage dealers for their cost.

So what it comes down to is that gateway units (in particular the stalker) by design are made to be very good at everything - but straight up engagements and harassment. On the flipside, zerg early game units suck at everything but straight up engagements early on and harassment.
So basically, if you made stalkers costefficient combat units vs ground in the early-midgame they would not have any drawbacks. It's the design of the stalker (/dragoon, though it wasn't visible in BW PvT, because bio wasn't viable) that makes Protoss gameplay stale in SC2.
You could for sure balance the stalker costefficient with or without warpgate in the game - but it would require other drawbacks like no AA, lower range, worse blink, worse cost/supply ratio, slower. You can't have the whole package in one unit in an RTS, but that's what you are getting if you buff the stalkers costefficiency. Warpgate or not.

On April 18 2013 02:56 ThaReckoning wrote:
I just disagree with blizzard's power creep model, it's been shown to be bad in other games and it's no different here. For example, blizzard wanted to buff phoenixes against mutas back in WoL, and add the widow mine. Cool. Well, now mutas got a buff as a result of these two changes. Now that mutas are buffed, blink storm builds don't stop them anymore. You've effectively removed choice because you were buffing certain counters to muta earlier, instead of nerfing the muta. This kind of thing is rampant with blizzard.

On April 18 2013 03:57 Ben... wrote:
Think back to all the Protoss nerfs in 2010 and 2011. They speak volumes to your point and how correct it is. Instead of fixing an issue by dealing with the issue itself, they try and buff or nerf other stuff to compensate. They nerfed warpgate so much just to try and fix PvP (even though it didn't work. People were saying all along that they just had to make it so you couldn't warp above forcefields on ramps yet it took Blizzard almost a year to realize that) and by doing that they took away any way of viably doing pressure in the early game for Protoss outside of proxy gates. There used to be builds like 3gate pressure expand that allowed Protoss to keep opponents honest but after all the warpgate nerfs they hit so late that they were basically never worth it to do because the opponent could do a fast expand, cut corners in other areas, and still be safe. The threat of the 4gate used to be a tool to keep the other races honest. There is no way that with faster warpgate that Zerg could have been doing some of the builds they did at the end of WoL, with fast thirds and only queens for defence. Nor could Terran have got away with 1rax expand and been safe. It allowed there to be potential action in the first 10 minutes of the game, and didn't allow the ridiculously passive play we see today.

It's like they refuse to backpedal on any patch they implemented in the past (other than bunkers), even if it is clearly bad. The queen patch was universally recognized as being really bad for the game, yet instead of undoing it, they just left it in, even though they could have fixed it for HOTS. Same thing with the muta buff in the HOTS beta. It completely ruined ZvZ and made ZvP really dumb too. Now if Protoss scouts spire they have to go for 2 stargates as a response or else there is a good chance they will die outright if the Zerg does actually go muta (which clever Zergs are already starting to exploit by making a spire, just enough mutas to convince the protoss that they are actually going mutas, then switching into swarmhosts, which require a completely different tech path to deal with). Instead of actually fixing mutas, they made the spore crawler do more damage to mutas, which did essentially nothing for fixing ZvZ, and now for ZvP Protoss is forced into one style upon scouting spire because nothing else will survive mass muta, not even the old responses like storm, stalkers or mass cannons.

On April 18 2013 03:57 Ben... wrote:
Think back to all the Protoss nerfs in 2010 and 2011. They speak volumes to your point and how correct it is. Instead of fixing an issue by dealing with the issue itself, they try and buff or nerf other stuff to compensate. They nerfed warpgate so much just to try and fix PvP (even though it didn't work. People were saying all along that they just had to make it so you couldn't warp above forcefields on ramps yet it took Blizzard almost a year to realize that) and by doing that they took away any way of viably doing pressure in the early game for Protoss outside of proxy gates. There used to be builds like 3gate pressure expand that allowed Protoss to keep opponents honest but after all the warpgate nerfs they hit so late that they were basically never worth it to do because the opponent could do a fast expand, cut corners in other areas, and still be safe. The threat of the 4gate used to be a tool to keep the other races honest. There is no way that with faster warpgate that Zerg could have been doing some of the builds they did at the end of WoL, with fast thirds and only queens for defence. Nor could Terran have got away with 1rax expand and been safe. It allowed there to be potential action in the first 10 minutes of the game, and didn't allow the ridiculously passive play we see today.

It's like they refuse to backpedal on any patch they implemented in the past (other than bunkers), even if it is clearly bad. The queen patch was universally recognized as being really bad for the game, yet instead of undoing it, they just left it in, even though they could have fixed it for HOTS. Same thing with the muta buff in the HOTS beta. It completely ruined ZvZ and made ZvP really dumb too. Now if Protoss scouts spire they have to go for 2 stargates as a response or else there is a good chance they will die outright if the Zerg does actually go muta (which clever Zergs are already starting to exploit by making a spire, just enough mutas to convince the protoss that they are actually going mutas, then switching into swarmhosts, which require a completely different tech path to deal with). Instead of actually fixing mutas, they made the spore crawler do more damage to mutas, which did essentially nothing for fixing ZvZ, and now for ZvP Protoss is forced into one style upon scouting spire because nothing else will survive mass muta, not even the old responses like storm, stalkers or mass cannons.

