Call to Action: January 31 Balance Testing - Page 12

On February 01 2014 22:29 Destructicon wrote:
Damn, the amount off ignorance and hate being flung at Avilo is astounding.

Almost all the suggestions he has made are very sensible and much needed changes.

The problem with Protoss, the real imbalance is that they have way too many options, options that, also limit the options terrans can do. TvP late game isn't easy for Terran, but it isn't completely impossible either, you just need both T and P to enter it on even footing.

At the moment terrans can't enter it on even footing. The early aggressive options of toss, Oracles, Blink all-in, DTs etc, force the terran into using very safe and conservative builds. However because the builds are so safe protoss exploits them with extremely greedy builds, that can't be countered almost at all, because the MSC just gives way, way too much safety.
Terran is thus stuck between a rock and a hard place, they can't be aggressive at all, because of MSC, but they also can't be too greedy, because of all the lethal pressure toss has.

Something has to give, its either the toss lose some of their defensive power, so terran can actually be aggressive and force toss to be less greedy, or toss itself loses some of its aggressive options so that terran can be more greedy and enter the late game even. The logic here is perfectly fine, I only see outbreaks of QQ from protosses, fearful they will actually have to put in some effort to play.

I see nothing wrong reverting the oracle speed, it was a dumb buff to begin with, it was contested and complained against since the very beginning, even protoss pros agreed that it was a bad change. The oracle limits terrans build order choices, you always have to play safe, you always need to take them into account, because if you don't you just die to it, there is no middle ground there.

I also don't see anything wrong with reducing the sight range of MSC. The MSC already breaks so many rules in the game, its a scouting tool, army support/utility and defensive tool, its too versatile, it has too much, it does too much. The MSC should never have been made so strong, its high time two of its utilities got cut, at the very least the sight range should be reduced so that terran can't have a free scout and free vision of the high ground, with zero counterplay to it.

DT Shrine cost was also stupid. Protoss is already very safe because of MSC, it stands to reason then that if defense is so cheep for them then their aggressive options, at least early game, should be more expensive, to balance things out, so they can't actually put on aggression while still staying 100% safe. You don't see any creative DT strats either, they are used as a gimmick early game to gain a huge lead, or they are used as a reliable harass tool late game in all MUs, the cost of it won't nerf it in the late game, but it will tone down the huge number of possible game ending aggressive options toss has in the early game.

Finally, I have it makes 0 sense anymore for Missile turret to require a engy bay to build, the missile turret can only shoot up, it also costs 100 damn minerals and you need at least 1 per mineral line to be safe. Spore was even changed to not require Evo chambers any more, I don't see why Missile turrets can't get the same treatment. I'm not sure about the sensor tower, I think that should still require an ebay.

I also agree with the armory change, it doesn't affect any unit balance, it helps with one of the core problems of mech, setting up infrastructure, because for the longest time you'll be working off 2 base and have to spend gas on upgrades, infrastructure (factories, SP and all their addons) as well as army, and you can't do it all at once off just 440 gas per minute, which leaves the mech army player with glaring weaknesses, since all of the above cost shit loads of gas.

Quite frankly I just think most of you are hating on Avilo for no good reason, almost none of you presented any counter arguments as to why his suggestions are bad, you only vaguely touch on how it should, supposedly, break TvP by swinging it in terran favor, but I've yet to see explanations as to how that would happen.

All I see is mindless bashing and bronze league logic used to counter quite sensible, actually very conservative proposals.

Edit: And since I seem to have went off topic slightly, I hate all the proposed changes, the only good one is the time warp change, but it doesn't do enough, all the changes are bad because they fail to address the appropriate issue in the appropriate way, but I already explained why in the last thread.

On February 02 2014 00:10 tar wrote:


It's funny that you start your post with claiming that shit was flung at someone yet then you yourself resort to condescending or plain insulting language.

The problem with avilo's quite conservative proposals is, that in combination they are not conservative proposals anymore. It is a onesided approach to the issue that results in all problems for Terran solved while Toss would be where they were in the era of the infamous 1/1/1 with the added benefit of banshee buffs.
Back then, the complains of Tosses were similar to those of Terrans today:
lack of scouting info, variety of Terran harass options and macro follow ups as well a lack of harass options. Also, horribly strong Terran all ins (ie 1/1/1 or marine hellion drops)

Just some quick theorycrafting how avilo's changes would affect Tosses options:
-Going DTs? Well with old cost and no engibay-turrets? Reduced to an all in that needs to do significant damage (which it should not do anymore).
-Oracles? - slow oracles with turrets available on the fly basically make it the same as going DTs.
on the other hand:
-Tanks sieging your natural and cloaked banshees attacking your mineral line will be painfull without 14 vision range msc especially when you consider that tanks then would do bonus damage versus shields. This would be even stronger than in wol since tanks don't need siege mode research and cloak is considerably cheaper than it was back then.

