I hope everyone enjoyed watching IEM and all the other StarCraft II events going on in Korea these days. We’re definitely keeping up, and it’s great seeing so many exciting games!
Balance at different points of the game
Our communities in Taiwan, Spain, and France have recently been discussing what “game balance” means for StarCraft II, and whether StarCraft II is technically not balanced because at different stages of the game different races/strategies have advantages, and should every race be equal at every point of the game? This is an important topic, so we wanted to get into our high-level game design philosophies in this area.
We truly believe in the importance of alternating the strengths per situation or strategy throughout the course of the whole game. The easiest way to see this stance in StarCraft II is when we evaluate Legacy of the Void—the majority of us will agree that this game is much better to play and watch than before because it’s so action packed. This is possible because there are certain advantages at specific moments for each strategy, and this constantly changes throughout the game. If the strength of every strategy during every moment of the game were equal, we would see a much greater percentage of games where players simply build up without attacking, as we saw during Wings of Liberty.
Having advantageous moments per side is also important because it leads to greater gameplay diversity. In the past, we’ve seen times when the game was mostly just about accruing 200 supply and fighting a few times at that stage to determine the winner. In these instances, games all felt the same. We’ve also seen this same sort of thing when all the maps in the map pool were of the same type: you play the exact same strategy capitalizing on the exact same timings on every map, so every game felt too similar. By creating more action-packed moments throughout the course of the game, and also pushing this further through map diversity, we can make sure that each game we play feels more unique.
Siege Tank change
Internally, we tried the changes proposed in recent weeks and they may have felt better than just removing Siege mode pick up entirely. We also tried the popular suggestion of picking up Siege Tanks in Siege mode, with them reverting to normal mode while carried by the Medivac. This wasn’t as good of a solution as increasing the delay before firing because it provides fewer knobs to tune. With this method, we have to make the delay before players can unload Siege Tanks equal to the unsiege time to prevent Medivac pickup from being the main way players should unsiege their tanks. Instead, we can adjust the firing delay upon being dropped to what feels best after testing, from where it is now to the same time it would take to unsiege.
Terran compositions
We’re also listening to discussions around whether we should be pursuing the complete split between bio and mech, or should we instead explore strategic diversity in mixed bio and mech compositions? This was a fresh way to look at Terran unit compositions, and we have some thoughts to share that can benefit from further discussion.
- Some of the staler, more boring games (to play and watch) have been mech only. - When you compare bio-only (back when it was just Marines/Marauders/Medivac) compositions vs. those with Siege mode tank drops, Widow Mines, and/or Liberators, it’s pretty clear that the more diverse comp produces much more exciting games. - Should we be pushing an even greater diversity of mixed armies, rather than going for a complete split again? Have we evolved into a better state? For example, fast Banshees with bio all utilizing an even heavier mobility-based strategy could be interesting, or Cyclones and Thors could also be looked at in having a clearer role in mixed armies.
Let’s discuss, and see if our goals on this front needs further polish before we look into solutions.
Ravager change
As suggested, we’ve been playtesting an increased cooldown on the Corrosive Bile ability with no damage tweaks. We feel that this could be a good direction to go, especially to help out PvZ. If we’re good with this change, let’s get it in the balance test map, and we could hopefully turn around the patch soon after.
Overlord drop
We would also like to discuss the strength of Zerg drops in PvZ. We definitely hear feedback, especially from our KR community, and are keeping a close eye on this strategy as well as having regular discussions on what the best move is here.
While this is another good hook to help out Protoss in PvZ if needed, we worry that it won’t be easy to do a minor nerf where we can still see this strategy happen. There are only so many building requirements that we can place to this, so it won’t be easy to target specific areas with a slight nerf. Still, we need to ensure that this strategy remains viable because this type of diversity helps makes the game fun. Zerg macro play has often relied on defending and droning up, so it’s quite cool seeing more offensive options from Zerg, including this strategy and the early Ravager options.
Obviously, if there is a clear balance issue, we would definitely have to address it, but we wonder if we can do the Ravager timing nerf first, and then discuss this one if further nerfs to Zerg are needed in ZvP.
Zerg strength vs. Zerg weakness
This one has been an interesting topic over the last couple of weeks. There have been many posts pointing towards stats saying Zerg has a slightly higher win percentage, while many players have also pointed out that in Korea, Zerg struggled in the past week or so, especially vs. Terran. We definitely see both sides, and we believe that it’s important to analyze and gauge the big picture.
We agree with both sides, largely due to this year’s WCS changes. It’s pretty clear that even though similar strategies are being used on both sides, of the game results have the potential to turn out differently, like we saw in recent weeks. Obviously, we want to make the game balanced for both of these different pro levels. However, games happening outside of Korea have been showing Zerg strength vs. Terran, and last weekend’s WCS championship showed how well Zerg is performing outside of Korea. On the other hand, we do agree with people giving feedback on the Korean scene regarding Zerg slightly underperforming both in GSL and Proleague games. We also understand that Zerg looked very strong in SSL, but it is also true that the majority of the SSL games are not recent due to how that tournament is set up.
We’d like to stress that no one data point is a perfect measurement of the state of the game. For example, the win/loss stats can easily be skewed due to the fact that a lot of mismatches happen, even at the pro level. Just looking at the lower stages or qualifier stages of tournaments, it’s pretty easy to say that no matter the matchup, certain players will just dominate others due to the players’ skill being a bigger factor. This is why we try to measure the state of the game using many different factors such as stats, pro player feedback, community feedback, tournament results, analysis on quality of matches, meta game analysis, and so on.
The current plan for us is to proceed with [exploring and preparing for Zerg changes, especially those that will help in ZvP. This side is definitely looking clearer as time is passing, and we need to be prepared for a balance patch in this area. For TvZ, due to the split in different regions, we would have to put a focus around both discussions and game analysis in order to figure out exactly where it lies. Let’s talk about both of these areas this week so that we can get things moving at a good pace.
On March 09 2016 07:55 -NegativeZero- wrote: damn, they were finally going in the right direction with fixing siege tanks and now it looks like they've blown it
Imagine siege tanks can fly. Tell me what the difference between these flying siege tanks and liberators is. I don't see a difference in role for these units. They overlap.
On March 09 2016 07:55 -NegativeZero- wrote: damn, they were finally going in the right direction with fixing siege tanks and now it looks like they've blown it
Apparently that has been their design philosophy since LotV beta began.
I also find it funny how they say...
The easiest way to see this stance in StarCraft II is when we evaluate Legacy of the Void—the majority of us will agree that this game is much better to play and watch than before because it’s so action packed.
PR team at it's finest.
Also we were having discussions on here recently about how there were so many more timings to exploit in BW than SC2, and even many of the timings that were in SC2 are now gone due to LotV's changes....
And then we have them here talking about how the balance of power shifts back and forth so much and thats what makes it fun??? That's a joke... The balance of power shifts less than it ever did and hes less timings to exploit than it ever has in LotV. Plus they talk about WoL.... it shifts back and forth much less than WoL. Even ling/bling/muta was much more dynamic than it is now.
God I hate how these feedback updates are completely fabricated and out of touch from reality. I would love if they gave actual design updates, rather than setting the PR team loose and treating their customers like mindless idiots.
On March 09 2016 07:54 Charoisaur wrote: Sounds like they are making excuses to keep mech from being viable
It is fair point of why Factory only shouldnt be a viable composition.
On the other side. Alot of talk to terran and zerg... and only a small talk to protoss. I think even Blizzard does not like Protoss in its current design so they just dont talk about it. I thought they would aggressivly make some points to help P in PvZ. It is obvious, that the protoss are not able to find a meta that is solid against zerg at the moment, we can let the meta settle for ages and the protoss wount find one. Either because they cant adopt to the new protoss of lotv, or because the race is just burned. I hope they find something in the robotics to help the Ps and it shouldnt be the Immortal or the colossus.
Proposed changes: Nr. 1 Make Disrupter oneshot lurker by either more dmg for the ball (doesnt damage PvT, as it oneshots all barracks units anyway) or by reducing HP for Lurker. Nr 2: Move Overlord-Drops to Laire Nr. 3 Think about a new protoss robotics unit.
On March 09 2016 08:08 Charoisaur wrote: So increasing the delay before firing is better than entirely removing siege tank pickup because "it feels better"? What a great reasoning.
Much better reasoning than making changes because of the "perception of some members of the community".
But let's be real. This isn't a real development update. It's PR. It's them telling us the same crap they have been telling us for months, and using it as an explanation as to why they haven't actually done anything.
Love their calm and level-headed approach so far. Let the dust settle, the game is absolutely amazing and I hope they don't do anything before we get some better maps next season. I'm pretty sure LotV as it is already has a huge potential and I would love them to just give players time to adapt and to amaze us with the innovations and ideas they'll come up with.
On March 09 2016 08:08 Charoisaur wrote: So increasing the delay before firing is better than entirely removing siege tank pickup because "it feels better"? What a great reasoning.
Much better reasoning than making changes because of the "perception of some members of the community".
But let's be real. This isn't a real development update. It's PR. It's them telling us the same crap they have been telling us for months, and using it as an explanation as to why they haven't actually done anything.
Is it really not obvious?
Yeah in previous update they talked about cyclone,delay tankivac but i wonder what were they doing in the whole week while we were busy watching IEM ? It suppose to be the next balance test map right now.Not wall of text.
I think that when you don't seperate Bio and mech, every game will be 90% MMM with a few extra units splashed in. Just like protoss, there is no unique or differing strategies, just a ball of units consisting of varying amount of the same shit. No diversity.
On March 09 2016 08:08 Charoisaur wrote: So increasing the delay before firing is better than entirely removing siege tank pickup because "it feels better"? What a great reasoning.
It actually is pretty good reasoning: they can keep a cool and diverse mechanics in the game that shows off skills, but still tweaking it through a couple of knobs.
On March 09 2016 08:20 coolman123123 wrote: I think that when you don't seperate Bio and mech, every game will be 90% MMM with a few extra units splashed in. Just like protoss, there is no unique or differing strategies, just a ball of units consisting of varying amount of the same shit. No diversity.
Yeah, I feel the same, as much as I understand the reasoning that mech vs mech is pretty boring. I would also like to see more diversity and some mech vs bio games have been absolutely glorious.
On March 09 2016 08:20 coolman123123 wrote: I think that when you don't seperate Bio and mech, every game will be 90% MMM with a few extra units splashed in. Just like protoss, there is no unique or differing strategies, just a ball of units consisting of varying amount of the same shit. No diversity.
It should be an easy decision based on the intent of the designers. But the designers can't even make up their mind on what they want to do.
Some design team we have here... Leaving it up to feedback. Do we have actual professional developers? Did SC2 change to an open source game without anyone noticing?
My immediate reaction is that if you increase corrosive bile cooldown and still allow tanks to be picked up in siege mode you're going too far to kill early ravager all ins. Without actual numbers its much to early to say for sure
I still hate the siege mode pick up from a design perspective ignoring the balance implications. As long as the terran has medivacs it becomes very difficult to punish poor siege tank positioning and all too easy to readjust them. Maybe if there was a change to boost in such a way that the player couldn't just go from healing their bio, to boosting to pick up the siege tank and back to healing the bio so quickly it would be a better trade off.
On March 09 2016 08:08 Charoisaur wrote: So increasing the delay before firing is better than entirely removing siege tank pickup because "it feels better"? What a great reasoning.
It actually is pretty good reasoning: they can keep a cool and diverse mechanics in the game that shows off skills, but still tweaking it through a couple of knobs.
Actually they are trying to make tankivac has a clear weakness.Siege tank trade immobility for damage and this is it's weakness.Now tankivac trade DPS for mobility. I am not sure about that weakness tho.
On March 09 2016 08:18 [PkF] Wire wrote: Love their calm and level-headed approach so far. Let the dust settle, the game is absolutely amazing and I hope they don't do anything before we get some better maps next season. I'm pretty sure LotV as it is already has a huge potential and I would love them to just give players time to adapt and to amaze us with the innovations and ideas they'll come up with.
God I'm loving SC2 right now
No, the time to act is now. PvZ is extremely Zerg favoured since October. And the problem is not that Zerg is stronger, but rather that it is stronger while Protoss is expecting Lurkers and blind countering them every game with Chargelot/Archon/Immo. The strength of Zerg in PvZ makes the MU one-dimensional because Protoss only has one viable unit composition.This should be fixed ASAP!
On March 09 2016 08:24 Charoisaur wrote: It seems kinda strange how strongly they have to emphasize how awesome their game is.
Of course, we're all mindless fools. They said it so it must be true.
Maybe if they keep acting like their completely convinced SC2 is their best design ever, others will start believing too. #Believe
On March 09 2016 08:28 Gullis wrote: - Should we be pushing an even greater diversity of mixed armies, rather than going for a complete split again? Have we evolved into a better state?
This sentence makes me furious, it such a pr statement.
I feel that way about their entire update, and most of every update they have done in the last 6 months...
On March 09 2016 08:08 Charoisaur wrote: So increasing the delay before firing is better than entirely removing siege tank pickup because "it feels better"? What a great reasoning.
It actually is pretty good reasoning: they can keep a cool and diverse mechanics in the game that shows off skills, but still tweaking it through a couple of knobs.
Actually they are trying to make tankivac has a clear weakness.Siege tank trade immobility for damage and this is it's weakness.Now tankivac trade DPS for mobility. I am not sure about that weakness tho.
They are going the easy way for sure, it doesn't matter how you tweak the units if the core is always bio, there simply won't be other units used besides a few, why would a terran make cyclones or banshees or thors if bio and liberators do everything else better?
It isnt even a question of nerfing liberators either, the way bio works you just use whatever 1-2 units do the work that bio needs and everything else is just a waste. The only exception maybe the 1-2 units made in the early game and never again.
I hope they don't give up, but theres so much PR in the lastest updates that I don't think they care anymore.
Interesting that WCS and SSL where they use the ladder maps Zerg do better, than in GSL&Proleague where they have other maps springled in. The difference between being able to veto the Zerg maps and not, is such an underestimated factor it seems.
As for unit mix diversity I think it's just the more diverse the better, but it would be really nice if Mech was viable in at least one matchup, just to prove that it's not total crap. Also just having one style that is not so absolutely Medivac focused would be a dream scenario. I think TvT needs to be fixed ASAP, seeing Bomber play a 40 min match on Dusk Towers, the most defensive map and have zero evolvement in terms of compositions, since Marine/Siegevac hits the board and having 5-6 Sensor Towers each, is so telling to how overpowered this combination is in TvT atm.
