EPT6 possible balance changes - David Kim - Page 67
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jdsowa
405 Posts
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Goofinator
England45 Posts
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ETisME
12740 Posts
On September 26 2013 01:39 dUTtrOACh wrote: I'm not sure if retirements are necessarily a result of the excitement or engagement players feel or don't feel. Most of the time a player retires because they simply can't make a good living for the hours they put in. The infrastructure of the pro scene really rewards winners and provides little incentive for non-winner participants. At a grassroots level there aren't enough tournaments or enough worthy prize pools to encourage new people to actually get into the playing aspect of the game. Making the game more exciting doesn't address anything other than the superficial idea of excitement. The game is pretty exciting already, but also very challenging and mentally taxing. These are not bad qualities, and balance is always important for patching. You can't expect every patch to reinvent the game, but you can expect every patch to change the metagame a little or a lot. Also, excitement and entertainment value are very subjective things that not everyone agrees on. Some people find it more exciting to play long, defensive games, while others prefer aggression and cheesey strategies. They can't all get what they want beyond what they've been given. If you make the cheesey strategies stronger, people who enjoy longer games will kinda fade away as they lose interest in their gameplay experience. On the flip-side, the same applies to buffing defensive strategies. What you have to recognize is that changes to the metagame through balance DIRECTLY impact the viewing and playing experience, and that excitement is a product of enjoyable, close-fought games (for some). Honestly I don't understand this line of thinking, at all. The game is merely one expansion away from having their final units and some units reworks. This expansion is already having stale metagame since less than one year of release. In fact, I recall reading the comment about all TvZ only having bio mine and no mech after 2 months of release. BW changed and improved SC1 forever. One expansion, years of enjoyments. You are right in the sense that there will always be trade off because everyone enjoys different stuff. This is why we are asking for diversity to achieve balance (arr, the word that everyone seems to care so much about) between different style. A nerf to bio mine is because bio mine risk and reward outshine mech in every single way in every single map. A buff to mech is because hopefully it will boost some mech play. The game right now is not balanced in its fun vs balance department it is not balanced in terms of strategies in some matchups. (why some people think ZvP is the new TvZ in Hots? Diversity. Different player, different style of games) Treat the game like it is in beta. There are so many rooms for improvements and changes. People will always fight over the perceived balance status, what is a right buff and what is a right nerf and call what matchup is broken. | ||
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ffadicted
United States3545 Posts
On September 26 2013 02:12 Goofinator wrote: Widow Mines are some of the best units in the game from a spectators perspective as they are one of the only things where you don't know what the outcome of the engagement is going to be. When you see a storm it isn't exciting because you know that everything under the AoE is just going to get roasted, but when you see a widow mine you are on the edge of your seat as you don't know how much damage the zerg will take or how much the terran will take. There needs to be more of this "uncertainty" in the game because uncertainty is exciting so widow mines need to stay the same. In the same way Terrans have a barrier to improvement with dodging/baiting storms and using ghosts, Zerg need to learn to micro their zerglings/banelings/mutalisks. Personally I think that Zerg/Terran need units that allow them to come from behind, preferably based on their control, mainly against Protoss. Entertainment does not surpass imbalance. Good changes overall, DT speed is a bit much imo, but I like the rest, hope to see more mech play now on the test maps | ||
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HuHEN
United Kingdom514 Posts
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Doc Brawler
United States260 Posts
While I think most people would like to see less WM (me included), the game is balanced around their current splash which shoots air and ground. I would like to see a small buff to thor air splash with any WM nerf. Its not like Thors are breaking any MU currently, and they are a high tech Terran unit... something that people always complain about not seeing enough of. In Summary: Basically push back some of the splash to later stages of the game, similar to the hellbat nerf. Think about it: How often do you see a flock of mutas fly over 1-3 WM and casters (especially artosis for some reason) get all excited only to see each WM kill only one muta and then all the mutas completely regen before they get hit again. I think 4-6 WM is when the splash actually starts to whipe out mutas in scary numbers. The regen ability really rewards good muta micro and gives zerg a little bit more leeway when harassing. Too much I think if...when widowmines get nerfed. Let me know what you guys think, cause maybe I'm way wrong  | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On September 26 2013 02:37 Doc Brawler wrote: I think the WM nerf has been a long time coming. But the only problem with it that I see is how much better mutas will be. Especially with the maps we have right now. All the new ones, plus whirlwind, come to mind (maybe not yeonsu); massing up mutas will only get even stronger after WM nerf and even stronger again after tank buff. Mutas do great against tanks especially now that they are extra nimble. While I think most people would like to see less WM (me included), the game is balanced around their