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On July 01 2014 02:28 sAsImre wrote:
cute balance whine post where correlation = causality
Yeah, compared to your oneliner where you made an indepth argument for why alll thedwf's points are invalid because you consider it to be whine, it's really lacking in substance. There's this really cancerous trend in TL balance discussion where if you don't like the way an argument is going you just call it balance whine and wait for your 66% backing to agree so as to not have to try to actually argue any evidence that has been presented.
I feel TL has been too quiet and too eager to please when it comes to balance, as if imaginary tranquility is going to matter when everyone stops playing and watching because the game sucks.
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I personally find Terran very hard to play compared to the other two races and I always have. Back in WOL i was diamond Z & P and gold T. I am currently Platinum as random. This season my Z is 70%, P 68% and T 48% win. (thanks to 100% win in TvT). My TvP is a miserable 10%.
I feel that this editorial is overzealous in tone, but is correct in its conclusions.
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Poisonbox is frustrated with the behavior of frustrated terrans. But i heard his voice and i agree with him.
Yeah, its supposed to be subjective, but it present itself as fact. Its an editorial, but it sounds like hate propaganda, with all the "terran is the victim" and "zerg and protoss is taking what should be ours" speech (its just a game, good news), and misleading data. A plot from blizzard to undermine terran? really?!
But i can read it with a satyrical and not that serious tone since its about SC2, not about actual races or something. Or maybe im just trippin.
Anyway, its a flaming editorial, and it achieved its goal. It is informative, but if information was the goal it presented itself in the wrong way.
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On July 01 2014 01:57 Damenx wrote:
This is a amazing article. I have a lot of respect for TL for letting this go through. I know they don't like balance discussions and this is showing they are finally making a opinion on the state of terran.
The start of the article completely contradicts exactly what you just said...
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On July 01 2014 02:52 Salient wrote:
This article is is beyond biased. It is almost dishonest to use pre-patch statistics to support the notion that Terran is underpowered. Since the recent slew of Terran buffs, Terran is now favored in all match ups. Buffed Widow mines and hellbats plus the removal of great blink maps has made a big impact. TL should be ashamed to have this piece anywhere other than in the blog section.
The only match up where Terran is favored is TvT. I can honestly not tell if some of these posts are just trolling anymore - the record of Premier/Major tournaments for 2014 show Terran to be non-existent and the patch will not have much impact on this. Your own personal troubles against Terran are not reflective of the balance situation, only your own inadequacies.
Against Zerg something needs to be done about Muta flocks and their insane health regeneration. Buffing WMs will not work as most pros have an overseer with the flock. Turrets are useless as soon as the flock gets to a 7 or more and Thors are too expensive and slow. Push out as Terran and there is an extremely high risk that your base will be wrecked by a Muta counter-attack whilst you are still trying to clear creep in the middle of the map. Nerfing Muta regen would be welcome.
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The title of this article is inflammatory and no solution is proposed in it.
A very long report of a situation, but I still wonder what goal does this paper serve except now people will be able to say "T loses because it's weak" and back up their statement with a TL editorial instead of some avilo ranting.
Edit : the post under mine is excellent.
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I have a few complaints about this article. As others have pointed out the tone is unnecessarily aggressive. This can make it off-putting to anyone who does not already agree with the writer. Comments such as
Boost Medivacs were broken for sure, there could be no other explanation. Did you see how fast they are? Hell, he even had some units in position yet could do nothing to stop them. Such is the effect of novelty against the unprepared: the winning side looks untouchable, and therefore is OP by necessity.
can be very aggravating when the message could be explained directly. Would the writer lose too much by simply writing that people complained about boost medivacs but the other races learnt to adapt without needing boost medivacs to be nerfed?
The writer's chosen tone is very emotionally charged when the topic already brings up strong emotions in plenty of people and so this makes reasonable discussion much more difficult. When trying to convince other people of your beliefs (and I presume that is the intention of this article) then how the message is delivered is important.
Besides the tone, there is also the use of statistics. For example, TheDwf uses the winners of premier tournaments as evidence of how bad things became for Terran, but the winners of the the premier tournaments in HotS before the cut-off date TheDwf chose is as follows;
Protoss
Dear
duckdeok
HerO
StarDust
Terran
Bomber
INnoVation
Maru
MMA
Mvp
Polt (x3)
TaeJa (x4)
YoDa
Zerg
Hyun
Leenock
Life
Revival
Soulkey
So that's 4 champions for Protoss, 5 champions for Zerg and 8 for Terran. The number of wins: 4 for Protoss, 5 for Zerg, and 12 for Terran.
