Map Archetypes Post We wanted to give a shoutout this week to the post that came up describing a potential way to describe different map archetypes, due to how well thought out it was. Describing a map this way seems to be a great start in order to make sure we have good map diversity in terms of how rush/econ heavy a map is.
After discussing this post internally, we wondered if we can expand on this concept further so that we can make sure each map stands out in a cool way compared to other maps out there. We think the 3x3 grid serves as a great way to define the alignment of a map’s economic/aggressive characteristics. We wonder though if this ‘alignment’ concept should work alongside another attribute—a unique map ‘class’ (archetype) aspect—to give a more complete picture of a map. For instance, maps like Prion Terraces might represent the class of maps which have easy-to-access high yield bases. We could have many maps of this class over the seasons, varied in alignment from aggressive to economic. We also believe there is room for more of these archetype concepts that really make a map stand out from what we’ve seen in the past, and we’d love to hear your ideas on other creative concepts which we can seek to use in maps of all types within this A.C.R.E. model.
Map Cuts for Season 2 We’ll be looking to cut a total of four maps for Season 2. The obvious three map cuts would be the oldest three maps in the pool: Ruins of Seras, Lerilak Crest, and Orbital Shipyard. Of the remaining four maps, (granted we want your feedback before we finalize) we were thinking the weakest map remaining is Central Protocol. We received a map submission called (4)Invader that is a similar idea to Central Protocol, but initially looks to be executed better. So we’re currently thinking if we cut Central Protocol, Invader could be a good new map to try in that slot. To be clear however, we are waiting to review all map submissions before any decisions are finalized.
Other Season 2 Maps We’ve also been reading up on and discussing various ideas throughout the past month or so, and we feel that we may have located a couple cool ideas so far.
Island-like Map The community has been discussing the idea of having a map that is not pathable by ground at certain stages of the game, and we’ve been looking closely into figuring out the exact points to attempt while having the map still be competitive. Here are the main points we’re considering on a map like this:
Can scout early on to reduce the build order coin flip nature of island maps.
Early/mid game players choose to get into a more of a “island” position by breaking down Rock Towers.
We would need to have enough bases for players to grab (we’re thinking around 3-4 at least that can’t be attacked by ground unless rocks are broken).
Late stage, the map would revert to more of a ground-based setup as rocks are broken down, opening up paths to the various bases.
This approach allows us to move in small steps towards having maps that are more and more like an island, instead of potentially breaking the game by taking too big of a step at once. We’d love to hear your thoughts.
Map with Varying Attack Route Considerations Another idea that we thought was interesting is playing around with the idea of having the main attack path to the opponent be easy to defend, and the alternate attack paths being extremely long by ground. This way, more mobility-based units and/or air unit-based strategies could be more powerful. Here are some detailed points that we’d be trying to hit:
This type of map would not be a rush map.
The main attack path would be a low ground path that leads up to a small ramp. The defending player would have a big defender’s advantage if they are able to set up at the ramp outside of their base. This area could also be blocked off with buildings and smaller numbers of defensive units.
The alternate paths take a much longer travel along by ground, so mobile units would make a heavier usage of these paths.
Perhaps different paths could open up in the late game, so that the games on this map don’t drag on too much due to the main attack path being too easy to defend.
And of course, we’ll always be on the lookout for additional suggestions.
Reaper Strength There looks to be an interesting split regarding feedback here. On the KR community side, we’re hearing a lot of feedback that Zerg has no chance vs. Reapers in the early game, and on the non-KR side, we’re seeing a lot of Reaper strength issues in TvT. Let’s keep a close eye on Reaper strength going forward, and perhaps test a change on the next Balance Test Map if it is needed.
PvZ Ravager Timing Strength We’re seeing a lot of feedback about the strength of early Ravagers, and we’ve noticed the strength of Ravager pushes in PvZ. While we aren’t sure that a change is definitely needed at this time, we agree that it would be good to be ready with a change by getting a Balance Test Map going. This way, if the strategy does indeed turn out to be problematic, we can patch right away.
If we are to test a nerf to Ravagers, we believe it might be good to test nerfing their ability against immobile units and/or structures. For example, if each shot damage was reduced or if the cooldown of the ability was increased a lot, or something along those lines. This way, if we were to lean towards doing the Siege Tank Medivac pick up removal in the future, TvZ will definitely also be less affected as well, which would be a plus. If we go with a different solution for TvT mech viability, we would most likely want to look for a different change here as well.
Why doesn't Blizzard cut all of the current maps instead of just 4? We'll have had all of them for two seasons (counting the off-season after blizzcon 2015). None of them are particularly amazing (no offense). The community has just sent Blizzard a vast number of extremely compelling maps to use, so why not make a pool out of all of those?
Also, I'm sure that Avex will be thrilled that one of his maps (Invader) is already being considered, even though it's probably not one of his best maps.
I hadn't seen that map archetypes post (i.imgur.com). Seems interesting conceptually.
I'm also disappointed that Blizzard is still at the state of thinking there might be a problem in PvZ. Seems like any changes there will be slow to come.
On February 13 2016 04:17 ZigguratOfUr wrote: I hadn't seen that map archetypes post (i.imgur.com). Seems interesting conceptually.
I'm also disappointed that Blizzard is still at the state of thinking there might be a problem in PvZ. Seems like any changes there will be slow to come.
Yeah I think they should do a ravager nerf, at minimum delay the ability. I think that and the adept's ability need longer cool downs. You shouldn't be able to spam it every 5 seconds, make it 15 seconds or something so you can't just mindlessly spam the ability with no consequence really.
I imagine that would help a lot, maybe a damage tweak if needed, but at minimum delay the ability.
Other then that though what do we change for pvz? What do we buff or nerf? I feel like the only possible issue would be ravagers but other then that what other issues are in the match up that people think are actually imbalanced? Would be curious to note.
On February 13 2016 04:02 TheWinks wrote: PvZ Ravager Timing Strength We’re seeing a lot of feedback about the strength of early Ravagers, and we’ve noticed the strength of Ravager pushes in PvZ. While we aren’t sure that a change is definitely needed at this time, we agree that it would be good to be ready with a change by getting a Balance Test Map going. This way, if the strategy does indeed turn out to be problematic, we can patch right away.
If we are to test a nerf to Ravagers, we believe it might be good to test nerfing their ability against immobile units and/or structures. For example, if each shot damage was reduced or if the cooldown of the ability was increased a lot, or something along those lines. This way, if we were to lean towards doing the Siege Tank Medivac pick up removal in the future, TvZ will definitely also be less affected as well, which would be a plus. If we go with a different solution for TvT mech viability, we would most likely want to look for a different change here as well.
I agree with this. I think that the current damage from Corrosive Bile is fine. However, the cooldown should be increased dramatically, so that the zergs cannot spam the ability like it is free. Instead, they will have to choose "when" to use it.
I think doubling the current cooldown is reasonable.
On February 13 2016 04:22 Empirimancer wrote: Zergs have problems with reapers?
If you don't blindly counter it, mass reapers are insanely difficult to deal with. Far more difficult to deal with than it is to execute.
I'd personally like to see the grenade be researchable and switch from its current use to an anti building grenade like its WoL attack. This would give it the early harass capabilities it had in HotS plus a reason to build them after 2 minutes
On February 13 2016 04:02 TheWinks wrote: PvZ Ravager Timing Strength We’re seeing a lot of feedback about the strength of early Ravagers, and we’ve noticed the strength of Ravager pushes in PvZ. While we aren’t sure that a change is definitely needed at this time, we agree that it would be good to be ready with a change by getting a Balance Test Map going. This way, if the strategy does indeed turn out to be problematic, we can patch right away.
If we are to test a nerf to Ravagers, we believe it might be good to test nerfing their ability against immobile units and/or structures. For example, if each shot damage was reduced or if the cooldown of the ability was increased a lot, or something along those lines. This way, if we were to lean towards doing the Siege Tank Medivac pick up removal in the future, TvZ will definitely also be less affected as well, which would be a plus. If we go with a different solution for TvT mech viability, we would most likely want to look for a different change here as well.
I agree with this. I think that the current damage from Corrosive Bile is fine. However, the cooldown should be increased dramatically, so that the zergs cannot spam the ability like it is free. Instead, they will have to choose "when" to use it.
I think doubling, or maybe even tripling, the current cooldown is reasonable. Doing so will also make force field desirable again.
The problem with increasing its cooldown too much is that it loses the reason its a unit in the first place. Bile breaks forcefields, and if you can have 5 forcefields but only enough bile to break 3 you're gonna die every time as you still can't break them all and now aren't hitting the army with them.
On February 13 2016 04:02 TheWinks wrote: PvZ Ravager Timing Strength We’re seeing a lot of feedback about the strength of early Ravagers, and we’ve noticed the strength of Ravager pushes in PvZ. While we aren’t sure that a change is definitely needed at this time, we agree that it would be good to be ready with a change by getting a Balance Test Map going. This way, if the strategy does indeed turn out to be problematic, we can patch right away.
If we are to test a nerf to Ravagers, we believe it might be good to test nerfing their ability against immobile units and/or structures. For example, if each shot damage was reduced or if the cooldown of the ability was increased a lot, or something along those lines. This way, if we were to lean towards doing the Siege Tank Medivac pick up removal in the future, TvZ will definitely also be less affected as well, which would be a plus. If we go with a different solution for TvT mech viability, we would most likely want to look for a different change here as well.
I agree with this. I think that the current damage from Corrosive Bile is fine. However, the cooldown should be increased dramatically, so that the zergs cannot spam the ability like it is free. Instead, they will have to choose "when" to use it.
I think doubling, or maybe even tripling, the current cooldown is reasonable. Doing so will also make force field desirable again.
Please let´s not make FF a thing again. Also doubling the cool down seems kinda overkill considering that Z needs ravagers against terran also.
On February 13 2016 04:17 ZigguratOfUr wrote: I hadn't seen that map archetypes post (i.imgur.com). Seems interesting conceptually.
I'm also disappointed that Blizzard is still at the state of thinking there might be a problem in PvZ. Seems like any changes there will be slow to come.
On the surface, that post is a reasonable way of fitting maps into categories, but there are so many ways to describe a map that are completely different that this doesn't really help too much. It doesn't even come close to describing the strategies possible on the map (other than rush/standard/macro, but come on, that's as old as SC2). The categories are also subjective; I honestly think that, for example, KSS is a true neutral and Orbital Shipyard is a Roaming/Neutral Economy. The lines between the categories are really blurred.
