Blizzard's thoughts on Swarm Hosts - Page 16

vjcamarena

Spain493 Posts

May 06 2014 20:48 GMT

#301

Here's an idea:
Abduct moves massive units significantly less than others (half the distance, maybe?)
That way, it doesn't work against broodlords, which are quite often made in mid to big numbers (>8), but 4-6 well positioned Vipers might be enough to move 2-3 collosus (maybe with a double pull even) enough for Roach-Hydra to take them on.

I think it's intuitive, easy to see visually, and a cool nerf. What do you guys think?

tokinho

United States792 Posts

May 06 2014 20:50 GMT

#302

neither idea is good. Allow changelings to be shot out at range 5 from overseer.

Gen.Rolly

United States200 Posts

May 06 2014 20:52 GMT

#303

Swarm host are a good unit. Quit citing the handful of games in which they are abused to justify changing the unit. I don't see anyone complaining about mass voidray or mass raven, those units are pretty broken as well in large groups.

MorDka

Poland543 Posts

May 06 2014 20:55 GMT

#304

Make swarm host unable to burrow. Problem solved.

DinoMight

United States3725 Posts

May 06 2014 20:59 GMT

#305

On May 07 2014 05:52 Gen.Rolly wrote:
Swarm host are a good unit. Quit citing the handful of games in which they are abused to justify changing the unit. I don't see anyone complaining about mass voidray or mass raven, those units are pretty broken as well in large groups.

The game ends quickly when you mass Ravens or Void Rays.

Mass Swarm Host + static D takes forever and is boring as fuck to watch.

They even said that since it's ZvZ there's no balance issue...

pure.Wasted

Canada4701 Posts

May 06 2014 21:05 GMT

#306

On May 07 2014 03:10 Plansix wrote:

Show nested quote +

On May 07 2014 03:03 SC2Toastie wrote:

On May 07 2014 03:00 Sapphire.lux wrote:

On May 07 2014 02:50 SC2Toastie wrote:

On May 07 2014 02:48 Noocta wrote:

On May 07 2014 02:46 SC2Toastie wrote:

On May 07 2014 02:45 Musicus wrote:
My worry is, if they once again ignore the SH and instead change other units to counter it, what happnes once they tackle the root of the problem and change or remove it with LotV? Do they change Abduct or the Hydra back again?

It's an expansion, they can do anything.

They can but they won't.
It's obvious at this point David Kim doesn't want or can't change anything deep from the game.

No, Duh.
They're in the middle of the WCS season. Deleting/Nerfing/Redesigning a unit that is getting reasonable use in three matchups, not to mention it's necessity verse turtleToss, is the best way to fuck over a lot of Zerg players.
In expansion, he'll get a new beta and will be able to test big changes. You can't blame the guy for not fucking every Zerg competing for money over.

This type of excuse has got to stop. The game has had severe balance issues more then a few times over the years and many players were "fucked over", sometimes by Blizzards reluctance to act (BL/Inf for one).

If there is ever an acceptable reason to do potentially destabilizing changes is when those changes are for the greater good of the game. SC2 is not some Holly Grail of balance and entertainment that should not be disturbed.

If they are not doing more serious changes is because they can't or don't want to in order to keep them for the expansion, not the poor x race players.

You know, on one hand there's people complaining balancing happens to often. Then there's people that want Blizzard to respond to every tiny fucking shift in winrates possible.

Offcourse they will not mess with balance for the reason of redesigning a unit because it gives problems in a tiny percentage of mirror matchups!

Broodlord Infestor was so hard to figure out and solve.

It's easy to bash and stomp on everything they come up with and not bring up any usable argument yourself.

Why provide useful feed back when you can just say "redesign swarm host/warp gate/colossi/sentries" and them claim blizzard made it bad on purpose to sell us on more expansions?

The redesign argument is so old. It might as well be called "fix it in a way I approve of, but I'm not gong to tell you what I would approve of."

Yeah, well, the problem is Blizzard already has a plan for dealing with Swarmhosts. We just... don't know what it is, and Blizzard's just... not willing to implement it yet because it'll mess up the meta, so the pros just... have to keep playing with the already completely messed up meta.

Blizzard needs to stop trying to preserve the sanctity of this meta. It's a shitty meta, and even if they never patched the game ever again, an expansion is still coming that will artificially uproot everything and throw it out the window, so there's absolutely nothing to preserve the sanctity of. We're not talking about slipping roofies to the Virgin Mary here, we're talking about totally consensual sex with the girl you're already engaged to. Everybody knows it's gonna happen. You're just putting off the inevitable for no reason discernible by man.

On May 07 2014 05:13 Blargh wrote:
Even if the game isn't "balanced" (by the way, I care more about the game reflecting skill more than I care about balance) with the removal of the swarm-host, nothing good comes from the unit.

Bingo!

I'm sick and tired of Zerg getting through tournaments off the back of their impressive Roach vs. Roach a-move micro. The only thing Blizzard is doing by holding off on actual fixes to actual problems is prolonging our suffering.

Kvassten

Sweden159 Posts

May 06 2014 21:06 GMT

#307

Can you make abduct unable to target massive bio instead of just massive units?

