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Northern Ireland25636 Posts
On February 08 2014 03:25 Plansix wrote:
The single increase is queen range to 5 ruined all Terran agression, causing the end of WOL to be the era of the patchZerg. But these series of buffs to Terran and nerfs to Protoss are totally acceptable and will not result in any imbalance.
I am sure that is exactly how it would work out.
Plenty of pros even while that was in the testing phase WARNED of the consequences of that patch, some very constructively. I and the rest of the cabal of whiners made so many prescient predictions from the HoTS beta that Blizzard's dev team appear to have not been able to figure out.
I'm a bit above scrub tier as a player, with no background in game design, but yet I was 100% correct on what the Oracle change was going to do. HOW IN THE NAME OF GOD did Blizzard not figure this? Unless they intended proxy oracle builds to be a semi-stable opener in Pvt, which maybe they did.
That's a strict balance issue as well, not the kind of redesigned fundamentals that people have advocated for. Incidentally, most of us aren't like, demanding the game be dismantled and rebuilt, just TRY some radical stuff. If they can't do it due to the attached E-sports scene, negotiate a proper off-season for competition, let people recharge their batteries, let transfers between teams occur and in that gap experiment!
Anybody remember WC3? Compare The Frozen Throne with Reign of Chaos, that's the sort of radical overhaul Blizzard used to have the inclination to do. Where the fuck has that been?
Also Blizzard shouldn't have to do these kind of Q+As as a bone to the community. They should have long ago hired a guy to actually scour here, Bnet forums and a few other locations, and bring back good critiques, ideas etc. Considering how much they spend on the likes of WCS, you'd think they might stretch to actually addressing the grass roots players and their concerns.
Notes:
1. I say Blizzard, not David Kim. Guy doesn't do absolutely everything, he's just a lightning rod for attacks, especially with Browder out of the picture.
2. I don't wish to appear a braggart. I actually mention my 'startling accurate' prediction rates, solely because I find it ridiculous that someone as patently unqualified as me appears to notice things that the dev team don't.
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On February 08 2014 03:55 MstrJinbo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2014 03:43 Destructicon wrote:On February 08 2014 03:34 MstrJinbo wrote:In conclusion, all the changes are actually not only fair, they are well thought out and complement each other nicely. Instead of bashing on the poster you should at least take the time to refute all his changes point per point, or analyze the synergies and implications of all the changes before crying imba. I swear the number of bronze league "analysis" bashing on GM players is really getting on my nerves lately. I'm going to throw this out since a lot of people are missing the point. The charge of bias was not directed at the balance suggestions but rather at his next statement that even after the laundry list of nerfs to toss and buffs to Terran, the matchup would still favor Protoss. How exactly? You provide no analysis, the combination of weaker protoss all-ins or aggressive options combined with a bigger window of opportunity for terran to do damage would change the balance of power slightly, perhaps force more units and defense from toss earlier, cut down on the greed and allow the terran to enter the mid game on even footing, giving them a way better fighting change. Remember the reverse of this actually happened during HoTS. TvP was more even in the beginning of HoTS because, toss pressure options hadn't been expanded quite as much, they had pre buff warp prisms and oracles and only MSC augmented blinks on not particularly good blink maps. While Toss got stronger defensive options terran also got strong offensive options in the form of speed boost, hellbat drops and WM drops. Slowly as HoTS progressed terran offensive options where nerfed, hellbats, WM and they where only left with speed boost. Meanwhile protoss gained a bit more in the offense department with cheaper Dark Shrine, faster warp prisms, oracles and better blink maps. Reversing even part of those would lead a long, long way to restoring the balance of power between the two races. Again missing the point. People are free to discuss balance suggestions on their own merit. But consider this, blizzard had a patch increasing overlord movement speed and queen range. Following that patch, almost everything about zvt or tvz changed. All the strategies and builds all changed and in ways almost nobody would have predicted. So in that light throwing out a list of 10+ balance changes and then proclaiming that you know the results is somewhat unbelievable. More so when your predicted result is toss will still be ahead.
Half the proposed changes have very limited impact. Reapers having +1 sight range, for instance, cannot break the game. Nukes dealing 750 damage to buildings instead of 500 cannot either; they're never used now, and would still be marginal even with this change. Reintroducing Moebius Reactor or partially reverting the Oracle buff [and I still left the acceleration change intact + slighly faster than the original Oracle, so you see, I am not petty at all in my changes] cannot break the game since we've already been there. Decreasing the ridiculous damage Tempests deal to Massive air targets cannot break the game since like 98+% of the TvP are decided before the Tempest stage anyway; and I don't think the new value would prevent them from slaughtering broods in PvZ. Ghosts costing 25 less minerals cannot break the game for obvious reasons.
