EPTUpcoming Balance Patch - Page 20
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xAdra
Singapore1858 Posts
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scypio
Poland2127 Posts
On May 11 2013 23:43 Big J wrote: Zergs are not performing badly. And you can hardly say it's "individual performances", when there are many good zergs around - which there are. TvZ is in an OK shape right now balancewise and the metagame could still change radically in the next month or two. We are far off from having stable gameplans at this point in time (and it shows from the huge amount of allins and damageoriented openings both sides perform, as well as how stupidly long people draw out their midgame and not transition into their lategame units - on both sides). Yeah, you're on point. Just look at any major HotS tournament and you will find out, that the zergs that are doing fine in HotS are TLO, Nerchio, Vortix, Dimaga, Stephano, Soulkey, Losira, Roro, Symbol, Nestea, Revival, Suppy, Snute, moonGlade, Scarlett, Sen, Violet, Jaedong, Leenock and Life. This is no way comparable to a single Fruitdealer in the first GSL. | ||
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Stol
Sweden185 Posts
On May 11 2013 22:18 Embir wrote: Well, you know, same as with Terran who can for one second leave view form his army and lost it due to zerg surrond. Blizz did a good job with mines, it forces opponents to actually micro their armies. I'd like to once again state that I believe this is pretty poor design. The natural counter to a unit should not be micro, it should be another unit. Micro is a part of the game where your decisions before the actual fight should be equally important to the fight itself. Or at least fairly close. Currently zergs use lings to counter mines for the sole reason that all other units still require a similar level of micro to be effective, and if you pull it off perfectly you only lose one zergling. While at the same time if you mess up, you still 'only' lose zerglings. This doesnt mean widow mines are overpowered. Balance is far more complicated than simply looking at how cost effective a single unit is. Superbly micro'ed marines can wreck banelings while poorly micro'ed marines drop dead in a matter of seconds. Superbly mirco'ed zerglings can even manage to damage the opponents marines while poorly micro'ed zerglings leave nothing but a red mist against a single widow mine. This is all fine. However, fairly poorly micro'ed tanks and marauders still generally crush most well micro'ed banelings. No poorly micro'ed zerg unit crush widow mines. At best, poorly micro'ed swarm hosts and brood lords causes the well micro'ed widow mines to move. So yes, widow mines force the zerg player to micro and while they are certainly beatable with good micro, that in itself should not be the only solution. In conclusion: micro should be a tool that can tip the scale even with a unfavourable unit composition. Poor micro should be punished but depending on both your army and what you're facing it should also sometimes be enough. When it comes to widow mines the lowest amount of micro required, more or less regardless of unit, is simply set far too high. Ofc thats only my opinion. | ||
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Chocobo
United States1108 Posts
On May 11 2013 19:24 scypio wrote: OK then, since I play zerg too (33% of the time) I'll give you my insight on the matchup from a (terrible) zerg perspective. First of all, the mindset "I play the macro game" is incorrect. The zerg is a reactionary race and you need to react to what your opponent is doing. I guess if toss would go for a 1-gate 3-nexus you would try to do something about it and kill the expansion. Same goes for terrans who opt for a quick 3rd cc build. You need to scout and punish that, even if that means a lot of commitment (or even all-in). So every game I scout for a factory, and allin if I see one. That's not what I call a macro game. This is not WoL where you could just say "I want to macro and there is nothing you can do about it". That is pretty much the problem. I'm sorry, but at this skill level (where macro/injects/etc are not an issue) a player should have an advantage if he knows 100% what the opponent is doing. When every single game is 1-2 reapers into 10-11 minute bio mine push that doesn't stop for the rest of the entire game, and I lose the overwhelming majority of the time despite knowing exactly what I will face... and all of those losses are due to mines being very cost efficient and too difficult to fight effectively... I'm going to call that a slight problem with the game. I don't know what else to call it. | ||
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Chocobo
United States1108 Posts
On May 11 2013 19:03 Rabiator wrote: Banelings are far too efficient because they can be massed in a critical number and then right-clicked into a Planetary Fortress which has ZERO CHANCE to survive. 1000/500 to take out 550/150 sure sounds efficient to me. Are you really complaining that an undefended PF isn't completely safe against everything? And if you want to sack 1500 resources to kill a base, can't 10 stimmed marauders do that pretty effectively? Heck you might even get to keep them and fly away afterwards... For Widow Mines there is no such thing as a critical number, because it is a DEFENSIVE UNIT in its method of use, i.e. you dont really trigger its attack but rather the mine triggers itself (which can be abused by smart players). [/QUOTE] Hmm... well you can't simply mass them and be unstoppable once you have 40 of them, but when there's 8-10+ of them it starts to become a real mess trying to deal with them, as you can't suicide some units to set them off and then have a few seconds of mine-free time to engage. It definitely gets worse as terran gets more mines, up to a certain point. | ||
