On February 08 2014 06:01 ffadicted wrote: [quote]
You also don't want a game with too many amazing early game/all-in possibilities. Blink is too strong right now, it needs to be looked at.
No, thanks. Blink research was already nerfed by about 70 seconds (iirc) in HOTS. Reduce the vision of the MSC to 11 (as with all other flyers). That will help with countering blink play. Make TW an upgrade at Core. That will help with blink all-ins.
Continue tweaking PO (by looking at range and casting range).
But, don't nerf an option that allows for pressure and good active play. The game is worse as a result.
Edit/ Sorry, 30 seconds, I think. I'll have to check that.
Don't nerf an option that allows for pressure and good active play? Then why were hellbats nerfed?
From what I remember, it was because TvT had become a Hellbat fest. I was in two minds about that patch (as you may or may not know, I generally dislike most, if not all, patches) but it seemed the right way to go as a once cool match-up (TvT) had become just silly. If they want to return the Hellbat to 2 cargo space, rather than 4 that would be fine with me.
Note also, that I was against the WM nerf. But that was because of all the ZvT complaining. A stronger WM and 4 HB per Medivac seems OK to me. Heck, I'd even be on board with looking at stim timings again (as that is one powerful upgrade). But, you would have to consider the effect of all of this on TvZ too (I am not sure if a big stim buff would not be too much).
Unfortunately, generally speaking Blizzard have been very unwilling to roll back any patch. Realistically speaking I doubt any of these will happen. But, if nerfs to Protoss are to happen. Then, I'd like them to be good and intelligent tweaks rather than massive swings of the nerf hammer. This way Protoss get to still enjoy some of their new found HOTS flexibility while giving some back to Terran too. That way, hopefully, both races are better off in aggregate and Starcraft itself better off as a result.
Nobody has disagreed with the hellbat nerfs - but the amount they nerfed them. It was not a TvT nerf despite whatever they tell you: it was an accross the board nerf to Terran openings.
WM nerf was 'because TvZ is getting stale', another pretty terrible reason. Balance in TvZ was looking really good with the better player usually winning (Unlike now - see any LR threat). The problem was that the same game over and over and over and over got boring so Mines got nerfed.
I don't agree with that. That patch came after a whole bunch of rather silly TvT games. The unit itself was OK in TvZ and TvP from what I remember. I see no reason why Blizzard would lie. The nerf may have been over-heavy (I can't say for sure). But this is why, along with the WM nerf, I am generally against patching. Patches tend to cause more trouble than they are worth.
Bold position to hold (against patching) given the current state of the game.
My preferred approach to Blizzard's balancing is an adaptation of the UK's 4 stage strategy to Foreign Policy from Yes, Prime Minister.
I am being partially facetious.
Partially facetious? God I hope completely facetious. The skit appears to poke fun at the ineptitude of the UK foreign ministry.
Haha, it is wholly tongue in cheek from me and having a laugh! :D
And yeah, mate. There are times when you do need to patch. I accept that. But, it's difficult to know when and what. For example, right now I don't like the constriction in Terran play in TvP (the numbers are not the point). So, I think Blizzard should be tweaking Protoss by looking at PO, MSC vision and the Time Warp. These won't overturn PvZ too much, either.
Btw, if I remember right, you used to be a lot more in favour of patches and Blizzard intervention, no? (Or have I got that wrong?) You now seem to be in favour of a slow and incremental approach. What changed your mind?
Nope. I've always been for a measured approach. I vehemently opposed the culture of denial from the Protoss in TL. That might have given that impression to you. Acknowledging it is the first step; and it doesn't mean to accept massive nerfs.
On February 08 2014 07:41 Wombat_NI wrote: WM nerf was premature IMO, just like the Queen patch in that it really did look that top Zergs were really figuring out ways to engage optimally anyway.
Win rates were really close to 50/50 before the nerf, and now I think that muta/ling vs bio/mine/thor favours zerg. I do feel the mine was probably too good pre nerf, but the tank "buff" was in no way adequate compensation.
I really miss that from BW, there was tons of OP shit, but it was ok since everyone had it. As soon as something sticks out in SC2 it gets mauled with the nerfhammer and some other unit is given a speed increase for no apparent reason.
