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Starbow - Page 172

Forum Index > SC2 General
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GoShox
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
United States1842 Posts
February 11 2014 19:25 GMT
#3421
Did Tasteless seem to enjoy the mod?
NukeD
Profile Joined October 2010
Croatia1612 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-02-11 20:12:04
February 11 2014 20:08 GMT
#3422
^ yeah he said he is going to stream it more.

Btw are you the guy who handed his ass to Artosis yesterday?

EDIT: I think I messed up the asshanding part.
sorry for dem one liners
Daumen
Profile Joined July 2011
Germany1073 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-02-11 21:54:06
February 11 2014 21:52 GMT
#3423
Concerning the new maps, could you guys fix this? (calldown SCV getting stuck there)

[image loading]

I also noticed the that the Andromeda island expansions have no blocking Mineral Patches, I think they used to be there in bw, right?

and the Destructible Blocking things near the nats are not destructible here, after you "destroy" them they still block any ground movement.
President of the ReaL Fan Club.
.swz.
Profile Joined May 2012
73 Posts
February 11 2014 21:54 GMT
#3424
any news on the ladder? i'm worried whether it will make it to the SB invitational
SCST
Profile Joined November 2011
Mexico1609 Posts
February 11 2014 23:11 GMT
#3425
There's a bug at the chokes for (I think) bluestorm 2.0 . . . Artosis mentioned it on stream. Tanks can't get through the choke but Dragoons can.
"The weak cannot forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong." - Gandhi
Season
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States301 Posts
February 11 2014 23:19 GMT
#3426
On February 12 2014 08:11 SCST wrote:
There's a bug at the chokes for (I think) bluestorm 2.0 . . . Artosis mentioned it on stream. Tanks can't get through the choke but Dragoons can.


That has been fixed as of today!
Kabel
Profile Joined September 2009
Sweden1746 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-02-12 01:34:01
February 11 2014 23:21 GMT
#3427
Mini patch uploaded

Bug fixes
+ Show Spoiler +

- Just some minor things


Balance adjustements
+ Show Spoiler +
- Vulture life reduced from 80 to 70.
- Overseer speed upgrade increases movement speed from 2.3 to 2.8


Explanation:

+ Show Spoiler +

The new Spider mine is much more powerful than the old one. Vultures are already much stronger in Starbow compared to BW, due to the SC2 engine. We discussed different ways to balance this, and we decided to try a Vulture with slightly less life. It will still be able to roam the map, control terrain, harass, do hit and run attacks, but will be slightly worse in direct engagements. (Where the new mine is more useful instead.)

Overseer upgrade now makes if almost as fast as upgraded Overlords were in BW. Earlier, Overseers were much slower, which made it harder for Zerg to play vs Spider mines. With this new mine in the game, we think it is fair that Zerg gets a buff in this area.
Creator of Starbow
Daumen
Profile Joined July 2011
Germany1073 Posts
February 11 2014 23:26 GMT
#3428
Whats up with Starbow Arena btw? so many ppl are excited for the upcoming Starbow Ladder but they show no interest with the Ladder that we already have, how come?
President of the ReaL Fan Club.
Jermman
Profile Joined November 2011
Canada174 Posts
February 11 2014 23:36 GMT
#3429
This is an awesome mod. Really enjoying this compared to regular sc2 ladder. When is the sb ladder coming out?
Terran/Random Player
Hider
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Denmark9407 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-02-11 23:42:26
February 11 2014 23:42 GMT
#3430
On February 12 2014 08:36 Jermman wrote:
This is an awesome mod. Really enjoying this compared to regular sc2 ladder. When is the sb ladder coming out?


Soon..
Kabel
Profile Joined September 2009
Sweden1746 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-02-11 23:45:19
February 11 2014 23:43 GMT
#3431
@Arbiter
+ Show Spoiler +

Also, are arbiters going to be looked at? Recall doesn't work like bw (there's a delay so rather than the recall casting instantly and then the units being transported later independent of the arbiter, the arbiter itself charges the recall and if it dies during the charge the recall doesn't go off) It means Terran can easily defend recall with just turrets now, and it's very difficult for Protoss to pressure T late game.

Also, stasis is pretty weak right now. The casting again has a timer, and the effective range seems lower. EMP is also very accurate and cancels the stasis charge. Arbiters have a tendency to die rather than casting spells. What with EMP getting buffed from BW, I don't see the logic behind arbiter spells getting nerfed like this.


The reason Recall is weaker in Starbow is due to the addition of Warp gates. They are a big late game boost for Protoss that was not present in BW. Arbiter + Warp Prism allows P to teleport both existing units and newly created ones to a location. We did not know how much this would affect lategame PvT.

