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Interview of David Kim about Balance in IEM - Page 26

Forum Index > SC2 General
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Sapphire.lux
Profile Joined July 2010
Romania2620 Posts
August 02 2013 21:34 GMT
#501
On August 03 2013 04:25 larse wrote:
5. It is true that mech is countered by Zerg. But they are observing carefully, because buffing some units may bring about more problems.

Just do something already.

6. When people talk about "balancing by map", they are actually making the argument that some maps favor a specific strategy of a certain race. So on the flip side, the opponent knows what strategy that is, so the opponent can be prepared. So it's balanced in the end.

What now? Is he talking about blind countering? This make for a coin flip game. Who cares about numerical balance if the game is so stupid...
Head Coach Park: "They should buff tanks!"
Rabiator
Profile Joined March 2010
Germany3948 Posts
August 02 2013 21:49 GMT
#502
Even with the new "information" the situation doesnt improve, because it is the same old and rather stupid "we only look at the units and not the general gameplay mechanics to improve the game's performance on the racial balance level".

The evasive "argument" listed under 5. really shows their absolute reluctance to make mech viable, because TvZ is the non-mirror matchup where mech can be made to work (although with a high "dont lose your army even once" risk factor). It is TvP where mech doesnt work ... at all. This really shows how much of a clue they have OR how much they want to play us for fools. Neither of these options is really acceptable.
If you cant say what you're meaning, you can never mean what you're saying.
pmp10
Profile Joined April 2012
3354 Posts
August 02 2013 21:59 GMT
#503
On August 03 2013 06:49 Rabiator wrote:
The evasive "argument" listed under 5. really shows their absolute reluctance to make mech viable, because TvZ is the non-mirror matchup where mech can be made to work (although with a high "dont lose your army even once" risk factor). It is TvP where mech doesnt work ... at all. This really shows how much of a clue they have OR how much they want to play us for fools. Neither of these options is really acceptable.

But how can you make mech work without turning games into turtle-fest?
Bad design introducing strong counters and nerfs have simply crippled any potential mech had.
I really can't imagine making it work without some drastic changes.
And those won't happen outside of a expansion.
Sapphire.lux
Profile Joined July 2010
Romania2620 Posts
August 03 2013 08:07 GMT
#504
On August 03 2013 06:59 pmp10 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 03 2013 06:49 Rabiator wrote:
The evasive "argument" listed under 5. really shows their absolute reluctance to make mech viable, because TvZ is the non-mirror matchup where mech can be made to work (although with a high "dont lose your army even once" risk factor). It is TvP where mech doesnt work ... at all. This really shows how much of a clue they have OR how much they want to play us for fools. Neither of these options is really acceptable.

But how can you make mech work without turning games into turtle-fest?
Bad design introducing strong counters and nerfs have simply crippled any potential mech had.
I really can't imagine making it work without some drastic changes.
And those won't happen outside of a expansion.

We just had an expansion that was supposed to do just that but did the opposite. Doesn't fill you with confidence looking foreword to the next one.

I'm getting rather sure now that mech buffs will not be enough to make it work or at least not in an interesting way. The terrible terrible super hard counters like Immortals, Vipers and SH need to be changed in some way or at max we will have 2 base timings from mech or the super boring stand offs where you can never move out and just play tower defense until the map is mined out.

What really annoys me is that after essentially making sure mech is broken and hard countered at every turn, Blizzard uses this as proof and an excuses that mech is boring and should not be viable. WTF?!
Head Coach Park: "They should buff tanks!"
BEARDiaguz
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Australia2362 Posts
August 03 2013 08:14 GMT
#505
I had the unexpected pleasure to run into Mr Kim at IEM SH. He takes in a ton of feedback from all sorts of high level players and knows how to discuss the game pretty well. Most of the players there seemed content with hots. We've always got something to complain about, nothing's perfect especially not Starcraft, Fear not fans, I believe our game is in good hands.
ProgamerAustralian alcohol user follow @iaguzSC2
Foxxan
Profile Joined October 2004
Sweden3427 Posts
August 03 2013 08:35 GMT
#506
the question is, can mech work in this design?
can u spread out your units with your buffs?

