David Kim posted an update on the development of LotV's multiplayer mode, addressing multiple community concerns and feedback Blizzard has received since revealing Legacy of the Void at Blizzcon.
Everything in the game so far is just a snapshot of where we’re at in development, and nothing is set in stone at this point. For instance, it’s absolutely not determined that Protoss will only get one unit while other races will get two. The final new unit count is not yet decided. We want to do what’s right for the race and the game, and it’s just too early to make a call on the final new unit count for Legacy of the Void right now.
- Protoss Strength
We’ve seen concerns about Protoss being mostly ‘nerfed’. Obviously we don’t want any race to get mostly ‘nerfs’ while other races are buffed, but because we’re trying so many things at once, balance will be off. Also, we’re aware that if we take away from the strength of the race as a whole, we’ll need to add something else back to make up for it since the balance of the game is pretty solid right now in Heart of the Swarm.
For example, one of the most powerful buffs in Legacy of the Void that we’re seeing internally is on the Protoss. A Warp Prism performing a drop with two Immortals is ridiculously powerful. The Hardened Shield buff as well as ranged pick up works so well (if an opponent has no air units in play) that Protoss always gets a huge lead in the mid-game.
- Resource Changes
As far as resourcing is concerned, right now, we’d like to specifically target a change where players need to spread their bases out more so that there’s a lot more action going on. We believe this will have two benefits: players going on the offense will have more attacking options, and players on the defense can show off their defending skill better since they have to defend a much wider area now.
While we’ve seen a variety of suggestions on this topic, we’d like to focus on changing the problematic parts of this system and not immediately look to do a complete redo. One of the main design goals we’ve always had on our team is to locate the specific area we’d like to change and only change that part. The main reason for this is very simple. We don’t want to potentially lose the good parts of a system by changing more than what’s necessary.
- Unit Changes
A few thoughts on some points we are seeing discussed on specific unit changes.
The HERC overlap with the Hellbat (and somewhat with charge upgraded Zealots) is something we’re aware of and would like to address. Interceptors are not free. Their cost still remains the same We’re also looking at changes on many other things including: Various abilities we aren’t happy with. Exploring new unit ideas on both Protoss and Terran Exploring ways to make the upgrade process more interesting and dynamic Exploring ways to reduce micro in the game that can’t really be seen vs. increasing micro that players can show off. Once again we really appreciate all the feedback you’re providing. We’d like to offer some points to help keep the feedback as productive as possible before we move into Beta testing.
- Focus on discussion rather than conclusions
It’s really not possible to definitively say how good or bad a change is until we’ve had a lot of playtesting. Recently we’ve seen some feedback and discussion turn into definitive conclusions on certain subjects, many of which differ from what we’re seeing in our internal playtesting. We’d like to make sure that everyone understands that nothing is final, and while the discussion on these changes is helpful, there’s no need to overreact to any of these changes we’ve previewed so far. There will be a time for everyone to test these changes personally and see how they play out. We’d really love to heavily test various, sometimes more extreme, ideas during the upcoming Beta.
- Beta will look much different than what you saw at BlizzCon
In our internal pre-alpha build, we’re already exploring completely different changes, making tweaks to existing things, adding/removing units and abilities, and so on. We’d like to point out once more that our current focus is not on specific changes that make or break a race, but how the game as a whole is functioning. The best time for that is during the Beta. Right now, it’s just not possible to make calls on individual changes without seeing what the game as a whole will look like.
As always, thank you so much for everyone’s input. Please remember that nothing is final, we’re putting a heavy emphasis on gathering all of your feedback, and we’ll try our best to at least internally test suggestions we see in order to fully explore all the options available to us for Legacy of the Void.
Beta will look much different than what you saw at BlizzCon
Thank you.
That's all that actually matters from what was said.
Blizzard is totally clueless when to balancing. We learn that every time Blizzard releases a RTS game, they ignore the community, then end up giving them what they want months later after realizing it was the right thing to do, but still claim credit.
Interesting that they mention a couple times how important it is that you can SEE how good a player is. I guess they're trying to get rid of "no skill a-move race" types of complaints.
On November 20 2014 04:37 Circumstance wrote: Interesting that they mention a couple times how important it is that you can SEE how good a player is. I guess they're trying to get rid of "no skill a-move race" types of complaints.
On November 20 2014 04:37 Circumstance wrote: Interesting that they mention a couple times how important it is that you can SEE how good a player is. I guess they're trying to get rid of "no skill a-move race" types of complaints.
Nah, they're saying "stop bugging us about moving shot, we're never gonna add it."
We believe this will have two benefits: players going on the offense will have more attacking options, and players on the defense can show off their defending skill better since they have to defend a much wider area now.
What they don't realize yet is that the only defensive option is Avilo-level of turtle. The only way for a defensive focussed player to defend extra bases is to cut down on offensive units/investments and place them into turtling. The net effect here (assuming the defensive player is solid) is less aggression.
I really hope 12 workers makes it into the beta to be tested. The biggest problem for me in sc2 is stupid fluke build order wins from 7pool, 11/11, proxygate. 12 workers may solve some of the rock paper scissors and make the game more skill based. You can beat any overpowered unit/race with skill, but no amount of skill can prevent occasional fluke losses if you 2 hatch before pool vs a proxy gate or play zerg vs a 11/11, early pools vs 15hatch, etc.
Since things are gonna change, more or less: Are upgrades really necessary? (I mean +1/+1 etc?) Most of the time, at least in lower leagues (low masters and below), they are just something that makes the analyzation of the current situation more difficult: you are not sure whether your army can beat the opponents army unless you consider the differences in upgrades. Moreover, timing things to match with the finishing upgrades is not really that much fun: yes, you can win games by hitting the right timing, but you just find yourself stalling your attack (instead of seizing a strategically optimal moment) when you wait for your +2/+2 to complete. Yes, there are interesting plays that upgrades make possible (a drop that snipes the double forge can win you the game, zealots with +1 attack is scoutable but then allows new plays by owning lings etc.). But, in the end, would it be that much of a loss if we had no upgrades for attack/defence? Naturally, they are things that make complete tech switch harder (i.e. allows opponent to better prepare for certain compositions) and in the late game full upgrades nullify each other in any case.. Yet, it is still frustrating to realise that you forgot certain upgrade and that is why you are likely to lose an otherwise even game..
im hoping for some more focus on messing up base infrastructure in the mid to late game, at least in ZvT and ZvP. i know that TvP has terran messing up protoss buildings right now. but in general buildings aren't that expensive and they're almost never touched later on. would be cool to see some buildings burn for once, limiting production for a medium-short time and creating some openings. add in more drop play, too.
the new corruptor spit is a cute change but i'd prefer something a bit more serious and less cute.
Almost made me feel guilty of all the sh*t I was talking about before, lol
Would've REALLY liked if they experimented more about the economy changes and try it with also saturation changes.. If you're making a game with more bases to be taken in general - better find ways to reduce the amount of workers needed to support them.. IMO would've really been well made if saturation was reduced to 12 and the max amount of workers per base to be 16 - so instead of 16/24 make the requirements be 12/16 respectively.. The new units are already far more micro oriented and each race has rather effective death-ball disassembling ways to deal with such a "phenomenon" (vs deathballs there are now effective units such as - Infestors, Ravagers, SwarmHost, Viper for Zerg, new Tempest ability, new Carrier ability, Psi-storm for Protoss, and Cyclone for Terran), so would've really liked to have seen the outcome of such a change
However - here's a suggestion, (no balance crap, no whine and sh*t like that, just a pure suggestion) - someone pls. tell it to Mr. Kim:
Rather than that stupid Void Ray attack - make Corruptors have an ability (after Hive has been evolved, or even make it a Hive research if needed) - to carry and drop spines & spores (just carry and drop mechanic, spines & spores would still require creep for them to root in the ground and do it's own thing) - would really like to see how that would pan out regarding the Zerg backdoor strats I think :D
Beta will look much different than what you saw at BlizzCon
Thank you.
That's all that actually matters from what was said.
Blizzard is totally clueless when to balancing. We learn that every time Blizzard releases a RTS game, they ignore the community, then end up giving them what they want months later after realizing it was the right thing to do, but still claim credit.
Blizzard have made the only three good competitve RTS games out there so no they clearly are not.
Blizzard are saying in the statment you presumably looked through that they will test basiclly everything. Your respons is that thats worthless.
I have loved playing all of their RTS games and I have loved watching it. The only time I feel bad about SC2 is everytime I read the comment section on this site.
If someone says to you that they have some cool new ideas we will test out, our previous creations have been huge successes, and your reaction is "no its gonna be shit whatever it is" your only function is to drain away positivty.
On November 20 2014 05:06 Liquid`Snute wrote: im hoping for some more focus on messing up base infrastructure in the mid to late game, at least in ZvT and ZvP. i know that TvP has terran messing up protoss buildings right now. but in general buildings aren't that expensive and they're almost never touched later on. would be cool to see some buildings burn for once, limiting production for a medium-short time and creating some openings. add in more drop play, too.
the new corruptor spit is a cute change but i'd prefer something a bit more serious and less cute.
SC2 needs superweapons, you're right! A weather control device for protoss (megastorm), a nuke silo for terran (bigger better nukes) and maybe a psionic dominator for zerg!
On November 20 2014 05:06 Liquid`Snute wrote: im hoping for some more focus on messing up base infrastructure in the mid to late game, at least in ZvT and ZvP. i know that TvP has terran messing up protoss buildings right now. but in general buildings aren't that expensive and they're almost never touched later on. would be cool to see some buildings burn for once, limiting production for a medium-short time and creating some openings. add in more drop play, too.
the new corruptor spit is a cute change but i'd prefer something a bit more serious and less cute.
SC2 needs superweapons, you're right! A weather control device for protoss (megastorm), a nuke silo for terran (bigger better nukes) and maybe a psionic dominator for zerg!
Please no, SC2 doesn't need to become AoM with the god powers.
On November 20 2014 05:06 Liquid`Snute wrote: im hoping for some more focus on messing up base infrastructure in the mid to late game, at least in ZvT and ZvP. i know that TvP has terran messing up protoss buildings right now. but in general buildings aren't that expensive and they're almost never touched later on. would be cool to see some buildings burn for once, limiting production for a medium-short time and creating some openings. add in more drop play, too.
the new corruptor spit is a cute change but i'd prefer something a bit more serious and less cute.
SC2 needs superweapons, you're right! A weather control device for protoss (megastorm), a nuke silo for terran (bigger better nukes) and maybe a psionic dominator for zerg!
Please no, SC2 doesn't need to become AoM with the god powers.
I was thinking more Red Alert 2... maybe we can get an autosplit hotkey while we're at it!
The warp prism range increase really isn't a buff. Any good player can still do pick-ups as efficiently as possible with the current range "if an opponent has no air units", so it just acts as a buff for bad protoss players, skewing the game in their favour and not effecting higher levels of play.
Exploring ways to reduce micro in the game that can’t really be seen vs. increasing micro that players can show off.
I would really be curious to know what arbitrary sort of distinction they've made to separate these forms of micro. Nobody in the community except Blizzard devs hold the belief that units which control well and perform simple straight up attacks are "hard to understand". I know they believe they can add micro in "other ways". But fuck me already. Who is going to be impressed and what is being "differentiated" by adding a bunch of 1-click abilities?
Most of those abilities won't even be used as the game fast forwards through its non existing early and mid games into the lategame, where all the exciting stuff supposedly happens.
Honestly, there would be a hundred times more potential for micro in your game if you just weren't so damn keen on rushing through the parts of the game at lower supply counts which would allow for these intricate forms of micro. You're sure as hell not going to see them in a lategame huge army vs huge army situation.
Exploring ways to reduce micro in the game that can’t really be seen vs. increasing micro that players can show off.
I would really be curious to know what arbitrary sort of distinction they've made to separate these forms of micro. Nobody in the community except Blizzard devs hold the belief that units which control well and perform simple straight up attacks are "hard to understand". I know they believe they can add micro in "other ways". But fuck me already. Who is going to be impressed and what is being "differentiated" by adding a bunch of 1-click abilities?
Most of those abilities won't even be used as the game fast forwards through its non existing early and mid games into the lategame, where all the exciting stuff supposedly happens.
Honestly, there would be a hundred times more potential for micro in your game if you just weren't so damn keen on rushing through the parts of the game which would allow for these forms of intricate micro. You're sure as hell not going to see them in a deathballed lategame.
Very good point. I'm also very disappointed in Blizzards sudden distaste for the early game. It's very hard to get in the staff's heads and try and figure out what they're smoking sometimes...
On November 20 2014 05:28 Yonnua wrote: The warp prism range increase really isn't a buff. Any good player can still do pick-ups as efficiently as possible with the current range "if an opponent has no air units", so it just acts as a buff for bad protoss players, skewing the game in their favour and not effecting higher levels of play.
That is a huge buff. You can keep the prism easily out of the range of anything that can shoot it down, safely picking up immortals/whatever.
On November 20 2014 05:28 Yonnua wrote: The warp prism range increase really isn't a buff. Any good player can still do pick-ups as efficiently as possible with the current range "if an opponent has no air units", so it just acts as a buff for bad protoss players, skewing the game in their favour and not effecting higher levels of play.
That is a huge buff. You can keep the prism easily out of the range of anything that can shoot it down, safely picking up immortals/whatever.
Yea it's insane. You can do stuff like keep your Warp Prism behind your Colossi and pick them up as they get shot at by Vikings to dodge the shots and waste entire Viking volleys. Pretty much all of your units have Blink with good enough control.
For example, one of the most powerful buffs in Legacy of the Void that we’re seeing internally is on the Protoss. A Warp Prism performing a drop with two Immortals is ridiculously powerful. The Hardened Shield buff as well as ranged pick up works so well (if an opponent has no air units in play) that Protoss always gets a huge lead in the mid-game.
I wish they'd focus on removing boring (usually repetetive macro-based) tasks from the game and adding fun (usually micro/control-based) tasks to it.
Exploring ways to reduce micro in the game that can’t really be seen vs. increasing micro that players can show off.
I think removing micro that can't really be seen is such a minor issue for as long as half of the units in the game could be made more fun with 1-2simply unit stat tweaks that I really don't like this approach. And I'm not even talking about things like "Depth of Micro" which might be hard and gamebreaking to realize, I'm talking about just starting with basic unit stats that could often be better designed against each other. Experiments with pick up range for Warp prism is a good start in that direction though!
On November 20 2014 05:45 LaLuSh wrote: I'm quick to "overreact".
But for the life of me I cannot understand how they came to the conclusion that:
LOW SUPPLY COUNT = SLOW AND BORING GAMEPLAY
Was there someone to provide counterarguments when that discussion took place? How has this belief come to be held as an absolute truth?
This. I am upset but not even surprised at this point. Though the SC2 engine and units do not have oomph or a unique feel like they do in BW, so low supply battles often (but not always) just feel a lot more meh in SC2 rather than the satisfying experience it was in BW for both spectators and players.
I feel like without the pressure of the Korean scene, Blizzard would not bother with huge changes. Without a doubt they are getting a lot of pressure from OGN/GOM/KeSPA to make SC2 a worthy game. OGN's Star Hangshow
Exploring ways to reduce micro in the game that can’t really be seen vs. increasing micro that players can show off.
I would really be curious to know what arbitrary sort of distinction they've made to separate these forms of micro. Nobody in the community except Blizzard devs hold the belief that units which control well and perform simple straight up attacks are "hard to understand". I know they believe they can add micro in "other ways". But fuck me already. Who is going to be impressed and what is being "differentiated" by adding a bunch of 1-click abilities?
Most of those abilities won't even be used as the game fast forwards through its non existing early and mid games into the lategame, where all the exciting stuff supposedly happens.
Honestly, there would be a hundred times more potential for micro in your game if you just weren't so damn keen on rushing through the parts of the game at lower supply counts which would allow for these intricate forms of micro. You're sure as hell not going to see them in a lategame huge army vs huge army situation.
Hard to understand for uninitiated viewers, i presume they mean, as in they want to expand the audience.
I do think the amount of abilities will be trimed down but they want to filter out which one they want to keep through letting you play them all. At the moment there are to many but at the moment the game is in alpha.
I dont think everyone rushing 200 armys is gonna be what will happen. Doing that means you need to turtle on two or three bases which seems like it will be very hard with the changes tehy have made so far. There should be more points of attack which makes more micro innherantly neccessary.
On November 20 2014 05:55 Big J wrote: I wish they'd focus on removing boring (usually repetetive macro-based) tasks from the game and adding fun (usually micro/control-based) tasks to it.
Launch interceptors is hardly an "ability". It's just how the carrier works because... it's a carrier. It carries fighters, and when you click to attack, the interceptors attack. It's as much an ability as the swarm host spawning ability is.
But for the rest of it, yes, especially when you consider they went from immortals being non-ability to ability.
On November 20 2014 05:45 LaLuSh wrote: I'm quick to "overreact".
But for the life of me I cannot understand how they came to the conclusion that:
LOW SUPPLY COUNT = SLOW AND BORING GAMEPLAY
Was there someone to provide counterarguments when that discussion took place? To me it's just a random belief which automatically is held to be true.
Less supply and lower tech units = less explosions and lasers. We're going by the Michael Bay theory of entertainment here maybe?
There will still be interactions between small amounts of units. What you lose out on with this is a lot of build orders wins. I like the idea of a early game with more units, more focus on early scouting and quicker expanding giving you moe attack points and more to defend.
What is it you will miss from having a lower worker count to start of with?
Everything in the game so far is just a snapshot of where we’re at in development, and nothing is set in stone at this point. For instance, it’s absolutely not determined that Protoss will only get one unit while other races will get two. The final new unit count is not yet decided. We want to do what’s right for the races and the game, and it’s just too early to make a call on the final new unit count for Legacy of the Void right now.
I'm reminded of the time that Blizzard artificially created good will for themselves by pretending they were going to remove the Carrier only to perform an act of blatant fan service by reintroducing it in HotS beta.
Who wants to bet that the question of the new protoss unit will be left in the air and only revealed at some opportune moment?
More and more spells and abilities is much, much more confusing to an uninitiated player than good unit control surely?
I'm still interested to see what comes up though, initial vids weren't what excited me in terms of content, just that they showed Blizzard are really messing around with things
I'm still baffled at why some of Lalush's ideas on air control weren't implemented though. Yet again it's a 'make it faster' in the case of a Banshee, like the Oracle and the Muta before it
Everything in the game so far is just a snapshot of where we’re at in development, and nothing is set in stone at this point. For instance, it’s absolutely not determined that Protoss will only get one unit while other races will get two. The final new unit count is not yet decided. We want to do what’s right for the races and the game, and it’s just too early to make a call on the final new unit count for Legacy of the Void right now.
I'm reminded of the time that Blizzard artificially created good will for themselves by pretending they were going to remove the Carrier only to perform an act of blatant fan service by reintroducing it in HotS beta.
Who wants to bet that the question of the new protoss unit will be left in the air and only revealed at some opportune moment?
They tok feedback into account and reintroduced a unit, that was bad because?
They probably will add new units still, they might remove some and change others. They will probably announce it in a way which will be good for their company. That is bad because?
On November 20 2014 05:45 LaLuSh wrote: I'm quick to "overreact".
But for the life of me I cannot understand how they came to the conclusion that:
LOW SUPPLY COUNT = SLOW AND BORING GAMEPLAY
Was there someone to provide counterarguments when that discussion took place? To me it's just a random belief which automatically is held to be true.
Less supply and lower tech units = less explosions and lasers. We're going by the Michael Bay theory of entertainment here maybe?
There will still be interactions between small amounts of units. What you lose out on with this is a lot of build orders wins. I like the idea of a early game with more units, more focus on early scouting and quicker expanding giving you moe attack points and more to defend.
What is it you will miss from having a lower worker count to start of with?
I like the few minutes at the start to collect yourself. I like the small battles with only a couple units where you can get maximum efficiency out of almost nothing. I like cheese! Scouting is gonna be important either way, and they can force more expansions more quickly through other means.
On November 20 2014 05:55 Big J wrote: I wish they'd focus on removing boring (usually repetetive macro-based) tasks from the game and adding fun (usually micro/control-based) tasks to it.
Exploring ways to reduce micro in the game that can’t really be seen vs. increasing micro that players can show off.
I think removing micro that can't really be seen is such a minor issue for as long as half of the units in the game could be made more fun with 1-2simply unit stat tweaks that I really don't like this approach. And I'm not even talking about things like "Depth of Micro" which might be hard and gamebreaking to realize, I'm talking about just starting with basic unit stats that could often be better designed against each other. Experiments with pick up range for Warp prism is a good start in that direction though!
I wish they would just make macro more fun. Creep spread is a good example of Blizzard making macro options more engaging while still soaking up apm.
Also, maybe Blizzard read this person's post? I don't tend to believe that David Kim reads community feedback, but the language pretty much fits.
Everything in the game so far is just a snapshot of where we’re at in development, and nothing is set in stone at this point. For instance, it’s absolutely not determined that Protoss will only get one unit while other races will get two. The final new unit count is not yet decided. We want to do what’s right for the races and the game, and it’s just too early to make a call on the final new unit count for Legacy of the Void right now.
I'm reminded of the time that Blizzard artificially created good will for themselves by pretending they were going to remove the Carrier only to perform an act of blatant fan service by reintroducing it in HotS beta.
Who wants to bet that the question of the new protoss unit will be left in the air and only revealed at some opportune moment?
They tok feedback into account and reintroduced a unit, that was bad because?
They probably will add new units still, they might remove some and change others. They will probably announce it in a way which will be good for their company. That is bad because?
It's bad because we all know that they will add another unit to protoss. They just hadn't come up with a functional one yet for Blizzcon. They're still planning to add a new unit, but they are pretending to still be discussing it so that they can positively surprise us at a later date with their most recent creation. i.e. they're lying to us for PR reasons
At least I imagine so. It doesn't really matter of course, just that it's a bit silly to read too much into Blizzard PR.
On November 20 2014 05:45 LaLuSh wrote: I'm quick to "overreact".
But for the life of me I cannot understand how they came to the conclusion that:
LOW SUPPLY COUNT = SLOW AND BORING GAMEPLAY
Was there someone to provide counterarguments when that discussion took place? To me it's just a random belief which automatically is held to be true.
Less supply and lower tech units = less explosions and lasers. We're going by the Michael Bay theory of entertainment here maybe?
There will still be interactions between small amounts of units. What you lose out on with this is a lot of build orders wins. I like the idea of a early game with more units, more focus on early scouting and quicker expanding giving you moe attack points and more to defend.
What is it you will miss from having a lower worker count to start of with?
I like the few minutes at the start to collect yourself. I like the small battles with only a couple units where you can get maximum efficiency out of almost nothing. I like cheese! Scouting is gonna be important either way, and they can force more expansions more quickly through other means.
I found the two first minuttes boring and I allways tuned out while doing it. You will still have small battles, why do you think they will disapear? You enjoyed being cannon rushed? I didnt. You can still chees to some extent, since people will allways try to win the greed war to get ahead which opens up for exploiting that. Scouting is more important since you can throw down your first tech building quicker which means you need to know which route your oponent is going quicker insted of jsut knowing if hes building up or cheesing. Which other means would you sugest?
Everything in the game so far is just a snapshot of where we’re at in development, and nothing is set in stone at this point. For instance, it’s absolutely not determined that Protoss will only get one unit while other races will get two. The final new unit count is not yet decided. We want to do what’s right for the races and the game, and it’s just too early to make a call on the final new unit count for Legacy of the Void right now.
I'm reminded of the time that Blizzard artificially created good will for themselves by pretending they were going to remove the Carrier only to perform an act of blatant fan service by reintroducing it in HotS beta.
Who wants to bet that the question of the new protoss unit will be left in the air and only revealed at some opportune moment?
They tok feedback into account and reintroduced a unit, that was bad because?
They probably will add new units still, they might remove some and change others. They will probably announce it in a way which will be good for their company. That is bad because?
It's bad because we all know that they will add another unit to protoss. They just hadn't come up with a functional one yet for Blizzcon. They're still planning to add a new unit, but they are pretending to still be discussing it so that they can positively surprise us at a later date with their most recent creation. i.e. they're lying to us for PR reasons
At least I imagine so. It doesn't really matter of course, just that it's a bit silly to read too much into Blizzard PR.
You are right of course. I apologies for my tone I misunderstod where you were going with that.
On November 20 2014 05:45 LaLuSh wrote: I'm quick to "overreact".
But for the life of me I cannot understand how they came to the conclusion that:
LOW SUPPLY COUNT = SLOW AND BORING GAMEPLAY
Was there someone to provide counterarguments when that discussion took place? To me it's just a random belief which automatically is held to be true.
Less supply and lower tech units = less explosions and lasers. We're going by the Michael Bay theory of entertainment here maybe?
There will still be interactions between small amounts of units. What you lose out on with this is a lot of build orders wins. I like the idea of a early game with more units, more focus on early scouting and quicker expanding giving you moe attack points and more to defend.
What is it you will miss from having a lower worker count to start of with?
I like the few minutes at the start to collect yourself. I like the small battles with only a couple units where you can get maximum efficiency out of almost nothing. I like cheese! Scouting is gonna be important either way, and they can force more expansions more quickly through other means.
I found the two first minuttes boring and I allways tuned out while doing it. You will still have small battles, why do you think they will disapear? You enjoyed being cannon rushed? I didnt. You can still chees to some extent, since people will allways try to win the greed war to get ahead which opens up for exploiting that. Scouting is more important since you can throw down your first tech building quicker which means you need to know which route your oponent is going quicker insted of jsut knowing if hes building up or cheesing. Which other means would you sugest?
Well, we could always try BW economy, where a normal amount of workers mines more efficiently on more bases, to help prevent the 3 base economy cap.
On November 20 2014 06:07 Wombat_NI wrote: More and more spells and abilities is much, much more confusing to an uninitiated player than good unit control surely?
I'm still interested to see what comes up though, initial vids weren't what excited me in terms of content, just that they showed Blizzard are really messing around with things
I'm still baffled at why some of Lalush's ideas on air control weren't implemented though. Yet again it's a 'make it faster' in the case of a Banshee, like the Oracle and the Muta before it
This.
When I watched Dota, where each hero has 4 or more abilities (+ any abilities from items that they have purchased) and there are 10 heroes, team fights made absolutely no sense to me at all. I have zero idea what is going on, who is on what team, who is winning, who is losing, etc. until the dust settles. (I know a lot more Dota so this is less of an issue now but this is when I was a total beginner).
But watching someone pick up and drop Immortals to dodge missile shots, for example, is inherently understandable. This guy is shooting at that guy, and that guy is avoiding the shots.
If anything, I think PHYSICAL ACTIONS are more easily understood by viewers, especially inexperienced ones.
Anyone who's played the game enough knows exactly what every spell is and what the complexity of casting it is as well as how hard any micro trick is to execute....
On November 20 2014 05:45 LaLuSh wrote: I'm quick to "overreact".
But for the life of me I cannot understand how they came to the conclusion that:
LOW SUPPLY COUNT = SLOW AND BORING GAMEPLAY
Was there someone to provide counterarguments when that discussion took place? To me it's just a random belief which automatically is held to be true.
Less supply and lower tech units = less explosions and lasers. We're going by the Michael Bay theory of entertainment here maybe?
There will still be interactions between small amounts of units. What you lose out on with this is a lot of build orders wins. I like the idea of a early game with more units, more focus on early scouting and quicker expanding giving you moe attack points and more to defend.
What is it you will miss from having a lower worker count to start of with?
I like the few minutes at the start to collect yourself. I like the small battles with only a couple units where you can get maximum efficiency out of almost nothing. I like cheese! Scouting is gonna be important either way, and they can force more expansions more quickly through other means.
I found the two first minuttes boring and I allways tuned out while doing it. You will still have small battles, why do you think they will disapear? You enjoyed being cannon rushed? I didnt. You can still chees to some extent, since people will allways try to win the greed war to get ahead which opens up for exploiting that. Scouting is more important since you can throw down your first tech building quicker which means you need to know which route your oponent is going quicker insted of jsut knowing if hes building up or cheesing. Which other means would you sugest?
Well, we could always try BW economy, where a normal amount of workers mines more efficiently on more bases, to help prevent the 3 base economy cap.
That is indeed another option and I would love to know why they discarded that idea or why they think this one is better.
I personally think what they are sugesting at the moment could be a good way to go as well. Certanly I think its better then the current model.
There is a long way to go still and pro players needs to test it out to have a proper overview. I assume they will make changes where its needed.
My only point is that people seem to sugest or outright claim that Blizzard is incompetente or that they intentionally wants to make things bad for no reason other then that they suck, and I find that just silly.
Things need to be fleshed out and it will, but you can see a clear path they want to take and they are willing to change things up. I see that as something positive.
Of course people should provide feedback and tell them when things sucks but I dont see anything from the alpha show that justifies all the negativity I see from some people. Other then that some had a very specific way they they wanted legacy to be and blizzard went another route.
On November 20 2014 06:07 Wombat_NI wrote: More and more spells and abilities is much, much more confusing to an uninitiated player than good unit control surely?
I'm still interested to see what comes up though, initial vids weren't what excited me in terms of content, just that they showed Blizzard are really messing around with things
I'm still baffled at why some of Lalush's ideas on air control weren't implemented though. Yet again it's a 'make it faster' in the case of a Banshee, like the Oracle and the Muta before it
This.
When I watched Dota, where each hero has 4 or more abilities (+ any abilities from items that they have purchased) and there are 10 heroes, team fights made absolutely no sense to me at all. I have zero idea what is going on, who is on what team, who is winning, who is losing, etc. until the dust settles. (I know a lot more Dota so this is less of an issue now but this is when I was a total beginner).
But watching someone pick up and drop Immortals to dodge missile shots, for example, is inherently understandable. This guy is shooting at that guy, and that guy is avoiding the shots.
If anything, I think PHYSICAL ACTIONS are more easily understood by viewers, especially inexperienced ones.
Anyone who's played the game enough knows exactly what every spell is and what the complexity of casting it is as well as how hard any micro trick is to execute....
Yup, but your example - the pick up - is an ability too. As you say, the physical part of it is what makes it visually understandable. I think a lot of abiliies have this, e.g. transport, blink, burrow, stim splitting/kiting (through the speedbonus), the herc grapple. Going back to pick up, i think what makes it parriculary good is that it doesnt control like an abilty. It is on smartcommand, rightclicking the unit on the transport or the other way around makes it fun to execute without extra buttons. I think RTS could greatly improve if it used a greater variety of abilities on the basic 3mousekeys and on "smartcommand".
I still got a wish for Blizzard to make some disabler type of units rather than damaging ones
The "Total Annihilation Spider" is an example of such a unit - a perfect addition to the game that may or may not disassemble death-balls (though the Viper from HotS, now Cyclone and the Ravager and Swarm Host, and Tempest disintegration changes for example are a really good death-ball disassemblers), but would surely liked some added variety to the types units - i.e. - variety to how those units are working
IDK about you, but I surely am sick & tired all games revolve around those dreaded Marines, would've rather much want to play/watch unit comps (thank god for the new Oracle's and Infestor's new abilities) rather than Marine drops all game long, honestly
The problem with their "we'll add micro!" campaign is that they don't seem to understand what is micro (or rather interesting micro) in Starcraft to begin with. They seem to have a MOBA (or War3-like, but it cannot work when applied to a different genre) conception about it; but microing ≠ casting a spell. It is no coincidence if the race that received the biggest amount of SC2 nonsense, Protoss, has the most spellcasters—and despite that is not the most micro-intensive race!
No one yells "great micro!" when a Terran presses 1T. Activating Cloak is the trivial part of Banshee micro. Waaah, the l4z0r of your Void ray is twice its size after you pressed the button; how thrilling. Micro is so much more than clicking buttons that trigger a mere bonus effect. It is about reflexes, mouse accuracy, speed of execution, anticipating adverse movements… Probably the spell that manages to add the most depth based on this is Blink, but Protoss has to pay a heavy tribute for that.
Pay special attention to the kind of environement in which Blink micro is the most efficient: low or medium eco situations with only a handful of units. Certainly not the 150-200 supply scenarii which are nonetheless constantly featured since more than 2 years… If you want to see "more micro," how about allowing players to play more low or medium eco situations in which more interactions like this can occur? But instead of that you promote the high eco model that propels players towards the fateful "big engagements" in which the battle is won or lost in the 4 first seconds.
Please work on solid fundamentals. An economy that makes sense. Simple units with elegant interactions. Don't bother adding 36 buttons to the Thor or the Colossus, they would still be garbage. Showering the game in MOBA gimmicks to create fake excitement that will die 4 months after LotV is out is not the way to go…
Everything in the game so far is just a snapshot of where we’re at in development, and nothing is set in stone at this point. For instance, it’s absolutely not determined that Protoss will only get one unit while other races will get two. The final new unit count is not yet decided. We want to do what’s right for the races and the game, and it’s just too early to make a call on the final new unit count for Legacy of the Void right now.
I'm reminded of the time that Blizzard artificially created good will for themselves by pretending they were going to remove the Carrier only to perform an act of blatant fan service by reintroducing it in HotS beta.
Who wants to bet that the question of the new protoss unit will be left in the air and only revealed at some opportune moment?
They tok feedback into account and reintroduced a unit, that was bad because?
They probably will add new units still, they might remove some and change others. They will probably announce it in a way which will be good for their company. That is bad because?
It's bad because we all know that they will add another unit to protoss. They just hadn't come up with a functional one yet for Blizzcon. They're still planning to add a new unit, but they are pretending to still be discussing it so that they can positively surprise us at a later date with their most recent creation. i.e. they're lying to us for PR reasons
At least I imagine so. It doesn't really matter of course, just that it's a bit silly to read too much into Blizzard PR.
No conspiracy here.
This is part of the development process. You add/remove/change stuff all the time. BlizzCon was just a snapshot of where Legacy of the Void development is at, so it's a bit too early to make definitive statements on what the end result will look like.
Everything in the game so far is just a snapshot of where we’re at in development, and nothing is set in stone at this point. For instance, it’s absolutely not determined that Protoss will only get one unit while other races will get two. The final new unit count is not yet decided. We want to do what’s right for the races and the game, and it’s just too early to make a call on the final new unit count for Legacy of the Void right now.
I'm reminded of the time that Blizzard artificially created good will for themselves by pretending they were going to remove the Carrier only to perform an act of blatant fan service by reintroducing it in HotS beta.