Recall currently has a 16 unit limit. In BW there was no limit. All units in a large area were teleported to the Arbiter.
In Starbow, Protoss has Rift in the early game, which allows five ground units to be teleported to the Nexus.
It seems more clean to let both teleport abilities have a unit limit. (Since Rift needs a unit limit for balance purposes.)

Stasis field and Recall both have a casting delay. A charge up animation is played, similar to a Battlecruiser who uses Yamato cannon. Half a year ago, almost all spells in Starbow were given a similar cast delay of 1-2 seconds, as a way to test how it affected spellcasting and micro. Only Stasis and Recall still have them left.

We will look into this too. Recall might be increased to 20-24 units. Maybe the delays can be removed. Perhaps Stasis field can affect more units in a larger area. We generally look at how spells worked in BW, as a guideline for our balance work, then makes adjustements where we find it necessary.
Creator of Starbow
pure.Wasted
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
Canada4701 Posts
February 12 2014 00:08 GMT
#3432
On February 11 2014 21:00 Grumbels wrote:
Banelings aren't universally hated for ZvZ in SC2. Effort vs DRG on Tal'darim was one of the best games ever. I would even be okay with Starbow outright copying early-game ZvZ, while making banelings useless in the rest of the match-ups.

Friendly fire is a good concept in general, but for units like banelings and hellions it's simply too user-unfriendly. If you have one baneling in your army and a cloaked ghost walks up and snipes the baneling, your entire army will explode.


And if someone drops a Zealot in the middle of a clump of Siege Tanks, your entire army will explode. I don't see any difference.

On February 11 2014 21:08 Ramiz1989 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 11 2014 18:34 Gnots wrote:
The problem with banelings as I understand it is not necessarily whether they are over or underpowered. We get a patch almost every week that could tweak the numbers if they were found to be one way or another. The problem is that the unit just does not fit into the brood war "style".

It overlaps with the lurker as zergs general splash damage anti-bio unit; the main difference between the two besides debatably‎ efficiency is that the lurker requires positioning, counter play, and has an overall higher skill cap to use while the baneling is for the vast majority of the time just 1a-ed into the bioball with your lings.

Starbow is aiming to remove these deathball clashes from sc2 and bring the game closer to BW with smaller skirmishes and smaller amounts of units spread across the map.Thus, they are considering just removing the unit from the game entirely along with the other deathball-inspiring units like the collosus and sentry.

However, the baneling has established itself in the hearts of many zerg players as one of the most morbidly satisfying units brought into the game by sc2, so it would be a shame to see it go. Instead, I propose a simple yet massive nerf that would remove the unit from any zerg players "standard" army and turn it into more of a niche speciality unit more inline with the brood war philosophy.

The baneling should be changed to do 100% friendly splash damage.

This would essentially remove it from the ling/bling 1a composition and turn the universally hated ZvZ matchup away from the sc2 style it still resembles, but keep the unit in the game as a burrowed land mine, overlord carpet bomb munition, or a hard to pull off but rewarding flank attacker. The unit will then be much more inline with the starbow philosophy in its new role as a niche skirmisher and will be justifiably able to stay and still be usable.

That also Means that Banelings would be pretty bad with Zerglings and Ultras, and they are made that way, they should have something to tank for them so they could suicide and not get wasted.


So this change is bad on the grounds that Banelings are intrinsically a 1A unit? Lol OK. Ignoring for the moment that you're not painting the unit in a very positive light, there is such a thing as flanking, you know.

Not to say that this suggestion is fantastic, but these are some shoddy counter-arguments you guys are dishing out. If "100% splash" is no good, though, here are some alternate suggestions in a similar vein. Give Banelings a new ability, "Combustion On/Off." Then either a Baneling with Combustion Off will deal 0 damage when it dies while Combustion On deals higher-than-current damage with FF, or a Baneling with Combustion Off will deal less-than-current damage with no FF while a Baneling with Combustion On will deal higher-than-current damage with FF. Either way, split-second micro by the Zerg is encouraged to maximize damage output/minimize casualties. Just throwing these out there.


INna Maru-da-FanTa, Bbaby, TY Dream that I'm Flashing you
Vejita00
Profile Joined February 2014
United States11 Posts
February 12 2014 00:31 GMT
#3433
What are the odds of bringing back 200/200 cost nukes that can actually kill units? Current nukes feel so weak. I know they don't get used much, but it'd be nice to at least make them worth the trouble to use.
sluggaslamoo
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
Australia4494 Posts
February 12 2014 00:48 GMT
#3434
On February 12 2014 09:08 pure.Wasted wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 11 2014 21:00 Grumbels wrote:
Banelings aren't universally hated for ZvZ in SC2. Effort vs DRG on Tal'darim was one of the best games ever. I would even be okay with Starbow outright copying early-game ZvZ, while making banelings useless in the rest of the match-ups.

