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On May 07 2014 05:11 Squat wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2014 05:08 Sufinsil wrote:
Some things I would like to see tried:
SH queen speed off creep.
More time between waves, adjust 100% uptime to like 90%
Or
Locusts don't last as long to limit their effective range.
Each locust spawn costs 1-2 minerals. Instead of endless spam, you have to to be more effective with how you use locusts. If to costly, buff locusts slightly in some way but keep that economic impact. Why do people keep suggesting shit that are just flat out nerfs? As if it would solve anything? It's just unproductive. This is only relevant if we can show hosts are objectively OP, or else all you're doing is making zerg late game even worse. Seriously, stop it.
Yeah, the goal here is not just to nerf Swam Hosts, just gonna reiterate that. That is not what the debate is really about at the moment.
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On May 07 2014 05:12 Waise wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2014 05:10 FabledIntegral wrote:
I should have clarified - they are not fun to play against, whatsoever.
Even if the Zerg is playing an aggressive, non ridiculous turtle style, and even if you crush it as P or T, it's one of hte "nothing about this game is fun" moments.
Can't stand watching them either, though.
They are admittedly fun to use yourself, offensively, because they all of a sudden require much more multitasking to keep alive and get damage dealt. you can say the same thing about force fields, cannon rushes, 11/11, widow mines... probably almost anything. i still don't understand the distinction, to be honest
Not really, the distinction is coming from the infinite free unit spawn. With everything else, once you kill the opposing unit, it's dead. You don't have this "oh I could kill those units right now, but it makes no sense to do so, so I'm just going to run."
The entire "I'm going to consistently run from the enemy even though I could kill it" is ridiculous.
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On May 07 2014 04:54 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2014 04:40 Squat wrote:On May 07 2014 04:33 Sapphire.lux wrote:On May 07 2014 04:25 sabas123 wrote:
I would like to see an option for zerg to counter mech other then swarm host so that they maby could remove it. The Viper should be the key IMO. Some sort of ling roach hidra combo on the ground and blinding cloud. That spell could force tanks to spread out so helping Zerg and making the game look cool at the same time. So much potential there instead of the retarded SH Raven crap we see. Vipers are already immensely strong vs mech. Zerg has little or no issue dealing with ground based mech, roach/hydra with vipers can deal fine already. It's the air armies that are the real killers. And that's where the viper goes from great to outright mandatory. IMO Ravens should be looked at. They should not be massed the way they sometimes are, it is reminiscent of WOL infestors. Bah, dreams. SH Viper VS Tank Raven it is.
Ravens aren't a problem. It takes so much time, and so much money to mass them that it can't be compared to WOL infestors.
If a zerg let it happen, he deserves to loose.
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what if they made SH like carriers ? remove the timer on the locus and make them cost some minerals.
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Simple solution: Make it so locusts can't target zerg units.
Problem solved.
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On May 07 2014 04:59 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2014 04:57 Squat wrote:On May 07 2014 04:55 Plansix wrote:On May 07 2014 04:48 Squat wrote:On May 07 2014 04:40 Pursuit_ wrote:On May 07 2014 04:32 Squat wrote:On May 07 2014 04:16 Ercster wrote:On May 07 2014 04:10 Squat wrote:On May 07 2014 04:08 Ercster wrote:On May 07 2014 04:05 Falling wrote:
[quote]
It's still not a good solution. It basically acknowledges that they've made a unit that snowballs too well, but doesn't change the underlying cause on why it snowballs. Plus the swarmhost doesn't really even have special spells that would make it even feel like a hero unit like the Mothership. (And I never liked the idea of a mothership in the first place.)