Win rates were not 50/50 pre-nerf, they were grossly in T's favor, Soulkey was the only Zerg who could take games off Terran, and he had to vastly outplay his opponent to do so. Imbalanced TvZ was the primary reason we only got 2 Z's in '13 WCS Global Finals. WM nerf was not premature; in fact it was the complete opposite -- it should have been implemented way before it was, and part of the reason it took so long was because Zergs don't whine near as much, and when they do they are chastised and suppressed far more readily than the other races, I mean compare the amount of whine from Z during '13 WCS Global Finals versus what we get from Terrans now, the ratio is like 1:∞.
No. '113 WCS Global Finals include WCS points from 2 seasons, in which 2 of the seasons Terran was probably slightly stronger, in the third, however, Zerg was pretty much fine in TvZ. The game was really back and forth and the better player won. AND THEN the mine patch came.
Keep telling yourself that.
That is indeed a very mature way to argue!
Maybe if there was an argument to be had (there wasn't).
There is. You lost it because I called you out on proposing wrong evidence. Now take it or leave it.
On February 08 2014 07:41 Wombat_NI wrote: WM nerf was premature IMO, just like the Queen patch in that it really did look that top Zergs were really figuring out ways to engage optimally anyway.
Win rates were really close to 50/50 before the nerf, and now I think that muta/ling vs bio/mine/thor favours zerg. I do feel the mine was probably too good pre nerf, but the tank "buff" was in no way adequate compensation.
I really miss that from BW, there was tons of OP shit, but it was ok since everyone had it. As soon as something sticks out in SC2 it gets mauled with the nerfhammer and some other unit is given a speed increase for no apparent reason.
Win rates were not 50/50 pre-nerf, they were grossly in T's favor, Soulkey was the only Zerg who could take games off Terran, and he had to vastly outplay his opponent to do so. Imbalanced TvZ was the primary reason we only got 2 Z's in '13 WCS Global Finals. WM nerf was not premature; in fact it was the complete opposite -- it should have been implemented way before it was, and part of the reason it took so long was because Zergs don't whine near as much, and when they do they are chastised and suppressed far more readily than the other races, I mean compare the amount of whine from Z during '13 WCS Global Finals versus what we get from Terrans now, the ratio is like 1:∞.
No. '113 WCS Global Finals include WCS points from 2 seasons, in which 2 of the seasons Terran was probably slightly stronger, in the third, however, Zerg was pretty much fine in TvZ. The game was really back and forth and the better player won. AND THEN the mine patch came.
Keep telling yourself that.
That is indeed a very mature way to argue!
Maybe if there was an argument to be had (there wasn't).
There is. You lost it because I called you out on proposing wrong evidence. Now take it or leave it.
"I'm right and you're wrong, so there! Take that!"
On February 08 2014 07:41 Wombat_NI wrote: WM nerf was premature IMO, just like the Queen patch in that it really did look that top Zergs were really figuring out ways to engage optimally anyway.
Win rates were really close to 50/50 before the nerf, and now I think that muta/ling vs bio/mine/thor favours zerg. I do feel the mine was probably too good pre nerf, but the tank "buff" was in no way adequate compensation.
I really miss that from BW, there was tons of OP shit, but it was ok since everyone had it. As soon as something sticks out in SC2 it gets mauled with the nerfhammer and some other unit is given a speed increase for no apparent reason.
Win rates were not 50/50 pre-nerf, they were grossly in T's favor, Soulkey was the only Zerg who could take games off Terran, and he had to vastly outplay his opponent to do so. Imbalanced TvZ was the primary reason we only got 2 Z's in '13 WCS Global Finals. WM nerf was not premature; in fact it was the complete opposite -- it should have been implemented way before it was, and part of the reason it took so long was because Zergs don't whine near as much, and when they do they are chastised and suppressed far more readily than the other races, I mean compare the amount of whine from Z during '13 WCS Global Finals versus what we get from Terrans now, the ratio is like 1:∞.
No. '113 WCS Global Finals include WCS points from 2 seasons, in which 2 of the seasons Terran was probably slightly stronger, in the third, however, Zerg was pretty much fine in TvZ. The game was really back and forth and the better player won. AND THEN the mine patch came.
Keep telling yourself that.
That is indeed a very mature way were to argue!
Maybe if there was an argument to be had (there wasn't).
There is. You lost it because I called you out on proposing wrong evidence. Now take it or leave it.
That's it. Release the anger.
No you were actually wrong. There was no gross imbalance tvz prior to the wm nerf , or at least not to the extent you describe. Describe. Sure zvt was hard, but it getting better. Despite not winning championships, JD was performing really well. Hyun won his first tournament, DRG beats innovation in the GSL. On the foreign front, scarlett was also doing well.
