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On January 27 2014 23:06 Gaius Baltar wrote:
*lifts head*
look around, see 95 empty cubicles. everyone has gone home for chinese new year. look at clock, 10 pm. can probably fit it in one more game of starbow before the subway closes.
*eyes narrow*
Bro. Starbro if I may. You mean everyone gone at 10 pm is not normal? Bro...
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The way I see it, it seems like you're designing Starbow as if it's some kind of Dota. The Science Vessel has a role and it is good at it. There is a reason why people make it. You can't, in an RTS, nerf a unit and expect players to use an alternate unit, because that unit isn't optimized to be used for that role.
If we have to use, for example, say Banshees to take out Lurkers, or continue making Vikings for Mutas, then that's making use of guerrilla units that are not optimized with that role; unreliable. Say you buff the vikings, okay the solution to Mutas is done. Then let's say you somehow make Banshees reliable on sniping off tech units (like super-cloak), then we found 2 units that would be alternate units for the SV. However, that would lead to either two things: 1. You made the Science Vessel a useless unit because you have other units that do its role better, or 2. You have 2-3 units that do very specific roles in very specific situations, making each of them unreliable. Then of course there's the potential of imbalance in other MUs. I'm not saying this will exactly turn out this way, but this is what you have to keep in mind when designing units.
In the Dota genre, heroes and items open up for wide variety of options viable. In an RTS, you can not do that. We can't have multiple units that do that same thing "differently". Everything needs to be streamlined. And even though you may think that's "boring", afaik, both BW and Starbow are fun even before the Irradiate nerf, despite what you may say of it. I, and many others, just don't want these unwarranted changes with weak reasonings Blizzard could have thought of.
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A couple of days later, I still really think you should revert the science vessel to the way it was before. Terran seems forced into tank vulture transitions if they open bio now or they just have to play straight mech from the start. Otherwise, you just can't put sufficient pressure on the zerg at hive tech, there's just no way for bio to do it now. It's such a significant anti-dark swarm unit to nerf so severely imo.
I also think defilers should be changed back as well. Pretty much the only thing you can do now is turtle with them, since the radius of dark swarm is so low. It just makes bio vs zerg feel very stale compared to before where Zerg had to worry about downsizing the vessel cloud. They don't really have to now and this means they can just sit on their 4 bases and wait for ultras easier.
And just to throw my opinion on the design in bw, I think the defiler being almost essential to zerg in zvt was great from a design perspective since it was such an exciting and difficult unit to use. Zerg had other options, like Terran have other options that massing science vessels, but both were strong options, and led to the most fun games.
Making the defiler and science vessel worse is an attempt to completely redesign by far the most fragile mu in bw, and I think that it's really going to cause you guys some problems :p
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Wait what ever happened to "If everything is imbalanced, then nothing is imbalanced." philosophy of BW? Its too bad that the devs are slowly moving away from it.
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The way I see it, it seems like you're designing Starbow as if it's some kind of Dota. The Science Vessel has a role and it is good at it. There is a reason why people make it. You can't, in an RTS, nerf a unit and expect players to use an alternate unit, because that unit isn't optimized to be used for that role.
We think the problem with the SV (irradiate) is that it has too many roles that it is too good at. When such a unit exist, we can never really have diverse unit compositions in the mid/and late game. This would probably be less of a concern if we thought that Irradiate one-shotting units was the most fun thing in the world. Thus, we are narrowing its role down to these 3 things vs zerg;
- Strong vs Defiler
- Strong vs heavy clumps of Mutalisks
- Detector
That doens't mean the SV will be awfull in other situations. Irradiate is still "ok" on Lurker and Nerve Jammer is still good on Hydra/lurker "clumps".
While it right now is probably a necesity to play the SK aggressive bio style. While we definitely want bio to be able to play aggressive, we are working on a different solution that we think/hope will bio more strong in the midgame without having to rely on the SV in every game.