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Chocobo
United States1108 Posts
On May 11 2013 19:26 Cirqueenflex wrote: And I don't expect the spore crawler buff to fix ZvZ at all. Yeah, maybe you need one less spore to defend your main vs mutas, but that never was the problem. The problem was to get your third up, which gets denied by the map control the player going mutas has over his opponent. Actually I think it has potential. Spread creep towards your third and make 2 extra spores at home, make an extra queen to get the creep going if you have to. Transfer the spores to the third, then put up a hatch. Maybe it's a struggle to get the third up but at least it's more possible now than it used to be. Currently a lot of the game feels like the minigame "I wanna be the boshy" on one of the harder difficulties. While the game might be somewhat balanced and both play- and winnable, it more often is just frustrating to play, and a game should not be that frustrating to play. Hah, I know what you mean. I'd only compare dealing with mines ZvT to that, though. It's a good thing that zerg requires more micro than it used to, and I'm not opposed to gameplay that raises the skill ceiling. But there is a limit to "how much perfectly-executed micro should it take to take to counter this unit", and mines are well over the limit of what I consider reasonable. If only the top few percent of players are capable of pulling it off, that isn't good game design imo, even if it is balanced for that top few percent. | ||
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Chocobo
United States1108 Posts
Other than broodlords, what is cost efficient against mines for zerg? | ||
Whitewing
United States7483 Posts
TBH, I think the main problem is that zergs let terrans be too greedy and don't punish it. | ||
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Rabiator
Germany3948 Posts
On May 12 2013 03:16 Chocobo wrote: Other than broodlords, what is cost efficient against mines for zerg? 1. Spore and Spine Crawlers for the early game ... (They are even good against Hellbat drops since neither of these dies easily to the "vs light" damage and the Medivac dies faster ... which prevents its reuse. Spore Crawlers are great against Phoenix and Oracle too ....) 2. Sending in Overlords to soak up the shots right before your charge ... Just watch a few TvZ games with early harrassment and IMO it is always the "diehard oldschoolers" who try to defend against Hellbat harrassment with Zerglings who are losing the match while the ones who build static defenses seem to be fine. That might be a misperception on my part, but I would suggest you check for yourself. The whole point of HotS seems to be "more harrassment" ... Hellbat, Oracle, Mutalisk regen, Medivac speed, Widow Mine, ... so preparing for that is a requirement and not optional now IMO (at least until everyone defends against it and there isnt a point to do it anymore ...). Better safe than sorry I'd say and even in PvP building a cannon in / near your Probes seems wise. ---- Another idea to "counter" some forms of harrassment drops: research Overlord transport capability and pick up your workers when Hellbats or Oracles come by. This might be a bit late, but it could work better than burrow, because a scan still reveals them and they can be attacked. | ||
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Zarahtra
Iceland4053 Posts
On May 12 2013 03:21 Rabiator wrote: 1. Spore and Spine Crawlers for the early game ... (They are even good against Hellbat drops since neither of these dies easily to the "vs light" damage and the Medivac dies faster ... which prevents its reuse. Spore Crawlers are great against Phoenix and Oracle too ....) 2. Sending in Overlords to soak up the shots right before your charge ... Just watch a few TvZ games with early harrassment and IMO it is always the "diehard oldschoolers" who try to defend against Hellbat harrassment with Zerglings who are losing the match while the ones who build static defenses seem to be fine. That might be a misperception on my part, but I would suggest you check for yourself. The whole point of HotS seems to be "more harrassment" ... Hellbat, Oracle, Mutalisk regen, Medivac speed, Widow Mine, ... so preparing for that is a requirement and not optional now IMO. Also 2x +3 attack upgrade blings kill a mine(that is less than +3 armor upgrade) which I'd argue isn't that cost inefficient for a zerg(100/50 vs 75/25). It is really obnoxious when a zerg sends 2x blings ontop of a widow mine and blows it up, but terrans quite often in a hurry burry 2x next to each other, so atleast those times it is cost effective. I see it as a great way for a zerg to keep the amount of widow mines on the field in control, rather than letting it spiral. | ||
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Ramiz1989
12124 Posts
On May 12 2013 03:20 Whitewing wrote: Be very careful about changing TvZ even if you conclude it is imbalanced. Right now at the highest level, it's the most engaging and exciting matchup to watch. The entire matchup frequently turns into a super long push from terran trying to break zerg while zerg tries to throw the push back one time, with both players micro'ing their faces off to try to be efficient. It's incredibly interesting to watch how they try to out control one another with constant battles and counter attacks. The wrong buff to zerg or nerf to terran could ruin that kind of push and send us back to both players maxxing out before doing anything. TBH, I think the main problem is that zergs let terrans be too greedy and don't punish it. I kind of agree if they opened with Hellions/Reapers etc. however, you can't always punish it, and it is a lot harder if they opened with 1-2 Siege Tanks(which some of them are doing, mind you) or Mines. It also depends on the map a lot. | ||
