On February 03 2014 08:35 Snusmumriken wrote: pretty much everyone is saying msc needs a vision nerf. The only reason it has 14 vision in the first place is from beta when the msc was attatched to the nexus and it needed 14 vision to have 14 po. In summary, blizzard is being lazy.
so please, for the love of god blizzard, for once listen to the community and the pros. This is what you need to do:
TvP: Nerf the msc vision to 11 like every other air unit in the game. Nerf the PO range slightly and/or increase the energy cost and/or reduce casting range as per miniguns suggestion, but keep its 60sec duration as that only truly affects pvp. Increase timewarp cost Instead of removing yet another upgrade (ghost), reduce the cost of the armory. Its virtually the same cost-reduction for terran regardless, but one actually helps mech. Please dont pretend to buff mech by buffing bio. You have no credibility in that department anymore, not after years and years of promising to make mech viable. Remove the biotag from the hellbat. It makes zero sense to have a mechanical unit become a biounit just because it transforms. The ability of being healed is part of what made hellbat op in drops in the first place and at the same time makes them shit against archons. Merge transformation servos and blueflame into one upgrade. Possibly with a longer upgradetime.
Things worth to consider but not to be done right now: give tanks an upgrade that lets them attack shield more effectively. Basically "EMP Shells".
PvZ: The problem isnt lategame tempests, the problem is the swarmhost! Some pros have suggested removing the enduring locust upgrade and instead let the swarmhost be faster both with burrowing/unborrowing and when moving around on the map. This could be either as an upgrade or as a fundamental change to the unit. Basically reward multitasking with swarmhosts instead of the boring, long, drawn out static play we're seeing. Others have more very good suggestions on how to improve the swarmhost and there are many possible ways to do so; please consider looking at the swarmhost instead of yet another bandaid with tempest.
Consider removing the tempest entirely and make the carrier into more of a bw-carrier where micro is possible. The tempest is a truly wonky unit that makes very little sense intuitively with its minimal damage to everything but massive, and having air units with such range is terrible design as air units dont really interact with the map in the first place (they only do so transitively by interacting with counters on the ground) and long range reduces that even further. This is wishful thinking on my part as I know youre never going to do this and most likely dont even care what anyone posts here but hey, doesnt hurt to try I guess...
TvZ:
Buff the radius of vipers blinding cloud but instead of nullifying range under it let it reduce range by a set number (as in reduce every units range by x, not reduce every units range to x). That way blinding cloud is less of a hard counter to mech and becomes more viable vs bio. Consider nerfing ravens slightly in conjunction with proposed swarmhost changes. That in conjunction with changes to viper will result in less risk of turtle-terrans.
Why aren't you the lead balance person on Blizzard?! Can someone make a test map with these kinds of changes? I'm going to get this out on Reddit too if you don't mind.
MMA hit it on the head screw all the other things the one focus should be REDUCE MC VISION RANGE!!!!! Im Zerg but Jesus TvP is stupid cause that nonsense
Why not just a buff to hydralisk upgrades? Make them both into one? Blizzard have a habit of splitting zergs upgrades into 2 paths(ground upgrades, overlord upgrades, roaches upgrades,air upgrades,even the fucking banelings need two upgrades for efficient usage,burrow plus speed bane- all this shit has to be upgraded twice) which is kinda stupid imo since hydras has such a tiny window. Either that or TLO's recommendation of buffing the beefiness(?) of the hydras.
25 gas is just stupid.
EDIT: Do the balance team actually play sc2?? Sometimes when I look at the patches I get a headache.
One thing I do not get is why the community doesn't come out with a counter test map every time we get one of these poorly put together patches. Some of these changes are so damn obvious. It would be nice to see two high level players take on the map so we can see a more community reflected approach to the game and see how it pans out. First map should be TvP with MSC vision down to 11. One change per update, fixing one detail at a time.
On February 03 2014 09:37 Hryul wrote: thanks for the effort tl. really nice to see some opinions on it.
e:
On February 03 2014 09:35 Pino wrote:
On February 03 2014 08:31 Squat wrote:
On February 03 2014 03:11 stuchiu wrote:
On February 03 2014 03:04 Big J wrote: [quote]
Throughout half of HotS Oracles (amongst others) have been said to be useless additions and that Protoss still cannot harass properly and is still forced into deathballing.
Noone asked for "the speed buff", but I guess that's what happens when people shittalk units for too long. Blizzard will try to buff those units. Really, blizzard's balance patches just mirror the community's whines in a naive way.
Protoss is still deathballing after the patch =O
They could add 50 bastardized, inbred cousins to the oracle and give them all 8.5 move speed. It's not going to make protoss stop deathballing. How anyone thought that giving protoss some random harass units would break up the deathball is beyond me, there is nothing in the addition of the oracle that works to change how protoss plays late game at all.
It does not change that colossi, templars, immortals, tempests, void rays, i.e. every big scary gas unit, needs to be in a big blob to be effective. If you want to break up the deathball, you have to attack its constituent parts, not add new ones that don't fit in it. That will just lead to them being unused, or in the case of the oracle, used in the early/mid game and then discarded precisely because they have no real place in the deathball. Some really ass backwards logic went into this kind of thinking.