The huge difference is also that the Queen/Overlord patch was made when TvZ was apparently balanced, while my changes would occur when TvP is as bad if not worse than end of WoL TvZ.
I am going to detail a bit what I intend to do with the more major changes (stim, warp-ins, Storm).
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On February 08 2014 03:55 MstrJinbo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2014 03:43 Destructicon wrote:On February 08 2014 03:34 MstrJinbo wrote:In conclusion, all the changes are actually not only fair, they are well thought out and complement each other nicely. Instead of bashing on the poster you should at least take the time to refute all his changes point per point, or analyze the synergies and implications of all the changes before crying imba. I swear the number of bronze league "analysis" bashing on GM players is really getting on my nerves lately. I'm going to throw this out since a lot of people are missing the point. The charge of bias was not directed at the balance suggestions but rather at his next statement that even after the laundry list of nerfs to toss and buffs to Terran, the matchup would still favor Protoss. How exactly? You provide no analysis, the combination of weaker protoss all-ins or aggressive options combined with a bigger window of opportunity for terran to do damage would change the balance of power slightly, perhaps force more units and defense from toss earlier, cut down on the greed and allow the terran to enter the mid game on even footing, giving them a way better fighting change. Remember the reverse of this actually happened during HoTS. TvP was more even in the beginning of HoTS because, toss pressure options hadn't been expanded quite as much, they had pre buff warp prisms and oracles and only MSC augmented blinks on not particularly good blink maps. While Toss got stronger defensive options terran also got strong offensive options in the form of speed boost, hellbat drops and WM drops. Slowly as HoTS progressed terran offensive options where nerfed, hellbats, WM and they where only left with speed boost. Meanwhile protoss gained a bit more in the offense department with cheaper Dark Shrine, faster warp prisms, oracles and better blink maps. Reversing even part of those would lead a long, long way to restoring the balance of power between the two races. Again missing the point. People are free to discuss balance suggestions on their own merit. But consider this, blizzard had a patch increasing overlord movement speed and queen range. Following that patch, almost everything about zvt or tvz changed. All the strategies and builds all changed and in ways almost nobody would have predicted. So in that light throwing out a list of 10+ balance changes and then proclaiming that you know the results is somewhat unbelievable. More so when your predicted result is toss will still be ahead.
Well at least for me it was totally clear to what the queen range increase would lead in TvZ and I was very vocal about it. But I only got the answer that it won´t be a big deal etc. Well  I also predicted that the Hellbat nerf would ruin TvP.... It took surprisingly a bit longer than expected, but the result is clear now. I don´t think any balance change in HotS so far had this much of an impact on the matchup. Back then Protoss were just still struggling to get turbo medivac harassment under control, so we saw no immediate impact - something very natural, since this required a major change in playstyle for protoss.
While the oracle change was dumb and effected the matchup also a bit, I think a revert of the hellbat nerf would even out TvP by a lot! For TvT I think terrans were very close to figuring out smooth counter builds versus fast hellbat drops right when the patch hit. So I don´t even believe there would be longterm damage to that matchup.
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Balance is not the problem.
You know what was balanced? Late WoL PvZ toilet lotteries. 50/50 chance of landing the toilet bowl after dancing around the map with 200/200 deathballs for 15 minutes. All this balance talk amounts to asking for a bunch of unit compositions that end up with this 50/50 chance, like you EMP templars b4 he gets his storms off type of situations. So we end up once again with 200/200 deathballs dancing for 15 minutes trying to get the better engagement, templars vs ghosts, vikings vs collossi, ball vs ball etc.
This is just bad design. I feel the only reason DK did this AMA in the first place is that finally there's indisputable and farcical proof of how bad the design is. Just look at the Ghost buff, if that isn't an endorsement of the SCV pull then I don't know what is. He just wants to go back to the good old days when he can shove the stats in our faces and shower himself with self-praise in front of his bosses. Anything to get the stats back in balance is all that matters.
The biggest problem with this game is that guys like David Kim refuse to take on design changes. He only does bandaid fixes and doesn't touch fundamental flaws. All that'll achieve is another incarnation of the bad old boring WoL PvZ type gameplay. Yea yea I know LotV... whenever that is...