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plogamer
Canada3132 Posts
On May 12 2013 04:48 Ramiz1989 wrote: I kind of agree if they opened with Hellions/Reapers etc. however, you can't always punish it, and it is a lot harder if they opened with 1-2 Siege Tanks(which some of them are doing, mind you) or Mines. It also depends on the map a lot. Or Idra's super greedy opener versus Polt could also be the correct response when scouting 3 cc opener. /edit When it comes to greed, I don't think any race can top the Zerg race. | ||
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Qikz
United Kingdom12022 Posts
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DnCL
86 Posts
On May 10 2013 04:40 ChristianS wrote: Actually, has IdrA complained about HotS balance just yet? I haven't kept too much track, but I have watched his stream a little. I saw complaints about other players, cheesy strats, etc. but no balance complaints. Odd when Stephano is the EG player complaining about imbalance I remember Geof discussing that Idra hated the game, complained about it a lot and insulted David Kim about it. (Was on SotG, the episode where Idra release was annouced.) | ||
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Rabiator
Germany3948 Posts
On May 12 2013 03:41 Zarahtra wrote: Also 2x +3 attack upgrade blings kill a mine(that is less than +3 armor upgrade) which I'd argue isn't that cost inefficient for a zerg(100/50 vs 75/25). It is really obnoxious when a zerg sends 2x blings ontop of a widow mine and blows it up, but terrans quite often in a hurry burry 2x next to each other, so atleast those times it is cost effective. I see it as a great way for a zerg to keep the amount of widow mines on the field in control, rather than letting it spiral. +3 attack is quite late game tech and you will have more efficient ways of killing the mine by then. All you need is a "sacrificial lamb" (free units are easy for Zerg to get) and you have 25 seconds (which is the same as a week in SC2 terms) to kill it. On May 12 2013 04:51 plogamer wrote: When it comes to greed, I don't think any race can top the Zerg race. ... and they deserve to be punished for it if you play too greedily or cut too many corners. | ||
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DemigodcelpH
1138 Posts
On May 12 2013 02:56 Chocobo wrote: So every game I scout for a factory, and allin if I see one. That's not what I call a macro game. That is pretty much the problem. I'm sorry, but at this skill level (where macro/injects/etc are not an issue) a player should have an advantage if he knows 100% what the opponent is doing. When every single game is 1-2 reapers into 10-11 minute bio mine push that doesn't stop for the rest of the entire game, and I lose the overwhelming majority of the time despite knowing exactly what I will face... and all of those losses are due to mines being very cost efficient and too difficult to fight effectively... I'm going to call that a slight problem with the game. I don't know what else to call it. Spoiled by the nightmare that was 2012 Wings of Liberty you're simply not used to playing a balanced game now, because I can assure that every non-Zerg player knew that Zerg was likely going BL/infestor but that didn't stop every Zerg player who could execute it getting high masters which was evidence by the fact that masters and GM brackets on all servers suddenly being majority Zerg after the early 2012 patch (nor did it stop unheard of foreign Zergs from taking games off of 4 time GSL champions) (not surprisingly there was no complaining from you as this point in time) and mines, from the perspective of balance, are nowhere near as close to as absurdly that was infestor/BL. Furthermore knowing what an enemy is doing doesn't exempt you from being outplayed or guarantee you a victory. So when you combine these two points you get that not only do you have a warped sense of balance, but also a warped sense of entitlement in that you think scouting your opponent means that you should win (this mindset is more or less a direct product of Zerg players from that dark time who simply had to scout and sit back to win). | ||
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sibs
635 Posts
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Morlock
68 Posts
On May 11 2013 17:29 Apoptotic wrote: Wow. That's clever.The spore crawler buff is only plus damage to bio, so it only affects the ZvZ matchup. Although I think it should be bio and medivacs. ^^ | ||
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kamicom
United States180 Posts
Have you guys seen TvT's? You know something's wrong when T's do hellbat/WM/rine afterburner drops 100% of any match up and win because of them even when down significantly. Have you seen Flash vs Innovation? I started laughing at how ridiculous those units are. | ||
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Morlock
68 Posts
On May 12 2013 07:53 kamicom wrote: Yes. If they were giving hellbats to Protoss, these units would be as fragile as a paper aeroplane, they would have 150 extra cost in gas, and they would probably requite energy to kill workers.... really? nothing on hellbats and WM and medivac afterburners? Have you guys seen TvT's? You know something's wrong when T's do hellbat/WM/rine afterburner drops 100% of any match up and win because of them even when down significantly. Have you seen Flash vs Innovation? I started laughing at how ridiculous those units are. And that's exactly what you get with the oracle. Inferior unit to the hellbat, but far more expensive and with an energy requirement. | ||
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