Who wants to bet that the question of the new protoss unit will be left in the air and only revealed at some opportune moment?
They tok feedback into account and reintroduced a unit, that was bad because?
They probably will add new units still, they might remove some and change others. They will probably announce it in a way which will be good for their company. That is bad because?
It's bad because we all know that they will add another unit to protoss. They just hadn't come up with a functional one yet for Blizzcon. They're still planning to add a new unit, but they are pretending to still be discussing it so that they can positively surprise us at a later date with their most recent creation. i.e. they're lying to us for PR reasons
At least I imagine so. It doesn't really matter of course, just that it's a bit silly to read too much into Blizzard PR.
No conspiracy here.
This is part of the development process. You add/remove/change stuff all the time. BlizzCon was just a snapshot of where Legacy of the Void development is at, so it's a bit too early to make definitive statements on what the end result will look like.
Glad to see you guys are lurking this thread. Also, please pay special attention the the post directly above you. I agree with it immensely.
On November 20 2014 06:07 Wombat_NI wrote: More and more spells and abilities is much, much more confusing to an uninitiated player than good unit control surely?
I'm still interested to see what comes up though, initial vids weren't what excited me in terms of content, just that they showed Blizzard are really messing around with things
I'm still baffled at why some of Lalush's ideas on air control weren't implemented though. Yet again it's a 'make it faster' in the case of a Banshee, like the Oracle and the Muta before it
This.
When I watched Dota, where each hero has 4 or more abilities (+ any abilities from items that they have purchased) and there are 10 heroes, team fights made absolutely no sense to me at all. I have zero idea what is going on, who is on what team, who is winning, who is losing, etc. until the dust settles. (I know a lot more Dota so this is less of an issue now but this is when I was a total beginner).
But watching someone pick up and drop Immortals to dodge missile shots, for example, is inherently understandable. This guy is shooting at that guy, and that guy is avoiding the shots.
If anything, I think PHYSICAL ACTIONS are more easily understood by viewers, especially inexperienced ones.
Anyone who's played the game enough knows exactly what every spell is and what the complexity of casting it is as well as how hard any micro trick is to execute....
It's all opinions when it comes to what is visible versus what is invisible micro. This entire mess of a discussion is all based on opinions and beliefs about design.
We could let reality decide what's true by just playtesting.
Everything in the game so far is just a snapshot of where we’re at in development, and nothing is set in stone at this point. For instance, it’s absolutely not determined that Protoss will only get one unit while other races will get two. The final new unit count is not yet decided. We want to do what’s right for the races and the game, and it’s just too early to make a call on the final new unit count for Legacy of the Void right now.
I'm reminded of the time that Blizzard artificially created good will for themselves by pretending they were going to remove the Carrier only to perform an act of blatant fan service by reintroducing it in HotS beta.
Who wants to bet that the question of the new protoss unit will be left in the air and only revealed at some opportune moment?
They tok feedback into account and reintroduced a unit, that was bad because?
They probably will add new units still, they might remove some and change others. They will probably announce it in a way which will be good for their company. That is bad because?
It's bad because we all know that they will add another unit to protoss. They just hadn't come up with a functional one yet for Blizzcon. They're still planning to add a new unit, but they are pretending to still be discussing it so that they can positively surprise us at a later date with their most recent creation. i.e. they're lying to us for PR reasons
At least I imagine so. It doesn't really matter of course, just that it's a bit silly to read too much into Blizzard PR.
No conspiracy here.
This is part of the development process. You add/remove/change stuff all the time. BlizzCon was just a snapshot of where Legacy of the Void development is at, so it's a bit too early to make definitive statements on what the end result will look like.
Everything in the game so far is just a snapshot of where we’re at in development, and nothing is set in stone at this point. For instance, it’s absolutely not determined that Protoss will only get one unit while other races will get two. The final new unit count is not yet decided. We want to do what’s right for the races and the game, and it’s just too early to make a call on the final new unit count for Legacy of the Void right now.
I'm reminded of the time that Blizzard artificially created good will for themselves by pretending they were going to remove the Carrier only to perform an act of blatant fan service by reintroducing it in HotS beta.
Who wants to bet that the question of the new protoss unit will be left in the air and only revealed at some opportune moment?
They tok feedback into account and reintroduced a unit, that was bad because?
They probably will add new units still, they might remove some and change others. They will probably announce it in a way which will be good for their company. That is bad because?
It's bad because we all know that they will add another unit to protoss. They just hadn't come up with a functional one yet for Blizzcon. They're still planning to add a new unit, but they are pretending to still be discussing it so that they can positively surprise us at a later date with their most recent creation. i.e. they're lying to us for PR reasons
At least I imagine so. It doesn't really matter of course, just that it's a bit silly to read too much into Blizzard PR.
No conspiracy here.
This is part of the development process. You add/remove/change stuff all the time. BlizzCon was just a snapshot of where Legacy of the Void development is at, so it's a bit too early to make definitive statements on what the end result will look like.
On November 20 2014 06:51 TheDwf wrote: The problem with their "we'll add micro!" campaign is that they don't seem to understand what is micro (or rather interesting micro) in Starcraft to begin with. They seem to have a MOBA (or War3-like, but it cannot work when applies to a different genre) conception about it; but microing ≠ casting a spell. It is no coincidence if the race that received the biggest amount of SC2 nonsense, Protoss, has the most spellcasters—and despite that is not the most micro-intensive race!
No one yells "great micro!" when a Terran presses 1T. Activating Cloak is the trivial part of Banshee micro. Waaah, the l4z0r of your Void ray is twice its size after you pressed the button; how thrilling. Micro is so much more than clicking buttons that trigger a mere bonus effect. It is about reflexes, mouse accuracy, speed of execution, anticipating adverse movements… Probably the spell that manages to add the most depth based on this is Blink, but Protoss has to pay a heavy tribute for that.
Pay special attention to the kind of environement in which Blink micro is the most efficient: low or medium eco situations with only a handful of units. Certainly not the 150-200 supply scenarii which are nonetheless constantly featured since more than 2 years… If you want to see "more micro," how about allowing players to play more low or medium eco situations in which more interactions like this can occur? But instead of that you promote the high eco model that propels players towards the fateful "big engagements" in which the battle is won or lost in the 4 first seconds.
Please work on solid fundamentals. An economy that makes sense. Simple units with elegant interactions. Don't bother adding 36 buttons to the Thor or the Colossus, they would still be garbage. Showering the game in MOBA gimmicks to create fake excitement that will die 4 months after LotV is out is not the way to go…
Amen. Could not be said better. I am very worried about the statement about removing "micro that is not visible".
You guys need to realize that "invisible micro" isn't really a thing for most of us cause we are pretty "hardcore" in the first place. If you look at it withotu this "bias" it makes sense imo.
On November 20 2014 07:13 The_Red_Viper wrote: You guys need to realize that "invisible micro" isn't really a thing for most of us cause we are pretty "hardcore" in the first place. If you look at it withotu this "bias" it makes sense imo.
First, I would like to know what they mean by "micro in the game that can’t really be seen".
On November 20 2014 06:51 TheDwf wrote: The problem with their "we'll add micro!" campaign is that they don't seem to understand what is micro (or rather interesting micro) in Starcraft to begin with. They seem to have a MOBA (or War3-like, but it cannot work when applies to a different genre) conception about it; but microing ≠ casting a spell. It is no coincidence if the race that received the biggest amount of SC2 nonsense, Protoss, has the most spellcasters—and despite that is not the most micro-intensive race!
No one yells "great micro!" when a Terran presses 1T. Activating Cloak is the trivial part of Banshee micro. Waaah, the l4z0r of your Void ray is twice its size after you pressed the button; how thrilling. Micro is so much more than clicking buttons that trigger a mere bonus effect. It is about reflexes, mouse accuracy, speed of execution, anticipating adverse movements… Probably the spell that manages to add the most depth based on this is Blink, but Protoss has to pay a heavy tribute for that.
Pay special attention to the kind of environement in which Blink micro is the most efficient: low or medium eco situations with only a handful of units. Certainly not the 150-200 supply scenarii which are nonetheless constantly featured since more than 2 years… If you want to see "more micro," how about allowing players to play more low or medium eco situations in which more interactions like this can occur? But instead of that you promote the high eco model that propels players towards the fateful "big engagements" in which the battle is won or lost in the 4 first seconds.
Please work on solid fundamentals. An economy that makes sense. Simple units with elegant interactions. Don't bother adding 36 buttons to the Thor or the Colossus, they would still be garbage. Showering the game in MOBA gimmicks to create fake excitement that will die 4 months after LotV is out is not the way to go…
Finally I agree with something you said!
I think slapping on these abilities to "require micro" is not the right way to do it. Okay, so now I have to press 'E' before I fight with my Immortals... ZZZZZZZZZZ
Micro is:
Splitting Marines to mitigate baneling splash Blinking Stalkers to keep them alive, using Blink to make widow mines detonate on Terran units (Parting, HSC) Picking up and dropping units to dodge shots Pulling back hurt workers to fight Zealots with Drones (Life vs First, THAT game on Deadwing)
Some can be ability based, but there's a good amount of right clicking too.
There's a difference between "micro" and "good control" really.
I don't consider stimming your marines, target firing all the Colossus and hitting EMPs to be micro. That's just good army control really. You're just efficiently inputing a sequence of commands.
Kiting Zealots with your bio is micro. Sending off individual lings to detonate Widow Mines is micro.
Blizzard needs to distinguish between "shit you need to do" and "micro."
Invisible micro IS micro. It's the truest form of micro really. Spell casting is just using the unit how it's supposed to be used, that's just controlling it. Microing it properly is what makes a unit go from normal to super effective. Hellions were a good idea, there AoE allows them to be used in a way where real micro is both possible and very visible, hit as much stuff with the line as possible. Even a full blown idiot can understand that.
On November 20 2014 06:07 Wombat_NI wrote: More and more spells and abilities is much, much more confusing to an uninitiated player than good unit control surely?
I'm still interested to see what comes up though, initial vids weren't what excited me in terms of content, just that they showed Blizzard are really messing around with things
I'm still baffled at why some of Lalush's ideas on air control weren't implemented though. Yet again it's a 'make it faster' in the case of a Banshee, like the Oracle and the Muta before it
This.
When I watched Dota, where each hero has 4 or more abilities (+ any abilities from items that they have purchased) and there are 10 heroes, team fights made absolutely no sense to me at all. I have zero idea what is going on, who is on what team, who is winning, who is losing, etc. until the dust settles. (I know a lot more Dota so this is less of an issue now but this is when I was a total beginner).
But watching someone pick up and drop Immortals to dodge missile shots, for example, is inherently understandable. This guy is shooting at that guy, and that guy is avoiding the shots.
If anything, I think PHYSICAL ACTIONS are more easily understood by viewers, especially inexperienced ones.
Anyone who's played the game enough knows exactly what every spell is and what the complexity of casting it is as well as how hard any micro trick is to execute....
To this day, I have a vague knowledge of how vulture micro works. Same with wraiths, mutalisks, etc. I stopped playing BW long before I saw these things being done by pros. However, it is very visible to me whenever one player is microing his units much better than another player. Physical control is very easy to see.
For non-players, SC2 is harder to follow than BW. Too many non-visual abilities, many of which has do x extra damage to y class of unit as their main function.
For example, one of the most powerful buffs in Legacy of the Void that we’re seeing internally is on the Protoss. A Warp Prism performing a drop with two Immortals is ridiculously powerful. The Hardened Shield buff as well as ranged pick up works so well (if an opponent has no air units in play) that Protoss always gets a huge lead in the mid-game.
Calling him out on this in PvT due to the fact that if 2 cyclones target the WP it's basically ineffective. It may, as he implies, be very hard to kill the immortals but most good players will understand how to stop this.
We’d like to focus on changing the problematic parts of this system for mining
But their approach does not fix the fundamental problem, thus it is inadequate.
In our internal pre-alpha build, we’re already exploring completely different changes, making tweaks to existing things, adding/removing units and abilities, and so on.
This at least makes me happy.
I am not really sure where they are planning on going with the WarpGate research assuming they keep the 8 second warp in and 200%(?) damage on units. If that is the case then it is ultimately better to just manually produce your units by 8 seconds and saves you losing anything in a stupid way. In terms of overall efficiency, assuming you're warping in 4 rounds of stalkers every 30 seconds until 10 minutes you'd end up with nearly nearly a minute of extra unit production manually from between 7-10 minutes. That's a pretty big deal and definitely caters to defenders advantage.
On November 20 2014 07:13 The_Red_Viper wrote: You guys need to realize that "invisible micro" isn't really a thing for most of us cause we are pretty "hardcore" in the first place. If you look at it withotu this "bias" it makes sense imo.
First, I would like to know what they mean by "micro in the game that can’t really be seen".
Well i am not blizzard, but my guess would be that "invisible micro" is something like focus fire for example. Sure, the stuff dies faster, but you only realize this if you have already experience with the game. Another example would be the moving shot. A spectator who doesn't really watch a lot will probably be quite confused why the stuff dies in the first place when the unit still moves around (at least if you don't have extremely visible projectiles).
I mean just compare this to say marine splits. Typically marines move in a blob and from one second to the other they spread like crazy. It is extremely visible and pretty much anybody can understand that the player actually had to do this.
You obviously can still disagree that "invisible" micro is a bad thing, but imo it makes sense. (i actually would prefer it if they made this "invisible" micro visible instead of removing it though :D)
On November 20 2014 07:13 The_Red_Viper wrote: You guys need to realize that "invisible micro" isn't really a thing for most of us cause we are pretty "hardcore" in the first place. If you look at it withotu this "bias" it makes sense imo.
First, I would like to know what they mean by "micro in the game that can’t really be seen".
As for me there are some spells that u just dont notice. Even as hardcore player i can say that i never notice Guardian Shield, EMPs and Time Warps during battle. They are so tiny that you just dont catch them. Also, Corruption and Blinding Cloud. Some of them, such as Corruption and Guardian Shield are just boring. But all of them have weak visuality. That's kind of an issue.
On November 20 2014 07:13 The_Red_Viper wrote: You guys need to realize that "invisible micro" isn't really a thing for most of us cause we are pretty "hardcore" in the first place. If you look at it withotu this "bias" it makes sense imo.
First, I would like to know what they mean by "micro in the game that can’t really be seen".
As for me there are some spells that u just dont notice. Even as hardcore player i can say that i never notice Guardian Shield, EMPs and Time Warps during battle. They are so tiny that you just dont catch them. Also, Corruption and Blinding Cloud. Some of them, such as Corruption and Guardian Shield are just boring. But all of them have weak visuality. That's kind of an issue.
Pretty funny, cause this is the stuff they actually think is visible
They keep talking about 'obvious micro.' Can anyone give me an example of micro that 'can't be seen?' I've been watching/playing this game for about three years now and I've never heard anyone in the community complain about this... issue... that Mr. Kim seems so desperate to avoid.
On November 20 2014 07:13 The_Red_Viper wrote: You guys need to realize that "invisible micro" isn't really a thing for most of us cause we are pretty "hardcore" in the first place. If you look at it withotu this "bias" it makes sense imo.
First, I would like to know what they mean by "micro in the game that can’t really be seen".
As for me there are some spells that u just dont notice. Even as hardcore player i can say that i never notice Guardian Shield, EMPs and Time Warps during battle. They are so tiny that you just dont catch them. Also, Corruption and Blinding Cloud. Some of them, such as Corruption and Guardian Shield are just boring. But all of them have weak visuality. That's kind of an issue.
What kind of quality are you watching in? The only thing that can be hard to see when action is going on is corruption. Time warp, GS, EMP and blinding cloud are easy to spot.
On November 20 2014 07:28 Bohemond wrote: They keep talking about 'obvious micro.' Can anyone give me an example of micro that 'can't be seen?' I've been watching/playing this game for about three years now and I've never heard anyone in the community complain about this... issue... that Mr. Kim seems so desperate to avoid.
Same, I just don't understand what it refers to. And if they want to fix visual issues, why don't they start...
... by the very obvious? How many supply there at the first glance? Who's winning?
On November 20 2014 07:28 Bohemond wrote: They keep talking about 'obvious micro.' Can anyone give me an example of micro that 'can't be seen?' I've been watching/playing this game for about three years now and I've never heard anyone in the community complain about this... issue... that Mr. Kim seems so desperate to avoid.
brood war, targetting workers in a battle (units won't auto target attacking workers if there is 1+ other army units there)
ex. lings vs marine + scv... 1 marine shot and the lings will never hit the scv unless manually targetted. it is invisible micro because i'm sure people expect the lings to fight the scv but people don't realize how much micro the zerg user is doing
On November 20 2014 07:28 Bohemond wrote: They keep talking about 'obvious micro.' Can anyone give me an example of micro that 'can't be seen?' I've been watching/playing this game for about three years now and I've never heard anyone in the community complain about this... issue... that Mr. Kim seems so desperate to avoid.
Same, I just don't understand what it refers to. And if they want to fix visual issues, why don't they start...
... by the very obvious? How many supply there at the first glance? Who's winning?
does the new watermark effect (shown previously for units under buildings) work under colossus?
To everyone talking about the visuals and such. I think it's actually kind of funny, I think it's absolutely impossible to tell what is going on in this game on Max Settings, however, when you use stronger team colors and the lowest settings+hybrid everything becomes incredibly clear. In fact, I stand by this so much that I'd even go so far to state that I play much much better with stronger team colors because I, as a player, KNOW WHAT I HAVE. It's that much easier to visualize your unit count and so on.
I remember for a while before the second hybrid thing came out... if I ever did a blink vs blink build I always lost because I had no idea how many stalkers I had in comparison >.>
On November 20 2014 05:28 Yonnua wrote: The warp prism range increase really isn't a buff. Any good player can still do pick-ups as efficiently as possible with the current range "if an opponent has no air units", so it just acts as a buff for bad protoss players, skewing the game in their favour and not effecting higher levels of play.
That is a huge buff. You can keep the prism easily out of the range of anything that can shoot it down, safely picking up immortals/whatever.
It really isn't a huge buff. If you have any skill then this shouldn't be an issue anyway. The prism moves quickly enough even without its upgrade that you should be able to micro immortals easily and with a small amount of practice you should also be able to pick up your gateway units with it almost all of the time. The buff doesn't effect outcomes at the highest level, it just makes it easier to hit that skill ceiling by giving more of a cushion against skill.
As for the "you can micro colossi vs vikings now" idea, it at best takes up one volley of viking fire when they right click on the prism, but no more than effectively microing them back as usual will. And that small bonus isn't needed for protoss anyway, they have no problem winning fights vs viking/bio if their army is controlled well.
On November 20 2014 07:28 Bohemond wrote: They keep talking about 'obvious micro.' Can anyone give me an example of micro that 'can't be seen?' I've been watching/playing this game for about three years now and I've never heard anyone in the community complain about this... issue... that Mr. Kim seems so desperate to avoid.
Same, I just don't understand what it refers to. And if they want to fix visual issues, why don't they start...
... by the very obvious? How many supply there at the first glance? Who's winning?
I tried to explain it from my pov. As i said before, people on TL might not have these problems as much, cause they are pretty "hardcore" to begin with
So as a conclusion: 1) Noone really knows what invisible micro is. Especially not what blizzard perceives as such. 2) Noone is really in favor of removing micro from the game. 3) People think there are many other cool improvements that could be made and blizzard is wasting their time removing micro. 4) Noone has any clue why David Kim even made that comment to begin with.
On November 20 2014 07:13 The_Red_Viper wrote: You guys need to realize that "invisible micro" isn't really a thing for most of us cause we are pretty "hardcore" in the first place. If you look at it withotu this "bias" it makes sense imo.
First, I would like to know what they mean by "micro in the game that can’t really be seen".
As for me there are some spells that u just dont notice. Even as hardcore player i can say that i never notice Guardian Shield, EMPs and Time Warps during battle. They are so tiny that you just dont catch them. Also, Corruption and Blinding Cloud. Some of them, such as Corruption and Guardian Shield are just boring. But all of them have weak visuality. That's kind of an issue.
What kind of quality are you watching in? The only thing that can be hard to see when action is going on is corruption. Time warp, GS, EMP and blinding cloud are easy to spot.
Ok, compare Psy Storm and EMP. There is definetely a difference. You don't need to "spot" Psy Storm, it's massive! But you can never tell how many EMPs there were... Also, you can see Psy Storm in any quality, even in 240p.
I've seen soO do aggressive posturing with Hive-tech armies and look foolish because he leaves stray Brood Lords to be picked off. However, I'm quite sure keeping control of large and diverse armies like that is extremely difficult, especially if you're being aggressive with them. That's maybe an example of invisible micro, but I don't know if that's what Blizzard means. Actually, I have no idea what Blizzard is talking about unless it's just a subtle dig at LaLush based on Blizzard's weird notion that BW air units were unintuitive.
On November 20 2014 06:51 TheDwf wrote: The problem with their "we'll add micro!" campaign is that they don't seem to understand what is micro (or rather interesting micro) in Starcraft to begin with. They seem to have a MOBA (or War3-like, but it cannot work when applied to a different genre) conception about it; but microing ≠ casting a spell. It is no coincidence if the race that received the biggest amount of SC2 nonsense, Protoss, has the most spellcasters—and despite that is not the most micro-intensive race!
No one yells "great micro!" when a Terran presses 1T. Activating Cloak is the trivial part of Banshee micro. Waaah, the l4z0r of your Void ray is twice its size after you pressed the button; how thrilling. Micro is so much more than clicking buttons that trigger a mere bonus effect. It is about reflexes, mouse accuracy, speed of execution, anticipating adverse movements… Probably the spell that manages to add the most depth based on this is Blink, but Protoss has to pay a heavy tribute for that.
Pay special attention to the kind of environement in which Blink micro is the most efficient: low or medium eco situations with only a handful of units. Certainly not the 150-200 supply scenarii which are nonetheless constantly featured since more than 2 years… If you want to see "more micro," how about allowing players to play more low or medium eco situations in which more interactions like this can occur? But instead of that you promote the high eco model that propels players towards the fateful "big engagements" in which the battle is won or lost in the 4 first seconds.
Please work on solid fundamentals. An economy that makes sense. Simple units with elegant interactions. Don't bother adding 36 buttons to the Thor or the Colossus, they would still be garbage. Showering the game in MOBA gimmicks to create fake excitement that will die 4 months after LotV is out is not the way to go…
This is exactly what I think. Please read and reflect on this, Blizzard.
Like the posters above, I don't understand what "visible v. invisible micro" means. But if more "visible" micro = pressing a button to trigger a spell, then no, that is the wrong direction. Let's get back to basics.
On November 20 2014 07:49 The_Red_Viper wrote: There are already some examples in this thread what blizard could mean, but nobody really seems to care, it is easier to hate on blizzard, classic
Well, we shouldn't to do a guessing game. They should really be able to explain to us what they mean... but if they don't even know themselves, then it's all pointless isn't it?
On November 20 2014 07:49 The_Red_Viper wrote: There are already some examples in this thread what blizard could mean, but nobody really seems to care, it is easier to hate on blizzard, classic
Well, we shouldn't to do a guessing game. They should really be able to explain to us what they mean... but if they don't even know themselves, then it's all pointless isn't it?
I am pretty sure they know what they mean. But yeah, maybe a specific example from blizzard would help here. Actually, i don't really think we have to guess, the name "invisible" micro itself is pretty clear. Micro which isn't as easy to see, kinda easy to understand?
On November 20 2014 07:49 The_Red_Viper wrote: There are already some examples in this thread what blizard could mean, but nobody really seems to care, it is easier to hate on blizzard, classic
Well, we shouldn't to do a guessing game. They should really be able to explain to us what they mean... but if they don't even know themselves, then it's all pointless isn't it?
I am pretty sure they know what they mean. But yeah, maybe a specific example from blizzard would help here. Actually, i don't really think we have to guess, the name "invisible" micro itself is pretty clear. Micro which isn't as easy to see, kinda easy to understand?
Well, your and mishimaBeef's examples were both essentially the same: focus fire. Which depends on the unit, like Vikings focusing a Colossus is really far from invisible. And I'm 100% certain they didn't mean focus fire mishimaBeef's example in particular wasn't even about SC2 so it's really hard to comment on them removing BW-micro that doesn't exist in SC2 from SC2. ^^
On November 20 2014 07:24 -Kyo- wrote: I am not really sure where they are planning on going with the WarpGate research assuming they keep the 8 second warp in and 200%(?) damage on units. If that is the case then it is ultimately better to just manually produce your units by 8 seconds and saves you losing anything in a stupid way. In terms of overall efficiency, assuming you're warping in 4 rounds of stalkers every 30 seconds until 10 minutes you'd end up with nearly nearly a minute of extra unit production manually from between 7-10 minutes. That's a pretty big deal and definitely caters to defenders advantage.
?? Warpgate has always reduced the build time of units by 10 seconds (zealot from 38 to 28, stalker/sentry from 42 to 32, etc). That's why it's always beneficial to get warpgate. It speeds up production. Increasing the warp-in time for units from like 4-5 seconds to 8 doesn't change this. Even if the warp-in time was like 12 seconds, warpgates would still yield faster production by the second warp-in onwards, since the warp-in time doesn't delay the cooldown of the next cycle.
On November 20 2014 07:49 The_Red_Viper wrote: There are already some examples in this thread what blizard could mean, but nobody really seems to care, it is easier to hate on blizzard, classic
Well, we shouldn't to do a guessing game. They should really be able to explain to us what they mean... but if they don't even know themselves, then it's all pointless isn't it?
I am pretty sure they know what they mean. But yeah, maybe a specific example from blizzard would help here. Actually, i don't really think we have to guess, the name "invisible" micro itself is pretty clear. Micro which isn't as easy to see, kinda easy to understand?
Well, your and mishimaBeef's examples were both essentially the same: focus fire. Which depends on the unit, like Vikings focusing a Colossus is really far from invisible. And I'm 100% certain they didn't mean focus fire mishimaBeef's example in particular wasn't even about SC2 so it's really hard to comment on them removing BW-micro that doesn't exist in SC2 from SC2. ^^
Sure it depends on the units. But Moving shot in itself is a pretty obvious example though, the unit moves and it still deals damage, that is pretty much the opposite what you would expect.
Just compare the moving shot to something like marine splitting or hitting good storms. If you tell me that there is no difference in visibility, well i don't know man,...
Beta will look much different than what you saw at BlizzCon
Thank you.
That's all that actually matters from what was said.
Blizzard is totally clueless when to balancing. We learn that every time Blizzard releases a RTS game, they ignore the community, then end up giving them what they want months later after realizing it was the right thing to do, but still claim credit.
It doesn't matter if you're ideas are proven to be good, 95% of the work is prototyping, testing, confirming and implementing it. You have to base balancing decisions on evidence, not speculation or assumptions — even if they're well-informed. If Blizzard based all their design decisions based on what the consequencesmightbe, the game wouldn't have as much variety or depth as it does today.
TLDR; of course Blizzard deserves the credit, dum-dum. They're doing all the real work.
On November 20 2014 07:49 The_Red_Viper wrote: There are already some examples in this thread what blizard could mean, but nobody really seems to care, it is easier to hate on blizzard, classic
Well, we shouldn't to do a guessing game. They should really be able to explain to us what they mean... but if they don't even know themselves, then it's all pointless isn't it?
I am pretty sure they know what they mean. But yeah, maybe a specific example from blizzard would help here. Actually, i don't really think we have to guess, the name "invisible" micro itself is pretty clear. Micro which isn't as easy to see, kinda easy to understand?
Well, your and mishimaBeef's examples were both essentially the same: focus fire. Which depends on the unit, like Vikings focusing a Colossus is really far from invisible. And I'm 100% certain they didn't mean focus fire mishimaBeef's example in particular wasn't even about SC2 so it's really hard to comment on them removing BW-micro that doesn't exist in SC2 from SC2. ^^
Sure it depends on the units. Moving shot in itself is a pretty obvious example thoughy, the unit moves and it still deals damage, that is pretty much the opposite what you would expect.
Just compare the moving shot to something like marine splitting or hitting good storms. If you tell me that there is no difference in visibility, well i don't know man,...
Well, moving shot isn't in the game either, right? So they are not removing it. (also I'm not a big fetishist of it. I think it makes sense that a unit has to stand for a moment when it wants to shoot; I'm rather against artificial limiting these sorts of handspeed micro further with damage point and acceleration/deceleration)
I think many people can think of how invisible micro could look like (lol), but it's pretty hard to guess what they mean with it when talking about SC2.
On November 20 2014 07:56 LaLuSh wrote: It's hard to care and hard to argue against when what they say is so vague it could mean practically anything.
Indeed, which is why its interesting that people are still assuming the worst.
I agree that it does not neccessarily means more spells, I clicked this button now my void rays do more damage is not really anything to write home about although I dont think that ability makes the game worse in anyway, but I dont think they are mutualy exclusive either, blink micro is a good example, splitting mutas vs fungals. TvZ is fun to watch and play because of the need to split units on multiple fronts, drop, counter, focus fire banelings and things like that. Spells that requires precision to use and reaction to avoid is a good thing in my opinion but it should not be bloated either. What I'm hoping for is that they just wanted to throw some spell abilities in their to see which will work and which wont.
The midgame was allways my favourite part of sc. Being able to hit timings, hide tech and control decent sized attacks on several fronts while expanding furiously was gold in my eyes.
On November 20 2014 07:56 LaLuSh wrote: It's hard to care and hard to argue against when what they say is so vague it could mean practically anything.
It couldn't mean practically anything. You are just way too biased to even try to understand what they mean, that is the key difference here (as much as i agree with a lot of your points in general) But AGAIN, people on TL aren't really the focus of these statements i would think.
On November 20 2014 06:51 TheDwf wrote: The problem with their "we'll add micro!" campaign is that they don't seem to understand what is micro (or rather interesting micro) in Starcraft to begin with. They seem to have a MOBA (or War3-like, but it cannot work when applied to a different genre) conception about it; but microing ≠ casting a spell. It is no coincidence if the race that received the biggest amount of SC2 nonsense, Protoss, has the most spellcasters—and despite that is not the most micro-intensive race!
No one yells "great micro!" when a Terran presses 1T. Activating Cloak is the trivial part of Banshee micro. Waaah, the l4z0r of your Void ray is twice its size after you pressed the button; how thrilling. Micro is so much more than clicking buttons that trigger a mere bonus effect. It is about reflexes, mouse accuracy, speed of execution, anticipating adverse movements… Probably the spell that manages to add the most depth based on this is Blink, but Protoss has to pay a heavy tribute for that.
Pay special attention to the kind of environement in which Blink micro is the most efficient: low or medium eco situations with only a handful of units. Certainly not the 150-200 supply scenarii which are nonetheless constantly featured since more than 2 years… If you want to see "more micro," how about allowing players to play more low or medium eco situations in which more interactions like this can occur? But instead of that you promote the high eco model that propels players towards the fateful "big engagements" in which the battle is won or lost in the 4 first seconds.
Please work on solid fundamentals. An economy that makes sense. Simple units with elegant interactions. Don't bother adding 36 buttons to the Thor or the Colossus, they would still be garbage. Showering the game in MOBA gimmicks to create fake excitement that will die 4 months after LotV is out is not the way to go…
My God, this post is great. Blizzard, please read and think about this.
On November 20 2014 07:43 Big J wrote: So as a conclusion: 1) Noone really knows what invisible micro is. Especially not what blizzard perceives as such. 2) Noone is really in favor of removing micro from the game. 3) People think there are many other cool improvements that could be made and blizzard is wasting their time removing micro. 4) Noone has any clue why David Kim even made that comment to begin with.
About the #2 - YES, but also shouldn't base the game design upon it, cause if that's done - we'll end up again watching (or barely playing) Marines fight and Marines die and Marines kill in all 3 Terran matchups from the start of the game to the last second of it
Really sick and tired of having to have Marines and have to split them effectively, or drop with them effectively all game long I think.. About time Blizz thought of adding some Terran utility rather than more guns and more DPS-ing
As for the other races - not quite sure TBH, Protoss felt, and still would feel (almost) complete even without a new unit - provided they didn't overnerf their stuff that are in the game already such as PO or Warp-In (agree about the Immortal change however overall actually)
Regardless - my point is - units should be decided by role and by what their role in a certain composition is, not purely base the game by micro perspective.. Leave BW, just forget it.. If someone makes a BW mode you'd just see in fact how unbalanced it was by adding a multi-building selection and endless selection of units on one hotkey.. The game has a complete different flow, don't use BW as a starting point-of-view point (it worked yes, nice, we all loved it, we all hated it, but - it's knowledge is not usable/available in a game which has the functionality/ability to select 255 units all at once as opposed to max 12) and multi-selection of buildings
On November 20 2014 07:49 The_Red_Viper wrote: There are already some examples in this thread what blizard could mean, but nobody really seems to care, it is easier to hate on blizzard, classic
Well, we shouldn't to do a guessing game. They should really be able to explain to us what they mean... but if they don't even know themselves, then it's all pointless isn't it?
I am pretty sure they know what they mean. But yeah, maybe a specific example from blizzard would help here. Actually, i don't really think we have to guess, the name "invisible" micro itself is pretty clear. Micro which isn't as easy to see, kinda easy to understand?
Well, your and mishimaBeef's examples were both essentially the same: focus fire. Which depends on the unit, like Vikings focusing a Colossus is really far from invisible. And I'm 100% certain they didn't mean focus fire mishimaBeef's example in particular wasn't even about SC2 so it's really hard to comment on them removing BW-micro that doesn't exist in SC2 from SC2. ^^
Sure it depends on the units. Moving shot in itself is a pretty obvious example thoughy, the unit moves and it still deals damage, that is pretty much the opposite what you would expect.
Just compare the moving shot to something like marine splitting or hitting good storms. If you tell me that there is no difference in visibility, well i don't know man,...
Well, moving shot isn't in the game either, right? So they are not removing it. (also I'm not a big fetishist of it. I think it makes sense that a unit has to stand for a moment when it wants to shoot; I'm rather against artificial limiting these sorts of handspeed micro further with damage point and acceleration/deceleration)
I think many people can think of how invisible micro could look like (lol), but it's pretty hard to guess what they mean with it when talking about SC2.