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On February 08 2014 04:20 nojem wrote:
The biggest problem with this game is that guys like David Kim refuse to take on design changes. He only does bandaid fixes and doesn't touch fundamental flaws. All that'll achieve is another incarnation of the bad old boring WoL PvZ type gameplay. Yea yea I know LotV... whenever that is...
they already stated design changes rarely occur in a balance patch.
the games fundamental design is as you see it now.
if you're this distraught keep in mind...
there are 463978798 other RTS games.
like Red Alert 2 for example, its a cult classic and still has an active competitive community.
i wonder who was the game designer for RA2?
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RA2 was fail compared to Blizzard's games. Now the designer of RA2 is making Blizzard's game fail.
There are also many people who feel Warhammer 40k started getting good after DK left but the damage was already done.
And don't give me the "if you don't like it leave" BS. Tell that to the Jews in Nazi Germany.
User was banned for this post.
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Northern Ireland25636 Posts
On February 08 2014 04:39 nojem wrote:
RA2 was fail compared to Blizzard's games. Now the designer of RA2 is making Blizzard's game fail.
There are also many people who feel Warhammer 40k started getting good after DK left but the damage was already done.
And don't give me the "if you don't like it leave" BS. Tell that to the Jews in Nazi Germany.
Oh for fuck's sake, come on man let's not go overboard to that degree, it's distasteful
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Well it's a very bad fallacy used way too often I feel needs correcting. "If you don't like it just leave" truely is the argument that enables atrocities around the world past and present.
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United States7483 Posts
On February 08 2014 04:16 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2014 03:55 MstrJinbo wrote:On February 08 2014 03:43 Destructicon wrote:On February 08 2014 03:34 MstrJinbo wrote:In conclusion, all the changes are actually not only fair, they are well thought out and complement each other nicely. Instead of bashing on the poster you should at least take the time to refute all his changes point per point, or analyze the synergies and implications of all the changes before crying imba. I swear the number of bronze league "analysis" bashing on GM players is really getting on my nerves lately. I'm going to throw this out since a lot of people are missing the point. The charge of bias was not directed at the balance suggestions but rather at his next statement that even after the laundry list of nerfs to toss and buffs to Terran, the matchup would still favor Protoss. How exactly? You provide no analysis, the combination of weaker protoss all-ins or aggressive options combined with a bigger window of opportunity for terran to do damage would change the balance of power slightly, perhaps force more units and defense from toss earlier, cut down on the greed and allow the terran to enter the mid game on even footing, giving them a way better fighting change. Remember the reverse of this actually happened during HoTS. TvP was more even in the beginning of HoTS because, toss pressure options hadn't been expanded quite as much, they had pre buff warp prisms and oracles and only MSC augmented blinks on not particularly good blink maps. While Toss got stronger defensive options terran also got strong offensive options in the form of speed boost, hellbat drops and WM drops. Slowly as HoTS progressed terran offensive options where nerfed, hellbats, WM and they where only left with speed boost. Meanwhile protoss gained a bit more in the offense department with cheaper Dark Shrine, faster warp prisms, oracles and better blink maps. Reversing even part of those would lead a long, long way to restoring the balance of power between the two races. Again missing the point. People are free to discuss balance suggestions on their own merit. But consider this, blizzard had a patch increasing overlord movement speed and queen range. Following that patch, almost everything about zvt or tvz changed. All the strategies and builds all changed and in ways almost nobody would have predicted. So in that light throwing out a list of 10+ balance changes and then proclaiming that you know the results is somewhat unbelievable. More so when your predicted result is toss will still be ahead. Half the proposed changes have very limited impact. Reapers having +1 sight range, for instance, cannot break the game. Nukes dealing 750 damage to buildings instead of 500 cannot either; they're never used now, and would still be marginal even with this change. Reintroducing Moebius Reactor or partially reverting the Oracle buff [and I still left the acceleration change intact + slighly faster than the original Oracle, so you see, I am not petty at all in my changes] cannot break the game since we've already been there. Decreasing the ridiculous damage Tempests deal to Massive air targets cannot break the game since like 98+% of the TvP are decided before the Tempest stage anyway; and I don't think the new value would prevent them from slaughtering broods in PvZ. Ghosts costing 25 less minerals cannot break the game for obvious reasons. The huge difference is also that the Queen/Overlord patch was made when TvZ was apparently balanced, while my changes would occur when TvP is as bad if not worse than end of WoL TvZ. I am going to detail a bit what I intend to do with the more major changes (stim, warp-ins, Storm).
Look: here's the deal. Winrates are currently slightly in protoss's favor. In a game of seconds like SC2, even a slight change can have a big impact. Ghost timings just got way stronger in the game, already templar openings have gotten weaker, and we haven't seen how that will impact the matchup yet. Maybe you are right, maybe you are wrong, we don't know.