I mean, realistically this could be the solution to any unit composition problem. Marauders are too good and Terran will only make pure marauders to snipe everything on the ground and shrug off air attacks. Solution? You can only make 20 marauders... or fix the reason why Terran only goes marauders every game. It sounds like they want a short term fix, though. Long term would be to change what makes them good in a comp, and that doesn't seem likely in this expansion. It's kinda the reason why I presented the idea of the unit cap. It wasn't to be the end all solution to the unit, but for the time being it might fix the problems it has until they decide to rework the unit. A short term fix that doesn't fuck up zerg late game is preferable, and available. Make BLs immune to abduct. Done. "- Change the Viper’s Abduct ability to make massive units immune to it. o By making Brood Lords immune to Abduct, we’d solve the stalemate. Late game ZvZ would be mostly about who wins in the air. o There are downsides -- Abduct is a really cool ability, and it is something Zerg needs vs. Colossi in PvZ. o To address that, we’d consider a potential buff to Blinding Cloud so that Vipers would still be a valuable utility unit in the ZvP matchup." To me, it doesn't seem like they're capable of doing that otherwise it would have been suggested instead of all massive units. And I don't think applying it to all massive units would be helpful. What prevents them from just making the broodlord immune exclusively? Ultras are immune to roots and snares. I think elegance is part of the problem, if you have more exceptions than rules it becomes very hard to understand the game. Maybe make it so Abduct doesn't work vs Biological units? This would fix the problem with Abduct vs Brood Lord without affecting ZvMech or ZvP. Another potential fix imo is to reduce the size of locusts, this would make banelings more effective vs them and baneling / ultra can actually wreck SH compositions in ZvZ (The banelings clear a wave of locusts and the ultralisks can't be stopped by fungal so they run in and decimate the SH's before the next wave spawns). It would also be a slight buff to other AoE counters to SH (Tanks and Hellions / Hellbats, Collosi and Storm). This also runs the risk of giving locusts more dps / surface area though. I'm unconvinced, Dota 2 is riddled with exceptions and special rules, yet pulls huge viewer numbers consistently. It's confusing one or two times. Anyone who would find something like that hard to process is not very likely to be watching competitive Sc2. People who are interested enough in this game to watch other nerds play games for hours on a friday night probably have a deent understanding of what is going on already. And honestly, the market for new players getting into Sc2 at this point is likely negligible. Special rules are what make dota beautiful. If you want consistency, play another game. SC2 could use more special rules. That was kind of my point yes. Yeah, I'm just backin you up. People like to shit on good solutions by saying "it's not elegant design", whatever the fuck that mean. Icefrog has elegant design down to a science. It's called, whatever makes the game awesome, fuck consistency.
Within limits, Plansix. Within limits. Too many exceptions and then it might become more worthwhile to start again from scratch. Moreover, elegant design isn't just about the beauty of a game, but also its ease of understanding. But, overall, I agree (and have said as much myself elsewhere), that opposing exceptions because it is an exception is not sound.
Giving Hydras a buff vs bio-air makes more sense to me than removing Viper abduct vs massive. I disliked that ability in beta because I thought it denied positioning. But, I was wrong. It's also a cool ability and needed for Z vs P and T.
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On May 07 2014 05:11 [F_]aths wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2014 05:08 ssxsilver wrote:On May 07 2014 05:04 [F_]aths wrote:
Has someone a link to the game in question? Stephano vs everyone at the LSC -.-. Though I guess you can single out game 2/3 vs Petraeus. I don't know how to link timestamps but the game begins around 11:00:00 http://www.twitch.tv/lonestarclash/b/525449584. Thank you.
You forgot to add morituri te salutant.
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This type of units that allow players to turtle just make the game worse. If i wanted to play like this i'd rather search for a tower defense game.
Anyways, i don't know what's worse, eventual SH vs SH, or roach vs roach every single ZvZ. Whatever, Blizzard doesn't seem to really care.
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On May 07 2014 03:35 neptunusfisk wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2014 03:24 SC2Toastie wrote:On May 07 2014 03:21 neptunusfisk wrote:On May 07 2014 03:17 Squat wrote:
Nerfing abduct: This outright breaks ZvP and late game mech ZvT. Absolutely not even remotely possible.