I'm not sure that I'm loving the Ravager change, nerfing splash vs Protoss could be troublesome and could make the game feel more like HotS. I think if we want to give Protoss a chance on the current Zerg favoured maps, something like a +1 range on Photon Overcharge would really change things around. It could also help with the problem of Overlord drops, if it is indeed an issue.
On March 09 2016 08:08 Charoisaur wrote: So increasing the delay before firing is better than entirely removing siege tank pickup because "it feels better"? What a great reasoning.
It actually is pretty good reasoning: they can keep a cool and diverse mechanics in the game that shows off skills, but still tweaking it through a couple of knobs.
How do flying Tanks show of skill? Basically any other micro in the game is harder to pull of than that. Siegetank pickup is the definition of forgivable ant-skill play.
"Some of the staler, more boring games (to play and watch) have been mech only."
I love both playing and watching the careful positional play of mech where the focus lies more on the brains than the speed. Carefully using the right units and their positioning (as mech units are beautiful in how each has enormous strengths and enormous weaknesses) to fortify the right places is a beautiful thing. Is it just me?
On March 09 2016 08:28 Gullis wrote: - Should we be pushing an even greater diversity of mixed armies, rather than going for a complete split again? Have we evolved into a better state?
This sentence makes me furious, it such a pr statement.
Actually this isn't a PR statement at all. This sentence basically says: "Fuck you mech players, bio is the way to go. Be happy that you can sprinkle some factory units in"
- Some of the staler, more boring games (to play and watch) have been mech only. - When you compare bio-only (back when it was just Marines/Marauders/Medivac) compositions vs. those with Siege mode tank drops, Widow Mines, and/or Liberators, it’s pretty clear that the more diverse comp produces much more exciting games. - Should we be pushing an even greater diversity of mixed armies, rather than going for a complete split again? Have we evolved into a better state? For example, fast Banshees with bio all utilizing an even heavier mobility-based strategy could be interesting, or Cyclones and Thors could also be looked at in having a clearer role in mixed armies.
Boring games or exciting games is in the eye of the beholder. Plenty of great mech games. To see only MMMM for another 5 years is fun? and just coinflippy aspect of the tankivac can make exciting games to watch, imho not fun to play and it looks kinda silly. Blizzard itself even stated that they didnt want to see another MMMM fight in tvz, so they made the ultralisk stronger so terran needs to use other units than just bio. The result: another bio unit in the shape of the ghost. Splitting the upgrades didnt help to make "different , exciting" compositions possible for terran and lets not forget the nerfed units. Nerfing the units made an ever bigger split in the compositions, caused by Blizzard themself and now asking for feedback. I have the feeling we arent getting anywhere...
But i have the feeling we have the same "discussion" every week, rinse and repeat.
Blizzard want sc2 be a Micheal Bay game, EXCITING< EXPLOSIONS EVERYWHERE!!!! because that is what matters, not if the game itself is fun to play.
Solid points there, but my guess is Mech will never be viable, since Bio game make it a lot more fun to watch, Good Decision IMO, not sure what they will do for the zergs tho
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.
The closest this dev team got to making terran mech viable was letting players turtle with siege tanks and thors while making a complete transition to skyterran before A-moving the zerg. That's just stupid and boring as hell.
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.
On March 09 2016 08:28 Gullis wrote: - Should we be pushing an even greater diversity of mixed armies, rather than going for a complete split again? Have we evolved into a better state?
This sentence makes me furious, it such a pr statement.
Actually this isn't a PR statement at all. This sentence basically says: "Fuck you mech players, bio is the way to go. Be happy that you can sprinkle some factory units in"
If that was an actual design decision, and the race was designed around that, it wouldn't be so bad. They talk like it should be Mech assisting Bio, but if it were thorough design, it would be Mech assisting Bio, as well as Bio assisting Mech. BW was actually like that in some ways. It's just that with good enough micro, mech didn't really need bio anymore past mid-late game.
But the game was not designed as that, they have went back and forth a number of times, were not direct in their decisions since the beginning, and they simply don't know what to do so thats the best bandaid they can come up with.
Why get their hands dirty and work on the actual design of the game? Just do a quick fix. What else is the SC2 editor for?
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.
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.
On March 09 2016 08:46 Cyro wrote: 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.
Like most things Protoss related...it either works or doesn't do anything at all...
You can gate overlord drop, but then Zerg goes back to having no early game aggressive options against a competent Protoss player who can use photon cannons + overcharge + a few adepts/sentries...It's the only aggressive mechanic Zerg can use in the early game that isn't completely all-in...
Maybe Blizzard should adjust the whole matter of Protoss being able to defend any and all Zerg timings with just a few units first? This stuff doesn't work in degrees...in ZvP aggression has always been all or nothing...
Drop might be a rather cheesy way of circumventing that dynamic, but if it forces just a few more units out of Protoss so that they can't just be greedy as all hell then I'm all for it.
Rather than forcing a completely split tech (and by forcing i meant big changes are necessary, that could be harmful for the gameplay, all for the sake of mech) its better to increase the diversity based on what we have now. If more factory and starport are viable in the mid game we should see more mixed and diverse biomech styles, and maybe, full mech.
I couldn't agree more with the way blizzard is approaching it, compared to WoL and HotS those community feedack updates improved a lot, they keep getting better and better.
The view on the state of zerg sounds about right, if they are to be blamed, its for a slow reaction. I was hoping for a map pool change before any balance adjustment, but the maps never changed and since that was the case they should have adressed the matchup in other way.
Im happy they are testing the bile cooldown and something like tank mode drop, i've been calling for those changes for some time now and its almost as if they read specifically my posts and test it internally (people suggested various stuff and they tested the stuff from my "team" ). If they are dropped sieged and have siege time delay, some visual indicator should be good though.
What if the tank turret sets up despite the sieged "legs"? its not visible when the tank is on the medivac, it does require a new specific animation, but if its done its a clean change.
On March 09 2016 08:46 Cyro wrote: 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.
Maybe Blizzard should adjust the whole matter of Protoss being able to defend any and all Zerg timings with just a few units first? This stuff doesn't work in degrees...in ZvP aggression has always been all or nothing...
Drop might be a rather cheesy way of circumventing that dynamic, but if it forces just a few more units out of Protoss so that they can't just be greedy as all hell then I'm all for it.
You don't get it, do you? Protoss can't make fighting units out of their Nexi, they have to invest in gateways and other production buildings first. Getting 20 Zerglings for a drop instead of 10 drones is easily done for the Zerg. Getting enough units to defend depends on the number of gateways Protoss has, and if he makes enough gates to blindly counter the possibility of drops, his expo is so late, that he can GG right away. This whole argument "Protoss should just make units like Zerg does" is utter nonsense.
On March 09 2016 08:46 Cyro wrote: 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.
Maybe Blizzard should adjust the whole matter of Protoss being able to defend any and all Zerg timings with just a few units first? This stuff doesn't work in degrees...in ZvP aggression has always been all or nothing...
Drop might be a rather cheesy way of circumventing that dynamic, but if it forces just a few more units out of Protoss so that they can't just be greedy as all hell then I'm all for it.
You don't get it, do you? Protoss can't make fighting units out of their Nexi, they have to invest in gateways and other production buildings first. Getting 20 Zerglings for a drop instead of 10 drones is easily done for the Zerg. Getting enough units to defend depends on the number of gateways Protoss has, and if he makes enough gates to blindly counter the possibility of drops, his expo is so late, that he can GG right away. This whole argument "Protoss should just make units like Zerg does" is utter nonsense.
That mothership core thing can fight and is by far the best early game defense tool in existence
On March 09 2016 08:46 Cyro wrote: 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.
Maybe Blizzard should adjust the whole matter of Protoss being able to defend any and all Zerg timings with just a few units first? This stuff doesn't work in degrees...in ZvP aggression has always been all or nothing...
Drop might be a rather cheesy way of circumventing that dynamic, but if it forces just a few more units out of Protoss so that they can't just be greedy as all hell then I'm all for it.
You don't get it, do you? Protoss can't make fighting units out of their Nexi, they have to invest in gateways and other production buildings first. Getting 20 Zerglings for a drop instead of 10 drones is easily done for the Zerg. Getting enough units to defend depends on the number of gateways Protoss has, and if he makes enough gates to blindly counter the possibility of drops, his expo is so late, that he can GG right away. This whole argument "Protoss should just make units like Zerg does" is utter nonsense.
That mothership core thing can fight and is by far the best early game defense tool in existence
I am calling Blizzard on its reason for abandoning Mech play. I think you are too lazy to put in the work required to fix the units produced from the factory so that they can be rolled out onto the map in aggressive play.
You see it as having to balance a fourth race, and its challenging for the balance team. It has nothing to do with action. You argue between developers and game balance team.
Truth hurts but its got to be heard.
You are going to change the cyclone, then the Thor instead, then buff Siege Tank instead. Hard work isn't it to try to make the best RTS?
So per Aligulac stats, protoss have a 35.06% winrate vs zerg in the last week, and a 39.75% winrate over the preceding two weeks, but all Blizzard can come up with is that they might give out some really minor nerfs to things other than lurkers? Please.
To be fair, PvZ probably wouldn't be that imbalanced if they would let us use decent maps, but of course they refuse to even acknowledge that issue.
On March 09 2016 08:46 Cyro wrote: 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.
Drop might be a rather cheesy way of circumventing that dynamic, but if it forces just a few more units out of Protoss so that they can't just be greedy as all hell then I'm all for it.
Totally agree, Blizzard should fix zerg not being able to punish greedy protoss play. Right after they fix protoss not being able to punish zerg who go for their 3rd hatch before pool.
Some of the staler, more boring games (to play and watch) have been mech only.
No it's been mass air mainly. Surprised David Kim still hasn't understood the difference. For tank-based mech to be interesting, it is important (a) the siege tank is strong, (b) mech play has viable harass options in the midgame and (c) opponent has tools to armytrade/harass against a turtling mech player. None of those requirements were fulfilled in HOTS w/ the exception of TvT (too an extent).
if they nerf siege pick up and don't buff the siege tank to compensate, terran will be much less interesting to play (and watch).
Instead, we can adjust the firing delay upon being dropped to what feels best after testing, from where it is now to the same time it would take to unsiege.
Double it, and add a visual delay timer.
As suggested, we’ve been playtesting an increased cooldown on the Corrosive Bile ability with no damage tweaks. We feel that this could be a good direction to go, especially to help out PvZ. If we’re good with this change, let’s get it in the balance test map, and we could hopefully turn around the patch soon after.
Better change, but I also suggest to reduce damage vs structures.
Is there a world where the delay betwen corrosive bile is much longer but the actual attack faster? Now it seems like you should never get it by corosive bile if you look at your army and it is more of a zoning spell, I feel like you could speed the attack and it would still be possible to dodge but not as easy. That way you have to think more about your shot but also can get your opponent of guard.
I feel like it could be interesting for zvt since now tanks preaty much never get olhit if there is medivac near, it would also be interresting in zvz, snipping overlord and making RRvRR more easy to engage (if one player shoot to soon and misses you can strike and take a significant lead in the fight before he can shoot again)
Since the damage is not higher (in fact dps would be lower) it make early ravager but a bit easier since protoss defence is mostly pylon at this stage (at may cause trouble with the msc if he can't dodge the bile wich can be a huge problem it would depend on the number). I don't realy know how much it would make protoss army harder to control in the mid game since the bile already seem hard to dodge in big battle with the protoss unit that are less mobile.
On March 09 2016 09:55 Superbanana wrote: Rather than forcing a completely split tech (and by forcing i meant big changes are necessary, that could be harmful for the gameplay, all for the sake of mech) its better to increase the diversity based on what we have now. If more factory and starport are viable in the mid game we should see more mixed and diverse biomech styles, and maybe, full mech.
I couldn't agree more with the way blizzard is approaching it, compared to WoL and HotS those community feedack updates improved a lot, they keep getting better and better.
The view on the state of zerg sounds about right, if they are to be blamed, its for a slow reaction. I was hoping for a map pool change before any balance adjustment, but the maps never changed and since that was the case they should have adressed the matchup in other way.
Im happy they are testing the bile cooldown and something like tank mode drop, i've been calling for those changes for some time now and its almost as if they read specifically my posts and test it internally (people suggested various stuff and they tested the stuff from my "team" ). If they are dropped sieged and have siege time delay, some visual indicator should be good though.
What if the tank turret sets up despite the sieged "legs"? its not visible when the tank is on the medivac, it does require a new specific animation, but if its done its a clean change.
Not sure if your serious about community feedback updates. Are you still under the impression their actually being honest? After seeing enough blatant lies and PR I'm no longer fooled. If you actually follow what the community updates say along with the developers comments on the web... You start to see how much BS it is. At this point it's infuriating every time they pull the same old tricks.
Maps are going to be a huge issue. I don't know what the hell they are thinking on the map front, especially after a few weeks back sharing that image of the "9 different map types". Did they forget absolutely everything they know about RTS design and BW's history???
It's not possible to balance each race on so many various map types. Each race will have inherent advantages or disadvantages based on map choice.
Did they forget the importance of maps? Or the fact that BW was literally balanced off maps alone for years, and those specific map types were chosen to try to offer each race a chance?
They have taken a step backwards in every area of design... And their PR updates just talk about how great the game is, rehash the same things they have said to us before, and use it as an excuse for them continually not doing anything, or instead blame the community by saying the community response was completely different from what the community was actually saying.
I keep following the feedback updates with that little bit of hope that they will actually go to extreme measures to improve the games design... but more than 50% of the updates are are infuriating... Instead they do more and more bandaid fixes, and back themselves in to a corner, then eventually when everything falls apart, their too scared to make any changes because they don't want to upset the precious few that have actually stuck with the game to this point.
I would be willing to bet there are far more players wishing they could enjoy the game, than there actually are enjoying the game right now. It's not like SC is not a series that is beloved by many. It's that SC2 is a game that can not be enjoyed b many of the people who love the series...
But I guess everyone needs to face the fact that they will never do major changes. Their too invested in the game as an eSport that they won't make any huge changes. A design change would require an entire rebalance that would take months of time, and their too worried that it will ruin the games eSport viability.