current splash which shoots air and ground. I would like to see a small buff to thor air splash with any WM nerf. Its not like Thors are breaking any MU currently, and they are a high tech Terran unit... something that people always complain about not seeing enough of. In Summary: Basically push back some of the splash to later stages of the game, similar to the hellbat nerf. Think about it: How often do you see a flock of mutas fly over 1-3 WM and casters (especially artosis for some reason) get all excited only to see each WM kill only one muta and then all the mutas completely regen before they get hit again. I think 4-6 WM is when the splash actually starts to whipe out mutas in scary numbers. The regen ability really rewards good muta micro and gives zerg a little bit more leeway when harassing. Too much I think if...when widowmines get nerfed. Let me know what you guys think, cause maybe I'm way wrong I really miss Tank/Marine/Medivac play vs Muta/Ling/bane... Now instead of thors back home supported by turrets to defend against muta backstabs you can have mines+turrets defending muta backstabs... I like that change, personally... | ||
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DusTerr
2520 Posts
On September 26 2013 02:37 Doc Brawler wrote: I think the WM nerf has been a long time coming. But the only problem with it that I see is how much better mutas will be. Especially with the maps we have right now. All the new ones, plus whirlwind, come to mind (maybe not yeonsu); massing up mutas will only get even stronger after WM nerf and even stronger again after tank buff. Mutas do great against tanks especially now that they are extra nimble. While I think most people would like to see less WM (me included), the game is balanced around their current splash which shoots air and ground. I would like to see a small buff to thor air splash with any WM nerf. Its not like Thors are breaking any MU currently, and they are a high tech Terran unit... something that people always complain about not seeing enough of. In Summary: Basically push back some of the splash to later stages of the game, similar to the hellbat nerf. Think about it: How often do you see a flock of mutas fly over 1-3 WM and casters (especially artosis for some reason) get all excited only to see each WM kill only one muta and then all the mutas completely regen before they get hit again. I think 4-6 WM is when the splash actually starts to whipe out mutas in scary numbers. The regen ability really rewards good muta micro and gives zerg a little bit more leeway when harassing. Too much I think if...when widowmines get nerfed. Let me know what you guys think, cause maybe I'm way wrong Fully agree. If any WM nerf takes place there needs to be some sort of re-balance with mutalisks. I stated on the last page that an armory (gas) cost reduction could help in get thors out quicker AND make it easier to get mech/air upgrades (without needing to combine upgrades). | ||
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Dragoonstorm7
United States599 Posts
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Grim Hatter
Poland52 Posts
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iKill
Denmark861 Posts
really blizz, this is not how you improve mid/lategame usage, no one cares about that 50 gas except for cheese... | ||
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SheaR619
United States2399 Posts
On September 26 2013 02:45 Thieving Magpie wrote: I really miss Tank/Marine/Medivac play vs Muta/Ling/bane... Now instead of thors back home supported by turrets to defend against muta backstabs you can have mines+turrets defending muta backstabs... I like that change, personally... Thors are still a better choice then mines at turrets but mines are only good when the mutas count are not insane yet. Now we are bottle neck to 1 choice and that is nothing but turret + thors since I dont believe mines will be worth the dead supply sitting at a turret now. Even before, mine sitting at a turret was pretty meh since it dead supply. Marine tanks medivac wont happen because it seems that tanks still are not worth the investment and liability of being such an immobile unit and will require too much babysitting and wont allow enough aggression in the mid game. Leading to you getting rolled by zerg T3. Mutas are just too strong right now that tanks are not going to be worth it. | ||
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XXXSmOke
United States1333 Posts
On September 26 2013 01:39 dUTtrOACh wrote: I'm not sure if retirements are necessarily a result of the excitement or engagement players feel or don't feel. Most of the time a player retires because they simply can't make a good living for the hours they put in. The infrastructure of the pro scene really rewards winners and provides little incentive for non-winner participants. At a grassroots level there aren't enough tournaments or enough worthy prize pools to encourage new people to actually get into the playing aspect of the game. Making the game more exciting doesn't address anything other than the superficial idea of excitement. The game is pretty exciting already, but also very challenging and mentally taxing. These are not bad qualities, and balance is always important for patching. You can't expect every patch to reinvent the game, but you can expect every patch to change the metagame a little or a lot. Also, excitement and entertainment value are very subjective things that not everyone agrees on. Some people find it more exciting to play long, defensive games, while others prefer aggression and cheesey strategies. They can't all get what they want beyond what they've been given. If you make the cheesey strategies stronger, people who enjoy longer games will kinda fade away as they lose interest in their gameplay experience. On the flip-side, the same applies to buffing defensive strategies. What you have to recognize is that changes to the metagame through balance DIRECTLY impact the viewing and playing experience, and that excitement is a product of enjoyable, close-fought games (for some). Game is pretty exciting already????? 3 base 1 2 second battle really gets me SO pumped. Extremely predictable games in a very stale meta game. Making the game fun to play changes everything, because then the casuals actually come back, viewership goes up, we dont have a million threads on why SC2 is dying, pros begin to enjoy and practice longer and harder, games become very intense to watch, and the game will be revived. | ||