Also, one might note that basically no mapmaker better than Avex that I've talked to (~10) thinks it's very good.
Great post by Blizzard. I'm usually critical of their approach but looks like they are going the right direction. PvZ is problematic, no questions about it. Great that they are looking at the right issues.
I'm only hoping new maps won't have super hard to wall-off ramps or wide open spaces like Lerirak Crest.
Only thing that remains is for them to implement changes a bit faster and try to identify other issues.
Zero mention of mech viability, mass tempest issues, etc. Pretty disappointing "update." They basically have completely killed off mech, it's known why it's not playable atm, and they still refuse to address why it isn't playable or consult with anyone knowledgeable about it.
On February 13 2016 04:48 avilo wrote: Zero mention of mech viability, mass tempest issues, etc. Pretty disappointing "update." They basically have completely killed off mech, it's known why it's not playable atm, and they still refuse to address why it isn't playable or consult with anyone knowledgeable about it.
K.
They literally used the phrase 'mech viability' in the update .
I don't think they want to push any big changes because we're now in the middle of GSL. I think big changes would come just after code S ends so that we have a clearer picture of how the pros abuse the current game.
On February 13 2016 04:17 ZigguratOfUr wrote: I hadn't seen that map archetypes post (i.imgur.com). Seems interesting conceptually.
I'm also disappointed that Blizzard is still at the state of thinking there might be a problem in PvZ. Seems like any changes there will be slow to come.
On the surface, that post is a reasonable way of fitting maps into categories, but there are so many ways to describe a map that are completely different that this doesn't really help too much. It doesn't even come close to describing the strategies possible on the map (other than rush/standard/macro, but come on, that's as old as SC2). The categories are also subjective; I honestly think that, for example, KSS is a true neutral and Orbital Shipyard is a Roaming/Neutral Economy. The lines between the categories are really blurred.
Also, one might note that basically no mapmaker better than Avex that I've talked to (~10) thinks it's very good.
Any system to categorize Starcraft maps would suffer from the same problems though. And any system that tried to capture the nuances of maps (e.g viability of air play, expansion rates of different match ups) would end up hopelessly complicated and therefore useless for categorizing.
The main goal of this as far as I understood it, is to try to avoid having all the maps in the map pool fall into one or two categories which would be an indication of the map pool being skewed and/or unhealthy. Of course having all the maps fall in different categories wouldn't conversely be a guarantor of the map pool being healthy.
So while this system isn't terribly useful for the evaluation of individual maps, for the purpose of getting an overview of the overall state of the map pool I think roaming/constricting is a suitable criterion.
Please don't kill the reaper. It's an interesting unit right now, and reaper openings make the game more entertaining. I fear that blizzard will go overboard with this. Someone suggested making the bomb an upgrade. This would result in 0 usage of this upgrade. No one will make a tech-lab and the invest in an upgrade for a unit that loses its utility very quickly.
Reaper strength is such map dependent as well, and these issues can be balanced through map design. Wide cliffs surrounding the main and natural makes the reaper good, a lot of blockage makes it bad.
On February 13 2016 04:48 avilo wrote: Zero mention of mech viability, mass tempest issues, etc. Pretty disappointing "update." They basically have completely killed off mech, it's known why it's not playable atm, and they still refuse to address why it isn't playable or consult with anyone knowledgeable about it.
K.
They literally used the phrase 'mech viability' in the update .
Focusing on mech viability in TvT isn't really focusing on mech viability. If they want mech to be viable they would focus on viability in the non-mirror matchups and allow those changes to filter into TvT and then only worry about mech TvT after it was viable in TvZ and TvP. If you focus on TvT first, you risk harming the other matchups without even improving mech viability in them, and nerfing tankivacs actually does reduce mech viability in non-mirrors.
On February 13 2016 05:21 cheekymonkey wrote: Please don't kill the reaper. It's an interesting unit right now, and reaper openings make the game more entertaining. I fear that blizzard will go overboard with this. Someone suggested making the bomb an upgrade. This would result in 0 usage of this upgrade. No one will make a tech-lab and the invest in an upgrade for a unit that loses its utility very quickly.
Reaper strength is such map dependent as well, and these issues can be balanced through map design. Wide cliffs surrounding the main and natural makes the reaper good, a lot of blockage makes it bad.
Hmm they need some kind of tweak, maybe slower HP regen or more cool down on their ability. Right now it's really hard to fuck up heavy reaper opening vs Zerg. Basicly a bit too low risk but high reward, and I think this needs to change a little bit.
In TvT is there no viability of making 1-3 Ghosts? I've been playing it some on my off race. Snipe is sick vs Reapers, they fair well vs Hellions and can EMP Cloaked Banshee's.
Map with Varying Attack Route Considerations Another idea that we thought was interesting is playing around with the idea of having the main attack path to the opponent be easy to defend, and the alternate attack paths being extremely long by ground. This way, more mobility-based units and/or air unit-based strategies could be more powerful. Here are some detailed points that we’d be trying to hit:
This type of map would not be a rush map.
The main attack path would be a low ground path that leads up to a small ramp. The defending player would have a big defender’s advantage if they are able to set up at the ramp outside of their base. This area could also be blocked off with buildings and smaller numbers of defensive units.
The alternate paths take a much longer travel along by ground, so mobile units would make a heavier usage of these paths.
Perhaps different paths could open up in the late game, so that the games on this map don’t drag on too much due to the main attack path being too easy to defend.
And of course, we’ll always be on the lookout for additional suggestions.
For this to work, you need less mobile units to be able to trade more efficiently with more mobile units. This is even more true for ground vs air battles. If ground based anti-air is not efficient enough, then this map is going to end up being air blobs vs air blobs.
On February 13 2016 05:30 ejozl wrote: In TvT is there no viability of making 1-3 Ghosts? I've been playing it some on my off race. Snipe is sick vs Reapers, they fair well vs Hellions and can EMP Cloaked Banshee's.
That seems like it'd delay non-Barracks tech an awful lot. How early are you getting Ghosts out?
On February 13 2016 04:17 ZigguratOfUr wrote: I hadn't seen that map archetypes post (i.imgur.com). Seems interesting conceptually.
I'm also disappointed that Blizzard is still at the state of thinking there might be a problem in PvZ. Seems like any changes there will be slow to come.
Yeah I think they should do a ravager nerf, at minimum delay the ability. I think that and the adept's ability need longer cool downs. You shouldn't be able to spam it every 5 seconds, make it 15 seconds or something so you can't just mindlessly spam the ability with no consequence really.
I imagine that would help a lot, maybe a damage tweak if needed, but at minimum delay the ability.
Other then that though what do we change for pvz? What do we buff or nerf? I feel like the only possible issue would be ravagers but other then that what other issues are in the match up that people think are actually imbalanced? Would be curious to note.
For me there is at least 2 things that should be changed for PvZ: - ravagers nerf as suggested - lurker vP interaction: 1) either movement speed nerf: this unit is already extremely strong in PvZ, I don't think it is normal that it can on top of it run away and reposition so easily. At 4.13 out of creep and 5.37, this supposedly siege unit outruns most of the Protoss army, WTF; 2) or give Protoss collosi 6+4 range with upgrade so that it can outrange such a fast siege unit; 3) or give a range upgrade to disruptor (same reason as 2). I don't really prefer either over another, just want a more obvious counter-play
Map with Varying Attack Route Considerations Another idea that we thought was interesting is playing around with the idea of having the main attack path to the opponent be easy to defend, and the alternate attack paths being extremely long by ground. This way, more mobility-based units and/or air unit-based strategies could be more powerful. Here are some detailed points that we’d be trying to hit:
This type of map would not be a rush map.
The main attack path would be a low ground path that leads up to a small ramp. The defending player would have a big defender’s advantage if they are able to set up at the ramp outside of their base. This area could also be blocked off with buildings and smaller numbers of defensive units.
The alternate paths take a much longer travel along by ground, so mobile units would make a heavier usage of these paths.
Perhaps different paths could open up in the late game, so that the games on this map don’t drag on too much due to the main attack path being too easy to defend.
And of course, we’ll always be on the lookout for additional suggestions.
For this to work, you need less mobile units to be able to trade more efficiently with more mobile units. This is even more true for ground vs air battles. If ground based anti-air is not efficient enough, then this map is going to end up being air blobs vs air blobs.
This is why the strength of air units like the Liberator is such a problem, design-wise. Without a high ground advantage, the way we can create legitimately dynamic maps is limited to begin with. With very powerful air units, this dynamic of attack paths is extremely weakened, because there are less forces at play, beholding you to it. It makes things really difficult for people like me to make this game more interesting.
Yes to island expansions, no to full-on NR20 island maps. Ok, well, it may not hurt to have one in the pool for the sake of variety, and players can just veto it if they dislike that playstyle (just as "macro" / turtle players should be able to veto rush maps).
Hell yes to the idea of maps with short/long rush lanes. I was actually thinking of submitting a map like this for the map contest. Any kind of map that forces players to make strategic choices with regard to placement of defenses and their army could really make the game more interesting. However I worry that any such map design will be totally undercut by the extreme mobility given by warp prisms / nydus / medivac fleets.
Instead of nerfing zerg, they should buff protoss' ability to spread out their units and defend multiple bases in some way. Preferably a way which also helps against roaches/ravagers early to midgame.
On February 13 2016 06:41 H0i wrote: Instead of nerfing zerg, they should buff protoss' ability to spread out their units and defend multiple bases in some way. Preferably a way which also helps against roaches/ravagers early to midgame.
Yeah it's like Protoss doesn't have warp-in mechanic that can reinforce bases immediately, Photon Overcharge or Mass Recall already.
On February 13 2016 04:17 ZigguratOfUr wrote: I hadn't seen that map archetypes post (i.imgur.com). Seems interesting conceptually.
I'm also disappointed that Blizzard is still at the state of thinking there might be a problem in PvZ. Seems like any changes there will be slow to come.
Yeah I think they should do a ravager nerf, at minimum delay the ability. I think that and the adept's ability need longer cool downs. You shouldn't be able to spam it every 5 seconds, make it 15 seconds or something so you can't just mindlessly spam the ability with no consequence really.
I imagine that would help a lot, maybe a damage tweak if needed, but at minimum delay the ability.