You made the Science Vessel a useless unit because you have other units that do its role better, or 2. You have 2-3 units that do very specific roles in very specific situations, making each of them unreliable. Then of course there's the potential of imbalance in other MUs. I'm not saying this will exactly turn out this way, but this is what you have to keep in mind when designing units.
Well your then assuming that the banshee only will be usefull for killing lurkers or Vikings only usefull for killing Mutalisks. That's not the case at all. Both units have great harass utility as well. Vikings can snipe off Overseers which synergizes better with Vulture Spider Mines. Banshee's (with range upgrade) can also snipe Hydralisks for instance.
We believe that, while some units are supposed to be better in some situations, that doesn't neccsarily imply that they are useless in other situations.
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How is the science vessels strength in starbow different from that in BW? Other than smart cast, how is it suddenly game breaking?
Why the nerf? what part of it is too strong in starbow, that isn't too strong in BW?
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Poland3772 Posts
On January 28 2014 00:39 ExO_ wrote:
How is the science vessels strength in starbow different from that in BW? Other than smart cast, how is it suddenly game breaking?
Why the nerf? what part of it is too strong in starbow, that isn't too strong in BW?
Isn't smartcasting enough of a game changer? Also I think units in StarBow still clamp more than in Brood War - I believe deClumping occurs while standing still but not during walking so if you irridiate a group of hydras, you achieve more than in Brood War.
Speculating.
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A couple of days later, I still really think you should revert the science vessel to the way it was before. Terran seems forced into tank vulture transitions if they open bio now or they just have to play straight mech from the start. Otherwise, you just can't put sufficient pressure on the zerg at hive tech, there's just no way for bio to do it now. It's such a significant anti-dark swarm unit to nerf so severely imo.
We think the cause is that bio is not strong enough rather than irradiate nerfed from 180 damage to 120 making bioplay bad.
Muta's still get wrecked by irradiate because the dps is the same and defiler still dies from irradiate (defiler has 80hp).
I also think defilers should be changed back as well. Pretty much the only thing you can do now is turtle with them, since the radius of dark swarm is so low. It just makes bio vs zerg feel very stale compared to before where Zerg had to worry about downsizing the vessel cloud. They don't really have to now and this means they can just sit on their 4 bases and wait for ultras easier.
The casting range of the defiler was buffed by 2 range, so I think it is a very weird train of thought to conclude that is now worse to use aggressively since you get off swarms easier.
And you make it seem like the new irradiate is so bad that zergs can just ignore the vessel cloud... I don't even...
Wait what ever happened to "If everything is imbalanced, then nothing is imbalanced." philosophy of BW? Its too bad that the devs are slowly moving away from it.
Irradiate was (and still is to some extent) THE answer to everything zerg has, we have to make the other options of terran ridiculously overpowered to make them contend with the vessel. I mean, why would you make option A if it fights well vs X and Y if option B fights well vs X, Y and Z in an even better way than option A fights vs X and Y.
We did not move away from keep everything OP at all, we just want to give some chance to the other units terran has, like the ghost. We are aware that bio is under-performing (partially due to bugs, like firebat with bugged aoe) and will try to fix that in the next patch.
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On January 28 2014 00:47 nimdil wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2014 00:39 ExO_ wrote:
How is the science vessels strength in starbow different from that in BW? Other than smart cast, how is it suddenly game breaking?
Why the nerf? what part of it is too strong in starbow, that isn't too strong in BW? Isn't smartcasting enough of a game changer? Also I think units in StarBow still clamp more than in Brood War - I believe deClumping occurs while standing still but not during walking so if you irridiate a group of hydras, you achieve more than in Brood War. Speculating.
You can't fix an smartcast ability that does a specific amount of Damage over a certain period of time by nerfing the damage. Regardless of all the important reasons for having it be more than 90 damage (lurker and ultra HP for a start) making it do less DPS is silly. If it's really gotta be nerfed to 90 damage, reducing the duration of the ability is better than reducing the damage while keeping the time its irradiated the same.