Yeah, we can't give terran any stupid hopes about succeding beyond the midgame What a dumb comment. The racial imbalances are not that huge. Yes, thank you. MMM pre muta is kinda viable and mass raven endgame beats zerg air, but overall zerg is pretty okay. and btw KT Zest: Show nested quote +In my opinion, Terrans aren’t advancing through in individual leagues because they keep getting stomped by Zergs. As of late, I really think that the current trend is Zerg. SKT T1 Dark after given a free win from Bbyong: Show nested quote +Even back when Terran was the dominant race, I didn’t lose in ZvT. Right now, Terran power has diminished so all Zergs are good against Terrans. I would like it if things could go back to the way it was.
Fixed.
I like the idea of a hydra anti air buff, but I don't like the BL talk. Letting BL's get abducted will make hydras more viable. If BL's can't get abducted, what's to stop BL infestor from reigning supreme again?
Having to use AA to push vipers out is an important part of the game, you don't even need AA in a BL composition if vipers can't abduct them (unless it's BL vs BL, and even then some players will just rely on mass infestor like they did before).
The idea to make spawnlings faster and melee is pretty interesting though. That really supports the growing meta of throwing lings behind spawnlings and will help BL/swarmhost compositions as well as faster tech switches to ultras.
It'll hurt swarmhost/roach compositions but people are starting to get away from that anyways right?
It'll make the game faster, require more infrestors, etc etc, but it should be watched to see just how much it'll affect the other races. Should be okay though. The reason they wouldn't want to do this now is because the new units from LotV might change the way swarmhosts are played anyways. We'll just have to wait in that regard.
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On May 07 2014 04:52 MrMotionPicture wrote:
I don't like the spore buff reverted. You would have to keep a good number of hydras in your base instead of the spores. And I don't like the abduct potential change either. I think it is good that they can abduct broodlords to kill them off...
The more I think about it, this can mutas even more viable now, because spores won't be able to kill muta fast enough and leaving hydras in every base makes the main army that much weaker. Without those spore cannons a clump of 20-30 mutas can now annihilate whole mineral lines and pull the army in every direction.
Then again it depends how much damage to bio air hydras will do.
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On May 07 2014 05:18 aZealot wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2014 04:59 Plansix wrote:On May 07 2014 04:57 Squat wrote:On May 07 2014 04:55 Plansix wrote:On May 07 2014 04:48 Squat wrote:On May 07 2014 04:40 Pursuit_ wrote:On May 07 2014 04:32 Squat wrote:On May 07 2014 04:16 Ercster wrote:On May 07 2014 04:10 Squat wrote:On May 07 2014 04:08 Ercster wrote:
[quote]
It sounds like they want a short term fix, though. Long term would be to change what makes them good in a comp, and that doesn't seem likely in this expansion. It's kinda the reason why I presented the idea of the unit cap. It wasn't to be the end all solution to the unit, but for the time being it might fix the problems it has until they decide to rework the unit. A short term fix that doesn't fuck up zerg late game is preferable, and available. Make BLs immune to abduct. Done. "- Change the Viper’s Abduct ability to make massive units immune to it. o By making Brood Lords immune to Abduct, we’d solve the stalemate. Late game ZvZ would be mostly about who wins in the air. o There are downsides -- Abduct is a really cool ability, and it is something Zerg needs vs. Colossi in PvZ. o To address that, we’d consider a potential buff to Blinding Cloud so that Vipers would still be a valuable utility unit in the ZvP matchup." To me, it doesn't seem like they're capable of doing that otherwise it would have been suggested instead of all massive units. And I don't think applying it to all massive units would be helpful. What prevents them from just making the broodlord immune exclusively? Ultras are immune to roots and snares. I think elegance is part of the problem, if you have more exceptions than rules it becomes very hard to understand the game. Maybe make it so Abduct doesn't work vs Biological units? This would fix the problem with Abduct vs Brood Lord without affecting ZvMech or ZvP. Another potential fix imo is to reduce the size of locusts, this would make banelings more effective vs them and baneling / ultra can actually wreck SH compositions in ZvZ (The banelings clear a wave of locusts and the ultralisks can't be stopped by fungal so they run in and decimate the SH's before the next wave spawns). It would also be a slight buff to other AoE counters to SH (Tanks and Hellions / Hellbats, Collosi and Storm). This also runs the risk of giving locusts more dps / surface area though. I'm unconvinced, Dota 2 is riddled with exceptions and special rules, yet pulls huge viewer numbers consistently. It's confusing one or two times. Anyone who would find something like that hard to process is not very likely to be watching competitive Sc2. People who are interested enough in this game to watch other nerds play games for hours on a friday night probably have a deent understanding of what is going on already. And honestly, the market for new players getting into Sc2 at this point is likely negligible. Special rules are what make dota beautiful. If you want consistency, play another game. SC2 could use more special rules. That was kind of my point yes. Yeah, I'm just backin you up. People like to shit on good solutions by saying "it's not elegant design", whatever the fuck that mean. Icefrog has elegant design down to a science. It's called, whatever makes the game awesome, fuck consistency. Within limits, Plansix. Within limits. Too many exceptions and then it might become more worthwhile to start again from scratch. Moreover, elegant design isn't just about the beauty of a game, but also its ease of understanding. But, overall, I agree (and have said as much myself elsewhere), that opposing exceptions because it is an exception is not sound. Giving Hydras a buff vs bio-air makes more sense to me than removing Viper abduct vs massive. I disliked that ability in beta because I thought it denied positioning. But, I was wrong. It's also a cool ability and needed for Z vs P and T.