Other then that though what do we change for pvz? What do we buff or nerf? I feel like the only possible issue would be ravagers but other then that what other issues are in the match up that people think are actually imbalanced? Would be curious to note.
For me there is at least 2 things that should be changed for PvZ: - ravagers nerf as suggested - lurker vP interaction: 1) either movement speed nerf: this unit is already extremely strong in PvZ, I don't think it is normal that it can on top of it run away and reposition so easily. At 4.13 out of creep and 5.37, this supposedly siege unit outruns most of the Protoss army, WTF; 2) or give Protoss collosi 6+4 range with upgrade so that it can outrange such a fast siege unit; 3) or give a range upgrade to disruptor (same reason as 2). I don't really prefer either over another, just want a more obvious counter-play
Hm I really don't see Lurkers as a problem in pvz. Chargelot/archon/immortal is pretty strong versus Lurker based compositions. Let alone if Zerg is being super passive with lots of Lurkers you should be transitioning into Tempests and mass expanding.
I just don't see Lurkers as an issue in pvz unless the toss is going a heavy blink stalker composition, lurkers shred that like nothing.
Regarding maps: blizzard hasn't even looked at some of the maps that have been submitted yet, so it's going to be a while before we get any actual news about that.
On February 13 2016 04:17 ZigguratOfUr wrote: I hadn't seen that map archetypes post (i.imgur.com). Seems interesting conceptually.
I'm also disappointed that Blizzard is still at the state of thinking there might be a problem in PvZ. Seems like any changes there will be slow to come.
Yeah I think they should do a ravager nerf, at minimum delay the ability. I think that and the adept's ability need longer cool downs. You shouldn't be able to spam it every 5 seconds, make it 15 seconds or something so you can't just mindlessly spam the ability with no consequence really.
I imagine that would help a lot, maybe a damage tweak if needed, but at minimum delay the ability.
Other then that though what do we change for pvz? What do we buff or nerf? I feel like the only possible issue would be ravagers but other then that what other issues are in the match up that people think are actually imbalanced? Would be curious to note.
For me there is at least 2 things that should be changed for PvZ: - ravagers nerf as suggested - lurker vP interaction: 1) either movement speed nerf: this unit is already extremely strong in PvZ, I don't think it is normal that it can on top of it run away and reposition so easily. At 4.13 out of creep and 5.37, this supposedly siege unit outruns most of the Protoss army, WTF; 2) or give Protoss collosi 6+4 range with upgrade so that it can outrange such a fast siege unit; 3) or give a range upgrade to disruptor (same reason as 2). I don't really prefer either over another, just want a more obvious counter-play
Hm I really don't see Lurkers as a problem in pvz. Chargelot/archon/immortal is pretty strong versus Lurker based compositions. Let alone if Zerg is being super passive with lots of Lurkers you should be transitioning into Tempests and mass expanding.
I just don't see Lurkers as an issue in pvz unless the toss is going a heavy blink stalker composition, lurkers shred that like nothing.
Nope, chargelot/archon/immortal are trash vs lurkers. And usually they are not alone, there are some roach/ravagers/hydra in the mix. It only works because you have a few phoenixes from your stargate opening to lift them up, but the window in which you can lift them up is pretty short due to viper's PB. Sure tempest is the endgame solution to about anything. But you have all the time in the world to die before that transition is ready if you keep running away from lurkers and they end up at your doors. This may depend greatly of maps layout I suppose.
On February 13 2016 06:41 H0i wrote: Instead of nerfing zerg, they should buff protoss' ability to spread out their units and defend multiple bases in some way. Preferably a way which also helps against roaches/ravagers early to midgame.
Yeah it's like Protoss doesn't have warp-in mechanic that can reinforce bases immediately, Photon Overcharge or Mass Recall already.
Well there was this huge PO nerf you may have read about and since lotv, slow warpins and double damage during said slow warpin
I still think pick sieged tank should stay, if its changed (while buffing the tank) then make the tank unsiege while on the medivac, taking space of one unsieged tank. This way they can be saved but sieged tank drops will be gone.
About a nerf to ravagers, if we are going that direction to fix PvZ, then increased cooldown on bile makes sense. Right now ravagers spam that too much. But i don't think a nerf to zerg early game is the way to go, it may create a situation where protoss all ins a lot because zerg just dies early on, while later zerg is still stronger. Sure, zerg will play less greedy, but is zerg greed really the issue? I really think the problem lies in mid game armies, that are too strong vs protoss. Hive tech might not be the issue either. Protoss has the tools as long as they make it to the late game on even ground. In other words, nerf lair tech vs protoss. Do people die to ravagers all ins that much? (please do not take prion terraces into account)
why not consider cutting out the map with the highest veto rate?
i like how he is waiting to pull the trigger on several different changes that influence each other. like Ravager ability cool down increase and Siege Tank Medivac pick ups. i think bundling the changes together and sticking them one all-at-once into a PTR map is the way to go.
On February 13 2016 06:51 rockslave wrote: Do ravagers really need their auto-attack? Maybe that would be a better place to mess that wouldn't make it worse against FF or Liberators.
SC2 does not need to be based even more around abilities imo.
On February 13 2016 04:17 ZigguratOfUr wrote: I hadn't seen that map archetypes post (i.imgur.com). Seems interesting conceptually.
I'm also disappointed that Blizzard is still at the state of thinking there might be a problem in PvZ. Seems like any changes there will be slow to come.
Yeah I think they should do a ravager nerf, at minimum delay the ability. I think that and the adept's ability need longer cool downs. You shouldn't be able to spam it every 5 seconds, make it 15 seconds or something so you can't just mindlessly spam the ability with no consequence really.
I imagine that would help a lot, maybe a damage tweak if needed, but at minimum delay the ability.
Other then that though what do we change for pvz? What do we buff or nerf? I feel like the only possible issue would be ravagers but other then that what other issues are in the match up that people think are actually imbalanced? Would be curious to note.
The obvious one for me is the mutalisk. Why do Protoss open stargate or double stargate all the time and if they don't they usually go blink? Because if you play any other way a zerg can build 10+ mutas in the midgame and you just don't have the tech or units to combat that. But what happens is that a lot of times these Protoss players then get rolled by lurkers and ravagers, because zerg in LotV finally has ground units that are somewhat equal to the Protoss robotech units. And since these groundbased games are much more fun than always just trying to catch the opponent with the proper air tech switch I would much rather prefer a mutalisk nerf than a severe lurker/ravager nerf. Though I have been advocating for small ravager nerfs to cooldown and morph time one way or another, since I think these values make the unit too spamy.
On February 13 2016 04:17 ZigguratOfUr wrote: I hadn't seen that map archetypes post (i.imgur.com). Seems interesting conceptually.
I'm also disappointed that Blizzard is still at the state of thinking there might be a problem in PvZ. Seems like any changes there will be slow to come.
Yeah I think they should do a ravager nerf, at minimum delay the ability. I think that and the adept's ability need longer cool downs. You shouldn't be able to spam it every 5 seconds, make it 15 seconds or something so you can't just mindlessly spam the ability with no consequence really.
I imagine that would help a lot, maybe a damage tweak if needed, but at minimum delay the ability.
Other then that though what do we change for pvz? What do we buff or nerf? I feel like the only possible issue would be ravagers but other then that what other issues are in the match up that people think are actually imbalanced? Would be curious to note.
The obvious one for me is the mutalisk. Why do Protoss open stargate or double stargate all the time and if they don't they usually go blink? Because if you play any other way a zerg can build 10+ mutas in the midgame and you just don't have the tech or units to combat that. But what happens is that a lot of times these Protoss players then get rolled by lurkers and ravagers, because zerg in LotV finally has ground units that are somewhat equal to the Protoss robotech units. And since these groundbased games are much more fun than always just trying to catch the opponent with the proper air tech switch I would much rather prefer a mutalisk nerf than a severe lurker/ravager nerf. Though I have been advocating for small ravager nerfs to cooldown and morph time one way or another, since I think these values make the unit too spamy.
On February 13 2016 04:17 ZigguratOfUr wrote: I hadn't seen that map archetypes post (i.imgur.com). Seems interesting conceptually.
I'm also disappointed that Blizzard is still at the state of thinking there might be a problem in PvZ. Seems like any changes there will be slow to come.
Yeah I think they should do a ravager nerf, at minimum delay the ability. I think that and the adept's ability need longer cool downs. You shouldn't be able to spam it every 5 seconds, make it 15 seconds or something so you can't just mindlessly spam the ability with no consequence really.
I imagine that would help a lot, maybe a damage tweak if needed, but at minimum delay the ability.
Other then that though what do we change for pvz? What do we buff or nerf? I feel like the only possible issue would be ravagers but other then that what other issues are in the match up that people think are actually imbalanced? Would be curious to note.
The obvious one for me is the mutalisk. Why do Protoss open stargate or double stargate all the time and if they don't they usually go blink? Because if you play any other way a zerg can build 10+ mutas in the midgame and you just don't have the tech or units to combat that. But what happens is that a lot of times these Protoss players then get rolled by lurkers and ravagers, because zerg in LotV finally has ground units that are somewhat equal to the Protoss robotech units. And since these groundbased games are much more fun than always just trying to catch the opponent with the proper air tech switch I would much rather prefer a mutalisk nerf than a severe lurker/ravager nerf. Though I have been advocating for small ravager nerfs to cooldown and morph time one way or another, since I think these values make the unit too spamy.
This. Having to blind-counter mutas every single game will make the MU stagnant.
You shouldn't be able to spam it every 5 seconds, make it 15 seconds or something so you can't just mindlessly spam the ability with no consequence really.
The cooldown is 1.5x longer than blink atm. It actually feels long to use, you're probably more concerned about the time between the first shade ending and the second shade being able to be cast as that's much shorter.
You shouldn't be able to spam it every 5 seconds, make it 15 seconds or something so you can't just mindlessly spam the ability with no consequence really.
The cooldown is 1.5x longer than blink atm
Blink has a cd of 7 seconds, Corrosive Bile 6 seconds......soo.....yeah.....
You shouldn't be able to spam it every 5 seconds, make it 15 seconds or something so you can't just mindlessly spam the ability with no consequence really.
The cooldown is 1.5x longer than blink atm
Blink has a cd of 7 seconds, Corrosive Bile 6 seconds......soo.....yeah.....
Oops - for clarity, the line before that quote is talking about the adept shade cooldown:
I think that and the adept's ability need longer cool downs.
