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Constructive criticism is welcome, but no mindless SC2/Developer bashing in this thread. |
Russian Federation4295 Posts
Some solutions regarding Swarm Host:
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and double the Locust speed on creep (old speed off-creep)
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and decrease Swarm Host supply cost from 3 to 2
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and decrease Swarm Host cost from 200/100 to 150/75 (keep 3 supply requirement)
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and increase number of spawned Locusts from 2 to 3
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and add upgrade, that decreases burrow/unburrow time of Swarm Host and Locust spawn process (Jumping Eggs from SH). Similar to Widow Mine burrow upgrade.
Enduring Locusts allows to Swarm Host fight at giant distance, like old Tempests, which had 22 weapon range.
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On January 28 2014 23:23 Existor wrote:
Some solutions regarding Swarm Host:
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and double the Locust speed on creep (old speed off-creep)
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and decrease Swarm Host supply cost from 3 to 2
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and decrease Swarm Host cost from 200/100 to 150/75 (keep 3 supply requirement)
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and increase number of spawned Locusts from 2 to 3
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and add upgrade, that decreases burrow/unburrow time of Swarm Host
Enduring Locusts allows to Swarm Host fight at giant distance, like old Tempests, which had 22 weapon range.
That would be interesting, that way we would see some host micro.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
On January 28 2014 23:34 drkcid wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2014 23:23 Existor wrote:
Some solutions regarding Swarm Host:
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and double the Locust speed on creep (old speed off-creep)
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and decrease Swarm Host supply cost from 3 to 2
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and decrease Swarm Host cost from 200/100 to 150/75 (keep 3 supply requirement)
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and increase number of spawned Locusts from 2 to 3
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and add upgrade, that decreases burrow/unburrow time of Swarm Host
Enduring Locusts allows to Swarm Host fight at giant distance, like old Tempests, which had 22 weapon range. That would be interesting, that way we would see some host micro.
Slighty updated post with what I meant under Swarm Host "acceleration" - faster burrow/unburrow and faster locust animation spawn (i.e. jumping eggs)
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On January 28 2014 23:50 Existor wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2014 23:34 drkcid wrote:On January 28 2014 23:23 Existor wrote:
Some solutions regarding Swarm Host:
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and double the Locust speed on creep (old speed off-creep)
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and decrease Swarm Host supply cost from 3 to 2
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and decrease Swarm Host cost from 200/100 to 150/75 (keep 3 supply requirement)
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and increase number of spawned Locusts from 2 to 3
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and add upgrade, that decreases burrow/unburrow time of Swarm Host
Enduring Locusts allows to Swarm Host fight at giant distance, like old Tempests, which had 22 weapon range. That would be interesting, that way we would see some host micro. Slighty updated post with what I meant under Swarm Host "acceleration" - faster burrow/unburrow and faster locust animation spawn (i.e. jumping eggs)
Just make it so locusts don't auto rally. Then they will require a slither of APM to use...
Or make it so they go somewhere but make it move command so they wont attack until they get to the rally.
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I really liked snutes guide to beating swarm hosts. Have to be a rocket scientist with a stomach for hour + games to beat someone making 1-2 units. Amazing. So tired of this. I can't believe anyone can create this unit, watch these games, see this balance, yet retain their job. And, I'm tired of seeing random allowed. Obviously imbalanced. If you can't make simple solutions to obvious imbalances, what can you do?
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
Just make it so locusts don't auto rally. Then they will require a slither of APM to use...
If you want more APM then add more reward for it
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My opinions:
Swarmhost:
- make locusts a slow melee meat shield
- maybe change something that Swarmhosts won't get swept along with the locusts
Raven:
- change ravens so that they cannot cast two of either pdd and hsm
(increase energy or make them have to channel for a short period of time)
- maybe make auto turrets push away non-massive units like force fields
And don't get me started on the Tempest, I find that a mobile siege unit for both air and ground an incredibly poor design choice. The only reason why it isn't that imbalanced is because it only has a sight range of 12 and because protoss have no scans, limiting their effective range to 12.