Friendly fire is a good concept in general, but for units like banelings and hellions it's simply too user-unfriendly. If you have one baneling in your army and a cloaked ghost walks up and snipes the baneling, your entire army will explode.


And if someone drops a Zealot in the middle of a clump of Siege Tanks, your entire army will explode. I don't see any difference.

Show nested quote +
On February 11 2014 21:08 Ramiz1989 wrote:
On February 11 2014 18:34 Gnots wrote:
The problem with banelings as I understand it is not necessarily whether they are over or underpowered. We get a patch almost every week that could tweak the numbers if they were found to be one way or another. The problem is that the unit just does not fit into the brood war "style".

It overlaps with the lurker as zergs general splash damage anti-bio unit; the main difference between the two besides debatably‎ efficiency is that the lurker requires positioning, counter play, and has an overall higher skill cap to use while the baneling is for the vast majority of the time just 1a-ed into the bioball with your lings.

Starbow is aiming to remove these deathball clashes from sc2 and bring the game closer to BW with smaller skirmishes and smaller amounts of units spread across the map.Thus, they are considering just removing the unit from the game entirely along with the other deathball-inspiring units like the collosus and sentry.

However, the baneling has established itself in the hearts of many zerg players as one of the most morbidly satisfying units brought into the game by sc2, so it would be a shame to see it go. Instead, I propose a simple yet massive nerf that would remove the unit from any zerg players "standard" army and turn it into more of a niche speciality unit more inline with the brood war philosophy.

The baneling should be changed to do 100% friendly splash damage.

This would essentially remove it from the ling/bling 1a composition and turn the universally hated ZvZ matchup away from the sc2 style it still resembles, but keep the unit in the game as a burrowed land mine, overlord carpet bomb munition, or a hard to pull off but rewarding flank attacker. The unit will then be much more inline with the starbow philosophy in its new role as a niche skirmisher and will be justifiably able to stay and still be usable.

That also Means that Banelings would be pretty bad with Zerglings and Ultras, and they are made that way, they should have something to tank for them so they could suicide and not get wasted.


So this change is bad on the grounds that Banelings are intrinsically a 1A unit? Lol OK. Ignoring for the moment that you're not painting the unit in a very positive light, there is such a thing as flanking, you know.

Not to say that this suggestion is fantastic, but these are some shoddy counter-arguments you guys are dishing out. If "100% splash" is no good, though, here are some alternate suggestions in a similar vein. Give Banelings a new ability, "Combustion On/Off." Then either a Baneling with Combustion Off will deal 0 damage when it dies while Combustion On deals higher-than-current damage with FF, or a Baneling with Combustion Off will deal less-than-current damage with no FF while a Baneling with Combustion On will deal higher-than-current damage with FF. Either way, split-second micro by the Zerg is encouraged to maximize damage output/minimize casualties. Just throwing these out there.




I think the biggest mistake that many game designers make is not thinking about "problem domains".

This mentality is completely evident in the current designers of SC2 and most if not all RTS games. Most units are designed from a bottom-up approach, come up with a cool design, and then see where it fits in. This is great for marketing, but its terrible for gameplay.

BW used a top-down approach for a lot of their units (maybe not all). This is obvious from the fact that each race has a unit for every role, unlike SC2. Within each units design you could see that there was a specific role-oriented design process. Each race is not so different that there isn't a unit that can fill a role, they just have their own unique flavour.

In SC2 there are clear gaps where there are no units that can fill a particular role, and instead uses racial traits such as Zerg attrition to make up for it instead, unfortunately this makes the game flow very haphazard, and very difficult if not impossible to balance.

Obviously they were going for something but weren't able to achieve it, its like a GO game where every 30 seconds you can put down an extra white piece, but black can kill two pieces at once, looks cool, impossible to balance and doesn't actually improve the game.

The biggest fear for the designers of using a top-down approach, is that the baneling may actually be completely worthless from this perspective. This issue would harp all the way back from the initial design process of WoL and we would have to start from back there.