Never, all exceptions all the time. Let nothing hold you back from making the game awsome. You should look up BKB for dota and what goes through it and what doesn't. Ther is no logic, no reason. It's just "makes game better" and that is it. And no one minds. Every patch is pure nonsense and special rules and we eat it up.
SC2 could be the same way. Stop being held back by "elegant design" and embrace weird rules that make no logical sense.
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On May 07 2014 04:15 MajorBiscuit wrote:
Here's a suggestion that I have been thinking about.
Give SH energy and make them cast their locusts. This way the player has to think of when and how he/she uses the unit.
This is the best, plausible idea I've heard. Leave everything else alone. I don't like any of the ideas Blizzard are suggesting; it just over complicates the balance of the game dancing around the real issue. Making SH a spellcaster is a very feasible solution, and it would actually make them more exciting while still remaining a powerful late-game unit.
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On May 07 2014 04:18 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2014 04:08 LingBlingBling wrote:
Is Swarm host in zvz really a thing?? Come on now no one in NA or Korea uses it. Blizzard really considering making drastic changes because a few obnoxious EU pros are using it to stall out Tournaments??? ZvZ for rest of the world is roach vs roach muta into roach ect. Stephano is like the only person along with a few EU players that do that anyways, and they do it to make the other guy mad lol. Well, that's why waiting a bit longer isn't too bad. Did Stephano break ZvZ and everyone else is behind the curve and we're about to get inundated with SH stalemates? Or is this a freak game? In my heart of hearts, I'd like to think that it couldn't be possible to even have such a freak game, that design could preclude such a possibility. But who knows with how people will play. What does make it disturbing is it was such a bad stalemate in maxed army, macro situation. Rather than a weird base trade where someone has a cannon left and the other has a DT left and neither can attack the other. That's hard to account for, but it's also very rare. Maxed, macro games are a lot easier to get to. A lot easier to repeat the conditions that led to a stalemate. But for that reason, a wait and see is for the best, imo. (Even if I think SH's inherently lend themselves to passive gameplay.)
Best post in this thread, Falling. This whole stalemate thing isn't common and not many pro zergs abuse the SH the way Stephano has. So in a sense, its just his style where he tries to troll/be more patient than his opponent. Everyone knows about all the problems the SH creates but Blizzard shouldn't rush into nerfing/buffing units (especially since they won't address the core problem imo), I say sit back and wait and see how this unfolds.
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Someone wrote in a thread I don' remember: "Just don't give swarm hosts a kill count. that way the timer fora draw wouldn't be resetted" Don't know if that's a good idea, but to me it sounded like one (probably because i have no clue of this game anymore^^)
PS: When Heart of the swarm released I only played ling, swarm host into Ultras with a few hydras vs protoss and won nearly every game with it. In this phase I always said that the SH is going to be the next infestor. I guess I was right 
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The hydra buff seems like an excellent idea (and it makes mutas a more skill based comp in zvz, since you have to dance around hydras :D)
Buffing blinding cloud sounds amazing. It's much more interesting than abduct, imo.