Terran went from winning over 57% of the titles to under 20%, which is a massive swing. But if this is purely a result of the balance patches and map changes as TheDwf seems to suggest then maybe Blizzard should be very careful with any new balance patches for fear of creating another massive swing. Previous evidence supports the theory that small changes can have massive consequences. Maybe Blizzard are right to keep trying small changes and giving them time to see how things work out.
Another example of misleading statistics; The graph about “Amount of times non-Koreans won series against Koreans (non-mirrors)” does not say how much times non-Koreans lost against Koreans and without that we don't know what the ratio is of wins for non-Koreans against Koreans is, which is a more useful statistic.
The third major complaint I have with the article is that no other possible explanations for Terran's recent lack of success seem to be considered. TheDwf chose September 2013 for the start of the demise of Terran and around that time there was another big change in the SC2 world, namely the first season of Pro-League finished in August 2013 and KeSPA started sending it's players to an increasing number of foreign tournaments. If we omit those players who switched to SC2 with KeSPA then TheDwf's list of champions shrinks to
Protoss
HerO
MC
PartinG
San
4 different winners for 4 titles.
Zerg
HyuN
Life (x2)
2 different winners for 3 titles.
Terran
TaeJa (x4)
It is still TaeJa carrying the Terrans but the effect of the KeSPA switch players could be important. This makes we wonder where the KeSPA switch Terrans are. Only Bogus/INnoVation has had any success out of the KeSPA switch Terrans, and he lost form after moving to Acer. Maybe the rise of these KeSPA switch players and absence of KeSPA switch Terrans has contributed to the recent Terran problems.
Why there are not as many KeSPA switch Terrans could be down to balance, but could also be something about the way Brood War Terran plays compared to SC2 Terran that means the BW skillset for BW Terrans is not as helpful for playing Terran in SC2. TaeJa and Maru, the two often held up as the hopes for Terran to win a tournament, never played BW professionally.
This rise of the KeSPA switch players would help explain other factors, such as why the individual results of certain individual players became worse in that period. The level of competition rose so many players started to fall away.
I am not trying to claim this is the sole reason for Terran's problems but I wanted to give an example of another factor that may have contributed, but TheDwf's article seems to imply that all of Terran's problems are due to the balance of the game. From a research point of view, it seems as though TheDwf started with the belief that Terran is under-powered and then looked for evidence to support that view, rather than trying to collect evidence and then see what conclusions can be drawn from it.
Overall, I understand that this is an editorial and not a reflection on the beliefs of TL's staff collectively but I am disappointed that they would feature the article because I suspect the main consequence of this article will be an increase in balance complaints from Terrans.
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On June 30 2014 20:33 SC2Toastie wrote:http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/13273137416?page=2#35Show nested quote +
Psione wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions, Winks. The level of analysis and overall tone of your post is appreciated.
The frequency of balance changes is something that we get a lot of feedback on. There are some players who want us to update balance more frequently, and some players who would like us to update less frequently. As we've mentioned in the past, we feel that the player base needs time to adjust to balance changes and constant updating could lead to less progress in this area. That isn't to say we won't look to push for a balance update when we feel it's appropriate, only that we feel new changes need time to be explored before we can decide if further changes may be needed.
While we have no immediate plans for another balance test map, we've seen the ongoing discussion on Terran/Zerg/Protoss performance and we'll continue monitor and discuss these topics. The most recent balance update was a little over four weeks ago, and we feel that the effects of this update are still being explored. Additionally, with Season 3 starting soon we'll be introducing several new maps. As stated in your post, maps are linked to game balance, so it makes sense for us to wait and see how the new maps affect the match-ups.
The thoughts in this thread, and similar threads, are all being read and will be passed along and discussed. This is something we do on a consistent basis, and more detailed posts like these help promote interesting discussion on our end.
Thanks again, and please continue to share your thoughts.
TL;DR Thanks for the effort and overwhelming evidence you put out. We're gonna sit and check in a couple of weeks!
I, for one, am very pleased there will be no further test maps or patches in the near future and that Blizzard have said so. I hope they stick to their guns and, ideally, re-evaluate in about 2 months or so. Ironically enough, it is also in the spirit of the OP's actual argument regarding over-patching. We have had many patches recently. Time to let the game settle.