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.).
Well if you had looked at Code A you would had noticed that not a single Terran who played vs a Protoss made it into Code S. That Protoss went like 17/1 or something ridicoulous like that in maps and had 94% win ratio in maps and like 76% in series.
If you had looked at the last three major tournaments, we have seen 3 PvP finals. If you had payed attention to Code S you would had noticed there are 3 Terrans in round 32, and one of them got massacred today (so be it he played quite bad). Also you had noticed 4/4 players making it into round of 16 is Protoss.
If you also had payed attention to the IEM qualifier in Korea last night you might had noticed that a single Terran took a map vs a Protoss from round 16 and that was TY going for a inbase proxy baracks bunker rush that went unscouted vs Parting.
I can go on for ages - but if this is just a "small imbalance" - can you please explain to me what makes a.. Lets say standard sized imbalance?
Terran clearly now needs more than a Ghost buff.
At the moment Protoss has so many viable options that it does not matter if you nerf one of them slightly since there will be so many options left that still is superior to any Terran build.
Meanwhile Terran needs to go for the same boring build over and over again. Its not just about balance, its about actually being able to enjoy the game.
And that last part is what I really hope for Blizzard to change since I am so tired of playing TvP that I probably made my last ladder game yesterday until something changes. And I have made around 8K matches in Master League so it's probably only good for me to have some time off this game.
I agree that the msc should have a vision nerf: that will substantially reduce the power of the blink all-in by making the msc vastly more vulnerable, which should ease up the early game problems quite a bit. If terran isn't quite as concerned by a blink all-in, other options open up.
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.).
Well if you had looked at Code A you would had noticed that not a single Terran who played vs a Protoss made it into Code S. That Protoss went like 17/1 or something ridicoulous like that in maps and had 94% win ratio in maps and like 76% in series.
If you had looked at the last three major tournaments, we have seen 3 PvP finals. If you had payed attention to Code S you would had noticed there are 3 Terrans in round 32, and one of them got massacred today (so be it he played quite bad). Also you had noticed 4/4 players making it into round of 16 is Protoss.
If you also had payed attention to the IEM qualifier in Korea last night you might had noticed that a single Terran took a map vs a Protoss from round 16 and that was TY going for a inbase proxy baracks bunker rush that went unscouted vs Parting.
I can go on for ages - but if this is just a "small imbalance" - can you please explain to me what makes a.. Lets say standard sized imbalance?
Terran clearly now needs more than a Ghost buff.
At the moment Protoss has so many viable options that it does not matter if you nerf one of them slightly since there will be so many options left that still is superior to any Terran build.
Meanwhile Terran needs to go for the same boring build over and over again. Its not just about balance, its about actually being able to enjoy the game.
And that last part is what I really hope for Blizzard to change since I am so tired of playing TvP that I probably made my last ladder game yesterday until something changes. And I have made around 8K matches in Master League so it's probably only good for me to have some time off this game.
I agree that the msc should have a vision nerf: that will substantially reduce the power of the blink all-in by making the msc vastly more vulnerable, which should ease up the early game problems quite a bit. If terran isn't quite as concerned by a blink all-in, other options open up.
That should be enough to fix the matchup.
For MsC to be threatned, it's vision range has to be within marine attack range. Doubt that will go over well with any Protoss or with Blizzard. Instead, the most powerful templar follow-up after holding off blink stalker is nerfed with a buff to ghosts.
I think blink stalker all-ins have been nerfed indirectly. Terran can just drop a ghost academy after holding a blink all-in, and queue ghosts the moment they see templar tech. The fact that ghosts don't need energy upgrade is pretty good to deal with that follow up.
On February 06 2014 20:19 Dapper_Cad wrote: [quote]
If this forum had a purge of assholes, would any of us be safe?
Incidentally... Hey, assholes, this past month a key member of the design team has been attempting to engage with the SC2 community. Are we just going to pretty much ignore that? Yes, tribalism is fun. Who doesn't like to "I-just-discovered-potterying it up" by a roaring fire, explaining to each other why "they" are not only wrong but evil?
But after the rosy glow of self righteous furvour fades? What did he say again?
David Kim isn't the captain of the good ship SC2. Right now it's patch time and the kind of change he can get done is limited.
[quote]
Harassment options always seem overpowered at first. Implying that the balance team don't pay too much attention to initial community feedback on harassment changes.
[quote]
European PvZ is especially broken for some reason.