I doubt it hard, mech will not work, it will become
Passiveplay > maxarmee> Move out

Rabiator
Profile Joined March 2010
Germany3948 Posts
August 03 2013 09:32 GMT
#507
On August 03 2013 06:59 pmp10 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 03 2013 06:49 Rabiator wrote:
The evasive "argument" listed under 5. really shows their absolute reluctance to make mech viable, because TvZ is the non-mirror matchup where mech can be made to work (although with a high "dont lose your army even once" risk factor). It is TvP where mech doesnt work ... at all. This really shows how much of a clue they have OR how much they want to play us for fools. Neither of these options is really acceptable.

But how can you make mech work without turning games into turtle-fest?
Bad design introducing strong counters and nerfs have simply crippled any potential mech had.
I really can't imagine making it work without some drastic changes.
And those won't happen outside of a expansion.

I have had enough of the "boohoo ... turtling is boring to watch" attitude. It is EXACTLY the position which David Kim tells everyone and the "Blizzard fanboys" adopt it as their own without actually seeing how interesting turtling actually can be.

The CHALLENGE of breaking into a full on turtled up player is more interesting IMO than having games decided by split second clicks and misclicks. That "turtling is boring to watch" is just Blizzard propaganda ... and they have added a lot of tools to break turtle positions with HotS (Abduct, Tempest, NOTHING for Terran) and yet they dont want to make mech viable. That logic is sooo beyond me that it almost hurts.

The biggest reason for making mech viable is to have ALTERNATIVE WAYS to play the game - other than the "arcade action style" whcih Blizzard likes so much - and after mech they should try to tackle the challenge of making AIR viable for all races. That is going to be a bigger challenge due to Fungal Growth and the rather cheesy Abduct / Neural Parasite which make any large and expensive units (like Carrier and BC) rather useless.

In case you didnt get it: The key to make mech / turtle interesting is to change your own attitude and expectations.



On August 03 2013 17:35 Foxxan wrote:
the question is, can mech work in this design?
can u spread out your units with your buffs?

I doubt it hard, mech will not work, it will become
Passiveplay > maxarmee> Move out


Mech - the Siege Tank based version - in the current design of SC2 is a hard thing to pull off. You dont have static defenses to defend your bases against ground assault (and that is a good / stylish thing IMO), so you have to have powerful units which can defend even against strong runbys. That isnt the case atm and the usual Protoss Zealot runbys - and even Zerglings - cant really be defended against by 2-3 Siege Tanks because the Siege Tanks deal only 35 damage against these units in the rather tiny core radius of the splash damage.

To actually make mech work in the current SC2 Blizzard would need to seriously increase the damage output of the Siege Tank against non-armored units. It must be a super high damage output which basically says "You shall not pass" to anything other than a really determined push. Currently the best result for mech is to get the same drop in supply against a Zerg player for example, but the Zerg then remaxes much quicker and in the "war of attrition" mech loses. Thus mech MUST BE stronger than the opponents forces and usually win with an advantage ... the REPRODUCTION CAPABILITY must be taken into account when looking at balance and not only the outcome of a single 200 vs 200 battle.

Higher damage dealt by the Siege Tank might work well enough, because it is one of the few attacks which deal friendly fire and there are quite a lot of spells / attacks which can be used to abuse that ... which would make turtling harder (to balance out the power of the unit).

Another problem of mech is that the high economy and the production speed boosts allow any enemy to just throw away a wave of harrassment units and then reproduce them faster than the damage dealt to the Terrans can be repaired and any tanks replaced. This is one of the core problems of SC2 ... that you actually can get to 200 supply easily. If you couldnt get to 200 reasonably fast every player would try to actually do something in the knowledge that his opponent isnt able to do that, but in SC2 it is just too risky to try and harrass with maybe 2 Stalkers, because your opponent might have build 20 Zerglings and could easily overwhelm you. The boosted production and the huge economy is a problem ...