Ironic, since a well designed SC2 would be able to bring SC2 new players and make it a viable eSport again, rather than becoming more and more of a niche...
PvZ : "it’s quite cool seeing more offensive options from Zerg, including this strategy and the early Ravager options" - and the lingqueen allin, baneling bust, nydus roachqueen allin, 12/12 allin, 2 base mutaling allin etc. The problem is that Zerg has way too many options, while Protoss has non in the early game. Zerg allins got ever stronger (especially lingdrops/ ling and queen drops) with the Photon overcharge nerf and P players basically forced to go Phoenix, Immortal, Chargelot, Archon every single game, with defending in the early game. At least Blizz should heavily nerf the cooldown of the corrosive bile and make droplords a bit more expensive or make it a lairtech, or make queens undroppable at least until lair, because it`s just way too hard to get ready to defend all of these earle pressures and allins. So overall from Protoss perspective it is really disappointing update once again, like you did not see how badly Protoss got dumped on at the IEM event last week.
On March 09 2016 09:55 Superbanana wrote: Rather than forcing a completely split tech (and by forcing i meant big changes are necessary, that could be harmful for the gameplay, all for the sake of mech) its better to increase the diversity based on what we have now. If more factory and starport are viable in the mid game we should see more mixed and diverse biomech styles, and maybe, full mech.
I couldn't agree more with the way blizzard is approaching it, compared to WoL and HotS those community feedack updates improved a lot, they keep getting better and better.
The view on the state of zerg sounds about right, if they are to be blamed, its for a slow reaction. I was hoping for a map pool change before any balance adjustment, but the maps never changed and since that was the case they should have adressed the matchup in other way.
Im happy they are testing the bile cooldown and something like tank mode drop, i've been calling for those changes for some time now and its almost as if they read specifically my posts and test it internally (people suggested various stuff and they tested the stuff from my "team" ). If they are dropped sieged and have siege time delay, some visual indicator should be good though.
What if the tank turret sets up despite the sieged "legs"? its not visible when the tank is on the medivac, it does require a new specific animation, but if its done its a clean change.
Not sure if your serious about community feedback updates. Are you still under the impression their actually being honest? After seeing enough blatant lies and PR I'm no longer fooled. If you actually follow what the community updates say along with the developers comments on the web... You start to see how much BS it is. At this point it's infuriating every time they pull the same old tricks.
Maps are going to be a huge issue. I don't know what the hell they are thinking on the map front, especially after a few weeks back sharing that image of the "9 different map types". Did they forget absolutely everything they know about RTS design and BW's history???
It's not possible to balance each race on so many various map types. Each race will have inherent advantages or disadvantages based on map choice.
Did they forget the importance of maps? Or the fact that BW was literally balanced off maps alone for years, and those specific map types were chosen to try to offer each race a chance?
They have taken a step backwards in every area of design... And their PR updates just talk about how great the game is, rehash the same things they have said to us before, and use it as an excuse for them continually not doing anything, or instead blame the community by saying the community response was completely different from what the community was actually saying.
I keep following the feedback updates with that little bit of hope that they will actually go to extreme measures to improve the games design... but more than 50% of the updates are are infuriating... Instead they do more and more bandaid fixes, and back themselves in to a corner, then eventually when everything falls apart, their too scared to make any changes because they don't want to upset the precious few that have actually stuck with the game to this point.
I would be willing to bet there are far more players wishing they could enjoy the game, than there actually are enjoying the game right now. It's not like SC is not a series that is beloved by many. It's that SC2 is a game that can not be enjoyed b many of the people who love the series...
But I guess everyone needs to face the fact that they will never do major changes. Their too invested in the game as an eSport that they won't make any huge changes. A design change would require an entire rebalance that would take months of time, and their too worried that it will ruin the games eSport viability.
Ironic, since a well designed SC2 would be able to bring SC2 new players and make it a viable eSport again, rather than becoming more and more of a niche...
The community is filled with specialists in game design, lots of people criticize game design which is fair but if you look at the proposed fixes and try to find what the community think is the issue, its really all over the place and makes no sense at all.
I don't think the game needs another big redesign, its better than it ever was imo. All that talk about making SC2 popular yada yada, its extremely unlikely, of course, in theory it could happen, but nobody comes up with a solution. Since that is the case, it sounds like "hey blizzard, make SC2 more fun and extremely popular, but make sure its also competitive and have a higher skill ceilling. Do it somehow, k thx bye."
At this point, when i read, "blizzard should listen the community", i know it means "blizzard should hire me as lead game designer".
It does bother me that they are so slow and insecure about changes, but for once, im completely satified if they just implement all that they proposed already.
edit: btw, i completely agree about the maps. Last time they talked about it was a big let down for me.
Their update is terrible. Honestly pretty frustrated they won't listen to anyone, including myself about how to make mech viable. It's really simple - make thors/cyclones able to kill air units so less supply has to be invested into mass vikings which forces turtling and 20-40 more supply late game can be put into mech units and more factories.
That basically means if thors/cyclones can counter air, you can attack because a few air units coming out won't invalidate your army of tanks/hellions. Right now mech can't do jack shit because every mech unit has been nerfed at some point in the past, including cyclones which suck.
Give mech an anti-air unit that can compete with brood/tempest/carrier/liberators and mech games won't be boring and a mech player can go past 5 factories instead of being forced to turtle and do nothing for 20 more minutes because the other guy made 5 carriers.
It's really fucking simple. It's idiotically simple to make mech viable by doing that but blizzard won't listen. Don't know what to say i think i'm not the only one really disappointed and annoyed right now with blizzard.
I've even offered to get into contact with blizzard, written posts about mech anti-air issues, tried to offer a solution via that mod, etc. But it doesn't work they don't seem to give a fuck about mech or any strategic diversity unless it's bio and a frantic spastic twitch fest of a game with thing zipping around. You can see that by how they're attached to the tankivac, which is basically them just turning the tank into a bio unit which just baffles me.
Dunno what to say, they basically killed mech entirely in LOTV and it's really quite sad and hurts the game in the long run. People will get tired of 100% bio games to be honest. It already is 100% bio games.
On March 09 2016 08:46 Cyro wrote: 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.
Like most things Protoss related...it either works or doesn't do anything at all...
You can gate overlord drop, but then Zerg goes back to having no early game aggressive options against a competent Protoss player who can use photon cannons + overcharge + a few adepts/sentries...It's the only aggressive mechanic Zerg can use in the early game that isn't completely all-in...
Maybe Blizzard should adjust the whole matter of Protoss being able to defend any and all Zerg timings with just a few units first? This stuff doesn't work in degrees...in ZvP aggression has always been all or nothing...
Drop might be a rather cheesy way of circumventing that dynamic, but if it forces just a few more units out of Protoss so that they can't just be greedy as all hell then I'm all for it.
It has a big effect on every game at its current timing. 2h drops are very all in but dangerous - it's scoutable and less common so not something to worry about as much.
3h drop is basically unscoutable so you have to play safer than usual every game, and yet still die fairly often to it. It's hard to walk the line between dieing to aggression and dieing to econ play when zerg has that switch at 22-30 drones where they can either make 15 more drones or 30 speedlings and you have to be prepared for both simultaneously.
Walking that line is something that zerg has had to deal with for a while in ZvP historically - but now it applies much more to protoss than to zerg
Bbyong vs Bomber game 1 on Whirlwind. This is a game that a lot of people seem to completely forget about. Not only was this mech vs mech, but it was back when early TvT was absurdly volatile.
I really wish that they'd just give Protoss a generalist DPS unit from the gateway. The "maps" issue, the "fast mutas" issue, the "can't defend speedling drops" issue, the "can't defend ravagers" issue, and the "can't defend spread out bases" issue could all be addressed by making one set of changes.
Make the adept a DPS unit akin to marines and hydras: no +tag bonus, rapid-fire, dependable, ranged DPS. Remove the shade. Give it a faster movement speed. Nerf the health if necessary.
Stalkers, at 9.7 DPS are the highest versus-everything (dependable) damage that gateway has. Hydras have 22.4 DPS and marines have 29.7 (per 2 supply). Protoss is screwed here. Not just slightly, but hugely.
- 9.7 - 22.4 - 29.7
This is the problem ^^.
If Protoss could make adepts and actually take early-game battles on the map versus mass-speedling ... then there would be pressure builds again and PvZ could even out quite a bit. Mass muta transitions wouldn't come so quickly. Forces in the middle of the map wouldn't necessarily be totally up-a-creek without splash. Bases would be more easily defended by units instead of PO. Bases could be more open and ramps wouldn't need to be so small. With a unit capable of actually killing blink stalkers early, mass-aggression wouldn't be the only way to open PvP.
Yeah, it's a design change. Yeah, it's a big deal. Right now Protoss is up a creek and anything short of a DPS gateway unit will just propel their continual balance issues into the future. Stability is what's always lacked in Protoss' play.
Colossus gave us the illusion of stability prior to LotV but with so few of them on the battle-field and their death-ball nature, it wasn't a stability anyone enjoyed.
Give Protoss real stability. Give them DPS at gateway.
On March 09 2016 11:55 Edowyth wrote: I really wish that they'd just give Protoss a generalist DPS unit from the gateway. The "maps" issue, the "fast mutas" issue, the "can't defend speedling drops" issue, the "can't defend ravagers" issue, and the "can't defend spread out bases" issue could all be addressed by making one set of changes.
Make the adept a DPS unit akin to marines and hydras: no +tag bonus, rapid-fire, dependable, ranged DPS. Remove the shade. Give it a faster movement speed. Nerf the health if necessary.
Stalkers, at 9.7 DPS are the highest versus-everything (dependable) damage that gateway has. Hydras have 22.4 DPS and marines have 29.7 (per 2 supply). Protoss is screwed here. Not just slightly, but hugely.
- 9.7 - 22.4 - 29.7
This is the problem ^^.
If Protoss could make adepts and actually take early-game battles on the map versus mass-speedling ... then there would be pressure builds again and PvZ could even out quite a bit. Mass muta transitions wouldn't come so quickly. Forces in the middle of the map wouldn't necessarily be totally up-a-creek without splash. Bases would be more easily defended by units instead of PO. Bases could be more open and ramps wouldn't need to be so small. With a unit capable of actually killing blink stalkers early, mass-aggression wouldn't be the only way to open PvP.
Yeah, it's a design change. Yeah, it's a big deal. Right now Protoss is up a creek and anything short of a DPS gateway unit will just propel their continual balance issues into the future. Stability is what's always lacked in Protoss' play.
Colossus gave us the illusion of stability prior to LotV but with so few of them on the battle-field and their death-ball nature, it wasn't a stability anyone enjoyed.
Give Protoss real stability. Give them DPS at gateway.
I agree with the general idea, but I gotta say you distort those units stats quite a bit. You generalize "gateway units" to ranged, cybercore tech gateway units. The zealot, archon and templar all have decent or high dps in one way or another. Furthermore the main reason for this lower dps is that all the ranged Protoss units have between 1.5 to 2 times the health per supply in comparison to marines and hydralisks with a very strong built in regeneration mechanic on top of it. So your "maybe nerf health of the adept with this change" should rather be a "cut the adept's health in halve with this change". Other factors like the range and speed advantage of stalkers or the blink ability obviously also cut into the dps of the unit. It's not like we haven't seen mass stalkers dominate in every matchup at some period of time, so saying the stats are not good enough or you need a high dps unit is not true. But yeah, Protoss could do well with a mobile anti-zergling unit to defend their bases, instead of the shading bullshit.
Edowyth it was a problem since WoL and everything added since then has not touched this issue of toss missing a solid reliable DPS unit that isnt the paper thin T3 and now garbage collosus.
Definitely the most dissapointing post ive heard in a while...tvt used to be my favorite matchup, now i hate it. Reaper all ins are way too strong. If you blind counter you are so far behind and if you dont you still just take to much damage. Whoever decided reapers needed their grenade ability should be fired. Also, i am sick to losing to worse terrans who just boost fly 10 medivacs with sieged tanks into my base. There is no counter accept boosting in after them but even then you will not get the first shot and lose the game. As a result turtling is more pravlent then ever with turret walls and 5 sensor towers. They have ruined the matchup....but "its more exciting to watch now, right?" I swear to god if i hear them say how important watching is one more time. THE GAME IS MEANT TO BE MORE ENJOYABLE TO THE PLAYERS OVER THE WATCHERS! Not vice versa! This should be common sense if you want to sell your game. I feel like mugatu im zoolander "am i the only one who notices this? i feel like om taking crazy pills"
On March 09 2016 12:09 Big J wrote: I agree with the general idea, but I gotta say you distort those units stats quite a bit. You generalize "gateway units" to ranged, cybercore tech gateway units. The zealot, archon and templar all have decent or high dps in one way or another.
"Gateway units" is typically used to refer to those units that would be produced at a gateway (ie those things unlocked by cybernetics core), as distinguished from a warp-gate.
Zealots aren't reliable damage. That's quite important. They tank damage and they die ... but they don't reliably do damage. Most importantly, the damage that they do actually do is largely determined by actions that the opponent takes rather than actions that the Protoss takes.
Archons don't have high DPS. They have good splash. If the opponent is necessarily all-balled-up and can't out-micro archons, then they take tons of damage. Again, mostly in the opponent's hands and late-game.
Templar have high burst. This is distinct from high DPS. Burst does lots of damage at once, then may not do damage for a while. High DPS consistently puts out killing blows.
On March 09 2016 12:09 Big J wrote: Furthermore the main reason for this lower dps is that all the ranged Protoss units have between 1.5 to 2 times the health per supply in comparison to marines and hydralisks with a very strong built in regeneration mechanic on top of it. So your "maybe nerf health of the adept with this change" should rather be a "cut the adept's health in halve with this change".
2 marines have 110 hp. 1 adept has 150 hp. The adept costs more. It is unlikely to have more or equal DPS to two marines, even after the change. Marines have in-battle healing from medivacs and adepts won't have that either.
It's perfectly reasonable to expect that the health might not need to be nerfed ... but it might, which is why I mentioned it. I honestly don't care if it does. We just need a DPS unit.