Well i actually don't think they wanna remove stuff which is already in sc2. I rather think they mean they don't wanna add "invisible" micro, they rather want focus on "visible micro" instead. I don't think they mean they wanna reduce any micro that is in sc2 atm. I think they worded that one badly? But yeah, now i kinda understand your confusion
On November 20 2014 07:49 The_Red_Viper wrote: There are already some examples in this thread what blizard could mean, but nobody really seems to care, it is easier to hate on blizzard, classic
Well, we shouldn't to do a guessing game. They should really be able to explain to us what they mean... but if they don't even know themselves, then it's all pointless isn't it?
I am pretty sure they know what they mean. But yeah, maybe a specific example from blizzard would help here. Actually, i don't really think we have to guess, the name "invisible" micro itself is pretty clear. Micro which isn't as easy to see, kinda easy to understand?
Well, your and mishimaBeef's examples were both essentially the same: focus fire. Which depends on the unit, like Vikings focusing a Colossus is really far from invisible. And I'm 100% certain they didn't mean focus fire mishimaBeef's example in particular wasn't even about SC2 so it's really hard to comment on them removing BW-micro that doesn't exist in SC2 from SC2. ^^
Sure it depends on the units. Moving shot in itself is a pretty obvious example thoughy, the unit moves and it still deals damage, that is pretty much the opposite what you would expect.
Just compare the moving shot to something like marine splitting or hitting good storms. If you tell me that there is no difference in visibility, well i don't know man,...
Well, moving shot isn't in the game either, right? So they are not removing it. (also I'm not a big fetishist of it. I think it makes sense that a unit has to stand for a moment when it wants to shoot; I'm rather against artificial limiting these sorts of handspeed micro further with damage point and acceleration/deceleration)
I think many people can think of how invisible micro could look like (lol), but it's pretty hard to guess what they mean with it when talking about SC2.
Well i actually don't think they wanna remove stuff which is already in sc2. I rather think they mean they don't wanna add "invisible" micro, they rather want focus on "visible micro" instead. I don't think they mean they wanna reduce any micro that is in sc2 atm. I think they worded that one badly? But yeah, now i kinda understand your confusion
Interpreted like that it makes much more sense. And fits the picture they are drawing with all the tiny inidcators of micro on the new units like the cyclone "line" when focusing, the lurker spikes missing the target, the ravager attack indication on the ground and the herc grapple ability.
Having more abillities in units should benefit a player going for smaller armies right? It's easier to trigger than getting a 200 army and try activating everything at once, if we add to that the fact that there'll be more bases and players will be more spread out then we should have more small engagements, more action and a more rewarding game for both viewers and players...
I agree though, that adding abillities isn't the only way of 'adding micro', it'd be nice to see Blizzard experimenting with different ways to increase this scenarios instead of just throwing a coat of MOBA over Starcraft.
Blizzard's main goal with LotV is to increase micro and skirmishes and make battles more spread out, and they have alluded to penalties for clumped up deathballs. The goal with the economy changes is to spread out bases and force more action more quickly. So you guys should not overreact to things like him saying invisible micro, or to anything right now. David's post is telling the community to calm down and you guys are doing the opposite lol. Go back and reread what he said.
What's funny is all the gamers complaining in this thread still play the game and will continue to play the game. One wonders why they would continue to play something they complain about so much.
On November 20 2014 08:22 Doodsmack wrote: Blizzard's main goal with LotV is to increase micro and skirmishes and make battles more spread out, and they have alluded to penalties for clumped up deathballs. The goal with the economy changes is to spread out bases and force more action more quickly. So you guys should not overreact to things like him saying invisible micro, or to anything right now. David's post is telling the community to calm down and you guys are doing the opposite lol. Go back and reread what he said.
What's funny is all the gamers complaining in this thread still play the game and will continue to play the game. One wonders why they would continue to play something they complain about so much.
What a great and useful post!
(Where did I misplace my sarcasm tags?)
I can complain about Blizzard even if David Kim tells me otherwise.
On November 20 2014 06:51 TheDwf wrote: The problem with their "we'll add micro!" campaign is that they don't seem to understand what is micro (or rather interesting micro) in Starcraft to begin with. They seem to have a MOBA (or War3-like, but it cannot work when applied to a different genre) conception about it; but microing ≠ casting a spell. It is no coincidence if the race that received the biggest amount of SC2 nonsense, Protoss, has the most spellcasters—and despite that is not the most micro-intensive race!
No one yells "great micro!" when a Terran presses 1T. Activating Cloak is the trivial part of Banshee micro. Waaah, the l4z0r of your Void ray is twice its size after you pressed the button; how thrilling. Micro is so much more than clicking buttons that trigger a mere bonus effect. It is about reflexes, mouse accuracy, speed of execution, anticipating adverse movements… Probably the spell that manages to add the most depth based on this is Blink, but Protoss has to pay a heavy tribute for that.
Pay special attention to the kind of environement in which Blink micro is the most efficient: low or medium eco situations with only a handful of units. Certainly not the 150-200 supply scenarii which are nonetheless constantly featured since more than 2 years… If you want to see "more micro," how about allowing players to play more low or medium eco situations in which more interactions like this can occur? But instead of that you promote the high eco model that propels players towards the fateful "big engagements" in which the battle is won or lost in the 4 first seconds.
Please work on solid fundamentals. An economy that makes sense. Simple units with elegant interactions. Don't bother adding 36 buttons to the Thor or the Colossus, they would still be garbage. Showering the game in MOBA gimmicks to create fake excitement that will die 4 months after LotV is out is not the way to go…
Yeah but I yell "great micro!" when I watch what MarineKing does after pressing 1T.
On November 20 2014 06:51 TheDwf wrote: The problem with their "we'll add micro!" campaign is that they don't seem to understand what is micro (or rather interesting micro) in Starcraft to begin with. They seem to have a MOBA (or War3-like, but it cannot work when applied to a different genre) conception about it; but microing ≠ casting a spell. It is no coincidence if the race that received the biggest amount of SC2 nonsense, Protoss, has the most spellcasters—and despite that is not the most micro-intensive race!
No one yells "great micro!" when a Terran presses 1T. Activating Cloak is the trivial part of Banshee micro. Waaah, the l4z0r of your Void ray is twice its size after you pressed the button; how thrilling. Micro is so much more than clicking buttons that trigger a mere bonus effect. It is about reflexes, mouse accuracy, speed of execution, anticipating adverse movements… Probably the spell that manages to add the most depth based on this is Blink, but Protoss has to pay a heavy tribute for that.
Pay special attention to the kind of environement in which Blink micro is the most efficient: low or medium eco situations with only a handful of units. Certainly not the 150-200 supply scenarii which are nonetheless constantly featured since more than 2 years… If you want to see "more micro," how about allowing players to play more low or medium eco situations in which more interactions like this can occur? But instead of that you promote the high eco model that propels players towards the fateful "big engagements" in which the battle is won or lost in the 4 first seconds.
Please work on solid fundamentals. An economy that makes sense. Simple units with elegant interactions. Don't bother adding 36 buttons to the Thor or the Colossus, they would still be garbage. Showering the game in MOBA gimmicks to create fake excitement that will die 4 months after LotV is out is not the way to go…
Yeah but I yell "great micro!" when I watch what MarineKing does after pressing 1T.
On November 20 2014 07:56 LaLuSh wrote: It's hard to care and hard to argue against when what they say is so vague it could mean practically anything.
It couldn't mean practically anything. You are just way too biased to even try to understand what they mean, that is the key difference here (as much as i agree with a lot of your points in general) But AGAIN, people on TL aren't really the focus of these statements i would think.
Yea you're right. If I try to see it from their perspective I can piece out what they probably mean. You push a button and lasers get thicker. That's visual.
You activate barrier shields and shields appear. That's visible.
You require phoenixes to issue attack commands for attacking. That's invisible.
You require cyclone's to attack everytime they fire a missile. That's invisible.
You make units shoot without delay when someone tells them to shoot? That's invisible.
You make units not dead stop under certain annoying circumstances. That's invisible.
You make turrets track. That's invisible.
I can see the thread of logic if I try to understand their view. I just think the logic is dead wrong. The combined effects of adjusting everything they deem invisible would ultimately lead to some visible effects. I also don't default to the position of thinking audiences are morons who are good for understanding nothing. Your game misses out on 100% of the plays it doesn't physically allow. That's basically all that happens.
On November 20 2014 07:56 LaLuSh wrote: It's hard to care and hard to argue against when what they say is so vague it could mean practically anything.
It couldn't mean practically anything. You are just way too biased to even try to understand what they mean, that is the key difference here (as much as i agree with a lot of your points in general) But AGAIN, people on TL aren't really the focus of these statements i would think.
Yea you're right. If I try to see it from their perspective I can piece out what they probably mean. You push a button and lasers get thicker. That's visual.
You activate barrier shields and shields appear. That's visible.
You require phoenixes to issue attack commands for attacking. That's invisible.
You require cyclone's to attack everytime they fire a missile. That's invisible.
You make units shoot without delay when someone tells them to shoot? That's invisible.
You make units not dead stop under certain annoying circumstances. That's invisible.
You make turrets track. That's invisible.
I can see the thread of logic if I try to understand their view. I just think the logic is dead wrong. The combined effects of adjusting everything they deem invisible would ultimately lead to some visible effects. I also don't default to the position of thinking audiences are morons who are good for understanding nothing. Your game misses out on 100% of the plays it doesn't physically allow. That's basically all that happens.
I think what David Kim actually means when he talk about invisible micro is the easiness of identifying skill as viewer. Marine split is the perfect example of something that is easy to appreciate as a viewer. Another example is when someone is everywhere at the map at once or make some cool pick-up micro with dropships. An example of micro where it's difficult to identify skill is pushing bottons once in a while. This isn't mechanically challenging in it self, but rather comes down to good decisionmaking/timing --> something that is more difficult to appreciate as a viewer (which partly is why protoss sucks in SC2).
In my opinion, he is correct with this overall approach. A succesful esport is not about making the hardest game possible, but about about rewarding the "correct" set of skillset.
In my experience, there is actually a very high correlation between what casuals enjoy, what competitive players enjoy and what viewers enjoy, so if you are a competent developer, it's definitely possible to make all of the 3 target groups satifised (I believe all the 3 target groups likes the 3 examples of "visible" micro that I used above).
Unfortunately, I think it's hard to argue that the developers of Blizzard are competent. If we just look at their bias against moving shots... That doesn't make sense as Mutalisk micro was awesome to watch in BW and awesome to watch (whenever it's "kinda" used in Sc2), regardless of whether your a pro or in silver league.
It would be really cool if they were managed to include some mutually exclusive unit upgrades. for instance, if you could upgrade either adrenal glands or the jumping-zergling thing from the HOTS campaign. It would be tough to balance but would make each game a bit different as you have more ways to customize your army in the game.
Pay special attention to the kind of environement in which Blink micro is the most efficient: low or medium eco situations with only a handful of units. Certainly not the 150-200 supply scenarii which are nonetheless constantly featured since more than 2 years… If you want to see "more micro," how about allowing players to play more low or medium eco situations in which more interactions like this can occur? But instead of that you promote the high eco model that propels players towards the fateful "big engagements" in which the battle is won or lost in the 4 first seconds.
I think one should be careful about generalizing here. In some situations, micro is indeed more rewarded with certain units in low unit count. But in many other situations, it's more rewarded with larger armies. The skillcap of controlling Marines - as an example - increases basically proportionally with the amount you have.
Therefore, I think it's ideal to have a solid mix of both low army engagements and big army engagements. With Blink Stalkers, I think it would be a bit ideal to slightly turn down their efficiency in straight up engagmeents and instead allow them to be slightly better at moving around harassing in smaller groups. Instead, the Immortal should get a more important role in straight up engagements + it should be redesigned so it's actually micro rewarding (and micro =/ pressing buttons).
On November 20 2014 08:22 Doodsmack wrote: Blizzard's main goal with LotV is to increase micro and skirmishes and make battles more spread out, and they have alluded to penalties for clumped up deathballs. The goal with the economy changes is to spread out bases and force more action more quickly. So you guys should not overreact to things like him saying invisible micro, or to anything right now. David's post is telling the community to calm down and you guys are doing the opposite lol. Go back and reread what he said.
What's funny is all the gamers complaining in this thread still play the game and will continue to play the game. One wonders why they would continue to play something they complain about so much.
What a great and useful post!
(Where did I misplace my sarcasm tags?)
I can complain about Blizzard even if David Kim tells me otherwise.
Ah the old "I'm entitled to my opinion" response to a substantive rebuttal. There's a reason David Kim is saying to calm down - the game is in alpha stage and basically everything is on the workbench. Hold your complaints until you have something to complain about (unless of course you want to complain about HotS in a LotV thread).
I cannot help sharing some of the concerns pointed out here. They "adressed" the lack of skytoss micro with prismatic alignment. That is rasing the bar for micro in bronze league, and even there i doubt someone thinks voidrays are micro intensive because of that, hell, they probably don't feel like its harder in HotS. That says a lot. And they presented the disruptor as a micro intensive unit, but honestly a one time activation time bomb is not micro intesive, its 2 clicks (activate and move) and there is nothing else you can do. Protoss players are praised for keeping the clumsy colossus alive, since that makes the disruptor pale in comparison and its one of the not micro intensive things in the protoss arsenal. So i hope that visible micro intensive units are not like Voidrays, since i cannot be sure from past experience O_O
Well, your and mishimaBeef's examples were both essentially the same: focus fire. Which depends on the unit, like Vikings focusing a Colossus is really far from invisible. And I'm 100% certain they didn't mean focus fire mishimaBeef's example in particular wasn't even about SC2 so it's really hard to comment on them removing BW-micro that doesn't exist in SC2 from SC2. ^^
Yeh just to expand with another example of what I said previosuly.
Visible micro = Easy to identify skill.
Target firing with Vikings = Not really challenging in itself. Why would I be impressed as a viewer to see someone that is targetting a big unit with his air units?
You could then ofc argue that it's very difficult to control both Ghosts, Vikings and MMM simultaenously, but as a casual viewer, that's not such an intuitive concept.
If you need to be told something is difficult as a viewer, and you cannot easily see it by your self (assuming your a casual player) --> It's not a visible form of micro.
There are volumes to be written on how true this is and how ignorant of it blizzard seems to be. It's really, really worrying me, especially after the "invisible micro" allusion. :S
Well to be fair, I counted like 6 abilities being used by Vayne there.
There are volumes to be written on how true this is and how ignorant of it blizzard seems to be. It's really, really worrying me, especially after the "invisible micro" allusion. :S
Yeh, so I remember everyone praising QXC as this design-god 2 years ago when he suggested that Hardened Shield should be an activateable ability. I was like, eh... that's not actually very interesting, and unfortunately Blizzard ended up being "inspired" by his philosophy and gave the VR a super boring ability.
As far as resourcing is concerned, right now, we’d like to specifically target a change where players need to spread their bases out more so that there’s a lot more action going on. We believe this will have two benefits: players going on the offense will have more attacking options, and players on the defense can show off their defending skill better since they have to defend a much wider area now.
But Protoss is still insanely immobile compared to Terran and Zerg We'll be pulled apart, left and right x.x
As far as resourcing is concerned, right now, we’d like to specifically target a change where players need to spread their bases out more so that there’s a lot more action going on. We believe this will have two benefits: players going on the offense will have more attacking options, and players on the defense can show off their defending skill better since they have to defend a much wider area now.
But Protoss is still insanely immobile compared to Terran and Zerg We'll be pulled apart, left and right x.x
Protoss can be adjusted to match the new environment.
I think everybody's getting too hung up on the invisible/visible micro question, in particular since even those of us who have played BW seem to be struggling to arrive at a definition. Can we agree on a couple of general things?
1. Seems like everyone thinks more micro is better, just differ on the appearance/style of it. 2. The truly awesome micro EVERYONE realizes when they see it (MarineKing's splits, Parting's Blinkstalker micro). 3. If we agree that 1 and 2 are true, then you have to realize that Blizzard can ALSO see that awesome MKP/Parting micro and would love to see more of that. Whether you think they can get there or not, you should accept that they will try to get there - let's not get either too 'OMGWTFBBQ Blizz is god for wanting micro' or too 'Blizz already shit the bed on alpha LotV, dedgaem' about it. Ideas are cool, insane pessimism and fanboyism are not.
Im only one who are scared that game just starts in middle without early game cause worker up from 6 to 12 . Cause it we will see players rush into third tier units in no time so most of early middle game units will be under used or forgotten.
On November 20 2014 09:42 Jazzman88 wrote: I think everybody's getting too hung up on the invisible/visible micro question, in particular since even those of us who have played BW seem to be struggling to arrive at a definition. Can we agree on a couple of general things?
1. Seems like everyone thinks more micro is better, just differ on the appearance/style of it. 2. The truly awesome micro EVERYONE realizes when they see it (MarineKing's splits, Parting's Blinkstalker micro). 3. If we agree that 1 and 2 are true, then you have to realize that Blizzard can ALSO see that awesome MKP/Parting micro and would love to see more of that. Whether you think they can get there or not, you should accept that they will try to get there - let's not get either too 'OMGWTFBBQ Blizz is god for wanting micro' or too 'Blizz already !@#$%^&* the bed on alpha LotV, dedgaem' about it. Ideas are cool, insane pessimism and fanboyism are not.
Actually I think almost everyone agrees on what awesome micro is (incl David Kim). Instead, I think the issue instead is twofold:
(i) David Kim communicated horribly. He should have known that invisible micro was gonna be perceived by the public as mass spam of abilities, while what he meant was the easiness of identifying skill.
(ii) David Kim and the rest of the design-team are pretty bad at creating interesting micro-interactions.
On November 20 2014 09:48 CamoPillbox wrote: Im only one who are scared that game just starts in middle without early game cause worker up from 6 to 12 . Cause it we will see players rush into third tier units in no time so most of early middle game units will be under used or forgotten.
I don't think so. Early game units are used all the way until late-game in most matchups (Maybe not mech TvZ or TvT, probably not ZvP or PvZ), but they often fill a secondary role, either as some sort of single-target DPS/meatshield or as harass. While this is probably going to change in LotV some amount, most units aren't fundamentally changing so the army compositions will probably only adapt to the new units.
On November 20 2014 06:51 TheDwf wrote: The problem with their "we'll add micro!" campaign is that they don't seem to understand what is micro (or rather interesting micro) in Starcraft to begin with. They seem to have a MOBA (or War3-like, but it cannot work when applied to a different genre) conception about it; but microing ≠ casting a spell. It is no coincidence if the race that received the biggest amount of SC2 nonsense, Protoss, has the most spellcasters—and despite that is not the most micro-intensive race!
No one yells "great micro!" when a Terran presses 1T. Activating Cloak is the trivial part of Banshee micro. Waaah, the l4z0r of your Void ray is twice its size after you pressed the button; how thrilling. Micro is so much more than clicking buttons that trigger a mere bonus effect. It is about reflexes, mouse accuracy, speed of execution, anticipating adverse movements… Probably the spell that manages to add the most depth based on this is Blink, but Protoss has to pay a heavy tribute for that.
Pay special attention to the kind of environement in which Blink micro is the most efficient: low or medium eco situations with only a handful of units. Certainly not the 150-200 supply scenarii which are nonetheless constantly featured since more than 2 years… If you want to see "more micro," how about allowing players to play more low or medium eco situations in which more interactions like this can occur? But instead of that you promote the high eco model that propels players towards the fateful "big engagements" in which the battle is won or lost in the 4 first seconds.
Please work on solid fundamentals. An economy that makes sense. Simple units with elegant interactions. Don't bother adding 36 buttons to the Thor or the Colossus, they would still be garbage. Showering the game in MOBA gimmicks to create fake excitement that will die 4 months after LotV is out is not the way to go…
Yeah but I yell "great micro!" when I watch what MarineKing does after pressing 1T.
Imo, part of micro is for both sides to do it and not only one. When i see blink stalkers(a great micro btw) do its job iam not rly impressed since its only one side that do its thing, while the other side is "watching.
Completely agrees with
Micro is so much more than clicking buttons that trigger a mere bonus effect. It is about reflexes, mouse accuracy, speed of execution, anticipating adverse movements…
But its only 50% true if one side can do it and the other cant. Its super important both sides can do it.
Well to be fair, I counted like 6 abilities being used by Vayne there.
My point was more: the sort of variables which are dubbed "invisible" are what allowed for that play to be performed in the manner it was.
No turn rate. Low attack point. Low casting points.
They may be invisible variables. But without them the play wouldn't even exist.
I agree, but I also think this just comes down to a misunderstanding. David Kim is a big fan of bio-play which is all about maximum responsiveness. Invisible micro to him is more like target firing Mutas with Thors, which is extremely difficult as a viewer to see. I remember watching the famous Maru vs Jaedong engagement 5 times in FPV before I actually noticed that Maru target-fired the Mutalisks with his Thors. When something is that difficult to spot, it doesn't add any value to the esport-experience (though ofc Thor target firing wasn't really something which had any downsides either. It's not like casuals really disliked using the Thor becasue it was complicated to use).
If we look at the macro-perspective, I think SC2 currently is in a terrible spot. At least with BW, macro was had such a high skillcap so it differentiated players. This made it possible to create better narratives and build more hype before games, like the best micro vs the best macro player, who will win?
Sc2 is more problematic: Everyone above GM have pretty solid macro. The only real difference I can notice (when I really pay attention) is that someone is better at starting upgrades just in time while other people are like 10 seconds too late. But that's so difficult to identify, and thus not an interesting skill-set. It's really problematic when you want to describe different types of players, because there are so few variables to describe them with. All you can say is that: X plays more defensive, but Y plays more offensive. Sure there are slighly more nuances than that, but it's so difficult to make a narrative describing the difference between Innovation and Taeja.
So why even have the macro-perspective in the game at all? All it serves is to raise the entry-barrier without having any esport-purpose. Now obviously Sc2 cannot remove the macro-perspective, but it's a lesson to learn for future developers of the RTS-genre: Either you get almost completely rid of the macro-element or you make it much harder than it is in Sc2. The middle-of-the-road approach of Sc2 is the worst possible solution.
A Warp Prism performing a drop with two Immortals is ridiculously powerful. The Hardened Shield buff as well as ranged pick up works so well (if an opponent has no air units in play) that Protoss always gets a huge lead in the mid-game.
What i do dislike is the "If an opponent has no air units in play" protoss always get a huge lead. But to not draw any conclusions(as blizzard wish) i love for races to have consistent threats such as this one. A weapon to use, to implement that strategy in the gameplay of the particular player.
Ofcourse i want it to be counters and countermicro to deflect it, thats obvious, but what something like i call "consistent threat" is, the player can use it while doing something else. -Draw the enemy units somewhere else to open up this drop -Drop here, knowing that no dmg to none will be done but it will open up somewhere else to attack/gain position. While doing this move, its possible no loses will be made. Maybe its vague, maybe it is. Something like this might open up so the enemy player needs to make units himself(And not full eco, full saturated bases etc).
So consistent threats for all races is really solid and fun.
What i do dislike is the "If an opponent has no air units in play" protoss always get a huge lead.
Yeh, it's why I believe Blizzard makes the same error over and over. It's another problem of a hardcounter. They think that forcing players to build one unit to beat another unit is fun. In reality, it's just a ton more fun to have two units battle each other out and let it come down to micro.
Baneling vs Marines would have sucked if Banelings > Marines and always forced Tanks/Mines. But letting it primarily come down to unit control, made the interaction alot more interesting. Viking vs Warp prism isn't fun. But Marine/Maurauder vs a "balanced" Warp prism/Immortal could potentially be pretty cool.
So get rid of the "always get ahead" and instead make it more like "gives a skilled toss player an opportunity to get ahead if he outmicro's the terran player".
This line is pretty good: "We’d really love to heavily test various, sometimes more extreme, ideas during the upcoming Beta."
Here is what we can try: fire David Kim and Dustin Browder.
Let me balance the game.
im all the fuck for this
See this stupid pov annoys me like nothing else. "who should balance and design a competetive rts game" "well i guess some random guy on TL" "ok let's fire our guys who have actually studied game design"
On November 20 2014 06:51 TheDwf wrote: The problem with their "we'll add micro!" campaign is that they don't seem to understand what is micro (or rather interesting micro) in Starcraft to begin with. They seem to have a MOBA (or War3-like, but it cannot work when applied to a different genre) conception about it; but microing ≠ casting a spell. It is no coincidence if the race that received the biggest amount of SC2 nonsense, Protoss, has the most spellcasters—and despite that is not the most micro-intensive race!
No one yells "great micro!" when a Terran presses 1T. Activating Cloak is the trivial part of Banshee micro. Waaah, the l4z0r of your Void ray is twice its size after you pressed the button; how thrilling. Micro is so much more than clicking buttons that trigger a mere bonus effect. It is about reflexes, mouse accuracy, speed of execution, anticipating adverse movements… Probably the spell that manages to add the most depth based on this is Blink, but Protoss has to pay a heavy tribute for that.
Pay special attention to the kind of environement in which Blink micro is the most efficient: low or medium eco situations with only a handful of units. Certainly not the 150-200 supply scenarii which are nonetheless constantly featured since more than 2 years… If you want to see "more micro," how about allowing players to play more low or medium eco situations in which more interactions like this can occur? But instead of that you promote the high eco model that propels players towards the fateful "big engagements" in which the battle is won or lost in the 4 first seconds.
Please work on solid fundamentals. An economy that makes sense. Simple units with elegant interactions. Don't bother adding 36 buttons to the Thor or the Colossus, they would still be garbage. Showering the game in MOBA gimmicks to create fake excitement that will die 4 months after LotV is out is not the way to go…
Pay special attention to the kind of environement in which Blink micro is the most efficient: low or medium eco situations with only a handful of units. Certainly not the 150-200 supply scenarii which are nonetheless constantly featured since more than 2 years… If you want to see "more micro," how about allowing players to play more low or medium eco situations in which more interactions like this can occur? But instead of that you promote the high eco model that propels players towards the fateful "big engagements" in which the battle is won or lost in the 4 first seconds.
I think one should be careful about generalizing here. In some situations, micro is indeed more rewarded with certain units in low unit count. But in many other situations, it's more rewarded with larger armies. The skillcap of controlling Marines - as an example - increases basically proportionally with the amount you have.
Therefore, I think it's ideal to have a solid mix of both low army engagements and big army engagements. With Blink Stalkers, I think it would be a bit ideal to slightly turn down their efficiency in straight up engagmeents and instead allow them to be slightly better at moving around harassing in smaller groups. Instead, the Immortal should get a more important role in straight up engagements + it should be redesigned so it's actually micro rewarding (and micro =/ pressing buttons).
Good response, also deserves upvote.
I can't help but feel that Blizzard is really struggling with the Zealot's presence. It starts Protoss off on the wrong foot by being a tank with the finesse and responsiveness of a brick wall, and in a way, all the unit abilities that follow seem to be trying to make up for that. They really need to go back to fundamentals on units like the Zealot, Archon, and Colossus and figure out how they're supposed to reward mechanical skill and multitasking in engagements.
What i do dislike is the "If an opponent has no air units in play" protoss always get a huge lead.
So get rid of the "always get ahead" and instead make it more like "gives a skilled toss player an opportunity to get ahead if he outmicro's the terran player".
Or outmoves, or with strategy. Maybe keep terran occupied with this drop while doing some other stuff. The always get ahead is not fun.
"Guys, I understand it seems like protoss is receiving a bunch of nerfs, but that really dumb change we made to the warp prism is proving to be super effective, so it looks like everything's working out."
On November 20 2014 10:04 Hider wrote: Sc2 is more problematic: Everyone above GM have pretty solid macro. The only real difference I can notice (when I really pay attention) is that someone is better at starting upgrades just in time while other people are like 10 seconds too late. But that's so difficult to identify, and thus not an interesting skill-set. It's really problematic when you want to describe different types of players, because there are so few variables to describe them with. All you can say is that: X plays more defensive, but Y plays more offensive. Sure there are slighly more nuances than that, but it's so difficult to make a narrative describing the difference between Innovation and Taeja.
So why even have the macro-perspective in the game at all? All it serves is to raise the entry-barrier without having any esport-purpose. Now obviously Sc2 cannot remove the macro-perspective, but it's a lesson to learn for future developers of the RTS-genre: Either you get almost completely rid of the macro-element or you make it much harder than it is in Sc2. The middle-of-the-road approach of Sc2 is the worst possible solution.
I don't think the situation is as bad as you describe. There are players who deservedly make a reputation of being the best in the business (Scarlett's creep spread, soO's injects, Rain's perfect defense, Bomber with his infinite bio), and there are also players who can compete at the highest levels but still allow macro to get away from them (Zest is probably the biggest name/worst macro ratio, Hydra and Fantasy are worse offenders though).
Could macro be a more distinguishing factor? Probably. Do you have something in mind for how to add meaningful, non-artificial macro into the game that would address your concerns?
Why don't we just admit that RTS balancing is ridiculously difficult to do and that you can't point to A SINGLE studio that has done a better job than Blizzard on their multiplayer RTS balancing. It's up to the players and community to do the other half of the work, regulate internal rules and map pools, craft the meta game to a point where it's entertaining to the viewers and not ridiculously tedious for the players to play. BW wouldn't have lived past the first few years if everybody just screamed "Terran obviously imba, PvZ impossible, map pool is shit, mineral walk is bugged, muta stacking is bugged, reavers should be removed from the game due to rng, hire me as your designer instead.".
On November 20 2014 11:26 Caihead wrote: Why don't we just admit that RTS balancing is ridiculously difficult to do and that you can't point to A SINGLE studio that has done a better job than Blizzard on their multiplayer RTS balancing. It's up to the players and community to do the other half of the work, regulate internal rules and map pools, craft the meta game to a point where it's entertaining to the viewers and not ridiculously tedious for the players to play. BW wouldn't have lived past the first few years if everybody just screamed "Terran obviously imba, PvZ impossible, map pool is shit, mineral walk is bugged, muta stacking is bugged, reavers should be removed from the game due to rng, hire me as your designer instead.".
Or we could acknowledge the basic possibility that Blizzard is not an elite group of people who are better equipped to balance an RTS than others on the planet, especially people who spend far more time with the game than the actual developers of it who are just working for paychecks. Can we admit that that is possible? There's nothing enlightened about us coming to accept some notion that reads like a straight-up blizzard fanboy bias. The problems with other RTS games haven't been 'balance' so trying to give Blizzard an award for balancing is a complete waste of time. Why are you only considering this narrow field of criteria that makes no sense to begin with?
On November 20 2014 11:26 Caihead wrote: Why don't we just admit that RTS balancing is ridiculously difficult to do and that you can't point to A SINGLE studio that has done a better job than Blizzard on their multiplayer RTS balancing. It's up to the players and community to do the other half of the work, regulate internal rules and map pools, craft the meta game to a point where it's entertaining to the viewers and not ridiculously tedious for the players to play. BW wouldn't have lived past the first few years if everybody just screamed "Terran obviously imba, PvZ impossible, map pool is shit, mineral walk is bugged, muta stacking is bugged, reavers should be removed from the game due to rng, hire me as your designer instead.".
Or we could acknowledge the basic possibility that Blizzard is not an elite group of people who are better equipped to balance an RTS than others on the planet, especially people who spend far more time with the game than the actual developers of it who are just working for paychecks. Can we admit that that is possible? There's nothing enlightened about us coming to accept some notion that reads like a straight-up blizzard fanboy bias. The problems with other RTS games haven't been 'balance' so trying to give Blizzard an award for balancing is a complete waste of time. Why are you only considering this narrow field of criteria that makes no sense to begin with?
Then just do it, blizzard gave you the tools. If people here really think they can do a better job, open the editor and make your sc2 edition and prove you are better. You know what? You won't be better than people who actually are educated in that field, but whatever.
On November 20 2014 11:26 Caihead wrote: Why don't we just admit that RTS balancing is ridiculously difficult to do and that you can't point to A SINGLE studio that has done a better job than Blizzard on their multiplayer RTS balancing. It's up to the players and community to do the other half of the work, regulate internal rules and map pools, craft the meta game to a point where it's entertaining to the viewers and not ridiculously tedious for the players to play. BW wouldn't have lived past the first few years if everybody just screamed "Terran obviously imba, PvZ impossible, map pool is shit, mineral walk is bugged, muta stacking is bugged, reavers should be removed from the game due to rng, hire me as your designer instead.".
Or we could acknowledge the basic possibility that Blizzard is not an elite group of people who are better equipped to balance an RTS than others on the planet, especially people who spend far more time with the game than the actual developers of it who are just working for paychecks. Can we admit that that is possible? There's nothing enlightened about us coming to accept some notion that reads like a straight-up blizzard fanboy bias. The problems with other RTS games haven't been 'balance' so trying to give Blizzard an award for balancing is a complete waste of time. Why are you only considering this narrow field of criteria that makes no sense to begin with?
Then just do it, blizzard gave you the tools. If people here really think they can do a better job, open the editor and make your sc2 edition and prove you are better. You know what? You won't be better than people who actually are educated in that field, but whatever.
There is a difference between having it as a job->possible to work on it 8hours every day. Then you need to know the editor for this to work->Need good skills i would say. Then you need playtesters->To try out ideas etc Its not realistic.
I actually do believe blizzard isnt a top-class-company anymore. What exactly does educated mean? Like, why havent sc2 been about micro vs micro. Just now, recently lotv has the potential to fix this..After 10years of development. What kind of education is this?
Math. Logic. Sure, they might be good at that. But unit design or rts design, they are lacking big time.
Their undecidedness on the final unit count makes me wish they'd just release every unit they have planned and have the community decide which ones to keep.
On November 20 2014 10:04 Hider wrote: Sc2 is more problematic: Everyone above GM have pretty solid macro. The only real difference I can notice (when I really pay attention) is that someone is better at starting upgrades just in time while other people are like 10 seconds too late. But that's so difficult to identify, and thus not an interesting skill-set. It's really problematic when you want to describe different types of players, because there are so few variables to describe them with. All you can say is that: X plays more defensive, but Y plays more offensive. Sure there are slighly more nuances than that, but it's so difficult to make a narrative describing the difference between Innovation and Taeja.
So why even have the macro-perspective in the game at all? All it serves is to raise the entry-barrier without having any esport-purpose. Now obviously Sc2 cannot remove the macro-perspective, but it's a lesson to learn for future developers of the RTS-genre: Either you get almost completely rid of the macro-element or you make it much harder than it is in Sc2. The middle-of-the-road approach of Sc2 is the worst possible solution.