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lolfail9001
Russian Federation40190 Posts
Thank you for your feedback on all the proposed changes. Here’s a slightly altered list of things that we will be testing soon on the balance test map. Again, none of these are final so please don’t panic. These are the ones we’d like to try for the reasons given earlier this week: Terran Mech ground and air attack upgrades combined Widow Mine splash radius decreased from 1.75 to 1.25 Siege Tank attack period decreased from 3 to 2.7 Roach speed upgrade also increases the burrowed roach movement sped from 1.41 to 2.25 We’d also like to try a different set of changes for the Oracle: Oracle - Speed increased from 3.375 to 4 - Acceleration increased from 2 to 3 - Revelation range increased from 9 to 10 The speed changes are something we’ve tried in the past and we believe this is a better direction than a straight cost reduction for the unit. The main reason is that we’d like the difference between someone who’s amazing with Oracle micro to be able to keep them alive the whole game to get the most out of them, whereas lesser skilled players won’t get as much out of this change. Not only that, this direction is a smaller buff to the all in case and/or early game use cases compared to the previously proposed 50 gas cost reduction. Revelation right now is the main late game ability for Oracles, meaning if it’s a bit easier to use, we’d see a lot more Oracle usage in the late game as well. The balance test map will be up for everyone to try soon, so please make sure to play with the changes as much as you can when it goes up. Thank you. I predict slight nerfs to this test map oracle and slight buff to WM (to 1.5 radius probably). | ||
digmouse
China6331 Posts
Test map online soon, they changed the Oracles back to the speed approach. | ||
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HerrHorst
Germany140 Posts
On September 26 2013 03:11 XXXSmOke wrote: Game is pretty exciting already????? Making the game fun to play changes everything, because then the casuals actually come back, viewership goes up, we dont have a million threads on why SC2 is dying, pros begin to enjoy and practice longer and harder, games become very intense to watch, and the game will be revived. No, this won't happen regardless how good or bad the game is. Starcraft 2 is an RTS which aren't exactly very popular at the moment and it's not F2P which limits the possible popularity. Broodwar died outside of Korea not because of it's design flaws but because newer games (mainly Warcraft 3) grabbed more attention and started to replace it. No, changes to BW would have stopped this prozess. To stop "Sc2" is dying threads you need to eliminate the urge for drama and the insanely amount of stupidity in the community which I think is impossible. Edit: Also I agree with him the game is exciting. | ||
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awesomoecalypse
United States2235 Posts
We’d also like to try a different set of changes for the Oracle: Oracle - Speed increased from 3.375 to 4 - Acceleration increased from 2 to 3 - Revelation range increased from 9 to 10 The speed changes are something we’ve tried in the past and we believe this is a better direction than a straight cost reduction for the unit. The main reason is that we’d like the difference between someone who’s amazing with Oracle micro to be able to keep them alive the whole game to get the most out of them, whereas lesser skilled players won’t get as much out of this change. Not only that, this direction is a smaller buff to the all in case and/or early game use cases compared to the previously proposed 50 gas cost reduction. Fuck yes. This was what I said they should do the moment they announced they were looking at buffing the Oracle. A cost reduction is boring, and most useful in the early game which isn't when the Oracle suffers. A speed/acceleration buff, on the other hand, makes it so the unit is more rewarding of players with skill and apm to stay active with it throughout the game and do everything they can to keep it alive as long as possible. Revelation is a cool and underused ability. I'm really stoked about this patch now. | ||
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KrazyTrumpet
United States2520 Posts
These Oracle changes are 10x better than a gas cost reduction though, that's for damn sure. | ||
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AnomalySC2
United States2073 Posts
On September 26 2013 03:00 Grim Hatter wrote: David Kim: WM are too stronk! I have idea i will make them useless... Not useless. Just not the one stop shop for Terran aoe. Picture spread out mine fields with spread tanks as support while kiting/splitting bio. Maybe a drop or 2 at the same time. | ||
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wongfeihung
United States763 Posts
On September 26 2013 04:00 KrazyTrumpet wrote: I mean, trying to buff Revelation is nice and all, but I can't really imagine a situation in which I would rather use Revelation instead of having better Observer placement. idk, perhaps I'm underestimating things. My dream would be to have Stargate tech be so viable that you can skip out on Robo tech entirely if you choose to These Oracle changes are 10x better than a gas cost reduction though, that's for damn sure. I prefer to use Revelation over Observers in conjunction with Tempests. Observers are so easily picked off in the late game when in the proximity of the opponent's army, while Revelation will give you the opportunity to poke at their army for a concrete amount of time without the risk of losing vision. Thus, forcing them to move their army away from their favorable position and/or engage your army. | ||
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