Which is 11 seconds.
The gap between shade 1 ending and shade 2 starting is only 4 seconds, however.
If the shade lasted 5s and had a 6s gap to next one (instead of lasting 7s and having a 4s gap) it would feel completely different and adress those zerg complaints without changing the CD, IMO.
If it has to be changed in the first place, which seems unneccesary since PvT is roughly even and there's strong argument for Z being ahead in PvZ
So... how about longer cooldown on bile, regeneration nerf on mutas, -1 armor for chitinous plating research (maybe reducing the cost), remove sieged tank drops (not affecting sieged tank pick up), remove liberator range tech (or nerf and reduce cost), buff siege tank damage slightly, and nerf immortal ability slightly. Fixed?
On February 13 2016 04:17 ZigguratOfUr wrote: I hadn't seen that map archetypes post (i.imgur.com). Seems interesting conceptually.
I'm also disappointed that Blizzard is still at the state of thinking there might be a problem in PvZ. Seems like any changes there will be slow to come.
Yeah I think they should do a ravager nerf, at minimum delay the ability. I think that and the adept's ability need longer cool downs. You shouldn't be able to spam it every 5 seconds, make it 15 seconds or something so you can't just mindlessly spam the ability with no consequence really.
I imagine that would help a lot, maybe a damage tweak if needed, but at minimum delay the ability.
Other then that though what do we change for pvz? What do we buff or nerf? I feel like the only possible issue would be ravagers but other then that what other issues are in the match up that people think are actually imbalanced? Would be curious to note.
The obvious one for me is the mutalisk. Why do Protoss open stargate or double stargate all the time and if they don't they usually go blink? Because if you play any other way a zerg can build 10+ mutas in the midgame and you just don't have the tech or units to combat that. But what happens is that a lot of times these Protoss players then get rolled by lurkers and ravagers, because zerg in LotV finally has ground units that are somewhat equal to the Protoss robotech units. And since these groundbased games are much more fun than always just trying to catch the opponent with the proper air tech switch I would much rather prefer a mutalisk nerf than a severe lurker/ravager nerf. Though I have been advocating for small ravager nerfs to cooldown and morph time one way or another, since I think these values make the unit too spamy.
This. Having to blind-counter mutas every single game will make the MU stagnant.
I agree with this to some extent. I think that the current meta in PvZ has been around inconsistently yet persistently: Protoss always opens Twilight for option of Blink or Stargate in order to not be rolled by Zerg. However, I'm not sure I see a huge problem with that. I mean, if Mutas get nerf'd, you can bascially say goodbye -- they're already shit against a Protoss that is prepared for them, and the central aspect of Mutas is that they can swoop in at just the right moment and deal enormous damage. Fun to deal with as a Protoss? No. However, I do like the strategic depth that it can bring to the table.
I think we should consider what the world of PvZ would be like with a small Ravager nerf that would weaken them in the early midgame. In my mind, it seems as if this would mean that Protoss would be able to avoid going into tech that can hold back Ravager timings or dying instantly to certain Ravager builds. I think that it's boring as a P to have to build double Robo after every Stargate opening I do just to get enough Disruptors and Immortals out to push back a Ravager/Roach/Hydra timing. And don't even get me started about 1 or 2 base Ravager timings on Ulrena.
Ultimately, I think that there needs to be balance map exploration here...DKim seems to be carefully considering the changes, which makes me happy, because pushing these through too quickly could really fuck up the game.
On a different note, I'm unhappy with the new classification of maps Blizzard is considering...I think it's going to oblige the developers to make a map from every category on the table, and will overall pigeon-hole the dev team and SC2 community into only thinking about maps from a set, mapped-out viewpoint. Essentially, it closes off the possibility for other ways of seeing the map-making process.
I can't comment on the other match-ups, but it seems as if Blizzard is going at this pretty level-headedly, which is good, because I've been unsure of some of their recent posts.
As someone said, the mutalisk vs phoenix at PvZ needs to be fixed. Toss needs to open penix and blink all the games.. Maybe instead of 5+2 range for phoenix, go back to the 6 range from WOL? That would make the phoenix not useless or op against mutas.
On February 13 2016 08:22 StarscreamG1 wrote: As someone said, the mutalisk vs phoenix at PvZ needs to be fixed. Toss needs to open penix and blink all the games.. Maybe instead of 5+2 range for phoenix, go back to the 6 range from WOL? That would make the phoenix not useless or op against mutas.
I've seen several pro games recently with a zerg muta-switching into a protoss who already has 6-8 phoenix's because muta+viper is fairly strong against phoenix even with APC upgraded. There's no need for phoenix nerf
The solution at this point seems clear, I'm a fan of smaller balance changes in a game of such depth like Starcraft, but when things are a problem they need to be addressed sooner rather then later, people are competing for serious money so being slothful on prudent balance changes seems a bit irresponsible.
I like being a bit OP as much as the next Zerg but watching professional level ZvP is kinda bad at the moment, Protoss seems really screwed against Lurkers unless they have Templars ready to go. Ravager pushes when executed seem deadly and Immortals (even though I think it was too good vs. mech previously) kind of went from a scary unit to a juicy target.
Change Bile, don't just nerf it, in it's current incarnation medivac pickup will never be nerfed which sucks because tankivacs existing because Ravagers exist seems really counter productive, Zerg didn't even need any help against mech back in HOTS so an ability that seems fine tuned to killing Siege Tanks seems like a prime candidate for a change.
Perhaps buff Ravager combat stats and make it a bit more effective against light units with Bile becoming a passive ability? Roach/Hydra is notoriously shit against bio and notoriously strong against mech play, so why not nerf Bile to be better vs bio and worse vs mech? Maybe +2 innate damage against light biological units? I don't know, anything really.
Immortal could probably use a small buff, Sentry also needs a bit of love, a high sentry count used to be scary, now they are just delicious gas heavy targets for Bile. Once again, Bile needs to be removed in it's current form so the Sentry can actually be used again, good force fields were a distinct mark or high caliber Protoss players, now it's unusable at the pro level since Ravagers are a go to unit in every single match up.
Still really surprised Liberator not addressed, Mutalisk only exists to defend drops now, totally neutering an iconic unit feels a bit harsh to Mutalisk harass which has a very high skill cap.
Change Bile to +2 innate vs bio/remove projectile, tankivacs are mandatory with it in the game.
Revert Immortals to previous form so they can fight Lurkers more straight up, or at the very least absorb more damage.
Nerf Liberator splash or make it move slower, the unit is the definition of abusive and it's another hard counter unit which is the last thing this game needs. Buff Ghost or Banshee and nerf this unit please. I don't even lose that many games to it, it's not "op" it's just really dumb to play against. Apologies on coming off with an opinion like this but the unit is too versatile (fast, durable, kills drones better then banshees, holds ground better then tanks, and massacres Mutalisks in small and large numbers)
Nothing about Ultras? You are wasting your time on deliberating on Reapers but you are not addressing Ultras. Awesome. So awesome. TvZ is so fun now. Just waiting for this broken unit to spawn and write gg.
On February 13 2016 05:21 cheekymonkey wrote: Please don't kill the reaper. It's an interesting unit right now, and reaper openings make the game more entertaining. I fear that blizzard will go overboard with this. Someone suggested making the bomb an upgrade. This would result in 0 usage of this upgrade. No one will make a tech-lab and the invest in an upgrade for a unit that loses its utility very quickly.
How about increasing the Reaper bomb cool down by 5 seconds?
On February 13 2016 04:17 ZigguratOfUr wrote: I hadn't seen that map archetypes post (i.imgur.com). Seems interesting conceptually.
I'm also disappointed that Blizzard is still at the state of thinking there might be a problem in PvZ. Seems like any changes there will be slow to come.
Yeah I think they should do a ravager nerf, at minimum delay the ability. I think that and the adept's ability need longer cool downs. You shouldn't be able to spam it every 5 seconds, make it 15 seconds or something so you can't just mindlessly spam the ability with no consequence really.
I imagine that would help a lot, maybe a damage tweak if needed, but at minimum delay the ability.
Other then that though what do we change for pvz? What do we buff or nerf? I feel like the only possible issue would be ravagers but other then that what other issues are in the match up that people think are actually imbalanced? Would be curious to note.
The obvious one for me is the mutalisk. Why do Protoss open stargate or double stargate all the time and if they don't they usually go blink? Because if you play any other way a zerg can build 10+ mutas in the midgame and you just don't have the tech or units to combat that. But what happens is that a lot of times these Protoss players then get rolled by lurkers and ravagers, because zerg in LotV finally has ground units that are somewhat equal to the Protoss robotech units. And since these groundbased games are much more fun than always just trying to catch the opponent with the proper air tech switch I would much rather prefer a mutalisk nerf than a severe lurker/ravager nerf. Though I have been advocating for small ravager nerfs to cooldown and morph time one way or another, since I think these values make the unit too spamy.
Yes that is an issue. Protoss needs an anti ground buff versus Mutalisks and I forgot about that problem with the match up (I never do mutas really and never have as I am not a fan of base trades). I don't know if they need a new unit or if they can buff blink stalkers against air as I do agree that Protoss does have to open up stargate. If they don't then Muta's just destroy them.
I don't think Blizzard should nerf Mutas and I hope what they do is buff AA ground for Toss and that should help a lot. Terran has a million ways to deal with Mutas with thors, widow mines, liberators, etc and Toss only has Phoenix. I do hope this does get looked into at some point as I personally find it boring seeing a stargateless Toss get destroyed due to the Muta switch.
What if there were an island type map that had bridges trigger after a certain time in the game? Say... 7 minutes or so. I'm actually not sure of game length and timing anymore, since I'm far more of a spectator than a player, but is this something that could be considered?
I'm thinking of maps similar to the ones used in the ShoutCraft Team League. There were a lot of unique maps, and there was one kind of like that. If i remember correctly, there were neutral turrets, and bridge controls to a high-yield base. That's a little different than what I'm suggesting, but perhaps something similar.
On February 13 2016 05:30 ejozl wrote: In TvT is there no viability of making 1-3 Ghosts? I've been playing it some on my off race. Snipe is sick vs Reapers, they fair well vs Hellions and can EMP Cloaked Banshee's.
I don't want to come across as overly harsh, but you must be playing at low levels because in TvT when it goes to Reaper wars you can be almost dead before the factory is finished. There is no way you could possibly have Ghosts out to deal with the Reapers in the openings that are common/possible in TvT.
