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HeroMystic
United States1217 Posts
On December 19 2015 14:52 ValidParties wrote: Will it still be splash damage? The article seems unclear - "Thor AA damage to flat 12". Are they flattening out the splash along with the bonus vs light? There'll still be splash damage. The "Flat" just means it applies to all unit types (Light, Armored, Psionic, etc). | ||
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insitelol
845 Posts
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ValidParties
12 Posts
On December 19 2015 15:06 HeroMystic wrote: There'll still be splash damage. The "Flat" just means it applies to all unit types (Light, Armored, Psionic, etc). Neat. So long, PvT mid-late switch to Void Rays. You will not be missed. Fingers crossed that Blizzard decides to use Thor's 250mm cannon backpack instead of the dinky grey splotches (missile launchers) near the cockpit. They probably want to keep the attack as a projectile for the sake of PDD. They're creative fellows. I know they can find a way for the 250mm cannons to fire a projectile. | ||
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Golgotha
Korea (South)8418 Posts
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Excalibur_Z
United States12235 Posts
On December 19 2015 13:42 paralleluniverse wrote: 1. You can get the same benefit of being able to detect smurfs simply by displaying their highest league in the season somewhere on the profile or perhaps the portrait border without needing to ditch mid-season demotions. 2. Agree, except for conclusion that it is acceptable that points/ranks are wrong because MMR is right. Both should be right. But at least it's better than the current situation where points/ranks are wrong and MMR is not displayed. 3. If you remove the bonus pool for GM and Masters only, then you haven't eliminated the inconsistency between MMR and points, you've just shifted it from the GM/Master boundary to the Master/Diamond boundary. Sure, in terms of accuracy and precision, displaying MMR is about as accurate and precise as you can possibly get. However, having 2 parallel ways of ranking, MMR and points/ranks, would be confusing for the average player that doesn't have an extensive knowledge of ranking systems, and the latter system is inaccurate as a skill ranking. That's not to say, don't show MMR, MMR should definitely be shown, but the points/ranks system should also be accurate and the meaning should be made clear to players. When people ask "If MMR is my skill, then what the hell is my point/rank?", how will Blizzard respond? Ideally, the average player should be able to easily answer this question because they clearly understand the meaning of both ways of ranking and the difference between them. I saw your post in the Bnet thread. All valid complaints and criticisms. I was definitely wrestling with myself when I was writing that post because I see it from both sides. I think I might make a more consolidated ladder revamp suggestion thread since there's a lot to cover. Simply though, for any ranking system, you want to cover two bases: accuracy and activity. The bonus pool covered activity in a very interesting way. It's not punishing, it's constructive. What's more, the "soft point debt" that is the bonus pool accumulates gradually which means you can spend it at your own pace. Similarly, there's a lot more granularity. Those are tremendous advantages, and because of that, it doesn't feel like a chore. They've used negative reinforcement activity models with MMR decay in HotS and War3, and those feel really bad. You had to play X number of games within Y time, and if you didn't, you suffered a penalty. Playing games just to keep the system happy does feel like a chore, and that's a sucky experience. The downside of the bonus pool is obvious: it manipulates points. By doing that, it impacts ranking accuracy. So that sucks too. But, it sucks less if you have an under-the-hood system that's untouched by this, and therefore retains accuracy, so that's... something. There's obviously more to it and I may write more in the future, but it's a pretty delicate situation. | ||
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SiaBBo
Finland132 Posts
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Hotshot
Canada184 Posts
1# What about the blizzcon talk about allowing people to play each race with a separate mmr so people aren't locked into 1 race? 2# Why cant PO just be like 30 or 35 energy? Why is blizzard taking such a drastic approach to this? | ||
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Luede
Germany4 Posts
On December 19 2015 09:50 BiiG-Fr wrote: About PO: 0.89s-1 * 30dmg * 15s = 400 dmg (for 25 energy) = 0.89s-1 * 45dmg * 20s = 800 dmg (for 50 energy) So I wonder what the purpose of this change is when it comes to defend an early aggression with PO? Cant be so difficult. With 80 enrgy u can cast 3 PO now. With the new version u can cast 1. So it is a nerf. | ||
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paralleluniverse
4065 Posts