All in all I see several ways of making it work and the first step is removing the ego of the Blizzard dev team which basically limits the strategic gameplay choices to one style only.
If you cant say what you're meaning, you can never mean what you're saying.
SSVnormandy
Profile Joined July 2012
France392 Posts
August 03 2013 09:49 GMT
#508
actually "mech " zerg is the only one working atm and its super hyper boring ! SH must be adressed as they are worst thing happening to zerg ! then try to fix terran mech
Battlecruisers.... Just Battlecruisers...
2ezy
Profile Joined October 2012
Australia17 Posts
August 03 2013 09:52 GMT
#509
I do think David can pat himself on the back for the current balance.
I wonder what he is going to do with the viper.
Twoezy.
battleboy
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Germany60 Posts
August 03 2013 10:00 GMT
#510
David buff MECH Play thats the way to make SC2 Interessting and fun to watch...
StarCraft <3
pmp10
Profile Joined April 2012
3354 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-08-03 10:11:09
August 03 2013 10:09 GMT
#511
On August 03 2013 18:32 Rabiator wrote:
In case you didnt get it: The key to make mech / turtle interesting is to change your own attitude and expectations.

There is nothing to change regarding expectations as they have always been clear - turtling can be great fun to watch but only as long as only one side does it. There are good reasons why bio vs. mech TvTs are such a treat to watch.
Currently successful mech results is both the terran and his opponent turtling with use of viper/sh/tempest.

And yes - this is a sad result of Blizzard not believing in mech and trying to turn it into bio with hellbat drops.
But it's important to recognize that as things stand there is little hope of fixing mech in any capacity.
The synergy of mech units have simply been weakened to the point that they work better incorporated into bio.
Since speedivacs and mines are the only terran things Blizzard genuinely believes in we are stuck with things as they are.
Zerg.Zilla
Profile Joined February 2012
Hungary5029 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-08-03 11:01:01
August 03 2013 11:00 GMT
#512
Wrong thread..
(•_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■) ~Keep calm and inject Larva~
Rabiator
Profile Joined March 2010
Germany3948 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-08-03 15:43:06
August 03 2013 15:38 GMT
#513
On August 03 2013 19:09 pmp10 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 03 2013 18:32 Rabiator wrote:
In case you didnt get it: The key to make mech / turtle interesting is to change your own attitude and expectations.

There is nothing to change regarding expectations as they have always been clear - turtling can be great fun to watch but only as long as only one side does it. There are good reasons why bio vs. mech TvTs are such a treat to watch.
Currently successful mech results is both the terran and his opponent turtling with use of viper/sh/tempest.

And yes - this is a sad result of Blizzard not believing in mech and trying to turn it into bio with hellbat drops.
But it's important to recognize that as things stand there is little hope of fixing mech in any capacity.
The synergy of mech units have simply been weakened to the point that they work better incorporated into bio.
Since speedivacs and mines are the only terran things Blizzard genuinely believes in we are stuck with things as they are.

The key to breaking up the boring "both sides do it and nothing moves for half an hour" is to give every race powers / attacks / units which are designed to break it or dislodge it without being overpowering.

Zerg - Abduct, Infested Terrans lobbed at Siege Tanks, free units which slowly nibble at stuff AND which provide decoy targets for Siege Tanks to shoot
Protoss - Blink, Tempest
Terran - Nuke, Seeker Missile

Since everyone has such powers there isnt any problem IMO.


On August 03 2013 18:49 SSVnormandy wrote:
actually "mech " zerg is the only one working atm and its super hyper boring ! SH must be adressed as they are worst thing happening to zerg ! then try to fix terran mech

I have to agree with you here, but I also think the issue is FREE UNITS instead of "Zerg mech". You cant really make free units powerful and exciting, so they are actually the exact opposite of what Blizzard wants for the game.