On March 09 2016 12:09 Big J wrote: Other factors like the range and speed advantage of stalkers or the blink ability obviously also cut into the dps of the unit. It's not like we haven't seen mass stalkers dominate in every matchup at some period of time, so saying the stats are not good enough or you need a high dps unit is not true. But yeah, Protoss could do well with a mobile anti-zergling unit to defend their bases, instead of the shading bullshit.
The capabilities of stalkers being good has absolutely nothing to do with Protoss needing a DPS unit.
Just because a unit without decent DPS is good doesn't mean that Protoss isn't lacking a good DPS unit.
Here's a small list of things that stalkers (in particular) can't do well that a good DPSing unit could:
- defend multiple very spread out bases - fight small groups of units all over the map - base-trade - threaten to kill buildings or workers or units by being present at multiple locations, inherently fighting for map-control - stand up to swarms of small units (marines, zerglings, etc)
On March 09 2016 12:09 Big J wrote: I agree with the general idea, but I gotta say you distort those units stats quite a bit. You generalize "gateway units" to ranged, cybercore tech gateway units. The zealot, archon and templar all have decent or high dps in one way or another.
"Gateway units" is typically used to refer to those units that would be produced at a gateway (ie those things unlocked by cybernetics core), as distinguished from a warp-gate.
Zealots aren't reliable damage. That's quite important. They tank damage and they die ... but they don't reliably do damage. Most importantly, the damage that they do actually do is largely determined by actions that the opponent takes rather than actions that the Protoss takes.
Archons don't have high DPS. They have good splash. If the opponent is necessarily all-balled-up and can't out-micro archons, then they take tons of damage. Again, mostly in the opponent's hands and late-game.
Templar have high burst. This is distinct from high DPS. Burst does lots of damage at once, then may not do damage for a while. High DPS consistently puts out killing blows.
On March 09 2016 12:09 Big J wrote: Furthermore the main reason for this lower dps is that all the ranged Protoss units have between 1.5 to 2 times the health per supply in comparison to marines and hydralisks with a very strong built in regeneration mechanic on top of it. So your "maybe nerf health of the adept with this change" should rather be a "cut the adept's health in halve with this change".
2 marines have 110 hp. 1 adept has 150 hp. The adept costs more. It is unlikely to have more or equal DPS to two marines, even after the change. Marines have in-battle healing from medivacs and adepts won't have that either.
It's perfectly reasonable to expect that the health might not need to be nerfed ... but it might, which is why I mentioned it. I honestly don't care if it does. We just need a DPS unit.
On March 09 2016 12:09 Big J wrote: Other factors like the range and speed advantage of stalkers or the blink ability obviously also cut into the dps of the unit. It's not like we haven't seen mass stalkers dominate in every matchup at some period of time, so saying the stats are not good enough or you need a high dps unit is not true. But yeah, Protoss could do well with a mobile anti-zergling unit to defend their bases, instead of the shading bullshit.
The capabilities of stalkers being good has absolutely nothing to do with Protoss needing a DPS unit.
Just because a unit without decent DPS is good doesn't mean that Protoss isn't lacking a good DPS unit.
Here's a small list of things that stalkers (in particular) can't do well that a good DPSing unit could:
- defend multiple very spread out bases - fight small groups of units all over the map - base-trade - threaten to kill buildings or workers or units by being present at multiple locations, inherently fighting for map-control - stand up to swarms of small units (marines, zerglings, etc)
And there are more.
Honestly, you are just throwing around phrases and definitions as you want. Dps means damage per second. Not more or less. Splash contributes to dps, though obviously in its own ways. Smaller splash like tanks and archons is mainly good against smaller-medium units. Which is exactly what you are looking for, dps against such units. Basically all of the jobs you are describing can be done by Protoss units, maybe except for the basetrading and even for that you have potent tools, but yes, it's always going to be hard to basetrade against flying Terran buildings or mutalisks. Medivacs are their own unit. I'm sorry, if you compare marines and adepts and then say that marines have a healing mechanic present through medivacs and adepts on their own should stand up against that, the only thing I can tell you is no.
In particular, adepts fulfill many of those jobs. In particular they stand up against swarms of small units like marines or zerglings. Like, you ask for flat damage, for higher dps. Well, adepts won't do more damage than they do now to marines or zerglings after such a change. What they are not good at is maneuvering defensively in the early game, mainly against zerglings. That's the one big thing you get right, everything else you are saying sounds more and more like you just want an overpowered early game unit that counters everything on the ground.
On March 09 2016 12:36 Big J wrote: Honestly, you are just throwing around phrases and definitions as you want. Dps means damage per second. Not more or less. Splash contributes to dps, though obviously in its own ways. Smaller splash like tanks and archons is mainly good against smaller-medium units. Which is exactly what you are looking for, dps against such units.
The DPS of archons is 20. It's not a gateway unit, as I described. It's not dependable, as I described. It's not useful to slow down zerg's progression in the early-game, as I described.
The DPS of storm, specifically, is hard to describe -- you can talk about DPS per storm or DPS over the time needed to get the energy for storm or DPS actually taken ... Nonetheless, HTs aren't gateway units, as I described. They're not available to slow down zerg's early-game progression.
What reliable DPS unit does Protoss have to combat early-to-mid-game problems? None. That's the problem I'm talking about.
On March 09 2016 12:36 Big J wrote: Basically all of the jobs you are describing can be done by Protoss units, maybe except for the basetrading and even for that you have potent tools, but yes, it's always going to be hard to basetrade against flying Terran buildings or mutalisks. Medivacs are their own unit. I'm sorry, if you compare marines and adepts and then say that marines have a healing mechanic present through medivacs and adepts on their own should stand up against that, the only thing I can tell you is no.
Who said they should stand up to marine / medivac on their own? You said they absolutely should have their health cut in half in exchange for better DPS. I merely pointed out that:
- Marines have their own advantages (battlefield healing being a huge one) - the DPS of adepts probably wouldn't be even as powerful as marines' DPS - the health of adepts isn't so ridiculously high that a 50% nerf would be in order
On March 09 2016 12:36 Big J wrote: In particular, adepts fulfill many of those jobs. In particular they stand up against swarms of small units like marines or zerglings. What they are not good at is maneuvering defensively in the early game, mainly against zerglings.
No, they don't.
They stand up remarkably well to light units in small numbers only. Once the numbers exceed a certain point, adepts fail hard. In particular, adepts are very, very bad versus zerglings almost all-game-long in equal supply / cost unless the supplies are very, very low.
Not surprisingly, this is why you see Protoss getting archons versus zerglings (splash damage) instead of adepts past the early-game: adepts don't cut it.
On March 09 2016 12:36 Big J wrote: That's the one big thing you get right, everything else you are saying sounds more and more like you just want an overpowered early game unit that counters everything on the ground.
Essentially, I'm asking for a less-powerful, less-versatile marine. So, I guess you might be right.
On March 09 2016 08:46 Cyro wrote: 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.
Like most things Protoss related...it either works or doesn't do anything at all...
You can gate overlord drop, but then Zerg goes back to having no early game aggressive options against a competent Protoss player who can use photon cannons + overcharge + a few adepts/sentries...It's the only aggressive mechanic Zerg can use in the early game that isn't completely all-in...
Maybe Blizzard should adjust the whole matter of Protoss being able to defend any and all Zerg timings with just a few units first? This stuff doesn't work in degrees...in ZvP aggression has always been all or nothing...
Drop might be a rather cheesy way of circumventing that dynamic, but if it forces just a few more units out of Protoss so that they can't just be greedy as all hell then I'm all for it.
It has a big effect on every game at its current timing. 2h drops are very all in but dangerous - it's scoutable and less common so not something to worry about as much.
3h drop is basically unscoutable so you have to play safer than usual every game, and yet still die fairly often to it. It's hard to walk the line between dieing to aggression and dieing to econ play when zerg has that switch at 22-30 drones where they can either make 15 more drones or 30 speedlings and you have to be prepared for both simultaneously.
Walking that line is something that zerg has had to deal with for a while in ZvP historically - but now it applies much more to protoss than to zerg
On March 09 2016 08:46 Cyro wrote: 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.
Like most things Protoss related...it either works or doesn't do anything at all...
You can gate overlord drop, but then Zerg goes back to having no early game aggressive options against a competent Protoss player who can use photon cannons + overcharge + a few adepts/sentries...It's the only aggressive mechanic Zerg can use in the early game that isn't completely all-in...
Maybe Blizzard should adjust the whole matter of Protoss being able to defend any and all Zerg timings with just a few units first? This stuff doesn't work in degrees...in ZvP aggression has always been all or nothing...
Drop might be a rather cheesy way of circumventing that dynamic, but if it forces just a few more units out of Protoss so that they can't just be greedy as all hell then I'm all for it.
It has a big effect on every game at its current timing. 2h drops are very all in but dangerous - it's scoutable and less common so not something to worry about as much.
3h drop is basically unscoutable so you have to play safer than usual every game, and yet still die fairly often to it. It's hard to walk the line between dieing to aggression and dieing to econ play when zerg has that switch at 22-30 drones where they can either make 15 more drones or 30 speedlings and you have to be prepared for both simultaneously.
Walking that line is something that zerg has had to deal with for a while in ZvP historically - but now it applies much more to protoss than to zerg
you can make an adept to scout
Poking into third and shading to nat is good but you don't have much warning, you're looking for what the larvae hatch into at that specific point of the game.
Gotta pre-emptively play more defensively than if drop wasn't a thing - even against those 3 hatch openings. There's no such thing as an economic Z opening because they can flip the switch onto hard all-inning and you won't know until the larvae hatches, that's why it's difficult at that timing
Okay so instead of removing the dumb tankivac we're gonna have the droped siege tank akwardly stay put while the cooldown activates... "Feels better" indeed. For mech, this is the kind of things that make me wonder if blizzard knows anything about their own game.
For example, fast Banshees with bio all utilizing an even heavier mobility-based strategy could be interesting, or Cyclones and Thors could also be looked at in having a clearer role in mixed armies."
=> that's just PR at its best. What do we see now? Bio/tank, bio/liberator. With mines sometimes. And that's it. The pro players led the way and found out the compositions, and now it's impossible to do anything but that. Do you really expect anyone going bio to go for speedbanshee too? "an even heavier mobility-based strategy" what the actual fuck??? Bio needs support from facto/SP to helps with its natural weakness against AoE and its own lack of AoE. Why do we build tanks with our marines? Because marines don't have AoE. Why do we build vikings against colossi? Because bio is weak against AoE. Blizzard saying "yeah instead of mech/bio, so cool we'll have bio + whatever !" => NO YOU WON'T. You'll have bio + AoE or bio + anti AoE, like it's always been. Which leads me to =>
Should we be pushing an even greater diversity of mixed armies, rather than going for a complete split again? Have we evolved into a better state?
This is just dishonnest. Pure bio has never been viable, excepted for Maru's TvP maybe. Pure mech has never been viable, it has always relied on heavy viking support. Making mech viable is about the CORE COMPOSITION. Instead of bio, if for instance cyclone/hellion was the core mech army, it would open new roles for other units as support units, since a mech core composition would have different strengths and weaknesses.
The easiest way to see this stance in StarCraft II is when we evaluate Legacy of the Void—the majority of us will agree that this game is much better to play and watch than before because it’s so action packed.
On March 09 2016 10:19 PressureSC2 wrote: I think you are too lazy to put in the work required to fix the units produced from the factory ... You are going to change the cyclone, then the Thor instead, then buff Siege Tank instead. Hard work isn't it to try to make the best RTS?
too lazy?
not enough cash on the table to warrant the extended effort to finely tune and craft the game post release.
when SC1 came out Blizz made 1 game at a time and every game was a 10/10 game. the top geniuses hand crafted every aspect of the game play experience. now we've got 6 teams working concurrently and the top geniuses are 1 management layer away from the ground level work. so we're getting a bunch of 9.5/10 games. other than Heroes they're all selling very, very, very well.
Pardo is a 10/10 game designer who can turn anything into a mega money maker. He is so good he makes it look easy. David Kim is a 9.5/10 game designer. ATVI can't afford Pardo. He only works on multi-billion dollar stuff... not this nickel and dime RTS trivia.
SC2 has been and will continue to be a really good game with lots of really cool and fun stuff to do in the BNet2 environment. But, the core game play experience won't be quite as good as Brood War or Warcraft 3.
Rob Pardo is a mega-genius, but many people on here think making an RTS game is easy. it ain't. and there is no way ATVI will ever consider putting their #1 guy on an RTS game.
On March 09 2016 13:13 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Rob Pardo is a mega-genius, but many people on here think making an RTS game is easy. it ain't. and there is no way ATVI will ever consider putting their #1 guy on an RTS game.
On March 09 2016 13:13 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Rob Pardo is a mega-genius, but many people on here think making an RTS game is easy. it ain't. and there is no way ATVI will ever consider putting their #1 guy on an RTS game.
[QUOTE]On March 09 2016 13:13 JimmyJRaynor wrote: [QUOTE]On March 09 2016 10:19 PressureSC2 wrote: I think you are too lazy to put in the work required to fix the units produced from the factory ... You are going to change the cyclone, then the Thor instead, then buff Siege Tank instead. Hard work isn't it to try to make the best RTS?[/QUOTE]
Pardo is a 10/10 game designer who can turn anything into a mega money maker. He is so good he makes it look easy. David Kim is a 9.5/10 game designer. ATVI can't afford Pardo. He only works on multi-billion dollar stuff... not this nickel and dime RTS trivia.
How the hell can ATVI not afford to get Rob Pardo, they is like only Sony, Microsoft, EA and Ubisoft that have a budget close to them, they can afford who they want, he is just one guy, if he realy was a cash cow they would just trow him a couple of million and that's it. If he don't work there anymore it is because he wanted to leave not because ATVI could not afford to keep.
On March 09 2016 07:55 -NegativeZero- wrote: damn, they were finally going in the right direction with fixing siege tanks and now it looks like they've blown it
Imagine siege tanks can fly. Tell me what the difference between these flying siege tanks and liberators is. I don't see a difference in role for these units. They overlap.
... which is precisely the reason people discuss those two units a lot.
Liberator is a flying siege tank. The only weakness it has compared to siege tank is that it isn't AoE, but due to high firing rate and damage it completly makes up for it.
Which is my biggest gripe with flying siege tanks: It's not there because it is a good mechanic, it is there because without it, siege tanks look kinda bad next to liberators. If there can ever be such a thing as power creep in StarCraft II, Terran has suffered from it the most.