Maybe people should have a think about whether the baneling should actually be a unit that should actually be in the game, rather than trying to fix something that may be completely broke no matter what. Sure we may find something for the baneling model, but if anything I think we should consider completely remaking it and fulfilling a problem domain that actually exists for the zerg.
Come play Android Netrunner - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=409008
Jermman
Profile Joined November 2011
Canada174 Posts
February 12 2014 01:04 GMT
#3435
After playing like 15 matches of sb, I really want the sb ladder to be out. I dont really want to play sc2 anymore.
Terran/Random Player
SCST
Profile Joined November 2011
Mexico1609 Posts
February 12 2014 01:06 GMT
#3436
On February 12 2014 09:48 sluggaslamoo wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 12 2014 09:08 pure.Wasted wrote:
On February 11 2014 21:00 Grumbels wrote:
Banelings aren't universally hated for ZvZ in SC2. Effort vs DRG on Tal'darim was one of the best games ever. I would even be okay with Starbow outright copying early-game ZvZ, while making banelings useless in the rest of the match-ups.

Friendly fire is a good concept in general, but for units like banelings and hellions it's simply too user-unfriendly. If you have one baneling in your army and a cloaked ghost walks up and snipes the baneling, your entire army will explode.


And if someone drops a Zealot in the middle of a clump of Siege Tanks, your entire army will explode. I don't see any difference.

On February 11 2014 21:08 Ramiz1989 wrote:
On February 11 2014 18:34 Gnots wrote:
The problem with banelings as I understand it is not necessarily whether they are over or underpowered. We get a patch almost every week that could tweak the numbers if they were found to be one way or another. The problem is that the unit just does not fit into the brood war "style".

It overlaps with the lurker as zergs general splash damage anti-bio unit; the main difference between the two besides debatably‎ efficiency is that the lurker requires positioning, counter play, and has an overall higher skill cap to use while the baneling is for the vast majority of the time just 1a-ed into the bioball with your lings.

Starbow is aiming to remove these deathball clashes from sc2 and bring the game closer to BW with smaller skirmishes and smaller amounts of units spread across the map.Thus, they are considering just removing the unit from the game entirely along with the other deathball-inspiring units like the collosus and sentry.

However, the baneling has established itself in the hearts of many zerg players as one of the most morbidly satisfying units brought into the game by sc2, so it would be a shame to see it go. Instead, I propose a simple yet massive nerf that would remove the unit from any zerg players "standard" army and turn it into more of a niche speciality unit more inline with the brood war philosophy.

The baneling should be changed to do 100% friendly splash damage.

This would essentially remove it from the ling/bling 1a composition and turn the universally hated ZvZ matchup away from the sc2 style it still resembles, but keep the unit in the game as a burrowed land mine, overlord carpet bomb munition, or a hard to pull off but rewarding flank attacker. The unit will then be much more inline with the starbow philosophy in its new role as a niche skirmisher and will be justifiably able to stay and still be usable.

That also Means that Banelings would be pretty bad with Zerglings and Ultras, and they are made that way, they should have something to tank for them so they could suicide and not get wasted.


So this change is bad on the grounds that Banelings are intrinsically a 1A unit? Lol OK. Ignoring for the moment that you're not painting the unit in a very positive light, there is such a thing as flanking, you know.

Not to say that this suggestion is fantastic, but these are some shoddy counter-arguments you guys are dishing out. If "100% splash" is no good, though, here are some alternate suggestions in a similar vein. Give Banelings a new ability, "Combustion On/Off." Then either a Baneling with Combustion Off will deal 0 damage when it dies while Combustion On deals higher-than-current damage with FF, or a Baneling with Combustion Off will deal less-than-current damage with no FF while a Baneling with Combustion On will deal higher-than-current damage with FF. Either way, split-second micro by the Zerg is encouraged to maximize damage output/minimize casualties. Just throwing these out there.




I think the biggest mistake that many game designers make is not thinking about "problem domains".

This mentality is completely evident in the current designers of SC2 and most if not all RTS games. Most units are designed from a bottom-up approach, come up with a cool design, and then see where it fits in. This is great for marketing, but its terrible for gameplay.

BW used a top-down approach for a lot of their units (maybe not all). This is obvious from the fact that each race has a unit for every role, unlike SC2. Within each units design you could see that there was a specific role-oriented design process. Each race is not so different that there isn't a unit that can fill a role, they just have their own unique flavour.

In SC2 there are clear gaps where there are no units that can fill a particular role, and instead uses racial traits such as Zerg attrition to make up for it instead, unfortunately this makes the game flow very haphazard, and very difficult if not impossible to balance.

Obviously they were going for something but weren't able to achieve it, its like a GO game where every 30 seconds you can put down an extra white piece, but black can kill two pieces at once, looks cool, impossible to balance and doesn't actually improve the game.