There is one way to change the Swarm Host to make it more dynamic and that would be to give the unit energy and spawning locusts is an active ability which costs energy. This allows you to focus your power on one big push and then risk being vulnerable afterwards, BUT that design turns the unit into an "Infestor v2" ... so it is actually not so great.
If you cant say what you're meaning, you can never mean what you're saying.
Markwerf
Profile Joined March 2010
Netherlands3728 Posts
August 03 2013 16:57 GMT
#514
Just buff mech already. Many other units are actually fine but don't see play because they only have use against mech..
Swarmhosts, vipers, overlord drops, carriers, voidrays and tempests are not used against terran because they play bio. If mech is buffed we would see them much more and the matchups would open up a fair bit.
buffing mech will of course buff terran as a whole which is risky so it is important to not buff parts of mech which just slot into the existing bio strats. Other races might need a few slight buffs as well to keep up if mech is viable since you wouldn't be able to blind counter bio anymore, for example all inning becomes much riskier if there is just a chance that they have siege tanks.
There is also the issue of mech being boring even if it would work. Because of that mech needs to be buffed in ways that make it more interesting too.
Taking all that into account I think these are the routes to buff it that David Kim could easily apply:
- Transformation servos cost reduced severely. This tech is just not used ever because you are better off making hellbats directly. Removing it would go to far as that would just buff hellion play in TvZ too much but reducing it to 50/50 from 150/150 would be fine really, it would still be hard to get in TvZ because of the techlab but would make openings much smoother for mech. You could open hellion harass etc. and actually smoothly transition into hellbat compositions. Actually seeing it being used is just good too as mech would harass more with normal hellions. (Still not as cool as vulture play but it's something).
- Tanks. I don't get why this route was chosen for them in HOTS at all. Reintroduce siege tech but seriously buff tanks, it's the best way to buff mech because tanks make mech interesting. They were nerfed long ago because they were a little too good in TvZ on smallish maps but in HotS Z has great options to fight tanks compared to WoL so they could easily be reinstored to former power. P can easily counter 1-1-1 too now so there really is no risk in making them a fair bit better. Reinstating their damage to 50 vs everything is an option, another is just buffing their main damage but keeping the splash damage roughly the same. Buffing tanks also the great benefit of making mech more focussed on it which is better for the cool positional play, even if we see mech nowadays it's often hellbat-thor which is the most boring 1A army there is.
- Mech AA. Anti-air has always been a bit of a weak point for mech but in HotS zerg and protoss got serious air buffs while mech didn;t get aa buffs to keep up. There are easier upgrades now and widow mines help a little but better muta's, vipers, better voids, oracles and tempests make it very hard for mech to fight air still. Thors could use a small nudge to their AA capabilities, just 5-10% more damage for example or perhaps 1 more range.

Even more so thors, tanks and transformation servos see almost zero play in TvZ/TvP, in other words it's pretty much riskfree to buff these as they wold just gently impact the pro scene. Bio strats would remain the same, David Kim could easily just buff 1 or 2 of these things, watch to see how it pans out and then continue. I just can't understand why he hasn't done any of the sort yet... They are actively buffing units which see too little play like the warp prism, banshees etc. but nothing of the sort for mech. Instead it's only getting nerfs because small parts of it are broken, but never any real attempt to make it a viable style instead of the half-assed attempt to fix it during beta.
It would just improve this games tons if there was more than one style in TvZ/TvP. The game is pigeonholed into the same strats at the moment, there are almost no deviations as far as unit compositions and playing styles go. Terran can just play 1 way and other races can pretty much only play 1 style against that because other units suck against bio.

pmp10
Profile Joined April 2012
3354 Posts
August 03 2013 17:28 GMT
#515
On August 04 2013 01:57 Markwerf wrote:
Even more so thors, tanks and transformation servos see almost zero play in TvZ/TvP, in other words it's pretty much riskfree to buff these as they wold just gently impact the pro scene. Bio strats would remain the same, David Kim could easily just buff 1 or 2 of these things, watch to see how it pans out and then continue. I just can't understand why he hasn't done any of the sort yet... They are actively buffing units which see too little play like the warp prism, banshees etc. but nothing of the sort for mech. Instead it's only getting nerfs because small parts of it are broken, but never any real attempt to make it a viable style instead of the half-assed attempt to fix it during beta.

But the problem is that those units do change the bio play and meta-game in pro-scene.
Hellbat is the best example as it's drops got incorporated into bio just as hellions have.
And not only has hellbat made bio stronger it would also completely dominate TvT.
Buffing mech is not risk-free. Sheer amount of buffs/nerfs to other races would require expansion-level of changes.
Nerski
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
United States1095 Posts
August 03 2013 17:33 GMT
#516
On August 04 2013 00:38 Rabiator wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 03 2013 19:09 pmp10 wrote:
On August 03 2013 18:32 Rabiator wrote:
In case you didnt get it: The key to make mech / turtle interesting is to change your own attitude and expectations.

There is nothing to change regarding expectations as they have always been clear - turtling can be great fun to watch but only as long as only one side does it. There are good reasons why bio vs. mech TvTs are such a treat to watch.
Currently successful mech results is both the terran and his opponent turtling with use of viper/sh/tempest.

