Nothing about PvT? :/ Seems pretty one-sided in the recent past imo. Liberators 2-shotting pretty much everything while Protoss doesnt have any good reliable AoE anymore NOR good anti air to effectively deal with liberators feels pretty bad. I agreed with taking the damage off of Adepts and giving them the attack speed upgrade, but that doesn't equalize the mid/lategame gap between Terran and Protoss that has now occured, since Protoss' are no longer going into the midgame with an advantage because of the pretty much gone threat of adepts. Especially since WM drops have gotten back into the meta, again most likely because the threat of an insta death to an early warpprism adept drop is gone. Since anything other than observers is terrible, unreliable detection, Protoss' pretty much have to open with an early robo while also getting some kind of tech against liberators. And most of that just straight up suck against a stimmed bio ball thath you will have to deal with just a few minutes/moments later. Maybe at least giving Colossus +2 per upgrade back would be a help to get some reliability back in. If the liberator range decrease will also be enough.. we'll see I guess.
Air and mech upgrades were split to intentionally put up walls between compositions, but then only one real composition has been supported by the balance team after that. If we're going to instead allow for mixed compositions, that barrier should be the first to fall. Ironically it would help make mech exist.
On March 09 2016 08:38 andrewlt wrote: I don't think this development team understands what players mean when they ask for mech. People want the mech style of BW where terran is vulnerable while moving but is powerful after setting up. They keep pushing new garbage units out of the factory at the expense of the siege tank and thinking it is the mech people have been asking for.
What is hilarious is that reintroducing the lurker in LotV gave zerg more of a "mech" style of play than terran ever had in SC2. Watch zerg players slowly move their roach/hydra/ravager composition forward while repositioning their lurkers. That is the true "mech", not the garbage they keep doing with terran.
Same as giving Terran reactors, cost efficient marines that get significantly stronger in numbers, and mules gave them more of a "swarm" style than Zerg has ever had in SC2, and gave Zerg the T1.5 heavy AoE unit for dealing with swarms.
They don't give a damn about what fans of each race want. They don't care about the races initial design.
Why would they when SC2 is, according to them, the best design they ever came up with? We're the stupid ones for not seeing it.
Drop hitting so early and in force (before warpgate and extra production is up) is a much bigger deal for PvZ balance than anything to do with Ravagers.
The negative effects from ravagers come largely from the effect they have on the matchup (nobody will even consider relying on photon cannons and forcefields past a certain point, which weakens play against ling, roach etc) but ling drop will just outright kill you or force you to play much safer every game.
It's super easy to change drop - what about gating it behind a research of arbitrary cost and research time on the evo chamber instead of just having an evo chamber requirement? I can't recall this tech ever being used in the super early game vs terran (and especially zerg) so they have created this upgrade timing that makes ZvP earlygame lopsided that's not neccesary. If it came 30 seconds later then it wouldn't be a huge problem and most of the other utilizations for overlord drop would still exist.
On March 09 2016 08:40 Obsi wrote: Nothing about PvT? :/ Seems pretty one-sided in the recent past imo. Liberators 2-shotting pretty much everything while Protoss doesnt have any good reliable AoE anymore NOR good anti air to effectively deal with liberators feels pretty bad. I agreed with taking the damage off of Adepts and giving them the attack speed upgrade, but that doesn't equalize the mid/lategame gap between Terran and Protoss that has now occured, since Protoss' are no longer going into the midgame with an advantage because of the pretty much gone threat of adepts. Especially since WM drops have gotten back into the meta, again most likely because the threat of an insta death to an early warpprism adept drop is gone. Since anything other than observers is terrible, unreliable detection, Protoss' pretty much have to open with an early robo while also getting some kind of tech against liberators. And most of that just straight up suck against a stimmed bio ball thath you will have to deal with just a few minutes/moments later. Maybe at least giving Colossus +2 per upgrade back would be a help to get some reliability back in. If the liberator range decrease will also be enough.. we'll see I guess.