I wish they'd give Liberators a different unique selling point besides a flying siege unit and just make siege tank >the< siege unit instead.
EDIT:
Also, when will people stop with this "make mech viable" thing. If it's not going to stop, I'm going to start a "make turtle swarm host viable" campaign. So much fun sitting in my base all day.
[QUOTE]On March 09 2016 13:31 Nakajin wrote: [QUOTE]On March 09 2016 13:13 JimmyJRaynor wrote: [QUOTE]On March 09 2016 10:19 PressureSC2 wrote: I think you are too lazy to put in the work required to fix the units produced from the factory ... You are going to change the cyclone, then the Thor instead, then buff Siege Tank instead. Hard work isn't it to try to make the best RTS?[/QUOTE]
Pardo is a 10/10 game designer who can turn anything into a mega money maker. He is so good he makes it look easy. David Kim is a 9.5/10 game designer. ATVI can't afford Pardo. He only works on multi-billion dollar stuff... not this nickel and dime RTS trivia.
How the hell can ATVI not afford to get Rob Pardo, they is like only Sony, Microsoft, EA and Ubisoft that have a budget close to them, they can afford who they want, he is just one guy, if he realy was a cash cow they would just trow him a couple of million and that's it. If he don't work there anymore it is because he wanted to leave not because ATVI could not afford to keep.
Jay Wilson was the lead designer at the start. the guy in charge of D3 now is really good.
the over all point is... working on 6 games concurrently won't give the same quality as making 1 game at a time. and the quality is still very good. its just not stupidly amazingly great any longer.
On March 09 2016 13:13 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Jay Wilson was the lead designer at the start. the guy in charge of D3 now is really good.
the over all point is... working on 6 games concurrently won't give the same quality as making 1 game at a time. and the quality is still very good. its just not stupidly amazingly great any longer.
Ya I know, I was just kidding. Pardo indeed have a very impressive resume, I wonder if he will ever comeback to making game, he seems to be some sort of advisor for unity right now.
The balance team seems pretty set on keeping the tankivac with a fire delay and making Bio/Mech a thing. They appear to be compromising, but in reality they are doing what they they have always wanted and only making the appearance of actually making any meaningful changes. With the tankivac remaining, there is only so much they can buff the siege tank without making it overpowered and as for making Bio/Mech a thing, it technically already exists with bio/tank/lib being the main composition in LotV TvZ and to a lesser extent in TvP. Bio/Mech is just Bio with Mech support.
You can add in more Mech to it by having more Mech units that are able to support Bio, but it's still Bio with Mech support and not Bio/Mech. The same goes for the opposite end of Mech with Bio support, which is just Mech with ghost support. No one really calls that Bio/Mech because they know it's primarily Mech with ghost as a support unit, bio tank is the inverse example of that. True Bio/Mech can't happen unless they merge the upgrades of Bio and Mech in some form, which I surmise they're unwilling to do due to the level of difficulty to balance it properly.
On March 09 2016 14:00 JimmyJRaynor wrote: if he does come back it'll be to work on a multi-billion dollar franchise. Starcraft hasn't hit 1 billion in revenue yet and its 18 years old.
Just out of curiosity do you know what franchise hit 1 billion in revenue, where he could possibly work, he obviously won't go working on COD, Fifa, or Mario. I don't know very well the number of the video game industry (and google just seem to give me random number)
there are lots of billion dollar franchises out there. i have no idea what turns Pardo's crank from a creative perspective, therefore, i can't rule out the Mario franchise. how can u?
pretty sure the only ATVI franchise in their "big hit list" with no chance of hitting a billion is Starcraft. http://investor.activision.com/
Destiny and Hearthstone are both headed over a billion. here is a quote from kotick a year after both were released.
“We expanded our franchise portfolio by launching two of the industry’s most successful new brands, Blizzard’s Hearthstone®: Heroes of Warcraft™, and the biggest new IP launch in industry history, Destiny®. Combined, these franchises attracted over 40 million registered players worldwide and generated more than $850 million in non‐GAAP revenue. This year, we expect to expand our franchise portfolio to 10 blockbusters, up from five franchises at the beginning of 2014. Our amazingly talented teams will continue to produce the world’s best content for gamers.”
On March 09 2016 14:28 JimmyJRaynor wrote: there are lots of billion dollar franchises out there. i have no idea what turns Pardo's crank from a creative perspective, therefore, i can't rule out the Mario franchise. how can u?
pretty sure the only ATVI franchise in their "big hit list" with no chance of hitting a billion is Starcraft. http://investor.activision.com/
Destiny and Hearthstone are both headed over a billion. here is a quote from kotick a year after both were released.
“We expanded our franchise portfolio by launching two of the industry’s most successful new brands, Blizzard’s Hearthstone®: Heroes of Warcraft™, and the biggest new IP launch in industry history, Destiny®. Combined, these franchises attracted over 40 million registered players worldwide and generated more than $850 million in non‐GAAP revenue. This year, we expect to expand our franchise portfolio to 10 blockbusters, up from five franchises at the beginning of 2014. Our amazingly talented teams will continue to produce the world’s best content for gamers.”
Thanks, I was ruling out Mario not because I assume that he did not want to make those kind of game but because Nintendo dosen't seem very interested in reaching out to big develloper outside of Japan most of all on their biggest franchise, but hey I guess everything can happen. Same thing for Fifa (who probably don't really care about big star develloper they don't need them anyway) and Cod because he just left the company.
On March 09 2016 09:55 Superbanana wrote: Rather than forcing a completely split tech (and by forcing i meant big changes are necessary, that could be harmful for the gameplay, all for the sake of mech) its better to increase the diversity based on what we have now. If more factory and starport are viable in the mid game we should see more mixed and diverse biomech styles, and maybe, full mech.
I couldn't agree more with the way blizzard is approaching it, compared to WoL and HotS those community feedack updates improved a lot, they keep getting better and better.
The view on the state of zerg sounds about right, if they are to be blamed, its for a slow reaction. I was hoping for a map pool change before any balance adjustment, but the maps never changed and since that was the case they should have adressed the matchup in other way.
Im happy they are testing the bile cooldown and something like tank mode drop, i've been calling for those changes for some time now and its almost as if they read specifically my posts and test it internally (people suggested various stuff and they tested the stuff from my "team" ). If they are dropped sieged and have siege time delay, some visual indicator should be good though.
What if the tank turret sets up despite the sieged "legs"? its not visible when the tank is on the medivac, it does require a new specific animation, but if its done its a clean change.
Not sure if your serious about community feedback updates. Are you still under the impression their actually being honest? After seeing enough blatant lies and PR I'm no longer fooled. If you actually follow what the community updates say along with the developers comments on the web... You start to see how much BS it is. At this point it's infuriating every time they pull the same old tricks.
Maps are going to be a huge issue. I don't know what the hell they are thinking on the map front, especially after a few weeks back sharing that image of the "9 different map types". Did they forget absolutely everything they know about RTS design and BW's history???
It's not possible to balance each race on so many various map types. Each race will have inherent advantages or disadvantages based on map choice.
Did they forget the importance of maps? Or the fact that BW was literally balanced off maps alone for years, and those specific map types were chosen to try to offer each race a chance?
They have taken a step backwards in every area of design... And their PR updates just talk about how great the game is, rehash the same things they have said to us before, and use it as an excuse for them continually not doing anything, or instead blame the community by saying the community response was completely different from what the community was actually saying.
I keep following the feedback updates with that little bit of hope that they will actually go to extreme measures to improve the games design... but more than 50% of the updates are are infuriating... Instead they do more and more bandaid fixes, and back themselves in to a corner, then eventually when everything falls apart, their too scared to make any changes because they don't want to upset the precious few that have actually stuck with the game to this point.
I would be willing to bet there are far more players wishing they could enjoy the game, than there actually are enjoying the game right now. It's not like SC is not a series that is beloved by many. It's that SC2 is a game that can not be enjoyed b many of the people who love the series...
But I guess everyone needs to face the fact that they will never do major changes. Their too invested in the game as an eSport that they won't make any huge changes. A design change would require an entire rebalance that would take months of time, and their too worried that it will ruin the games eSport viability.
Ironic, since a well designed SC2 would be able to bring SC2 new players and make it a viable eSport again, rather than becoming more and more of a niche...
The community is filled with specialists in game design, lots of people criticize game design which is fair but if you look at the proposed fixes and try to find what the community think is the issue, its really all over the place and makes no sense at all.
I don't think the game needs another big redesign, its better than it ever was imo. All that talk about making SC2 popular yada yada, its extremely unlikely, of course, in theory it could happen, but nobody comes up with a solution. Since that is the case, it sounds like "hey blizzard, make SC2 more fun and extremely popular, but make sure its also competitive and have a higher skill ceilling. Do it somehow, k thx bye."
At this point, when i read, "blizzard should listen the community", i know it means "blizzard should hire me as lead game designer".
It does bother me that they are so slow and insecure about changes, but for once, im completely satified if they just implement all that they proposed already.
edit: btw, i completely agree about the maps. Last time they talked about it was a big let down for me.
I have learned game design myself, and have done it as a hobby for many years. But how good any of us are at game design doesnt matter. It doesn't take an expert to be able to tell BAD design. Not just from a game design perspective, but also from the perspective of any sort of designer (software designer, or hell any sort of artistic designer), as well as from the perspective of a project leader. It's plain as day they have bad design in many areas, and you can use their own words for god sake. They literally said in a community update in the past that they had to choose whether they wanted to chase the best design, and they chose AGAINST it. Let me repeat that - one of the lead DESIGNERS in a community update, stated that they chose against the best DESIGN. If a DESIGNERS not giving us the best DESIGN, how could they even claim to do their damn job?
Also, do you really think the problem with the game prior to LotV was that the skill ceiling needed to be higher? The best players in the world were still able to easily prove themselves. The problems were the design then too, not the skill ceilling.
When you read Blizzard should listen to the community, you should actually read that as, "dont alienate the community". I could give a damn if they hire me as a designer, I just want them to hire someone who will do their damn job. As a software developer myself, a designer who chooses not to give us the best design, and who can't even make a solid decision on his own with design decisions, is NOT doing their damn job. As someone defending them, even you can see their insecure about their changes. That's not the type of people we need leading the development team. Your not even really a leader if you can't make a decision. It's a lead designers job to have vision - something these people don't have.
I've told the story a few times on here before giving examples (in much more detail than I am now), of how in software design there's transition phases when you work towards an improved final product. Theres times where users of the software won't be happy, and won't understand why things are how they are. If you ask for feedback in those situations, of COURSE its going to be negative. And that's okay! Becuase feedback in this situation is meant not to tell if people are HAPPY or not, it's meant to let you know if the changes are accomplishing their intended purpose. It's the designers job to make sure these transition phases end up with happier users in the end. They must have a vision of where their going with these changes, and that once the users see the changes, it will all make sense in the end.
But what would happen if you were in one of those transition phases, people give negative feedback, and then you decide to stop moving in that direction?? What would be the result?? The result would be that the SOFTWARE WOULD NEVER IMPROVE! This happens more than you would think in small businesses...
So you can say the community doesn't know how to fix the game, go for it. But I can damn sure say their team leaders are not showing any leadership qualities, are making horrible design decisions (even by their own admission) and damn sure shouldn't be in charge of the game.
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.
are you drunk? i got 30% winrate tvp, and many other terrans does to. a protoss can do an fast oracle, warp prism haras, or disrutpor harass, or dark templar harass while they are takin third at 4 minutes and there is nothing a terran can do to punish it. even if you stop it perfectly there is 5 pylons at the third so you will not do anything. i have to make 3 rak every game and turrets and deffend and cant take a third, while toss can. im never ahead in any tvp games. the games i win i simply outskill the protoss whit macro/micro placement.
Protoss has been in need of help for the past 5-6 months. It's time for them to stop thinking about the fucking tankivac (nothing is gonna change anyway) or zerg, and focus on what has been obvious for a while already.
The same core units every game, plus some support units at your choosing, is what most races in every RTS are about (see Protoss). Having the option to use different core units with the same race (Terran and Zerg), is something rather unique to Starcraft, and what made Terran such a special race in all RTS in general. So, reverting to a "normal" RTS design is not evolution IMO, it's loosing something special that Starcraft introduced. It also makes Protoss and Terran function in much the same way, loosing some race diversity and identity.
Wow so much moaning, seriously? I'm one of the biggest balance whiners myself, but isn't David trying really hard to please the scene?
Everybody wants something different and with 3 races it's impossible to perfectly satisfy everybody's requests. Stop bitching too much about game details only because they mean the world to you. Blizzards approach to observe the big tournaments and dividing into korean/non-korean scene and games being played recently/shortly after release is the right way imo. Also I like that they take their time before big nerfs and buffs.
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.
Yes. Please do. It's a shit playstyle it's not fun to play it's not fun to watch. Do you like playing against it? Why should we keep it? Because it's easier at low level? Zerg is already the easiest race to play on low level.
On March 09 2016 18:39 inken wrote: Wow so much moaning, seriously? I'm one of the biggest balance whiners myself, but isn't David trying really hard to please the scene?
Everybody wants something different and with 3 races it's impossible to perfectly satisfy everybody's requests. Stop bitching too much about game details only because they mean the world to you. Blizzards approach to observe the big tournaments and dividing into korean/non-korean scene and games being played recently/shortly after release is the right way imo. Also I like that they take their time before big nerfs and buffs.
Pointless feedback thread is irking people. Has barely any info last one didn't cept for the fuck mech part Not that I mind fucking mech up the ass since it's always gonna be turtle but It's not exactly a position blizz can take after going on and on about how they will introduce changes to make it 1) playable 2) not cancerous
They just realised that's really fucking hard to do without redesigning the whole game and went ah fuck that shit
I really like the idea of focusing terran on a more mixed-up bio-mech state for late game compositions. It lowers the "spamming" of bio units (seriously, any terran out there who has not found himself/herself once in a while spamming the baracks hotkeys in the lategame while totally ignoring Factory-Units before LotV?) and allows more diversity in what the army can do. I really like the LotV design direction for this part.
Thank you for the effort you're putting into this product @BlizzardDevelopmentTeam!
