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I might be wrong, I took a break from Starbow&SC2 for several months and Starbow probably changed a lot in between. I was specifically thinking of viking missiles being slow, but I noticed those had been changed recently, and maybe other projectiles have been adjusted too.
Oh Vikings missile used to be annoyingly slow. I aree it felt much better with Sc2-missiles as that slow attack speed never really accomplished anything (besides more overkill I guess) as you still couldn't avoid it.
I watched the recent Xiphias casts and constantly had to remind myself that it was played on the highest game speed, it's just that the units and animations all feel a bit slower.
Game is way too slow indeed. It's basically 7% slower, but all that accomplishes is to reduce the skill-cap. The argument that we want to incentvize longer battles is bascially nonsense IMO since that can be accomplished by increasing the HP of certain units/reducing damage. For most units that should be somewhat easy to "rebalance". Reducing the movement speed as well makes the control feel annoying.
I like Sc2 more, but even then I think there is room for improvement. I would like to see large maps as default, and units which are good at harassing/light pressure gets an increase in movement speed, while "killer-units" gets slower. That will increase the defenders advantage, but at the same time incentivize pressure and overall increase the skillcap of controlling units (because there simply is more you can do with the units when they move faster).
It reminds me of WC3 actually, a game that always felt a little bit slow to me when watching (I would watch replays for enjoyment on 2x, and actually YouTube casters sometimes do the same). However, you never notice this slowness while playing because there is enough to do in the game. Similarly, I never played Brood War on the fastest game speeds because I played the game mostly offline and the high speed felt oppressive and too mechanically taxing to me. There was enough to do in the game after all, yet I suspect that if you would watch my replays on the same speed I played them that they would be quite uneventful (and I don't have horrible mechanics or anything). Starcraft II is different though.
Well Wc3 isn't alone here. It seems to me after watching clips of many other RTS, that they generally are a ton slower. That's unfortunate, becasue I actually think that Starcraft has a ton of weakness's to it's overall design. But controlling and moving around with units just seems a ton better than in any other game (at least when you look at it from a competitive POV).
I don't think you can make fungal growth too slow because it's a standard projectile and therefore it needs a certain speed to be believable. EMP is similar. I know the Starbow team has done well with what little resources they have, but I don't think they can be expected to create new spell effects that live up to Blizzard's standards. So I don't mind it too much, but I never thought all the spell effects looked absolutely amazing.
It depends on the radius though. I think you can make it even slower with a 25%-40% larger radius. As I remember it, the speed is around 13 now, but I think you can go down to around 8.Further, it should also slow instead of lock and then deal more damage instead.
For Abduct, here is what could have been done;
- Energy cost reduced to 50 from 75
- Projectile speed of Abduct reduced to around 7.
- A dot shows on a the targetted unit
(perhaps also a casting range increase)
This bascially means that the enemy can pull back his Collosus/immortals/Thors when the enemy casts Abduct to it. Right now Abduct is one of the most lame abilities in the game, but it could easily have a lot of countermicro to it. Second thing to though is get rid of the Viking as the counter AA vs armored counter since that creates some really terrible interactions. What BW did made a ton more sense.
I really feel like there is a ton of potenital for adding countermicro to abilities in Sc2. The game could be fucking awesome if the developers had simply made sure that there actually existed practical countermicro after abilties were casted so it wasn't just about "prebattle micro".
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On July 13 2014 06:08 Hider wrote:
Game is way too slow indeed. It's basically 7% slower, but all that accomplishes is to reduce the skill-cap. The argument that we want to incentvize longer battles is bascially nonsense IMO since that can be accomplished by increasing the HP of certain units/reducing damage. For most units that should be somewhat easy to "rebalance". Reducing the movement speed as well makes the control feel annoying.
I don't know, I think it's fine for playing the game. It's an interesting dilemma though: should you balance game speeds keeping spectators in mind, or just players?
Maybe this is funny: I used to campaign for a +20%game-speed-replay-watching mode in WoL beta because I thought this could be a preferable speed to the standard. In retrospect it was a bad idea, but in my defense I was only familiar with "replay of the week" & YouTube casts, not with live e-sports broadcasting. I think we're stuck with watching the game at the same speed it's been played.
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On July 13 2014 06:42 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2014 06:08 Hider wrote:
Game is way too slow indeed. It's basically 7% slower, but all that accomplishes is to reduce the skill-cap. The argument that we want to incentvize longer battles is bascially nonsense IMO since that can be accomplished by increasing the HP of certain units/reducing damage. For most units that should be somewhat easy to "rebalance". Reducing the movement speed as well makes the control feel annoying. I don't know, I think it's fine for playing the game. It's an interesting dilemma though: should you balance game speeds keeping spectators in mind, or just players? Maybe this is funny: I used to campaign for a +20%game-speed-replay-watching mode in WoL beta because I thought this could be a preferable speed to the standard. In retrospect it was a bad idea, but in my defense I was only familiar with "replay of the week" & YouTube casts, not with live e-sports broadcasting. I think we're stuck with watching the game at the same speed it's been played.