Smartcast is an issue in the sense that it makes the ability much easier to use. But changing the function of a unit b/c of smart cast is really silly. And the muta clumping thing should not be a reason to nerf irrad at all, do you realize how hard it is to deal with mutas without irradiate and without valk? Turrets and marines lose effectiveness as the muta flock grows to huge numbers. Eliminate the options of dealing with them, and you're going to be dealing with zergs making huge muta flocks non stop. Will we nerf muta damage then? Or HP?
idk, this entire thing seems like too much in my opinion.
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Hider, I send you a pm I put a lot of effort into, regarding Spidermines vs Hydralisks, Let me know what you think and if the links to drop.sc work. :>
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On January 28 2014 00:39 ExO_ wrote:
How is the science vessels strength in starbow different from that in BW? Other than smart cast, how is it suddenly game breaking?
Why the nerf? what part of it is too strong in starbow, that isn't too strong in BW?
I don't think the problem is that it would be "game breaking". It just overshadows too many other units, so your choices kind of looked like (obviously I'm exaggerating, but just to get the idea):
best unit vs Mutalisk:
1.) SV
2.-4.) other units such as Marines, Goliaths, Vikings
best unit to snipe important other units such as spellcasters:
1.) SV
....
other units
best unit against clumps of small units:
1.) SV
....
best unit against ultralisks
1.) SV
....
This kind of leads to Terrans just getting SVs because they are kind of the best choice against everything with no real downside.
Now if the same scenario rather looks like:
best unit vs Mutalisk:
1.) Viking
2.) SV
...
best unit to snipe important other units such as spellcasters:
1.) SV
....
best unit against clumps of small units:
1.) Tank
2.) Mines
3.) SV
...
best unit against ultralisks
1.) Marauder
2.) Tank
3.) SV
...
then this means the Vessel is still strong, but it's not always just "the obvious choice" to go Vessel. Which means you should mix your composition up a little bit. Of course this also requires that the units you get instead forces the opponent to adapt to you, but that's the whole idea behind having many semi-broad units that can fullfill multiple roles, some a little better, and some a little worse.
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They are the best choice against everything with severe limitations! Build time, energy based, high gas cost, super late tech, and need research to get their best abilities online. A unit that takes THIS much to get out and doing well should be amazingly strong. And its not like you can make Science Vessels the only unit in your army, you're usually only going to have few of these out. You'll never see somebody in a serious competitive game with 30 SVs and 10 marines.
You're not making terrans choose by weakening one of the best units in the game, you're making zerg stronger. You're limiting choices and it'll lead to zerg being able to dictate the game in ways they never should've been able to.
Should we nerf defiler because its the best unit against the majority of terran units? Can we nerf darkswarm so it only blocks 50% damage now?
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On January 28 2014 00:53 ExO_ wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2014 00:47 nimdil wrote:On January 28 2014 00:39 ExO_ wrote:
How is the science vessels strength in starbow different from that in BW? Other than smart cast, how is it suddenly game breaking?
Why the nerf? what part of it is too strong in starbow, that isn't too strong in BW? Isn't smartcasting enough of a game changer? Also I think units in StarBow still clamp more than in Brood War - I believe deClumping occurs while standing still but not during walking so if you irridiate a group of hydras, you achieve more than in Brood War. Speculating. You can't fix an smartcast ability that does a specific amount of Damage over a certain period of time by nerfing the damage. Regardless of all the important reasons for having it be more than 90 damage (lurker and ultra HP for a start) making it do less DPS is silly. If it's really gotta be nerfed to 90 damage, reducing the duration of the ability is better than reducing the damage while keeping the time its irradiated the same. Smartcast is an issue in the sense that it makes the ability much easier to use. But changing the function of a unit b/c of smart cast is really silly. And the muta clumping thing should not be a reason to nerf irrad at all, do you realize how hard it is to deal with mutas without irradiate and without valk? Turrets and marines lose effectiveness as the muta flock grows to huge numbers. Eliminate the options of dealing with them, and you're going to be dealing with zergs making huge muta flocks non stop. Will we nerf muta damage then? Or HP? idk, this entire thing seems like too much in my opinion.