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Does this cute theory survive the trial of reality? Let's take for instance Flash vs herO in the Shoutcraft finals: leading 2-1, Flash pulled SCVs three games in a row. The score in the end? 2-4. People in the LR thread were confused and did not understand why Flash kept pulling SCVs. Was he trying to illustrate the famous quote about insanity? Nope, he simply wanted to avoid 3/3 into lategame. Unfortunately for him, as the series demonstrated, herO's build was absolutely SCV-proof, and so are most blink colo dual forge builds: Protoss changed their builds and no longer play into Terran's hands with the vulnerable 3 Colossi into Storm which captured the image of SCV pulls in their best light.
From recent showings, it seems the 3-bases all-in is on the decline despite Colossus play being standard as of now. This is not good news for Terran: if midgame timings/all-ins get solved, then it means the race has to play even closer to lategame.
I am a Zerg and i agree with 95% of this post, but i do not agree with this statement.
Flash beat HerO in game 1 in a late game macro game, then beat him in the mid game. But then he decided to continue to pull SCV's even though HerO's build patched up holes that would otherwise make you vulnerable to such SCV timings. This was not some "I don't want to play late game" It was simply Flash making a mistake. And yes, he can make mistakes, everyone does. He would have won the series if he didn't all in every game because he was clearly the superior player, but HerO responded to the all ins beautifully.
Also, i think you are kind of flirting with the idea that "Terran is the hardest race" a bit to much. Terran is currently in the worst spot ATM, but that doesn't mean the skill and mechanics to properly control Zerg and Protoss seized to exist. I have mained every race at one point or another and no race stood out as harder or easier than any other, and with my experience watching pro streams and tournaments my statement is backed up as well.
Other than that, great post.
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United States14827 Posts
On July 01 2014 03:58 Melliflue wrote:
It is still TaeJa carrying the Terrans but the effect of the KeSPA switch players could be important. This makes we wonder where the KeSPA switch Terrans are. Only Bogus/INnoVation has had any success out of the KeSPA switch Terrans, and he lost form after moving to Acer. Maybe the rise of these KeSPA switch players and absence of KeSPA switch Terrans has contributed to the recent Terran problems.
Why there are not as many KeSPA switch Terrans could be down to balance, but could also be something about the way Brood War Terran plays compared to SC2 Terran that means the BW skillset for BW Terrans is not as helpful for playing Terran in SC2. TaeJa and Maru, the two often held up as the hopes for Terran to win a tournament, never played BW professionally.
The problem is that there are literally only two terrans that matter, Taeja and Maru, when all of the tier 2 has disappeared, you know there's a real problem
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On July 01 2014 03:59 aZealot wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2014 20:33 SC2Toastie wrote:http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/13273137416?page=2#35
Psione wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions, Winks. The level of analysis and overall tone of your post is appreciated.
The frequency of balance changes is something that we get a lot of feedback on. There are some players who want us to update balance more frequently, and some players who would like us to update less frequently. As we've mentioned in the past, we feel that the player base needs time to adjust to balance changes and constant updating could lead to less progress in this area. That isn't to say we won't look to push for a balance update when we feel it's appropriate, only that we feel new changes need time to be explored before we can decide if further changes may be needed.
While we have no immediate plans for another balance test map, we've seen the ongoing discussion on Terran/Zerg/Protoss performance and we'll continue monitor and discuss these topics. The most recent balance update was a little over four weeks ago, and we feel that the effects of this update are still being explored. Additionally, with Season 3 starting soon we'll be introducing several new maps. As stated in your post, maps are linked to game balance, so it makes sense for us to wait and see how the new maps affect the match-ups.
The thoughts in this thread, and similar threads, are all being read and will be passed along and discussed. This is something we do on a consistent basis, and more detailed posts like these help promote interesting discussion on our end.
Thanks again, and please continue to share your thoughts.
TL;DR Thanks for the effort and overwhelming evidence you put out. We're gonna sit and check in a couple of weeks! I, for one, am very pleased there will be no further test maps or patches in the near future and that Blizzard have said so. I hope they stick to their guns and, ideally, re-evaluate in about 2 months or so. Ironically enough, it is also in the spirit of the OP's actual argument regarding over-patching. We have had many patches recently. Time to let the game settle.
If they leave the game in a decent state, I'm all for giving much time to figure stuff out.
