Call to Action: October 2 Balance Testing - Page 12

On October 05 2013 12:29 johnnyapplec wrote:


The mutas can just snipe the medivac then.

On October 04 2013 01:11 Goldfish wrote:


Burrow I guess I'm a bit fine (mainly because it feels really underpowered before) but I agree in general about making things faster.

The Oracle change, you need to look at what it does and what it benefits from faster movement. The Oracle concept itself is nice but what it actually does (destroy worker lines really fast and can change the tide of the game in an instant) is a huge problem in SC2.

Edit - For some reason, I forgot about Revelation (ironically since it's in the patch note itself) and focused simply on Pulsar Beam (which when just against workers, faster speed doesn't really help much except maybe the occasional early game oracle rush but that usually done with proxy star gates anyway). The speed helps Oracle scouting + Revelation more so than than it destroying worker lines. The speed change with the Oracle I am fine with in that case. We'll see what it does. So disregard my comment about it (I forgot about Revelation, even though it was in the patch notes, for some reason >.>).

Anyway, what I was saying not specific to the Oracle (and in fact, the oracle change is fine) but with SC2 in general. That most of the difficulty in things comes with speed but yet that's the only thing. We have overpowered things in SC2 but yet the difficulty in controlling (and countering against them) and how huge of an impact of the game they have is a problem.

Widow Mines are an example (the difference between a good widow mine hit compared to a bad hit is enough difference to change the outcome of an entire battle and potentially the entire game). Though since they're nerfing it, at least Blizzard understands (though I said this before, I think I would rather them adding a max target cap on it and/or slowing down the speed of the projectile a bit but we'll have to see what this radius nerf does first).

Widow Mines (like Banelings and other huge AoE stuff against clumps of units) are also supposed to promote micro and provide a challenge. It does but it's not very practical to split marines or micro zerglings and stuff against widow mines (for example).

I said this before but micro in SC2 is mostly just how fast you can do things. Outside of speed, it doesn't have as much depth. And in fact, lots of people lately have been catching on that SC2 is actually way too fast (battles that win or lose games can occur in 10 seconds or less, which is not enough time for most people to react). The game being hard doesn't mean the game has depth (and depth is important). Deep games are probably also difficult to master. However, difficult games are not necessarily deep games (it depends on what was done to make the game difficult).

In BW, micro wasn't simply about speed (nor was it the important thing most of the time actually) but about precision and depth.

Mutalisk are a good example. When microing Mutalisk, you have to pay attention to what direction the Mutalisk is facing (before attacking, depending on which unit command you use) and distance between the Mutalisk and the target, etc. And after taking all that into account, you have to decide whether to use attack move, attack (directly), patrol, hold position, etc.

I could go in more depth but anyone who has played BW can also vouch and say that Mutalisk micro was just very deep.

There was so many decisions you can make and so many ways to improve, and it was practical and easy micro to do.

You didn't need super quick speed or anything to start microing Mutalisk against scourge or marines or whatever.

It had a ton of depth and it was easy (and practical) to learn too.

Compared to SC2 where all micro is "how fast you do it", it's really watered down in comparison.

Again, I don't blame Blizzard or anything, I think HotS was a good experiment but I really think some key gameplay mechanics from BW should return in SC2 (yes, most of them were accidental but look at most competitive games like fighting games or FPS, a lot of them have "accidental" deep gameplay mechanics but they end up being encouraged by the developers in later installments).

I remember reading here that BW was doing #6 place in PC bangs in South Korea while SC2 (after HotS) was only doing at #11.

If BW is still beating SC2, then something is wrong.

I think it is very important to emphasis the difference in gameplay and depth in BW compared to SC2.

Using "whether it is hard to do or not" as a gauge to judge whether it is deep or not is wrong.

SC2, microing is hard and the skill ceiling is high but what does it all come down to? Simply how fast you can split marines or whatever.

BW was hard but at the same time it has depth.

SC2 microing is hard but it doesn't have much depth compared to BW.