I don't think the situation is as bad as you describe. There are players who deservedly make a reputation of being the best in the business (Scarlett's creep spread, soO's injects, Rain's perfect defense, Bomber with his infinite bio), and there are also players who can compete at the highest levels but still allow macro to get away from them (Zest is probably the biggest name/worst macro ratio, Hydra and Fantasy are worse offenders though).
Could macro be a more distinguishing factor? Probably. Do you have something in mind for how to add meaningful, non-artificial macro into the game that would address your concerns?
Macro mechanics which remain as relevant in the lategame as in the midgame for starters.
I think SC2 has a decent amount of macro in the midgame, and the definition of macro I use is this:
Macromanagement (Macro) To focus time on creating new buildings, researching upgrades, expanding, and training units. To focus on Macro typically means to let battles fight themselves or to ignore units in combat while focusing on building, training, and expanding.
But all of those macro actions fall off super hard towards the lategame. In SC2, you have all supply depots/overlords/pylons required for the rest of the game in place already in the midgame. Your production infrastructure will likewise be built out to support the maximum possible income rate the game allows by the midgame.
Larva injects, Mules, Chrono Boosts. Super important to nail with good timing in the midgame. In the lategame you perform them with nowhere near the regularity. You just use up the energy every once in a while when it's needed.
There should be more tension between macro and micro in a game like Starcraft. When you rush through the early stages, and install most if not all of the infrastructure you will ever need by the 12th-15th minute, you're leading the game in a different direction where players can sit and babysit units for the rest of the game. Terran and Zerg players don't even need to look away from battles while producing stuff in the lategame.
In that sense adding a bunch of abilities to every LotV unit might make sense. Because how else are you going to differentiate players in the lategame? They have all the time they need to babysit that army, those drops and that harass? The differentiator in a lategame is micro and micro actions. The macro is trivial.
I suggest you do it. I was positively surprised after trying out League. I used to think the game was just about spamming abilities, killing monsters, amoving and teamwork, but in reality the mechanical skillcap of LOL is actually pretty high because Riot is amazing at designing champion vs champion interactions. It really makes me wish they would design an RTS game.
As a comparison, Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm is basically just spamming abilities + a-move. Pretty easy to see that it's the Sc2 developers working on this game.
I don't think the situation is as bad as you describe. There are players who deservedly make a reputation of being the best in the business (Scarlett's creep spread, soO's injects, Rain's perfect defense, Bomber with his infinite bio), and there are also players who can compete at the highest levels but still allow macro to get away from them (Zest is probably the biggest name/worst macro ratio, Hydra and Fantasy are worse offenders though).
Rains perfect defense is related to playstyle, not macro skill level. Bomber doesn't have better macro than other pro terrans, he just has a different style that allows for faster production at certain points in the game.
Soo injects? I don't think anyone talks about "this guy is much better than injecting than this other guy" any more. But ofc it happens that casters in a game will do all they can to hype up various players, but the scenario I imagine is more related to the narrative stories prior to a game. It just makes it more difficult to hype up a game when all of the players are so similar so there is only a difference in some players being more defensive than others.
@ Scarlett's creep spread. I heard people talk about her creep spread early HOTS. But whenever I look at her games now, I don't really notice any difference in creep spread skill relative to most other top zergs.
I am not saying that we can't create some narratives with some players, but I am saying that it would be much more interesting if we can go into a game and be interested in seeing how this player who builds a lot more stuff would fare vs this other player who has less stuff but is more efficient with his units. Early WOL, we actually his narratives and it was kinda interesting to follow.
Could macro be a more distinguishing factor? Probably. Do you have something in mind for how to add meaningful, non-artificial macro into the game that would address your concerns?
If we look at LOTV, I think it's impossible for macro to be a distingushing factor, and it just serves to raise the entrance barrier quite signifciantly. Archon mode could perhaps help with that, but dno. In my opinion, focussing on micro and multitasking is just a much more interesting way of increasing the skill cap. When I talk about narratives and how that relates to the difficulty of macro, that's still not as a good as making it easy for viewers to see the direct effect of the skill during an engagement. Micro can do that, but with macro it's just a lot harder to understand the effects as a viewer.
I also believe that the RTS genre could have quite a bit of potential if it succeeded in reducing entrance barriers significantly, but casual players shouldn't be forced to worry about knowing all timings, build orders and working on both micro and macro simultaenously.
Therefore, next-generation of RTS will likely be inspired by the MOBA-genre and get rid of macro, and create a natural defenders advantage through towers (or something similar) so even if you make early game mistakes, you don't directly lose. This model will also function better with a spread-out economy.
pretty much blizzard confirming what all sensible people have been saying, which is that it's way too early to draw the absurd balance whiny conclusions many people (esp toss) have been drawing
On November 20 2014 12:26 Hider wrote:Rains perfect defense is related to playstyle, not macro skill level.
So you think if I said to Terminator "would you rather have your playstyle or Rain's playstyle" he'd pick his own?
Bomber doesn't have better macro than other pro terrans, he just has a different style that allows for faster production at certain points in the game.
He also has a style that doesn't include being supply blocked or floating resources. That's what good macro means.
Soo injects? I don't think anyone talks about "this guy is much better than injecting than this other guy" any more.
I am not saying that we can't create some narratives with some players, but I am saying that it would be much more interesting if we can go into a game and be interested in seeing how this player who builds a lot more stuff would fare vs this other player who has less stuff but is more efficient with his units. Early WOL, we actually his narratives and it was kinda interesting to follow.
How do you know this is a game design issue? How do you know that players like Taeja, Innovation, Bomber, and Maru wouldn't be approximately equally good at everything in an RTS given sufficient time to iron out their mechanics? It sounds like you want the best players in the world to have distinct weaknesses, but it's their job not to. Watch Ruff vs Avilo and you'll find plenty of distinct weaknesses.
If we look at LOTV, I think it's impossible for macro to be a distingushing factor
Impossible? What? So if we give creep tumors only half of their creep spread range, meaning players have to work literally twice as much to spread the same amount of creep, you think that wouldn't make a difference? What if we reduce creep spread to 1/5 of current range?
You're saying that SC2 might not be the future of esport RTS, and that could very well be true, but I don't see how it's supposed to help us make LOTV the best game it can be.
Impossible? What? So if we give creep tumors only half of their creep spread range, meaning players have to work literally twice as much to spread the same amount of creep, you think that wouldn't make a difference? What if we reduce creep spread to 1/5 of current range?
I would also say it's impossible that protoss gets a Marine. It could theoretically happen (blizzard could just do that), but in reality, it's never gonna happen.
Point here is that, there is no simple and effective way of increasing the macroskill capy enough in order for it to worthwhile.
He also has a style that doesn't include being supply blocked or floating resources. That's what good macro means.
Like any other terran player on the planet in GM or above.
You would be wrong to think that.
No I think Lichter is wrong if he thinks that Soo's larva injects are more than 5% better than other zergs. It wouldn't even surprise me that if you actually did a more comprehensive statistical analysis, then Soo wouldn't be better than his peers. I think it's more likely that it's just a causation = correlation error: Soo is doing well as a zerg --> It must be becasue he has good injects.
The way you create a solid narrative with great injects is if it's actually easy to see that Soo has a lot more stuff than his enemies/peers. But I don't think that's the case (because every pro zerg has pretty good injects here). And I don't trust that any viewer is good enough to notice the difference between someone having 2-3% better injects over a longer game-period than another top zerg.
How do you know this is a game design issue? How do you know that players like Taeja, Innovation, Bomber, and Maru wouldn't be approximately equally good at everything in an RTS given sufficient time to iron out their mechanics? It sounds like you want the best players in the world to have distinct weaknesses, but it's their job not to. Watch Ruff vs Avilo and you'll find plenty of distinct weaknesses.
Because Sc2 is a really bad game from a narrative-perspective. 90% of all matches are just: Player X is going to meet player Y. Both players are really solid, but player X is better than Y, and therefore I think he will win.
It was actually awesome back in early WOL, where we could create a story of Idra where he was this "macro-god" with a poor mentality. Now part of this is obviously related to player personality, but your mistaken if you think game-design isn't a big part in creating a great narrative as well. If we look at real sports, I believe MMA is benefiting a lot from a strong narrative. The fighters here come from all different background with different advantages and disadvantages. It's easy to create lot of hype there.
It would help if macro had such an insanely high skillcap so that some pro player would have like 20% more stuff than his peers, but it would come at the expense of less efficient unit-control. But obviously, creating this effect isn't possible with Sc2. And if you get cannot create this effet at all, then I would argue that the macro-skill cap is a counterproductive element in the game as it merely serves to raise the entrance barrier.
In the end, I don't think having a bad narrative in the game makes it a bad esport (it just one little factor). Most imortantly for me is still proper micro-interactions.
Some interesting points. I remember watching brood war thinking wtf is he doing with his units, only to have the observer move 2 screens up and show a massive amount of reinforcements coming in. and the crowd goes wild
Hey all first post. Its kinda long xD I think one of the many reasons BW was a much more micro intensive game than its predecessor, and concurrently, how to make Sc2 a more micro intensive, and less death ball focused game (which I believe is one of the goals of the expansion), lies in the hotkey system, and I would like to touch on that briefly. I would like to clarify that when I am talking about hotkeys I mean the 1-9 numbers, and the F buttons, and not the letters that are used for spells and abilities.
Sc1 hotkeys worked on a system that allowed players to have 1 building, or 12 units, on one of the numbers 1-9. Prioritizing what buildings and units to put on what hotkeys was(is? :'( ) an extremely important skill, especially when the game starts to transition to late game. It becomes quite clear that you will not have enough hotkey space to fill all of your buildings, and your units at the same time. Using the F buttons allowed players to jump to certain preset points, on the map, giving you more variety in using your number keys (instead of having your raxs hotkeyd, press an F button, jump over top of them and quickly mouse click everything that you need etc). This is the one example invisible micro I believe blizzard is talking about. These actions actively forced a player to spend much more time clicking and using hotkeys to set up the infrastructure. This being more difficult, adds for a more rewarding and exciting experience in the game, especially when the game transitions into late game.( As a viewer, watching the players sweating ferociously, while managing all of the cool buildings they have is exciting. You can see that what the pro player is doing requires lots of concentration and dexterity. ) You really had to work to keep your economy moving, it felt very empowering. In SC2, being able to have all of your production structures on 3 or less hotkeys (cough zerg cough), makes the feeling of having a more bustling economy less exciting, and rewarding. Making this production macro easier allows players to transition faster out of the low unit count, high micro intensive battles of the early game. Freeing up clicks and energy from macroing allows players to focus more on the unit control. But the hotkey system has also been simplified for the units. Instead of needing to have multiple groups of hotkeys for your army, you can press F2 and instantly get everyone. Combine this with the unit clumping, and this creates 1 button deathballs, that are easy to maneuver around the map. Not nearly as rewarding or exciting as massive sprawling armies, or rapid lighting fast raids across multiple bases, stretched across the players (and the veiwers) screens. Simplified macro (production and unit control) rapidly boosts the players into the late game. Combine that with 200/200 armys being able to clump, and the late game turns into deathball vs turtle or death ball vs deathball fights. One taking forever and being boring to watch (swarm hosts), and the other with a fight lasting 4 seconds. The more a player takes a lead, the less that he needs to micro. This snowballs so fast, that no matter how much micro you have you are normally fucked. The irony is(sometimes anyways), that some of the best micro comes from players holding on with the last of their units (say terran splits against banelings) in a situation where it doesn't really matter if he holds out, the other guy can just press 2 buttons to have all of his reinforcements streaming in. One of the really sad parts of this is that we rarely see pro players fight with last remaining units anymore. Like reach being able to crawl back into the game with a handfull of manly zealots. They realize that they are spending way more energy defending than the attacker, so they minus well just GG and save energy for the next fight. This makes for a less tense game for the viewer. The viewer, is one of the important parts of Starcraft, and what seperates SC's from being a merely a game, to an esport. When the game is less tense, it becomes boring, and you lose passionate people who are looking for something to becoming dedicated into. So thats how I think hotkeys and clumping have effected the game, how about some suggestions for toying around with? Remove any "get entire army in 1 click button" aka F2. Make it so ground units dont automatically clump in the tightest formations possible. Limit the number of units and buildings the number hotkeys can have. How many? Im not sure but I feel experimenting with the number could be a good thing. I think some of the best part of Starcraft is in the opening game. Is he expanding fast, is he going for aggression, if so, what kind? What build order a player chooses, and how he handles his scout and early army, is always one of the most tense and exciting parts of the game. The small unit battles in this stage of the game are always incredibly fun to play, and fun to watch. I think adding more workers will really hurt the incentive to go for some early pressure play. The meta would have players expanding to their natural bases much faster, allowing players to gear up for death-ball type play. You could try, lowering the amount that workers can carry, making it so that players will spend more time in the early game, and more time with early game units. It would be harder saving money for more expensive stuff, and put more emphasis on low tier, micro intensive fights. Anyways, this is getting kind of long so I think Im going to wrap this up. TL:DR No more all army in 1 button? Bring back Bw style limited number of units and buildings for your Hotkeys? Reduce the clumping? Decease how much workers can hold? Maybe 1 gas? P.S Thanks Blizzard for the many, many years of awesome games, good times, and memories. Here is to making sc2 last into the ages
I really hope, for the sake of whatever family and friends that can still stand being around you at this point, that the majority of you in this thread aren't half as toxic in real life as you are on here.
Newsflash: you're not going to get the late 90s/early 2000s back. Those years of your life are gone. Constantly moving the goalposts so that Blizzard is always wrong isn't going to bring them back.
Well to be fair, I counted like 6 abilities being used by Vayne there.
My point was more: the sort of variables which are dubbed "invisible" are what allowed for that play to be performed in the manner it was.
No turn rate. Low attack point. Low casting points.
They may be invisible variables. But without them the play wouldn't even exist.
Dota has turn rate etc and remains to be an awesome micro intensive game. There are some terrible attack animation heroes like twin headed dragon and not that many champions in lol are as versatile as vayne either.
You can look up the top 5 weekly lol highlights to really see what people like about the game. It's incredible to see how some master the same 4 spells and make their champion do unimaginable escapes or counter kills
No turn rate etc is merely a characteristic of lol, just like you cannot block champions with your champion model.
On November 20 2014 06:51 TheDwf wrote: The problem with their "we'll add micro!" campaign is that they don't seem to understand what is micro (or rather interesting micro) in Starcraft to begin with. They seem to have a MOBA (or War3-like, but it cannot work when applied to a different genre) conception about it; but microing ≠ casting a spell. It is no coincidence if the race that received the biggest amount of SC2 nonsense, Protoss, has the most spellcasters—and despite that is not the most micro-intensive race!
No one yells "great micro!" when a Terran presses 1T. Activating Cloak is the trivial part of Banshee micro. Waaah, the l4z0r of your Void ray is twice its size after you pressed the button; how thrilling. Micro is so much more than clicking buttons that trigger a mere bonus effect. It is about reflexes, mouse accuracy, speed of execution, anticipating adverse movements… Probably the spell that manages to add the most depth based on this is Blink, but Protoss has to pay a heavy tribute for that.
Pay special attention to the kind of environement in which Blink micro is the most efficient: low or medium eco situations with only a handful of units. Certainly not the 150-200 supply scenarii which are nonetheless constantly featured since more than 2 years… If you want to see "more micro," how about allowing players to play more low or medium eco situations in which more interactions like this can occur? But instead of that you promote the high eco model that propels players towards the fateful "big engagements" in which the battle is won or lost in the 4 first seconds.
Please work on solid fundamentals. An economy that makes sense. Simple units with elegant interactions. Don't bother adding 36 buttons to the Thor or the Colossus, they would still be garbage. Showering the game in MOBA gimmicks to create fake excitement that will die 4 months after LotV is out is not the way to go…
This guy hits the spot perfect. Blizzard should print this out and hang it on the whiteboard at their next development meeting.
On November 20 2014 04:25 sabas123 wrote: wow these changes are intresting, this means we won't see 12 starting workers anymore?
There are no changes, it's all just saying "we're not really sure what we will do"
I'm a bit surprised, I think their ideas were quite cool and could have been balanced if they just set to it and went with it. But this so much like "We showed you something that we put together in 2 months and now we want to figure out if it's any good."
If they are not sure about anything, why show it at Blizzcon?
Have been reading/following the ongoing discussion for a bit, and think I have to say some key-points of my thought process behind those issues/things - some of them generic such as "identity of micro" that some like to call it as "invisible micro", and some my personal suggestions of not repeating unit designing "mistakes" that we've by now seen:
#1 - Don't take BW as your focal starting point - yes, we loved it, we hated it, we played it for years now.. That game had it's own restrictions that this game doesn't have.. This game has multi-building selection and unlimited unit selection, therefore it makes sense to make units have abilities to force some "tactical positioning" of armies..
In fact "requirement of tactical positioning of armies is cruicial" in SC2, so therefore there are either hard-counters or abilities that deal with problems like those (a perfect example for this is the forcefield mechanics).. Therefore it's more pointless to talk about micro than abilities in a way cause we're having a whole new game and a whole new playground to deal with
#2 - If we focus only on unit's microability - then we focus solely only on Terran.. Which unit from the other races would benefit from things like low turn rates, or IDK - no damage points or things like that ??, so yes - those are things that would benefit Terran that already have sh*t ton of harassment units..
I mean I can see the "background origin" of a thought process like that, but I can also see how perfectly response reacting units would end up being outright broken in this game cause of multi-building selection and being able to select multiple (infinite more likely) amount of units
#3 - We don't need exclusively elitistic approach for the game.. There are already loads of us that don't play or don't want to play Terran for example for one sole reason - Terran right now is all about split or die with the Marines.. Or - drop or die cause of again - Terran relying solely of that one unit..
For example I can see how Protoss got a bit more "pat your back if you're only an elite but cry if not" treatment in LotV and honestly don't like it.. I mean it's cool MAYBE with the disruptor as the new unit, BUT - they got a huge PO and Warp-in nerfs, which I don't like honestly.. There are already crazy bio drops that are hard to deal with, why make them even more impossible to deal with ??
#4 - Why is the disruptor so elitistic-approached unit ?, I mean the cost of the thing screams - produce it only if you're godlike with it, otherwise lose 300 gas with almost doing nothing
#5 - Cyclone should not have a role of a map domination unit.. Seriously - who the hell needs map domination vs a race that has to stay no matter what in it's base most of the time till they have an "effective clump of units to go out with" ready ??
It should have a specific type of units it's good against (more like - have a specific set of units that are it's bane).. Thinking of death-ball-disassembler unit - i.e. - "Key Target Priority Sniper" unit - something that deals with the "Viking squads hit or miss" problem vs Colossi in a rather very elegant way.. Therefore no offense - but the unit should suck vs certain units
The hell with map dominance cause you're not relying on map dominance already.. Terran has scan which basically removes the need to have a map dominance as well as most advanced drop mechanic.. What Terran struggles right now are those key priority "in the back - well-guarded" units such as Colossi or Swarm Hosts, so why not keep strict role with the new unit to fix a problem that exists ?
#6 - Speaking of Terran though - why another high DPS unit for the Terran - as if they didn't have enough big guns already
What Terran (IMO) lacks isn't DPS, what Terran lacks is utility.. Right now the utility Terran has is solely represented by HSMs (which is another just big AoE "blob" "thing"), or PDD - which has the 50% (if not more) responsibility for bad and stalemate games
Nerfing PDD was one good way to reduce stalemates, but that's like a solution of half the way, the other half is to give Terran reliable utility.. Mech for example didn't suffer cause of not enough AoE or DPS or whatever, mech suffered cause there was no utility, i.e. - the only utility mech relied on was a rather stalemate utility - i.e. - PDD
They could've just added a disabler unit for the Terran and I'd be totally fine with it instead of one more DPS harassment "thing".. Sorry, but NO - the game shouldn't be designed nor balanced by argument like "cool to watch" or "dynamic"..
More like - dynamic - probably is a good moto to balance/design the game upon, but "cool to watch" isn't a valid argument in my eyes, and most certainly shouldn't be..
Units should have ROLES and synergy, not just an "oomph" to it, they should "serve", not "amaze" (I mean amaze if possible - why not, but that's not the cruicial part of a unit), more like a fine balancing between the two things.. Let the "oomph" be a player skill "runtime" thing, not a unit "compile-time" thing
If anyone of you remembers the "Total Annihilation Spider" - that's the kind of a unit I'm talking about - instead of DPS - more utility.. Would've made Mech viable (vs Protoss I mean), not just vs Zerg-ish (ofc. the unit would probably suck vs Zerg except vs Muta backdoors probably), and would be a bit more micro-intensive for the other faction that would be going into the "ball of mech units" overall I think..
AND would have a crazy potential of good players with good target fire disable multiple things simultaneously by alternating the target it's focusing
#6 - A bit more "positive" thoughts now.. I LOVE what they're doing with the Zerg.. There's so much depth potential in the new units - as bizzare as it sounds - Zerg got the best treatment of all the races, or at least IMO most well thought out additions that "serve" instead of "oomph" things.. In other words - instead of more explosions (well they got some of it) - Zerg got more UTILITY :D
I mean - Ravagers are a good way to do bunker-busts and a bit of "zoning" ability, and Infestors got infinite times more useful cause of some increased utility they are providing
What I especially like about the "direction" of Zerg is - Zerg is finally getting some Back-door love, finally.. What I personally however think would've been the better approach of it is - make the Corruptor provide more backdoor utility, not just another "random" "void ray" attack thing
In other words - I'd honestly suggest for Zerg the following:
A - Remove the Corruptor's new ability and keep it's current "Corruption" ability B - Make a research on the Hive that will give the Corruptors the ability to carry and drop Spores and Spines - make them have THAT backdoor utility, instead of "random voidray attack thing" or something C - Leave the Nydus as is.. The new nydus is so damn broken that it's really hard to see it not breaking games, because - honestly - stray away from trouble, don't ask for it..
And by "trouble" in the sentence just above - I mean the following - when alternating/adding new units - don't add things that are too damn strong vs one of the other two races and almost not making a difference vs the other..
That's a vey easy lesson to learn after the Widow-Mine and/or Ghost history..
The mine was too damn w.t.f. blob vs Zerg for too long until it got overnerfed, then strayed back a bit, and totally kept being useless vs Protoss until very lately when it became "too much of a thing", I mean - no need for such things at all really
Don't "follow" "BroodWar utility" - BW could "afford" such a "badly designed utility" cause army movement wasn't so easy and unit pathing wasn't so smart and AoE wasn't so destructive.. For example giving Terran units that are exclusively anti-zerg and don't do a thing vs Protoss, or vice versa - Protoss killers but not do a thing vs Zerg - that's a really BAD design in the beginning to start with
Long-story-short - above I meant the following:
#7 - my personal impression/opinion is that with the new Nydus Zerg got a "piece of that Widow-Mine-problem treatment" as I believe that the new Nydus - vs Terran Nydus and backdoor would still be "meh", but vs Protoss would wreck everything
That's bad idea overall honestly.. TRUE - that it gives diversity, but also - it's a lot of design trouble asking for a generic mechanic such as "backdooring".. In other words - if it's generic - make it "stay" generic.. Make it flexible - if someone can't deal with it make it less impactful vs those who can't deal with it, if someone can - make it less easy to stop, not vice versa with those things
That's why I honestly think that nydus should be kept "alone" as is and make the Corruptors (by being able to drop and carry spores and spines) partially do that thing as I personally think that Protoss would have less trouble with it, and Terran would have more.. The nydus as is - IMO is such an anti-Protoss targeted which is really bad design starting point
The rest can still be done with Overlord drops as well as the new Swarm Host way of functioning (which may or may not be concerning, but has to be tested/seen how it would be working)
Overall - those are my point-of-view things, hopefully some end up to better gameplay or discussion at least :D
(Thanks for the patience - if someone actually cared to read the whole wall-of-text thing)
Well to be fair, I counted like 6 abilities being used by Vayne there.
My point was more: the sort of variables which are dubbed "invisible" are what allowed for that play to be performed in the manner it was.
No turn rate. Low attack point. Low casting points.
They may be invisible variables. But without them the play wouldn't even exist.
Dota has turn rate etc and remains to be an awesome micro intensive game. There are some terrible attack animation heroes like twin headed dragon and not that many champions in lol are as versatile as vayne either.
You can look up the top 5 weekly lol highlights to really see what people like about the game. It's incredible to see how some master the same 4 spells and make their champion do unimaginable escapes or counter kills
No turn rate etc is merely a characteristic of lol, just like you cannot block champions with your champion model.
I think you're right. There are ways of creating interesting micro intensive games like dota2 without going the maximum unit-responsiveness route.
Ultimately I think it has to do with what kind of a game it is. Dota2 doesn't really pretend hero abilities and items in the game are balanced in relation to each other. They're balanced against a backdrop of incredibly strong defender's advantages. There's no concept of balancing for "equal power curves" (every hero needing to have equal strength and utility in all parts of a game, you know, the things that keep League balance designers occupied). XP and Gold discrepancies regularly balloon out of proportion without icefrog feeling a need to go out and exterminate them (even though some rubberbanding was added recently). It's an extremely asymmetrical game.
League in comparison is a game which is much more concerned with concepts like equal power curves, or keeping XP and Gold differences within reasonable limits. Every champion is meticulously balanced in relation to every other champion (or at least attempted to). In that sense League has to emphasize other meaningful differentiators of skill. So it has all that movement & aim sweetness in it.
I'd wish SC2 went more in the direction of dota2 actually, which sort of makes it absurd that I keep arguing about the need for adding a bunch of intricate micro tricks. I think that's the direction you want to take your game if you want to emphasize and accentuate the uniqueness of compositions, play styles and strategies. In that case I couldn't even be mad if these advanced micro tricks didn't end up being a part of the game.
I think in reality SC2 is a bit closer to League in style and philosophy. Compositions are balanced in relation to each other. Too much rubberbanding towards equality. Which becomes a problem when what you've professed to be aiming for is to have all the races feel distinct, asymmetrical and unique. I think there's a certain type of game flow which helps enhance that perception, and that's the dota2 style of balancing overpowered stuff against a backdrop of extremely strong defender's advantages.
The Resources Change part of the OP makes me sad. It basically says that for some reason they don't want to implement a real decreased efficiency and encourage players to expand, but instead they want to force them to expand. I'm not sure if forcing action to happen is what SC2 needs right now.
#5 - Cyclone should not have a role of a map domination unit.. Seriously - who the hell needs map domination vs a race that has to stay no matter what in it's base most of the time till they have an "effective clump of units to go out with" ready ??
It should have a specific type of units it's good against (more like - have a specific set of units that are it's bane).. Thinking of death-ball-disassembler unit - i.e. - "Key Target Priority Sniper" unit - something that deals with the "Viking squads hit or miss" problem vs Colossi in a rather very elegant way.. Therefore no offense - but the unit should suck vs certain units
The hell with map dominance cause you're not relying on map dominance already.. Terran has scan which basically removes the need to have a map dominance as well as most advanced drop mechanic.. What Terran struggles right now are those key priority "in the back - well-guarded" units such as Colossi or Swarm Hosts, so why not keep strict role with the new unit to fix a problem that exists ?
Well, I think the addition of Cyclone is an attempt to solve mech's low mobility problem, also an encouragement for T players to diversify their strategies other than bioball alone in both TvP and TvZ. I believe it's designed to counter blink stalkers, though it seems a little OP in the showmatch videos. The unit will not be scraped but definitely will be nerfed - 9 + 9vs armor instead of flat 18 damage; lower HP; shorter range; attacking ground unit only. Those are my guesses.
I totally agree with you about the deathball-disassembler unit for T. Usually T is in a huge disadvantage in late game because T's fighting P and Z's late game units with MMM. T should have the ability to defeat a well-established deathball instead of incessant harassments of MMM drops to slow the opponent down. I wish Blizzard could make a STUN spell - stunning a single unit for a few seconds, disabling it from attacking or moving - and replace ghost's snipe or raven's auto turrent with it.
On the other hand, with the hardened shield removal and the sieged tank pickup, it is possible to make mech the new normal in TvP. Without immortal, P still have blink stalkers and pheonix to counter tank, so it will be a fair play.
On November 20 2014 06:51 TheDwf wrote: The problem with their "we'll add micro!" campaign is that they don't seem to understand what is micro (or rather interesting micro) in Starcraft to begin with. They seem to have a MOBA (or War3-like, but it cannot work when applied to a different genre) conception about it; but microing ≠ casting a spell. It is no coincidence if the race that received the biggest amount of SC2 nonsense, Protoss, has the most spellcasters—and despite that is not the most micro-intensive race!
No one yells "great micro!" when a Terran presses 1T. Activating Cloak is the trivial part of Banshee micro. Waaah, the l4z0r of your Void ray is twice its size after you pressed the button; how thrilling. Micro is so much more than clicking buttons that trigger a mere bonus effect. It is about reflexes, mouse accuracy, speed of execution, anticipating adverse movements… Probably the spell that manages to add the most depth based on this is Blink, but Protoss has to pay a heavy tribute for that.
Pay special attention to the kind of environement in which Blink micro is the most efficient: low or medium eco situations with only a handful of units. Certainly not the 150-200 supply scenarii which are nonetheless constantly featured since more than 2 years… If you want to see "more micro," how about allowing players to play more low or medium eco situations in which more interactions like this can occur? But instead of that you promote the high eco model that propels players towards the fateful "big engagements" in which the battle is won or lost in the 4 first seconds.
Please work on solid fundamentals. An economy that makes sense. Simple units with elegant interactions. Don't bother adding 36 buttons to the Thor or the Colossus, they would still be garbage. Showering the game in MOBA gimmicks to create fake excitement that will die 4 months after LotV is out is not the way to go…
I wish I could upvote this post +1000000 points.
Holy shit you are so right man. That's exactly what their problem is I hope David Kim gets to read your post
On the other hand, with the hardened shield removal and the sieged tank pickup, it is possible to make mech the new normal in TvP. Without immortal, P still have blink stalkers and pheonix to counter tank, so it will be a fair play.
Hardened shields aren't gone entirely, you can soak up 200 damage of any kind with the new active ability. It isn't a complete hard-counter but immortals are still really good vs siege tanks, especially with the new warp prism, another unit that can destroy siege lines is the AoE ball that they added, if you clump up your tanks I need maybe 2 of those things to demolish everything.
Anyways, mech will be probably better vs protoss. But not with the current iformations that we have on the economy.
the ressouorce change is BS.. makes for shorter games instead of more and faster expansions - he tried the same principle with SH`s every sentence of David could be addressed with an essay of its own but its too much work so I just do what i always do when I read sth from Dave.. SIGH..................... and cry
#5 - Cyclone should not have a role of a map domination unit.. Seriously - who the hell needs map domination vs a race that has to stay no matter what in it's base most of the time till they have an "effective clump of units to go out with" ready ??
It should have a specific type of units it's good against (more like - have a specific set of units that are it's bane).. Thinking of death-ball-disassembler unit - i.e. - "Key Target Priority Sniper" unit - something that deals with the "Viking squads hit or miss" problem vs Colossi in a rather very elegant way.. Therefore no offense - but the unit should suck vs certain units
The hell with map dominance cause you're not relying on map dominance already.. Terran has scan which basically removes the need to have a map dominance as well as most advanced drop mechanic.. What Terran struggles right now are those key priority "in the back - well-guarded" units such as Colossi or Swarm Hosts, so why not keep strict role with the new unit to fix a problem that exists ?
Well, I think the addition of Cyclone is an attempt to solve mech's low mobility problem, also an encouragement for T players to diversify their strategies other than bioball alone in both TvP and TvZ. I believe it's designed to counter blink stalkers, though it seems a little OP in the showmatch videos. The unit will not be scraped but definitely will be nerfed - 9 + 9vs armor instead of flat 18 damage; lower HP; shorter range; attacking ground unit only. Those are my guesses.
I totally agree with you about the deathball-disassembler unit for T. Usually T is in a huge disadvantage in late game because T's fighting P and Z's late game units with MMM. T should have the ability to defeat a well-established deathball instead of incessant harassments of MMM drops to slow the opponent down. I wish Blizzard could make a STUN spell - stunning a single unit for a few seconds, disabling it from attacking or moving - and replace ghost's snipe or raven's auto turrent with it.
On the other hand, with the hardened shield removal and the sieged tank pickup, it is possible to make mech the new normal in TvP. Without immortal, P still have blink stalkers and pheonix to counter tank, so it will be a fair play.
I'd say it's anti-colossus more than it is anti-blink. Near impossible to keep colossi alive against them unless you load it into a prism.
On November 20 2014 21:20 TedCruz2016 wrote: Anti-colossus? Are you kidding me? Last time I checked, cyclone's range is 5, which is only a half of upgraded colossus'.
Cyclones have more range when they lock-on it seems, and there is a range upgrade for the Cyclone. And upgraded Colossi currently have range 9, not 10, and in LotV at the moment they have 8.
On November 20 2014 21:20 TedCruz2016 wrote: Anti-colossus? Are you kidding me? Last time I checked, cyclone's range is 5, which is only a half of upgraded colossus'.
Cyclones have more range when they lock-on it seems, and there is a range upgrade for the Cyclone. And upgraded Colossi currently have range 9, not 10, and in LotV at the moment they have 8.
It's not finalized anyway. If it's really an anti-colossus unit, it may lose its ability to shoot and kite air unit thus P can go skytoss or do immortal/disruptor drop to harass. And by the way, is armory a requirement to produce cyclone? If the answer's yes, P will have plenty of time to react.
I've never understood this reasoning with regards to micro. It shows a misunderstanding of what people like to watch. You can watch something without understanding how it is done and be thoroughly impressed, simply because you know if you can't even understand it, it has to be even more difficult to perform. The thought that people who don't understand can't be impressed it's just absolutely the wrong approach. Dota has rulesets that are 100 times more complicated than those in SC. Even most of the hardcore players don't know how it all works at all. I don't know how it all works. In my ignorance it is easy to be impressed with Dota fights regardless. I don't need to know how it works to realize that the outcome is impressive. That itself is intriguing.