Reapers getting a +1 sight range is a big buff to terran scouting. Nukes dealing 750 damage to buildings can be a big buff, I don't believe nukes are weak: the reason they aren't used is that terrans generally play a hyper aggressive style and don't generally stalemate. Nukes are great for breaking stalemates. The only reason to buff their damage to buildings is to make them more useful at base harass, which they are already great at. Nukes already clear out spines/spores and cannons.
Tempest damage vs. air is entirely for PvP and PvZ, if we don't see BC's there's no point to nerfing it, I don't even know why this is on the table. Tempests need to be able to annihilate colossi.
Ghosts just got a buff, they don't need another one.
The oracle has basically disappeared from pro PvTs, why does it need a nerf? Attacks of any kind always seem overpowered when the trend of using it first appears: then people figure out how to deal with it correctly and it dies away. If we were still seeing oracle every game I would completely agree with you, but we don't. Is the oracle supposed to be useless against terran? At what point in the game is it supposed to be a worthy investment to make it?
Stop and think for a moment: if one small change can have a huge impact (queens getting a range buff, for example), think about what kind of impact other changes can get. Has it occurred to you that if you can EMP the MSC with a ghost timing, there won't be a photon overcharge, for example, or no time warp?
Delaying storm research will make templar openings non viable, especially with the buffed ghost timings. We'll be stuck going colossus openings every game where we don't all-in, which basically means we'll be dead to scv pulls again every game.
Stim research was nerfed for a reason, there's no reason to un-nerf it. It's probably the single best upgrade in the game.
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On February 08 2014 04:16 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2014 03:55 MstrJinbo wrote:On February 08 2014 03:43 Destructicon wrote:On February 08 2014 03:34 MstrJinbo wrote:In conclusion, all the changes are actually not only fair, they are well thought out and complement each other nicely. Instead of bashing on the poster you should at least take the time to refute all his changes point per point, or analyze the synergies and implications of all the changes before crying imba. I swear the number of bronze league "analysis" bashing on GM players is really getting on my nerves lately. I'm going to throw this out since a lot of people are missing the point. The charge of bias was not directed at the balance suggestions but rather at his next statement that even after the laundry list of nerfs to toss and buffs to Terran, the matchup would still favor Protoss. How exactly? You provide no analysis, the combination of weaker protoss all-ins or aggressive options combined with a bigger window of opportunity for terran to do damage would change the balance of power slightly, perhaps force more units and defense from toss earlier, cut down on the greed and allow the terran to enter the mid game on even footing, giving them a way better fighting change. Remember the reverse of this actually happened during HoTS. TvP was more even in the beginning of HoTS because, toss pressure options hadn't been expanded quite as much, they had pre buff warp prisms and oracles and only MSC augmented blinks on not particularly good blink maps. While Toss got stronger defensive options terran also got strong offensive options in the form of speed boost, hellbat drops and WM drops. Slowly as HoTS progressed terran offensive options where nerfed, hellbats, WM and they where only left with speed boost. Meanwhile protoss gained a bit more in the offense department with cheaper Dark Shrine, faster warp prisms, oracles and better blink maps. Reversing even part of those would lead a long, long way to restoring the balance of power between the two races. Again missing the point. People are free to discuss balance suggestions on their own merit. But consider this, blizzard had a patch increasing overlord movement speed and queen range. Following that patch, almost everything about zvt or tvz changed. All the strategies and builds all changed and in ways almost nobody would have predicted. So in that light throwing out a list of 10+ balance changes and then proclaiming that you know the results is somewhat unbelievable. More so when your predicted result is toss will still be ahead. Half the proposed changes have very limited impact. Reapers having +1 sight range, for instance, cannot break the game. Nukes dealing 750 damage to buildings instead of 500 cannot either; they're never used now, and would still be marginal even with this change. Reintroducing Moebius Reactor or partially reverting the Oracle buff [and I still left the acceleration change intact + slighly faster than the original Oracle, so you see, I am not petty at all in my changes] cannot break the game since we've already been there. Decreasing the ridiculous damage Tempests deal to Massive air targets cannot break the game since like 98+% of the TvP are decided before the Tempest stage anyway; and I don't think the new value would prevent them from slaughtering broods in PvZ. Ghosts costing 25 less minerals cannot break the game for obvious reasons. The huge difference is also that the Queen/Overlord patch was made when TvZ was apparently balanced, while my changes would occur when TvP is as bad if not worse than end of WoL TvZ. I am going to detail a bit what I intend to do with the more major changes (stim, warp-ins, Storm).