All in all, the game would be back at super passive protoss turtle play with no aggressive options apart from heavy gateway all ins (only them being a lot weaker with widow mines, free siege mode and stuff)

I may reiterate that I don't find any one of those changes unreasonable in itself but they for sure add up and make mech play a round thing against Toss, while leaving Toss in a situation that reminds me very much of WoL and I don't want to think about the implications those change would have for PvZ.

On February 02 2014 00:33 Destructicon wrote:


You seem to have missed the point where I said that, Protoss is already extremely safe against terran aggression while being able to put on a load of pressure themselves or even kill, one of those has to be addressed. Its either toss defensive power needs to be toned down, to the point where terran can put on enough aggression to force the toss to potentially spend more gas on being safe (thus slowing their tech and reducing their greed), or the toss pressures need to be severely nerfed.

In the context of Toss still keeping their MSC defensive powers mostly intact (which is what this balance patch proposes), then having all the toss offensive options nerfed is a fair and justified. If you want toss to keep all its offensive toys then propose a nerf to the MSC defensive abilities, you can't have both extreme safety early game and extreme offensive power with no risk reward involved, that's not how an RTS is supposed to work.

I find it amusing you mention banshees, they are hard countered by almost anything in the protoss arsenal. If toss goes SG for quick oracle then they will be able to also make 1 phoenix to shut down the aggression. If they opened Robo they can get an obs and stalkers to chase it away.

Now, if siege tanks are sieging your nat, then you somehow lost your MSC early or threw down all your time warps willy nilly, which equates to you making a serious mistake and not having any Photon Overcharge, and if that results in you getting your nat nexus sieged then you fucked up royally and deserve to lose or got outplayed and still deserve to lose.

Even with Avilo's proposed changes the 1/1/1 is still trash, a simple move out with basic GW units and MSC just kills it, time warps prevent marines from kiting back and allow zealots to close the gap on marines and tanks. And even if the terran gets close to the nat a simple PO will keep the tanks out of range long enough to get Colossus. If you opened with SG its even more one sided because oracles can provide vision via revelation, can be used as as fighting units in conjuncture with GW units, way earlier I should add, leading to the quick destruction of the push, you can also add Phoenix in to kill banshees, much more effective then stalkers.

There is also no way a Terran player meching will push at you in the early game. A tank based army is very gas expensive, if he invested into that for a early push he is sacrificing infrastructure or upgrades, or both, and you gain a lead there, + he is sacrificing safety since he might not leave anything behind, and the mech army is still extremely fragile early game.
So if he pushes with a tank based mech army at you early game and you didn't see it in time and crush it, then you, again made a very grave mistake and still deserve to lose.

And if its tanks sieging your nat late game, then the game is over anyway and you are just delaying the inevitable.

The reason I am using such an aggressive and condescending tone is because a lot of posters here have earned it, throwing around speculation with nearly no analysis behind it, they don't deserve any mercy, a lot of the arguments are bad and they should be treated as such and shot down instantly.

On February 02 2014 00:57 tar wrote:


I have not missed your point, I am just talking about avilo's proposals that you defended with regard to actually balancing and fixing the game. I am not proposing to keep the game as it is. I even agree that you have to somehow adjust the protoss aggressive and defensive options. However, taking away all the aggressive options completely can't be the solution. It might be fair if you want one side to be super passive and one having all the options but then we would just invert the roles in TvP instead of fixing the MU.

Also, you mentioning how amazing stargate vs 1/1/1 or banshees in general is. However, with avilo's changes going through, toss would not open stargate anymore since it would be almost useless against bio play.

And the power of the Msc and nexus cannon against tank based attacks is not that the nexus shoots but rather that the msc provides vision that is greater than the attack range of the tank.only that way you can actually protect the nexus from being shot at. This obviously is only a early/early-mid game problem, yet this is the stage that needs to be addressed in current tvp.