On March 09 2016 19:20 Liox wrote: I really like the idea of focusing terran on a more mixed-up bio-mech state for late game compositions. It lowers the "spamming" of bio units (seriously, any terran out there who has not found himself/herself once in a while spamming the baracks hotkeys in the lategame while totally ignoring Factory-Units before LotV?) and allows more diversity in what the army can do. I really like the LotV design direction for this part.
Thank you for the effort you're putting into this product @BlizzardDevelopmentTeam!
Except Bio-mech will never be a thing with the way terran upgrades and production work. It will just be 90% bio with some factory units sprinkled in.
To me the bio-mech mixes that are popping up lately seem super cool! I'd really like to see the supportive role of mech units to get extended, probably the Thor and the Cyclone are indeed the best places to start with. At the same times a unit like the raven could probably made be more interesting aswell after the LotV nerfs just by revisiting the upgrades and changing the current ones into some that are more meaningful, especially lategame.
Bio-Mech is a direction that feels really fun to watch and play overall!
On March 09 2016 18:39 inken wrote: Wow so much moaning, seriously? I'm one of the biggest balance whiners myself, but isn't David trying really hard to please the scene?
Everybody wants something different and with 3 races it's impossible to perfectly satisfy everybody's requests. Stop bitching too much about game details only because they mean the world to you. Blizzards approach to observe the big tournaments and dividing into korean/non-korean scene and games being played recently/shortly after release is the right way imo. Also I like that they take their time before big nerfs and buffs.
Pointless feedback thread is irking people. Has barely any info last one didn't cept for the fuck mech part Not that I mind fucking mech up the ass since it's always gonna be turtle but It's not exactly a position blizz can take after going on and on about how they will introduce changes to make it 1) playable 2) not cancerous
They just realised that's really fucking hard to do without redesigning the whole game and went ah fuck that shit
On March 09 2016 10:19 PressureSC2 wrote: I think you are too lazy to put in the work required to fix the units produced from the factory ... You are going to change the cyclone, then the Thor instead, then buff Siege Tank instead. Hard work isn't it to try to make the best RTS?
too lazy?
not enough cash on the table to warrant the extended effort to finely tune and craft the game post release.
when SC1 came out Blizz made 1 game at a time and every game was a 10/10 game. the top geniuses hand crafted every aspect of the game play experience. now we've got 6 teams working concurrently and the top geniuses are 1 management layer away from the ground level work. so we're getting a bunch of 9.5/10 games. other than Heroes they're all selling very, very, very well.
Pardo is a 10/10 game designer who can turn anything into a mega money maker. He is so good he makes it look easy. David Kim is a 9.5/10 game designer. ATVI can't afford Pardo. He only works on multi-billion dollar stuff... not this nickel and dime RTS trivia.
SC2 has been and will continue to be a really good game with lots of really cool and fun stuff to do in the BNet2 environment. But, the core game play experience won't be quite as good as Brood War or Warcraft 3.
Rob Pardo is a mega-genius, but many people on here think making an RTS game is easy. it ain't. and there is no way ATVI will ever consider putting their #1 guy on an RTS game.
On March 09 2016 19:20 Liox wrote: I really like the idea of focusing terran on a more mixed-up bio-mech state for late game compositions. It lowers the "spamming" of bio units (seriously, any terran out there who has not found himself/herself once in a while spamming the baracks hotkeys in the lategame while totally ignoring Factory-Units before LotV?) and allows more diversity in what the army can do. I really like the LotV design direction for this part.
Thank you for the effort you're putting into this product @BlizzardDevelopmentTeam!
Except Bio-mech will never be a thing with the way terran upgrades and production work. It will just be 90% bio with some factory units sprinkled in.
That's not exactly true a much bigger factor is the intial production investment The reason it's not a thing is because of the construction set up on it's own bio need stim combat shield attack upgrades a solid number of medivacs reactors aside from the medivacs (which can be kept alive for long time) everything else takes a huge intial gas investment
Each factory costs 100 gas but you always want some addon on it which also costs gas the armory costs way too much gas too
Much bigger cost than the 100 ish gas an attack upgrade costs And even then it's not that much better than a MMM army
On March 09 2016 18:39 inken wrote: Wow so much moaning, seriously? I'm one of the biggest balance whiners myself, but isn't David trying really hard to please the scene?
Everybody wants something different and with 3 races it's impossible to perfectly satisfy everybody's requests. Stop bitching too much about game details only because they mean the world to you. Blizzards approach to observe the big tournaments and dividing into korean/non-korean scene and games being played recently/shortly after release is the right way imo. Also I like that they take their time before big nerfs and buffs.
Pointless feedback thread is irking people. Has barely any info last one didn't cept for the fuck mech part Not that I mind fucking mech up the ass since it's always gonna be turtle but It's not exactly a position blizz can take after going on and on about how they will introduce changes to make it 1) playable 2) not cancerous
They just realised that's really fucking hard to do without redesigning the whole game and went ah fuck that shit
On March 09 2016 18:39 inken wrote: Wow so much moaning, seriously? I'm one of the biggest balance whiners myself, but isn't David trying really hard to please the scene?
Everybody wants something different and with 3 races it's impossible to perfectly satisfy everybody's requests. Stop bitching too much about game details only because they mean the world to you. Blizzards approach to observe the big tournaments and dividing into korean/non-korean scene and games being played recently/shortly after release is the right way imo. Also I like that they take their time before big nerfs and buffs.
Pointless feedback thread is irking people. Has barely any info last one didn't cept for the fuck mech part Not that I mind fucking mech up the ass since it's always gonna be turtle but It's not exactly a position blizz can take after going on and on about how they will introduce changes to make it 1) playable 2) not cancerous
They just realised that's really fucking hard to do without redesigning the whole game and went ah fuck that shit
Thank for adding cyclone.
???
I mean i dont know why they added cyclone,a unit doesnt solve anything for mech.And also they don't want we mass it. Many suggest they should remove it but the said they might but it mean" NO!". Now the game released and it was too late now.
If you remove boost and cut Medivac speed in half we would see the emergeance of turtle bio into Skyterran blizz.
If Mech could move accross the map at 100 supply and take an engagement without being destroyed on the field and also at home maybe there would be less concern about defensive mech.
- Some of the staler, more boring games (to play and watch) have been mech only.
Everything I despise about Blizzard's approach for LotV right now can be found here. Super-generalizing statement with NO actual value to it - please let players decide what is boring and what is fun. I, personally, find bio play extremely boring to play and watch - sure it's constant "action", but it get's just as monotonous to do it every game -> look at rally point -> box -> a) a-move to a location b) load up medivacs and drop a location. If I want my gameplay to be somewhat slower and methodical, then LET ME choose what I prefer instead of deciding on what's cool on my behalf!
You're repeating the mistake you made with HotS here, by pidgeon-holing every race into a specific unit composition, you not only take away diversity, but even actively force a stale meta. This game just feels more and more like some internet TV-show solely designed to entertain viewers (even with this WCS bullshit) instead of just being A FUCKING GAME people like to play.
I really liked SC2, I really tried to like LotV, somehow I still try to like it even now, but harsh reality for me is it's a boring clusterfuck of units on crack aka space-MOBA. Activision Blizzard is evolving into a company I don't want to support anymore, feels more cash grabby year by year.
wow, incredibly bad changes.. and i dont know who exactly wrote this but wtf, seriously... "Some of the staler, more boring games (to play and watch) have been mech only." erm, fudge no!?!?! Not everyone is interested in "korean" 5min rush allin only shit, some ppl wanna see actual games (i know its hard to believe). Ravager change?!?! unnessecary and wrong way to go about it. Siege tank change. very dumb - initial idea to remove siege mode pickup was good but this is the wrong way to do it (again) "further nerfs of zerg are needed in PvZ" is this a troll post? hope so, cause.. of reasons Weirdest thing is, no change to Protoss at all? SERIOUSLY?????????????
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.
Yes. Please do. It's a shit playstyle it's not fun to play it's not fun to watch. Do you like playing against it? Why should we keep it? Because it's easier at low level? Zerg is already the easiest race to play on low level.
Let's be honest here, roach ravager is about as engaging mentally as Bio is, if not more as you have the biles to aim.
Why do people complain about rr being boring when Bio is literally the same just with smaller units?
Wow so much moaning, seriously? I'm one of the biggest balance whiners myself, but isn't David trying really hard to please the scene?
No it's PR. Look at what he said 1-2 weeks ago on the tank buff. Something about "we want to make them more immobile to create the Siege Tank fantasy". What would have made him change his mind from the last community feedback to this one?
Most likely nothing changed, and I don't believe for a second DK actually believed what he wrote there. He doesn't like Siege Tank mech and he demonstrates that with this Community feedback (and he said so in interviews previously).
Further, clearly loves the high skill cap of pick up micro so Siege Tank pickup was always going to stay. It was just a PR move so he can tell fans "oh we tried to test your solutions, they just didn't work out".
I noticed a lot of the changes where DK opts for extreme solutions in these community feedbacks, and each time I think to myself "no way", and every time I end up being correct.
Also look at all the times he write "we'v seen your feedback on xx, we agreed with your feedback on xx". He uses that quote so many times just to show us that he reads stuff.
But if he really cared about feedback, a proper and interesting way to play mech in all 3 matchups would have existed.
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.
Yes. Please do. It's a shit playstyle it's not fun to play it's not fun to watch. Do you like playing against it? Why should we keep it? Because it's easier at low level? Zerg is already the easiest race to play on low level.
Let's be honest here, roach ravager is about as engaging mentally as Bio is, if not more as you have the biles to aim.
Why do people complain about rr being boring when Bio is literally the same just with smaller units?
Higher damage point on units + lower movement speed reduces kiting/split potential. Further it has much lower synergy with dropplay which reduces multitasking.
That said, I very much enjoy playing vs the composition as terran, but the composition isn't fun for me to play as there is so little micro potential. The issue is that the delay of Corrosive Bile is too high which makes it not a real skillshot, but just a zoning tool.
I would like the core stats of Ravagers to be slightly nerfed, and the delay on Corrosive bile to be reduced by 50%.
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.
Yes. Please do. It's a shit playstyle it's not fun to play it's not fun to watch. Do you like playing against it? Why should we keep it? Because it's easier at low level? Zerg is already the easiest race to play on low level.
Let's be honest here, roach ravager is about as engaging mentally as Bio is, if not more as you have the biles to aim.
Why do people complain about rr being boring when Bio is literally the same just with smaller units?
Roach Ravager plays out nothing like Bio. Marines are responsive low hp high dps units. Medivacs add an entierly different dimension with heal drops, pickups and boost. How Z, T and P plays out against roach ravager and bio are totally different. How exactly is roach ravager and bio similar?
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.
Yes. Please do. It's a shit playstyle it's not fun to play it's not fun to watch. Do you like playing against it? Why should we keep it? Because it's easier at low level? Zerg is already the easiest race to play on low level.
Let's be honest here, roach ravager is about as engaging mentally as Bio is, if not more as you have the biles to aim.
Why do people complain about rr being boring when Bio is literally the same just with smaller units?
Roach Ravager plays out nothing like Bio. Marines are responsive low hp high dps units. Medivacs add an entierly different dimension with heal drops, pickups and boost. How Z, T and P plays out against roach ravager and bio are totally different. How exactly is roach ravager and bio similar?
It's not. vP Roach/Ravager is an a-move comp, with the tiniest bit of micro in form of bile spamming.
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.
Yes. Please do. It's a shit playstyle it's not fun to play it's not fun to watch. Do you like playing against it? Why should we keep it? Because it's easier at low level? Zerg is already the easiest race to play on low level.
Let's be honest here, roach ravager is about as engaging mentally as Bio is, if not more as you have the biles to aim.
Why do people complain about rr being boring when Bio is literally the same just with smaller units?
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.
Yes. Please do. It's a shit playstyle it's not fun to play it's not fun to watch. Do you like playing against it? Why should we keep it? Because it's easier at low level? Zerg is already the easiest race to play on low level.
Let's be honest here, roach ravager is about as engaging mentally as Bio is, if not more as you have the biles to aim.
Why do people complain about rr being boring when Bio is literally the same just with smaller units?
Roach Ravager plays out nothing like Bio. Marines are responsive low hp high dps units. Medivacs add an entierly different dimension with heal drops, pickups and boost. How Z, T and P plays out against roach ravager and bio are totally different. How exactly is roach ravager and bio similar?
It's not. vP Roach/Ravager is an a-move comp, with the tiniest bit of micro in form of bile spamming.
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.
Yes. Please do. It's a shit playstyle it's not fun to play it's not fun to watch. Do you like playing against it? Why should we keep it? Because it's easier at low level? Zerg is already the easiest race to play on low level.
Let's be honest here, roach ravager is about as engaging mentally as Bio is, if not more as you have the biles to aim.
Why do people complain about rr being boring when Bio is literally the same just with smaller units?
Roach Ravager plays out nothing like Bio. Marines are responsive low hp high dps units. Medivacs add an entierly different dimension with heal drops, pickups and boost. How Z, T and P plays out against roach ravager and bio are totally different. How exactly is roach ravager and bio similar?
It's not. vP Roach/Ravager is an a-move comp, with the tiniest bit of micro in form of bile spamming.
What? So bio is a-move? That's some hardcore protoss bias. Please show yourself out.
Wow so much moaning, seriously? I'm one of the biggest balance whiners myself, but isn't David trying really hard to please the scene?
No it's PR. Look at what he said 1-2 weeks ago on the tank buff. Something about "we want to make them more immobile to create the Siege Tank fantasy". What would have made him change his mind from the last community feedback to this one?
Most likely nothing changed, and I don't believe for a second DK actually believed what he wrote there. He doesn't like Siege Tank mech and he demonstrates that with this Community feedback (and he said so in interviews previously).
Further, clearly loves the high skill cap of pick up micro so Siege Tank pickup was always going to stay. It was just a PR move so he can tell fans "oh we tried to test your solutions, they just didn't work out".
I noticed a lot of the changes where DK opts for extreme solutions in these community feedbacks, and each time I think to myself "no way", and every time I end up being correct.
Also look at all the times he write "we'v seen your feedback on xx, we agreed with your feedback on xx". He uses that quote so many times just to show us that he reads stuff.
But if he really cared about feedback, a proper and interesting way to play mech in all 3 matchups would have existed.
I agree with you. But what really bothers me is that DK and his team crossed the line of not making sense anymore. Well, actually they did during the beta with the 30 dmg zealot charge, but as a terrible singer once said, "oops, they did it again".