And yes - this is a sad result of Blizzard not believing in mech and trying to turn it into bio with hellbat drops.
But it's important to recognize that as things stand there is little hope of fixing mech in any capacity.
The synergy of mech units have simply been weakened to the point that they work better incorporated into bio.
Since speedivacs and mines are the only terran things Blizzard genuinely believes in we are stuck with things as they are.

The key to breaking up the boring "both sides do it and nothing moves for half an hour" is to give every race powers / attacks / units which are designed to break it or dislodge it without being overpowering.

Zerg - Abduct, Infested Terrans lobbed at Siege Tanks, free units which slowly nibble at stuff AND which provide decoy targets for Siege Tanks to shoot
Protoss - Blink, Tempest
Terran - Nuke, Seeker Missile

Since everyone has such powers there isnt any problem IMO.


Show nested quote +
On August 03 2013 18:49 SSVnormandy wrote:
actually "mech " zerg is the only one working atm and its super hyper boring ! SH must be adressed as they are worst thing happening to zerg ! then try to fix terran mech

I have to agree with you here, but I also think the issue is FREE UNITS instead of "Zerg mech". You cant really make free units powerful and exciting, so they are actually the exact opposite of what Blizzard wants for the game.

There is one way to change the Swarm Host to make it more dynamic and that would be to give the unit energy and spawning locusts is an active ability which costs energy. This allows you to focus your power on one big push and then risk being vulnerable afterwards, BUT that design turns the unit into an "Infestor v2" ... so it is actually not so great.


While you aren't wrong about turtling, a large majority of fans hate these style of games.

As far as the SH goes, it served the 'role' blizzard wanted it to serve but it was a bad design. Free units that it spawns make it extremely hard to deal with if someone can get into a siege position. Conversely though a single SH is extremely weak, so there isn't much you can do with it. It's so one dimensional that it's uninteresting overall, you can either entrench or siege with it, there is not much else you can do with it.

While this is not BW, and I'm not saying it should be...the lurker for example worked in that game because it had more versatility. It could siege, it could defend, but it could also harass etc. It could do all of this with just 1 or 2 units. While the lurker likely wouldn't work with SC2, the SH wasn't a suitable replacement. It'd be much better to ditch a clunky free unit spawner and go with something that has an attack over some distance.
Twitter: @GoForNerski /// Youtube: Youtube.com/nerskisc
rd
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States2586 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-08-03 17:47:12
August 03 2013 17:45 GMT
#517
On August 03 2013 18:32 Rabiator wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 03 2013 06:59 pmp10 wrote:
On August 03 2013 06:49 Rabiator wrote:
The evasive "argument" listed under 5. really shows their absolute reluctance to make mech viable, because TvZ is the non-mirror matchup where mech can be made to work (although with a high "dont lose your army even once" risk factor). It is TvP where mech doesnt work ... at all. This really shows how much of a clue they have OR how much they want to play us for fools. Neither of these options is really acceptable.

But how can you make mech work without turning games into turtle-fest?
Bad design introducing strong counters and nerfs have simply crippled any potential mech had.
I really can't imagine making it work without some drastic changes.
And those won't happen outside of a expansion.

The CHALLENGE of breaking into a full on turtled up player is more interesting IMO than having games decided by split second clicks and misclicks. That "turtling is boring to watch" is just Blizzard propaganda ... and they have added a lot of tools to break turtle positions with HotS (Abduct, Tempest, NOTHING for Terran) and yet they dont want to make mech viable. That logic is sooo beyond me that it almost hurts.


Terrans already had siege tanks and vikings. What a dumb comment to throw in.

(also you forgot to mention SH)
Big J
Profile Joined March 2011
Austria16289 Posts
August 03 2013 17:45 GMT
#518
On August 04 2013 02:33 Nerski wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 04 2013 00:38 Rabiator wrote:
On August 03 2013 19:09 pmp10 wrote:
On August 03 2013 18:32 Rabiator wrote:
In case you didnt get it: The key to make mech / turtle interesting is to change your own attitude and expectations.