Yorkie

United States12612 Posts

May 06 2014 21:06 GMT

#308

I hope the viper change is at least watered down to at least the "reduce distance pulled for massive units" as was suggested above. Nerfing roach/hydra/viper vs. Toss sucks, and kinda pidgeon-holes zergs into going swarmhosts every game if it goes remotely late. Or maybe it could signify the return of the infestor

Squat

Sweden7978 Posts

May 06 2014 21:06 GMT

#309

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.

The only criteria of any relevance should be whether it leads to a better game. If it turns out that we have to make so many exceptions that it may be better to, as you said, start from scratch, then so be it. No better time than the last expansion to do it.

Being afraid or hesitant to make sweeping/difficult changes could be far more harmful than taking a wild hail mary swing. In this case, no such drastic things are needed, merely the recognition that notions of elegance and symmetry are irrelevant compared to achieving a better product.

Xiphos

Canada7507 Posts

May 06 2014 21:08 GMT

#310

On May 07 2014 06:06 Squat wrote:

Show nested quote +

On May 07 2014 05:18 aZealot wrote:

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:
[quote]
A short term fix that doesn't fuck up zerg late game is preferable, and available. Make BLs immune to abduct. Done.

What prevents them from just making the broodlord immune exclusively? Ultras are immune to roots and snares.

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 there should be plenty of changes to go around in the last expansion or else they just want to settle for the current state of the game.

ArtistenSc2

Sweden53 Posts

May 06 2014 21:08 GMT

#311

the absolutely best and easiest would be to ban SH from zvz,
affects nothing else and fair for all, at least for the time being.
Or restrict the max no of SH in zvz or always...

PassionFruit

294 Posts

May 06 2014 21:10 GMT

#312

Just bring back the lurker. Yeah!

Gen.Rolly

United States200 Posts

May 06 2014 21:10 GMT

#313

On May 07 2014 05:59 DinoMight wrote:

Show nested quote +

The game ends quickly when you mass Ravens or Void Rays.

Mass Swarm Host + static D takes forever and is boring as fuck to watch.

They even said that since it's ZvZ there's no balance issue...

"Boring to watch" is a subjective statement. I love late game SH usage personally. Everyone talked about the Reality vs Soulkey game. I think a few voices in the community are trying to apply their groupthink to the rest of us by insisting swarm hosts are bad and late games are a terrible thing. How many sc2 games end in 6 minutes because of a cheese? I find those super boring...

Arnstein

Norway3381 Posts

May 06 2014 21:11 GMT

#314

My dream is that for the last expansion, they just revert everything back to BW, and we get crazy games all the time :D

AKAvg

Brazil298 Posts

May 06 2014 21:13 GMT

#315

Almost had a Nerdgasm when I saw possible design changes to Swarm Hosts.
Too bad is not coming before LotV or something like that,

Spore changes should be kept IMHO, the proposed buff to hydras probably won't do much if you consider the mobility of Mutas
Viper abduct changes seems dangerous and, even as a Protoss player, feels wrong not being able to abduct Colossi.
If anything they should make the "full" Mothership ( not the Core ) immune to abducts

Btw, can anyone tell me which game in particular this stalemate happened?

Xiphos

Canada7507 Posts

May 06 2014 21:13 GMT

#316

On May 07 2014 06:11 Arnstein wrote:
My dream is that for the last expansion, they just revert everything back to BW, and we get crazy games all the time :D

Or StarBow, those guys take the basic concept of BW and added what SC2 did right in the game. It felt much more like a true successor to the most successful Esport game of all time.

raga4ka

Bulgaria5679 Posts

May 06 2014 21:13 GMT

#317

Have there been any long ZvZs in Proleague or GSL ? I can't imagine someone going swarmhosts and not outright dieing or becoming so behind that even SH imba couldn't draw out the game . I think we get this kind of games , because either the player that gets ahead plays stupidly or for whatever the reasons goes swarmhosts and the other one has time to get swamhost for himself . But this shoudn't happen , because at the time of the transition the player that is massing roaches should be able to kill him .

If someone could show me vods with sh vs sh games in PL or GSL , otherwise i would think people here are overreacting to some suboptimal ZvZ players ...

Squat

Sweden7978 Posts

May 06 2014 21:14 GMT

#318

On May 07 2014 05:48 vjcamarena wrote:
Here's an idea:
Abduct moves massive units significantly less than others (half the distance, maybe?)
That way, it doesn't work against broodlords, which are quite often made in mid to big numbers (>8), but 4-6 well positioned Vipers might be enough to move 2-3 collosus (maybe with a double pull even) enough for Roach-Hydra to take them on.

I think it's intuitive, easy to see visually, and a cool nerf. What do you guys think?

I think it's an awful idea that is unwarranted and potentially breaks zerg. Stop saying this stuff, please.

Faust852

Luxembourg4004 Posts

May 06 2014 21:15 GMT

#319

On May 07 2014 06:10 Gen.Rolly wrote:

Show nested quote +

A tournament had to deflose miniraiser because he went SH to provoc hours long games.

Plansix

United States60190 Posts

May 06 2014 21:15 GMT

#320

On May 07 2014 06:13 Xiphos wrote:

Show nested quote +

Or StarBow, those guys take the basic concept of BW and added what SC2 did right in the game. It felt much more like a true successor to the most successful Esport game of all time.

If you can't tell, he likes it a lot.

Also, of all time. I think superior Moba might have passed BW up a while ago.

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