The most basic example is zealot probe micro vs lings in BW if you don't know how it works and you see 1 zealot and probes take out 10 zerglings your reaction will be "holy fuck how did he do that I didn't know that was possible that is amazing". This is a good thing. Opposed to the suggestion that someone watching that will be "well I don't know how that works that sucks". Please for the love of god forget the premise that you need to understand what you are watching. It's such a huge deal to where this game is going to go. If you don't understand you absolutely can and will be impressed, and if you do understand you will have even more appreciation. Casuals and hardcores alike will benefit more from it. There doesn't have to be an artificial separation in what both of those audiences like to watch. Listen to LaLuSh!
p.s. I do love the approach to having and defending more bases.
I'd love to see them reconsider the macro in the game. I know Starcraft is a macro game, but the game is simply frustrating to play when you aren't at least decent at the game. There are so many players who don't have the time to play this game every week, and I just don't see how this game is fun to play if you aren't going to fully commit to it.
It's still an amazing game to watch though, but if they really want to reach for the stars and start competing with the Moba games again, then this issue really needs to be fixed imo.
On November 20 2014 21:57 Jerom wrote: I'd love to see them reconsider the macro in the game. I know Starcraft is a macro game, but the game is simply frustrating to play when you aren't at least decent at the game. There are so many players who don't have the time to play this game every week, and I just don't see how this game is fun to play if you aren't going to fully commit to it.
It's still an amazing game to watch though, but if they really want to reach for the stars and start competing with the Moba games again, then this issue really needs to be fixed imo.
?? Assuming ladder does its job, your opponents should have roughly similar macro, so what do you mean?
On November 20 2014 21:20 TedCruz2016 wrote: Anti-colossus? Are you kidding me? Last time I checked, cyclone's range is 5, which is only a half of upgraded colossus'.
Cyclones have more range when they lock-on it seems, and there is a range upgrade for the Cyclone. And upgraded Colossi currently have range 9, not 10, and in LotV at the moment they have 8.
It's not finalized anyway. If it's really an anti-colossus unit, it may lose its ability to shoot and kite air unit thus P can go skytoss or do immortal/disruptor drop to harass. And by the way, is armory a requirement to produce cyclone? If the answer's yes, P will have plenty of time to react.
On November 20 2014 21:57 Jerom wrote: I'd love to see them reconsider the macro in the game. I know Starcraft is a macro game, but the game is simply frustrating to play when you aren't at least decent at the game. There are so many players who don't have the time to play this game every week, and I just don't see how this game is fun to play if you aren't going to fully commit to it.
It's still an amazing game to watch though, but if they really want to reach for the stars and start competing with the Moba games again, then this issue really needs to be fixed imo.
?? Assuming ladder does its job, your opponents should have roughly similar of macro, so what do you mean?
That unless you are really high on the ladder the more fun parts of the game hardly matter and the only thing you should do is macro better. You're in gold and you want to micro a drop? Well, you should just watch the minimap instead and build more SCVs! You want to fly around with mutas? Cool idea, but have you injected and creepspread already?
I think a huge deal of the popularity of allin builds on lower parts of the ladder is that they let you concentrate mostly on the fun - engagement/micro - parts of the game after you reached your allin-setup. Macro builds on the other hand consist of repetetive solo-play elements for the greatest part of the game, because that solo-play is much more important than the multiplayer part where you win by interacting.
On November 20 2014 21:20 TedCruz2016 wrote: Anti-colossus? Are you kidding me? Last time I checked, cyclone's range is 5, which is only a half of upgraded colossus'.
Cyclones have more range when they lock-on it seems, and there is a range upgrade for the Cyclone. And upgraded Colossi currently have range 9, not 10, and in LotV at the moment they have 8.
It's not finalized anyway. If it's really an anti-colossus unit, it may lose its ability to shoot and kite air unit thus P can go skytoss or do immortal/disruptor drop to harass. And by the way, is armory a requirement to produce cyclone? If the answer's yes, P will have plenty of time to react.
I just hope they remove/rework Cyclone (and SH and Collosus). Also I don't get how can anyone like Herc. It's almost exactly same unit like Chargelot with splash and without need to upgrde charge (wtf?). Isn't almost everyone sick of chargelots? Why would you add unit so similar to them???
On November 20 2014 07:28 Bohemond wrote: They keep talking about 'obvious micro.' Can anyone give me an example of micro that 'can't be seen?' I've been watching/playing this game for about three years now and I've never heard anyone in the community complain about this... issue... that Mr. Kim seems so desperate to avoid.
Same, I just don't understand what it refers to. And if they want to fix visual issues, why don't they start...
... by the very obvious? How many supply there at the first glance? Who's winning?
The most basic example is zealot probe micro vs lings in BW if you don't know how it works and you see 1 zealot and probes take out 10 zerglings your reaction will be "holy !@#$%^&* how did he do that I didn't know that was possible that is amazing".
I don't agree this fits the definition of not being visible if 1 zealot could take out 10 zerglings. I would say it's pretty apparent to viewers that the protoss player did something pretty amazing there
That's why I used the example of Thor-targgeting Mutalisks, as that was something which David Kim apparently wasn't a fan of. Thor targetting is something which you cannot identify as a viewer (easily) and it's also pretty difficult to assess the impact of a Thor targetting Mutalisks over 2-3 seconds during an engagement. But every time a certain type of micro has a noticeable impact on the outcome, it's per definition visible.
I think in reality SC2 is a bit closer to League in style and philosophy. Compositions are balanced in relation to each other.
I believe that we should be learned from Dota vs LOL isn't strongly related to balance, but rather how interactions are designed. Champion vs champions in League - unlike DOTA - are designed to have a lot of counterplay potential during engagements. The majority of abilities are carefully tweaked so a great player can dodge enemy abilities. Dota on the other hand is much more about positioning and being at the right time at the right place.
Starcraft in my opinion has an interaction that is much closer to DOTA, where preposition matters more than the micro during the engagement. The exception here is bio in TvZ, and it's not a coincidence that is the most beloved form of micro in the game. From my experience, what almost every Starcraft-fan want is to have more counterplay in the unit vs unit interactions.
While League indeed accomplishes counterplay-potential through abilities, the way to adapt that concept into Starcraft is through a proper rework of the core stats of the units. So obviously Blizzard shouldn't learn from League by adding in more abilities, but rather they should learn from League in terms of how you can create solid and fun interactions that are easy-to-earn/difficult-to-master through careful tweaking.
There's no concept of balancing for "equal power curves" (every hero needing to have equal strength and utility in all parts of a game,
And that fits well into Starcraft as well. There is a very big assymetry in the army strenght of zerg, toss and terran in the midgame. When one race is (a) much weaker, (b) has weak harass-options and (c) is immobile, it forces the race to play a passive turtlestyle, which noone enjoys watching. As an attempt to make "non all-in"-agression viable in PvZ, Blizzard attempted to solve this through a better escape mechanic in the Mothership Recall. But that's obviously just a very bad way of creating interesting interactions. It would be much better if the assymetry between zerg and toss in the mid was significantly reduced, so toss could put pressure on the zerg without being allin.
Dota can better get away with this due to the last-hitting/denying-mechanic, as it creates an incentive to still be out on the map. But for an RTS like Starcraft, you cannot have any noticeable assymetry in army strenght in the mid/early-game.
On November 20 2014 07:28 Bohemond wrote: They keep talking about 'obvious micro.' Can anyone give me an example of micro that 'can't be seen?' I've been watching/playing this game for about three years now and I've never heard anyone in the community complain about this... issue... that Mr. Kim seems so desperate to avoid.
Same, I just don't understand what it refers to. And if they want to fix visual issues, why don't they start...
... by the very obvious? How many supply there at the first glance? Who's winning?
Blue is winning
There are 13immortals under the 7Colossi of Yellow and only 4Immortals in front of the 6Colossi of blue
On November 20 2014 07:28 Bohemond wrote: They keep talking about 'obvious micro.' Can anyone give me an example of micro that 'can't be seen?' I've been watching/playing this game for about three years now and I've never heard anyone in the community complain about this... issue... that Mr. Kim seems so desperate to avoid.
Same, I just don't understand what it refers to. And if they want to fix visual issues, why don't they start...
... by the very obvious? How many supply there at the first glance? Who's winning?
Blue is winning
There are 13immortals under the 7Colossi of Yellow and only 4Immortals in front of the 6Colossi of blue
Well I just did some digging and I think I found the game (Classic vs Rain), and blue won, right?
On November 20 2014 07:28 Bohemond wrote: They keep talking about 'obvious micro.' Can anyone give me an example of micro that 'can't be seen?' I've been watching/playing this game for about three years now and I've never heard anyone in the community complain about this... issue... that Mr. Kim seems so desperate to avoid.
Same, I just don't understand what it refers to. And if they want to fix visual issues, why don't they start...
... by the very obvious? How many supply there at the first glance? Who's winning?
Blue is winning
There are 13immortals under the 7Colossi of Yellow and only 4Immortals in front of the 6Colossi of blue
Well I just did some digging and I think I found the game (Classic vs Rain), and blue won, right?
hehe, that's another way to understand who is winning
Blizzard cant give "concrete" statements because its pre alpha its would be PR suicide to make definite decisions this early when a lot of stuff will inevitably change, the most valuable information blizzard give isn't the changes them self, its the concepts and ideas behind the changes that are most intriguing.
The fact blizzard are even open to drastic changes to the game should be more than enough to make keep people optimistic about sc2 as a lot of there ideas are great in concept but need the rough edges shaved off (but that's what alpha/beta is for)
On November 20 2014 07:28 Bohemond wrote: They keep talking about 'obvious micro.' Can anyone give me an example of micro that 'can't be seen?' I've been watching/playing this game for about three years now and I've never heard anyone in the community complain about this... issue... that Mr. Kim seems so desperate to avoid.
Same, I just don't understand what it refers to. And if they want to fix visual issues, why don't they start...
... by the very obvious? How many supply there at the first glance? Who's winning?
Blue is winning
There are 13immortals under the 7Colossi of Yellow and only 4Immortals in front of the 6Colossi of blue
Well I just did some digging and I think I found the game (Classic vs Rain), and blue won, right?
hehe, that's another way to understand who is winning
Looking at the picture I thought blue was winning. He has a better arc, and he's about to warp behind the colossi of yellow which will allow for both lost shots of colossi and for an ability to target colossi faster than his opponents. His units are also more spread which means less aoe damage. What's not apparent in the picture is that yellow is also warping zealots close by, so blue will also lose shots, but I couldn't predict that.
After you came with that information which seemed surprising, I looked the game in the archives and found it. Yellow had 10 immortals vs 6, not 13 vs 4, and did indeed lose.
Now, if you showed me a snapshot of a TvT battle and asked me who was winning, I would be completely incapable of telling you that.
On November 20 2014 07:28 Bohemond wrote: They keep talking about 'obvious micro.' Can anyone give me an example of micro that 'can't be seen?' I've been watching/playing this game for about three years now and I've never heard anyone in the community complain about this... issue... that Mr. Kim seems so desperate to avoid.
Same, I just don't understand what it refers to. And if they want to fix visual issues, why don't they start...
... by the very obvious? How many supply there at the first glance? Who's winning?
Blue is winning
There are 13immortals under the 7Colossi of Yellow and only 4Immortals in front of the 6Colossi of blue
Well I just did some digging and I think I found the game (Classic vs Rain), and blue won, right?
hehe, that's another way to understand who is winning
Looking at the picture I thought blue was winning. He has a better arc, and he's about to warp behind the colossi of yellow which will allow for both lost shots of colossi and for an ability to target colossi faster than his opponents. His units are also more spread which means less aoe damage. What's not apparent in the picture is that yellow is also warping zealots close by, so blue will also lose shots, but I couldn't predict that.
After you came with that information which seemed surprising, I looked the game in the archives and found it. Yellow had 10 immortals vs 6, not 13 vs 4, and did indeed lose.
Now, if you showed me a snapshot of a TvT battle and asked me who was winning, I would be completely incapable of telling you that.
Sorry, I was actually just trolling about the possibility that there could be massive amounts of immortals under yellows Colossi. I actually didn't even think that yellow had an actually immortal advantage.
I agree, from the picture it looks like blue has an advantage through that prism and through splashing the Immortals and Colossi. But i think that's besides the point that The_Dwf was making. Which is that through all the big laser-effects and Colossi standing on top of other units it is really hard to determine what is going on.
On November 20 2014 07:28 Bohemond wrote: They keep talking about 'obvious micro.' Can anyone give me an example of micro that 'can't be seen?' I've been watching/playing this game for about three years now and I've never heard anyone in the community complain about this... issue... that Mr. Kim seems so desperate to avoid.
Same, I just don't understand what it refers to. And if they want to fix visual issues, why don't they start...
... by the very obvious? How many supply there at the first glance? Who's winning?
Blue is winning
There are 13immortals under the 7Colossi of Yellow and only 4Immortals in front of the 6Colossi of blue
Well I just did some digging and I think I found the game (Classic vs Rain), and blue won, right?
hehe, that's another way to understand who is winning
Looking at the picture I thought blue was winning. He has a better arc, and he's about to warp behind the colossi of yellow which will allow for both lost shots of colossi and for an ability to target colossi faster than his opponents. His units are also more spread which means less aoe damage. What's not apparent in the picture is that yellow is also warping zealots close by, so blue will also lose shots, but I couldn't predict that.
After you came with that information which seemed surprising, I looked the game in the archives and found it. Yellow had 10 immortals vs 6, not 13 vs 4, and did indeed lose.
Now, if you showed me a snapshot of a TvT battle and asked me who was winning, I would be completely incapable of telling you that.
Sorry, I was actually just trolling about the possibility that there could be massive amounts of immortals under yellows Colossi. I actually didn't even think that yellow had an actually immortal advantage.
I agree, from the picture it looks like blue has an advantage through that prism and through splashing the Immortals and Colossi. But i think that's besides the point that The_Dwf was making. Which is that through all the big laser-effects and Colossi standing on top of other units it is really hard to determine what is going on.
Sure but my counterpoint is that caring about what's going on is the most important part of understanding it. As someone who doesn't care about TvT I generally won't be able to tell you who's winning fights, and I don't think it'll change if you make TvT fights 'easier to understand' or something like that.
The most basic example is zealot probe micro vs lings in BW if you don't know how it works and you see 1 zealot and probes take out 10 zerglings your reaction will be "holy !@#$%^&* how did he do that I didn't know that was possible that is amazing".
I don't agree this fits the definition of not being visible if 1 zealot could take out 10 zerglings. I would say it's pretty apparent to viewers that the protoss player did something pretty amazing there
That's why I used the example of Thor-targgeting Mutalisks, as that was something which David Kim apparently wasn't a fan of. Thor targetting is something which you cannot identify as a viewer (easily) and it's also pretty difficult to assess the impact of a Thor targetting Mutalisks over 2-3 seconds during an engagement. But every time a certain type of micro has a noticeable impact on the outcome, it's per definition visible.
I think we aren't talking about the same thing. You are comparing probes dying as visible to a targeting command. What I am saying viewers don't need to understand how micro works or why it was effective. In my example you aren't talking about something as simple as focus fire. You are talking about deep and complicated micro moves such as mineral stacking, hold commands, using zergling attack priority (zealots came first in BW). These are not visible to a casual viewer but it will be intriguing to see a zealot and some probes win the battle. The winner is visible to the casual even though he doesn't understand the micro involved. My point is that understanding the micro is not a good factor to measure viewer enjoyment if they can understand the outcome. Your point is more based only on seeing or not seeing the outcome.
On November 20 2014 07:28 Bohemond wrote: They keep talking about 'obvious micro.' Can anyone give me an example of micro that 'can't be seen?' I've been watching/playing this game for about three years now and I've never heard anyone in the community complain about this... issue... that Mr. Kim seems so desperate to avoid.
Same, I just don't understand what it refers to. And if they want to fix visual issues, why don't they start...
... by the very obvious? How many supply there at the first glance? Who's winning?
Blue is winning
There are 13immortals under the 7Colossi of Yellow and only 4Immortals in front of the 6Colossi of blue
Well I just did some digging and I think I found the game (Classic vs Rain), and blue won, right?
hehe, that's another way to understand who is winning
Looking at the picture I thought blue was winning. He has a better arc, and he's about to warp behind the colossi of yellow which will allow for both lost shots of colossi and for an ability to target colossi faster than his opponents. His units are also more spread which means less aoe damage. What's not apparent in the picture is that yellow is also warping zealots close by, so blue will also lose shots, but I couldn't predict that.
After you came with that information which seemed surprising, I looked the game in the archives and found it. Yellow had 10 immortals vs 6, not 13 vs 4, and did indeed lose.
Now, if you showed me a snapshot of a TvT battle and asked me who was winning, I would be completely incapable of telling you that.
Sorry, I was actually just trolling about the possibility that there could be massive amounts of immortals under yellows Colossi. I actually didn't even think that yellow had an actually immortal advantage.
I agree, from the picture it looks like blue has an advantage through that prism and through splashing the Immortals and Colossi. But i think that's besides the point that The_Dwf was making. Which is that through all the big laser-effects and Colossi standing on top of other units it is really hard to determine what is going on.
Sure but my counterpoint is that caring about what's going on is the most important part of understanding it. As someone who doesn't care about TvT I generally won't be able to tell you who's winning fights, and I don't think it'll change if you make TvT fights 'easier to understand' or something like that.
The thing is that regardless of whether you care or not, when I give you a picture of TvT you can usually just count all the units on the picture. On the shown PvP picture I can't even determine the count of medium units like Archons/Immortals. There are way too many effects to get a clear picture - regardless of whether you understand PvP - to just see the action. That's the point, long before we talk about understanding it, it isn't really possible to just watch details of the battle.
The most basic example is zealot probe micro vs lings in BW if you don't know how it works and you see 1 zealot and probes take out 10 zerglings your reaction will be "holy !@#$%^&* how did he do that I didn't know that was possible that is amazing".
I don't agree this fits the definition of not being visible if 1 zealot could take out 10 zerglings. I would say it's pretty apparent to viewers that the protoss player did something pretty amazing there
That's why I used the example of Thor-targgeting Mutalisks, as that was something which David Kim apparently wasn't a fan of. Thor targetting is something which you cannot identify as a viewer (easily) and it's also pretty difficult to assess the impact of a Thor targetting Mutalisks over 2-3 seconds during an engagement. But every time a certain type of micro has a noticeable impact on the outcome, it's per definition visible.
I think we aren't talking about the same thing. You are comparing probes dying as visible to a targeting command. What I am saying viewers don't need to understand how micro works or why it was effective. In my example you aren't talking about something as simple as focus fire. You are talking about deep and complicated micro moves such as mineral stacking, hold commands, using zergling attack priority (zealots came first in BW). These are not visible to a casual viewer but it will be intriguing to see a zealot and some probes win the battle. The winner is visible to the casual even though he doesn't understand the micro involved. My point is that understanding the micro is not a good factor to measure viewer enjoyment if they can understand the outcome. Your point is more based only on seeing or not seeing the outcome.
You wrote that you did not understand the reasoning with regards to micro, so I assumed you was referring to David Kim's visible micro (?) As I tried to argue, visible micro doesn't imply that every viewer knows exactly what happened. Instead, it implies that it should be easy for viewers to identify skill + they can asses the effect the micro had on the outcome of the engagement.
So we don't disagree here (I think), but I am just a bit confused who you were referering to with that comment (if it wasn't David Kim?).
On November 20 2014 07:28 Bohemond wrote: They keep talking about 'obvious micro.' Can anyone give me an example of micro that 'can't be seen?' I've been watching/playing this game for about three years now and I've never heard anyone in the community complain about this... issue... that Mr. Kim seems so desperate to avoid.
Same, I just don't understand what it refers to. And if they want to fix visual issues, why don't they start...
... by the very obvious? How many supply there at the first glance? Who's winning?
Blue is winning
There are 13immortals under the 7Colossi of Yellow and only 4Immortals in front of the 6Colossi of blue
Well I just did some digging and I think I found the game (Classic vs Rain), and blue won, right?
hehe, that's another way to understand who is winning
Looking at the picture I thought blue was winning. He has a better arc, and he's about to warp behind the colossi of yellow which will allow for both lost shots of colossi and for an ability to target colossi faster than his opponents. His units are also more spread which means less aoe damage. What's not apparent in the picture is that yellow is also warping zealots close by, so blue will also lose shots, but I couldn't predict that.
After you came with that information which seemed surprising, I looked the game in the archives and found it. Yellow had 10 immortals vs 6, not 13 vs 4, and did indeed lose.
Now, if you showed me a snapshot of a TvT battle and asked me who was winning, I would be completely incapable of telling you that.
Sorry, I was actually just trolling about the possibility that there could be massive amounts of immortals under yellows Colossi. I actually didn't even think that yellow had an actually immortal advantage.
I agree, from the picture it looks like blue has an advantage through that prism and through splashing the Immortals and Colossi. But i think that's besides the point that The_Dwf was making. Which is that through all the big laser-effects and Colossi standing on top of other units it is really hard to determine what is going on.
Sure but my counterpoint is that caring about what's going on is the most important part of understanding it. As someone who doesn't care about TvT I generally won't be able to tell you who's winning fights, and I don't think it'll change if you make TvT fights 'easier to understand' or something like that.
The thing is that regardless of whether you care or not, when I give you a picture of TvT you can usually just count all the units on the picture. On the shown PvP picture I can't even determine the count of medium units like Archons/Immortals. There are way too many effects to get a clear picture - regardless of whether you understand PvP - to just see the action. That's the point, long before we talk about understanding it, it isn't really possible to just watch details of the battle.
For a strict spectator it comes down to being able to tell intuitively who has more units or who is better positioned, and that's something I can do in PvP and not in TvT. Correct me if I'm wrong, but people don't pause the game to count the exact numbers unless they're analyzing it.
To put it another way, if you make PvP visually easier, I don't know that the number of people "understanding what's going on" will increase dramatically.
On November 20 2014 07:31 TheDwf wrote: [quote] Same, I just don't understand what it refers to. And if they want to fix visual issues, why don't they start...
... by the very obvious? How many supply there at the first glance? Who's winning?
Blue is winning
There are 13immortals under the 7Colossi of Yellow and only 4Immortals in front of the 6Colossi of blue
Well I just did some digging and I think I found the game (Classic vs Rain), and blue won, right?
hehe, that's another way to understand who is winning
Looking at the picture I thought blue was winning. He has a better arc, and he's about to warp behind the colossi of yellow which will allow for both lost shots of colossi and for an ability to target colossi faster than his opponents. His units are also more spread which means less aoe damage. What's not apparent in the picture is that yellow is also warping zealots close by, so blue will also lose shots, but I couldn't predict that.
After you came with that information which seemed surprising, I looked the game in the archives and found it. Yellow had 10 immortals vs 6, not 13 vs 4, and did indeed lose.
Now, if you showed me a snapshot of a TvT battle and asked me who was winning, I would be completely incapable of telling you that.
Sorry, I was actually just trolling about the possibility that there could be massive amounts of immortals under yellows Colossi. I actually didn't even think that yellow had an actually immortal advantage.
I agree, from the picture it looks like blue has an advantage through that prism and through splashing the Immortals and Colossi. But i think that's besides the point that The_Dwf was making. Which is that through all the big laser-effects and Colossi standing on top of other units it is really hard to determine what is going on.
Sure but my counterpoint is that caring about what's going on is the most important part of understanding it. As someone who doesn't care about TvT I generally won't be able to tell you who's winning fights, and I don't think it'll change if you make TvT fights 'easier to understand' or something like that.
The thing is that regardless of whether you care or not, when I give you a picture of TvT you can usually just count all the units on the picture. On the shown PvP picture I can't even determine the count of medium units like Archons/Immortals. There are way too many effects to get a clear picture - regardless of whether you understand PvP - to just see the action. That's the point, long before we talk about understanding it, it isn't really possible to just watch details of the battle.
For a strict spectator it comes down to being able to tell intuitively who has more units or who is better positioned, and that's something I can do in PvP and not in TvT. Correct me if I'm wrong, but people don't pause the game to count the exact numbers unless they're analyzing it.
To put it another way, if you make PvP visually easier, I don't know that the number of people understanding what's going on will increase dramatically.
Well, you don't need exact numbers. That's really just putting it into the extreme that "even if you can pause the game you don't know who has what". In action it is all about getting vague numbers and those are still very hard to find out when looking at this combat in action.
On November 21 2014 00:47 mishimaBeef wrote: People expect your units to attack not run around aimlessy fighting the AI. For the most part sc2 does this much better than bw.
Yes, but in the same time if you a-move them accross the map (say a group of lings) they'll ignore the one marine shooting at them from behind, and in SC2 the lings will oddly all go towards that one from the back shooting Marine
If you have 50 lings and a-move across the map - then they'll all trigger to the nearest firing at them unit which is a bit w.t.f. honestly
It's basically - nope - can't go across the map, gotta deal with the threat first even if it's just one hellion or just one marine.. And like - all 50 of them will go to chase that marine
Same with Mutalisks - attack that base, but a-move cause would like to macro at home for a bit while moving, nope - all the mutalisks will find the nearest f*cker even if behind them and go attack it, which is really bad and annoying I think
If moving across the map is critical, use move command until you are near your target. Now, of course if you are moving over enemy territory you better be ready to retreat (i.e. muta running into marine pack).
But what I refer to is like in bw having 3 zealots a-move into your pack of 1-2 marine and scv which typically ends in the zealots running around not getting off 1 shot (unless manually targetting scvs, and assuming the marines keep running around or are blocked off by scvs). I guess this is just a consequence of priority targeting and how it works with respect to workers in brood war.
As far as resourcing is concerned, right now, we’d like to specifically target a change where players need to spread their bases out more so that there’s a lot more action going on. We believe this will have two benefits: players going on the offense will have more attacking options, and players on the defense can show off their defending skill better since they have to defend a much wider area now.
But Protoss is still insanely immobile compared to Terran and Zerg We'll be pulled apart, left and right x.x
What I hope this means is that we'll get a massive make-over.
What I'm afraid this means is that we'll get two mothership cores.
Well the campaign preview showed some amazing tileset. It also looks like they are going for a more "diablo-ish" style with smoother edges and such. In some frames it doesnt even look like sc2 ! Honestly im pretty excited to play around with the new stuff :D
On November 21 2014 01:51 IeZaeL wrote: Well the campaign preview showed some amazing tileset. It also looks like they are going for a more "diablo-ish" style with smoother edges and such. In some frames it doesnt even look like sc2 ! Honestly im pretty excited to play around with the new stuff :D
I might even be able to make something that looks good!
On November 21 2014 01:51 IeZaeL wrote: Well the campaign preview showed some amazing tileset. It also looks like they are going for a more "diablo-ish" style with smoother edges and such. In some frames it doesnt even look like sc2 ! Honestly im pretty excited to play around with the new stuff :D
I might even be able to make something that looks good!
That one ice map we played on wasn't bad, looked like something Blizzard would have made (there's a pun in there somewhere)
As far as resourcing is concerned, right now, we’d like to specifically target a change where players need to spread their bases out more so that there’s a lot more action going on. We believe this will have two benefits: players going on the offense will have more attacking options, and players on the defense can show off their defending skill better since they have to defend a much wider area now.
But Protoss is still insanely immobile compared to Terran and Zerg We'll be pulled apart, left and right x.x
What I hope this means is that we'll get a massive make-over.
What I'm afraid this means is that we'll get two mothership cores.
...but what if you could merge the two into one super archon ship!!!
yeah, I'd love to see the msc removed and protoss become less reliant on two spells for defense
On November 21 2014 01:36 Blackrobe wrote: Will Legacy also bring graphical improvements like HotS did?
Besides new physics, what did HotS bring again. My memory isn't that great :p
iirc It was physics, zerg unit animations, creep, and a texture upgrade.
I wish there were more to it, hots seems to have more exciting graphic changes that make you go wow such as the ultra charge. The physical rigdoll effect is so very nice
Honestly I wish there were more to the lotv announcement for this kinda improvement. The hots announcement was huge, the ultra charge looked so fun for example
It looked as if hots had more ambitious changes elsewhere (thought I don't mind they focus on game play but both changes together would be nice)
On November 20 2014 07:28 Bohemond wrote: They keep talking about 'obvious micro.' Can anyone give me an example of micro that 'can't be seen?' I've been watching/playing this game for about three years now and I've never heard anyone in the community complain about this... issue... that Mr. Kim seems so desperate to avoid.
Same, I just don't understand what it refers to. And if they want to fix visual issues, why don't they start...
... by the very obvious? How many supply there at the first glance? Who's winning?
That picture shows one of the worst things about SC2 and IMO what makes the game difficult to fallow. On many occasions it's impossible to really tell what the Hell you are looking at and you need 100 different tabs to make sense of it all.
I don't know what needs to be done but the mess of colors that blow up 3 seconds later is super poor for a lot of spectator, not just potential new ones. Removing the Colossus should be a priority.
There are 13immortals under the 7Colossi of Yellow and only 4Immortals in front of the 6Colossi of blue
Well I just did some digging and I think I found the game (Classic vs Rain), and blue won, right?
hehe, that's another way to understand who is winning
Looking at the picture I thought blue was winning. He has a better arc, and he's about to warp behind the colossi of yellow which will allow for both lost shots of colossi and for an ability to target colossi faster than his opponents. His units are also more spread which means less aoe damage. What's not apparent in the picture is that yellow is also warping zealots close by, so blue will also lose shots, but I couldn't predict that.
After you came with that information which seemed surprising, I looked the game in the archives and found it. Yellow had 10 immortals vs 6, not 13 vs 4, and did indeed lose.
Now, if you showed me a snapshot of a TvT battle and asked me who was winning, I would be completely incapable of telling you that.
Sorry, I was actually just trolling about the possibility that there could be massive amounts of immortals under yellows Colossi. I actually didn't even think that yellow had an actually immortal advantage.
I agree, from the picture it looks like blue has an advantage through that prism and through splashing the Immortals and Colossi. But i think that's besides the point that The_Dwf was making. Which is that through all the big laser-effects and Colossi standing on top of other units it is really hard to determine what is going on.
Sure but my counterpoint is that caring about what's going on is the most important part of understanding it. As someone who doesn't care about TvT I generally won't be able to tell you who's winning fights, and I don't think it'll change if you make TvT fights 'easier to understand' or something like that.
The thing is that regardless of whether you care or not, when I give you a picture of TvT you can usually just count all the units on the picture. On the shown PvP picture I can't even determine the count of medium units like Archons/Immortals. There are way too many effects to get a clear picture - regardless of whether you understand PvP - to just see the action. That's the point, long before we talk about understanding it, it isn't really possible to just watch details of the battle.
For a strict spectator it comes down to being able to tell intuitively who has more units or who is better positioned, and that's something I can do in PvP and not in TvT. Correct me if I'm wrong, but people don't pause the game to count the exact numbers unless they're analyzing it.
To put it another way, if you make PvP visually easier, I don't know that the number of people understanding what's going on will increase dramatically.
Well, you don't need exact numbers. That's really just putting it into the extreme that "even if you can pause the game you don't know who has what". In action it is all about getting vague numbers and those are still very hard to find out when looking at this combat in action.
We basically said the same thing there, so I'm not sure how you arrive to the opposite conclusion. If what you need is a general sense of what people have and what's going on, then surely the way the battle looks like won't change much. People who like PvP will understand what's going on, but well, they already did. People who didn't like it will keep not liking it, and so they won't make the effort anymore than they did. As someone who can clearly see all of the units in TvT battles, I can report that it doesn't increase my interest.
On November 20 2014 23:38 Big J wrote: [quote] There are 13immortals under the 7Colossi of Yellow and only 4Immortals in front of the 6Colossi of blue
Well I just did some digging and I think I found the game (Classic vs Rain), and blue won, right?
hehe, that's another way to understand who is winning
Looking at the picture I thought blue was winning. He has a better arc, and he's about to warp behind the colossi of yellow which will allow for both lost shots of colossi and for an ability to target colossi faster than his opponents. His units are also more spread which means less aoe damage. What's not apparent in the picture is that yellow is also warping zealots close by, so blue will also lose shots, but I couldn't predict that.
After you came with that information which seemed surprising, I looked the game in the archives and found it. Yellow had 10 immortals vs 6, not 13 vs 4, and did indeed lose.
Now, if you showed me a snapshot of a TvT battle and asked me who was winning, I would be completely incapable of telling you that.
Sorry, I was actually just trolling about the possibility that there could be massive amounts of immortals under yellows Colossi. I actually didn't even think that yellow had an actually immortal advantage.
I agree, from the picture it looks like blue has an advantage through that prism and through splashing the Immortals and Colossi. But i think that's besides the point that The_Dwf was making. Which is that through all the big laser-effects and Colossi standing on top of other units it is really hard to determine what is going on.
Sure but my counterpoint is that caring about what's going on is the most important part of understanding it. As someone who doesn't care about TvT I generally won't be able to tell you who's winning fights, and I don't think it'll change if you make TvT fights 'easier to understand' or something like that.
The thing is that regardless of whether you care or not, when I give you a picture of TvT you can usually just count all the units on the picture. On the shown PvP picture I can't even determine the count of medium units like Archons/Immortals. There are way too many effects to get a clear picture - regardless of whether you understand PvP - to just see the action. That's the point, long before we talk about understanding it, it isn't really possible to just watch details of the battle.
For a strict spectator it comes down to being able to tell intuitively who has more units or who is better positioned, and that's something I can do in PvP and not in TvT. Correct me if I'm wrong, but people don't pause the game to count the exact numbers unless they're analyzing it.
To put it another way, if you make PvP visually easier, I don't know that the number of people understanding what's going on will increase dramatically.
Well, you don't need exact numbers. That's really just putting it into the extreme that "even if you can pause the game you don't know who has what". In action it is all about getting vague numbers and those are still very hard to find out when looking at this combat in action.
We basically said the same thing there, so I'm not sure how you arrive to the opposite conclusion. If what you need is a general sense of what people have and what's going on, then surely the way the battle looks like won't change much. People who like PvP will understand what's going on, but well, they already did. People who didn't like it will keep not liking it, and so they won't make the effort anymore than they did. As someone who can clearly see all of the units in TvT battles, I can report that it doesn't increase my interest.
I also don't think it's particularly relevant whether you can see all units or not. Rather, it's important that you can identify when something important/impressive occurs. PvP is just a mess there.