The very idea of "biomech", "mixed armies", is actually bio with facto/SP support, which is the norm since WOL. I mean pure bio NEVER worked, excepted for MKP in WoL and Maru in HOTS. And now, we can read "lol go banshee with bio i dunno can be cool lol". Diversity in LOTV, for the terran race, is the wonderfull choice to go for bio liberators, or bio tank. Such interesting diversity.
I used to be concerned, and discuss the community feedback at length. But now I just get angry at the total absence of logic in these posts.
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.
Yes. Please do. It's a shit playstyle it's not fun to play it's not fun to watch. Do you like playing against it? Why should we keep it? Because it's easier at low level? Zerg is already the easiest race to play on low level.
Let's be honest here, roach ravager is about as engaging mentally as Bio is, if not more as you have the biles to aim.
Why do people complain about rr being boring when Bio is literally the same just with smaller units?
Roach Ravager plays out nothing like Bio. Marines are responsive low hp high dps units. Medivacs add an entierly different dimension with heal drops, pickups and boost. How Z, T and P plays out against roach ravager and bio are totally different. How exactly is roach ravager and bio similar?
It's not. vP Roach/Ravager is an a-move comp, with the tiniest bit of micro in form of bile spamming.
What? So bio is a-move? That's some hardcore protoss bias. Please show yourself out.
He agrees with you. You ask "How exactly is roach ravager and bio similar?" and he answers "It's not."
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.
Yes. Please do. It's a shit playstyle it's not fun to play it's not fun to watch. Do you like playing against it? Why should we keep it? Because it's easier at low level? Zerg is already the easiest race to play on low level.
Let's be honest here, roach ravager is about as engaging mentally as Bio is, if not more as you have the biles to aim.
Why do people complain about rr being boring when Bio is literally the same just with smaller units?
Roach Ravager plays out nothing like Bio. Marines are responsive low hp high dps units. Medivacs add an entierly different dimension with heal drops, pickups and boost. How Z, T and P plays out against roach ravager and bio are totally different. How exactly is roach ravager and bio similar?
It's not. vP Roach/Ravager is an a-move comp, with the tiniest bit of micro in form of bile spamming.
What? So bio is a-move? That's some hardcore protoss bias. Please show yourself out.
Wow so much moaning, seriously? I'm one of the biggest balance whiners myself, but isn't David trying really hard to please the scene?
No it's PR. Look at what he said 1-2 weeks ago on the tank buff. Something about "we want to make them more immobile to create the Siege Tank fantasy". What would have made him change his mind from the last community feedback to this one?
Most likely nothing changed, and I don't believe for a second DK actually believed what he wrote there. He doesn't like Siege Tank mech and he demonstrates that with this Community feedback (and he said so in interviews previously).
Further, clearly loves the high skill cap of pick up micro so Siege Tank pickup was always going to stay. It was just a PR move so he can tell fans "oh we tried to test your solutions, they just didn't work out".
I noticed a lot of the changes where DK opts for extreme solutions in these community feedbacks, and each time I think to myself "no way", and every time I end up being correct.
Also look at all the times he write "we'v seen your feedback on xx, we agreed with your feedback on xx". He uses that quote so many times just to show us that he reads stuff.
But if he really cared about feedback, a proper and interesting way to play mech in all 3 matchups would have existed.
I agree with you. But what really bothers me is that DK and his team crossed the line of not making sense anymore. Well, actually they did during the beta with the 30 dmg zealot charge, but as a terrible singer once said, "oops, they did it again".
The very idea of "biomech", "mixed armies", is actually bio with facto/SP support, which is the norm since WOL. I mean pure bio NEVER worked, excepted for MKP in WoL and Maru in HOTS. And now, we can read "lol go banshee with bio i dunno can be cool lol". Diversity in LOTV, for the terran race, is the wonderfull choice to go for bio liberators, or bio tank. Such interesting diversity.
I used to be concerned, and discuss the community feedback at length. But now I just get angry at the total absence of logic in these posts.
There's also bio with and combination of hellion/hellbat, widow mines and ghosts and vikings as well. Oh and some pro games mix it up with thors vs ultras. And bio consists of 3 different units. But I guess there isn't enough diversity there. But yeah it seems obvious that David Kim is just is just a PR man.
Everyone, except a few handpicked hipsters, hates mech. Why?
Players and watchers alike, disregard turtilng. Also, disregard slow, positional play that can last for 60 minutes. And finally, and most importantly, the community hates unbeatable compositions (that is the goal of the mech hipsters: turn mech into an invulnerable composition, with no weaknesses, unless unsieged).
Wow so much moaning, seriously? I'm one of the biggest balance whiners myself, but isn't David trying really hard to please the scene?
No it's PR. Look at what he said 1-2 weeks ago on the tank buff. Something about "we want to make them more immobile to create the Siege Tank fantasy". What would have made him change his mind from the last community feedback to this one?
Most likely nothing changed, and I don't believe for a second DK actually believed what he wrote there. He doesn't like Siege Tank mech and he demonstrates that with this Community feedback (and he said so in interviews previously).
Further, clearly loves the high skill cap of pick up micro so Siege Tank pickup was always going to stay. It was just a PR move so he can tell fans "oh we tried to test your solutions, they just didn't work out".
I noticed a lot of the changes where DK opts for extreme solutions in these community feedbacks, and each time I think to myself "no way", and every time I end up being correct.
Also look at all the times he write "we'v seen your feedback on xx, we agreed with your feedback on xx". He uses that quote so many times just to show us that he reads stuff.
But if he really cared about feedback, a proper and interesting way to play mech in all 3 matchups would have existed.
I agree with you. But what really bothers me is that DK and his team crossed the line of not making sense anymore. Well, actually they did during the beta with the 30 dmg zealot charge, but as a terrible singer once said, "oops, they did it again".
The very idea of "biomech", "mixed armies", is actually bio with facto/SP support, which is the norm since WOL. I mean pure bio NEVER worked, excepted for MKP in WoL and Maru in HOTS. And now, we can read "lol go banshee with bio i dunno can be cool lol". Diversity in LOTV, for the terran race, is the wonderfull choice to go for bio liberators, or bio tank. Such interesting diversity.
I used to be concerned, and discuss the community feedback at length. But now I just get angry at the total absence of logic in these posts.
There's also bio with and combination of hellion/hellbat, widow mines and ghosts and vikings as well. Oh and some pro games mix it up with thors vs ultras. And bio consists of 3 different units. But I guess there isn't enough diversity there. But yeah PR man is PR man.
Bio with a combination of hellion/hellbat is a allin/timing attack. Bio with ghosts... is bio. Mines and vikings are used with bio since HOTS and WOL, nothing new here.
So the idea that the comps are now "mixed" is BS.
"And bio constits of three different units" : wooow, such diversity.
Just look at protoss. Every unit in the protoss army has a role, and can be used in every MU except PvP. And just watch pro games. TvT : marine tankivacs TvP : bio mines => bio liberators (+ vikings sometimes) TvZ : bio tanks/bio mines => bio liberators
My prediction : this isn't gonna change. Ever. Because bio needs support units that compensate for the bio's weaknesses. You won't be able to go anything but bio tanks or bio mines in TvZ because you need AoE, for instance.
On March 09 2016 21:29 Apoteosis wrote: Everyone, except a few handpicked hipsters, hates mech. Why?
Players and watchers alike, disregard turtilng. Also, disregard slow, positional play that can last for 60 minutes. And finally, and most importantly, the community hates unbeatable compositions (that is the goal of the mech hipsters: turn mech into an invulnerable composition, with no weaknesses, unless unsieged).
You mean hates Raven. Understand the difference please.
Wow so much moaning, seriously? I'm one of the biggest balance whiners myself, but isn't David trying really hard to please the scene?
No it's PR. Look at what he said 1-2 weeks ago on the tank buff. Something about "we want to make them more immobile to create the Siege Tank fantasy". What would have made him change his mind from the last community feedback to this one?
Most likely nothing changed, and I don't believe for a second DK actually believed what he wrote there. He doesn't like Siege Tank mech and he demonstrates that with this Community feedback (and he said so in interviews previously).
Further, clearly loves the high skill cap of pick up micro so Siege Tank pickup was always going to stay. It was just a PR move so he can tell fans "oh we tried to test your solutions, they just didn't work out".
I noticed a lot of the changes where DK opts for extreme solutions in these community feedbacks, and each time I think to myself "no way", and every time I end up being correct.
Also look at all the times he write "we'v seen your feedback on xx, we agreed with your feedback on xx". He uses that quote so many times just to show us that he reads stuff.
But if he really cared about feedback, a proper and interesting way to play mech in all 3 matchups would have existed.
Agree with this. What i don't understand is why all the playacting. Does he think that selling false hope will keep some people attached to the game in some sort of fallow the carrot move? If anything, this sort of thing creates more negativity around the game and ends up hurting their feelings
Just say what you want to do and the people that disagree will move on, and the people that agree will stay and have a more positive environment to build on. If you (DK) are correct, then the numbers will show, if not, tough luck.
Blizz has already created a lot of frustration within the community with them being to slow, not knowing how to handle maps, game design choices, just to name a few. There is no point in adding to that. Do a Browder and say "you don't like this? Go play BW, great game!".
On March 09 2016 21:29 Apoteosis wrote: Everyone, except a few handpicked hipsters, hates mech. Why?
Players and watchers alike, disregard turtilng. Also, disregard slow, positional play that can last for 60 minutes. And finally, and most importantly, the community hates unbeatable compositions (that is the goal of the mech hipsters: turn mech into an invulnerable composition, with no weaknesses, unless unsieged).
Everyone except a few handpicked hipsters loves mech. Why?
Players and watchers alike like positional play. Also, like the positional warfare between one player trying to pull the other apart while the other one tries slowly siege forward while defending flawlessly. And finally, and most importantly the community hates seeing bio all game every game for 5 years straight and want to see something else (that's the goal of the anti-mech hipsters: turn terran into a race without compositional diversity, with no options other than bio)
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.
Yes. Please do. It's a shit playstyle it's not fun to play it's not fun to watch. Do you like playing against it? Why should we keep it? Because it's easier at low level? Zerg is already the easiest race to play on low level.
Let's be honest here, roach ravager is about as engaging mentally as Bio is, if not more as you have the biles to aim.
Why do people complain about rr being boring when Bio is literally the same just with smaller units?
Roach Ravager plays out nothing like Bio. Marines are responsive low hp high dps units. Medivacs add an entierly different dimension with heal drops, pickups and boost. How Z, T and P plays out against roach ravager and bio are totally different. How exactly is roach ravager and bio similar?
It's not. vP Roach/Ravager is an a-move comp, with the tiniest bit of micro in form of bile spamming.
What? So bio is a-move? That's some hardcore protoss bias. Please show yourself out.
i'm sorry, but i just dont see the appeal in mech. when i watch high level marine tank im impressed at the speed, outmaneuvering and multitasking capabilities of the players. When i see high level mech, its like. yeah he camped that choke point really well.
I'm all for making every unit viable. swarmhosts, ravens, thors, battlecruisers, make them viable. make aggressive mech viable. but turtle mech? hell no.
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.
Yes. Please do. It's a shit playstyle it's not fun to play it's not fun to watch. Do you like playing against it? Why should we keep it? Because it's easier at low level? Zerg is already the easiest race to play on low level.
Let's be honest here, roach ravager is about as engaging mentally as Bio is, if not more as you have the biles to aim.
Why do people complain about rr being boring when Bio is literally the same just with smaller units?
Roach Ravager plays out nothing like Bio. Marines are responsive low hp high dps units. Medivacs add an entierly different dimension with heal drops, pickups and boost. How Z, T and P plays out against roach ravager and bio are totally different. How exactly is roach ravager and bio similar?
It's not. vP Roach/Ravager is an a-move comp, with the tiniest bit of micro in form of bile spamming.
What? So bio is a-move? That's some hardcore protoss bias. Please show yourself out.
On March 09 2016 19:57 PressureSC2 wrote: If you remove boost and cut Medivac speed in half we would see the emergeance of turtle bio into Skyterran blizz.
If Mech could move accross the map at 100 supply and take an engagement without being destroyed on the field and also at home maybe there would be less concern about defensive mech.
If mech could move across the map at 100 supply like this, it would be able to anihilate any army when they move at 200 supply. Then: why move at 100?
Anyway, really happy to see this community feedback, the game is amazing and goes in the right direction.
Funny to see that the people complaining about diversity in Terran's army wants to be able to play pure mech-factory-no-starport-units. Basically, they want to spam 3 units in the whole game.
On March 09 2016 11:04 Superbanana wrote: It does bother me that they are so slow and insecure about changes
For instance, why does Blizzard need months to be able to make a decision on the siege tank? A designer supposedly spending 40 hours a week on improving SC2 ought to be a bit embarrassed if that time is spent tentatively considering failed idea after failed idea for the siege tank without concrete results for like a month.
When they came up with the tankivac everyone said it would change the nature of the siege tank and would create very obnoxious harassment and would make TvT even less positional. All of this happened. Now six months later Blizzard is like: "hm, it seems that this hasn't quite worked out the we way we had hoped (prayed) for, so let's take a few more months to consider what to do about it". Wow, so inspiring. Meanwhile SC1 & SC:BW were made in like a year and a half in total and they still have more well thought out design decisions than SC2 after 10 years of development (with SC:BW as a template to work from!)
On March 09 2016 19:57 PressureSC2 wrote: If you remove boost and cut Medivac speed in half we would see the emergeance of turtle bio into Skyterran blizz.
If Mech could move accross the map at 100 supply and take an engagement without being destroyed on the field and also at home maybe there would be less concern about defensive mech.
If mech could move across the map at 100 supply like this, it would be able to anihilate any army when they move at 200 supply. Then: why move at 100?
Anyway, really happy to see this community feedback, the game is amazing and goes in the right direction.
Funny to see that the people complaining about diversity in Terran's army wants to be able to play pure mech-factory-no-starport-units. Basically, they want to spam 3 units in the whole game.
You mean, like they're forced into spamming bio right now?
Oh no sorry it's 4 units, MMMtanks or MMMlibs. That's so much better.
There is absolutely no reason that factory/starport units (other than the Medivac perhaps) cannot be adjusted to allow for them to be more than support for Bio units. If they need to reduce the power of certain mech units, and/or nerf the overall splash/range/firepower to increase movement speed so that we do not need to turtle in fear of the counter-aggression - then that is what needs to be done.