What also should be addressed: lack of Nydus usage, Ghost snipe being useless, lack of Carrier usage.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
maybe make auto turrets push away non-massive units like force fields
Lol they already can do that
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On January 28 2014 23:00 Squat wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2014 22:34 FeyFey wrote:
But Swarmhosts and Broodlords might never really work well for Zerg, because of the way their static defense works. It can move and costs no supply and can be healed by really cheap spell casters. It is a pretty well fitting combination, but probably the most frustrating to play against one and most boring to watch. Atleast as long as it works with one base eco once you got there. That's the thing, since no real trades are taking place, the game becomes about total available bank, not income. The rate of mining becomes almost immaterial once you are maxed with the tech and upgrades and the static(or mobile in case of zerg) defense. Send 45 locusts to kill 2 zealots? Great, do that 30+ times and it will start to have an effect. Having more than 30 or so harvesters under those conditions is pointless. The problem goes deeper than the SH though, the SH turtle is a symptom, not the disease itself. The fundamental issue is the complete lack of incentive for zerg to be aggressive and trade in the super late game. Honestly I have no idea how to address this now, we can't remove or heavily nerf SH because zerg rely on them so much, and we can't change mech and protoss deathballs to allow zerg to actually attack them without effectively committing sudoku. If someone has any realistic suggestions I'm all ears.
Someone else already made the proposition to add an cost to locusts. I think with this idea and a good cost structure it should be possible to create an incentive to make something happen.
What if Swarmhosts just cost 150/100, but spawning locusts costs 5? The numbers can be adjusted obviously (175/100/2; 175/100/1; 200/100/1; 200/100/2...).
That way there would also be a timer on the zerg to make something happen or at least think a little bit about cost efficiency. If the cost for the host was reduced the transition into them would be easier and timing using them would be stronger. On the other hand just sitting there and choking out your opponent would only work if you use the locusts with a little bit of effort and if you make sure that the trades are actually in your favor.
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Ghost snipe is the dumbest nerf ever, the problem was that mass snipe was erasing zerg T3 in seconds. Zerg T3 are all massive. Obvious solution? Lower damage vs massive targets. Blizzards solution? Nerf damage against everything except casters. Derp.
Mass raven is just stupid, their spells scale so well with higher numbers of ravens, it's always better to get more. Swarm hosts and Ravens are the biggest part of the equation here, and will both need to be changed, together they create almost infinite stalemate situations.
As for costs for locusts, it would just make swarm hosts shit. They are not reavers, and it would mean you had to buff locusts in some way. The sheer number of locusts expended to kill a single unit in the late game would mean that the unit would almost never pay for itself. Wanna fix swarm hosts? Attack the root of the problem, then either remove or redesign them. In their current form they can't altered much without becoming terrible or overpowered.
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On January 28 2014 23:34 drkcid wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2014 23:23 Existor wrote:
Some solutions regarding Swarm Host:
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and double the Locust speed on creep (old speed off-creep)
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and decrease Swarm Host supply cost from 3 to 2
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and decrease Swarm Host cost from 200/100 to 150/75 (keep 3 supply requirement)
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and increase number of spawned Locusts from 2 to 3
• Remove Enduring Locust upgrade and add upgrade, that decreases burrow/unburrow time of Swarm Host
Enduring Locusts allows to Swarm Host fight at giant distance, like old Tempests, which had 22 weapon range. That would be interesting, that way we would see some host micro.
Just some nonbalancerelated concerns with that:
• Waddling swarm host issue would increase, since you would (have to) set your rally points faster after pressing burrow, which would mean even more swarm hosts that are still "looking for a location to burrow" will be waddling forward.
• Additionally, it does not target the other factor that leads to sluggish swarm host play, which is the spawn time of the locusts. Which when adressed raises the issue that you can only set rally points after burrowing, but then the locusts are already spawning, leading to them often not being rallied which in return makes them sluggish again.