That said, I dont think the Reaper should be changed. If it's changed it loses any viability and purpose -- Like someone mentinoed, making the grenade an upgrade would be so hilariously the wrong move because NOBODY will research an ability you can use in the first 2 minutes of the game for it to be pretty much worthless in the rest of the game.
On February 13 2016 05:30 ejozl wrote: In TvT is there no viability of making 1-3 Ghosts? I've been playing it some on my off race. Snipe is sick vs Reapers, they fair well vs Hellions and can EMP Cloaked Banshee's.
I don't want to come across as overly harsh, but you must be playing at low levels because in TvT when it goes to Reaper wars you can be almost dead before the factory is finished. There is no way you could possibly have Ghosts out to deal with the Reapers in the openings that are common/possible in TvT.
That said, I dont think the Reaper should be changed. If it's changed it loses any viability and purpose -- Like someone mentinoed, making the grenade an upgrade would be so hilariously the wrong move because NOBODY will research an ability you can use in the first 2 minutes of the game for it to be pretty much worthless in the rest of the game.
Reapers should be nerfed via the maps.
The only person who mentioned making the reaper grenade an upgrade was me, and the original person who criticized the idea didn't bother reading that it was to change its use. Lose the grenade it currently has and gain its anti building attack it had in WoL. This makes it worthwhile in the later game and still worth while in the early game due to its still existent harass potential. Yes making the grenade as is an upgrade is silly, but making it a unit that is worth using beyond 5 minutes isn't.
Think it would be good to make Ravager mortar have an attack penalty vs. buildings, would help a lot in their strength vs. bunkers, pylons, and cannons.
On February 13 2016 04:17 ZigguratOfUr wrote: I hadn't seen that map archetypes post (i.imgur.com). Seems interesting conceptually.
I'm also disappointed that Blizzard is still at the state of thinking there might be a problem in PvZ. Seems like any changes there will be slow to come.
Yeah I think they should do a ravager nerf, at minimum delay the ability. I think that and the adept's ability need longer cool downs. You shouldn't be able to spam it every 5 seconds, make it 15 seconds or something so you can't just mindlessly spam the ability with no consequence really.
I imagine that would help a lot, maybe a damage tweak if needed, but at minimum delay the ability.
Other then that though what do we change for pvz? What do we buff or nerf? I feel like the only possible issue would be ravagers but other then that what other issues are in the match up that people think are actually imbalanced? Would be curious to note.
The obvious one for me is the mutalisk. Why do Protoss open stargate or double stargate all the time and if they don't they usually go blink? Because if you play any other way a zerg can build 10+ mutas in the midgame and you just don't have the tech or units to combat that. But what happens is that a lot of times these Protoss players then get rolled by lurkers and ravagers, because zerg in LotV finally has ground units that are somewhat equal to the Protoss robotech units. And since these groundbased games are much more fun than always just trying to catch the opponent with the proper air tech switch I would much rather prefer a mutalisk nerf than a severe lurker/ravager nerf. Though I have been advocating for small ravager nerfs to cooldown and morph time one way or another, since I think these values make the unit too spamy.
Yes that is an issue. Protoss needs an anti ground buff versus Mutalisks and I forgot about that problem with the match up (I never do mutas really and never have as I am not a fan of base trades). I don't know if they need a new unit or if they can buff blink stalkers against air as I do agree that Protoss does have to open up stargate. If they don't then Muta's just destroy them.
I don't think Blizzard should nerf Mutas and I hope what they do is buff AA ground for Toss and that should help a lot. Terran has a million ways to deal with Mutas with thors, widow mines, liberators, etc and Toss only has Phoenix. I do hope this does get looked into at some point as I personally find it boring seeing a stargateless Toss get destroyed due to the Muta switch.
I doubt D Kim's ego would allow for it. 1) I don't think he wants to appease "harsh critics:" I've been giving grief over this and pleading for something to be done since I've played SC 2. If you concede, you have to admit that maybe you've been wrong all this time. 2) Mutas are another unit he has buffed (speed and regen...). It's not good optics if you have to keep nerfing units, in some way, after buffing them. He missed the window of acceptability: if you make a mistake and promptly rectify it, then that's good/natural. However, if it takes years... then that's kinda like saying "yeah, I've gotten paid to imbalance the game. I probably should return some money..."
So, in short, Kim will try to find whatever workaround he can to achieve near 50% numbers. If the game ends up resembling all that is trash, at the end of the day he is just going to say "well, I did my job." The only real question is how will he go about achieving 50% in a horrible way. In HotS it was via all-ins. Is there a gimmicky strat that can be buffed to get to 50%? Can he reduce warp-in times drastically? Will be interesting to see how someone who has no interest in the betterment of the game goes about it...
On February 13 2016 08:32 jpg06051992 wrote: The solution at this point seems clear, I'm a fan of smaller balance changes in a game of such depth like Starcraft, but when things are a problem they need to be addressed sooner rather then later, people are competing for serious money so being slothful on prudent balance changes seems a bit irresponsible.
it takes at least 1 year after release for a diverse race RTS to come close to being balanced. Diverse race RTS games have always been tough to balance. Any one whose primary income relies upon this game that does not know this is being irresponsible.
i prefer Blizzard to take their time and let things simmer and cook a little before making any changes. If that means it takes 1.5 years...then so be it.
For me, as a zerg player, 5.33 maps out of 7 maps were disastrous. Surely there are many zerg favored maps (ex. lerilak, prion terraces, etc.), but I never enjoyed playing on those maps. Most of those maps had certain problems with vs T or vs Z, and too strong all-ins. The only maps enjoyable were Dusk Towers and Ruins of Seras(only cross/horizontal spawns).
On February 13 2016 12:27 OSCEWiNtER wrote: Ravager nerf would be necessary, but I think Blizz should also do something with the lingdrops, it seem to cause very hard time to protoss players.
Toss is mostly hurting at the start IMO. There are deadly timings where you have 1 overcharge instead of 3 due to the energy cost
Maybe Blizzard should fire one of their mapmakers and use that money to pay prizes for community designed maps. Would be good if the community got to vote for a least half of the map pool too, then DK would have to make fairly convincing arguments to get every map he wanted.
On February 13 2016 13:03 Korakys wrote: Maybe Blizzard should fire one of their mapmakers and use that money to pay prizes for community designed maps. Would be good if the community got to vote for a least half of the map pool too, then DK would have to make fairly convincing arguments to get every map he wanted.
The problem of course is that the community at large is terrible at judging maps. Biome won the popular vote for the fourth TL map contest after all (though I do blame the voting system for pushing the map that stand out the most).
Still fake discussion, still nothing being done, people are still getting frustred on the ladder. - disruptor ping pong PvP - ridiculous TvT drop tanks - ridiculous "terran on a timer let's try to kill the most drones" TvZ - ridiculous warp prism based PvT
TvZ especially, everyone sees it's a stupid matchup were terran is overwhelming in harass while playing on a timer. You're forced to push push push harass harass make something happen, while zerg is camping hard as fuck (not by choice) waiting for ultras and T3 where he'll always win.
- OF COURSE the ravager needs a nerf - OF COURSE the reaper needs a nerf - OF COURSE the tankivac needs to be removed - OF COURSE the blink pickup needs to be removed
But then again, blizzard entertainment, the compagny who brought you 30 dmg charge zealot : "yeaaah, we'll waaait. We're loooking into it. We neeeed more feedback. Yeaaaah."
On February 13 2016 18:01 Cyro wrote: The 30 damage charge zealot was due to a bug
It wasn't a bug, it was a patch from LOTV. Balance Update Patch 2.5.5[2] Charge now deals 30 damage on hit. Charge speed buff reduced to 2.75, down from 2.95
"So we heard your feedback that bio struggled against ultralisks in late game TvZ. After gathering pro players feedback and testing it internally, we're glad to deliver the next LOTV balance patch :
Terran - Marine and marauder : on stim activation, first attack deals twice the damage.
We'll be reading your feedback on this new change !"
Thanks Blizzard for this feedback, I would really like to see an Island-like map in Season 2 map pool. This would lead to unique strategies and moves :D However, I think this won't be easy to balance.
This was a nice post, I liked their discussion on map archetypes. It would be nice to discuss archetypes or topologies of maps in more detail in general
I think nerfing ravager is pretty stupid. The problem is not zergs, are protoss. They lack in design. On bnet forums there are really good suggestions to fix pvz without nerfing anything. A guy in a post suggested to remove PO, change MSC to scout/defensive unit with no damage (defensive spells) and to buff units production times ONLY from gateways and not warpgates. this way protoss can defend with units produced locally.
On February 13 2016 18:01 Cyro wrote: The 30 damage charge zealot was due to a bug
It wasn't a bug, it was a patch from LOTV. Balance Update Patch 2.5.5[2] Charge now deals 30 damage on hit. Charge speed buff reduced to 2.75, down from 2.95
It was bugged during internal testing so the 30 damage wasn't as strong when it was tested.
On February 13 2016 18:01 Cyro wrote: The 30 damage charge zealot was due to a bug
It wasn't a bug, it was a patch from LOTV. Balance Update Patch 2.5.5[2] Charge now deals 30 damage on hit. Charge speed buff reduced to 2.75, down from 2.95
And if you read through the patch notes you'd realize it was a bug. During internal testing the zealots would *sometimes* hit and deal the 30 damage and *sometimes* it would hit and deal 0 damage, but that wasn't caught until the patch went live. After it went live they hotfixed it, then realized how much that buff actually did and quickly changed it to where its at now.
If Reapers get nerfed, they better receive some interesting upgrade that would make them viable in mid/late game to compensate for the reduced early presence.
On February 13 2016 20:34 WrathSCII wrote: These are becoming more of a weekly reminder on why I quit the game.
The updates are pretty good except for the 3-4 week period in which they decided to only talk about that they consider to, they will put, they have put out a test map for adepts which they will implement, which they have implemented now.
If you don't like the game it's not really up to some weekly balance thoughts blog to change it.
On February 13 2016 20:19 Tritanis wrote: If Reapers get nerfed, they better receive some interesting upgrade that would make them viable in mid/late game to compensate for the reduced early presence.
No, I'm not a Terran player
no. It's fine to have early game units that don't do much in the later phase of the game + the reaper is in theory insanely useful vs Z and gateway armies if you can use the bomb while doing the rest of the micro. It's probably not possible in 1v1 but in archon mode we could see it.