You are not well informed.
Irradiate still has the same dps as before and does 120 damage (so yes the duration is shorter). Smart cast is not the only reason irradiate got nerfed, please read the last pages of the thread before wanting to get your opinion (which has been posted by other people for like... I dunno, 10 times already?) out there. Sorry for responding snappy, but you didn't put any effort in your post to begin with.
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You guys ever discuss adding BW sounds to the older units?
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On January 28 2014 01:04 DannyJ wrote:
You guys ever discuss adding BW sounds to the older units?
The reason why it hasn't been added is because it makes the upload file bigger.
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On January 28 2014 01:03 SolidSMD wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2014 00:53 ExO_ wrote:On January 28 2014 00:47 nimdil wrote:On January 28 2014 00:39 ExO_ wrote:
How is the science vessels strength in starbow different from that in BW? Other than smart cast, how is it suddenly game breaking?
Why the nerf? what part of it is too strong in starbow, that isn't too strong in BW? Isn't smartcasting enough of a game changer? Also I think units in StarBow still clamp more than in Brood War - I believe deClumping occurs while standing still but not during walking so if you irridiate a group of hydras, you achieve more than in Brood War. Speculating. You can't fix an smartcast ability that does a specific amount of Damage over a certain period of time by nerfing the damage. Regardless of all the important reasons for having it be more than 90 damage (lurker and ultra HP for a start) making it do less DPS is silly. If it's really gotta be nerfed to 90 damage, reducing the duration of the ability is better than reducing the damage while keeping the time its irradiated the same. Smartcast is an issue in the sense that it makes the ability much easier to use. But changing the function of a unit b/c of smart cast is really silly. And the muta clumping thing should not be a reason to nerf irrad at all, do you realize how hard it is to deal with mutas without irradiate and without valk? Turrets and marines lose effectiveness as the muta flock grows to huge numbers. Eliminate the options of dealing with them, and you're going to be dealing with zergs making huge muta flocks non stop. Will we nerf muta damage then? Or HP? idk, this entire thing seems like too much in my opinion. You are not well informed. Irradiate still has the same dps as before and does 120 damage (so yes the duration is shorter). Smart cast is not the only reason irradiate got nerfed, please read the last pages of the thread before wanting to get your opinion (which has been posted by other people for like... I dunno, 10 times already?) out there. Sorry for responding snappy, but you didn't put any effort in your post to begin with.
Hard to find information without an area I can look at to view patch changes. I've not been able to get on for the past few days and play myself, so I was going off the wrong information about the irradiate changes. I did look for patch notes, but google didn't reveal anything and I don't think I should have to dig through pages and pages of this topic to find them.
It's a fairly minor point though. I don't think nerfing irradiate is correct to begin with.
edit: Patch Notes are on the main page I missed them the first few times I've gone through and looked. My mistake.
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On January 28 2014 01:07 Laertes wrote:
If you dislike the vessel nerf, try to brainstorm alternate solution, that's how we did it in the other thread, pretend your a dev and you're discussing this with other devs, that IMO is the best way to get the mindset of this change. In the other thread, we pitched ideas and defended them. That IMO is how everyone should be posting. Maybe there can be something on it on the front page, but try to make your own suggestions and defend them, and if that suggestion is a good idea, it can plant the seeds for something really special.
I don't understand the problem though. I can't get into the mindset of fixing the issue when I don't see one. The only thing I think could be an issue is smart cast, and I don't actually think it is. Other than that, why was Science Vessel Irrad considered too good suddenly?
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I don't think balance was the reason they nerfed it. I think it's the fact that it is beta, this is not bw, and that they want to see how players will play differently. Honestly, I think that Terran now has to go mech to be able to compete in the later game - and many don't like that. However, you can also look at the other matchups and mech is the clear way to go in TvP and TvT as well, and no one seems to be complaining about that because it's simply what everyone expected. I predict the SV will change again to be a little stronger, but hope it brings changes to the way bio plays out as well. Could also affect how zerg ends up getting patched additionally.
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EPT
