Feb 10: Balance Test Map Coming - Page 50

On February 13 2014 12:06 SC2Toastie wrote:

It's not that hard... :O
Also, you should have tanks, which helps.

On February 13 2014 09:41 DinoMight wrote:
I kind of want to see what happened in Brood War. Blizzard says OKAY WERE DONE HERE and just leaves the game alone for 10 years. Let map makers and metagame figure it out.

The metagame evolves so quickly especially nowadays when information sharing is so much easier (there were no Day9 dailies and Youtube tutorials back then, pros could not as easily send each other replays and watch VoDs). We need to give people some time to learn how to react to things. It's much easier to create a new cheese or strategy than to learn how to stop it effectively.

Map making is also a VERY powerful balance tool. Just look at Daedalus. Once Zergs figured out that the only option was for Protoss to go balls out cheese they started going 14/14 and winning every game. It was in fact the only balance tool used in BW once the last patch hit in like 2001 (or whatever, not sure when exact date was).

Blizzard's approach with SC2 seems to be "nerf the build du jour" without really allowing people to figure out alternatives. As soon as something becomes standard, Blizzard decides it needs a nerf. If they just left the game alone, people would eventually figure out things to do, out of necessity. Like they did in Brood War. SC2 has no Bisu, has no Savior... just a bunch of guys playing standard until Blizzard changes standard by nerfing something into the ground.

On February 13 2014 11:23 Whitewing wrote:


For terran, Daedalus point had a lot to do with the distance from the main to the natural as well, it's not just the ramp size. On maps where you can't wall off a choke, you can usually do a partial wall from the nexus to the ramp or something to prevent units from running past, and rely on good sim city for defense. On Daedalus point, because the distance is so huge, you can't even attempt it.

On February 13 2014 16:51 aZealot wrote:


But, it's not just Daedalus, is it? Given a completely open natural T would be in the same trouble as P is vs mass Zerg armies. Maybe not to the same extent, but that would be because of bunkers, Tanks, Mines and a core army comprised of ranged units. Heck, even maps with larger ramps than usual to the natural (like Akilon) were often susceptible to busts.

Well, numbers say no: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=443451

On February 14 2014 21:41 TW wrote:


So to maintain the viewership, they should redesign SH

On February 14 2014 22:04 lost_artz wrote:


Not gonna lie, I was like "not this bullshit again" when the Swarm hosts came out. I understand Zerg needs some sort of way to pressure turtle-ing players, but as it currently stands they're too good. Especially when Locusts last 25 secs and the cooldown is 25 secs on the SH. It's literally a constant stream. There needs to be a brief amount of time where there are no Locusts whatsoever from a given swarm host.

On February 15 2014 09:42 Spect8rCraft wrote:
I think one of the fundamental problems with Zerg right now is the presumption of their remax potential. That's not to say it doesn't exist; it does, but such a presumption requires the Zerg to trade at least on par or close to with the opposing forces; otherwise remaxing doesn't exactly benefit the Zerg in any way. That's a bit of an issue with Protoss and Terran mech.

From what I've watched, Protoss with sufficient forcefields and minimal AoE--that is, three colossi, four high templars, which are about the norm--can easily decimate Zerg's roach-hydra, roach-hydra-corrupter, ling-bane-muta, really any ground-based compositions, without taking heavy losses, even if colossi usually are the first to go with any corrupter-heavy composition.

Similarly, tanks can be monstrous against ling-bane sans muta or roach-hydra without vipers. If a Terran can turtle into a maxed army of mech on 2-3 bases, then they will almost always have the defender's advantage--so long as the tanks remain properly sieged. A Zerg player who only eliminates half of a mech force would return only to find vikings and ravens that zone out mutalisks. Once a critical mass of ravens is achieved, which is becoming increasingly feasible, though not always, no amount of trading will get through PDDs.

There's making units trade efficiently, like marines via splitting and kiting, banelings counter-splitting, mutalisk magic-boxing versus thor-baiting. Then there's extreme efficiency, like forcefields, where even just cordoning off mere sections of a map can leave the entire army susceptible to AoE, and absolute forcefield surrounds just massacre anything unfortunate enough to get caught. Or like PDDs, where the number of Zerg units that can strike past its defenses is infestors. Despite being the swarm, Zerg seems like the least benefited when it comes to maxing out an army.