And mass reaper is both a problem vs Z and T on some maps.
Maybe it's just me but it seems to be an early point in the balancing phase to put so much emphasis on unusual maps. I think most people would like to have some more discussion around what could be done to make the game better on all historic and current GSL map types. At least a half dozen units could be named as problematic or almost useless.
I think a simultaneous nerf on obviously necessary units for all three races would work best for the balance.
Consider these changes at the same time: -nerf ultralisk (reduce armor) -remove tankivacs -nerf adepts (longer cooldown, or can only be canceled within first half of shade-time to make it more predictable - introduce 2 stages of shade?)
This way Zerg lategame would have less of an impact and current strength of lurker+ravager would be useful for lategame. Terran early-midgame harass would have one (unfair) option less. Protoss earlygame harass would be less impactfull.
I think these are the most wanted changes for each race and combining these in one update would make better balanced games, in which the army strength scales more consistently.
What about, I don't know, having good maps ? Let's think about that archetype thing after we get solid maps. For the time being I don't consider that lotv has been tested on a solid ground with the dubious map pools we've had so far. By the way, isn't their conception of island maps just the atrocious Secret Spring ?
Still nothing about Nydus by the way, seems like they really like the invincible Nydus.
On February 13 2016 19:42 Weltall wrote: I think nerfing ravager is pretty stupid. The problem is not zergs, are protoss. They lack in design. On bnet forums there are really good suggestions to fix pvz without nerfing anything. A guy in a post suggested to remove PO, change MSC to scout/defensive unit with no damage (defensive spells) and to buff units production times ONLY from gateways and not warpgates. this way protoss can defend with units produced locally.
Unless there is something new very special with the defensive spells of MSC that can delay an incoming attack, this suggestion looks pretty stupid to me. Faster units production time on gateway won't solve anything because you already should have warpgate by the time ravagers are there, and it never was an issue of building units on time but to be able to afford them in the first place. That's why PO came into play: add DPS for defense because Protoss just cannot afford enough army with decent DPS at that point.
I think the most interesting point to see is that alot of top terrans are actually trying to figure out TvZ alot. We should give this matchup more time and maybe only change the reaper a little bit.
Map with Varying Attack Route Considerations Another idea that we thought was interesting is playing around with the idea of having the main attack path to the opponent be easy to defend, and the alternate attack paths being extremely long by ground.
This idea is surprisingly close to an idea i had, in order to make flanking possible on a map. With these flank paths it could be possible to make more impactful plays with fewer units (e.g. especially disruptors), while making the positions at which they can happen more predictable. Due to that comebacks could be more feasible aswell.
Here is a proof of concept i thought about (excuse my paint skills :D) It's just to show that single purpose of flanking. So I neglected basically everything else that's required for a proper sc2map.
All transitions from chokes to wider areas can be thought of as ramps. Those two areas in the upper left and lower right corner are meant to stop "plugging" chokes, while enabling fair fights from positions within range. (So that it's not possible to stand infront of a choke and have a whole army attacking 2-3 units creeping out of that choke - for that the expansions in the midfield(not the minerals though) should maybe be within range of the choke-paths) Also in order to get into the main base a good unit composition would be needed (ground+air). In the midgame, the "battlefronts" would be shifting to the midfield(which should be longer than can be seen here).
On February 13 2016 18:01 Cyro wrote: The 30 damage charge zealot was due to a bug
It wasn't a bug, it was a patch from LOTV. Balance Update Patch 2.5.5[2] Charge now deals 30 damage on hit. Charge speed buff reduced to 2.75, down from 2.95
If you were reading any of the dev notes you would know that the damage was only partially applying or not applying most of the time when they wrote the value, then that bug was fixed
Faster units production time on gateway won't solve anything because you already should have warpgate by the time ravagers are there
A lot of the toss defense issue is around 3-8 minutes. Several attacks (involving ling speed or drops) hit before warpgate or just as warpgate happens, when you have a couple to a small handful of gateway units and nothing else. Against those attacks you could often get 3 overcharges before and now only get 1, so you have to play a lot more cautiously against speed and drops. The first 5 minutes of the game is the most important by far and does a lot to the balance and flow of the game
On February 13 2016 20:34 WrathSCII wrote: These are becoming more of a weekly reminder on why I quit the game.
You always seem to complain so I think it's good for you that you quit the game tbh. That's what I did in the end of wol/hots when turtle play was the best way to play ^_^
No mention of Ultras being neigh unstoppable or how to make the cyclone useful against anything other than a warp prism? I think they should focus more on balancing the actual interaction of the units and counter units before putting much time into designing new archetypes of maps.
On February 13 2016 19:42 Weltall wrote: I think nerfing ravager is pretty stupid. The problem is not zergs, are protoss. They lack in design. On bnet forums there are really good suggestions to fix pvz without nerfing anything. A guy in a post suggested to remove PO, change MSC to scout/defensive unit with no damage (defensive spells) and to buff units production times ONLY from gateways and not warpgates. this way protoss can defend with units produced locally.
Unless there is something new very special with the defensive spells of MSC that can delay an incoming attack, this suggestion looks pretty stupid to me. Faster units production time on gateway won't solve anything because you already should have warpgate by the time ravagers are there, and it never was an issue of building units on time but to be able to afford them in the first place. That's why PO came into play: add DPS for defense because Protoss just cannot afford enough army with decent DPS at that point.
The DPS add with PO is fake. Pylons get killed really fast from corrosive biles, while enemy units just run away and avoid the PO damage. PO is really stupid mechanics imho.
Yea, when zergs timing hits you already have warpgate tech. But ask youself why Protoss prefer warpgates over standard gateways? There are 2 main reason: because they can produce units fasters and can warp them far away. However, if you have to play defensive there is no need to warp units far away: you will warp units near you base to defend them. This means you only take advantage of faster production time.
If gateway production times are f.e. halved, you can pull out enught units to defend from timings, while sacrificing the offensive capabilities of warp ins. If you scout a roach ravager all in, you can do pretty nothing to counter it right now. If you scout it with gateway buff, you can just add few extra gates and pump out a dozen of units instead of 3-4 units and an useless MSC.
About MSC, i think they did really good suggestions, i will paste here: change the MSC to be unique scout/defensive unit. -cost reduced to 50/25, production time 15 sec -remove ground attack -buff speed and acceleration. Speed to 6 (close to phoenix one). -instead of PO add a passive skill: personal cloack. This skill will cloack the MSC only when it stand still, 1sec delay to visibile status to cloacked one. -change to recall skill: it will summon units taken from the selected area to MSC current location -instead of time warp, give MSC Statis Field like Arbiters in sc1.
On February 13 2016 19:42 Weltall wrote: I think nerfing ravager is pretty stupid. The problem is not zergs, are protoss. They lack in design. On bnet forums there are really good suggestions to fix pvz without nerfing anything. A guy in a post suggested to remove PO, change MSC to scout/defensive unit with no damage (defensive spells) and to buff units production times ONLY from gateways and not warpgates. this way protoss can defend with units produced locally.
Unless there is something new very special with the defensive spells of MSC that can delay an incoming attack, this suggestion looks pretty stupid to me. Faster units production time on gateway won't solve anything because you already should have warpgate by the time ravagers are there, and it never was an issue of building units on time but to be able to afford them in the first place. That's why PO came into play: add DPS for defense because Protoss just cannot afford enough army with decent DPS at that point.
The DPS add with PO is fake. Pylons get killed really fast from corrosive biles, while enemy units just run away and avoid the PO damage. PO is really stupid mechanics imho.
Yea, when zergs timing hits you already have warpgate tech. But ask youself why Protoss prefer warpgates over standard gateways? There are 2 main reason: because they can produce units fasters and can warp them far away. However, if you have to play defensive there is no need to warp units far away: you will warp units near you base to defend them. This means you only take advantage of faster production time.
If gateway production times are f.e. halved, you can pull out enught units to defend from timings, while sacrificing the offensive capabilities of warp ins. If you scout a roach ravager all in, you can do pretty nothing to counter it right now. If you scout it with gateway buff, you can just add few extra gates and pump out a dozen of units instead of 3-4 units and an useless MSC.
About MSC, i think they did really good suggestions, i will paste here: change the MSC to be unique scout/defensive unit. -cost reduced to 50/25, production time 15 sec -remove ground attack -buff speed and acceleration. Speed to 6 (close to phoenix one). -instead of PO add a passive skill: personal cloack. This skill will cloack the MSC only when it stand still, 1sec delay to visibile status to cloacked one. -change to recall skill: it will summon units taken from the selected area to MSC current location -instead of time warp, give MSC Statis Field like Arbiters in sc1.
While I agree that PO is stupid and not really added DPS in actuality, it either still buy you a bit of time if the opponent runs away or it negates one volley of shots if the opponent focus fire. This is still better than accelerating gateway units build time. Again, if you are spending all your ressource currently to defend, then halving units production time won't do anything for early aggression or ravager timing as you are limited by your ressource, not by the build time. Saving 50/50 from not doing warpgate and 50/75 from MSC suggested cost change will allow you to afford 1 extra unit. Not exactly good. If anything, this may have the side effect of encouraging Protoss proxy gateway cheese.
What you are basically asking for is a "T0" slightly shittier but cheap arbiter. Warp prism and oracle already share that job at T2. And I think that an instant stasis at T0 may have a lot of unwanted effect in SC2 (nice fungal is back).
For me, the bottleneck of Protoss early game is the unability to afford enough units in early game because they cost an arm relative to your economy. Maybe cutting their cost when produced from gateways might do the trick instead. Something along the line of: gateway production cheaper but longer, warpgate more expensive (ie. today's normal price) but shorter production time. That way protoss has a way to produce defensive units and get gateways up earlier and may start mid-game just like now but with more units. If the numbers are tweaked right, we might even be able to erase PO abomination from existence and have Protoss defend purely with units.