For the record I think most of your suggestions are completely reasonable. I definitely a fan of buffing stim. I think it can only be good for all matchups. Prior to the queen patch you couldn't convince any Zerg player that +2 range to queens was a major buff. It was a"a buff", but they would rather have "x". A couple months later you have scarlett spreading creep into bombers third base in an mlg match on ohana. People in general are not good at evaluating the impact charges have for their own race.
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Please can we avoid compairing sadness and loss of life of thousands to millions of people through out history to not getting what you want in a video game. It devalues any argument and just makes all of us look out of touch with reality.
Oh it appears that problem was solved with a mighty hammer.
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Whitewing, do you really want to utter such nonsense:
The oracle has basically disappeared from pro PvTs, why does it need a nerf?
It was used in Trap v Supernova this morning... And it has been probably the macro opening for P since the buff. Sure, blink stalker is incredibly popular at the moment, but oracle still features in the majority of non-blink games.
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United States7483 Posts
On February 08 2014 04:55 Ghanburighan wrote:Whitewing, do you really want to utter such nonsense: Show nested quote +The oracle has basically disappeared from pro PvTs, why does it need a nerf? It was used in Trap v Supernova this morning... And it has been probably the macro opening for P since the buff. Sure, blink stalker is incredibly popular at the moment, but oracle still features in the majority of non-blink games.
It is not in the majority of pro games, and it only used in games like Trap vs. Supernova because it DOESN'T show up in every game. When it was popular there were games all the time where the oracle was defended and the protoss wound up behind. SoS was basically the only player on the planet who could make oracle openers work into a normal macro game without doing crippling levels of damage, and he was just plain playing better than his opponents.
I should point out that was someone says "it has basically disappeared" which means it is rare, rather than 100% non-existent, saying that "it happened once this morning!" is not evidence that they are wrong.
Blink stalker all-ins also just got a nerf, and I'm absolutely on board for a mothership core vision range nerf to nerf the blink stalker all-in more.
The goal when balancing a game is to make the smallest, most incremental changes possible to see if you hit your target.
The goal when designing a game is to make big changes and see what happens: they aren't currently designing though, they are balancing.
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On February 08 2014 03:51 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2014 03:43 Destructicon wrote:On February 08 2014 03:34 MstrJinbo wrote:In conclusion, all the changes are actually not only fair, they are well thought out and complement each other nicely. Instead of bashing on the poster you should at least take the time to refute all his changes point per point, or analyze the synergies and implications of all the changes before crying imba. I swear the number of bronze league "analysis" bashing on GM players is really getting on my nerves lately. I'm going to throw this out since a lot of people are missing the point. The charge of bias was not directed at the balance suggestions but rather at his next statement that even after the laundry list of nerfs to toss and buffs to Terran, the matchup would still favor Protoss. How exactly? You provide no analysis, the combination of weaker protoss all-ins or aggressive options combined with a bigger window of opportunity for terran to do damage would change the balance of power slightly, perhaps force more units and defense from toss earlier, cut down on the greed and allow the terran to enter the mid game on even footing, giving them a way better fighting change. Remember the reverse of this actually happened during HoTS. TvP was more even in the beginning of HoTS because, toss pressure options hadn't been expanded quite as much, they had pre buff warp prisms and oracles and only MSC augmented blinks on not particularly good blink maps. While Toss got stronger defensive options terran also got strong offensive options in the form of speed boost, hellbat drops and WM drops. Slowly as HoTS progressed terran offensive options where nerfed, hellbats, WM and they where only left with speed boost. Meanwhile protoss gained a bit more in the offense department with cheaper Dark Shrine, faster warp prisms, oracles and better blink maps. Reversing even part of those would lead a long, long way to restoring the balance of power between the two races. Because people don't believe the match up is as imbalanced as you make it out to be. It's hard and terrans need a buff for sure, but not to the level Dwf suggests. He wants to make stim timings faster while nerfing storm and making warp ins take longer. None of these are minor nerfs or buffs.
The TvP imbalance is not minor either. One does not stop a massive haemorrhage with a tiny band-aid. Not even at the end of WoL was Terran slaughtered that hard by the dominant race. All the indicators are red. Protoss are dominating everywhere; ladder, WCS, other tournaments. Half the Terrans I know have pretty much stop laddering because of how obnoxious TvP is. Even in Korea, Terran has abysmal results. Code A was a massacre. Online qualifiers are no better. Just like there was a "patchzerg" phenomenon, mid-GM EU/NA Protoss players are starting to be a major threat even for Code S Terrans.
