Call to Action: May 2 Balance Testing - Page 26

On May 04 2013 05:40 Sissors wrote:

Tbh believe me I like to build other things than MMM vs toss, however they are simply so easy to counter for toss.

And yeah increased queen range was one of the more horrible balance ideas.

On May 04 2013 05:50 Jermstuddog wrote:


I have always thought increased queen range was one of the best balance changes Blizzard ever did in WoL. It fixed so many problems with the ZvT opening stages. So simple, so effective, that makes it elegant. Unfortunately, it also revealed the shitty state of the game in general... so there's that.

I didn't buy HotS until about 2 weeks ago because of the way Blizzard attempts to balance the game, the thing that convinced me was watching streams and seeing that somehow, Blizzard seems to have lucked out, and their pile of shit they added on top of the pile of shit that was WoL somehow worked out to be well balanced, so I figured I'd finally get on the bus.

I'm sad to see they continue down the road of stupid, hair-brained balance schemes. There are so many deep issues that, if resolved, would give SC2 that epic feel. But Blizzard doesn't want to rework the game from the ground up, so they put these stupidly broke mechanics in this untouchable pedestal and balance around them ARGH!!!!

Oh well, here's to hoping the game stays relatively balanced because I don't think they'll ever address the core issues...

On May 04 2013 05:32 Flonomenalz wrote:

A fluke. Quite similar to how Halo CE/2 were flukes, and turned out to be the best Halo games competitively though community found glitches. Then Bungie pulled a Blizzard and went full retard with Halo 3/Reach, and 343 went pretty full retard with Halo 4 as well.

On May 04 2013 07:07 Sapphire.lux wrote:

It wasn't a fluke and neither was Halo. There are many examples like this (BW, Halo, Diablo2, Morrowind.....) Back then companies tried to do the best games they could in the specific genre. Nowdays, everyone tries to appeal to a broad market, and so compromises arise left and right. Generally games tend to improve tech wise, and loose in depth.

On May 04 2013 07:19 Bagi wrote:



Really, you don't even need a truly balanced game as long as you make playing it perfectly impossibly difficult.

IdrA has voiced his concerns plenty in the past. The OL speed buff and queen range buff back in WoL were fixes to TvZ that he had been arguing for monthsss before they were instilled (his debate with Day9 on SotG). Although his method of speech can be quite blunt (and occasionally inappropriate), it's pretty obvious that a lot of what he says turns out to be correct and has been implemented in one way or another.
Moving on from that, I have no idea how you can agree with Blizzard's reasoning that the Oracle buff is nice. The reason it needs to be somewhat counterable by ground units is because of the difficulty of scouting in TvP. Unscouted oracles are already tough enough to deal with, they do not need to be any stronger.

On May 04 2013 07:19 Bagi wrote:


BW balance was part luck, part KR scene balancing it through maps and part an impossibly high skill ceiling.

Really, you don't even need a truly balanced game as long as you make playing it perfectly impossibly difficult.

On May 04 2013 08:58 Leporello wrote:
I'm not at all sure how anti-air in ZvZ is a "problem", but it's supposedly fine in other match-ups. The spore buff will make muta harass non-existant. And without harass, well, I guess we're just not supposed to build mutas anymore in ZvZ.

I don't mind that personally, it's never been my style, but I'm not sure how it's making things balanced. If a Zerg is behind in mutas, they can already build spores and queens and put up good defense. This change just seems an unnecessary way to force players into NOT using a certain unit in a certain match-up.

And while Zerg is struggling against mass-muta, what makes them think the other match-ups' air-units are any less overwhelming or demanding against Zerg? Airtoss, with just a couple of Colossi added, is probably the most impossible deathball for Zerg to deal with, of any race, because Corrupters suck against VoidRays, and the Colossi melt the Hydras, leaving Zerg with very little options at all, if any.

In fact, we see all the time Zerg building mutas against an Airtoss with phoenix even though they shouldn't, because the other options are so underwhelming and so easily hard-countered that the Zerg feels mass-muta is the only real anti-Airtoss. Mid-game phoenix harass is every bit as annoying as mid-game muta harass, only phoenix has the added benefit of forcing Zerg into making units that the Protoss can then hard-counter.

Right there, maybe, exists a real balance problem, and I know I'm not alone in feeling that.

This spore-muta thing isn't a balance problem. I'm not even sure it's something that's going to last in the pro-meta anyways. But rather than let players deal with this strategy in creative ways, Blizz is just giving Zerg a big anti-muta buff to try to force their hand.

On May 03 2013 08:24 convention wrote:
Why does the oracle change receive so much negative feedback? I don't recall seeing any oracles in the GSL yet, I rarely see them in other tournaments. The speed buff does not help with all-ins (who cares if you saved your two oracles when you have no army and are down 15 workers). It is an incredibly micro-intensive unit. Don't we want those units to be viable?