As of now, Blizzard broke a pretty well balanced game because Zergs qq'd about having to micro and they randomly buffed Oracles, as well as making a mess of the map pool.
You cannot take a balanced game, unbalance it for no apparant reason and wait afterwards because 'Terran should figure stuff out'.
Blizzard has been shafting/neglecting Terran for close to three years in their balance policy, it's been enough. Terran has no options to explore.
MMM does it's stuff.
Ghosts? Only vs HT
Vikings? Only vs Collosi/Broodlords
Ravens, Tanks, Mines, Thors, Battlecruisers, Ravens, Banshee, Hellions, Hellbats? All really, really situational and probably even poor at that.
Terran early game was too powerful, 4 years ago. Because of that, a poor lategame was no problem as Terran could easily head there with an advantage.
As of now, Terran early and midgame get weakened and weakened, maps get larger, both opposing races got better early defense. Terran lategame, however, still non-existent.
You cannot be surprised a race is suffering if you remove it's strenght and force the race to go for a macro game every game (Terran has no cheese/all-in that works well consistently) while you keep the late game of said race terribly weak, well, the race is in trouble.
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Fiddler's Green42661 Posts
On July 01 2014 03:58 Melliflue wrote:I have a few complaints about this article. As others have pointed out the tone is unnecessarily aggressive. This can make it off-putting to anyone who does not already agree with the writer. Comments such as Show nested quote +Boost Medivacs were broken for sure, there could be no other explanation. Did you see how fast they are? Hell, he even had some units in position yet could do nothing to stop them. Such is the effect of novelty against the unprepared: the winning side looks untouchable, and therefore is OP by necessity. can be very aggravating when the message could be explained directly. Would the writer lose too much by simply writing that people complained about boost medivacs but the other races learnt to adapt without needing boost medivacs to be nerfed? The writer's chosen tone is very emotionally charged when the topic already brings up strong emotions in plenty of people and so this makes reasonable discussion much more difficult. When trying to convince other people of your beliefs (and I presume that is the intention of this article) then how the message is delivered is important. Besides the tone, there is also the use of statistics. For example, TheDwf uses the winners of premier tournaments as evidence of how bad things became for Terran, but the winners of the the premier tournaments in HotS before the cut-off date TheDwf chose is as follows; Show nested quote +Protoss
Dear
duckdeok
HerO
StarDust
Terran
Bomber
INnoVation
Maru
MMA
Mvp
Polt (x3)
TaeJa (x4)
YoDa
Zerg
Hyun
Leenock
Life
Revival
Soulkey
So that's 4 champions for Protoss, 5 champions for Zerg and 8 for Terran. The number of wins: 4 for Protoss, 5 for Zerg, and 12 for Terran. Terran went from winning over 57% of the titles to under 20%, which is a massive swing. But if this is purely a result of the balance patches and map changes as TheDwf seems to suggest then maybe Blizzard should be very careful with any new balance patches for fear of creating another massive swing. Previous evidence supports the theory that small changes can have massive consequences. Maybe Blizzard are right to keep trying small changes and giving them time to see how things work out. Another example of misleading statistics; The graph about “Amount of times non-Koreans won series against Koreans (non-mirrors)” does not say how much times non-Koreans lost against Koreans and without that we don't know what the ratio is of wins for non-Koreans against Koreans is, which is a more useful statistic. The third major complaint I have with the article is that no other possible explanations for Terran's recent lack of success seem to be considered. TheDwf chose September 2013 for the start of the demise of Terran and around that time there was another big change in the SC2 world, namely the first season of Pro-League finished in August 2013 and KeSPA started sending it's players to an increasing number of foreign tournaments. If we omit those players who switched to SC2 with KeSPA then TheDwf's list of champions shrinks to Show nested quote +Protoss
HerO
MC
PartinG
San
4 different winners for 4 titles.
Zerg
HyuN
Life (x2)
2 different winners for 3 titles.