The biggest fear for the designers of using a top-down approach, is that the baneling may actually be completely worthless from this perspective. This issue would harp all the way back from the initial design process of WoL and we would have to start from back there.

Maybe people should have a think about whether the baneling should actually be a unit that should actually be in the game, rather than trying to fix something that may be completely broke no matter what. Sure we may find something for the baneling model, but if anything I think we should consider completely remaking it and fulfilling a problem domain that actually exists for the zerg.


Very in-depth and intelligent thoughts. However . . .

There is another aspect of this situation that the developers must consider. Simply put: accessibility of this game to Starcraft 2 fans. A decent number of Starcraft 2 units must be in this game, somehow. Even if they are redesigned to an extent.

That being said - I have no problem with these units being quite specialized or unique in their function (to avoid balance issues as you mentioned). Special builds with these units incorporated would do much to spice things up and create enjoyment for people who are wanting to see something different. The untis don't have to be behave the exact same as SC2. They can be adapted. Look at the Viking for example. The developers did an amazing job altering the unit. It's used in every matchup, keeps most of it's SC2 characteristics, but is slightly different so as to offer depth and exploration of new strategies.

In the end, I am certain that Starbow's success is overwhelming due to the game being a healthy mix of Broodwar and SC2, rather than being a Brood War clone. If almost all the SC2 units are taken out, then this simply takes us back in time. That's all well and good for those who want it, but we've already had Brood War 2.0 in the SC2 engine. And it didn't catch on with the community. People don't want to play the exact same strategies from 10 years ago with the exact same units. They want something new to explore. If keeping these units in the game means working through some potential balance issues, the developers ought to do it. It's worth it in the long run.
"The weak cannot forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong." - Gandhi
pure.Wasted
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
Canada4701 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-02-12 01:18:09
February 12 2014 01:12 GMT
#3437
On February 12 2014 09:48 sluggaslamoo wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 12 2014 09:08 pure.Wasted wrote:
On February 11 2014 21:00 Grumbels wrote:
Banelings aren't universally hated for ZvZ in SC2. Effort vs DRG on Tal'darim was one of the best games ever. I would even be okay with Starbow outright copying early-game ZvZ, while making banelings useless in the rest of the match-ups.

Friendly fire is a good concept in general, but for units like banelings and hellions it's simply too user-unfriendly. If you have one baneling in your army and a cloaked ghost walks up and snipes the baneling, your entire army will explode.


And if someone drops a Zealot in the middle of a clump of Siege Tanks, your entire army will explode. I don't see any difference.

On February 11 2014 21:08 Ramiz1989 wrote:
On February 11 2014 18:34 Gnots wrote:
The problem with banelings as I understand it is not necessarily whether they are over or underpowered. We get a patch almost every week that could tweak the numbers if they were found to be one way or another. The problem is that the unit just does not fit into the brood war "style".

It overlaps with the lurker as zergs general splash damage anti-bio unit; the main difference between the two besides debatably‎ efficiency is that the lurker requires positioning, counter play, and has an overall higher skill cap to use while the baneling is for the vast majority of the time just 1a-ed into the bioball with your lings.

Starbow is aiming to remove these deathball clashes from sc2 and bring the game closer to BW with smaller skirmishes and smaller amounts of units spread across the map.Thus, they are considering just removing the unit from the game entirely along with the other deathball-inspiring units like the collosus and sentry.

However, the baneling has established itself in the hearts of many zerg players as one of the most morbidly satisfying units brought into the game by sc2, so it would be a shame to see it go. Instead, I propose a simple yet massive nerf that would remove the unit from any zerg players "standard" army and turn it into more of a niche speciality unit more inline with the brood war philosophy.

The baneling should be changed to do 100% friendly splash damage.

This would essentially remove it from the ling/bling 1a composition and turn the universally hated ZvZ matchup away from the sc2 style it still resembles, but keep the unit in the game as a burrowed land mine, overlord carpet bomb munition, or a hard to pull off but rewarding flank attacker. The unit will then be much more inline with the starbow philosophy in its new role as a niche skirmisher and will be justifiably able to stay and still be usable.

That also Means that Banelings would be pretty bad with Zerglings and Ultras, and they are made that way, they should have something to tank for them so they could suicide and not get wasted.


So this change is bad on the grounds that Banelings are intrinsically a 1A unit? Lol OK. Ignoring for the moment that you're not painting the unit in a very positive light, there is such a thing as flanking, you know.