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Does dk have odd or something what's wrong with 40 gas or 37 gas hydras
Edit OCD
also what's time warp energy going to do wrt blink allin, you can just decrease msc vision please
Not sure I like decrease in photon overcharge time, what does this accomplish
Pretty much echoing what people have said already
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You can see how blizzard wanted swarmhost to be and it sort of work-ish: (like Flash vsDRG for example)
Z uses SH to contain the T.
T uses hellbat drops, hellion runbys or whatever to buy time for more tanks.
Z on the other hand, tech up to vipers for abduct and binding cloud
T once reaches critical number of tanks, leap frog out and slowly push and gain grounds. The micro here would be viper corruptor vs vikings etc
Z then get broodlords to push back the tanks while T transition out into a SkyTerran.
Z with the vast economy hammer against T defense and extreme power in SkyTerran
I think Blizzard can sort out TvZ in some timing, maybe make it harder to get vipers out for abduct tanks and weaken the skyterran etc.
PvZ is similar:
Mid game with roach hydra or ling hydra or muta against Toss (whatever he opened up)
Then Z uses SH to overpower Toss's ground while Toss build up Sky transition
Due to the raw power output and mobility of Toss sky deathball (in different forms), Zerg needs to add stats D everywhere to support SH.
Here comes the problem of detection where Toss needs obs/oracle to deal with SH style.
Mass corruptor and vipers and overseer make it easy to snipe the detection and sniping key units in general.
This is why toss is getting mothership, so that Zerg can't snipe key units as easily.
Maybe this is also why Void ray got buffed during the beta? I am not sure on this one but it maybe too strong since Z doesn't have any answer to skytoss except swarmhosts
The main problem is that there is just no interesting interaction between the two style unlike TvZ.
SH just doesn't really lead to any interesting micro battle or positional battle between the two race.
(maybe just feedback vs viper abduct)
I think for PvZ, it would be much better if blizzard buff the hell out of mid game, make roach hydra viper become a thing again, then make skytoss a bit weaker (maybe nerfing void is a great way to start instead of buffing hydra which they seems to want it to go, this also opens up muta nerf possiblity) and nerf swarmhost accordingly (or maybe viper adbuct)
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The main problem with swarmhosts is just that it is really really boring to watch or play against. There's no fun in seeing locusts get killed, because they basically aren't worth anything anyways. If you see a bunch of mutas get killed, it's amusing to see because you know that they were worth a lot. Besides that, the only thing you do with swarm hosts is amove in the locust and wait to see if that'll deliver you the win.
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On January 29 2014 00:32 Existor wrote:Lol they already can do that
Lol no they don't
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On January 29 2014 00:05 Existor wrote:Show nested quote +
Just make it so locusts don't auto rally. Then they will require a slither of APM to use...
If you want more APM then add more reward for it
I'm just trying to nerf them here, nobody said anything about reward lol.
To make them require more skill? I'd say get rid of enduring locust upgrade, increase the rate at which they spawn slightly, and make it so they don't auto rally. So you get a slight boost in locusts/damage but you have to work for it. You can't just sit them under mass static D half the map away and win a Zero econ game anymore.
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On January 29 2014 00:58 Jerom wrote:
The main problem with swarmhosts is just that it is really really boring to watch or play against. There's no fun in seeing locusts get killed, because they basically aren't worth anything anyways. If you see a bunch of mutas get killed, it's amusing to see because you know that they were worth a lot. Besides that, the only thing you do with swarm hosts is amove in the locust and wait to see if that'll deliver you the win.
Killing the actual Swarm Hosts, as a player, is the most satisfying thing in the world. Of course, dying to the locusts is the most frustrating lol.
Watching pros play I find it interestig to see how a good Protoss maneuvers around the locusts and harasses etc. But unless the Protoss is really good then it's just downright boring to watch.
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On January 29 2014 01:10 DinoMight wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2014 00:05 Existor wrote:
Just make it so locusts don't auto rally. Then they will require a slither of APM to use...