There is nothing to change regarding expectations as they have always been clear - turtling can be great fun to watch but only as long as only one side does it. There are good reasons why bio vs. mech TvTs are such a treat to watch.
Currently successful mech results is both the terran and his opponent turtling with use of viper/sh/tempest.

And yes - this is a sad result of Blizzard not believing in mech and trying to turn it into bio with hellbat drops.
But it's important to recognize that as things stand there is little hope of fixing mech in any capacity.
The synergy of mech units have simply been weakened to the point that they work better incorporated into bio.
Since speedivacs and mines are the only terran things Blizzard genuinely believes in we are stuck with things as they are.

The key to breaking up the boring "both sides do it and nothing moves for half an hour" is to give every race powers / attacks / units which are designed to break it or dislodge it without being overpowering.

Zerg - Abduct, Infested Terrans lobbed at Siege Tanks, free units which slowly nibble at stuff AND which provide decoy targets for Siege Tanks to shoot
Protoss - Blink, Tempest
Terran - Nuke, Seeker Missile

Since everyone has such powers there isnt any problem IMO.


On August 03 2013 18:49 SSVnormandy wrote:
actually "mech " zerg is the only one working atm and its super hyper boring ! SH must be adressed as they are worst thing happening to zerg ! then try to fix terran mech

I have to agree with you here, but I also think the issue is FREE UNITS instead of "Zerg mech". You cant really make free units powerful and exciting, so they are actually the exact opposite of what Blizzard wants for the game.

There is one way to change the Swarm Host to make it more dynamic and that would be to give the unit energy and spawning locusts is an active ability which costs energy. This allows you to focus your power on one big push and then risk being vulnerable afterwards, BUT that design turns the unit into an "Infestor v2" ... so it is actually not so great.


While you aren't wrong about turtling, a large majority of fans hate these style of games.

As far as the SH goes, it served the 'role' blizzard wanted it to serve but it was a bad design. Free units that it spawns make it extremely hard to deal with if someone can get into a siege position. Conversely though a single SH is extremely weak, so there isn't much you can do with it. It's so one dimensional that it's uninteresting overall, you can either entrench or siege with it, there is not much else you can do with it.

While this is not BW, and I'm not saying it should be...the lurker for example worked in that game because it had more versatility. It could siege, it could defend, but it could also harass etc. It could do all of this with just 1 or 2 units. While the lurker likely wouldn't work with SC2, the SH wasn't a suitable replacement. It'd be much better to ditch a clunky free unit spawner and go with something that has an attack over some distance.


the swarm host was also never intended to be a replacement for the lurker.
The role of the SH is OK, but just like many other units it's badly balanced. Not that it is over- or underpowered, but that it has a bad scaling and is only supplyefficient, but not costefficient - thus making it incredibly bad in premax play, while really strong in stale scenarios. The swarm host - as a T2 midgame unit - should work exactly the other way around. it should be damn scary in the midgame, but rather bad in the lategame. Something you could achieve with the design, but you'd have to play around more with the locust, e.g. even less range, (so less damage/square with mass locust) and then have stronger locusts. Or make them so fragile that any bigger army just doesn't care about them, not even low dps units like stalkers or roaches. Like semisuicidal units that just destroy small packs but don't do anything against reasonable firepower.
Lumi
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
United States1616 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-08-03 23:24:08
August 03 2013 23:20 GMT
#519
David Kim looks even more hilariously out of touch here now that this thread is out: July Winrates

Fortunately I'm not a GSL level player so I don't think it makes any sense to concern myself with balance as though there aren't plennnnnty of things for me to be working on with my gameplay
twitter.com/lumigaming - DongRaeGu is the One True Dong - /r/onetruedong
Rabiator
Profile Joined March 2010
Germany3948 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-08-03 23:45:45
August 03 2013 23:39 GMT
#520
On August 04 2013 02:45 rd wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 03 2013 18:32 Rabiator wrote:
On August 03 2013 06:59 pmp10 wrote:
On August 03 2013 06:49 Rabiator wrote:
The evasive "argument" listed under 5. really shows their absolute reluctance to make mech viable, because TvZ is the non-mirror matchup where mech can be made to work (although with a high "dont lose your army even once" risk factor). It is TvP where mech doesnt work ... at all. This really shows how much of a clue they have OR how much they want to play us for fools. Neither of these options is really acceptable.