I don't like the abduct change at all, unless a new blinding cloud could fully compensate. Without it, vs. collosi, zerg would be uber f*ed right now.
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Why did none figured that it would be just awsome to make the triggering locust manual,not automatic i.e. you build 10 SH and let them stand unburrowed,then suddenly a wild zealot appears,hit burrown,and "c" for triggering the locust,unburrow reposition and something like that.
There would not be a endless stream of locust,micro potential is just ridiculously high,even in a mirror matchup it would be sort of a skill to know when your opponent triggers the locust,so you can trigger yours,and counter them while locust reload on the SH,sort of?
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On May 07 2014 04:32 Squat wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2014 04:16 Ercster wrote:On May 07 2014 04:10 Squat wrote:On May 07 2014 04:08 Ercster wrote:On May 07 2014 04:05 Falling wrote:On May 07 2014 03:54 Thieving Magpie wrote:On May 07 2014 03:52 ZigguratOfUr wrote:On May 07 2014 03:47 Ercster wrote:
Would capping the amount of swarm hosts you can have at once help? I'm not talking about increasing their supply cost, but just making it so you can only have something like 15-20 out at a time? Changes like this are just poor design. You end up with a ton of unintuitive corner cases, which makes learning the game much harder. All changes need to make sense when compared to previously existing changes. You could presumably design a balanced game where each unit deals a different amount of damage to each other unit, and with weird unit caps to each unit but it would be way too restrictive and confusing to play. Not that I agree with him (its one of the dumber ideas I've heard) but the unit limit has already been done with the Mothership and the Mothership Core. Blizz is already okay with arbitrary non-supply limitations in the number of units. It's still not a good solution. It basically acknowledges that they've made a unit that snowballs too well, but doesn't change the underlying cause on why it snowballs. Plus the swarmhost doesn't really even have special spells that would make it even feel like a hero unit like the Mothership. (And I never liked the idea of a mothership in the first place.) I mean, realistically this could be the solution to any unit composition problem. Marauders are too good and Terran will only make pure marauders to snipe everything on the ground and shrug off air attacks. Solution? You can only make 20 marauders... or fix the reason why Terran only goes marauders every game. It sounds like they want a short term fix, though. Long term would be to change what makes them good in a comp, and that doesn't seem likely in this expansion. It's kinda the reason why I presented the idea of the unit cap. It wasn't to be the end all solution to the unit, but for the time being it might fix the problems it has until they decide to rework the unit. A short term fix that doesn't fuck up zerg late game is preferable, and available. Make BLs immune to abduct. Done. "- Change the Viper’s Abduct ability to make massive units immune to it. o By making Brood Lords immune to Abduct, we’d solve the stalemate. Late game ZvZ would be mostly about who wins in the air. o There are downsides -- Abduct is a really cool ability, and it is something Zerg needs vs. Colossi in PvZ. o To address that, we’d consider a potential buff to Blinding Cloud so that Vipers would still be a valuable utility unit in the ZvP matchup." To me, it doesn't seem like they're capable of doing that otherwise it would have been suggested instead of all massive units. And I don't think applying it to all massive units would be helpful. What prevents them from just making the broodlord immune exclusively? Ultras are immune to roots and snares.
I would like to think they aren't so stupid as to not think about that. Since it wasn't suggested, I think they can't do it currently, but I don't know if they can or can't.
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Swarm Host should be like Scarabs and you need to pay minerals for their locusts at a certain interval, maybe not every wave but enough to make them run out of units over extreme long game, like after hour one Stephano would be out of minerals
Also the Spores just exacerbated the problem because now you can't even use air units to destroy the SH
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- When planted on creep, nydus worms cost less and don't globally shout. (nydus canal)
- Crawlers can only be repositioned a limited number of times.
- Some SH redesign.
- Protoss redesign
- Economy change
- Clumping fix (?)
- general changes to make SC2 more dynamic and units feel more unique and have presence
- ???
- Profits.
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EPT