If you want more APM then add more reward for it I'm just trying to nerf them here, nobody said anything about reward lol. To make them require more skill? I'd say get rid of enduring locust upgrade, increase the rate at which they spawn slightly, and make it so they don't auto rally. So you get a slight boost in locusts/damage but you have to work for it. You can't just sit them under mass static D half the map away and win a Zero econ game anymore.
If you nerf SH a lot then i think you have to either nerf T air or buff Z anti air or air to help fight against skyterran in the late game.
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I just dont understand blizzards logic with buffs and nerfs sometimes. 25 gas hydras cant possibly be balanced, in ANY matchup. Thats basically halving their cost. for zerg.
Tempest
The broodlord was a poorly designed unit to begin with. While im sure some people enjoy watching it - a unit that creates units and therefore messes up pathing is just stupid anyway. The only matchup it *kinda* works in is ZvT - even there i doubt its a good solution.
Instead of just removing the broodlord they implement the hardest possible counter to the broodlord - the tempest. The tempest is even worse designed than the broodlord. Its an uninteresting flying unit that outranges everything (whats up with the stupid attack animation anyway. For a unit that shoots huge balls of energy it deals almost no damage)
before HOTS blizzard stated they wanted units that dont add to the protoss deathball (lol mothership core, tempest)
The tempest now more or less hardcounters all ground based mech and takes the battlecruiser out of the equasion completely. In PVP its also one of the strongest units in the lategame.
I dont see how they didnt see this coming. Why not just redesign the broodlord, and give protoss something more interesting.
Raven
The HSM is just as poorly designed. Its an AOE with no damage cap. Think of a blanket storm on your army. Nothing dies instantly because the damage is capped at 20/s per unit. Now imagine storm stacking - that just cant be balanced.
15 storms dont kill your army quicker than 3. While 15 HSMs will kill anything in the game.
Maybe thats sorta interesting, but not really. Now HSM needs to be dodgeable, making it super - hit and miss.
stupid swarmhost
Free units suck - it doesnt feel swarmy, a swarm doesnt summon- A warlock summons. Anyway. I guess this unit works, even if it usually creates frustrating games. And their range is too long.
MSC
Now we have the MSC. a flying unit with a 1x restriction after the cyber core that provides highground vision. Nexus cannon is needed, but a stupid solution. I guess the biggest upside is protoss doesnt need to make sentries as much anymore - people have been complaining about sentries beeing boring since release anyway.
Cant they just listen to the yearlong complaints from the community and remove the WOL broodlord, sentry, colossus and replace them with something that doesnt require implementing hardcounters to certain strategies to counter them
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On January 29 2014 01:12 RaFox17 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2014 01:10 DinoMight wrote:On January 29 2014 00:05 Existor wrote:
Just make it so locusts don't auto rally. Then they will require a slither of APM to use...
If you want more APM then add more reward for it I'm just trying to nerf them here, nobody said anything about reward lol. To make them require more skill? I'd say get rid of enduring locust upgrade, increase the rate at which they spawn slightly, and make it so they don't auto rally. So you get a slight boost in locusts/damage but you have to work for it. You can't just sit them under mass static D half the map away and win a Zero econ game anymore. If you nerf SH a lot then i think you have to either nerf T air or buff Z anti air or air to help fight against skyterran in the late game.
And I'm really wondering, why Blizzard still doesn't adress this issue. Zerg Anti Air just sucks really badly, it has always been bad and HotS didn't help at all. Of course Zerg now has the chance to turtle thanks to Swarmhosts and Spore Crawler, but... a decent mobile Anti Air thingy would be really nice to have.
Hydras are bad as soon as there is any AoE dmg. Mutas are bad in general (in a direct confrontation). Corruptors aren't... good (nor entertaining). And beside that there's the insanely slow Queen and Spore Crawlers. I don't know, I just feel like that's an issue which should be adressed, because as soon as they fixed that, SwarmHost-Play won't be a problem anymore (Because they could just nerf them straight up).
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EPT