But how can you make mech work without turning games into turtle-fest?
Bad design introducing strong counters and nerfs have simply crippled any potential mech had.
I really can't imagine making it work without some drastic changes.
And those won't happen outside of a expansion.

The CHALLENGE of breaking into a full on turtled up player is more interesting IMO than having games decided by split second clicks and misclicks. That "turtling is boring to watch" is just Blizzard propaganda ... and they have added a lot of tools to break turtle positions with HotS (Abduct, Tempest, NOTHING for Terran) and yet they dont want to make mech viable. That logic is sooo beyond me that it almost hurts.


Terrans already had siege tanks and vikings. What a dumb comment to throw in.

(also you forgot to mention SH)

How can you break Siege Tanks with Siege Tanks of your own? How do Vikings break a siege line? That is quite stupid. Also I would advise you to actually READ what someone wrote, because I clearly said "added a lot of tools to break turtle positions with HotS" and everything you listed for Terrans was already part of WoL.

Terrans already had something to actually break an opponents siege line: the NUKE.
Protoss already had something to break terran siege lines: Blink and hallucinations might be useful as decoys if there are no turrets to detect.
Zerg already had something to break terran siege lines: Infested Terran (to be used with friendly fire) and Broodlords.

Swarm Hosts are really terrible at breaking Siege lines, because Locusts are slowly advancing and thus easily annihilated by Siege Tanks (well if they are buffed to "useful against non-armored units" again). The only job they can fill is "decoy", but an Infested Terran lobbed at a Siege Tank does that much better and for a smaller investment IMO.



On August 04 2013 02:33 Nerski wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 04 2013 00:38 Rabiator wrote:
On August 03 2013 19:09 pmp10 wrote:
On August 03 2013 18:32 Rabiator wrote:
In case you didnt get it: The key to make mech / turtle interesting is to change your own attitude and expectations.

There is nothing to change regarding expectations as they have always been clear - turtling can be great fun to watch but only as long as only one side does it. There are good reasons why bio vs. mech TvTs are such a treat to watch.
Currently successful mech results is both the terran and his opponent turtling with use of viper/sh/tempest.

And yes - this is a sad result of Blizzard not believing in mech and trying to turn it into bio with hellbat drops.
But it's important to recognize that as things stand there is little hope of fixing mech in any capacity.
The synergy of mech units have simply been weakened to the point that they work better incorporated into bio.
Since speedivacs and mines are the only terran things Blizzard genuinely believes in we are stuck with things as they are.

The key to breaking up the boring "both sides do it and nothing moves for half an hour" is to give every race powers / attacks / units which are designed to break it or dislodge it without being overpowering.

Zerg - Abduct, Infested Terrans lobbed at Siege Tanks, free units which slowly nibble at stuff AND which provide decoy targets for Siege Tanks to shoot
Protoss - Blink, Tempest
Terran - Nuke, Seeker Missile

Since everyone has such powers there isnt any problem IMO.


On August 03 2013 18:49 SSVnormandy wrote:
actually "mech " zerg is the only one working atm and its super hyper boring ! SH must be adressed as they are worst thing happening to zerg ! then try to fix terran mech

I have to agree with you here, but I also think the issue is FREE UNITS instead of "Zerg mech". You cant really make free units powerful and exciting, so they are actually the exact opposite of what Blizzard wants for the game.

There is one way to change the Swarm Host to make it more dynamic and that would be to give the unit energy and spawning locusts is an active ability which costs energy. This allows you to focus your power on one big push and then risk being vulnerable afterwards, BUT that design turns the unit into an "Infestor v2" ... so it is actually not so great.


While you aren't wrong about turtling, a large majority of fans hate these style of games.

It is my personal opinion from a few decades of experience that you can sell any kind of shit with the right propaganda and the current "oh I dont like mech" is the result of Blizzard trying to be clever and telling people that mech is bad in several interviews and also through their "buff the action style to outclass mech" actions. Mech used to be ok-ish until the Siege Tank AND Thor got nerfed and other stuff got buffed to make the style far less viable.

Blizzard *could* convince people that mech is cool with the right propaganda ... so I dont think that is a reason for not making the style viable.
If you cant say what you're meaning, you can never mean what you're saying.
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