Yea, when zergs timing hits you already have warpgate tech
Not always, depending on the attack. PO is a larger % of your power the earlier in the game it is. It's common for zergs to just build 12-30 lings as speed finishes, with or without drop depending on the map and it can kill you even with relatively safe openings. The response to that kind of opening before was to sit back and handle it with overcharges but now you overcharge once, zerg runs back (or away from that pylon) and then overcharge ends and you're back to square 1, no second overcharge until the game is already over. Previously you'd get 2-3 instead of 1 and stabilize off of that.
that's just one of the ways to threaten toss zvp early-midgame that wasn't realistically going to be a great option with a ton of photon overcharges, but works great now. It's very common and you often have to play based on the possibility of it rather than any kind of scouting info because of how Z production works, you just know that they're getting speed
It's good enough for pro zergs to open that way multiple games in a row in the same series
On February 13 2016 19:42 Weltall wrote: I think nerfing ravager is pretty stupid. The problem is not zergs, are protoss. They lack in design. On bnet forums there are really good suggestions to fix pvz without nerfing anything. A guy in a post suggested to remove PO, change MSC to scout/defensive unit with no damage (defensive spells) and to buff units production times ONLY from gateways and not warpgates. this way protoss can defend with units produced locally.
Unless there is something new very special with the defensive spells of MSC that can delay an incoming attack, this suggestion looks pretty stupid to me. Faster units production time on gateway won't solve anything because you already should have warpgate by the time ravagers are there, and it never was an issue of building units on time but to be able to afford them in the first place. That's why PO came into play: add DPS for defense because Protoss just cannot afford enough army with decent DPS at that point.
The DPS add with PO is fake. Pylons get killed really fast from corrosive biles, while enemy units just run away and avoid the PO damage. PO is really stupid mechanics imho.
Yea, when zergs timing hits you already have warpgate tech. But ask youself why Protoss prefer warpgates over standard gateways? There are 2 main reason: because they can produce units fasters and can warp them far away. However, if you have to play defensive there is no need to warp units far away: you will warp units near you base to defend them. This means you only take advantage of faster production time.
If gateway production times are f.e. halved, you can pull out enught units to defend from timings, while sacrificing the offensive capabilities of warp ins. If you scout a roach ravager all in, you can do pretty nothing to counter it right now. If you scout it with gateway buff, you can just add few extra gates and pump out a dozen of units instead of 3-4 units and an useless MSC.
About MSC, i think they did really good suggestions, i will paste here: change the MSC to be unique scout/defensive unit. -cost reduced to 50/25, production time 15 sec -remove ground attack -buff speed and acceleration. Speed to 6 (close to phoenix one). -instead of PO add a passive skill: personal cloack. This skill will cloack the MSC only when it stand still, 1sec delay to visibile status to cloacked one. -change to recall skill: it will summon units taken from the selected area to MSC current location -instead of time warp, give MSC Statis Field like Arbiters in sc1.
While I agree that PO is stupid and not really added DPS in actuality, it either still buy you a bit of time if the opponent runs away or it negates one volley of shots if the opponent focus fire. This is still better than accelerating gateway units build time. Again, if you are spending all your ressource currently to defend, then halving units production time won't do anything for early aggression or ravager timing as you are limited by your ressource, not by the build time. Saving 50/50 from not doing warpgate and 50/75 from MSC suggested cost change will allow you to afford 1 extra unit. Not exactly good. If anything, this may have the side effect of encouraging Protoss proxy gateway cheese.
What you are basically asking for is a "T0" slightly shittier but cheap arbiter. Warp prism and oracle already share that job at T2. And I think that an instant stasis at T0 may have a lot of unwanted effect in SC2 (nice fungal is back).
For me, the bottleneck of Protoss early game is the unability to afford enough units in early game because they cost an arm relative to your economy. Maybe cutting their cost when produced from gateways might do the trick instead. Something along the line of: gateway production cheaper but longer, warpgate more expensive (ie. today's normal price) but shorter production time. That way protoss has a way to produce defensive units and get gateways up earlier and may start mid-game just like now but with more units. If the numbers are tweaked right, we might even be able to erase PO abomination from existence and have Protoss defend purely with units.
Honestly I don't think it's a resource problem. When you scout a 2 base zerg with gas and roach warren, you know what will come. 4:30 timing rR. Before 4:30 protoss usually gets 3 gates and a tech (robo or stargate) plus it spams 2-3 pylons or more to use for PO. It usually gets 4-5 gate units (almost useless since they will be adepts and sentry, easly killed)+msc+1 or 2 tech units.
Tech+pylons are lots of resourcers. If you trade tech and not-needed pylons for units you can have a decent number of units to defend and to counter rush the zerg. This will make all-inning a lot more risky for zergs.
On the other side, you mentioned it: proxy gates will enter again in the viable builds. Is this bad? Terran can do proxy rax, it's a cheese, why protoss can't do that? It's risky as other cheesy build, but terrans and zergs have both great scouting options and all the mean to kill it. Proxy gates were not a problem even in hots, opponent needs only to know the correct reaction.
Overall, giving early units to protoss means you can defend and punish cheesy and all-in builds from terrans and zergs if you are atop of scouting. You have also a way to punish greedy openings from zergs and terrans on huge maps with scout+proxy strategies.
If you reduce gate units costs as you suggested, you will be capped anyway by production times in early game, while you have a huge units boost in mid/late. This won't fix current protoss hard times in early game. Also it seems protoss are doing fine in late game vs zergs (if they manage to get there)
On February 13 2016 19:42 Weltall wrote: I think nerfing ravager is pretty stupid. The problem is not zergs, are protoss. They lack in design. On bnet forums there are really good suggestions to fix pvz without nerfing anything. A guy in a post suggested to remove PO, change MSC to scout/defensive unit with no damage (defensive spells) and to buff units production times ONLY from gateways and not warpgates. this way protoss can defend with units produced locally.
Unless there is something new very special with the defensive spells of MSC that can delay an incoming attack, this suggestion looks pretty stupid to me. Faster units production time on gateway won't solve anything because you already should have warpgate by the time ravagers are there, and it never was an issue of building units on time but to be able to afford them in the first place. That's why PO came into play: add DPS for defense because Protoss just cannot afford enough army with decent DPS at that point.
The DPS add with PO is fake. Pylons get killed really fast from corrosive biles, while enemy units just run away and avoid the PO damage. PO is really stupid mechanics imho.
Yea, when zergs timing hits you already have warpgate tech. But ask youself why Protoss prefer warpgates over standard gateways? There are 2 main reason: because they can produce units fasters and can warp them far away. However, if you have to play defensive there is no need to warp units far away: you will warp units near you base to defend them. This means you only take advantage of faster production time.
If gateway production times are f.e. halved, you can pull out enught units to defend from timings, while sacrificing the offensive capabilities of warp ins. If you scout a roach ravager all in, you can do pretty nothing to counter it right now. If you scout it with gateway buff, you can just add few extra gates and pump out a dozen of units instead of 3-4 units and an useless MSC.
About MSC, i think they did really good suggestions, i will paste here: change the MSC to be unique scout/defensive unit. -cost reduced to 50/25, production time 15 sec -remove ground attack -buff speed and acceleration. Speed to 6 (close to phoenix one). -instead of PO add a passive skill: personal cloack. This skill will cloack the MSC only when it stand still, 1sec delay to visibile status to cloacked one. -change to recall skill: it will summon units taken from the selected area to MSC current location -instead of time warp, give MSC Statis Field like Arbiters in sc1.
While I agree that PO is stupid and not really added DPS in actuality, it either still buy you a bit of time if the opponent runs away or it negates one volley of shots if the opponent focus fire. This is still better than accelerating gateway units build time. Again, if you are spending all your ressource currently to defend, then halving units production time won't do anything for early aggression or ravager timing as you are limited by your ressource, not by the build time. Saving 50/50 from not doing warpgate and 50/75 from MSC suggested cost change will allow you to afford 1 extra unit. Not exactly good. If anything, this may have the side effect of encouraging Protoss proxy gateway cheese.
What you are basically asking for is a "T0" slightly shittier but cheap arbiter. Warp prism and oracle already share that job at T2. And I think that an instant stasis at T0 may have a lot of unwanted effect in SC2 (nice fungal is back).
For me, the bottleneck of Protoss early game is the unability to afford enough units in early game because they cost an arm relative to your economy. Maybe cutting their cost when produced from gateways might do the trick instead. Something along the line of: gateway production cheaper but longer, warpgate more expensive (ie. today's normal price) but shorter production time. That way protoss has a way to produce defensive units and get gateways up earlier and may start mid-game just like now but with more units. If the numbers are tweaked right, we might even be able to erase PO abomination from existence and have Protoss defend purely with units.
Honestly I don't think it's a resource problem. When you scout a 2 base zerg with gas and roach warren, you know what will come. 4:30 timing rR. Before 4:30 protoss usually gets 3 gates and a tech (robo or stargate) plus it spams 2-3 pylons or more to use for PO. It usually gets 4-5 gate units (almost useless since they will be adepts and sentry, easly killed)+msc+1 or 2 tech units.
Tech+pylons are lots of resourcers. If you trade tech and not-needed pylons for units you can have a decent number of units to defend and to counter rush the zerg. This will make all-inning a lot more risky for zergs.
On the other side, you mentioned it: proxy gates will enter again in the viable builds. Is this bad? Terran can do proxy rax, it's a cheese, why protoss can't do that? It's risky as other cheesy build, but terrans and zergs have both great scouting options and all the mean to kill it. Proxy gates were not a problem even in hots, opponent needs only to know the correct reaction.
Overall, giving early units to protoss means you can defend and punish cheesy and all-in builds from terrans and zergs if you are atop of scouting. You have also a way to punish greedy openings from zergs and terrans on huge maps with scout+proxy strategies.
If you reduce gate units costs as you suggested, you will be capped anyway by production times in early game, while you have a huge units boost in mid/late. This won't fix current protoss hard times in early game. Also it seems protoss are doing fine in late game vs zergs (if they manage to get there)
Tech is needed for mid-game, I don't know at which level you are playing or what kind of fantasy you're dreaming, but suggesting that Protoss should skip tech altogether to produce emergency defense (200/100 or 150/150, so let's say 1 extra stalker or 2 other different gateway units compared to now) against a typical Zerg aggression which is not a huge commitment is pretty ridiculous. Skipping 2 pylons to get 2 extra zealots more won't do shit either against roach/ravagers. With your idea we'd have a MSC that does not contribute to defense (also let's face it, T0 instant stasis as you suggest it will never be approved), no tech and about 7-8 gateway units. Early lings aggression should be EZPZ but roach/ravagers would not be very different. Gateway army perform poorly without tech units in the mix or twilight upgrades. At best Zerg backs up, does not commit more units and still has a tech advantage.