On December 19 2015 15:24 Excalibur_Z wrote: I saw your post in the Bnet thread. All valid complaints and criticisms. I was definitely wrestling with myself when I was writing that post because I see it from both sides. I think I might make a more consolidated ladder revamp suggestion thread since there's a lot to cover. Simply though, for any ranking system, you want to cover two bases: accuracy and activity. The bonus pool covered activity in a very interesting way. It's not punishing, it's constructive. What's more, the "soft point debt" that is the bonus pool accumulates gradually which means you can spend it at your own pace. Similarly, there's a lot more granularity. Those are tremendous advantages, and because of that, it doesn't feel like a chore. They've used negative reinforcement activity models with MMR decay in HotS and War3, and those feel really bad. You had to play X number of games within Y time, and if you didn't, you suffered a penalty. Playing games just to keep the system happy does feel like a chore, and that's a sucky experience. The downside of the bonus pool is obvious: it manipulates points. By doing that, it impacts ranking accuracy. So that sucks too. But, it sucks less if you have an under-the-hood system that's untouched by this, and therefore retains accuracy, so that's... something. There's obviously more to it and I may write more in the future, but it's a pretty delicate situation. Yes, I understand that bonus pool is an attempt to take activity into account. But as I've said, what you really want to know is not activity, but uncertainty about MMR. Activity doesn't matter for the purpose of ranking skill when you know uncertainty about MMR. As for decay vs bonus pool, decay obviously can't be that bad when you suggested it yourself. In fact, decay has the advantage that people who join the season later don't need to play as many games as an equally skilled person who joined earlier to have the same rank, i.e. these two people with the same MMR, but joined at different times, have the same rank. But I've moved beyond suggesting decay systems. Instead of, you must play 5 games a week or your rank gets decayed, the possibility of shorter seasons allows for the more elegant solution of, you must play 20 (or some other number) games a season or else you're inactive so that you're not going to get ranked at the end of the season. No HotS player that I've seen complains that Blizzard should take activity into account for ranks, and so bonus pool should be added to HotS. If bonus pool remains, it should at the least be significantly reduced. E.g. instead of ~100 a week and consuming 12 per game, it should be more like 50 per season, and consuming 2 per game. Anyway, at least we have MMR now. | ||
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c0ldfusion
United States8293 Posts
that's huge | ||
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MockHamill
Sweden1798 Posts
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Beelzebub1
1004 Posts
Silly to have in the first place, this is good and over due. Zergling attack speed upgrade bonus decreased from 40% to 30% We'll see how OP Zerg really is once the metagame settles down, for now these small nerfs are definitely the right move, this is whatever. Viper spell damage reduced from 90 to 60 Seems like it could be appropriate but I don't know, Vipers already require tons of micro and PB is decently countered by splitting, maybe something like reducing the damage on the outer half a bit more forgiving? Thor AA damage to flat 12 Seems like it could be decent, mech doesn't seem particularly weak just kind of sloppily figured out, I guess nerfs can always be made if it's OP so whatever, probably worth trying out. Photon Overcharge Energy cost increased from 25 to 50 Duration increased from 15 to 20 Damage increased from 30 to 45 I'm a bit lost on this, I guess it means you will have half as many as you did before so drops might be a bit stronger but that initial one or two are going to hit early game hit squads hard as fuck so I fail to see how this will allow Protoss to be pressured in the early game, someone feel free to explain this to me if I'm missing something. Ravager morph time increased from 12 to 20 This is good, definitely needed, might make Ravager all ins just a tad weaker in ZvZ which has become a shitfest All in all I really like this patch, a good little tune up before the holidays, after this patch balance should be left alone and the next big direction should be improving the map pool and giving map makers more incentive to churn out balanced and innovative maps. It's kinda well known that the Blizz team doesn't crank out the uh...highest quality maps in the world. | ||
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SheaR619
United States2399 Posts
On December 19 2015 15:41 Hotshot wrote: Sounds decent but that leaves me with two big questions: 1# What about the blizzcon talk about allowing people to play each race with a separate mmr so people aren't locked into 1 race? 2# Why cant PO just be like 30 or 35 energy? Why is blizzard taking such a drastic approach to this? 2# They most likely did not like people simply spamming it which was the main issue. They seem to still want to try and keep the strength the same by buffing the damage but not sure if good or bad in the long run. | ||
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baabaa
Canada29 Posts
I hear swarmhosts are a bit underused. Any chance of buffing these underused units? nope. only gonna do that with Terran units. to use the phrase "a bit" in the same way Blizzard is using it: Blizzard's use of "a bit" is a doing a bit of downplaying. Disruptors are a bit silly. Pylon overcharge is a bit silly also. Liberator zoning out of entire worker lines and thus auto - paying for themselves even when they don't actually kill anything is a bit silly. maybe instead of having a non-changing policy of buffing terran units that are "underused" why not apply the same logic to all races and buff zerg underused units like swarmhost. no, you nerfed that one into the dirt because you thought zerg used them too often in HOTS. terrans used speed boosted medivacs dropping widow mines a "blizzard bit" in HOTS. widow mines killed a "blizzard bit" of banelings and zerglings and they stayed not nerfed. reapers were used a "blizzard bit" and not nerfed. Hellbats got dropped a "blizzard bit" and killed a "blizzard bit" of zerglings and didn't get nerfed. Disruptor shots do a "blizzard bit" of damage. Blizzard is doing a "bliizard bit" of downplaying everything that is a serious problem.... and thus making themselves look a "blizzard bit" unable to | ||
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Excalibur_Z
United States12235 Posts