Old pylon OC cost back to 25 would help with bio/wm drops and early zerg pressure, but I'm expecting complaints about more offensive pylon cheese lol. Also old colossus should come back so toss has reliable aoe, with range included sort of how the tank comes with siege. Libs not 2 shotting everything would help but blizz has said absolutely nothing lol. Just like adepts make it at least 3-4.
I really think we don't need to act now, the maps play a huge role in the PvZ problems. The only thing I would be ok to look at is the timing of overlord drops, I think any other measure would be far too hasty.
On March 09 2016 08:38 Big J wrote: The main difference between foreign and Korean professional players - not just Terrans - is mindset. Koreans will do whatever is necessary to win and call that a good strategy. Foreigners will analyse whatever is possible and only call a something a good strategy if it holds answers to most or all possibilities. It makes it so that Koreans will call the lurker a niche unit in ZvZ, while foreigners will create strategies around getting to them and heavily using them. It makes it so that foreigner Terrans will rather play defensive bio or straight out Mech or Sky builds, then try their luck with a variety of aggressive attacks with a set up that will eventually crack.
There is a difference in mindsets that makes the standard Korean aggressive bio-style of Terrans less popular in the foreign scene. You just have to look at how many Mech and Sky players or attempts you find in the foreign scene, and how many in Korea. Most of the top Terran population on EU/US has been trying something defensive in TvZ, even in important matches, while in Korea it's probably only Gumiho and maybe one or two others. The West has a different fantasy about RTS games, that's why our pros prefer Zerg - the race with the most reactive and defensive approach to the game, where aggression is an option and not a must - while Korean Zergs still struggle to abuse tools such as 8-armor ultralisks or Broodlord/Viper lategames properly. And vis-verca, our Terrans struggle to consistently just tell themselves "fuck it, here I go", while Polt wins WCS with builds that might have been stopped by a scouting Masters or Grandmasters player.
TL;DR: Whatever approach you take to Terran compositions, if you want foreigners to love playing Terran to the highest level, there needs to be a reactive playstyle. One that doesn't try to choke the opponent before lategame, but holds obvious answers. Take notes from Marinelord or Lillekanin trying to make Sky and Mech work over and over again.
Edit: Also listen to your players, not just the casters and pure-viewers. It's not just about Mech, it's that foreigners do not want to be forced to attack, just because they chose a certain race. Balanced or not, more fun to watch or not, the fact of the matter is that the most defensive and strategical/reactive race in the game, i.e. Zerg, is by far the most popular race at the highest levels in the West. Since 2011-12.
This is a good post. It also explains why some Koreans make huge mistakes when the game actually does go to the lategame.
On March 09 2016 08:51 [PkF] Wire wrote: I really think we don't need to act now, the maps play a huge role in the PvZ problems. The only thing I would be ok to look at is the timing of overlord drops, I think any other measure would be far too hasty.
Too hasty for who? The livelihood of professional players hinges on this game being balanced. PvZ has been broken for ages. We are way past the point of "wait and see how the meta develops". Adepts were fixed a long time ago, even though TvP was around 48% and not like PvZ around abysmally low 42%.
On March 09 2016 08:51 [PkF] Wire wrote: I really think we don't need to act now, the maps play a huge role in the PvZ problems. The only thing I would be ok to look at is the timing of overlord drops, I think any other measure would be far too hasty.
I really expect overlord drop timing to be adjusted a bit and take a serious look at maps. Protoss got the short end of the stick on LOTV maps.
Based on TLPD stats (which includes the pre-adjustment maps..) the best 3 zerg maps have zerg winning 1.32x, 1.34x and 2x more than protoss.
The worst zerg map in the pool has protoss winning 1.13x more than Z but they can veto one map to have all of them at roughly 1:1 - 2:1 win ratios IIRC.
There is an obvious problem here and not enough being done to fix it. It's been FOUR MONTHS.
I'm very disappointed with the attitude that blizzard has taken here - the photon overcharge nerf was mostly felt in this exact situation. There was no justification for removing power in early game PvZ. Redistributing power from photon overcharge to something else, perhaps, but it didn't turn out that way.