[quote]
David Kim is watching swarm host games he likes (Proleague?)
[quote]
There's a lot of other stuff, including a good bit about PvT, but just from this... If you're interested in engaging with, rather than insulting, David Kim and the balance team you might solve a problem they are working of that I think most of the community recognise as a problem. He pretty much asks for help at one point.
[quote]
Maybe, just maybe you can apply your gargantuan brain to think of a clever way, within the constraints of a patch, of fixing the problem.
It's unfixable you say? Then what the hell are you doing in this thread? Go agitate for deeper changes with LotV or support Starbow or make your own mod. Right now this thread is 50% mixed whining and simple toxicity making it barely readable. When we reach background levels of crazy then come back. We'll have missed you!
Wow, someone with the correct attitude, who knew?
I know, that post was a joy to read. I love the myth that being a negative asshole somehow will get people to change. It's like in dota when people yell at their teammates and I wonder "why would yelling at him make him better at the game?"
Thank you Dapper_Cad, Whitewing, Plansix, and all others that keep a positive state of mind. This is real discussion. I honestly get rather tired of poo flinging sometimes.
We do what we can. Sadly there are people who sill believe that do thy throw enough poo at Blizzard, it will somehow make them listen.
And what will you achieve? You're only gonna produce toned down and watered-out criticism in times when drastic measures are needed.
By your definition I am probably a poo flinger. However, I don't expect changes because people are whining. I expect changes because people are quitting the game. The whining is just a symptom.
edit: I might pick up StarBow though. Those new spider mines look awesome.
Well because I am so positive and a fan of MLG, they asked me to be a beta tester for their video player Xbox app. I also told them that they should focus on VODs, since that is a thing that twitch sucks at and I care about a lot. And when I complain about something or point out a problem, I normally get a response on twitter.
Do I change the world? Not likely. Am I listened to more than someone posting how much MLG sucked and needs to get their act together? Always.
You got to test a beta video player for Xbox. Oh the privilege, lol.
Money makes companies change their minds. That is why I don't play or watch SC2 anymore.
With all due respect, sir: by the following reasoning "Money makes companies change their minds. That is why I don't play or watch SC2 anymore." you should stop doing anything you usually do at all. Do you like sports? Movies? Music? Anything else? Food, clothing and houses? Drinking water and electricity? Because all of those are made by companies who change their minds when money is involved. That doesn't make them or their products bad.
Do you believe that the swarm host is proving to be used in the way that you wanted it to when you designed the unit for HotS? Do you like the way the swarm host is currently being used by pros?
David Kim wrote: The first question in our minds don't matter as much at this point.
What a completely ignorant and idiotic statement.
So you spent months designing something (intending Swarmhosts to give Zerg an aggressive option mid-game) and it is used exactly in the opposite way that you intended (allowing Zergs to turtle in the mid and late game) causing a major game play issue, and it "don't matter"?
It does matter. Your design failed. Miserably. Hold yourself accountable. Say you learned from the mistake. Don't dismiss it as a non-issue. And what about the problem of Zergs not having aggressive options mid game to finish off opponents? Does that not matter anymore now?
Don't you understand David? You set out to fix a problem, failed, and now say the problem doesn't matter? Well then why did you try to fix it in the first place!? By ignoring his question, you're basically saying saying the initial problem didn't exist and that you have no plans to fix it.
This sums up the design team perfectly. They simply have no idea what they are doing. They try to "fix" an issue, fail, and then forget about fixing said problem, because they realize the issue actually wasn't a problem in the first place. And we are left the the "results" (ie Swarmhost) which they then try to somehow fit into the game. And often the "results" overlap with existing units, ie Tempests. Remember Tempests solving the non-existent Muta problem in WOL? Yeah, me too. Now Tempests are just a replacement for the Carrier, performing nearly the same role (long range capital ship). Frankly, I'm not sure what is worse: Blizzard's inability to identify real problems with the game, or their inability to implement in the game what they had planned to implement.
Either way, it is really laughable how brain-dead that comment is. David, you really know how to spew the political bullshit. Too bad you aren't as good at designing units that actually perform the role you intend them to.
I wish this comment hadn't gotten as buried as it did, because this lack of responsibility and accountability might be the most infuriating thing about the SC2 design process (of which Blizzard has made us a part, for better or worse).
If they were constantly trying different things and transparent about their motivations for trying these things, there would still be disagreements -- but they would be about facts. How can we have a meaningful discussion with Blizzard when we don't understand what they want from this game.