This is precisely on spot, like the best comment in this thread. To me the problems is deeper, and the real discussion should not lie in balance but in design. I hope one day blizzard has the balls to redesign protosses.
Like remove FF, redesign WG to keep a defender's advantage, buff gateway units and let them be effective by themselves, with a synergy boost from higher tech units (in this case nerfing them, just like medivacs are for bio), mutas for ling/bane and so on.
All these buffs, like MSC addition, oracle speed etc. looks like bandaids. After so many of them, you gotta see there's something wrong with the design.
After so many times, I wonder when the "design whine" will stop. it's really annoying.
When will it stop? Never. There will always be something to complain about and tack "design" onto.
There's a difference between 'always something' and 'exactly the same few things for last 4 years'
If people complain about something for four years, might be something to it.
Or they might be dead wrong but be unable or unwilling to realise it or accept it.
A lot of the negativity was allowed because people thought it would pressure blizzard into fixing their pet concerns. I think if blizzard had abandoned starcraft from day 1 that the community would be a lot happier because only those that liked the game would have stayed around, maybe.
edit: motr = middle of the road, writing on mobile so being concise.
That or only masochists.
So, that's what motr means. Thanks, learned something new.
And yeah, also meant to say that some of the whine/complaints might be right. Such as the economy in SC2 (even if it is not, IMO, fundamentally flawed) but Blizzard are not going to change it (this from an AMA pre-HOTS).
Anyway, I can see their intentions with this patch. Tune down Protoss early game defense, strengthen Zerg mid game, strengthen Terran mid game/open up a timing, strengthen Protoss late game in turtle situations. Hopefully, they find better ways of implementing these. But, like I said in the Test map thread, I like the Tempest change (even if it needs some work).
And I think Minigun is really on point about nerfing the MSC. If you dropped the cast range of Photon Overcharge to nearly melee, you can't just position your MSC to perfectly defend all 3 bases instantly. You'd actually have to anticipate the attacks and if you're not sure, you take the hit of a slower reaction, which is how the game should actually work. Can Siege Tanks instantly be in perfect position for defending 3 bases at the drop of a hat? No. And the vision change has been suggested so many times and is a better fix than anything else suggested (though I'd like to see Photon Overcharge nerfed too). I mean, if you nerf the cast range on Photon Overcharge, then if you force a Photon Overcharge at the front, they'll take time to use on in the main, so you can actually drop and outmaneuver the Protoss. They'd have to leave a few units at the front (like 3 or 4 Zealots), and will preemptively pull the rest of their units into the main. The MSC could also use a small speed nerf, though that may be a bit extreme.
Sadly, you can probably expect the Hydra buff to go through. Blizzard occasionally does REALLY stupid changes (remember the Queen buff that destroyed TvZ), and some of the more recent patches they'll let through some REALLY dumb changes (Oracle buff anyone). At this point, it's like Blizzard is just trying to fuck with us.
Things that need attention: MSC in PvT Oracles in PvT Swarm Hosts in ZvP Sky Terran in ZvT (too strong if played right, though given the fact that it's the highest investment unit comp, that might be appropriate) Mech in TvP (yeah, HTOmario and Avilo may claim it to be viable, but holy hell is it hard) Terran lategame transitions in TvP (can be tied in with mech, but lategame TvP CAN'T be just bio simply because bio is the only option for anything Protoss has) Tanks at the very least need to be changed to 2 supply Maybe give EMP to Raven (I'd much rather have EMP on Ravens, and it would give Terran legitimate late game transitions in TvP and make the matchup far more interesting)
On February 03 2014 13:17 XXXSmOke wrote: One thing I do not get is why the community doesn't come out with a counter test map every time we get one of these poorly put together patches. Some of these changes are so damn obvious. It would be nice to see two high level players take on the map so we can see a more community reflected approach to the game and see how it pans out. First map should be TvP with MSC vision down to 11. One change per update, fixing one detail at a time.
I agree with this. Although, with the time it takes Blizzard to finally release the maps for testing, maybe it's something to be left to paid professionals? It might not be rocket science, but it has to be pretty close to it.
instead of dt rush you'll have a ghost rush.. and there will be timing for marine ghost early game... hydras early game vs toss will be a easy win for zerg 9\10 times need to rush out those aoe units to deal with it. msc i like the duration, but not the mana cost increase. GG
When I see these balance updates, I see a lot of middle of the road bullshit that theoretically are aimed at changing winrates and not optimized game design. Blizzard is all about band-aid fixes and that's how we have reached the state of the game as it is today.
1) mothershipcore nerf - sure it's a nerf! Logic dictates that a nerf will lower protoss winrates. That's basically what blizzards rationale here is. If there was any thought given to what specific problems there were in the first place, there is no evidence of this due to the middle of the road approach where blizzard is too afraid to change anything directly.
2) tempest buff - sure it's a buff! Logic dictates it will help lategame pvz swarmhost spore crawler viper turtling. Zero talk of how fundamentally retarded this matchup becomes during this stage of the game.