On December 19 2015 16:26 paralleluniverse wrote: Yes, I understand that bonus pool is an attempt to take activity into account. But as I've said, what you really want to know is not activity, but uncertainty about MMR. Activity doesn't matter for the purpose of ranking skill when you know uncertainty about MMR. As for decay vs bonus pool, decay obviously can't be that bad when you suggested it yourself. In fact, decay has the advantage that people who join the season later don't need to play as many games as an equally skilled person who joined earlier to have the same rank, i.e. these two people with the same MMR, but joined at different times, have the same rank. But I've moved beyond suggesting decay systems. Instead of, you must play 5 games a week or your rank gets decayed, the possibility of shorter seasons allows for the more elegant solution of, you must play 20 (or some other number) games a season or else you're inactive so that you're not going to get ranked at the end of the season. Anyway, at least we have MMR now. Yeah the decay suggestion was just one possible avenue, and I don't know if it's the best one considering it does separate the ladder into Master/the rest like you said. One thing I really hate in ladders is when you have a few players who get really high up and then never play again. The bonus pool handles this in an OK fashion, because eventually other players will surpass them, and those inactive players lose their relative rank but keep their point totals. However, it introduces point inflation which means you have to basically keep a running mental tally of what the current max bonus pool is, what everyone's adjusted points are, how much bonus pool everyone has saved up so you know how close they are to their potential, and it just gets messy quickly. So, I didn't want the bonus pool to be included in a league where the transition between Master and GM is fluid, which means sort it by MMR, but if you sort it by MMR you can have squatters who perch on their high rating and never play again. I think having some quota for keeping your rank for the season is a decent idea, but it also feels arbitrary at the same time. 20 games, 30 games, 40, whatever it turns out to be, you can still get to whatever that number is and perch. There's no continuous reengagement, and the pressure is temporary. The same is technically true for soft or hard decay systems as well, depending on the frequency (play your 14 games a week and you can breathe easy that week), but they keep you coming back pretty often. One idea I had was similar to the bonus pool, but one that imposes some penalty every time it hits a multiple of like a week unplayed. I don't really know how you would surface this to the player or make it understandable (which is a big problem), but I do like the go-at-your-own-pace aspect and the fact that it takes match quality into account, although spendable on loss seems like an oversight for high-level players so I'd probably make it only spend through wins. I'll run through some more mental iterations until I come up with something that I think is elegant, sensible, and functional. I would argue that activity is more important than measuring uncertainty (though they have similar goals) for a game because the game needs to be continuously relevant. You need that retention and reengagement for your game to remain healthy. You need a vibrant, vocal community that promotes and recommends your game to others, which drives new installs, which adds more players to the player pool, which reinforces ranking accuracy. Players won't play your game if they think it sucks, and they'll think it sucks if the game's matchmaking accuracy gives them poor quality matches. In that sense, it's cyclical. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany15878 Posts
Not sure how i feel about the PO change. | ||
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NKexquisite
United States911 Posts
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bObA
France300 Posts
Or if they really want terran use ghosts against toss and zerg, they could buff a bit snipe AND emp radius or damage ( radius as it was on WOL the same for the storms but of course not full shield of course as it is on BW and at the beginning of WOL if I remember well ) Protoss army is really strong for terran right now and so many players especially in homestory cup, and David Kim was talking about this event, are saying protoss imba, and that's said mainly by protoss players. So if they would buff ghosts quite a bit for snipe and emp, that won't directly nerf ultras and protoss army directly which would be problematic to fix for ZvP match ups. And if they want to re introduce a bit mech that wouldn't be a good idea to buff marauders. Ghost buff won't affect mech in TvT. And with infestors that they are so effective combined with ravagers, banelings and ultras emp would help to prevent that fungals. Also that would protect also against vipers especially to protect air units against parasitic bomb. And of course snipe against ultras and broodlords, because marauders won't be enough and vikings to fragiles against vipers and corruptors and fungals too. Buff ghosts would be imo a nice buff in the way blizzard wants to go : - more ghost uses and more good play - no only MMM for every single match ups - no balance ZvP match up to fix by nerfing toss and zergs units - no balance problem in TvT with mech play | ||
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DemigodcelpH
1138 Posts
However Photon Overcharge needed a straight nerf as well. Not a weird nerf/buff that looks more like a buff. Also nice to see Blizzard exploring mech AA options! | ||
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
After FIVE fucking years, we are going to put an end to "but I am TOP gold!" ?! Un-fucking-believable. Seriously, how is this thread full of the same old stupid balance discussion again, when they are giving us MMR. | ||
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