For instance, they say they want mech to be playable, but the steps they take to make this happen are so obnoxiously indirect, their words become seriously suspect. They buff Ghosts to buff mech? First of all, the buff is extremely one-dimensional (possibly opening new timings), second it does more for bio than mech. If they were being transparent, they would say, "we expect this to increase Terran midgame all-in viability with bio, which would be a desirable secondary outcome, and we're trying to hit two birds with one stone." Then we could retort, "But we don't want Terran to have any more midgame all-in viability with bio than they already do!" and have an evolving discussion, instead of talking about symptoms every time. Are they actually not able to put 2+2 together, or are they being hopelessly optimistic, or are they trying to mislead us? Why do we have to guess what their true motivation is? Why can't they simply fucking say?
Then, WHAT KIND of mech do they want to be playable? TvT aggressive mech? ZvT turtle mech? If it's turtle mech without a fix to the game's economy, then thanks but no thanks. Nobody wants that. Even Blizz is gearing up to nerf Ravens, except Ravens don't need a nerf, they need a redesign. After four years, can't this be a dialogue instead of the same non-committal non-answers over and over again?
The truth is they completely and utterly botched Heart of the Swarm in every way except a slightly improved PvP, a temporary reprieve in lategame PvZ (there goes that!) and giving Protoss early map presence and aggressive macro openings, which is a fantastic change in theory but in practice it's taken PvT from a stale MU where Terrans win with boring all-ins/early pressure or Protoss win macro wars, and shit all over it, making us look back on those days fondly. David Kim says "we don't redesign in patches" which would be fine if they redesigned in expansions but they don't. The changes to Terran from WOL to HOTS are... one core unit for one MU (which then got nerfed without nerfing the correspondingly buffed Muta), one boring, nichey half-unit (Hellbat), and easier transition from mech to air -- which allows for extremely tedious SkyTerran, thank god for that. And let's not forget the Warhound, which was so awful, Terrans begged to have it go away (and be replaced, which Blizz forgot to do).
HOTS alpha+beta took, what, one year? One and a half? Anyone on this forum would be capable of coming up with 50 units in a single day that would be worth testing out. They couldn't do worse than the Warhound, that's for sure. Blizzard tried out three, then cut one. Then they have the gall to not redesign in patches! If you did your job when you were supposed to, maybe you wouldn't have to.
Here's my prediction for what happens: SC2 will survive, no doubt boosted by LOTV sales, but viewership will drop steadily and Blizzard will have their proof that putting money into RTS is not a great investment. And then the next time they start talking about competitive RTS, they'll think twice. "Sure," they'll say, "if we'd designed the game better, maybe things would have turned out differently... or maybe they wouldn't have. Why take the risk?" I hope this doesn't happen, but the "come what may" attitude and pathological unwillingness to have an open discussion about the issues hampering this game doesn't give me much hope.
Let's just say that your post is unreasonable. You would need 50 months to test 50 units to get any reasonably useful results. And your claim that Blizzard tried "3 units" is just plain wrong. You only see one tiny snapshot of the development process. You have no idea of all the single-player-only units, or those that were cut from single player. The sentry alone has like 3 different cut versions that didn't make it into the game.
I feel like at this point SC2's team has designated certain mechanics and units "untouchable". Reasonably so, as changing anything drastically will disturb the status quo too much.
If we wanted things like "no deathball" and "more micro", the time was during beta.
For SC1 the outcry against their design decisions transformed "Orcs in space" into Starcraft and later Starcraft: Brood War. For SC2 the outcry against their design decisions... ...gave us tweaked and fiddled numbers.
At this point most suggestions from the community turns into backseat developing, which never goes anywhere. Go out and really DESIGN a game.
In conclusion, go give Starbow a look-over and you will see what SC2 should have been.
On February 08 2014 20:02 S1eth wrote: Let's just say that your post is unreasonable. You would need 50 months to test 50 units to get any reasonably useful results. And your claim that Blizzard tried "3 units" is just plain wrong. You only see one tiny snapshot of the development process. You have no idea of all the single-player-only units, or those that were cut from single player. The sentry alone has like 3 different cut versions that didn't make it into the game.