Terran
TaeJa (x4) It is still TaeJa carrying the Terrans but the effect of the KeSPA switch players could be important. This makes we wonder where the KeSPA switch Terrans are. Only Bogus/INnoVation has had any success out of the KeSPA switch Terrans, and he lost form after moving to Acer. Maybe the rise of these KeSPA switch players and absence of KeSPA switch Terrans has contributed to the recent Terran problems. Why there are not as many KeSPA switch Terrans could be down to balance, but could also be something about the way Brood War Terran plays compared to SC2 Terran that means the BW skillset for BW Terrans is not as helpful for playing Terran in SC2. TaeJa and Maru, the two often held up as the hopes for Terran to win a tournament, never played BW professionally. This rise of the KeSPA switch players would help explain other factors, such as why the individual results of certain individual players became worse in that period. The level of competition rose so many players started to fall away. I am not trying to claim this is the sole reason for Terran's problems but I wanted to give an example of another factor that may have contributed, but TheDwf's article seems to imply that all of Terran's problems are due to the balance of the game. From a research point of view, it seems as though TheDwf started with the belief that Terran is under-powered and then looked for evidence to support that view, rather than trying to collect evidence and then see what conclusions can be drawn from it. Overall, I understand that this is an editorial and not a reflection on the beliefs of TL's staff collectively but I am disappointed that they would feature the article because I suspect the main consequence of this article will be an increase in balance complaints from Terrans.
We had a Terran Kespa Champion other than Inno. Classic.
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I think this article is amazing. I have always been a zerg and protoss played but you can't argue with the fact that there are very few terrans and it's either by far the hardest to play well or it's a bit weaker then the other races. I personally find the old widow minesa bit boring but at least they forced a lot of micro from the zerg and protoss.
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Like the article. I agree I think that consider keeping Hellbats as-is and revert the mine change. Even keep the bonus damage to shields change. Mines made for exciting sometimes unpredictable outcomes. It made watching fun. It isn't fun to watch a mine go off in the middle of a pack of lings and 4 blow up and others take 10 HP splash damage.
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On July 01 2014 04:07 Shaella wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2014 03:58 Melliflue wrote:
It is still TaeJa carrying the Terrans but the effect of the KeSPA switch players could be important. This makes we wonder where the KeSPA switch Terrans are. Only Bogus/INnoVation has had any success out of the KeSPA switch Terrans, and he lost form after moving to Acer. Maybe the rise of these KeSPA switch players and absence of KeSPA switch Terrans has contributed to the recent Terran problems.
Why there are not as many KeSPA switch Terrans could be down to balance, but could also be something about the way Brood War Terran plays compared to SC2 Terran that means the BW skillset for BW Terrans is not as helpful for playing Terran in SC2. TaeJa and Maru, the two often held up as the hopes for Terran to win a tournament, never played BW professionally.
The problem is that there are literally only two terrans that matter, Taeja and Maru, when all of the tier 2 has disappeared, you know there's a real problem
Yeah, it's easy to see the face value and listen to Blizzard when they say "Terran has won X out of Y tournaments, so we think they are okay".
If only two top-level Koreans can make moves in the GSL/Proleague/WCS, that should be worrying.
Small tweaks here and there could be made to help Foreigner Terrans compete, at some level.(Faust made some cool suggestions earlier.) We see foreign Protoss and Zerg players seeing a limited amount of success, but nothing major. (After all, it is a Korean dominated sport.)
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On July 01 2014 01:10 mau5mat wrote:
If I can fault this article for one thing, it is probably going to give people an excuse to not critique their own play where they should.
Losing a match-up with the mentality ''It's OP so it was inevitable,'' can be toxic to improvement.
People who want to improve are going to focus on improvement regardless of forum posts and editorials. People who don't want to improve and simply want to blame everything else will do so and don't need forum posts or editorials to make that excuse.
People are who they are. This article doesn't change that.
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On July 01 2014 04:08 SC2Toastie wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2014 03:59 aZealot wrote:On June 30 2014 20:33 SC2Toastie wrote:http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/13273137416?page=2#35
Psione wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions, Winks. The level of analysis and overall tone of your post is appreciated.
The frequency of balance changes is something that we get a lot of feedback on. There are some players who want us to update balance more frequently, and some players who would like us to update less frequently. As we've mentioned in the past, we feel that the player base needs time to adjust to balance changes and constant updating could lead to less progress in this area. That isn't to say we won't look to push for a balance update when we feel it's appropriate, only that we feel new changes need time to be explored before we can decide if further changes may be needed.
While we have no immediate plans for another balance test map, we've seen the ongoing discussion on Terran/Zerg/Protoss performance and we'll continue monitor and discuss these topics. The most recent balance update was a little over four weeks ago, and we feel that the effects of this update are still being explored. Additionally, with Season 3 starting soon we'll be introducing several new maps. As stated in your post, maps are linked to game balance, so it makes sense for us to wait and see how the new maps affect the match-ups.