On April 18 2013 08:12 unkkz wrote:


Pretty spot on with the circle jerk of balance that goes on. The state of PvZ atm is just dumb as hell, it´s just not fun to play at all. I remember discussing this with a zerg friend way back in WoL, like two years ago a while after the 4 gate nerfs hit and our conclussion was that if Zerg scouts a toss, he should never lose to early aggression, it´s simply not possible. This didn´t mean play safe or anything, it simply meant tossing up some spines and building some roaches. Still getting a super greedy third and everything. But balancing stuff like the 4 gate is tricky, since it was very easy to execute and much harder to defend. There was pretty much 0 defenders advantage, in some cases thanks to sentries and ramps even a disadvantage for the defender if he was unlucky to have some units in his main. And if you could 4 gate you would win pretty much every single game up until like Diamond since again, easy to execute harder to defend. It required that the defender scouted and prepared properly while requiring nothing of the sort from the 4 gater really.

Compare PvZ to TvZ is a travesty, watching DeMuslim play super greedy AND apply some pressure and harassment while doing so vs Idra is just... that's how i want to play, it doesn't even have to be super greedy just be able to do something to him in the early game that isn´t a complete all in. Seeing Z taking a greedy 3rd and 4th and be unable to do much of anything about it is just beyond frustrating. Protoss are as afraid of mutas now as zergs were of 4 gates back in the start of WoL hence we always open stargate. Short of a few all ins there is nothing like this for the zerg vs a protoss.

Might i ask what the spore crawler buff was btw?

On April 19 2013 04:01 Salient wrote:
I wonder if Blizzard is aware of this issue. The developers seem to think everything is wonderful in HoTS.

On April 19 2013 04:19 ThaReckoning wrote:


Yeah, it's very disheartening to think about. Their definition of balance has nothing to do with actual gameplay, and everything to do with w/l ratios. I think they're missing the big picture.

On April 19 2013 04:25 Thieving Magpie wrote:


but how exactly would you determine "gameplay"

I'm very excited of early game toss doing pokes with stalkers and late game toss players who harass with prism/zealots while using templars to keep their army safe as they poke the middle.

But I also hate zvz and tvt the two most dynamic and explosive matchups.

To each their own right?

I hate watching PvZ after the protoss starts their third. Because its either protoss holds it (and turtles) or protoss doesn't--and its game over.

The early game play of pokes, phoenix scouts and overlord peeks to try to ascertain if its a rush or not is exciting to me.

Im not saying Toss doesn't need changes (they need a LOT) but I can't see why you'd fault Blizz for sticking to win ratios. Its a very important statistic.

On April 19 2013 04:30 ThaReckoning wrote:


It's also a statistic that protoss has done terrible in over the course of years at the highest level of gameplay.

On April 19 2013 04:25 Thieving Magpie wrote:


but how exactly would you determine "gameplay"

I'm very excited of early game toss doing pokes with stalkers and late game toss players who harass with prism/zealots while using templars to keep their army safe as they poke the middle.

But I also hate zvz and tvt the two most dynamic and explosive matchups.

To each their own right?

I hate watching PvZ after the protoss starts their third. Because its either protoss holds it (and turtles) or protoss doesn't--and its game over.

The early game play of pokes, phoenix scouts and overlord peeks to try to ascertain if its a rush or not is exciting to me.

Im not saying Toss doesn't need changes (they need a LOT) but I can't see why you'd fault Blizz for sticking to win ratios. Its a very important statistic.

On April 19 2013 05:00 Ben... wrote:
Good gameplay could probably mean that you can do a variety of styles and stay relevant in terms of being able to win. Think back to around the end of WoL. PvZ technically was kinda balanced, but was it a good matchup? Absolutely not. It was either Protoss does an all-in (be it immortal/sentry, or those pre-hive colossus timings) and wins or Zerg wins with Infestor/Broodlord (yes in the last couple weeks MC was winning with mass air but we never got to see that play out). If Protoss does anything else, they lose. If Zerg does anything else, they lose. It was balanced but in a really unhealthy way.

Statistics should be a tool to help make a judgment, not the be-all-end-all that an entire argument is based off of. We had this point drilled into our heads a lot in my research statistics class. The problem is that Blizzard looks at these stats, sees that they are around 50% and calls it a day. In reality, they should not even be looking at statistics until after answering questions like "Does each race have access to a variety of gameplay options in this matchup as of right now", "Is there more than one or two ways for them to viably win the game?", "Upon scouting a tech, is there any flexibility in the response?" and questions like those. Right now if a Protoss sees a spire in PvZ they have to throw down more stargates, there is no choice between what way to deal with the opponent's tech, it is either phoenixes or lose. Likewise in ZvZ, if a Zerg sees another Zerg going spire, they either go spire themselves or probably lose the game, they have no other viable choices. Inflexible gameplay scares people away. If the average SC2 player knew that at least half of their PvZs would be hour long wars against static defence and free units and that they were not likely to win, do you think they would want to play?