Finally, I am rather astonished about what you say about tank pushes. with the proposed changes,toss would be forced to play very passive to be safe while Terran now gets free siege, cheaper cloak and a cheaper armory while being able to build emergency turrents without the need for an engibay. Thus Terran mech pushes would hit harder and/or earlier with a lot less draw backs.

On February 02 2014 00:33 Destructicon wrote:


You seem to have missed the point where I said that, Protoss is already extremely safe against terran aggression while being able to put on a load of pressure themselves or even kill, one of those has to be addressed. Its either toss defensive power needs to be toned down, to the point where terran can put on enough aggression to force the toss to potentially spend more gas on being safe (thus slowing their tech and reducing their greed), or the toss pressures need to be severely nerfed.

In the context of Toss still keeping their MSC defensive powers mostly intact (which is what this balance patch proposes), then having all the toss offensive options nerfed is a fair and justified. If you want toss to keep all its offensive toys then propose a nerf to the MSC defensive abilities, you can't have both extreme safety early game and extreme offensive power with no risk reward involved, that's not how an RTS is supposed to work.

I find it amusing you mention banshees, they are hard countered by almost anything in the protoss arsenal. If toss goes SG for quick oracle then they will be able to also make 1 phoenix to shut down the aggression. If they opened Robo they can get an obs and stalkers to chase it away.

Now, if siege tanks are sieging your nat, then you somehow lost your MSC early or threw down all your time warps willy nilly, which equates to you making a serious mistake and not having any Photon Overcharge, and if that results in you getting your nat nexus sieged then you fucked up royally and deserve to lose or got outplayed and still deserve to lose.

Even with Avilo's proposed changes the 1/1/1 is still trash, a simple move out with basic GW units and MSC just kills it, time warps prevent marines from kiting back and allow zealots to close the gap on marines and tanks. And even if the terran gets close to the nat a simple PO will keep the tanks out of range long enough to get Colossus. If you opened with SG its even more one sided because oracles can provide vision via revelation, can be used as as fighting units in conjuncture with GW units, way earlier I should add, leading to the quick destruction of the push, you can also add Phoenix in to kill banshees, much more effective then stalkers.

There is also no way a Terran player meching will push at you in the early game. A tank based army is very gas expensive, if he invested into that for a early push he is sacrificing infrastructure or upgrades, or both, and you gain a lead there, + he is sacrificing safety since he might not leave anything behind, and the mech army is still extremely fragile early game.
So if he pushes with a tank based mech army at you early game and you didn't see it in time and crush it, then you, again made a very grave mistake and still deserve to lose.

And if its tanks sieging your nat late game, then the game is over anyway and you are just delaying the inevitable.

The reason I am using such an aggressive and condescending tone is because a lot of posters here have earned it, throwing around speculation with nearly no analysis behind it, they don't deserve any mercy, a lot of the arguments are bad and they should be treated as such and shot down instantly.

On February 02 2014 00:10 tar wrote:


It's funny that you start your post with claiming that shit was flung at someone yet then you yourself resort to condescending or plain insulting language.

The problem with avilo's quite conservative proposals is, that in combination they are not conservative proposals anymore. It is a onesided approach to the issue that results in all problems for Terran solved while Toss would be where they were in the era of the infamous 1/1/1 with the added benefit of banshee buffs.
Back then, the complains of Tosses were similar to those of Terrans today:
lack of scouting info, variety of Terran harass options and macro follow ups as well a lack of harass options. Also, horribly strong Terran all ins (ie 1/1/1 or marine hellion drops)

Just some quick theorycrafting how avilo's changes would affect Tosses options:
-Going DTs? Well with old cost and no engibay-turrets? Reduced to an all in that needs to do significant damage (which it should not do anymore).
-Oracles? - slow oracles with turrets available on the fly basically make it the same as going DTs.
on the other hand:
-Tanks sieging your natural and cloaked banshees attacking your mineral line will be painfull without 14 vision range msc especially when you consider that tanks then would do bonus damage versus shields. This would be even stronger than in wol since tanks don't need siege mode research and cloak is considerably cheaper than it was back then.

All in all, the game would be back at super passive protoss turtle play with no aggressive options apart from heavy gateway all ins (only them being a lot weaker with widow mines, free siege mode and stuff)

I may reiterate that I don't find any one of those changes unreasonable in itself but they for sure add up and make mech play a round thing against Toss, while leaving Toss in a situation that reminds me very much of WoL and I don't want to think about the implications those change would have for PvZ.