3) ghost buff - wow terran winrates low? Lets buff ghost. Now they have higher winrates and we'll also try to pass it off as making mech viable so we get more support.
Blizzard should have this BIG Starcraft 2 Conference where the KOREANS, the foreign PROS and COMMUNITY will be at the panel.Blizzard have their own thoughts of balance while the community, the players all have the same clamour for change.If they could meet at the conference, a lot of things could be discussed and if the community and Blizzard agrees, this could lead to a good patch. =)
On February 03 2014 13:51 elmerpogs wrote: Blizzard should have this BIG Starcraft 2 Conference where the KOREANS, the foreign PROS and COMMUNITY will be at the panel.Blizzard have their own thoughts of balance while the community, the players all have the same clamour for change.If they could meet at the conference, a lot of things could be discussed and if the community and Blizzard agrees, this could lead to a good patch. =)
They do talk to pro players that provide good feed back. They created special forums for pros as well. The problem is that a lot of pros provide very bias feedback based on their race and play style. Blizzard has said over and over that they talk to pro players who provide good, balanced feed back and other community members.
I think it would be foolish to completely scrap the hydralisk change on the basis that timings might be strong, for me the hydra change has a chance to make ZvT more interesting, will definitely make for a lot more interesting ZvZ and mobile ground to air in late-game ZvP is desperately needed.
They have tools to weaken the timings if they're too strong and I wish it was where more people were focusing their efforts, but imo the drastic change is necessary to make the hydralisk more cost effective and worth trading instead of just stronger in an end-game army.
Hopefully they don't throw the baby out with the bathwater here, as I think it's an important step, though it might mean some short term pain. The big question should be: Is this worth balancing around? I think it is.
On February 03 2014 08:35 Snusmumriken wrote: pretty much everyone is saying msc needs a vision nerf. The only reason it has 14 vision in the first place is from beta when the msc was attatched to the nexus and it needed 14 vision to have 14 po. In summary, blizzard is being lazy.
so please, for the love of god blizzard, for once listen to the community and the pros. This is what you need to do:
TvP: Nerf the msc vision to 11 like every other air unit in the game. Nerf the PO range slightly and/or increase the energy cost and/or reduce casting range as per miniguns suggestion, but keep its 60sec duration as that only truly affects pvp. Increase timewarp cost Instead of removing yet another upgrade (ghost), reduce the cost of the armory. Its virtually the same cost-reduction for terran regardless, but one actually helps mech. Please dont pretend to buff mech by buffing bio. You have no credibility in that department anymore, not after years and years of promising to make mech viable. Remove the biotag from the hellbat. It makes zero sense to have a mechanical unit become a biounit just because it transforms. The ability of being healed is part of what made hellbat op in drops in the first place and at the same time makes them shit against archons. Merge transformation servos and blueflame into one upgrade. Possibly with a longer upgradetime.
Things worth to consider but not to be done right now: give tanks an upgrade that lets them attack shield more effectively. Basically "EMP Shells".
PvZ: The problem isnt lategame tempests, the problem is the swarmhost! Some pros have suggested removing the enduring locust upgrade and instead let the swarmhost be faster both with burrowing/unborrowing and when moving around on the map. This could be either as an upgrade or as a fundamental change to the unit. Basically reward multitasking with swarmhosts instead of the boring, long, drawn out static play we're seeing. Others have more very good suggestions on how to improve the swarmhost and there are many possible ways to do so; please consider looking at the swarmhost instead of yet another bandaid with tempest.
Consider removing the tempest entirely and make the carrier into more of a bw-carrier where micro is possible. The tempest is a truly wonky unit that makes very little sense intuitively with its minimal damage to everything but massive, and having air units with such range is terrible design as air units dont really interact with the map in the first place (they only do so transitively by interacting with counters on the ground) and long range reduces that even further. This is wishful thinking on my part as I know youre never going to do this and most likely dont even care what anyone posts here but hey, doesnt hurt to try I guess...
TvZ:
Buff the radius of vipers blinding cloud but instead of nullifying range under it let it reduce range by a set number (as in reduce every units range by x, not reduce every units range to x). That way blinding cloud is less of a hard counter to mech and becomes more viable vs bio. Consider nerfing ravens slightly in conjunction with proposed swarmhost changes. That in conjunction with changes to viper will result in less risk of turtle-terrans.
On February 03 2014 13:51 elmerpogs wrote: Blizzard should have this BIG Starcraft 2 Conference where the KOREANS, the foreign PROS and COMMUNITY will be at the panel.Blizzard have their own thoughts of balance while the community, the players all have the same clamour for change.If they could meet at the conference, a lot of things could be discussed and if the community and Blizzard agrees, this could lead to a good patch. =)
They do talk to pro players that provide good feed back. They created special forums for pros as well. The problem is that a lot of pros provide very bias feedback based on their race and play style. Blizzard has said over and over that they talk to pro players who provide good, balanced feed back and other community members.
The problem is that with changes like the ones suggested, nobody knows who they are listening to. It's certainly not the pros.
EPT