The thoughts in this thread, and similar threads, are all being read and will be passed along and discussed. This is something we do on a consistent basis, and more detailed posts like these help promote interesting discussion on our end.
Thanks again, and please continue to share your thoughts.
TL;DR Thanks for the effort and overwhelming evidence you put out. We're gonna sit and check in a couple of weeks! I, for one, am very pleased there will be no further test maps or patches in the near future and that Blizzard have said so. I hope they stick to their guns and, ideally, re-evaluate in about 2 months or so. Ironically enough, it is also in the spirit of the OP's actual argument regarding over-patching. We have had many patches recently. Time to let the game settle. If they leave the game in a decent state, I'm all for giving much time to figure stuff out. As of now, Blizzard broke a pretty well balanced game because Zergs qq'd about having to micro and they randomly buffed Oracles, as well as making a mess of the map pool. You cannot take a balanced game, unbalance it for no apparant reason and wait afterwards because 'Terran should figure stuff out'. Blizzard has been shafting/neglecting Terran for close to three years in their balance policy, it's been enough. Terran has no options to explore. MMM does it's stuff. Ghosts? Only vs HT Vikings? Only vs Collosi/Broodlords Ravens, Tanks, Mines, Thors, Battlecruisers, Ravens, Banshee, Hellions, Hellbats? All really, really situational and probably even poor at that. Terran early game was too powerful, 4 years ago. Because of that, a poor lategame was no problem as Terran could easily head there with an advantage. As of now, Terran early and midgame get weakened and weakened, maps get larger, both opposing races got better early defense. Terran lategame, however, still non-existent. You cannot be surprised a race is suffering if you remove it's strenght and force the race to go for a macro game every game (Terran has no cheese/all-in that works well consistently) while you keep the late game of said race terribly weak, well, the race is in trouble.
This is true. How can anyone suggest leaving the game as it is with such glaring balance issues. If you effectively remove 1/3 of the races you dis-enfranchise 1/3 of the players. The players of the remaining 2 races (perhaps not aZealot) tire of the endless Z/PvZ/P matches and tire of the game.
I used to watch a lot of SC2, I had favorite Terran, Protoss and Zerg players. I used to subscribe to many events (GSL, ProLeague, MLG, others). Now I watch Taeja, Polt and Maru only as nearly every other Terran is just getting ROFL-stomped by the power of Protoss and Zerg.
Follow aZealots advice and this will be a dead game. A small change or two in favor of Terran is needed now, not later.
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On July 01 2014 04:08 SC2Toastie wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2014 03:59 aZealot wrote:On June 30 2014 20:33 SC2Toastie wrote:http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/13273137416?page=2#35
Psione wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions, Winks. The level of analysis and overall tone of your post is appreciated.
The frequency of balance changes is something that we get a lot of feedback on. There are some players who want us to update balance more frequently, and some players who would like us to update less frequently. As we've mentioned in the past, we feel that the player base needs time to adjust to balance changes and constant updating could lead to less progress in this area. That isn't to say we won't look to push for a balance update when we feel it's appropriate, only that we feel new changes need time to be explored before we can decide if further changes may be needed.
While we have no immediate plans for another balance test map, we've seen the ongoing discussion on Terran/Zerg/Protoss performance and we'll continue monitor and discuss these topics. The most recent balance update was a little over four weeks ago, and we feel that the effects of this update are still being explored. Additionally, with Season 3 starting soon we'll be introducing several new maps. As stated in your post, maps are linked to game balance, so it makes sense for us to wait and see how the new maps affect the match-ups.
The thoughts in this thread, and similar threads, are all being read and will be passed along and discussed. This is something we do on a consistent basis, and more detailed posts like these help promote interesting discussion on our end.
Thanks again, and please continue to share your thoughts.