On November 20 2014 23:38 Big J wrote: [quote] There are 13immortals under the 7Colossi of Yellow and only 4Immortals in front of the 6Colossi of blue
Well I just did some digging and I think I found the game (Classic vs Rain), and blue won, right?
hehe, that's another way to understand who is winning
Looking at the picture I thought blue was winning. He has a better arc, and he's about to warp behind the colossi of yellow which will allow for both lost shots of colossi and for an ability to target colossi faster than his opponents. His units are also more spread which means less aoe damage. What's not apparent in the picture is that yellow is also warping zealots close by, so blue will also lose shots, but I couldn't predict that.
After you came with that information which seemed surprising, I looked the game in the archives and found it. Yellow had 10 immortals vs 6, not 13 vs 4, and did indeed lose.
Now, if you showed me a snapshot of a TvT battle and asked me who was winning, I would be completely incapable of telling you that.
Sorry, I was actually just trolling about the possibility that there could be massive amounts of immortals under yellows Colossi. I actually didn't even think that yellow had an actually immortal advantage.
I agree, from the picture it looks like blue has an advantage through that prism and through splashing the Immortals and Colossi. But i think that's besides the point that The_Dwf was making. Which is that through all the big laser-effects and Colossi standing on top of other units it is really hard to determine what is going on.
Sure but my counterpoint is that caring about what's going on is the most important part of understanding it. As someone who doesn't care about TvT I generally won't be able to tell you who's winning fights, and I don't think it'll change if you make TvT fights 'easier to understand' or something like that.
The thing is that regardless of whether you care or not, when I give you a picture of TvT you can usually just count all the units on the picture. On the shown PvP picture I can't even determine the count of medium units like Archons/Immortals. There are way too many effects to get a clear picture - regardless of whether you understand PvP - to just see the action. That's the point, long before we talk about understanding it, it isn't really possible to just watch details of the battle.
For a strict spectator it comes down to being able to tell intuitively who has more units or who is better positioned, and that's something I can do in PvP and not in TvT. Correct me if I'm wrong, but people don't pause the game to count the exact numbers unless they're analyzing it.
To put it another way, if you make PvP visually easier, I don't know that the number of people understanding what's going on will increase dramatically.
Well, you don't need exact numbers. That's really just putting it into the extreme that "even if you can pause the game you don't know who has what". In action it is all about getting vague numbers and those are still very hard to find out when looking at this combat in action.
We basically said the same thing there, so I'm not sure how you arrive to the opposite conclusion. If what you need is a general sense of what people have and what's going on, then surely the way the battle looks like won't change much. People who like PvP will understand what's going on, but well, they already did. People who didn't like it will keep not liking it, and so they won't make the effort anymore than they did. As someone who can clearly see all of the units in TvT battles, I can report that it doesn't increase my interest.
I think it is just visually displeasing and has negative effects (even if usually small) for gameplay such as precise clicks on units that are partly covered under big animations. That's my entire point. It's not as much about the understanding what is happening, just seeing what is going on. Like, just tone down the Colossus lasors are little bit for example.
I think we have had a few maps over which people have been rightfully complaining because of too much glowing stuff. This is the same. It's just makes stuff harder to follow for no good reason.
As far as resourcing is concerned, right now, we’d like to specifically target a change where players need to spread their bases out more so that there’s a lot more action going on. We believe this will have two benefits: players going on the offense will have more attacking options, and players on the defense can show off their defending skill better since they have to defend a much wider area now.
But Protoss is still insanely immobile compared to Terran and Zerg We'll be pulled apart, left and right x.x
What I hope this means is that we'll get a massive make-over.
What I'm afraid this means is that we'll get two mothership cores.
So awesome :D
I actually think that it would be a reasonable option to remove the uniqueness restruction of the msc so that it becomes a regular unit, that would give protoss real reliable hit and run potential and better defense ability.
Without everything riding on one single unique unit.
I would be so happy happy if they dropped the whole mothership notion. Just call that thing energycore and make it a support unit (maybe remove the attack). OR kill the unit and give recall to the Nexus - one of the coolest ideas in Starbow is the Nexus ability to recall units but only 5 at a time, which will actually make more Nexi more useful and will boost small attack squads.
Exploring ways to reduce micro in the game that can’t really be seen vs. increasing micro that players can show off.
I would like to get an example of the bolded part, workers are already heavily automated..
For me that would be for example the corrupt ability, the voidray ability, as well as movement related stuff like moving shot. Plus, as has been said, the point to take away is that they only want to add more visibly recognizable micro options.
There are also some things to consider about the economy/worker changes: - less minerals per base means that the payback per expansion is much smaller, which will actually make static defense much less cost effective - that in turn might either further more 1 base all-in's (which would have a much smaller timing window now) - or lead to more low tech/ low tier battles since resources are theoretically more valuable now due to the lower investment/return ratio - since you will still need to expand you have to save money and that may come from not teching and skipping static defense (or doing both to a lower degree) - there is nothing to indicate thate rushes or buildorder variation will disappear, you still have the choice of investing into 1.eco(worker,geyser), 2.expanding 3.doing any kind of aggressive build. only the specific timings and numbers will change.
If that will help the game or not can't really be determined without testing.
I like what they do, I just hope they don't roll back on all the big changes.
We should stop making conclusions about incorrect data but continue fruitless discussion of incorrect data? Little frustrated with that catch 22. Feel free to give us any updated data then, we won't bite anymore than we already are doing.
On November 21 2014 09:15 Cloak wrote: We should stop making conclusions about incorrect data but continue fruitless discussion of incorrect data? Little frustrated with that catch 22. Feel free to give us any updated data then, we won't bite anymore than we already are doing.
I dont know what to tell you other than theorycraft and wait for beta
Beta will look much different than what you saw at BlizzCon
Thank you.
That's all that actually matters from what was said.
Blizzard is totally clueless when to balancing. We learn that every time Blizzard releases a RTS game, they ignore the community, then end up giving them what they want months later after realizing it was the right thing to do, but still claim credit.
Right, because 'the community' speaks with one voice and has always been correct.
That's not how I remember it. I remember the community being mostly wrong, and the ones who were right mostly being right for reasons other than the ones they used to justify their opinions
Blizzard understand that an RTS is *impossible* to design on paper. The best you can do is throw in big changes to shake things up, hopefully into a new and interesting place, and then make progressively smaller tweaks to home in on the goodness.
Beta will look much different than what you saw at BlizzCon
Thank you.
That's all that actually matters from what was said.
Blizzard is totally clueless when to balancing. We learn that every time Blizzard releases a RTS game, they ignore the community, then end up giving them what they want months later after realizing it was the right thing to do, but still claim credit.
Right, because 'the community' speaks with one voice and has always been correct.
That's not how I remember it. I remember the community being mostly wrong, and the ones who were right mostly being right for reasons other than the ones they used to justify their opinions
Blizzard understand that an RTS is *impossible* to design on paper. The best you can do is throw in big changes to shake things up, hopefully into a new and interesting place, and then make progressively smaller tweaks to home in on the goodness.
On November 21 2014 09:15 Cloak wrote: We should stop making conclusions about incorrect data but continue fruitless discussion of incorrect data? Little frustrated with that catch 22. Feel free to give us any updated data then, we won't bite anymore than we already are doing.
I dont know what to tell you other than theorycraft and wait for beta
Blizzard seeks feedback of their new DESIGNs, not balance - or imbalamce. So far, ravager and lurker are the only new units that everyone gives compliments to, while other changes are ruthlessly cricitized, especially the cyclone and corrupter's "void ray" attack.
On November 21 2014 12:29 tshi wrote: The cyclone really says a lot about what is going on over there.
The idea is good. What's next is just some adjustment of its statistics to make it not seem so OP.
I don't get why the cyclone needs to have bonus damage when it's locked on to a target, maybe someone asked DK at Blizzcon or something I don't know.
The thing about the cyclone IMO is that Blizz played PR over us a bit
They basically made the unit and said - hey Terran players - here's your Mech bread & butter unit - the Marine 2.0 - without even giving the role to the unit so they could "buy time" to keep the door shut to the public a bit longer I think
Basically they didn't commit to any decision regarding the unit, just kept it as OP so people would have "fun" with it.. Oh well
It's basically a PR thing - it's annoying but it's PR thing, it's a "have more options open" tactic with relation to us all
BUT as a result - instead of us having a good "grasp" and a positive discussion about the unit - we're just "speculating" or flaming each other (most of the time actually), which is a bit saddening when you think of it.. :\
I'm concerned about the design choices of several of the units. The stats don't really matter, I'm convinced they can be balanced. The issue is that I see no function for these units in the game unless they are overpowered.
Consider the Cyclone: it's a mobile kiting unit. It is fast, with long range, and high single target DPS. The mobility and attacking while shooting function makes it exceptional at wearing down small forces and picking off units in the early game. Great: the problem is that other units fill the same role, like the hellion. The hellion is better at harassing worker lines, and is a more versatile unit with its hellbat transformation. the cyclone as designed is more of an anti-protoss unit: it has neither the splash or DPS to kill off speedlings, but hellions do. Protoss has no such response early game, and thus the cyclone will destroy everything Protoss. The unit therefore serves as an early game map control unit in the matchup: Protoss cannot move onto the map without bleeding units, so they have to stay at home behind forcefields in the early game.
The problem with that is that it means that toss has no early game aggression, and is still weak in the mid-game. Also the fact that early cyclone builds are committed to before scouting can inform a toss about them, meaning that toss has to assume cyclones until after they scout, so they have to play defensive early game.
If the cyclone's damage is nerfed so that it can't just murder protoss units, then it would take a concerted amount of them to take map control early on, and their function is neutered effectively, because terran already has a variety of tactics that do that just as well, like hellion drops, which force protoss to keep defense at home just by being on the map.
If this unit is balanced, it doesn't do anything needed, it needs to be overpowered as designed to be useful.
The same I fear is true of this new Protoss unit, the disruptor. Enemies can simply run away from it easily enough and then kill it instantly after it's attack fails. It serves no useful purpose as a harass because of how easy it is to escape. It's only function is to add to the protoss deathball during engagements by chasing down enemies and force them to run away or die, meaning their DPS is lowered briefly. This is an expensive function for a unit that will die pretty much immediately after, so the unit needs to be inexpensive for this to be useful. It also does nothing storms don't already do: AoE damage in a specific location to force splits or a disengage. Protoss has better harass options, especially with the new warp prism, and better AoE units that can be kept alive: toss units other than zealots are too expensive to sacrifice like that. Unless the unit is way too strong, it's design means it has no useful function.
New units shouldn't be added just for the sake of having new units, they need a function that doesn't require obscene strength to fulfill. The warhound was removed for just this reason: it's a marauder from the factory (fulfilled no new function) that was only used because it was overpowered compared to the marauder. The swarm host also did not fulfill a new role, it simply supplanted the role previously taken by brood lords by being exceptionally strong at it. It's no coincidence that it's pretty much the least popular unit in the game.
The same applies to the herc: it has no new role to fill, so it has to be too strong to have a function. If you make it balanced, you might as well use hellbats instead, or else the hellbat won't be used.
The Ravager has a role to fill and is an okay unit design, I'm concerned about the balance of the unit but have no complaints about the design of it. I don't think zerg should have forcefield crushing ability in the early game: their production and cost efficient units (not supply efficient, but zerglings and roaches are more cost efficient than zealots and stalkers by far) means that protoss needs forcefields early on in the game to hold aggression. By forcing the races to expand sooner than previously, you're spreading people out, making forcefields more mandatory. However, this is a balance concern, not a design concern, so this unit is fine for now.
I don't think lurkers are needed, they serve the same role as burrowed banelings for the most part, but I'm pretty okay with them.
I'm fairly concerned that most of the new units by design are either too hard to respond to, or too easy to respond to. The lurker in SC2 (you can already test it in the map editor or the HOTS campaign) is trivial to micro against, as is the disruptor (unless it gets a crazy speed boost, in which case it's probably OP). The Herc doesn't really have counter micro: it grapples you and is in your face already. The cyclone can be counter micro'd, but not before blink for protoss, as the damn things even murder stargate units. The only response is to turtle against it.
Compared to a better interaction, zerglings vs hellions: zerglings are faster with speed and can surround hellions, killing them easily. The hellions do enough damage in a line and are fast enough to do some effective kiting, making it expensive. Thus, hellions can hold map control briefly, but the zerg can just shut them down once they decide they need to without too much risk.
Disappointing. They say both "hey nothing is balanced because we're trying crazy things!" When it comes to units and "we're not gonna change too much" when it comes to eco. Put your money where your mouth is and look at some real changes.
I know this goes against your very nature as online being, but if you don't mind, please try to muster a minimal amount of common sense before you spew nonsense onto the forums. The idiocy we are forced to read for many hours a week is just getting us all down, and makes us lose hope in humanity. We believe that you are not all actually stupid deep down, so with some basic rational thinking on your behalf maybe we will be able to get some useful feedback that will not make us want to kill ourselves, or you, or both.
On November 21 2014 15:03 Lobotomist wrote: Disappointing. They say both "hey nothing is balanced because we're trying crazy things!" When it comes to units and "we're not gonna change too much" when it comes to eco. Put your money where your mouth is and look at some real changes.
There're a million ways to balance. For example, on a U-shaped map where two spawning spots are very far from each other by ground but close by air, it would be a tremendous buff for all air units and drops but a nerf for normal ground units. BC, Broodlorad and Tempest's low mobility is no longer a critical weakness as they can reach the enemy bases straight out of the production buildings while ground units have to travel a long way.
I know this goes against your very nature as online being, but if you don't mind, please try to muster a minimal amount of common sense before you spew nonsense onto the forums. The idiocy we are forced to read for many hours a week is just getting us all down, and makes us lose hope in humanity. We believe that you are not all actually stupid deep down, so with some basic rational thinking on your behalf maybe we will be able to get some useful feedback that will not make us want to kill ourselves, or you, or both.
Just a thought.
Good luck and have fun, David Kim
Sounds like a good sum up ! Or, in even fewer words: "Chill the fuck down people, it's only an alpha."
On November 21 2014 15:08 Cascade wrote: What I read between the lines is:
Dear online community,
I know this goes against your very nature as online being, but if you don't mind, please try to muster a minimal amount of common sense before you spew nonsense onto the forums. The idiocy we are forced to read for many hours a week is just getting us all down, and makes us lose hope in humanity. We believe that you are not all actually stupid deep down, so with some basic rational thinking on your behalf maybe we will be able to get some useful feedback that will not make us want to kill ourselves, or you, or both.
Just a thought.
Good luck and have fun, David Kim
Sounds like a good sum up ! Or, in even fewer words: "Chill the fuck down people, it's only an alpha."
Yet the designs of many new units are already a disappointment. They're overlapping with existing units with no new role to fill.
Btw: the disruptor actually gets faster before discharging, which might actually be cool and useful. And: the cyclone does not auto attack. As far as I know you need to lock on every target manually. The basic idea is not bad, but it needs a good cooldown on the ability. Just needs some more testing and tweaking like everything else.
How is Protoss getting nerfed, considering the absolutely insane AOE potential they have as LotV stands now? Unlike T and Z they can still go for a deathball and absolutely steamroll anything with colossus/ht/disruptor/archon and still have safety nets like the MSC.
On November 21 2014 18:00 Ketch wrote: Disruptor can be good vs mech terran to break up siege lines.. assuming mech v P is possible in LOTV... like storm could do in BW
An interesting question is how invincible units (immortal, disruptor) work in terms of attack priority. I assume the units keep shooting at the invincible units until the effect wears off? It does promote micro, but I wouldn't call that a very visible kind of micro.
On November 21 2014 18:00 Ketch wrote: Disruptor can be good vs mech terran to break up siege lines.. assuming mech v P is possible in LOTV... like storm could do in BW
An interesting question is how invincible units (immortal, disruptor) work in terms of attack priority. I assume the units keep shooting at the invincible units until the effect wears off? It does promote micro, but I wouldn't call that a very visible kind of micro.
The built in "invincible" tag of the editor stops units from attacking the invincible unit.
On November 21 2014 18:00 Ketch wrote: Disruptor can be good vs mech terran to break up siege lines.. assuming mech v P is possible in LOTV... like storm could do in BW
An interesting question is how invincible units (immortal, disruptor) work in terms of attack priority. I assume the units keep shooting at the invincible units until the effect wears off? It does promote micro, but I wouldn't call that a very visible kind of micro.
My guess is that the invincible units can't be targeted until it wears off. If you remember the WOL campaign, invincible units can't be targeted. Example is the mothership in Safe Haven before you destroy the nexus and Kerrigan in the Mobeius factor.
On November 21 2014 17:53 ChromeBallz wrote: How is Protoss getting nerfed, considering the absolutely insane AOE potential they have as LotV stands now? Unlike T and Z they can still go for a deathball and absolutely steamroll anything with colossus/ht/disruptor/archon and still have safety nets like the MSC.
Isn't viper designed to snipe all the colossi? T should have a similar unit to disassemble a deathball.
...the cyclone would be way more cooler if it dealt much more damage but had to stand still to do so instead of being able to kite, while having the kite mode for free (without the charging up time) but it would then deal much less damage? That would emphasize micro much more while still being very different from the siege tank because it would have a way different application and skillset.
...the disruptor being scrapped and his overload (without the invicibility) was a DT upgrade. It would leave the DT uncloaked for a short period after the overload or right before it hits. You still had the utility to close in from cloak but it would be counterplayable.
..the shuttle should have a visible animation (mb a beam) when it loads in units from range.
I've been thinking that Blizzard should give back the reaper's grenade, adding it in the lab as an upgrade and tremendously increasing its damage by each level of weaponry upgrade. It means though one single reaper is just an opening unit to scout and harass, a bunch of 3/3 reapers in late game is able to blow up the enemy's static defense and base in seconds. Automatic self-healing could be scraped.
Some economic suggestions are not radical suggestions. All that really needs to be accomplished is a similar tweaking of an equally arbitrary paramater. You could retain or increase the original mineral count and decrease the patch count, it would accomplish your goal (DK) without squeezing the casual with the base treadmill. Also, any smart tweaking of the SCV stats regarding the movement speed, mining rate, dropoff point, or even correlating the mineral animation to gathering rate could be applied to apply diminishing return to the saturation of a base, accomplishing, once again, your goal of spreading out the area. But rather than make it draconic and punishing since all your other bases are mined out when you lose your good base, you get more opportunity to make comebacks since they can retreat and probably use those workers, albeit less efficiently. It's worth kicking around in your sandbox. Also should make expanding cheaper and more fleshed out if we're going to commit. New macro abilities to facilitate expansion for all 3 races?
There's a lot of talk about Protoss mobility issues over in the Designated Balance Discussion Thread. LOTV is changing up how many expansions players need to keep track of, but as of right now it's not giving Protoss many (any?) new options for playing a harass-intensive 5 base vs 5 base style game, which is like... a crazy huge deal.
If Bbyong's games vs PartinG and Zest on King Sejong are a precursor of what happens to Protoss in LOTV, I don't want the inevitable solution to be "make Terran not be able to do that," because "that" in this case is "showing off godly multitasking." I want the solution to be "make the Protoss be able to respond in kind." I would hope that most posters here agree.
So what should Blizzard do? I'm throwing this out there because right now they haven't done or said anything on the subject, and while that doesn't mean they don't have ideas, it also doesn't mean they do have ideas.
One suggestion that gets brought up a lot is getting rid of/revamping the Colossus while buffing Gateway units. Would that solve all of our problems, though? Would buffed Zealots on a 5 base economy be interesting to watch, or, for that matter, skill intensive to use? They're 1A now, they'll be 1A in LOTV, regardless of how much stronger they are... unless they become more responsive, get a new ability, something. Maybe buffed Stalkers + HT would be interesting enough?
Is anyone thinking about this? Does anyone have ideas?
One suggestion that gets brought up a lot is getting rid of/revamping the Colossus while buffing Gateway units. Would that solve all of our problems, though? Would buffed Zealots on a 5 base economy be interesting to watch, or, for that matter, skill intensive to use? They're 1A now, they'll be 1A in LOTV, regardless of how much stronger they are... unless they become more responsive, get a new ability, something. Maybe buffed Stalkers + HT would be interesting enough?
Well the reality is besides positioning before the battle begins what kind of micro do you do with a colo? Once they have the range upgrade it just turns into a position war between viking position color position and stalker position....
I like the idea of changing Colo completely to a more microable unit as oppose to a 1A fest instant wipe out of all small units on ground.... I mean doens't have to have an ability but make it something that can't be 1A once in a good position to kill all ground army...
(if colo still had to exist) Honestly, though the same can be said for both sides but if they change the colo role* and make it non-targetable with air i think they would be moving in the right direction....
(new thought) My thought would be to buff the archon's range just a little bit, get rid of the colo keep the disruptor and add the reaver we would see some amazing things happen for both sides.. it wouldn't be a 1 A fest it would be an amazing dance of death around the whole map
Edit: Just to add to that new thought, I think if they got rid of EMP with ghost and added the lockdown feature to create a counter to reavers and gave stalkers a counter passive to not be able to be locked down it would balance it all out.... it would be a seriously fun game to play and watch
*role is the wrong word let's say the way in which it fulfills that role.
One suggestion that gets brought up a lot is getting rid of/revamping the Colossus while buffing Gateway units. Would that solve all of our problems, though? Would buffed Zealots on a 5 base economy be interesting to watch, or, for that matter, skill intensive to use? They're 1A now, they'll be 1A in LOTV, regardless of how much stronger they are... unless they become more responsive, get a new ability, something. Maybe buffed Stalkers + HT would be interesting enough?
Edit: Just to add to that new thought, I think if they got rid of EMP with ghost and added the lockdown feature to create a counter to reavers and gave stalkers a counter passive to not be able to be locked down it would balance it all out.... it would be a seriously fun game to play and watch
*role is the wrong word let's say the way in which it fulfills that role.
If lockdown is given back to ghost, it would be a real deathball disassembler and getting rid of colossus won't be necessary. Just use it on colossi right before a battle engagement and take care of the stalkers and zealots with traditional MMM bioball.
On November 21 2014 23:46 pure.Wasted wrote: There's a lot of talk about Protoss mobility issues over in the Designated Balance Discussion Thread. LOTV is changing up how many expansions players need to keep track of, but as of right now it's not giving Protoss many (any?) new options for playing a harass-intensive 5 base vs 5 base style game, which is like... a crazy huge deal.
Oracles, DT, Phoenix and warp in are already making harass styles for protoss strong throughout the various stages of the game, a buffed warp prism adds to that too. Planetary's are the only really hammer in that cog as they shut down most of the options there. It's alternatives to the deathball blob that really need focus.
On November 21 2014 23:46 pure.Wasted wrote: One suggestion that gets brought up a lot is getting rid of/revamping the Colossus while buffing Gateway units. Would that solve all of our problems, though? Would buffed Zealots on a 5 base economy be interesting to watch, or, for that matter, skill intensive to use? They're 1A now, they'll be 1A in LOTV, regardless of how much stronger they are... unless they become more responsive, get a new ability, something. Maybe buffed Stalkers + HT would be interesting enough?
I think everyone reasonable wants to see the collosus go. It's far too much power in one place. The danger with straight up gateway buffs is proxy cheese gets stronger, and its already damn strong. And as you say chargelots are brutal dull and easy to use. The answer for gate units is obviously to make upgrades more of a factor, but there's been a firesale on upgrades since the WoL release.
But it'd be nice to see more micro all around. I don't think you can have great effects on that without looking at the movement model some. Currently A-moved units aren't that far off optimal engagement efficiency in most situations. They surround, form concaves fairly optimally all by themselves. Most micro focusing on splitting against daft AOE doesn't seem optimal to me. Maybe charge would be better if it was a tad stronger and wasn't autocast.
I would be happy if they removed the medivac speedboost again. It makes good scouting for drops almost obsolete (obervers, overlords, etc), and did strengthen doom drops in every matchup (which is imo stupid) Tbh i never was a fan of the medivac in the first place (why mobility + heal on one unit? Same for mutas kinda), but cause that obviously won't be changed i would be ok with the removal of the speed boost :D
Other than that? Maybe give chargelots the ability to use charge on the ground so you can use it for mobility (or just increase their movement speed with the upgrade) Make the colossus better when your army is split up and worse when you play it in a deathball. I think that would be good enough. Are there really people out there who still think it is amazing gameplay when the terran splits his units in 3*3 medivac drops and destroys one nexus after another? I actually got bored of that really fast :/
If lockdown is given back to ghost, it would be a real deathball disassembler and getting rid of colossus won't be necessary. Just use it on colossi right before a battle engagement and take care of the stalkers and zealots with traditional MMM bioball
Well the thought is not to just get rid of deathball but to get rid of A move units... There would be a lot of dancing with marines / ghosts / archons zlots etc... more micro would be needed to fight on both sides that would be more apparent than it is now.... Problem is with your theory as wlel is the range of colo would far exceed taht of a ghost which still presents the same issue what micro are you going ot do with a colo other than stepping back for a second while your stalkers / zlots own the ghost trying to lockdown your colo just to 1A right after and auto-win... Which brings back to my original point the game would still be about deathball positioning and 1 A ... trying to avoid that
I would be happy if they removed the medivac speedboost again. It makes good scouting for drops almost obsolete (obervers, overlords, etc), and did strengthen doom drops in every matchup (which is imo stupid) Tbh i never was a fan of the medivac in the first place (why mobility + heal on one unit? Same for mutas kinda), but cause that obviously won't be changed i would be ok with the removal of the speed boost :D
Other than that? Maybe give chargelots the ability to use charge on the ground so you can use it for mobility (or just increase their movement speed with the upgrade) Make the colossus better when your army is split up and worse when you play it in a deathball. I think that would be good enough. Are there really people out there who still think it is amazing gameplay when the terran splits his units in 3*3 medivac drops and destroys one nexus after another? I actually got bored of that really fast :/
+1 this. I really do miss the meds in BW.... I think they should be an academy unit though I will say medics back then could be abused to block melee.
Though I will say taking into consideration that medivacs have to make a choice of positioning or healing in the heat of battle if you plan on making an escape that is...
On November 21 2014 18:00 Ketch wrote: Disruptor can be good vs mech terran to break up siege lines.. assuming mech v P is possible in LOTV... like storm could do in BW
An interesting question is how invincible units (immortal, disruptor) work in terms of attack priority. I assume the units keep shooting at the invincible units until the effect wears off? It does promote micro, but I wouldn't call that a very visible kind of micro.
The built in "invincible" tag of the editor stops units from attacking the invincible unit.
the Immortal shield absorbs a specific amount of damage. thats where the micro idea comes from, activate shield on front units, then walk back when shield is depleted/timed out and activate shields on second row...
On November 22 2014 00:52 The_Red_Viper wrote: I would be happy if they removed the medivac speedboost again. It makes good scouting for drops almost obsolete (obervers, overlords, etc), and did strengthen doom drops in every matchup (which is imo stupid) Tbh i never was a fan of the medivac in the first place (why mobility + heal on one unit? Same for mutas kinda), but cause that obviously won't be changed i would be ok with the removal of the speed boost :D
Other than that? Maybe give chargelots the ability to use charge on the ground so you can use it for mobility (or just increase their movement speed with the upgrade) Make the colossus better when your army is split up and worse when you play it in a deathball. I think that would be good enough. Are there really people out there who still think it is amazing gameplay when the terran splits his units in 3*3 medivac drops and destroys one nexus after another? I actually got bored of that really fast :/
It's very likely to be replaced with tank drops as it only takes half the supplies of MM drops (5 vs 10 per medivac).
On November 21 2014 23:46 pure.Wasted wrote: There's a lot of talk about Protoss mobility issues over in the Designated Balance Discussion Thread. LOTV is changing up how many expansions players need to keep track of, but as of right now it's not giving Protoss many (any?) new options for playing a harass-intensive 5 base vs 5 base style game, which is like... a crazy huge deal.
If Bbyong's games vs PartinG and Zest on King Sejong are a precursor of what happens to Protoss in LOTV, I don't want the inevitable solution to be "make Terran not be able to do that," because "that" in this case is "showing off godly multitasking." I want the solution to be "make the Protoss be able to respond in kind." I would hope that most posters here agree.
So what should Blizzard do? I'm throwing this out there because right now they haven't done or said anything on the subject, and while that doesn't mean they don't have ideas, it also doesn't mean they do have ideas.
One suggestion that gets brought up a lot is getting rid of/revamping the Colossus while buffing Gateway units. Would that solve all of our problems, though? Would buffed Zealots on a 5 base economy be interesting to watch, or, for that matter, skill intensive to use? They're 1A now, they'll be 1A in LOTV, regardless of how much stronger they are... unless they become more responsive, get a new ability, something. Maybe buffed Stalkers + HT would be interesting enough?
Is anyone thinking about this? Does anyone have ideas?
I think zealot leg enhancements should be added. I know charge adds some speed, but not a significant amount. Also, if warping is to continue to be a highlight of protoss. Maybe units can warp between upgraded pylons. (Not an instant warp, but still something).
I think zealot leg enhancements should be added. I know charge adds some speed, but not a significant amount. Also, if warping is to continue to be a highlight of protoss. Maybe units can warp between upgraded pylons. (Not an instant warp, but still something).
Leg enhancements with the removal of charge yes.... if you do both we would have to change the name from chargelots to deathinvincalots LOL
I never thought I would say this, but I agree with Blizzard's approach to the colossus: a slight nerf to make it less ubiquitous and prevent situations like these because massing them will no longer be viable. You can remove the unit or redesign it, but both of those are troublesome.
Also, while zealots hardly need any micro, they do facilitate micro from other players (kiting) and they make army control more difficult for protoss in late-game. They are quite powerful meat shields that keep your opponent occupied while your other units do more interesting stuff. There are some things you could do with the unit to improve it (maybe) but I'm sure it's not essential to improving the game as a whole.
On November 21 2014 18:00 Ketch wrote: Disruptor can be good vs mech terran to break up siege lines.. assuming mech v P is possible in LOTV... like storm could do in BW
An interesting question is how invincible units (immortal, disruptor) work in terms of attack priority. I assume the units keep shooting at the invincible units until the effect wears off? It does promote micro, but I wouldn't call that a very visible kind of micro.
The built in "invincible" tag of the editor stops units from attacking the invincible unit.
the Immortal shield absorbs a specific amount of damage. thats where the micro idea comes from, activate shield on front units, then walk back when shield is depleted/timed out and activate shields on second row...
Obviously the hardened shield change, combined with the distant prism pickup, is a new strategy that DKim wants to promote - drop the immortals, activate the shield to absorb damage, and pick them up during the cooldown.
I'd like the disruptor a lot more if it had a detonate command similar to banelings. As it is right now, it seems way too easy to dodge and pretty weak. If this unit costs 200-300 gas (equivalent to 8-12 banelings) shouldn't it at least have some semireliable damage like banelings?
On November 22 2014 02:12 BaronVonOwn wrote: I'd like the disruptor a lot more if it had a detonate command similar to banelings. As it is right now, it seems way too easy to dodge and pretty weak. If this unit costs 200-300 gas (equivalent to 8-12 banelings) shouldn't it at least have some semireliable damage like banelings?
If it was killable during charging and you could only use it once, then yes it should. As it is not, no it should not.
On November 22 2014 02:31 TedCruz2016 wrote: P has already had great AoEs. There's really no need for another.
as a P player I dont understand their thinking on this. Do we need another ground splash damage unit. We pretty much reign supreme in that area already. I was hoping for a new ground to air unit. Nothing fancy, no spells, just a protoss Goliath
On November 21 2014 22:53 clickrush wrote: who else thinks that...
...the cyclone would be way more cooler if it dealt much more damage but had to stand still to do so instead of being able to kite, while having the kite mode for free (without the charging up time) but it would then deal much less damage? That would emphasize micro much more while still being very different from the siege tank because it would have a way different application and skillset.
...the disruptor being scrapped and his overload (without the invicibility) was a DT upgrade. It would leave the DT uncloaked for a short period after the overload or right before it hits. You still had the utility to close in from cloak but it would be counterplayable.
..the shuttle should have a visible animation (mb a beam) when it loads in units from range.
If the cyclone can kite units, the damage is mostly irrelevant in the early game. It could do the low low DPS of a stalker and still murder everything, because it simply cannot be caught. It's already not going to be used TvZ because the hellion is superior for the same objectives in that matchup, it might be used in TvT, but it's role is in TvP, and nothing protoss has can catch it until blink is done.
I can see a variety of alternative design functions for it however. Taking away the attacking while moving function, but giving it a sort of root mode of its own where it can only hit air, like a mobile missile turret, would be cool. Or leaving its kiting function the same but make it so it only works on air units, and cannot hit ground, would make it fine.
On November 22 2014 02:12 BaronVonOwn wrote: I'd like the disruptor a lot more if it had a detonate command similar to banelings. As it is right now, it seems way too easy to dodge and pretty weak. If this unit costs 200-300 gas (equivalent to 8-12 banelings) shouldn't it at least have some semireliable damage like banelings?
It was said that the disruptor has a speed of like 5 or something when triggered which would make it really hard to dodge. Plus it does 150 dmg which makes it vastly superior to a colossus in the regard that even one disruptor will kill most units with one hit. Could be great to defend against drops, and will probably force splits or liftoffs from terran bio. Plus it is not vulnerable to air and - very important - if you send a few disruptors at a terran bio ball, they will have to run, split or die. if they run or split they take dmg from the rest of your army.
On November 22 2014 02:12 BaronVonOwn wrote: I'd like the disruptor a lot more if it had a detonate command similar to banelings. As it is right now, it seems way too easy to dodge and pretty weak. If this unit costs 200-300 gas (equivalent to 8-12 banelings) shouldn't it at least have some semireliable damage like banelings?
It was said that the disruptor has a speed of like 5 or something when triggered which would make it really hard to dodge. Plus it does 150 dmg which makes it vastly superior to a colossus in the regard that even one disruptor will kill most units with one hit. Could be great to defend against drops, and will probably force splits or liftoffs from terran bio. Plus it is not vulnerable to air and - very important - if you send a few disruptors at a terran bio ball, they will have to run, split or die. if they run or split they take dmg from the rest of your army.
Storms already accomplish those goals. The disruptor, as designed, is unnecessary and doesn't add anything.
On November 22 2014 02:12 BaronVonOwn wrote: I'd like the disruptor a lot more if it had a detonate command similar to banelings. As it is right now, it seems way too easy to dodge and pretty weak. If this unit costs 200-300 gas (equivalent to 8-12 banelings) shouldn't it at least have some semireliable damage like banelings?