As for my changes: stim coming faster means Terran will finally be able to have stim in time for various 1- or 2-base all-ins. Offensively, stim coming 30 sec earlier carries no game-ending threat since the MSC is still there. Notice I did not touch at all the strength of the 2000 hps Cannon. Stim coming 30 sec earlier means Protoss will have to play a bit more cautiously since bio pokes may have stim earlier, and that's exactly what is needed: a more balanced risk/reward ratio for various ambitious Protoss builds. Reintroducing the notion of risk in PvT early game is the top priority.
The Storm change is not as huge as you think. Storm timings already vary a lot as of now; for instance, yesterday I played Harstem and he finished Storm at 13'20, while defending my Medivac pressure with mass Zealots, his few Sentries, 1-2 Archon(s) and PO. Today, I played another GM Protoss who finished Storm by 10'30; so as you can see, Storm isn't strictly needed to hold Medivac pushes, Zealots + Archon defence into Storm are common and 20-30 extra seconds (you have to factor a potential extra chrono) will not mean at all the death of Protoss as soon as Terran has 4 Medivacs or something. I propose this change to increase the window of vulnerability, because some pressure openings such as Blink transition too easily into Storm when they fail, shutting down any counter-pressure with ease.
Warp-ins taking longer is done so defending drops becomes more difficult. Right now, it's too easy for Protoss at high level to be impervious to drops; even with poor pre-positioning, Zealots are produced so fast that they start attacking the drop before it's done landing, and/or can soak so much damage (because you have no time to kill them as they're being warped) that the main army is here before you have time to do damage—all of this while the Nexus is shooting at you. With a longer warp-in time, Protoss will have to be more careful with their positioning, concede a bit more defence, or warp a little further away from the drop, thus leaving a bit more time for Terran to attack. Remember it's critical for Terran to be able to do their job in midgame.
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On February 08 2014 04:39 nojem wrote:
RA2 was fail compared to Blizzard's games. Now the designer of RA2 is making Blizzard's game fail.
have you played RA2?
considering when it was made and the resources EA put towards it.. its great.
and there exists and active vibrant competitive community around the game 14 years after its release.
RA2 is now 14 years old. the fact that a community still exists around the game is a testament to its quality.
its final patch was made while Dustin Browder was the game designer.
from a commercial perspective...
RA2 is the highest selling, highest revenue NON-Blizzard RTS.
i know a few guys who've been playing it for 10+ years.
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On February 08 2014 05:13 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2014 03:51 Plansix wrote:On February 08 2014 03:43 Destructicon wrote:On February 08 2014 03:34 MstrJinbo wrote:In conclusion, all the changes are actually not only fair, they are well thought out and complement each other nicely. Instead of bashing on the poster you should at least take the time to refute all his changes point per point, or analyze the synergies and implications of all the changes before crying imba. I swear the number of bronze league "analysis" bashing on GM players is really getting on my nerves lately. I'm going to throw this out since a lot of people are missing the point. The charge of bias was not directed at the balance suggestions but rather at his next statement that even after the laundry list of nerfs to toss and buffs to Terran, the matchup would still favor Protoss. How exactly? You provide no analysis, the combination of weaker protoss all-ins or aggressive options combined with a bigger window of opportunity for terran to do damage would change the balance of power slightly, perhaps force more units and defense from toss earlier, cut down on the greed and allow the terran to enter the mid game on even footing, giving them a way better fighting change. Remember the reverse of this actually happened during HoTS. TvP was more even in the beginning of HoTS because, toss pressure options hadn't been expanded quite as much, they had pre buff warp prisms and oracles and only MSC augmented blinks on not particularly good blink maps. While Toss got stronger defensive options terran also got strong offensive options in the form of speed boost, hellbat drops and WM drops. Slowly as HoTS progressed terran offensive options where nerfed, hellbats, WM and they where only left with speed boost. Meanwhile protoss gained a bit more in the offense department with cheaper Dark Shrine, faster warp prisms, oracles and better blink maps. Reversing even part of those would lead a long, long way to restoring the balance of power between the two races. Because people don't believe the match up is as imbalanced as you make it out to be. It's hard and terrans need a buff for sure, but not to the level Dwf suggests. He wants to make