I think both comeptitive players and viewers would like to see units with faster movement speed, but perhaps slightly slower damage values in some situations (as it rewards more micro and slightly longer battles).
Casuals might want to see both slower movement speed damage values. However, I agree with Lalush's argument that you cannot design the games for both casuals and competitve players. You need different "products" for each target group.
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Reading over the Thor comments, do people not realize Thor targeted AA as priority in WoL? This is just reverting to WoL. They also specifically addressed that it would only target air that aggroed (ie. ground is targeted over ovies or medivacs). I'm assuming Blizzard is smart enough to revert back to this.
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On July 13 2014 07:03 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2014 06:42 Grumbels wrote:On July 13 2014 06:08 Hider wrote:
Game is way too slow indeed. It's basically 7% slower, but all that accomplishes is to reduce the skill-cap. The argument that we want to incentvize longer battles is bascially nonsense IMO since that can be accomplished by increasing the HP of certain units/reducing damage. For most units that should be somewhat easy to "rebalance". Reducing the movement speed as well makes the control feel annoying. I don't know, I think it's fine for playing the game. It's an interesting dilemma though: should you balance game speeds keeping spectators in mind, or just players? Maybe this is funny: I used to campaign for a +20%game-speed-replay-watching mode in WoL beta because I thought this could be a preferable speed to the standard. In retrospect it was a bad idea, but in my defense I was only familiar with "replay of the week" & YouTube casts, not with live e-sports broadcasting. I think we're stuck with watching the game at the same speed it's been played. I think both comeptitive players and viewers would like to see units with faster movement speed, but perhaps slightly slower damage values in some situations (as it rewards more micro and slightly longer battles). Casuals might want to see both slower movement speed damage values. However, I agree with Lalush's argument that you cannot design the games for both casuals and competitve players. You need different "products" for each target group.
Reminds me of real sports. I'm a part of, say, the recreational sports circuit at university and I've done basketball, football, squash, tennis, volleyball, and it's interesting to note that rules are often different for us compared to professional variants of those games.
With squash we use heavier balls that are less fickle. Our tennis courts are extremely slow. The baskets are lower for basketball, the net is lower for volleyball. With football we play on artificial grass where you can't tackle, the field is smaller and we don't use offside, and we don't have goalies but instead you have to shoot the ball directly into the net.
I'm sure there are more differences, but the point is that casual Starcraft players should not be forced to play on Alterzim Stronghold on the fastest game speeds. There is precedent from many other games after all, even for Brood War I doubt that most players played on fastest for the first few years of its existence, before the only players left playing ladder were too influenced by the Korean scene to care for anything else. But for some reason Blizzard had the brilliant idea to force everyone into the 1v1 ladder scene.
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I'm sure there are more differences, but the point is that casual Starcraft players should not be forced to play on Alterzim Stronghold on the fastest game speeds. There is precedent from many other games after all, even for Brood War I doubt that most players played on fastest for the first few years of its existence, before the only players left playing ladder were too influenced by the Korean scene to care for anything else. But for some reason Blizzard had the brilliant idea to force everyone into the 1v1 ladder scene.
Yes, there should have been a 10 tims larger focus on making the Arcade as casualfriendly as possible, and centered the game around the arcade too a much larger extent. That could have freed up the 1on1 ladder as only something that was relevant for "competitive" players
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On July 13 2014 07:53 FabledIntegral wrote:
Reading over the Thor comments, do people not realize Thor targeted AA as priority in WoL? This is just reverting to WoL. They also specifically addressed that it would only target air that aggroed (ie. ground is targeted over ovies or medivacs). I'm assuming Blizzard is smart enough to revert back to this.
After I tested the balance map, I came to realize that the Thors will still prioritize aggressive ground units over passive air. That was basically the key concern for a lot of people. Still, one can't help but feel like this sort of change is just another reduction in micro. A-move is increasingly becoming the more ideal method of engagement, and that upsets me; Thors derping on lings vs. Thors crushing muta flocks was a key indicator of a better player exercising unit control.