Not to say that this suggestion is fantastic, but these are some shoddy counter-arguments you guys are dishing out. If "100% splash" is no good, though, here are some alternate suggestions in a similar vein. Give Banelings a new ability, "Combustion On/Off." Then either a Baneling with Combustion Off will deal 0 damage when it dies while Combustion On deals higher-than-current damage with FF, or a Baneling with Combustion Off will deal less-than-current damage with no FF while a Baneling with Combustion On will deal higher-than-current damage with FF. Either way, split-second micro by the Zerg is encouraged to maximize damage output/minimize casualties. Just throwing these out there.




I think the biggest mistake that many game designers make is not thinking about "problem domains".

This mentality is completely evident in the current designers of SC2 and most if not all RTS games. Most units are designed from a bottom-up approach, come up with a cool design, and then see where it fits in. This is great for marketing, but its terrible for gameplay.

BW used a top-down approach for a lot of their units (maybe not all). This is obvious from the fact that each race has a unit for every role, unlike SC2. Within each units design you could see that there was a specific role-oriented design process. Each race is not so different that there isn't a unit that can fill a role, they just have their own unique flavour.

In SC2 there are clear gaps where there are no units that can fill a particular role, and instead uses racial traits such as Zerg attrition to make up for it instead, unfortunately this makes the game flow very haphazard, and very difficult if not impossible to balance.

Obviously they were going for something but weren't able to achieve it, its like a GO game where every 30 seconds you can put down an extra white piece, but black can kill two pieces at once, looks cool, impossible to balance and doesn't actually improve the game.

The biggest fear for the designers of using a top-down approach, is that the baneling may actually be completely worthless from this perspective. This issue would harp all the way back from the initial design process of WoL and we would have to start from back there.

Maybe people should have a think about whether the baneling should actually be a unit that should actually be in the game, rather than trying to fix something that may be completely broke no matter what. Sure we may find something for the baneling model, but if anything I think we should consider completely remaking it and fulfilling a problem domain that actually exists for the zerg.


I respect your non-partisan attitude and frank approach to the Baneling (and presumably other units), but you give the SC1 designers way too much credit. Each race absolutely did not have a unit for every role even in BW, let alone SC1 vanilla which was seriously broken. Zerg had no effective way to deal with Bio (which was fine because Bio was unusable without Medics!), Terran had no way of dealing with Carriers, Terran and Protoss had no good AtG harass/pressure unit, Protoss and Zerg had very rudimentary area control tools compared to Terran (Protoss never did get one), Protoss early game aggression was very limited, Zerg/Protoss ability to break Terran contains was always pretty limited.

So I think it's wrong to raise SC1's unit design onto a pedestal, because a lot of the result was accidental or incidental.

This doesn't tell us that it's right to keep the Baneling, but it doesn't tell us that it's wrong to, either. Surely more tinkering with a unit is called for to see if it's capable of finding a home in the roster, especially given that this is a SC2 unit and there are so few of those in SB already.
INna Maru-da-FanTa, Bbaby, TY Dream that I'm Flashing you
Ramiz1989
Profile Joined July 2012
12124 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-02-12 01:29:45
February 12 2014 01:26 GMT
#3438
On February 12 2014 09:08 pure.Wasted wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 11 2014 21:00 Grumbels wrote:
Banelings aren't universally hated for ZvZ in SC2. Effort vs DRG on Tal'darim was one of the best games ever. I would even be okay with Starbow outright copying early-game ZvZ, while making banelings useless in the rest of the match-ups.

Friendly fire is a good concept in general, but for units like banelings and hellions it's simply too user-unfriendly. If you have one baneling in your army and a cloaked ghost walks up and snipes the baneling, your entire army will explode.


And if someone drops a Zealot in the middle of a clump of Siege Tanks, your entire army will explode. I don't see any difference.

Show nested quote +
On February 11 2014 21:08 Ramiz1989 wrote:
On February 11 2014 18:34 Gnots wrote:
The problem with banelings as I understand it is not necessarily whether they are over or underpowered. We get a patch almost every week that could tweak the numbers if they were found to be one way or another. The problem is that the unit just does not fit into the brood war "style".

It overlaps with the lurker as zergs general splash damage anti-bio unit; the main difference between the two besides debatably‎ efficiency is that the lurker requires positioning, counter play, and has an overall higher skill cap to use while the baneling is for the vast majority of the time just 1a-ed into the bioball with your lings.

Starbow is aiming to remove these deathball clashes from sc2 and bring the game closer to BW with smaller skirmishes and smaller amounts of units spread across the map.Thus, they are considering just removing the unit from the game entirely along with the other deathball-inspiring units like the collosus and sentry.