It was said that the disruptor has a speed of like 5 or something when triggered which would make it really hard to dodge. Plus it does 150 dmg which makes it vastly superior to a colossus in the regard that even one disruptor will kill most units with one hit. Could be great to defend against drops, and will probably force splits or liftoffs from terran bio. Plus it is not vulnerable to air and - very important - if you send a few disruptors at a terran bio ball, they will have to run, split or die. if they run or split they take dmg from the rest of your army.
Storms already accomplish those goals. The disruptor, as designed, is unnecessary and doesn't add anything.
Disruptor is David Kim's way to bring back Reaver micro.. BUT it's cost is too damn high to even try that
Basically the Disruptor is meant to be paired with the Warp-Prism and it's brand new 6 pickup range.. Well - the difference is - it's gonna be even harder cause now you don't drop, target and pick up, but instead drop, Activate, MOVE, and THEN pick up after it has been detonated
I seriously doubt that even Bisu himself would be able to effectively do that, yet that being done by a random ladder-er
On the bright side however - it seems well paired with the new Stasis Trap ability of Oracle - see when the stasis expires - activate the Disruptor to do the AoE
On November 22 2014 02:12 BaronVonOwn wrote: I'd like the disruptor a lot more if it had a detonate command similar to banelings. As it is right now, it seems way too easy to dodge and pretty weak. If this unit costs 200-300 gas (equivalent to 8-12 banelings) shouldn't it at least have some semireliable damage like banelings?
It was said that the disruptor has a speed of like 5 or something when triggered which would make it really hard to dodge. Plus it does 150 dmg which makes it vastly superior to a colossus in the regard that even one disruptor will kill most units with one hit. Could be great to defend against drops, and will probably force splits or liftoffs from terran bio. Plus it is not vulnerable to air and - very important - if you send a few disruptors at a terran bio ball, they will have to run, split or die. if they run or split they take dmg from the rest of your army.
Storms already accomplish those goals. The disruptor, as designed, is unnecessary and doesn't add anything.
Not really, the disruptor actually kills stuff, storms only kill stuff if it doesn't move for 2-3 secs. Plus templars run out of energy after max two storms and usually get fused to archons. And yet even more importantly - disruptor will give a damn about EMP. Oh and yes stasis followed by a disruptor, should be cool.
I think the basic idea is not terribly bad, but I agree that it's not the best possible new unit for protoss.
Well still seems like they have a lot of work to do with LotV. Here is hoping that more design decisions can be really worked on as this is the last expansion.
Protoss doesn't need another AoE unit coming from T3 tech costing ridiculous amounts of gas. The race is forced to tech up faster than any other already, has good T3 splash, and is gas starved as it is. I'd rather they get a lower cost lower damage T1.5-T2 splash unit. This would allow protoss to compete with other races lower tech options with equal level of tech units, allow the race to split its forces more successfully, and allow protoss to compete in small army vs small army engagements without having to commit significantly more gas / tech units than the opponent to do so.
Terran has helions / hellbats / widowmines/ tanks. Zerg has banelings and now the ravager. Protoss needs a mid tier aoe unit. This would allow a-move deathball units like the colossus to be reworked / replaced with something else, and even possibly enable a nerf / rework to forcefields / warpgate.
As it stands now, the proposed changes for the economy in LOTV are going to be very hard to balance if protoss isn't able to compete with the other races tech for tech and cost for cost. If they expect to have the game revolve around more small skirmishes in several spread out locations, the addition of a lower tier aoe unit, or stronger gateway unit is pretty necessary. Without such things, I expect toss in LOTV to do nothing but 1-3 base all-ins every game, as they are forced to move around in a deathball out of necessity. The mothership core overcharge and recall were band-aids to help protoss deal with being a deathbally immobile race that is weak to multi-pronged attacks and counter-attacks. If 3-4 bases suddenly becomes 5-6 at the same game time, such band-aids will no longer be sufficient.
On November 21 2014 22:53 clickrush wrote: who else thinks that...
...the cyclone would be way more cooler if it dealt much more damage but had to stand still to do so instead of being able to kite, while having the kite mode for free (without the charging up time) but it would then deal much less damage? That would emphasize micro much more while still being very different from the siege tank because it would have a way different application and skillset.
...the disruptor being scrapped and his overload (without the invicibility) was a DT upgrade. It would leave the DT uncloaked for a short period after the overload or right before it hits. You still had the utility to close in from cloak but it would be counterplayable.
..the shuttle should have a visible animation (mb a beam) when it loads in units from range.
If the cyclone can kite units, the damage is mostly irrelevant in the early game. It could do the low low DPS of a stalker and still murder everything, because it simply cannot be caught. It's already not going to be used TvZ because the hellion is superior for the same objectives in that matchup, it might be used in TvT, but it's role is in TvP, and nothing protoss has can catch it until blink is done.
I can see a variety of alternative design functions for it however. Taking away the attacking while moving function, but giving it a sort of root mode of its own where it can only hit air, like a mobile missile turret, would be cool. Or leaving its kiting function the same but make it so it only works on air units, and cannot hit ground, would make it fine.
The game will be redesigned. Will be a new game in beta. Why do you draw conclusions like this?
Protoss might have an easier access to blink. Getting it alot faster since it will not break any mu. Hell, stalkers might start with a weaker blink and then able to upgrade it to a better blink on the citadel. There is still forcefield involved. Zealots might get a redesign with faster speed. Wouldnt be surprised if the unit will perhaps move faster than a stalker in Lotv. Then it can catch cyclones... They might get a more fun micro-skill ability to to catch cyclones. Or atleast be used against cyclones when cooldown is off or if they get energy or something else.
Hellions initself dont cut it, they are terrible throughout the entire game. Their only role is versus zerglings. And the interaction is usually boring with this unit.
Cyclone can change this. Much better interactions, more fun ones. Kill static defence, attack armored units. Might open up mech in a whole different level. If we look at broodwar real fast, the vulture were terrible against armored units. Yet, it opened up a lot of play for mech.
If we compare 2cyclones vs 2hellions. I see alot of times the hellions dont kill a single worker while the 2cyclones might.
Protoss might need to go new opening completely vs terran. Warpgate might get chagned even further. Why cant 1fast robotic be standard? Immortals might get a new role, behave differently etc.
Cyclone might get tweaked so it has less range when locked on. Lots of things will change, its kinda pointless drawing conclusions.
On November 22 2014 02:12 BaronVonOwn wrote: I'd like the disruptor a lot more if it had a detonate command similar to banelings. As it is right now, it seems way too easy to dodge and pretty weak. If this unit costs 200-300 gas (equivalent to 8-12 banelings) shouldn't it at least have some semireliable damage like banelings?
It was said that the disruptor has a speed of like 5 or something when triggered which would make it really hard to dodge. Plus it does 150 dmg which makes it vastly superior to a colossus in the regard that even one disruptor will kill most units with one hit. Could be great to defend against drops, and will probably force splits or liftoffs from terran bio. Plus it is not vulnerable to air and - very important - if you send a few disruptors at a terran bio ball, they will have to run, split or die. if they run or split they take dmg from the rest of your army.
Storms already accomplish those goals. The disruptor, as designed, is unnecessary and doesn't add anything.
It atleast adds micro for the aoe unit. Hell, its even possible to flank with this unit, i think this is like the first time i see a heavy cost unit able to flank.
Great synergy with warpprism. Imo, this unit has potential to be really fun. And why cant blizzard tweak/redeisgn/remove colossus? It has never been fun in thefirst place, its about time they do something to this unit.
The boring part with the disruptor is the immune part. I dont know, maybe its not fun to play against that sort of thing but we will see.. More hp, more passive speed, remove the immune part might work.
Maybe hellion or any other support unit can speed up singletarget units->adds synergy to disruptor. Lots of things will change in Lotv. Blizzard just said so themself.
EDIT: Oops saw you wrote about storm. Well, protoss has always had 2big aoe units.
The disruptor seems different. I think it can open up agressive play with this unit like i have never seen a unit this costly do before. Early midgame etc, without going all-in. Not even the reaver in broodwar did this since that unit needs alot of support.
On November 22 2014 02:12 BaronVonOwn wrote: I'd like the disruptor a lot more if it had a detonate command similar to banelings. As it is right now, it seems way too easy to dodge and pretty weak. If this unit costs 200-300 gas (equivalent to 8-12 banelings) shouldn't it at least have some semireliable damage like banelings?
It was said that the disruptor has a speed of like 5 or something when triggered which would make it really hard to dodge. Plus it does 150 dmg which makes it vastly superior to a colossus in the regard that even one disruptor will kill most units with one hit. Could be great to defend against drops, and will probably force splits or liftoffs from terran bio. Plus it is not vulnerable to air and - very important - if you send a few disruptors at a terran bio ball, they will have to run, split or die. if they run or split they take dmg from the rest of your army.
Storms already accomplish those goals. The disruptor, as designed, is unnecessary and doesn't add anything.
Yeh, I mostly agree with you here. I am really a bit curious to see how Blizzard will seperate the roles of Collosus vs Disruptor vs HT.
It atleast adds micro for the aoe unit. Hell, its even possible to flank with this unit, i think this is like the first time i see a heavy cost unit able to flank.
What worries me about the Disruptor is that I think terrans will micro against it like they micro against HT's: By spreading out/splitting. In my opinion, it's better if each unit add a unique form of micro interaction.
Can people stop draw conclusions??? Blizzard are aware units are overlapping with each other. Things will change. Probably alot.
Blizzard just has a really bad track-record when it comes to being right where the community had concerns. Based on that, I think it's far that we remain very sceptical with regards to whether Blizzard are capable of making these 3 units feel unique and fun.
Remove collossus, buff gateway units for early game and make air-toss viable for late game. Make pylons have an upgrade that lets them be able to warp-in. prewarpgate tech you just produce normally, afterward you have to have an upgraded pylon if you morph your gateways. (would be a strategical target)
Just get rid of hellions/hellbats and bring back the firebat! Increase siege tank damage in siege mode. Make herc into a mech style unit from factory. Increase medivac capacity and reduce it's movespeed.
Revert Fungal! Toss has tempest now(or did and still may) for Blords, such a great unit reduced to mediocrity. Increase health/armor of nydus. Increase creep tumor cast range and effect range. Give overseer a morph into leviathan dropship.
On November 20 2014 04:42 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: I hope to god 12 starting workers is gone. 6 was fine, I like the first couple minutes of generally relaxed time. If they want to up it, make it 8-10.
I agree 110%. Lowering the minerals per patch is fine... but leave the beginning of the game the same. It's just part of the triad of an RTS: acquire resources, construct a base, build units. 12 starting workers just seems to do too much of the work for us. Just seeing 12 workers automatically start mining at the beginning of the game would feel too cheap... like "well that easy".
On November 22 2014 09:34 Foxxan wrote: Can people stop draw conclusions??? Blizzard are aware units are overlapping with each other. Things will change. Probably alot.
Its better to talk about design of the units. What to add. How to make better interactions(I see like no ppl trying to imrpove the interactions).
We're discussing design. Our conclusions are based on current design choices and noting that they should be changed, which is kind of the point of a constructive discussion. You'll note that on my comments regarding the cyclone, I indicated several alternative options for it that would make it functional and not overpowered, such as limiting it to anti-air attacks with it's kiting ability.
On November 21 2014 22:53 clickrush wrote: who else thinks that...
...the cyclone would be way more cooler if it dealt much more damage but had to stand still to do so instead of being able to kite, while having the kite mode for free (without the charging up time) but it would then deal much less damage? That would emphasize micro much more while still being very different from the siege tank because it would have a way different application and skillset.
...the disruptor being scrapped and his overload (without the invicibility) was a DT upgrade. It would leave the DT uncloaked for a short period after the overload or right before it hits. You still had the utility to close in from cloak but it would be counterplayable.
..the shuttle should have a visible animation (mb a beam) when it loads in units from range.
If the cyclone can kite units, the damage is mostly irrelevant in the early game. It could do the low low DPS of a stalker and still murder everything, because it simply cannot be caught. It's already not going to be used TvZ because the hellion is superior for the same objectives in that matchup, it might be used in TvT, but it's role is in TvP, and nothing protoss has can catch it until blink is done.
I can see a variety of alternative design functions for it however. Taking away the attacking while moving function, but giving it a sort of root mode of its own where it can only hit air, like a mobile missile turret, would be cool. Or leaving its kiting function the same but make it so it only works on air units, and cannot hit ground, would make it fine.
The game will be redesigned. Will be a new game in beta. Why do you draw conclusions like this?
Protoss might have an easier access to blink. Getting it alot faster since it will not break any mu. Hell, stalkers might start with a weaker blink and then able to upgrade it to a better blink on the citadel. There is still forcefield involved. Zealots might get a redesign with faster speed. Wouldnt be surprised if the unit will perhaps move faster than a stalker in Lotv. Then it can catch cyclones... They might get a more fun micro-skill ability to to catch cyclones. Or atleast be used against cyclones when cooldown is off or if they get energy or something else.
Hellions initself dont cut it, they are terrible throughout the entire game. Their only role is versus zerglings. And the interaction is usually boring with this unit.
Cyclone can change this. Much better interactions, more fun ones. Kill static defence, attack armored units. Might open up mech in a whole different level. If we look at broodwar real fast, the vulture were terrible against armored units. Yet, it opened up a lot of play for mech.
How about removing cyclone's anti-air targeting ability? Then either blink or phenix even oracles can deal with cyclones.
On November 22 2014 09:29 Foxxan wrote:If we compare 2cyclones vs 2hellions. I see alot of times the hellions dont kill a single worker while the 2cyclones might.
Protoss might need to go new opening completely vs terran. Warpgate might get chagned even further. Why cant 1fast robotic be standard? Immortals might get a new role, behave differently etc.
Cyclone might get tweaked so it has less range when locked on. Lots of things will change, its kinda pointless drawing conclusions.
Cyclone and hellion are totally incomparable regarding to the cost and build time. You need a tech lab to produce cyclone, which means it's on the same tech level of tank, so just imagine what your opponent may have had when you have two tanks.
Instead of making another AoE unit out of the Robo, it would be nice to just have a DPS unit out of there. I think that would give more depth to Protoss than an additional AoE unit.
I did click on that link and ask Blizzard to please just give us the Reaver, so there's that. Maybe if we all keep pestering them about the Reaver, they'll put it back in like the Carrier they almost took out in HotS and the Lurker they should have put back in the game already.
On November 22 2014 17:39 ineversmile wrote: Instead of making another AoE unit out of the Robo, it would be nice to just have a DPS unit out of there. I think that would give more depth to Protoss than an additional AoE unit.
I did click on that link and ask Blizzard to please just give us the Reaver, so there's that. Maybe if we all keep pestering them about the Reaver, they'll put it back in like the Carrier they almost took out in HotS and the Lurker they should have put back in the game already.
The disruptor is basically like the reaver - it does super high AoE damage, but needs baby sitting. Well it actually not only needs babysitting but constant active control. But As I see it it's more like the reaver than anything else, including the drop potential. As far as the difference to Ht and Colossi: you need active control and micro for each disruptor but you have much higher burst damage potential as a result, when compared to almost no micro for colossi and well for HT it'S mostly keeping them alive and not hit by EMP. It's definetely a more interesting unit than the colossus and quite different from the HT (which also hits air btw).
I am wondering though if you also need the robotics bay for the disruptor, because that would really be a bit redundant - unlock two robo AoE ground units in the exactly same way.
Actually it does indeed have some overlap, but it could still be cool. A colossus redesign would be a nice way to solve any overlaps and make protoss more fun.
On November 22 2014 21:26 Cloak wrote: Disruptor + No AtA weakness + Earlier tech
+/- Not Colossus +/- More of a MOBA spectacle
- No longer consistent DPSer - Skill curve will make it rather avoidable - Perhaps too similar to WM
Disruptor is not earlier tech and costs EVEN MORE than the Colossus
So yah - D. Kim's mind - unscramble that
Basically Disruptor is a way back to return the Reaver micro back, but it's even more expensive and even harder than Reavers used to be..
Reaver micro was - drop, target, pick up
Disruptor will be - drop, activate, move, wait to explode, pick up (one of the reasons/uses of the new Prism 6 pickup range), but still - w.t.f. - even Bisu won't be able to do that, yet that being someone on ladder
On November 22 2014 19:39 Freeborn wrote: The disruptor is basically like the reaver - it does super high AoE damage, but needs baby sitting. Well it actually not only needs babysitting but constant active control. But As I see it it's more like the reaver than anything else, including the drop potential. As far as the difference to Ht and Colossi: you need active control and micro for each disruptor but you have much higher burst damage potential as a result, when compared to almost no micro for colossi and well for HT it'S mostly keeping them alive and not hit by EMP. It's definetely a more interesting unit than the colossus and quite different from the HT (which also hits air btw).
I am wondering though if you also need the robotics bay for the disruptor, because that would really be a bit redundant - unlock two robo AoE ground units in the exactly same way.
Actually it does indeed have some overlap, but it could still be cool. A colossus redesign would be a nice way to solve any overlaps and make protoss more fun.
As you described, it seems like it's a colossus which needs to be microed more and does more damage. Then they might as well wipe out the colossus from the game and replace it with the disruptor. Keeping both of them is a waste.
A problem of protoss right now is the lack of a decent ground vs air unit. The only option is the stalker, which has a pathetic dps against non-armored units such as mutalisks, banshees and phoenixes. Maybe they could put an upgrade to the stalker (twilight council?) which gives a bonus vs. air light units.
Protoss also lacks ground vs. ground early game DPS. They could add a gateway unit similar to the immortal, but unlocked with the twilight council. Obviously then you want to differentiate it from the immortal, apart from it being weaker since it's a gateway unit.
This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
Very well done! We (protoss) need more love! Yes, we are the strongest and easiest race now. But it doesn't mean that we just should be hardly nerfed in LotV! We need more space to discover, new mechanics and possibilities!
When I saw Blizzcon videos for each race it was like: Terran video: wow, great! Zerg video: wow, awesome! Protoss: Hm, good. But, where is the second new unit?!!
Blizzard, please, give us more love in LotV, give us more skillcap, and new unit that do something cool, not just walking mine!
Well, toss isn't supposed to be good at harassment anyway as all of its units except zealots cost a lot of gas. They are too expensive to die. It could be balanced by creating certain benefits for toss to play defensive, but Blizzard just did the opposite by slashing each mineral patch and gas geyser by 1/3 which kind of forces everyone to expand. At this point, toss needs a siege and microable unit like lurker more than Z does.
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
As mentioned in the OP, the game will probably change drastically between now and the start of the beta, and between the start of the beta and release. Anyone remember some of the unit videos from pre-alpha WoL? Practically none of the unit abilities ended up making the cut and the units themselves were changed significantly.
From what I've seen of the blizzcon videos so far, I like the changes and additions to Terran the most. It seems as once again, Terran is the race blizzard can be the most creative with, both in terms of new units and adding abilities to existing units.
Although honestly, I mostly look forward to the campaign. Multiplayer is not for me anymore.
On November 22 2014 19:39 Freeborn wrote: The disruptor is basically like the reaver - it does super high AoE damage, but needs baby sitting. Well it actually not only needs babysitting but constant active control. But As I see it it's more like the reaver than anything else, including the drop potential. As far as the difference to Ht and Colossi: you need active control and micro for each disruptor but you have much higher burst damage potential as a result, when compared to almost no micro for colossi and well for HT it'S mostly keeping them alive and not hit by EMP. It's definetely a more interesting unit than the colossus and quite different from the HT (which also hits air btw).
I am wondering though if you also need the robotics bay for the disruptor, because that would really be a bit redundant - unlock two robo AoE ground units in the exactly same way.
Actually it does indeed have some overlap, but it could still be cool. A colossus redesign would be a nice way to solve any overlaps and make protoss more fun.
As you described, it seems like it's a colossus which needs to be microed more and does more damage. Then they might as well wipe out the colossus from the game and replace it with the disruptor. Keeping both of them is a waste.
A problem of protoss right now is the lack of a decent ground vs air unit. The only option is the stalker, which has a pathetic dps against non-armored units such as mutalisks, banshees and phoenixes. Maybe they could put an upgrade to the stalker (twilight council?) which gives a bonus vs. air light units.
Protoss also lacks ground vs. ground early game DPS. They could add a gateway unit similar to the immortal, but unlocked with the twilight council. Obviously then you want to differentiate it from the immortal, apart from it being weaker since it's a gateway unit.
This is yet another reason why I suggested they give Protoss the cyclone instead of Terran. Once they make it less insane, of course.
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
As mentioned in the OP, the game will probably change drastically between now and the start of the beta, and between the start of the beta and release. Anyone remember some of the unit videos from pre-alpha WoL? Practically none of the unit abilities ended up making the cut and the units themselves were changed significantly.
From what I've seen of the blizzcon videos so far, I like the changes and additions to Terran the most. It seems as once again, Terran is the race blizzard can be the most creative with, both in terms of new units and adding abilities to existing units.
Although honestly, I mostly look forward to the campaign. Multiplayer is not for me anymore.
So do I, but the story of the campaign will surely be poorly written as bad as WoL's "customized" storylines and HotS's "space opera", so don't have a high expectation on that.
I also like a lot the idea of getting shield battery back. It could be a good tool for defensive purpose if it's powerfull enough (a.k.a. autocast available).
As for the new units. Well, Cyclone and Disruptor are meh unit designs imo.
On November 22 2014 22:26 TedCruz2016 wrote: Just bring back reaver and shield battery if their designers have run out of ideas of new units.
oh man....i forgot about shild battery...that could easily begin to address defenders advantage (or lack of for protoss). Maybe make it attached to nexus or something that way you could nerf protoss attacking ability while buffing its defending and not both at the same time which seems to happen with changes to protoss
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
As mentioned in the OP, the game will probably change drastically between now and the start of the beta, and between the start of the beta and release. Anyone remember some of the unit videos from pre-alpha WoL? Practically none of the unit abilities ended up making the cut and the units themselves were changed significantly.
From what I've seen of the blizzcon videos so far, I like the changes and additions to Terran the most. It seems as once again, Terran is the race blizzard can be the most creative with, both in terms of new units and adding abilities to existing units.
Although honestly, I mostly look forward to the campaign. Multiplayer is not for me anymore.
So do I, but the story of the campaign will surely be poorly written as bad as WoL's "customized" storylines and HotS's "space opera", so don't have a high expectation on that.
I don't. I have yet to play an RTS with a deep, moving story anyway. I play the campaign because blizzard is second to none in inventing fun campaign scenarios.
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
As mentioned in the OP, the game will probably change drastically between now and the start of the beta, and between the start of the beta and release. Anyone remember some of the unit videos from pre-alpha WoL? Practically none of the unit abilities ended up making the cut and the units themselves were changed significantly.
From what I've seen of the blizzcon videos so far, I like the changes and additions to Terran the most. It seems as once again, Terran is the race blizzard can be the most creative with, both in terms of new units and adding abilities to existing units.
Although honestly, I mostly look forward to the campaign. Multiplayer is not for me anymore.
So do I, but the story of the campaign will surely be poorly written as bad as WoL's "customized" storylines and HotS's "space opera", so don't have a high expectation on that.
I don't. I have yet to play an RTS with a deep, moving story anyway. I play the campaign because blizzard is second to none in inventing fun campaign scenarios.
At the risk of running OT; the original Homeworld had an absolutely amazing story, despite not even having a face for any of the characters.
As for the actual multiplayer changes; I'm also leaning toward scepticism that the changes are in any way promising. Blizz might make it work, they might not, and SC2 might grow again, or shrink back to something that has even less prize money than BW. Things will change, certainly.
But I'm less hopeful after the announcements, not more.
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
As mentioned in the OP, the game will probably change drastically between now and the start of the beta, and between the start of the beta and release. Anyone remember some of the unit videos from pre-alpha WoL? Practically none of the unit abilities ended up making the cut and the units themselves were changed significantly.
From what I've seen of the blizzcon videos so far, I like the changes and additions to Terran the most. It seems as once again, Terran is the race blizzard can be the most creative with, both in terms of new units and adding abilities to existing units.
Although honestly, I mostly look forward to the campaign. Multiplayer is not for me anymore.
So do I, but the story of the campaign will surely be poorly written as bad as WoL's "customized" storylines and HotS's "space opera", so don't have a high expectation on that.
I don't. I have yet to play an RTS with a deep, moving story anyway. I play the campaign because blizzard is second to none in inventing fun campaign scenarios.
Really? I think BW campaign had a deep, moving story, which I believe is better than the SC2 one.
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
As mentioned in the OP, the game will probably change drastically between now and the start of the beta, and between the start of the beta and release. Anyone remember some of the unit videos from pre-alpha WoL? Practically none of the unit abilities ended up making the cut and the units themselves were changed significantly.
From what I've seen of the blizzcon videos so far, I like the changes and additions to Terran the most. It seems as once again, Terran is the race blizzard can be the most creative with, both in terms of new units and adding abilities to existing units.
Although honestly, I mostly look forward to the campaign. Multiplayer is not for me anymore.
So do I, but the story of the campaign will surely be poorly written as bad as WoL's "customized" storylines and HotS's "space opera", so don't have a high expectation on that.
I don't. I have yet to play an RTS with a deep, moving story anyway. I play the campaign because blizzard is second to none in inventing fun campaign scenarios.
Really? I think BW campaign had a deep, moving story, which I believe is better than the SC2 one.
BW did have an amazing story, but that was in the Clinton Administration nearly 15 years ago. Everything is different now. It's like TV shows and movies, there used to be many classic ones with deep moving stories based on great literatures that mom and dad still enjoy watching, but look at what's running on our tv screen in the recent years, either state propaganda or pure entertainment. The purpose has fundamentally changed. Selling product is mandatory, while making art is optional. We've gotta understand that.
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
Protoss definetely looks like it got it worse than the other races in LotV but I really don't think they can keep it like that, especially the only one new unit idea - people would go crazy.
What the OP totally failed to see is the positive aspects : that immortals now don't totally own mech, which will make tvp more diverse. But at the same time their damage totally wrecks armored as before, now you can just use them in more versatile roles. I image it could even work now to fight bio in low numbers with some immo micro. Same goes for the stasis trap it has the potential to open up a lot of new options : keep bio from escaping by placing traps behind them, trapping ramps or traps in your mineral line. Plus the oracle change in vision is actually a nerf in one way (vs banshees and dt that can split up easily) but might be a buff in other ways (vs mass ghost endgame when observer gets sniped) - endresult : more diversity when compared to observers and together with stasis and harrass potential the oracle becomes a really good support unit.
We don't know yet what the final numbers will look like, what will work what won't, but the ideas are good.
Still it's obvious that toss needs much more changes than what it got now, but what they have has potential. As I see it the weakened forcefields and warpgate nerf, plus photonovercharge nerf will leave protoss so weak that they really will have to buff gateway units and add one more units - thats what I'm hoping for anyway. It's to early to say anything really.
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
As mentioned in the OP, the game will probably change drastically between now and the start of the beta, and between the start of the beta and release. Anyone remember some of the unit videos from pre-alpha WoL? Practically none of the unit abilities ended up making the cut and the units themselves were changed significantly.
From what I've seen of the blizzcon videos so far, I like the changes and additions to Terran the most. It seems as once again, Terran is the race blizzard can be the most creative with, both in terms of new units and adding abilities to existing units.
Although honestly, I mostly look forward to the campaign. Multiplayer is not for me anymore.
So do I, but the story of the campaign will surely be poorly written as bad as WoL's "customized" storylines and HotS's "space opera", so don't have a high expectation on that.
I don't. I have yet to play an RTS with a deep, moving story anyway. I play the campaign because blizzard is second to none in inventing fun campaign scenarios.
Warcraft III, Frozen Throne, and sc/bw all had amazing stories. But that was in the olden days when Blizzard made good story telling games.
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
Protoss definetely looks like it got it worse than the other races in LotV but I really don't think they can keep it like that, especially the only one new unit idea - people would go crazy.
What the OP totally failed to see is the positive aspects : that immortals now don't totally own mech, which will make tvp more diverse. But at the same time their damage totally wrecks armored as before, now you can just use them in more versatile roles. I image it could even work now to fight bio in low numbers with some immo micro. Same goes for the stasis trap it has the potential to open up a lot of new options : keep bio from escaping by placing traps behind them, trapping ramps or traps in your mineral line. Plus the oracle change in vision is actually a nerf in one way (vs banshees and dt that can split up easily) but might be a buff in other ways (vs mass ghost endgame when observer gets sniped) - endresult : more diversity when compared to observers and together with stasis and harrass potential the oracle becomes a really good support unit.
We don't know yet what the final numbers will look like, what will work what won't, but the ideas are good.
Still it's obvious that toss needs much more changes than what it got now, but what they have has potential. As I see it the weakened forcefields and warpgate nerf, plus photonovercharge nerf will leave protoss so weak that they really will have to buff gateway units and add one more units - thats what I'm hoping for anyway. It's to early to say anything really.
It's fine to have mech be viable in PvT, but you have to ask a question: which of the two races has the aggressor stance in the matchup? Consider: let's say there are two general styles for each race, mech and bio for terran, and anti-bio and anti-mech for Protoss. Now let's say that anti-mech goes 50% against mech on average, so that mech is balanced, and anti-bio goes 50% against bio. However, if mech beats anti-bio and bio beats anti-mech straight up, then that means that Protoss will always be on the back foot and doesn't really have strategic decisions to make in a macro game, because Terran is the aggressor: Protoss has to react to Terran's composition and get it right, and Terran gets to determine the game pace. In this case, the only way to add strategic diversity to Protoss is to give them a variety of anti-mech and anti-bio compositions which all go 50% (virtually impossible), or a variety of all-ins (not something Terrans seem to want).
By making mech and bio equally viable against the optimal protoss responses to each, you're basically giving all decision making power to Terran, excepting the ability for Protoss to all-in. If you want TvP to be nothing more than Protoss responding to Terran or all-inning, then that's one thing, but it makes Protoss rather unhappy.
There was a post on that "editorial" post that I REAAAAAALLLY liked - basically several suggestions were made - so I liked them (not all of them though), but - here it goes:
Disruptor could come from the Stargate, and hover above the battlefield but only kill ground units. Stargate has no AoE. Robo and Twilight do.
Tempest could fire half as often, and do double the damage. That noise is annoying, and this would allow more timing for individual shot-microing.
Carrier could have Interceptors created with Energy, making it into a Psionic unit. This gives it a weakness, causing Carriers to want to focus down anti-energy units.
Warp Prism's new pickup range could replace Gravitic Drive as an ability, if not already.
A new Robo unit could be focused on using it's faster speed but shorter range for some ground harass micro, and have weaker shields but higher hitpoints than the stalker. Then maybe give it a firing-speed upgrade on Robo Bay. This could help a deathball to spread out, and promote more unit movement micro from Protoss.
AeoN - SC2 Blizz forum ======================================================================
Well IDK about the Tempest one or the Warp-Prism one, but I really like the Disruptor suggestion, as well as (well not sure but cool to try I guess) the Carrier suggestion IMO
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
As mentioned in the OP, the game will probably change drastically between now and the start of the beta, and between the start of the beta and release. Anyone remember some of the unit videos from pre-alpha WoL? Practically none of the unit abilities ended up making the cut and the units themselves were changed significantly.
From what I've seen of the blizzcon videos so far, I like the changes and additions to Terran the most. It seems as once again, Terran is the race blizzard can be the most creative with, both in terms of new units and adding abilities to existing units.
Although honestly, I mostly look forward to the campaign. Multiplayer is not for me anymore.
So do I, but the story of the campaign will surely be poorly written as bad as WoL's "customized" storylines and HotS's "space opera", so don't have a high expectation on that.
I don't. I have yet to play an RTS with a deep, moving story anyway. I play the campaign because blizzard is second to none in inventing fun campaign scenarios.
Really? I think BW campaign had a deep, moving story, which I believe is better than the SC2 one.
BW was really not high literature or anything. people are nostalgic about it because it seemed dark and serious and mature when we were 10 years old.
SC2 story is a little more heavy-handed in its writing than BW in spots (the love story crap in particular), but not all that much worse fundamentally. i think the biggest problem is they weren't limited by the mission briefing screen of BW and they went overboard over-explaining things in cut scenes.
here's the brood war story in one sentence: protoss and terrans bicker within and amongst themselves while the zerg win. there you go. everything else is just pretext for specific missions. BW even had dumb contrived plot devices just like the xel'naga artifact (psi emitters/disruptors/whatever, basically just a magic box, press button to fight zerg, who knows or cares how it works)
i mean not to sell it short because i do really like the story, it was fun and good science fiction and a big part of my childhood, but don't be mistaken - there hasn't been some cultural sea change from artistically relevant media to cheap entertainment media. we just got older and more cynical. BW had cheap action movie cliches all over the place.
edit: i came in here to talk about the unit changes and got distracted by this. i dunno why you play blizzard games if you want great fiction writing. read a book?
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
As mentioned in the OP, the game will probably change drastically between now and the start of the beta, and between the start of the beta and release. Anyone remember some of the unit videos from pre-alpha WoL? Practically none of the unit abilities ended up making the cut and the units themselves were changed significantly.
From what I've seen of the blizzcon videos so far, I like the changes and additions to Terran the most. It seems as once again, Terran is the race blizzard can be the most creative with, both in terms of new units and adding abilities to existing units.
Although honestly, I mostly look forward to the campaign. Multiplayer is not for me anymore.
So do I, but the story of the campaign will surely be poorly written as bad as WoL's "customized" storylines and HotS's "space opera", so don't have a high expectation on that.
I don't. I have yet to play an RTS with a deep, moving story anyway. I play the campaign because blizzard is second to none in inventing fun campaign scenarios.
Really? I think BW campaign had a deep, moving story, which I believe is better than the SC2 one.
BW was really not high literature or anything. people are nostalgic about it because it seemed dark and serious and mature when we were 10 years old.
SC2 story is a little more heavy-handed in its writing than BW in spots (the love story crap in particular), but not all that much worse fundamentally. i think the biggest problem is they weren't limited by the mission briefing screen of BW and they went overboard over-explaining things in cut scenes.
here's the brood war story in one sentence: protoss and terrans bicker within and amongst themselves while the zerg win. there you go. everything else is just pretext for specific missions. BW even had dumb contrived plot devices just like the xel'naga artifact (psi emitters/disruptors/whatever, basically just a magic box, press button to fight zerg, who knows or cares how it works)
i mean not to sell it short because i do really like the story, it was fun and good science fiction and a big part of my childhood, but don't be mistaken - there hasn't been some cultural sea change from artistically relevant media to cheap entertainment media. we just got older and more cynical. BW had cheap action movie cliches all over the place.
edit: i came in here to talk about the unit changes and got distracted by this. i dunno why you play blizzard games if you want great fiction writing. read a book?