The attempted design change (without affecting balance) obviously screwed up a bit. There should have been a band-aid fix or rollback to that specific before getting to the state that we're in now; you can reconsider and test other changes to compensate for the loss of PO without breaking PvT.
youtu.be This is one of my favourite Mech games, the moves that ForGG makes with scrappy Mech is beyond cool. I feel like this would be way easier to achieve, with how scarce the economy is and how far you need to stretch your bases in LotV.
I kind of agree with almost all but no mention about the Lib range nerf? About the Tank, I kind of understand them (even if I don't agree with keeping the Tankivac at all), so let's see what happens.
I loved how they are trying to make the army compo diversity important instead "Go this or that and it's done". Right now LotV is not at an "ugly" spot, so I think we can keep calm for now and be patient while they test the propposed stuff without trying to burn the Dev Team, right?.
On March 09 2016 08:58 ejozl wrote: youtu.be This is one of my favourite Mech games, the moves that ForGG makes with scrappy Mech is beyond cool. I feel like this would be way easier to achieve, with how scarce the economy is and how far you need to stretch your bases in LotV.
And for me its
But, yeah mech = boring. Unlike the same "boring" MMMM compostion every single game, every single matchup. Fun Fun Fun Fun..... Would be great to see diverstity on the terran side, i dont care if it will be Bio/mech splitted or combined, but currently every game is more less the same
Also the kind of games DK is talking about weren't mech only, they were 30% mech 70% skyterran.
For the three good mech games, I can point out way way way more for Bio. Most Mech games are boring, whether it's turtle mech into Sky Terran, it's what the meching players prefer or want to do. Unless they can find a way to make Turtle mech not viable, while making Mech viable, keep it out of the game.
On March 09 2016 08:58 ejozl wrote: youtu.be This is one of my favourite Mech games, the moves that ForGG makes with scrappy Mech is beyond cool. I feel like this would be way easier to achieve, with how scarce the economy is and how far you need to stretch your bases in LotV.
But, yeah mech = boring. Unlike the same "boring" MMMM compostion every single game, every single matchup. Fun Fun Fun Fun..... Would be great to see diverstity on the terran side, i dont care if it will be Bio/mech splitted or combined, but currently every game is more less the same
Can't wait to see what bbyong gonna pull out in gls today He disappear for so long. I wonder does he practice for sc3 like lilbow or try to make mech work.
That feeling when you see a TL user thinks Polt is retiring, doesn't know IEM ended and thinks SH Locusts still get an upgrade but also assume they are smarter than pros.
Also the kind of games DK is talking about weren't mech only, they were 30% mech 70% skyterran.
For the three good mech games, I can point out way way way more for Bio. Most Mech games are boring, whether it's turtle mech into Sky Terran, it's what the meching players prefer or want to do. Unless they can find a way to make Turtle mech not viable, while making Mech viable, keep it out of the game.
For the three good roach ravager games I can point out way way way more for ling bane muta. Does that mean we should kill roach ravager? Even if one playstyle doesn't produce as many good games on average as another one it's still important to keep multiple styles viable for diversity. Bio is fun yes but that doesn't mean that every game ever should be bio.
On March 09 2016 08:58 ejozl wrote: youtu.be This is one of my favourite Mech games, the moves that ForGG makes with scrappy Mech is beyond cool. I feel like this would be way easier to achieve, with how scarce the economy is and how far you need to stretch your bases in LotV.
But, yeah mech = boring. Unlike the same "boring" MMMM compostion every single game, every single matchup. Fun Fun Fun Fun..... Would be great to see diverstity on the terran side, i dont care if it will be Bio/mech splitted or combined, but currently every game is more less the same
Can't wait to see what bbyong gonna pull out in gls today He disappear for so long. I wonder does he practice for sc3 like lilbow or try to make mech work.
In an interview he said that he doesn't feel comfortable with LotV because mech doesn't works at all.
EPT