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United States7483 Posts
On July 13 2014 11:41 iamcaustic wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2014 07:53 FabledIntegral wrote:
Reading over the Thor comments, do people not realize Thor targeted AA as priority in WoL? This is just reverting to WoL. They also specifically addressed that it would only target air that aggroed (ie. ground is targeted over ovies or medivacs). I'm assuming Blizzard is smart enough to revert back to this. After I tested the balance map, I came to realize that the Thors will still prioritize aggressive ground units over passive air. That was basically the key concern for a lot of people. Still, one can't help but feel like this sort of change is just another reduction in micro. A-move is increasingly becoming the more ideal method of engagement, and that upsets me; Thors derping on lings vs. Thors crushing muta flocks was a key indicator of a better player exercising unit control.
You're still better off targeting thors on the muta most centralized to try to maximize splash, this is merely so you can actually micro your other units and have the thor not be an idiot at the start of the fight, and so during the fight your thor isn't shooting lings every time it's muta target died.
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On July 13 2014 14:31 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2014 11:41 iamcaustic wrote:On July 13 2014 07:53 FabledIntegral wrote:
Reading over the Thor comments, do people not realize Thor targeted AA as priority in WoL? This is just reverting to WoL. They also specifically addressed that it would only target air that aggroed (ie. ground is targeted over ovies or medivacs). I'm assuming Blizzard is smart enough to revert back to this. After I tested the balance map, I came to realize that the Thors will still prioritize aggressive ground units over passive air. That was basically the key concern for a lot of people. Still, one can't help but feel like this sort of change is just another reduction in micro. A-move is increasingly becoming the more ideal method of engagement, and that upsets me; Thors derping on lings vs. Thors crushing muta flocks was a key indicator of a better player exercising unit control. You're still better off targeting thors on the muta most centralized to try to maximize splash, this is merely so you can actually micro your other units and have the thor not be an idiot at the start of the fight, and so during the fight your thor isn't shooting lings every time it's muta target died.
I suppose it depends on the army composition. Bio + Thor, what you're saying makes sense. Mech... right now Thors are the only thing I have to micro, really. Well, aside from placing down a PDD or two.
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On July 13 2014 15:07 iamcaustic wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2014 14:31 Whitewing wrote:On July 13 2014 11:41 iamcaustic wrote:On July 13 2014 07:53 FabledIntegral wrote:
Reading over the Thor comments, do people not realize Thor targeted AA as priority in WoL? This is just reverting to WoL. They also specifically addressed that it would only target air that aggroed (ie. ground is targeted over ovies or medivacs). I'm assuming Blizzard is smart enough to revert back to this. After I tested the balance map, I came to realize that the Thors will still prioritize aggressive ground units over passive air. That was basically the key concern for a lot of people. Still, one can't help but feel like this sort of change is just another reduction in micro. A-move is increasingly becoming the more ideal method of engagement, and that upsets me; Thors derping on lings vs. Thors crushing muta flocks was a key indicator of a better player exercising unit control. You're still better off targeting thors on the muta most centralized to try to maximize splash, this is merely so you can actually micro your other units and have the thor not be an idiot at the start of the fight, and so during the fight your thor isn't shooting lings every time it's muta target died. I suppose it depends on the army composition. Bio + Thor, what you're saying makes sense. Mech... right now Thors are the only thing I have to micro, really. Well, aside from placing down a PDD or two.
That's pretty arbitrary micro to add, having thors deliberately target the wrong units so you're forced to retarget.
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On July 13 2014 11:41 iamcaustic wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2014 07:53 FabledIntegral wrote:
Reading over the Thor comments, do people not realize Thor targeted AA as priority in WoL? This is just reverting to WoL. They also specifically addressed that it would only target air that aggroed (ie. ground is targeted over ovies or medivacs). I'm assuming Blizzard is smart enough to revert back to this. After I tested the balance map, I came to realize that the Thors will still prioritize aggressive ground units over passive air. That was basically the key concern for a lot of people. Still, one can't help but feel like this sort of change is just another reduction in micro. A-move is increasingly becoming the more ideal method of engagement, and that upsets me; Thors derping on lings vs. Thors crushing muta flocks was a key indicator of a better player exercising unit control.
Not really. Thors barely were effective vs mutas as is. Think about it - Thors had this priority in WoL, mutas were slower AND didn't regen and Thors STILL did not dominate mutas. They were good, and they were mixed in, but they absolutely were not the solution, and that's why so many Terrans still didn't make them in WoL. They were simply neutered in HOTS to be a desperate measure more than anything.
EDIT: Was thinking for the more "standard" bio
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Yeah, the Thor AI was really annoying. Say the zerg comes to attack you and flies mutas in (a bit stacked but gradually splits them more and more). The Thors won't attack the mutas though, so they waste at least one hit, unless you want to see terrans having to click Mutas at ~10 range away and find that impressive and entertaining to watch. Thors are to zone out mutas, it should start attacking them ASAP, not punish players for not clicking mutas that are 10 units away.
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EPT