stim timings faster while nerfing storm and making warp ins take longer. None of these are minor nerfs or buffs. The TvP imbalance is not minor either. One does not stop a massive haemorrhage with a tiny band-aid. Not even at the end of WoL was Terran slaughtered that hard by the dominant race. All the indicators are red. Protoss are dominating everywhere; ladder, WCS, other tournaments. Half the Terrans I know have pretty much stop laddering because of how obnoxious TvP is. Even in Korea, Terran has abysmal results. Code A was a massacre. Online qualifiers are no better. Just like there was a "patchzerg" phenomenon, mid-GM EU/NA Protoss players are starting to be a major threat even for Code S Terrans. As for my changes: stim coming faster means Terran will finally be able to have stim in time for various 1- or 2-base all-ins. Offensively, stim coming 30 sec earlier carries no game-ending threat since the MSC is still there. Notice I did not touch at all the strength of the 2000 hps Cannon. Stim coming 30 sec earlier means Protoss will have to play a bit more cautiously since bio pokes may have stim earlier, and that's exactly what is needed: a more balanced risk/reward ratio for various ambitious Protoss builds. Reintroducing the notion of risk in PvT early game is the top priority. The Storm change is not as huge as you think. Storm timings already vary a lot as of now; for instance, yesterday I played Harstem and he finished Storm at 13'20, while defending my Medivac pressure with mass Zealots, his few Sentries, 1-2 Archon(s) and PO. Today, I played another GM Protoss who finished Storm by 10'30; so as you can see, Storm isn't strictly needed to hold Medivac pushes, Zealots + Archon defence into Storm are common and 20-30 extra seconds (you have to factor a potential extra chrono) will not mean at all the death of Protoss as soon as Terran has 4 Medivacs or something. I propose this change to increase the window of vulnerability, because some pressure openings such as Blink transition too easily into Storm when they fail, shutting down any counter-pressure with ease. Warp-ins taking longer is done so defending drops becomes more difficult. Right now, it's too easy for Protoss at high level to be impervious to drops; even with poor pre-positioning, Zealots are produced so fast that they start attacking the drop before it's done landing, and/or can soak so much damage (because you have no time to kill them as they're being warped) that the main army is here before you have time to do damage—all of this while the Nexus is shooting at you. With a longer warp-in time, Protoss will have to be more careful with their positioning, concede a bit more defence, or warp a little further away from the drop, thus leaving a bit more time for Terran to attack. Remember it's critical for Terran to be able to do their job in midgame.
Although your points are well argued, I'm for a more cautious approach. 10 different changes are to much for the game and even minor things like + range on queens or quicker overlords can have a huge effect on very match up. There is no reason to risk ruining the game for both Zerg and Protoss just to pull Terran up with a large number of buffs.
A lot of us agree that Terran needs love, but the amount of love appear to be up for debate.
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On February 08 2014 04:58 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2014 04:55 Ghanburighan wrote:Whitewing, do you really want to utter such nonsense: The oracle has basically disappeared from pro PvTs, why does it need a nerf? It was used in Trap v Supernova this morning... And it has been probably the macro opening for P since the buff. Sure, blink stalker is incredibly popular at the moment, but oracle still features in the majority of non-blink games. It is not in the majority of pro games, and it only used in games like Trap vs. Supernova because it DOESN'T show up in every game. When it was popular there were games all the time where the oracle was defended and the protoss wound up behind. SoS was basically the only player on the planet who could make oracle openers work into a normal macro game without doing crippling levels of damage, and he was just plain playing better than his opponents. I should point out that was someone says "it has basically disappeared" which means it is rare, rather than 100% non-existent, saying that "it happened once this morning!" is not evidence that they are wrong. Blink stalker all-ins also just got a nerf, and I'm absolutely on board for a mothership core vision range nerf to nerf the blink stalker all-in more. The goal when balancing a game is to make the smallest, most incremental changes possible to see if you hit your target. The goal when designing a game is to make big changes and see what happens: they aren't currently designing though, they are balancing.
Fine, let's look at the previous big korean PvT match, Parting v TY. Did we have an oracle opening there? Yes we did... I could keep this going for a while, but, honestly, you live in your own world where facts don't seem to apply and the onus to prove things is on everyone but you.