Just want some food for thought as I know Blizzard can't change anything big until LotV (these small changes I am fine in HotS). Again, it's very important to emphasis that depth =/= difficulty. While SC2 has difficulty in micro, it doesn't have as much depth as BW and depth in difficulty (not just difficulty by itself) is a key part in what helps make a game fun.

On October 05 2013 21:59 skiersteve wrote:
this is going to destroy so many terrans Im high master (rank 4 atm) I have 64% win vs toss 71% vs terran and 34 vs zerg :/ I just feel that if the 11 minute push doesnt do any damage your so far behind, especially when mutas come out since I feel like I cant harass at all due to them just flying to the medivac and killing it in 2 seconds and when the mine is on CD they just roll straight into my army and no amount of splitting helps and everything gets torn to bits Not had a chance to play test map but since it seems that zergs have a good grip on how to beat mine marine medivac I think the nerf is just going to wreck terrans so hard

On October 05 2013 22:19 Ambre wrote:


There must be something wrong with your TvZ...

I am not saying T should always win easily, but if you have 70% WR in a MU and <40% in another one, balance has nothing to do with it most likely^^

On October 06 2013 01:12 Mjolnir wrote:
Does anyone actually find the tank changes particularly noticeable? I've played a few games with them - I'm not sure the increased firing rate is a big boost at all, to be honest.

Then again, I am dirt league.

Just wondering how others feel about it.

On October 06 2013 02:28 Plansix wrote:

It will matter against any low hitpoint targets like banelings and marines. One more volley is a huge deal in those engagements. Stalkers will also take a huge hit, since a second and third shot will cut deep into their HP. It does seem slight though and I bet Blizzard could make it shoot a little faster.

On October 06 2013 13:48 SHODAN wrote:
on the b.net forums, I posted a bunch of changes I'd love to test for tanks & mechanical units

- attack upgrades from the armory improve cooldown by 5% per level, reducing the reload time of all vehicle & ship weapons. this would scale siege mode attack speed to 3 seconds (+0), 2.85 (+1), 2.7 (+2), 2.55 (+3).
- armor upgrades from the armory reduce the transformation time of all mechanical units by 15% per level (including hellions, vikings, thors & widow mines). this would scale siege mode transformation to 4 seconds (+0), 3.4 (+1), 2.8 (+2), 2.2 (+3). +3 vikings would take 1.65 seconds to land in assault mode.
- 45 flat damage in siege mode. It's tragic to the point of hilarity that a +1 zergling survives a 120mm fucking cannon
- remove transformation servos requirement... please

It's sad to see viking & hellion transformation on the back of a HotS case and none of it being viable in the game.

On October 06 2013 15:39 Mjolnir wrote:


I have said this since they were nerfed in the beta. While I admit they were strong at the time, I'm quite sure that if those old tanks were put into the game as it is now, with the improved skill-ceiling and wildly different tactics, they wouldn't seem "OP" at all.

When tanks were nerfed back in beta people were just running at them with the same BW style comps that took out tanks from that game - plus some roaches. Protoss tried mass zealot stalker like BW's speedlot/dragoon at the expense of immortals.

I don't think upping tank damage to the way it was in beta would break the game any more than adding widow mines did - certainly not if there were some modifications to them (cost, firing time, etc.)

On October 06 2013 13:48 SHODAN wrote:
on the b.net forums, I posted a bunch of changes I'd love to test for tanks & mechanical units

- attack upgrades from the armory improve cooldown by 5% per level, reducing the reload time of all vehicle & ship weapons. this would scale siege mode attack speed to 3 seconds (+0), 2.85 (+1), 2.7 (+2), 2.55 (+3).
- armor upgrades from the armory reduce the transformation time of all mechanical units by 15% per level (including hellions, vikings, thors & widow mines). this would scale siege mode transformation to 4 seconds (+0), 3.4 (+1), 2.8 (+2), 2.2 (+3). +3 vikings would take 1.65 seconds to land in assault mode.