Call to Action: October 2 Balance Testing - Page 9

On October 04 2013 04:28 lolfail9001 wrote:

Because they can kinda roast zealots faster now, since you want to have attack upgardes on vikings.

On October 04 2013 04:27 lolfail9001 wrote:

Missle attack? BL :D
Attack, that benefits from ranged upgrades. I call SHs tier 3 for a reason :D

On October 04 2013 04:25 StarscreamG1 wrote:


Why?

On October 04 2013 04:42 Lukeeze[zR] wrote:
Kim has a fetish with the oracle :[

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 04 2013 14:30 wishr wrote:
WM nerf is perfect - thoughts after testing. Still wm hits can turn fights into T's favor. Also, now people add upgraded thors to counter mutas. I feel pretty good with a new stuff! Tank change is awesome too.

On October 04 2013 15:01 Sissors wrote:

Huh? Did I miss something? Thors aren't boosted. They are now not nearly good enough against mutas, so why would you possibly want to add them after this patch? A bit less like tanks, but same idea, they ruin the mobility of your army. If you want them added you first need thor anti-air attack really boosted.

Quite frankly I don't see how they think heavily nerfing terran in TvZ when the winrate is around 50/50 is a good idea. And yes I know winrate isn't everything, but it does mean if it is fairly close to 50% you need to compensate nerfs with boosts in other areas. And now that isn't done (no a tad faster tank cycle time is not comparable to the WM nerf, it will also mainly affect TvT).

On October 04 2013 22:01 The_best32 wrote:
i really don't understand why blizzard don't like bio/mine play.
there is so much action all over the place and so much micro potential on both sides. just look at drg vs innovation or at soulkey vs innovation from wcs kr ro8 in S2.
in the thread with the best games in hots are 30 from 62 games tvz's, so it's definitly the best matchup to watch and with the overseer buff it seems to be very balanced, so i just don't understand why blizzard wants to change the matchup.

with marine/tank everything comes down to one timing push by the terran. if it fails the zerg wins and if it is succesful the terran wins, it's just so boring. why the hell blizz wants to see that???
instead of destroying the most entertaining and most balanced matchup, blizz should concentrate on fixing tvp where scv pull is the only chance to win for terran.

On October 04 2013 22:03 lolfail9001 wrote:

Bio-mine actually gets boring. Also, ever thought that Blizzard wants terran to use bio-mech and not 4M? Not to mention, you did not see jjakji vs Leenock game 1 or MMA vs DRG.

On October 04 2013 22:25 PanzerElite wrote:


4M micro vs biomech deathball stuff, deathball stuff is far more boring.