TL;DR Thanks for the effort and overwhelming evidence you put out. We're gonna sit and check in a couple of weeks! I, for one, am very pleased there will be no further test maps or patches in the near future and that Blizzard have said so. I hope they stick to their guns and, ideally, re-evaluate in about 2 months or so. Ironically enough, it is also in the spirit of the OP's actual argument regarding over-patching. We have had many patches recently. Time to let the game settle. If they leave the game in a decent state, I'm all for giving much time to figure stuff out. As of now, Blizzard broke a pretty well balanced game because Zergs qq'd about having to micro and they randomly buffed Oracles, as well as making a mess of the map pool. You cannot take a balanced game, unbalance it for no apparant reason and wait afterwards because 'Terran should figure stuff out'. Blizzard has been shafting/neglecting Terran for close to three years in their balance policy, it's been enough. Terran has no options to explore. MMM does it's stuff. Ghosts? Only vs HT Vikings? Only vs Collosi/Broodlords Ravens, Tanks, Mines, Thors, Battlecruisers, Ravens, Banshee, Hellions, Hellbats? All really, really situational and probably even poor at that. Terran early game was too powerful, 4 years ago. Because of that, a poor lategame was no problem as Terran could easily head there with an advantage. As of now, Terran early and midgame get weakened and weakened, maps get larger, both opposing races got better early defense. Terran lategame, however, still non-existent. You cannot be surprised a race is suffering if you remove it's strenght and force the race to go for a macro game every game (Terran has no cheese/all-in that works well consistently) while you keep the late game of said race terribly weak, well, the race is in trouble.
And there have been a number of patches in the recent past to address that. There is irony in dwf's argument that he rails against over-patching at the start of his piece and then appears to say that the recent patches have not been enough. There is an incoherence there. And some of the recent balance suggestions popping up in this thread, almost inevitable now, have been borderline idiotic. There is nothing in the game so broken that it must be fixed now and that it cannot wait for all the recent patches to simmer in the off-season and for their effects to be seen in the season to come.
Again, dwf's post gave plenty of examples of strategy taking time to evolve from both Protoss and Zerg, and the danger of knee-jerk reactions. Our community, IMO, has a poor grasp of history as we tend to repeat the same behaviours over and over and over again. Blizzard have said they will wait. Good on them, I say. Time to shut up and play the game.
If a patch is needed, say directed at Zerg in 2 - 3 months, so be it.
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On July 01 2014 04:08 SC2Toastie wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2014 03:59 aZealot wrote:On June 30 2014 20:33 SC2Toastie wrote:http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/13273137416?page=2#35
Psione wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions, Winks. The level of analysis and overall tone of your post is appreciated.
The frequency of balance changes is something that we get a lot of feedback on. There are some players who want us to update balance more frequently, and some players who would like us to update less frequently. As we've mentioned in the past, we feel that the player base needs time to adjust to balance changes and constant updating could lead to less progress in this area. That isn't to say we won't look to push for a balance update when we feel it's appropriate, only that we feel new changes need time to be explored before we can decide if further changes may be needed.
While we have no immediate plans for another balance test map, we've seen the ongoing discussion on Terran/Zerg/Protoss performance and we'll continue monitor and discuss these topics. The most recent balance update was a little over four weeks ago, and we feel that the effects of this update are still being explored. Additionally, with Season 3 starting soon we'll be introducing several new maps. As stated in your post, maps are linked to game balance, so it makes sense for us to wait and see how the new maps affect the match-ups.
The thoughts in this thread, and similar threads, are all being read and will be passed along and discussed. This is something we do on a consistent basis, and more detailed posts like these help promote interesting discussion on our end.
Thanks again, and please continue to share your thoughts.
TL;DR Thanks for the effort and overwhelming evidence you put out. We're gonna sit and check in a couple of weeks! I, for one, am very pleased there will be no further test maps or patches in the near future and that Blizzard have said so. I hope they stick to their guns and, ideally, re-evaluate in about 2 months or so. Ironically enough, it is also in the spirit of the OP's actual argument regarding over-patching. We have had many patches recently. Time to let the game settle. If they leave the game in a decent state, I'm all for giving much time to figure stuff out. As of now, Blizzard broke a pretty well balanced game because Zergs qq'd about having to micro and they randomly buffed Oracles, as well as making a mess of the map pool. You cannot take a balanced game, unbalance it for no apparant reason and wait afterwards because 'Terran should figure stuff out'. Blizzard has been shafting/neglecting Terran for close to three years in their balance policy, it's been enough. Terran has no options to explore. MMM does it's stuff. Ghosts? Only vs HT Vikings? Only vs Collosi/Broodlords Ravens, Tanks, Mines, Thors, Battlecruisers, Ravens, Banshee, Hellions, Hellbats? All really, really situational and probably even poor at that. Terran early game was too powerful, 4 years ago. Because of that, a poor lategame was no problem as Terran could easily head there with an advantage. As of now, Terran early and midgame get weakened and weakened, maps get larger, both opposing races got better early defense. Terran lategame, however, still non-existent. You cannot be surprised a race is suffering if you remove it's strenght and force the race to go for a macro game every game (Terran has no cheese/all-in that works well consistently) while you keep the late game of said race terribly weak, well, the race is in trouble.