It doesn´t matter how much they tried out, in the end the result is what matters. And after close to one year HotS, the only new feature/unit for terran, that really matters in the game, is the medivac speed. No combined upgrades for mech/air is not a new feature but a terrible way of game design as is removing the energy upgrade for ghosts and making them start with 75 energy. Mech in SC2 will allways be turtle mech, because it takes so long to have an army that can fight in open field! You get there with bio much faster, you get there with Z/P much faster too. Most players don´t like to play against turtling players and most viewers don´t like to watch players that turtle every game. So I don´t get at all, where the desire comes from, to make mech as a stand alone strategy viable. I guess it´s just to have an alternative to the same unit comps from terran over and over again. But it would be much more interesting to have most mech units synergize with a core army of bio units, because the resulting playstyle would be much more dynamic. In Broodwar Mech was much more dynamic too, and this has several reasons: 1. the vulture could deal with any ground units thanks to spider mines. So there was allways potential for the unit to do something. Hellions get shutdown by a couple of roaches and a queen or marauders. 2. tanks were very microable in tank mode and therefor, you could play much more agressive. Also point one helped a lot to be agressive early on. 3. The goliath was a microable allround mech fighter with a decent movement speed. You can only be agressive if you have either an unbeatable army or mobility. In BW mech still had an okay mobility and could cover retreats with spider mines and it had micro potential on every unit. In SC2 you have some micro potential on the hellion and that´s it.
ergo: Nobody should want mech as a stand alone playstyle viable, because this will only lead to the most boring games, once the freshness factor is gone! The mech units have to be designed to synergyze with core armies of bio!
On February 08 2014 09:01 TheDwf wrote: Perhaps an interesting option for the Mine would be to further weaken it, but reduce a bit the production time and make it 1 supply.
So happy to see someone else make this suggestion. I've only recently started dabbling into terran but this change quickly crossed my mind. I think it would solve quite a few problems with the race.
On February 08 2014 20:20 Qwerty85 wrote: What I got form this is: main focus is PvZ, TvP is fine but "we will closely monitor the situation" etc, TvZ ravens will get nerfed.
On February 08 2014 09:01 TheDwf wrote: Perhaps an interesting option for the Mine would be to further weaken it, but reduce a bit the production time and make it 1 supply.
I like that idea!
Sadly, that is probably a 'redesign' so we'll have to wait for that...
EDIT: What purpose is it going to fulfill? It's not going to have the AoE vs MLB, probably becomes an anti-stack Air + poor static defense?
That Q&A was bad and by pointing out that he gave us 10 copied & pasted answers from same old questions I got a 3 day temp ban from B.net. No words on redesign plans, what to do when players just refuse to unit in the way they thought it should be used (SH), on winrates, more diversity, changes proposed by players. It's like he had all the answers ready and was just waiting for the right questions to fit them in. I expected a lot more from that Q&A, but maybe I'm just a harasser.
On February 08 2014 12:05 plogamer wrote: Instead, the most powerful templar follow-up after holding off blink stalker is nerfed with a buff to ghosts.
I think blink stalker all-ins have been nerfed indirectly. Terran can just drop a ghost academy after holding a blink all-in, and queue ghosts the moment they see templar tech. The fact that ghosts don't need energy upgrade is pretty good to deal with that follow up.
Ghost buff did nothing. Even without energy upgrade ghost will have emp when he arrive to the protoss base. And 1 additional snipe per ghost mean nothing. It is the same useless buff as it was with 10% tank attack speed buff.
I even rechecked bombers scv pull allin with ghosts - he didn't do energy upgrade for this...
without upgrade ghost will be better in defence... but who will build ghosts for defence? don't know may be kim think that terran suppose tp build ghosts instead of 5bunkkers to defend blink allin?
On February 08 2014 12:05 plogamer wrote: Instead, the most powerful templar follow-up after holding off blink stalker is nerfed with a buff to ghosts.
I think blink stalker all-ins have been nerfed indirectly. Terran can just drop a ghost academy after holding a blink all-in, and queue ghosts the moment they see templar tech. The fact that ghosts don't need energy upgrade is pretty good to deal with that follow up.
Ghost buff did nothing. Even without energy upgrade ghost will have emp when he arrive to the protoss base. And 1 additional snipe per ghost mean nothing. It is the same useless buff as it was with 10% tank attack speed buff.
I even rechecked bombers scv pull allin with ghosts - he didn't do energy upgrade for this...
without upgrade ghost will be better in defence... but who will build ghosts for defence? don't know may be kim think that terran suppose tp build ghosts instead of 5bunkkers to defend blink allin?
Stop saying any buff or nerf "does nothing". You know you're wrong.
EPT