Yes allowing proxy gateway cheese galore again is bad IMO. Protoss pre-LOTV was too full of bullshit, I don't think that toning it down a bit was a bad idea. We still have cannon rush vZ and vP, double proxy pylon overcharge vT, and plenty of proxy-tech based attacks, on Ulrena it is still possible to proxy gateway at the corridor even. I don't think every race needs to have exactly the same kind of cheese, so let's not open Pandora's box ever again please.
My suggestion of changing cost of units produced from gateway pre-warpgate indeed still caps production time, but the capping is per production building. The idea is to tweak the numbers to allow Protoss: - to totally get rid of MSC - to get 1 tech building and 2 gateways much earlier so that Protoss can produce at home in parallel the units needed for defense thanks to the cut in cost - to not allow non-map-dependant gateway cheese again (thanks to production time unchanged) - to have early scout rewarded, I don't like the premise of having production time halved on top of chronoboost because it would allow too much leeway "oh shit I did not see anything coming up yet it's ok I can pump out units last minute anyway"
On February 11 2016 01:36 Salteador Neo wrote: When they remove the siege tank pickup (and buff their damage a bit) it will become obvious that ravager needs a change IMO. It will come in handy because it can help fix PvZ too. I'm sure it will either become armored or have the bile cooldown increased, it's just a matter of time.
PvZ Ravager Timing Strength We’re seeing a lot of feedback about the strength of early Ravagers, and we’ve noticed the strength of Ravager pushes in PvZ. While we aren’t sure that a change is definitely needed at this time, we agree that it would be good to be ready with a change by getting a Balance Test Map going. This way, if the strategy does indeed turn out to be problematic, we can patch right away.
If we are to test a nerf to Ravagers, we believe it might be good to test nerfing their ability against immobile units and/or structures. For example, if each shot damage was reduced or if the cooldown of the ability was increased a lot, or something along those lines. This way, if we were to lean towards doing the Siege Tank Medivac pick up removal in the future, TvZ will definitely also be less affected as well, which would be a plus.
Well maybe it will take less time than I thought lol :D
Blizzard is really doing fine lately with their map changes/balance feedback.
For me it looks like that: - Ravagers and overlord drops come too early for protoss to prepare accordingly, that's why PO exists. Nerf to PO made it even more apparent. P could defend against Zerg rushes if they can defend only one place with wall + cannons (natural entrance). However overlord drops can bypass wall and circumvent all defenses (bare PO) and Ravagers can destroy all defensive buildings with ease especially when there are no units form P because he invested in cannons. - Ravagers counter tanks (and can deal with liberators too) that's why siege tank pick-up is needed in TvZ to allow terrans to defend Ravagers rushes. - Siege tank pick-ups ruin TvT and actually do not help tank-based plays in TvP too much
IMHO main culprit is Ravager or to be more precise - Ravager's bile attack. Bile counters all immobile forms of defense which are main defenses early on. Both Terran and Protoss has to cut units when taking natural to build cannons, pylons (for PO), bunkers or siege tanks (which are units ofc but in siege mode function as immobile defenses). And also the main counter to Ravagers are units because they are mobile and can dodge biles, retreat to static defenses or charge forward to kill Ravagers. If we remove or postpone bile attack so P and T can build some units after taking their expansions then Protoss gonna be able to defend properly with cannons and siege tank pick-up could be removed to fix TvT.
Ofc there are other issues: - how to defend against lib in mineral line as Zerg with postponed/removed bile - how to defend against overlord drop rushes as Protoss (It may be possible with nerfed Ravagers but have no idea)
TL DR: Ravager's bile attack counters immobile defenses -> remove or postpone -> Protoss able to defend, terran able to defend without siege tank pick-ups.
Terran would be fine against ravager rushes without the siege pickups. Not sure if their macro games would be fine, my guess is yes but it's quite a huge part of the current way to play against roach/ravager.
On February 14 2016 21:26 egrimm wrote: For me it looks like that: - Ravagers and overlord drops come too early for protoss to prepare accordingly, that's why PO exists. Nerf to PO made it even more apparent. P could defend against Zerg rushes if they can defend only one place with wall + cannons (natural entrance). However overlord drops can bypass wall and circumvent all defenses (bare PO) and Ravagers can destroy all defensive buildings with ease especially when there are no units form P because he invested in cannons. - Ravagers counter tanks (and can deal with liberators too) that's why siege tank pick-up is needed in TvZ to allow terrans to defend Ravagers rushes. - Siege tank pick-ups ruin TvT and actually do not help tank-based plays in TvP too much
IMHO main culprit is Ravager or to be more precise - Ravager's bile attack. Bile counters all immobile forms of defense which are main defenses early on. Both Terran and Protoss has to cut units when taking natural to build cannons, pylons (for PO), bunkers or siege tanks (which are units ofc but in siege mode function as immobile defenses). And also the main counter to Ravagers are units because they are mobile and can dodge biles, retreat to static defenses or charge forward to kill Ravagers. If we remove or postpone bile attack so P and T can build some units after taking their expansions then Protoss gonna be able to defend properly with cannons and siege tank pick-up could be removed to fix TvT.
Ofc there are other issues: - how to defend against lib in mineral line as Zerg with postponed/removed bile - how to defend against overlord drop rushes as Protoss (It may be possible with nerfed Ravagers but have no idea)
TL DR: Ravager's bile attack counters immobile defenses -> remove or postpone -> Protoss able to defend, terran able to defend without siege tank pick-ups.
Maybe they should gate Liberator's defender mode and Ravagers' bile attack behind a cheap upgrade to delay it. Terran has Banshees for mineral lines harass/defense against roaches then transitions into Liberators and Zerg uses roaches and transforms some into Ravagers when their respective upgrade is ready.
Don't really like the changes : Medivac picking up tank are ok, when the map don't have abusive spot. Just work on good and balanced map.
Same for reapers, the unit isn't OP if the map don't have cliff everywhere.
Ravagers is a counter to the very strong warp prism and liberator, you can't nerf it without nerfing them too. And why we'll pay for this 100/100 3 unit if bile become bad ?
Nobody will use it anymore, just like swarm host. You say it's too strong with all-in so you want it to be bad on all-in, on defense, as utility, as army ? Just increase morphing time or decrease dmg vs building if you want to nerf ravagers in all-in.
Same for reapers, the unit isn't OP if the map don't have cliff everywhere.
some of those great reaper maps/positions are also strong for zvp earlygame so you can hit both at the same time. Distance between players, natural ramp width and how open the main is to the rest of the map
On February 13 2016 07:49 Superbanana wrote: So... how about longer cooldown on bile, regeneration nerf on mutas, -1 armor for chitinous plating research (maybe reducing the cost), remove sieged tank drops (not affecting sieged tank pick up), remove liberator range tech (or nerf and reduce cost), buff siege tank damage slightly, and nerf immortal ability slightly. Fixed?
On February 13 2016 05:21 cheekymonkey wrote: Please don't kill the reaper. It's an interesting unit right now, and reaper openings make the game more entertaining. I fear that blizzard will go overboard with this. Someone suggested making the bomb an upgrade. This would result in 0 usage of this upgrade. No one will make a tech-lab and the invest in an upgrade for a unit that loses its utility very quickly.
How about increasing the Reaper bomb cool down by 5 seconds?
On February 13 2016 21:57 CyanApple wrote: -nerf adepts (longer cooldown, or can only be canceled within first half of shade-time to make it more predictable - introduce 2 stages of shade?)
But what happens if we increase all ability cooldowns? I recall that a while back there was this debate about micro in SC2 being defined too strongly by special ability usage. It seems interesting to me to find three posts independently suggesting increasing cooldowns, though in fairness others have voiced opposition to these ideas.
What do other people think? Are abilities too spammy and/or important?
On February 13 2016 04:17 ZigguratOfUr wrote: I hadn't seen that map archetypes post (i.imgur.com). Seems interesting conceptually.
I'm also disappointed that Blizzard is still at the state of thinking there might be a problem in PvZ. Seems like any changes there will be slow to come.
On the surface, that post is a reasonable way of fitting maps into categories, but there are so many ways to describe a map that are completely different that this doesn't really help too much. It doesn't even come close to describing the strategies possible on the map (other than rush/standard/macro, but come on, that's as old as SC2). The categories are also subjective; I honestly think that, for example, KSS is a true neutral and Orbital Shipyard is a Roaming/Neutral Economy. The lines between the categories are really blurred.
Also, one might note that basically no mapmaker better than Avex that I've talked to (~10) thinks it's very good.
Is it useful to develop some sort of advanced methodology for categorizing maps though? I imagine most players can distinguish between the most obvious different map archetypes and will sense that there is a lack of diversity when all maps are either rush/standard/macro. And maintaining a map pool depends on factors such as map popularity, map age, balance and metagame, palette diversity as well as archetype diversity (to use Blizzard's terminology), where each season you have to switch out a handful of maps for available other ones.
And there are some map features which, for balance reasons, are typically classed under map balance rather than map diversity. How easy it is to access your fourth base has equally profound balance implications as does simply enlarging the map, but only one of those is an acceptable target for change or elimination to address balance concerns. So there is an important map feature which creates radically different gameplay which would nevertheless be invisible in any map archetype model.
Anyhow, it's not like you can computer-generate a map pool so that it fits certain objective standards for archetypes, rather it depends on the intuition of someone like David Kim. Can some model about map archetypes really allow DK to do a better job? (especially when he starts out by adjusting it so that it fits his preconceived thoughts on map diversity) If we discover that a map pool lacks a Constricting Neutral map or whatever, then who will mourn this loss and demand Blizzard to redress this in a future map pool? This seems one of those cases where if you have a really advanced model for map types the subtle distinctions it can discover between apparently similar maps will be so minor as to be not worth considering.
It might be interesting for map makers eager to create something unique though, there is a similar case where people developed mathematical notation for juggling so that they could generate new tricks/patterns, though I'm not aware of any popular tricks derived from this process.
Would like to see them keep orbital, it's a fun map, but happy with the other 3 removals. I do not feel the ravager is imba vs protoss, I've seen toss get greedy and punished but I've also seen toss stop those attacks like a wall. So ...
I wonder if they are still going through with the reaper nerf or not. Perhaps, they prefer to work out the new balance test map changes first, which wouldn't be a bad idea.
EPT![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CM809rKWoAAiV0C.jpg)
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pbeBkdO.jpg)