However, the baneling has established itself in the hearts of many zerg players as one of the most morbidly satisfying units brought into the game by sc2, so it would be a shame to see it go. Instead, I propose a simple yet massive nerf that would remove the unit from any zerg players "standard" army and turn it into more of a niche speciality unit more inline with the brood war philosophy.

The baneling should be changed to do 100% friendly splash damage.

This would essentially remove it from the ling/bling 1a composition and turn the universally hated ZvZ matchup away from the sc2 style it still resembles, but keep the unit in the game as a burrowed land mine, overlord carpet bomb munition, or a hard to pull off but rewarding flank attacker. The unit will then be much more inline with the starbow philosophy in its new role as a niche skirmisher and will be justifiably able to stay and still be usable.

That also Means that Banelings would be pretty bad with Zerglings and Ultras, and they are made that way, they should have something to tank for them so they could suicide and not get wasted.


So this change is bad on the grounds that Banelings are intrinsically a 1A unit? Lol OK. Ignoring for the moment that you're not painting the unit in a very positive light, there is such a thing as flanking, you know.

Not to say that this suggestion is fantastic, but these are some shoddy counter-arguments you guys are dishing out. If "100% splash" is no good, though, here are some alternate suggestions in a similar vein. Give Banelings a new ability, "Combustion On/Off." Then either a Baneling with Combustion Off will deal 0 damage when it dies while Combustion On deals higher-than-current damage with FF, or a Baneling with Combustion Off will deal less-than-current damage with no FF while a Baneling with Combustion On will deal higher-than-current damage with FF. Either way, split-second micro by the Zerg is encouraged to maximize damage output/minimize casualties. Just throwing these out there.



Banelings aren't 1a units, they never were. The only people who say that are those that:
1) Hate Zerg.
2) Never played with Zerg and Banelings in their life.

Banelings force opponent to spread his army and micro against them, but if your opponent is microing well, you won't do well with unmicroed Banelings. They will just suicide into first enemy unit that they come close to, and I don't think that suiciding 10 Banelings into 1 Siege Tank is worth it.
And how about instead of over-complicating things we leave them as they currently are since I don't see them as being a problem.

To be honest I think that Lurkers are too strong right now, from the games I've seen but that just might be my experience.
They start with 3 more damage than in BW, and with 15 more HP than in BW. I understand that they are stronger because of Stronger Marines, Firebats and addition of the Marauders, but Protoss early game units are the same as in BW.
"I've been to hell and back, and back to hell…and back. This time, I've brought Hell back with me."
CannonsNCarriers
Profile Joined April 2010
United States638 Posts
February 12 2014 01:34 GMT
#3439
On February 12 2014 10:26 Ramiz1989 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 12 2014 09:08 pure.Wasted wrote:
On February 11 2014 21:00 Grumbels wrote:
Banelings aren't universally hated for ZvZ in SC2. Effort vs DRG on Tal'darim was one of the best games ever. I would even be okay with Starbow outright copying early-game ZvZ, while making banelings useless in the rest of the match-ups.

Friendly fire is a good concept in general, but for units like banelings and hellions it's simply too user-unfriendly. If you have one baneling in your army and a cloaked ghost walks up and snipes the baneling, your entire army will explode.


And if someone drops a Zealot in the middle of a clump of Siege Tanks, your entire army will explode. I don't see any difference.

On February 11 2014 21:08 Ramiz1989 wrote:
On February 11 2014 18:34 Gnots wrote:
The problem with banelings as I understand it is not necessarily whether they are over or underpowered. We get a patch almost every week that could tweak the numbers if they were found to be one way or another. The problem is that the unit just does not fit into the brood war "style".

It overlaps with the lurker as zergs general splash damage anti-bio unit; the main difference between the two besides debatably‎ efficiency is that the lurker requires positioning, counter play, and has an overall higher skill cap to use while the baneling is for the vast majority of the time just 1a-ed into the bioball with your lings.

Starbow is aiming to remove these deathball clashes from sc2 and bring the game closer to BW with smaller skirmishes and smaller amounts of units spread across the map.Thus, they are considering just removing the unit from the game entirely along with the other deathball-inspiring units like the collosus and sentry.

However, the baneling has established itself in the hearts of many zerg players as one of the most morbidly satisfying units brought into the game by sc2, so it would be a shame to see it go. Instead, I propose a simple yet massive nerf that would remove the unit from any zerg players "standard" army and turn it into more of a niche speciality unit more inline with the brood war philosophy.

The baneling should be changed to do 100% friendly splash damage.