BW wasn't special by any means, but it was believable and enjoyable.
SC2 writing is 100% trash. there is literally nothing good that can be said about it. It's completely inconsistent with both itself and SC1, it's childish, it has a fucking awful script, and it creates plot holes everywhere.
As for these multiplayer changes, I'm really excited about everything not Protoss. The Warp Prism and Carrier changes are nice, but not game-breaking, and nothing good can be said about the rest. The Disruptor is just a horribly designed unit, the Tempest and Immortal have received flat nerfs, and the Oracle's new ability is completely useless due to how long it takes to "arm".
Not only is the Colossus still untouched (when it should be nuked into oblivion), but Blizzard still seems completely oblivious about why SC2 games look crappy and just turn into a deathball-fest; it's all about unit design and game mechanics (how units move, how they're allowed to clump).
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
As mentioned in the OP, the game will probably change drastically between now and the start of the beta, and between the start of the beta and release. Anyone remember some of the unit videos from pre-alpha WoL? Practically none of the unit abilities ended up making the cut and the units themselves were changed significantly.
From what I've seen of the blizzcon videos so far, I like the changes and additions to Terran the most. It seems as once again, Terran is the race blizzard can be the most creative with, both in terms of new units and adding abilities to existing units.
Although honestly, I mostly look forward to the campaign. Multiplayer is not for me anymore.
So do I, but the story of the campaign will surely be poorly written as bad as WoL's "customized" storylines and HotS's "space opera", so don't have a high expectation on that.
I don't. I have yet to play an RTS with a deep, moving story anyway. I play the campaign because blizzard is second to none in inventing fun campaign scenarios.
Really? I think BW campaign had a deep, moving story, which I believe is better than the SC2 one.
BW was really not high literature or anything. people are nostalgic about it because it seemed dark and serious and mature when we were 10 years old.
SC2 story is a little more heavy-handed in its writing than BW in spots (the love story crap in particular), but not all that much worse fundamentally. i think the biggest problem is they weren't limited by the mission briefing screen of BW and they went overboard over-explaining things in cut scenes.
here's the brood war story in one sentence: protoss and terrans bicker within and amongst themselves while the zerg win. there you go. everything else is just pretext for specific missions. BW even had dumb contrived plot devices just like the xel'naga artifact (psi emitters/disruptors/whatever, basically just a magic box, press button to fight zerg, who knows or cares how it works)
i mean not to sell it short because i do really like the story, it was fun and good science fiction and a big part of my childhood, but don't be mistaken - there hasn't been some cultural sea change from artistically relevant media to cheap entertainment media. we just got older and more cynical. BW had cheap action movie cliches all over the place.
edit: i came in here to talk about the unit changes and got distracted by this. i dunno why you play blizzard games if you want great fiction writing. read a book?
You seriously need to compare the dialogues of both games:
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
As mentioned in the OP, the game will probably change drastically between now and the start of the beta, and between the start of the beta and release. Anyone remember some of the unit videos from pre-alpha WoL? Practically none of the unit abilities ended up making the cut and the units themselves were changed significantly.
From what I've seen of the blizzcon videos so far, I like the changes and additions to Terran the most. It seems as once again, Terran is the race blizzard can be the most creative with, both in terms of new units and adding abilities to existing units.
Although honestly, I mostly look forward to the campaign. Multiplayer is not for me anymore.
So do I, but the story of the campaign will surely be poorly written as bad as WoL's "customized" storylines and HotS's "space opera", so don't have a high expectation on that.
I don't. I have yet to play an RTS with a deep, moving story anyway. I play the campaign because blizzard is second to none in inventing fun campaign scenarios.
Really? I think BW campaign had a deep, moving story, which I believe is better than the SC2 one.
BW was really not high literature or anything. people are nostalgic about it because it seemed dark and serious and mature when we were 10 years old.
SC2 story is a little more heavy-handed in its writing than BW in spots (the love story crap in particular), but not all that much worse fundamentally. i think the biggest problem is they weren't limited by the mission briefing screen of BW and they went overboard over-explaining things in cut scenes.
here's the brood war story in one sentence: protoss and terrans bicker within and amongst themselves while the zerg win. there you go. everything else is just pretext for specific missions. BW even had dumb contrived plot devices just like the xel'naga artifact (psi emitters/disruptors/whatever, basically just a magic box, press button to fight zerg, who knows or cares how it works)
i mean not to sell it short because i do really like the story, it was fun and good science fiction and a big part of my childhood, but don't be mistaken - there hasn't been some cultural sea change from artistically relevant media to cheap entertainment media. we just got older and more cynical. BW had cheap action movie cliches all over the place.
edit: i came in here to talk about the unit changes and got distracted by this. i dunno why you play blizzard games if you want great fiction writing. read a book?
Well, I never said it was THAT good as you've described and I agree age does have an effect. I only said I liked the BW story better than the SC2 one. And with BW, I didn't expect a good story from a video game when I was 8 years old and I thought the SC2 one would be similar.
Also, I play video games and read novels. Just not both at once, lol.
Starcraft 2's story is better with the sidelore. Like all the various quotes and things that Abathur and Horner and such say. They did a much better job with that. To pretend that Starcraft 2 story has nothing to offer over the original is bafflingly ridiculous. It might be stupider and cheesier, but come on.
I think it's funny that people compare the story to Brood War as opposed to the original Starcraft. I guess because that's because BW had a more frayed storyline with fraying factions than Starcraft I which made it more fun. The original Starcraft was basically everything leading up to the Terran and Protoss teaming up to kill the Overmind. In Starcraft 2 it seems to be the Terran, Protoss, and Zerg teaming up to kill the Xel'Naga.
But Brood War tells the story of the aftermath of the Overmind, where suddenly new factions come along. The UED, Kerrigan, the Renegade Zerg, Aldaris's forces, and Duran appear and fuck everything up.
And again, Warcraft 3 storyline wasn't really all that amazing (Elves, Orcs, and Humans team up against the Undead/Demons) until Frozen Throne, where once again you had all these fraying factions. Suddenly you had Blood Elves, the Forsaken, the Naga, Maiev's forces, Admiral Proudmoore, and the Dreadlords complicating shit up after Archimonde dies.
Hopefully they won't abandon the Starcraft Universe after Legacy of the Void. Just because Amon is dead doesn't mean there's not more to do. I think people really like the aftermath tales where everything goes to hell. What happens to the Hybrid with Amon dead, etc.
I wonder if it could work well to put a "meter bar" on units. Rage, energy and so on.
Rage: Meaning, when attacking, taking damage it receives rage. Energy: regenerates fast at all times. Could probably also have some limits. -x unit needs to move to regenerate it -x unit needs to stand still to regenerate
All abilities now cost rage or energy deponding which type it is.
Zealot with rage: -Their charge Imagine if its no autocast. Can be used on the ground instead of only on units. -Cleave Hits three units, could perhaps be activated and then used with charge. Could make the damge 75% or 50% to not make it OP.
Reaper with energy: -Cliff jumping -Gets higher max movementspeed at full energy -Bombs
If u dont spend any energy, they move faster. Cliff jumping would have more decisions to it, and bombs could maybe be implemented. Or something else more fun.
Marine with energy: Perhaps make this unit regenerate energy while standing still or is moving. Redesign stimpack, it now costs energy, lasts shorter duration and abit less attackspeed. -Stimpack -Move while shoot, a button that makes the marine do this. Moves at 50% speed and shoots at 75% speed. Regerates 50% energy while doing this. -Something more(?)
Something for fun here which could perhaps be cool: Hightemplar with energy: -Storm -Hallucination -Something more
Would mean storm would need to be a lot weaker, and i mean ALOT weaker. Would be possible to cast it several times with one hightemplar. For the better, for the worse?
I just imagine it here, it could make it more consistent.
These things could perhaps be fun to play with? I imagine in my head that it would be if balanced properly.
The thing is, zealots could perhaps fight critical mass of marines with micro(?) That would be really sweet in my eyes since no need to go heavy tech, get big aoe units. My personal opinion is that its much less micro with high lategame units unless blizzard makes some big changes for them.
Either way, i am pretty sure these things wont be implemented, would probably mean all game needs to be rebalanced pretty big. Maybe it would be worth it tho(?)
In any case, i really hope the zealot gets some love so there is micro and skill involved with them. After all, its one of the protoss core units.
On November 24 2014 11:03 mishimaBeef wrote: i wonder what the new protoss unit will be. sounds like they scrapped the original new protoss unit cuz it was playing out too much like reapers.
Actually it's not a totally bad idea to give P a reaper-like unit WITH the anti-building grenade attack. If it wasn't been taken away from reaper, a small squad of reapers could be a huge threat in mid-game and late-game. They could play the role of 8-marauder drop, blowing up an enemy base within seconds.
On November 24 2014 11:03 mishimaBeef wrote: i wonder what the new protoss unit will be. sounds like they scrapped the original new protoss unit cuz it was playing out too much like reapers.
Actually it's not a totally bad idea to give P a reaper-like unit WITH the anti-building grenade attack. If it wasn't been taken away from reaper, a small squad of reapers could be a huge threat in mid-game and late-game. They could play the role of 8-marauder drop, blowing up an enemy base within seconds.
How's that not bad ? - Warp in 10 anti-building smashers from some proxy location and watch buildings blow up in despair.. No offense - we need to get OFF that Terran mentality rather than embrace it for other races
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
As mentioned in the OP, the game will probably change drastically between now and the start of the beta, and between the start of the beta and release. Anyone remember some of the unit videos from pre-alpha WoL? Practically none of the unit abilities ended up making the cut and the units themselves were changed significantly.
From what I've seen of the blizzcon videos so far, I like the changes and additions to Terran the most. It seems as once again, Terran is the race blizzard can be the most creative with, both in terms of new units and adding abilities to existing units.
Although honestly, I mostly look forward to the campaign. Multiplayer is not for me anymore.
So do I, but the story of the campaign will surely be poorly written as bad as WoL's "customized" storylines and HotS's "space opera", so don't have a high expectation on that.
I don't. I have yet to play an RTS with a deep, moving story anyway. I play the campaign because blizzard is second to none in inventing fun campaign scenarios.
Really? I think BW campaign had a deep, moving story, which I believe is better than the SC2 one.
BW was really not high literature or anything. people are nostalgic about it because it seemed dark and serious and mature when we were 10 years old.
SC2 story is a little more heavy-handed in its writing than BW in spots (the love story crap in particular), but not all that much worse fundamentally. i think the biggest problem is they weren't limited by the mission briefing screen of BW and they went overboard over-explaining things in cut scenes.
here's the brood war story in one sentence: protoss and terrans bicker within and amongst themselves while the zerg win. there you go. everything else is just pretext for specific missions. BW even had dumb contrived plot devices just like the xel'naga artifact (psi emitters/disruptors/whatever, basically just a magic box, press button to fight zerg, who knows or cares how it works)
i mean not to sell it short because i do really like the story, it was fun and good science fiction and a big part of my childhood, but don't be mistaken - there hasn't been some cultural sea change from artistically relevant media to cheap entertainment media. we just got older and more cynical. BW had cheap action movie cliches all over the place.
edit: i came in here to talk about the unit changes and got distracted by this. i dunno why you play blizzard games if you want great fiction writing. read a book?
On November 24 2014 11:03 mishimaBeef wrote: i wonder what the new protoss unit will be. sounds like they scrapped the original new protoss unit cuz it was playing out too much like reapers.
Actually it's not a totally bad idea to give P a reaper-like unit WITH the anti-building grenade attack. If it wasn't been taken away from reaper, a small squad of reapers could be a huge threat in mid-game and late-game. They could play the role of 8-marauder drop, blowing up an enemy base within seconds.
How's that not bad ? - Warp in 10 anti-building smashers from some proxy location and watch buildings blow up in despair.. No offense - we need to get OFF that Terran mentality rather than embrace it for other races
It's not bad because such a unit would definitely be gas-heavy like reaper (so the cost will slow down your tech development), and its "smashing" mode could be balanced by A/D upgrade (which means, say, you've got 8 smashers, it takes them 15 seconds to blow up a base, but when you've finished 3A upgrade, it only takes them 5 seconds).
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
As mentioned in the OP, the game will probably change drastically between now and the start of the beta, and between the start of the beta and release. Anyone remember some of the unit videos from pre-alpha WoL? Practically none of the unit abilities ended up making the cut and the units themselves were changed significantly.
From what I've seen of the blizzcon videos so far, I like the changes and additions to Terran the most. It seems as once again, Terran is the race blizzard can be the most creative with, both in terms of new units and adding abilities to existing units.
Although honestly, I mostly look forward to the campaign. Multiplayer is not for me anymore.
So do I, but the story of the campaign will surely be poorly written as bad as WoL's "customized" storylines and HotS's "space opera", so don't have a high expectation on that.
I don't. I have yet to play an RTS with a deep, moving story anyway. I play the campaign because blizzard is second to none in inventing fun campaign scenarios.
Play Homeworld. While the story is quite abstract, it's still a great experience.
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
As mentioned in the OP, the game will probably change drastically between now and the start of the beta, and between the start of the beta and release. Anyone remember some of the unit videos from pre-alpha WoL? Practically none of the unit abilities ended up making the cut and the units themselves were changed significantly.
From what I've seen of the blizzcon videos so far, I like the changes and additions to Terran the most. It seems as once again, Terran is the race blizzard can be the most creative with, both in terms of new units and adding abilities to existing units.
Although honestly, I mostly look forward to the campaign. Multiplayer is not for me anymore.
So do I, but the story of the campaign will surely be poorly written as bad as WoL's "customized" storylines and HotS's "space opera", so don't have a high expectation on that.
I don't. I have yet to play an RTS with a deep, moving story anyway. I play the campaign because blizzard is second to none in inventing fun campaign scenarios.
Really? I think BW campaign had a deep, moving story, which I believe is better than the SC2 one.
BW was really not high literature or anything. people are nostalgic about it because it seemed dark and serious and mature when we were 10 years old.
SC2 story is a little more heavy-handed in its writing than BW in spots (the love story crap in particular), but not all that much worse fundamentally. i think the biggest problem is they weren't limited by the mission briefing screen of BW and they went overboard over-explaining things in cut scenes.
here's the brood war story in one sentence: protoss and terrans bicker within and amongst themselves while the zerg win. there you go. everything else is just pretext for specific missions. BW even had dumb contrived plot devices just like the xel'naga artifact (psi emitters/disruptors/whatever, basically just a magic box, press button to fight zerg, who knows or cares how it works)
i mean not to sell it short because i do really like the story, it was fun and good science fiction and a big part of my childhood, but don't be mistaken - there hasn't been some cultural sea change from artistically relevant media to cheap entertainment media. we just got older and more cynical. BW had cheap action movie cliches all over the place.
edit: i came in here to talk about the unit changes and got distracted by this. i dunno why you play blizzard games if you want great fiction writing. read a book?
Damn that literature horse of yours is high.
He's right though. Books are the right medium if you want to find countless good stories, not video games. It's a bit naive to hope for a storytelling masterpiece in an RTS game. Sometimes you play that one game with a good story (which most likely is adapted from a book in the first place), but don't set your standards too high.
On November 22 2014 22:42 TedCruz2016 wrote: This "editorial" post nailed it. A truly comprehensive analysis of all the LotV changes for P and how disappointing they are. Compared to T and Z's new units and groundbreaking redesigns, P's got a minor buff on prism drop and a major nerf on gateway units - warping takes longer time and warping-in units take double damage!
As mentioned in the OP, the game will probably change drastically between now and the start of the beta, and between the start of the beta and release. Anyone remember some of the unit videos from pre-alpha WoL? Practically none of the unit abilities ended up making the cut and the units themselves were changed significantly.
From what I've seen of the blizzcon videos so far, I like the changes and additions to Terran the most. It seems as once again, Terran is the race blizzard can be the most creative with, both in terms of new units and adding abilities to existing units.
Although honestly, I mostly look forward to the campaign. Multiplayer is not for me anymore.
So do I, but the story of the campaign will surely be poorly written as bad as WoL's "customized" storylines and HotS's "space opera", so don't have a high expectation on that.
I don't. I have yet to play an RTS with a deep, moving story anyway. I play the campaign because blizzard is second to none in inventing fun campaign scenarios.
Really? I think BW campaign had a deep, moving story, which I believe is better than the SC2 one.
BW was really not high literature or anything. people are nostalgic about it because it seemed dark and serious and mature when we were 10 years old.
SC2 story is a little more heavy-handed in its writing than BW in spots (the love story crap in particular), but not all that much worse fundamentally. i think the biggest problem is they weren't limited by the mission briefing screen of BW and they went overboard over-explaining things in cut scenes.
here's the brood war story in one sentence: protoss and terrans bicker within and amongst themselves while the zerg win. there you go. everything else is just pretext for specific missions. BW even had dumb contrived plot devices just like the xel'naga artifact (psi emitters/disruptors/whatever, basically just a magic box, press button to fight zerg, who knows or cares how it works)
i mean not to sell it short because i do really like the story, it was fun and good science fiction and a big part of my childhood, but don't be mistaken - there hasn't been some cultural sea change from artistically relevant media to cheap entertainment media. we just got older and more cynical. BW had cheap action movie cliches all over the place.
edit: i came in here to talk about the unit changes and got distracted by this. i dunno why you play blizzard games if you want great fiction writing. read a book?
Damn that literature horse of yours is high.
He's right though. Books are the right medium if you want to find countless good stories, not video games. It's a bit naive to hope for a storytelling masterpiece in an RTS game. Sometimes you play that one game with a good story (which most likely is adapted from a book in the first place), but don't set your standards too high.
I was going to tell you off, but then you corrected yourself to RTS games. RPG games are a great medium for storytelling. Horror games too.
I don't know man. I've thought about it. RPG in general put more focus on story than RTS do, sure, but the story is rarely worth it. I'm a big fan of many RPG and I love some of them for their stories, but they rarely had on me the impact which books I read had, they just had "good story as far as video games go". What video games bring to the table is interaction and that alone makes for unique storytelling opportunities, I'll give you that. It's really cool to feel yourself at the center of a story, even a mediocre one. Can you tell me which RPG you're thinking about, with a great story? I can think of older cRPG like Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, and some JRPG. But recently, PC series like SW:KOTOR, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, TES and so on had really weak stories. "You're the Chosen One, gather a group of allies and fight the great Evil", rince and repeat kind of stuff. Probably not the right thread to talk about that though.
On November 25 2014 13:39 ZenithM wrote: I don't know man. I've thought about it. RPG in general put more focus on story than RTS do, sure, but the story is rarely worth it. I'm a big fan of many RPG and I love some of them for their stories, but they rarely had on me the impact which books I read had, they just had "good story as far as video games go". What video games bring to the table is interaction and that alone makes for unique storytelling opportunities, I'll give you that. It's really cool to feel yourself at the center of a story, even a mediocre one. Probably not the right thread to talk about that though.
Entirely unrelated, but you sound like you never played Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale or most importantly, Planescape Torment. You should.
But you're right, not the right thread.
edit: (old) Fallouts, or L.A. Noire spring to mind too. Or "the last of us", or Bioshock. There's quite a few games out there really, with good stories.
On November 25 2014 13:39 ZenithM wrote: I don't know man. I've thought about it. RPG in general put more focus on story than RTS do, sure, but the story is rarely worth it. I'm a big fan of many RPG and I love some of them for their stories, but they rarely had on me the impact which books I read had, they just had "good story as far as video games go". What video games bring to the table is interaction and that alone makes for unique storytelling opportunities, I'll give you that. It's really cool to feel yourself at the center of a story, even a mediocre one. Can you tell me which RPG you're thinking about, with a great story? I can think of older cRPG like Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, and some JRPG. But recently, PC series like SW:KOTOR, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, TES and so on had really weak stories. "You're the Chosen One, gather a group of allies and fight the great Evil", rince and repeat kind of stuff. Probably not the right thread to talk about that though.
Edit2: Haha post below, missed my first edit :/
RPG more focused on story than RTS is because in RPG you're an actor while in RTS you're more like a producer or a director with part of control on how the story goes. Just compare W3 and WoW.
I have never seen anyone asking for a change in the max supply count available, for example changing it from 200 to 300.
Would it made the game so imbalanced ?
Or having the possibility to change it in customs games (I don't know if it's already the case) : let's say 100 for small rushes maps, and more than 300 on large maps ?
On November 25 2014 20:24 LiAAm wrote: Hey guys, low level level terran here (gold)
I have never seen anyone asking for a change in the max supply count available, for example changing it from 200 to 300.
Would it made the game so imbalanced ?
Or having the possibility to change it in customs games (I don't know if it's already the case) : let's say 100 for small rushes maps, and more than 300 on large maps ?
Changing it over multiple maps is not an option.
Problems with a much higher supply count are with the performance of the game. Also makes the engagements even harder to understand, snowball even more, etcetera.
It doesn't really do anything for gameplay other than having more units.
I do not know if this has been suggested already. If it has, feel free to ignore. It's about Warp gate and warp in. What about making it not work on the pylon power, but instead close to a nexus. This would keep the opportunity to use it in the defense of peripheral bases but reduce its efficiency as a non stop aggression tool, making defenders advantage stronger against protoss. The warp prism could still function as it is currently. Then you do not necessarily have to nerf the stats while warping such as currently suggested for LOTV, the 200% damage while warping in and increased warping in duration. Or perhaps keep them for warping in with the warp prism or whatever.
On November 25 2014 21:01 Daeracon wrote: I do not know if this has been suggested already. If it has, feel free to ignore. It's about Warp gate and warp in. What about making it not work on the pylon power, but instead close to a nexus. This would keep the opportunity to use it in the defense of peripheral bases but reduce its efficiency as a non stop aggression tool, making defenders advantage stronger against protoss. The warp prism could still function as it is currently. Then you do not necessarily have to nerf the stats while warping such as currently suggested for LOTV, the 200% damage while warping in and increased warping in duration. Or perhaps keep them for warping in with the warp prism or whatever.
A similar suggestion that has been posted before is a pylon upgrade, and then gateway unit can only be warped in an upgraded pylon's power field. It could have other useful functions, such as automatically heal all units' shield within the power field.
On November 25 2014 21:41 VArsovskiSC wrote: Corruptors should be able to carry and drop spines and spores, not some weird-looking void-ray attack - someone transfer that message to the devs ha
Corruptors are squids. They have to have a squid-like ability. Corruption and the new ability are supposed to be kind of like a squid shooting ink.
On November 25 2014 21:41 VArsovskiSC wrote: Corruptors should be able to carry and drop spines and spores, not some weird-looking void-ray attack - someone transfer that message to the devs ha
Corruptors are squids. They have to have a squid-like ability. Corruption and the new ability are supposed to be kind of like a squid shooting ink.
Octopuses are very good at physical problem-solving using their tentacles.
On November 25 2014 21:41 VArsovskiSC wrote: Corruptors should be able to carry and drop spines and spores, not some weird-looking void-ray attack - someone transfer that message to the devs ha
Last time I checked, spines and spores are dying when they are out of creep.
On November 25 2014 21:41 VArsovskiSC wrote: Corruptors should be able to carry and drop spines and spores, not some weird-looking void-ray attack - someone transfer that message to the devs ha
Last time I checked, spines and spores are dying when they are out of creep.
Not when they are uprooted.
I think it be cool to give the corrupter something like a melee ability, make it able to grab an enemy and greatly slow him down. Maybe even do damage while doing that. Corruptors always remind me of those hunter octupus bot from the matrix, how they grappled and dismantled the human hovercrafts
On November 25 2014 21:41 VArsovskiSC wrote: Corruptors should be able to carry and drop spines and spores, not some weird-looking void-ray attack - someone transfer that message to the devs ha
Last time I checked, spines and spores are dying when they are out of creep.
Not when they are uprooted.
I think it be cool to give the corrupter something like a melee ability, make it able to grab an enemy and greatly slow him down. Maybe even do damage while doing that. Corruptors always remind me of those hunter octupus bot from the matrix, how they grappled and dismantled the human hovercrafts
I think they had something like that back in WOL alpha, but Blizzard decided it was hard to read visually.
Beta will look much different than what you saw at BlizzCon
Thank you.
That's all that actually matters from what was said.
Blizzard is totally clueless when to balancing. We learn that every time Blizzard releases a RTS game, they ignore the community, then end up giving them what they want months later after realizing it was the right thing to do, but still claim credit.
You are totally clueless when it comes to blizzard. Warcraft III and sc:bw were super balanced, even now with sc2:HotS they are doing a really good job balancing things out. You are just out to trashtalk blizzard. Get off your high horse and name gamebreaking examples, rather than to just attack blizzard as a whole.
Beta will look much different than what you saw at BlizzCon
Thank you.
That's all that actually matters from what was said.
Blizzard is totally clueless when to balancing. We learn that every time Blizzard releases a RTS game, they ignore the community, then end up giving them what they want months later after realizing it was the right thing to do, but still claim credit.
You are totally clueless when it comes to blizzard. Warcraft III and sc:bw were super balanced, even now with sc2:HotS they are doing a really good job balancing things out. You are just out to trashtalk blizzard. Get off your high horse and name gamebreaking examples, rather than to just attack blizzard as a whole.
To be fair for TFT beta faerie dragons actually made it to live in their current state from beta (aka comically erasing armies that had casters). Also other issues like dryads being lvl2 (instead of lvl3) units for xp, up until the game was 'dead'.
Also, people keep throwing the word 'balance' as a blanket term. The game now is actually very balanced, but it doesn't change that it is poorly designed.
Beta will look much different than what you saw at BlizzCon
Thank you.
That's all that actually matters from what was said.
Blizzard is totally clueless when to balancing. We learn that every time Blizzard releases a RTS game, they ignore the community, then end up giving them what they want months later after realizing it was the right thing to do, but still claim credit.
You are totally clueless when it comes to blizzard. Warcraft III and sc:bw were super balanced, even now with sc2:HotS they are doing a really good job balancing things out. You are just out to trashtalk blizzard. Get off your high horse and name gamebreaking examples, rather than to just attack blizzard as a whole.
"Balance" is in the eye of the beholder. FOX News is my only reliable news source as I think it has relatively lived up to its slogan - Fair and Balanced, but I know many who disagree with me as they dub it Faux News, Unfair and Imbalanced. Back to SC2, no matter how much the three races are imbalanced, Blizzard, Esport organizers and brilliant mappers can defeat the odds by special map designed. For instance, a map with lots of small high grounds is in favor of T (tank); with lots of chokepoints, vamps and narrow paths it's in favor of P (FF); with a U-shaped battleground (like the space scrap something in early WoL) or separated islands, it's in favor of all air units; and with lots of "backdoor" destructible rocks, it's in favor of Z. That's how BW had lived through the past 10 years as Korea's esport before the release of WoL.
Beta will look much different than what you saw at BlizzCon
Thank you.
That's all that actually matters from what was said.
Blizzard is totally clueless when to balancing. We learn that every time Blizzard releases a RTS game, they ignore the community, then end up giving them what they want months later after realizing it was the right thing to do, but still claim credit.
You are totally clueless when it comes to blizzard. Warcraft III and sc:bw were super balanced, even now with sc2:HotS they are doing a really good job balancing things out. You are just out to trashtalk blizzard. Get off your high horse and name gamebreaking examples, rather than to just attack blizzard as a whole.
"Balance" is in the eye of the beholder. FOX News is my only reliable news source as I think it has relatively lived up to its slogan - Fair and Balanced, but I know many who disagree with me as they dub it Faux News, Unfair and Imbalanced. Back to SC2, no matter how much the three races are imbalanced, Blizzard, Esport organizers and brilliant mappers can defeat the odds by special map designed. For instance, a map with lots of small high grounds is in favor of T (tank); with lots of chokepoints, vamps and narrow paths it's in favor of P (FF); with a U-shaped battleground (like the space scrap something in early WoL) or separated islands, it's in favor of all air units; and with lots of "backdoor" destructible rocks, it's in favor of Z. That's how BW had lived through the past 10 years as Korea's esport before the release of WoL.
Lol? Fox News is the only major news station in the United States that is regularly caught literally making things up.
That aside, map design can only go so far, Protoss as designed has a very difficult time taking multiple bases because their units are inefficient in small numbers. The warp-in nerf is going to hurt that tremendously as well. Protoss is going to be dying left and right to ling counter attacks and drops.
Beta will look much different than what you saw at BlizzCon
Thank you.
That's all that actually matters from what was said.
Blizzard is totally clueless when to balancing. We learn that every time Blizzard releases a RTS game, they ignore the community, then end up giving them what they want months later after realizing it was the right thing to do, but still claim credit.
You are totally clueless when it comes to blizzard. Warcraft III and sc:bw were super balanced, even now with sc2:HotS they are doing a really good job balancing things out. You are just out to trashtalk blizzard. Get off your high horse and name gamebreaking examples, rather than to just attack blizzard as a whole.
It's not the hardest thing in the world to balance a game.
What is really difficult is balancing the game and still making it an exciting, engaging, and diverse e-sport, which is what Blizzard has really failed at. Brood War was complete luck (this has been admitted multiple times) and WC3 was a very niche game, as it was slow and quite dull to many people.
Blizzard has made a huge number of questionable decisions concerning this game's development that have been mentioned over and over again in threads like these.
Beta will look much different than what you saw at BlizzCon
Thank you.
That's all that actually matters from what was said.
Blizzard is totally clueless when to balancing. We learn that every time Blizzard releases a RTS game, they ignore the community, then end up giving them what they want months later after realizing it was the right thing to do, but still claim credit.
You are totally clueless when it comes to blizzard. Warcraft III and sc:bw were super balanced, even now with sc2:HotS they are doing a really good job balancing things out. You are just out to trashtalk blizzard. Get off your high horse and name gamebreaking examples, rather than to just attack blizzard as a whole.
"Balance" is in the eye of the beholder. FOX News is my only reliable news source as I think it has relatively lived up to its slogan - Fair and Balanced, but I know many who disagree with me as they dub it Faux News, Unfair and Imbalanced. Back to SC2, no matter how much the three races are imbalanced, Blizzard, Esport organizers and brilliant mappers can defeat the odds by special map designed. For instance, a map with lots of small high grounds is in favor of T (tank); with lots of chokepoints, vamps and narrow paths it's in favor of P (FF); with a U-shaped battleground (like the space scrap something in early WoL) or separated islands, it's in favor of all air units; and with lots of "backdoor" destructible rocks, it's in favor of Z. That's how BW had lived through the past 10 years as Korea's esport before the release of WoL.
Lol? Fox News is the only major news station in the United States that is regularly caught literally making things up.
That aside, map design can only go so far, Protoss as designed has a very difficult time taking multiple bases because their units are inefficient in small numbers. The warp-in nerf is going to hurt that tremendously as well. Protoss is going to be dying left and right to ling counter attacks and drops.
Fox News's prime time ratings is higher than all mainstream media's ratings combined. Sorry about mentioning off-topic stuffs and I'll leave it with that.
Speaking of small numbers, all stargate units used to have great potential at harassment and defense, but unfortunately, unlike T's and Z's air unit teches that are perfectly merged in their respective main tech tree, P's stargate branch is kind of independent and it's in the way of deathball development, and not to mention Void Ray's nerf in HotS.
Beta will look much different than what you saw at BlizzCon
Thank you.
That's all that actually matters from what was said.
Blizzard is totally clueless when to balancing. We learn that every time Blizzard releases a RTS game, they ignore the community, then end up giving them what they want months later after realizing it was the right thing to do, but still claim credit.
You are totally clueless when it comes to blizzard. Warcraft III and sc:bw were super balanced, even now with sc2:HotS they are doing a really good job balancing things out. You are just out to trashtalk blizzard. Get off your high horse and name gamebreaking examples, rather than to just attack blizzard as a whole.
"Balance" is in the eye of the beholder. FOX News is my only reliable news source as I think it has relatively lived up to its slogan - Fair and Balanced, but I know many who disagree with me as they dub it Faux News, Unfair and Imbalanced. Back to SC2, no matter how much the three races are imbalanced, Blizzard, Esport organizers and brilliant mappers can defeat the odds by special map designed. For instance, a map with lots of small high grounds is in favor of T (tank); with lots of chokepoints, vamps and narrow paths it's in favor of P (FF); with a U-shaped battleground (like the space scrap something in early WoL) or separated islands, it's in favor of all air units; and with lots of "backdoor" destructible rocks, it's in favor of Z. That's how BW had lived through the past 10 years as Korea's esport before the release of WoL.
Lol? Fox News is the only major news station in the United States that is regularly caught literally making things up.
That aside, map design can only go so far, Protoss as designed has a very difficult time taking multiple bases because their units are inefficient in small numbers. The warp-in nerf is going to hurt that tremendously as well. Protoss is going to be dying left and right to ling counter attacks and drops.
Fox News's prime time ratings is higher than all mainstream media's ratings combined. Sorry about mentioning off-topic stuffs and I'll leave it with that.
Speaking of small numbers, all stargate units used to have great potential at harassment and defense, but unfortunately, unlike T's and Z's air unit teches that are perfectly merged in their respective main tech tree, P's stargate branch is kind of independent and it's in the way of deathball development, and not to mention Void Ray's nerf in HotS.
You realize that popularity, does rarely reflect quality, right? And news that cater to customer entertainment more than quality journalism...
Don't bring stuff like that up as an example, please.
On November 27 2014 16:33 TedCruz2016 wrote: Viper morphed from corruptor like how it works in the Zerg campaign. That would be a corruptor buff and a viper nerf.
On November 27 2014 16:33 TedCruz2016 wrote: Viper morphed from corruptor like how it works in the Zerg campaign. That would be a corruptor buff and a viper nerf.
It was a Mutalisk morph.
Hmm, interesting. I guess that would be a late-game muta buff especially in ZvT.
I like what David Kim wrote, it`s a good thing that they have courage to make big changes to the game. Protoss need in my opinion a lot of redesigned units and abilities. They should focus for now only to make the game more interesting not balanced.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/585Gvnl.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Wunder/ClassicVSRain.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://images.eurogamer.net/modojo.com/features/601/rainbowroad.jpg)