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United States7483 Posts
On February 08 2014 05:25 Ghanburighan wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2014 04:58 Whitewing wrote:On February 08 2014 04:55 Ghanburighan wrote:Whitewing, do you really want to utter such nonsense: The oracle has basically disappeared from pro PvTs, why does it need a nerf? It was used in Trap v Supernova this morning... And it has been probably the macro opening for P since the buff. Sure, blink stalker is incredibly popular at the moment, but oracle still features in the majority of non-blink games. It is not in the majority of pro games, and it only used in games like Trap vs. Supernova because it DOESN'T show up in every game. When it was popular there were games all the time where the oracle was defended and the protoss wound up behind. SoS was basically the only player on the planet who could make oracle openers work into a normal macro game without doing crippling levels of damage, and he was just plain playing better than his opponents. I should point out that was someone says "it has basically disappeared" which means it is rare, rather than 100% non-existent, saying that "it happened once this morning!" is not evidence that they are wrong. Blink stalker all-ins also just got a nerf, and I'm absolutely on board for a mothership core vision range nerf to nerf the blink stalker all-in more. The goal when balancing a game is to make the smallest, most incremental changes possible to see if you hit your target. The goal when designing a game is to make big changes and see what happens: they aren't currently designing though, they are balancing. Fine, let's look at the previous big korean PvT match, Parting v TY. Did we have an oracle opening there? Yes we did... I could keep this going for a while, but, honestly, you live in your own world where facts don't seem to apply and the onus to prove things is on everyone but you.
No, you're just under the impression that PvT is horrifically imbalanced and that everything protoss does needs a nerf, wheras I think it's only slightly imbalanced and only a few minor changes are needed to even things out.
I also will admit to not watching GSL this season, I don't have a subscription and the times are bad for me, but I have seen proleague. Are you suggesting that oracle openers should not be viable?
Answer this then: How much damage does a 1 base oracle opener have to do to break even, given the investment into stargate, the unit, and where the toss would be without (faster nexus, faster robo, faster forges, etc.).
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The storm change is huge. You are right about the variance of timing, but you have to understand that right now, later storm means you have more units/upgrades/whatever you delayed storm to get. Increasing its time will still require the same resources as early storm, but now you won't have it early. It's not as simple as you make it. Also you're wrong about the blink transition, the transition isn't "easy" because of storm timing, it's because of the defensive power of photon overcharge and the raw strength of the blink push in the first place, allowing it to be extremely powerful without being "all-in" aka toss can put resources into other things as he's pushing.
Stim coming faster, I don't like it, but I wouldn't mind seeing it in a test map, it's certainly not as ludicrous as hydra change lol Lastly, for the warp-in timing, I'm going to say not to that change. Speedvacs are good enough to make drops threatening, warp-in isn't a problem. I'm not sure what pro games you're watching where toss has nothing in place for a double (or more) medivac drop and comes off totally unscathed because of zealot warp-ins lol
Edit: Also to the guy that says oracle is the "go-to macro opening for PvT", please,let's not exagerate lol It's viable, but it's not the go-to build. Imo I hate the oracle just as much as the next guy in lower levels of play (I'm not GM, obv) since they can be so damaging, but pros have learned to deal with them pretty well.
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On February 08 2014 05:29 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On February 08 2014 05:25 Ghanburighan wrote:On February 08 2014 04:58 Whitewing wrote:On February 08 2014 04:55 Ghanburighan wrote:Whitewing, do you really want to utter such nonsense: The oracle has basically disappeared from pro PvTs, why does it need a nerf? It was used in Trap v Supernova this morning... And it has been probably the macro opening for P since the buff. Sure, blink stalker is incredibly popular at the moment, but oracle still features in the majority of non-blink games. It is not in the majority of pro games, and it only used in games like Trap vs. Supernova because it DOESN'T show up in every game. When it was popular there were games all the time where the oracle was defended and the protoss wound up behind. SoS was basically the only player on the planet who could make oracle openers work into a normal macro game without doing crippling levels of damage, and he was just plain playing better than his opponents. I should point out that was someone says "it has basically disappeared" which means it is rare, rather than 100% non-existent, saying that "it happened once this morning!" is not evidence that they are wrong. Blink stalker all-ins also just got a nerf, and I'm absolutely on board for a mothership core vision range nerf to nerf the blink stalker all-in more. The goal when balancing a game is to make the smallest, most incremental changes possible to see if you hit your target. The goal when designing a game is to make big changes and see what happens: they aren't currently designing though, they are balancing. Fine, let's look at the previous big korean PvT match, Parting v TY. Did we have an oracle opening there? Yes we did... I could keep this going for a while, but, honestly, you live in your own world where facts don't seem to apply and the onus to prove things is on everyone but you. No, you're just under the impression that PvT is horrifically imbalanced and that everything protoss does needs a nerf, wheras I think it's only slightly imbalanced and only a few minor changes are needed to even things out. I also will admit to not watching GSL this season, I don't have a subscription and the times are bad for me, but I have seen proleague.
We were not even discussing balance -_- What would my biases have to do with whether oracles are a common opening or not. It's your incredibly arrogance at asserting claims which you have no idea about that I took offense with.
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EPT