This would essentially remove it from the ling/bling 1a composition and turn the universally hated ZvZ matchup away from the sc2 style it still resembles, but keep the unit in the game as a burrowed land mine, overlord carpet bomb munition, or a hard to pull off but rewarding flank attacker. The unit will then be much more inline with the starbow philosophy in its new role as a niche skirmisher and will be justifiably able to stay and still be usable.

That also Means that Banelings would be pretty bad with Zerglings and Ultras, and they are made that way, they should have something to tank for them so they could suicide and not get wasted.


So this change is bad on the grounds that Banelings are intrinsically a 1A unit? Lol OK. Ignoring for the moment that you're not painting the unit in a very positive light, there is such a thing as flanking, you know.

Not to say that this suggestion is fantastic, but these are some shoddy counter-arguments you guys are dishing out. If "100% splash" is no good, though, here are some alternate suggestions in a similar vein. Give Banelings a new ability, "Combustion On/Off." Then either a Baneling with Combustion Off will deal 0 damage when it dies while Combustion On deals higher-than-current damage with FF, or a Baneling with Combustion Off will deal less-than-current damage with no FF while a Baneling with Combustion On will deal higher-than-current damage with FF. Either way, split-second micro by the Zerg is encouraged to maximize damage output/minimize casualties. Just throwing these out there.



Banelings aren't 1a units, they never were. The only people who say that are those that:
1) Hate Zerg.
2) Never played with Zerg and Banelings in their life.

Banelings force opponent to spread his army and micro against them, but if your opponent is microing well, you won't do well with unmicroed Banelings. They will just suicide into first enemy unit that they come close to, and I don't think that suiciding 10 Banelings into 1 Siege Tank is worth it.
And how about instead of over-complicating things we leave them as they currently are since I don't see them as being a problem.

To be honest I think that Lurkers are too strong right now, from the games I've seen but that just might be my experience.
They start with 3 more damage than in BW, and with 15 more HP than in BW. I understand that they are stronger because of Stronger Marines, Firebats and addition of the Marauders, but Protoss early game units are the same as in BW.


Mauraders just don't come into play in TvZ in starbow. They would help counter lurkers ... but I never see them made because of the threat of mutas. If you are going bio, you can't spare supply/cycles/resources on something that doesn't help address the muta threat.
Dun tuch my cheezbrgr
WarpTV
Profile Joined August 2011
205 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-02-12 02:39:02
February 12 2014 01:50 GMT
#3440
On February 12 2014 04:24 Pursuit_ wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 12 2014 03:54 Whanhee wrote:
I think that one of the problems with banelings, as Gnots says, is that they don't really fit into the BW style and they're just simple attack move units that are just included into your zergling mass.

A change that would make them more microable and interesting is to make their detonation an activated ability with a cast time. A zerg player would have to tell the baneling to detonate and after a second(?) of charging up, then it explodes.

This adds more micro and dynamics to both the zerg player and their opponent. Instead of attack moving, zerg would have to intelligently position them to deny space. The opponent needs to then be careful about movement and needs to focus banelings that can cause significant damage.

This change should make banelings much more interesting to play with while still keeping their ability to bust down fortifications.


I feel like Banelings have a ton of versatility beyond just an a-move unit, they can be dropped into mineral lines / onto armies and burrowed to be used as land mines, and they force really interesting / unique counter micro out of their opponent (splitting zerglings / marine / zealots ect vs banelings is very different from how you split vs other forms of AoE). Not to mention they are extremely vulnerable to AoE (tanks / vulture mines / storms / reavers / lurkers / other banelings ect), so you want to keep them well spread in most situations, not a-move them.

I feel like the Baneling is one of if not the best designed unit unique to SC2, and that the design has a lot to add to Starbow / RTS games in general.


I have to agree,
Just to clam they should be remove because they are "just an attack move unit that overlaps," We can say that about Fierbats. You just add them to your Marines and A-move them, Also they have a similar role with vultures that overlaps as anti light. So should we just remove them as well?

No, no we should not as Fierbats and vultures have different compositions, nor should we remove banelings as it adds a different composition and more varied game play. The logic is bogus and you just don't want to micro against them.


Lurkers even work well with banelings. Ling bane can force a terrain to back up when they try a snipe off lurkers. Lurker, ling, bane, scourge mid games, have a ton more micro out of both players than just Luker/ling or ling/bane with scourge.

And about this ideal that banelings are not microed is just crazy, 1-A banes do nothing vs split marines. Zerg must quicly and skillfully counter split banelings or 8 banelings will suicide on 1 firebat. Banelings don't split them selfs, lol



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