I agree with alot of what you said. However I disagree with the bold part. Vs Zerg terran have the 2 rax/bunker rush. That cheese has worked well consistently since the beta of sc2. While terran doesn't have alot of cheeses, the 2rax always has a chance to kill zerg.
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On July 01 2014 04:35 DeadByDawn wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2014 04:08 SC2Toastie wrote:On July 01 2014 03:59 aZealot wrote:On June 30 2014 20:33 SC2Toastie wrote:http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/13273137416?page=2#35
Psione wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions, Winks. The level of analysis and overall tone of your post is appreciated.
The frequency of balance changes is something that we get a lot of feedback on. There are some players who want us to update balance more frequently, and some players who would like us to update less frequently. As we've mentioned in the past, we feel that the player base needs time to adjust to balance changes and constant updating could lead to less progress in this area. That isn't to say we won't look to push for a balance update when we feel it's appropriate, only that we feel new changes need time to be explored before we can decide if further changes may be needed.
While we have no immediate plans for another balance test map, we've seen the ongoing discussion on Terran/Zerg/Protoss performance and we'll continue monitor and discuss these topics. The most recent balance update was a little over four weeks ago, and we feel that the effects of this update are still being explored. Additionally, with Season 3 starting soon we'll be introducing several new maps. As stated in your post, maps are linked to game balance, so it makes sense for us to wait and see how the new maps affect the match-ups.
The thoughts in this thread, and similar threads, are all being read and will be passed along and discussed. This is something we do on a consistent basis, and more detailed posts like these help promote interesting discussion on our end.
Thanks again, and please continue to share your thoughts.
TL;DR Thanks for the effort and overwhelming evidence you put out. We're gonna sit and check in a couple of weeks! I, for one, am very pleased there will be no further test maps or patches in the near future and that Blizzard have said so. I hope they stick to their guns and, ideally, re-evaluate in about 2 months or so. Ironically enough, it is also in the spirit of the OP's actual argument regarding over-patching. We have had many patches recently. Time to let the game settle. If they leave the game in a decent state, I'm all for giving much time to figure stuff out. As of now, Blizzard broke a pretty well balanced game because Zergs qq'd about having to micro and they randomly buffed Oracles, as well as making a mess of the map pool. You cannot take a balanced game, unbalance it for no apparant reason and wait afterwards because 'Terran should figure stuff out'. Blizzard has been shafting/neglecting Terran for close to three years in their balance policy, it's been enough. Terran has no options to explore. MMM does it's stuff. Ghosts? Only vs HT Vikings? Only vs Collosi/Broodlords Ravens, Tanks, Mines, Thors, Battlecruisers, Ravens, Banshee, Hellions, Hellbats? All really, really situational and probably even poor at that. Terran early game was too powerful, 4 years ago. Because of that, a poor lategame was no problem as Terran could easily head there with an advantage. As of now, Terran early and midgame get weakened and weakened, maps get larger, both opposing races got better early defense. Terran lategame, however, still non-existent. You cannot be surprised a race is suffering if you remove it's strenght and force the race to go for a macro game every game (Terran has no cheese/all-in that works well consistently) while you keep the late game of said race terribly weak, well, the race is in trouble. This is true. How can anyone suggest leaving the game as it is with such glaring balance issues. If you effectively remove 1/3 of the races you dis-enfranchise 1/3 of the players. The players of the remaining 2 races (perhaps not aZealot) tire of the endless Z/PvZ/P matches and tire of the game. I used to watch a lot of SC2, I had favorite Terran, Protoss and Zerg players. I used to subscribe to many events (GSL, ProLeague, MLG, others). Now I watch Taeja, Polt and Maru only as nearly every other Terran is just getting ROFL-stomped by the power of Protoss and Zerg. Follow aZealots advice and this will be a dead game. A small change or two in favor of Terran is needed now, not later.
I agree, if not on balance, at least most people agree TvT is the most interesting mirror to watch and TvZ the most interesting non-mirror. A lot of people don't even play the game anymore, but just like watching top level SC2. If the majority is PvP and PvZ ofcourse people will stop watching.
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