That's why the Zerg are obligated to have the swarm host. The Zerg doesn't NEED swarm hosts per se--I'm sure most Zerg would more than happily trade the swarm host for most any other unit equivalent--but with their current arsenal, its their only way to reliably trade up. Otherwise, the only way for Zerg to trade with any other composition is through superior positioning--which, while still entirely possible, doesn't come easy, and comes at the mercy of Protoss deathballs and Terran mech advantages.

On February 15 2014 08:53 VArsovskiSC wrote:


TBH SH isn't a good unit but instead it is very bad.. That's why you have to make like at least 15 of them, and another 200/200 to invest into the upgrade.. So yah - the mere very high cost for the unit actually forces the turtle cause otherwise the unit is too expensive, it simply is far too high cost and forces the passiveness in playstyle in order to make them pay off

IMO Blizz should consider reducing the cost of the unit for reduction of their overall performance in greater numbers.. The simplest way to reduce the SH performance is just remove the EL upgrade.. But yah - SH as a unit is far too expensive and it basically makes Zerg go all-in for quite a while when going for them

On February 15 2014 13:41 FabledIntegral wrote:


Uh, you left out ultras/BL/vipers, aka the tier 3 tech, ofc the Zerg trades worse in these situations lol. Keep in mind Zerg has mobile static defense which encourages the heavy massing of these structures and also typically has a superior economy. Doesn't play even remotely as lopsided as you make it sound...

On February 15 2014 17:55 Spect8rCraft wrote:


Sorry, didn't mean to come off as lopsided. You're right, brood lords, ultralisks and vipers can often tip the scales in Zerg's favor. I think ultralisks can be pretty resilient against Protoss compositions that don't include void rays, but the Zerg would have to plan fairly ahead in advance to get the melee upgrades to make ultralisks efficient enough to try to trade against archons, which will undoubtedly be at 3 attack by that point. Brood lords are more of a peculiar late-game timing attack, as once they are identified, Terrans will begin to stock up on vikings (or whatever counters brood lords these days) and Protoss will get that abominable tempest--if they have the proper infrastructure, otherwise brood lords can become a more serious threat. Vipers generally make good on what they do best, despite feedbacks and vikings. Along with timings, anti-timings, good flanks and positioning, snipes and harassment, Zerg can win games with sufficient frequency. There's no denying that, and recent winrates support the lack of extreme or even prevalent lopsidedness.

Even so, what you suggest in the latter sentence doesn't necessarily make Zergs win games, it just makes them not lose them (if it makes any sense). Superior economy with theoretically instant army production is balanced against weaker units (however that's compared; I've always felt that Zerg units don't trade well in even fights when army supply increases, doubly so when compositions are involved). Pre-max timings where Zerg can get an army supply advantage offer a significant number of victories for Zerg. Mobile defense doesn't mean you can attack armies or even bases with them; it just means the opponent can't attack in Zerg's parts of the map without clearing out the defense first--which essentially flashes a red light as to where that army is relative to Zerg's. Defenses don't go towards the opponent's army, the opponent's army comes towards the defense, where vipers can pick it apart.

In other words, if the Protoss plays macro and the Zerg plays macro, the best case scenario is that the Zerg is slightly the underdog or on par in terms of composition (muta-corrupter can trade okay against pheonix and/or void-ray compositions, given proper micro; muta-ling-bane is still very viable against bio; roach-hydra varies against immortal-centered compositions that don't involve a Soul); I think these games are preferable because they're more action-packed and don't take an hour minimum (hyperbole, of course, but not by much). The worst is that the enemy deathball is or becomes virtually unassailable, and Zerg's first response is to "not die". To "not die" is to macro up, get up swarm hosts, litter the map in creep and defenses, and play the starvation game to win. Then comes the verdict: either one side screws up and loses their army--either by being out of position or by attrition, sometimes by poor army composition--or both players stabilize into a sort of end-game situation, which is when the prior verdict happens so slowly--or not even at all--that games go on... and on... and on. Soulkey vs. Reality and MaNa vs. FireCake are both indicative of the latter.