I do not buy the "mech support units then become too strong when used inside the bio army" argument. Right now, that may be the case with the Liberator, and it will probably be nerfed like it should be if that is the case. However, when you are running on 3-3 bio with all of the other upgrades, you are not going to add in 0-0 slower than stimed bio Thors and all of a sudden have this terrible army that is much stronger than Bio/Liberator and that cannot be dealt with. Baloney.
Certain units such as the Cyclone, Thor, Hellbat, Banshee, Battlecruiser could be changed and you would still have that opportunity cost if you build them because you have less 3-3 bio and/or less Liberators. There is a big gap now in the relative power of these units versus the compositions we do see in play at the pro level. Just because you build other types of Mech units for bio support does not make them 3-3 like a Mech army.
One final note - I think that at the GSL level bio should remain the most exciting and most effective composition. I agree that this must be the case, otherwise we would see too little bio play at lower levels. But, why could we not see 25-30% mech games at WCS NA level, for example, because the skill cap may not be quite as high to make bio the absolute best style at that level of play? I am not talking turtle Mech, I mean constantly move across the map and deny the 3rd or 4th base Mech.
I think that even if you had to remove Siege Mode entirely, and remove Thor splash damageto make them move faster - Terran players would really be excited that you are finally going to move towards much more effective Mech play. With faster units, you would see less turtling until 160-200 supply.
The only reason Turtle mech exists is because MOST of the units from the factory and/or starport are poorly designed other than a few units that are fantastic as support units for Bio (and the Liberator is fine of course, perhaps the Hellion as well).
Do not blame the Factory itself, or the skin/visual of the units for turtle gameplay. The balance values assigned to the units (movement, attack, splash) are to blame for Factory play creating a turtle style.
Something that really annoys me. Why do he call bio marines+marauders while calling mech ALL factory units+alot of starport units. Shouldnt Ghosts be there and reapers and so on when someone mentions Bio..........
Besides, I hate THE raven. Its 100% worse than the SV from broodwar. It always has and always will with the shit design it has. So mech is about camping, SO WAS PROTOSS in hots. Wait for max, move out.
It wasnt because there were no "differnet times different races had different advantages", it was because protoss as a race needs their high tech units or else they need to relie on RNG.
Anway, they dont want to "fix" mech AND NO I DONT MEAN STARPORT UNITS. I mean the factory units. MECH for me=factory units. I call the starport units=air.
You cant just say "bio = biological" THEN WHEN SOMEONE SAYS BIO it should MEAN REAPERS AND GHOSTS.
On March 09 2016 19:57 PressureSC2 wrote: If you remove boost and cut Medivac speed in half we would see the emergeance of turtle bio into Skyterran blizz.
If Mech could move accross the map at 100 supply and take an engagement without being destroyed on the field and also at home maybe there would be less concern about defensive mech.
If mech could move across the map at 100 supply like this, it would be able to anihilate any army when they move at 200 supply. Then: why move at 100?
Anyway, really happy to see this community feedback, the game is amazing and goes in the right direction.
Funny to see that the people complaining about diversity in Terran's army wants to be able to play pure mech-factory-no-starport-units. Basically, they want to spam 3 units in the whole game.
It seems you don't understand the difference. Mech will always use starport units, as they are right now they are really strong, the problem is that the ground mech is really weak, wich means that people will always make air over mech and we all know how that shit ends.
The solution is to have both be as equally strong but with difference so that a healty mix is made, thus allowing for more uses and less turtling.
As for the 100 vs 200 supply question is very easy, mech (and the other races and comps) has strenghts and weaknesses that go beyond just how strong they are in X supply. Such as economy, production, capacity to take bases, tech units, etc. Right now we have an economy that already forces mech to be aggressive, production is also much better, maps are huge and super open, theres quite a few reasons as why it would be better to push early rather than late.
On March 09 2016 19:57 PressureSC2 wrote: If you remove boost and cut Medivac speed in half we would see the emergeance of turtle bio into Skyterran blizz.
If Mech could move accross the map at 100 supply and take an engagement without being destroyed on the field and also at home maybe there would be less concern about defensive mech.
If mech could move across the map at 100 supply like this, it would be able to anihilate any army when they move at 200 supply. Then: why move at 100?
Then change mech. Make it more powerful at 100 supply and faster. Make it weaker at 200 supply. I agree with you.
Given the scope of this game and what this community update might mean for the future, why not create a second "Balance Test Map" where the goal is only to review Mech changes. If it takes six months to get the factory right, start rolling some of the changes gradually to the real balance test maps.
Do it slowly, but correctly. Why not give the community a Mech Balance Test map that is a longer term project - what do yo have to lose Blizzard at this point?
On March 09 2016 22:05 Foxxan wrote: Something that really annoys me. Why do he call bio marines+marauders while calling mech ALL factory units+alot of starport units. Shouldnt Ghosts be there and reapers and so on when someone mentions Bio..........
Besides, I hate THE raven. Its 100% worse than the SV from broodwar. It always has and always will with the shit design it has. So mech is about camping, SO WAS PROTOSS in hots. Wait for max, move out.
It wasnt because there were no "differnet times different races had different advantages", it was because protoss as a race needs their high tech units or else they need to relie on RNG.
Anway, they dont want to "fix" mech AND NO I DONT MEAN STARPORT UNITS. I mean the factory units. MECH for me=factory units. I call the starport units=air.
You cant just say "bio = biological" THEN WHEN SOMEONE SAYS BIO it should MEAN REAPERS AND GHOSTS.
Protoss from WoL-HotS was the mech race of SC2. That's why Flash should have gone Protoss
Does he think that selling false hope will keep some people attached to the game in some sort of fallow the carrot move? If anything, this sort of thing creates more negativity around the game and ends up hurting their feelings
Well from his perspective; If he said "Guys I hate tank-based mech, and I am not gonna make it viable", he would receive a lot more unpopular opinions. Thus he chooses to go for the PR-strategy.
But in reality the issue is that he is too narrowminded/simplistic in his analysis. He doesn't seem to be capable of explaining the factors that makes mech too turtly and discuss how to make siege tank based mech more interesting; as it was in BW late game.
Something to praise about Riot's community feedback is that its actually much less bullshitty. They will argue why they want to see a certain change and explain why other solutions aren't viable/possible.
The consequence is that David Kim comes out as lacking analytical skills, which I believe is true. Nothing he has written indicates that his analysis goes deeper than "I like actionpaced harass play, let's buff it".
Does he think that selling false hope will keep some people attached to the game in some sort of fallow the carrot move? If anything, this sort of thing creates more negativity around the game and ends up hurting their feelings
Well from his perspective; If he said "Guys I hate tank-based mech, and I am not gonna make it viable", he would receive a lot more unpopular opinions.
Thus he chooses to go for the PR-strategy.
But in reality the issue is that he is too narrowminded/simplistic in his analysis. He doesn't seem to be capable of explaining the factors that makes mech too turtly and discuss how to make siege tank based mech more interesting; as it was in BW late game.
Something to praise about Riot's community feedback is that its actually much less bullshitty. They will argue why they want to see a certain change and explain why other solutions aren't viable/possible.
Blizzard cannot do this, Blizzard is working with 300k population. They have to approach much carefully. Losing 50k people is nothing for Riot. Losing 50k people is huge for Blizzard.
On March 09 2016 21:53 QzYSc2 wrote: make them viable. make aggressive mech viable. but turtle mech? hell no.
Fantastic. I think Terran mech fans will agree.
One issue that Blizzard must realize (and perhaps is causing them to want to withdraw from mech balancing) is that so many changes might be required that it would not be realistic to test them in the "main" balance test map because it would delay progress on other fronts. That is one reason why a separate test map would be best to improve factory play.
When they came up with the tankivac everyone said it would change the nature of the siege tank and would create very obnoxious harassment and would make TvT even less positional
To be fair, it's not that simple. TvT tank + marine isn't less positional than it was in HOTS. However, the issue is that it makes it much harder to control the units, which significantly raises the learning barrier, and opportunites for a ton of small mistakes that costs you the game.
And from their perspective, if they nerfed Siege tank pick up, Ravagers would be overpowered; hence they needed to be sure that Ravagers should be nerfed as well.
Does he think that selling false hope will keep some people attached to the game in some sort of fallow the carrot move? If anything, this sort of thing creates more negativity around the game and ends up hurting their feelings
Well from his perspective; If he said "Guys I hate tank-based mech, and I am not gonna make it viable", he would receive a lot more unpopular opinions.
Thus he chooses to go for the PR-strategy.
But in reality the issue is that he is too narrowminded/simplistic in his analysis. He doesn't seem to be capable of explaining the factors that makes mech too turtly and discuss how to make siege tank based mech more interesting; as it was in BW late game.
Something to praise about Riot's community feedback is that its actually much less bullshitty. They will argue why they want to see a certain change and explain why other solutions aren't viable/possible.
Blizzard cannot do this, Blizzard is working with 300k population. They have to approach much carefully. Losing 50k people is nothing for Riot. Losing 50k people is huge for Blizzard.
Riot doesn't lose anyone by doing this though, and my point wasn't that he should say the above quote. My point was that he is narrowminded/simplistic in his analysis that isn't capable of providing a detailed explanation of the decision making. So from DKs perspective he only feels like has two choices; The PR bullshit or the above sentence.
On the other hand when Riot responds to the community, the designers are explaining their thought proces and typically they end up receiving a ton of positive feedback. They win by doing this. I am trying to find a recent example where I actually disagreed with the Riot designer, but he still comes out as reasonable (and not an idiot).
I really think riot needs more people who aren't afraid to just tell us "You're just wrong because x, y and z" every so often like this.
And note that just 1-2 days before he made this comment, there was a massive circlejerk against the nerf. And as I said, I think it was the wrong nerf as it balances the game around hardcounters, which I don't believe LOL should be about, but you still gotta respect the man for responding in a (somewhat) logical way.
On the other hand, DK is not getting popular by trying to deceive the community.
Oh I would be in perfect agreement to have agressive mech viable while turtle mech not. I just don't think it's possible in Starcraft 2, given the overall design of the game, of the layout of the maps, the IA, pathing and so on. I'll add that if we have mech as strong as bio, then the synergy of the two would make it too strong, and thus, even if pure mech could be made viable (which I do not believe), it would needs to sacrifice BIO for it.
We have 5 threads every week explaining how to mech great again, but those have never been convincing. Not to me at least, and apparently to Blizzard as well.
On March 09 2016 22:15 Hider wrote: The consequence is that David Kim comes out as lacking analytical skills, which I believe is true. Nothing he has written indicates that his analysis goes deeper than "I like actionpaced harass play, let's buff it".
To be fair, we do not know the exact reason why some of us are displeased with their approach. Maybe they have the analytical skills, but not enough resources put into development at this stage to apply the skills? Maybe everything is too investor driven and low-risk nowadays, which means they can no longer produce the greatest games - only those titles that sell well upon release?
With this particular community update, one thing that seems certain is that there is a lack of desire, for some reason, to to make this game (as opposed to the spectating) the greatest RTS ever based on its actual production.
When they came up with the tankivac everyone said it would change the nature of the siege tank and would create very obnoxious harassment and would make TvT even less positional
To be fair, it's not that simple. TvT tank + marine isn't less positional than it was in HOTS. However, the issue is that it makes it much harder to control the units, which significantly raises the learning barrier, and opportunites for a ton of small mistakes that costs you the game.
And from their perspective, if they nerfed Siege tank pick up, Ravagers would be overpowered; hence they needed to be sure that Ravagers should be nerfed as well.
You are right. But, this is 1995 technology, thinking and creativity that needs to be applied here. And it can all be done with a good sized community on test maps. Get knocked down from your horse, get back in the saddle type of testing.
The goal is not to develop the first virtual reality RTS on console.
Does he think that selling false hope will keep some people attached to the game in some sort of fallow the carrot move? If anything, this sort of thing creates more negativity around the game and ends up hurting their feelings
Well from his perspective; If he said "Guys I hate tank-based mech, and I am not gonna make it viable", he would receive a lot more unpopular opinions.
Thus he chooses to go for the PR-strategy.
But in reality the issue is that he is too narrowminded/simplistic in his analysis. He doesn't seem to be capable of explaining the factors that makes mech too turtly and discuss how to make siege tank based mech more interesting; as it was in BW late game.
Something to praise about Riot's community feedback is that its actually much less bullshitty. They will argue why they want to see a certain change and explain why other solutions aren't viable/possible.
Blizzard cannot do this, Blizzard is working with 300k population. They have to approach much carefully. Losing 50k people is nothing for Riot. Losing 50k people is huge for Blizzard.
Riot doesn't lose anyone by doing this though. They are explaining their thought proces and typically they end up receiving a ton of positive feedback. They win by doing this. I am trying to find a recent example where I actually disagreed with the Riot designer, but he still comes out as reasonable (and not an idiot).
I really think riot needs more people who aren't afraid to just tell us "You're just wrong because x, y and z" every so often like this.
And note that just 1-2 days before he made this comment, there was a massive circlejerk against the nerf.
Is there a source for your saying they are not losing players based on their balance changes? I mean do they release statements saying "we lost 30k people who are no longer logging after patch x.y.z but we received new 50k people, so it's OK, right?". SC2 population was declining in the past and the difference between the end of HotS and LotV is around +60k. (I checked nios in January I think and it was around 300k 1v1 players vs. 240k HotS(before LotV release)). That's not much room for testing what is good or not.
I am at work, I really cannot search for lol player base statistics or some other shit like that.
To be fair, we do not know the exact reason why some of us are displeased with their approach. Maybe they have the analytical skills, but not enough resources put into development at this stage to apply the skills
If you have analytical skills, community feedfeedback provides an excellent opportunity for demonstrating those skillsets. Why would a designer want to come out as being dumb instead of brilliant? Noone gains anything as people are more likely to follow and play a game if they think the game designer is smart.
Is there a source for your saying they are not losing players based on their balance changes?
This isn't about balance changes (as I said I dislike the actual change, and I don't think making LOL more hardcounter based is positive for the playerbase). But rather it's about how you explain your reasoning for changes/lack of changes.
DK strategy: PR where he tries to deceive people into thinking he is actually testing other suggestions while giving bullshit reasons for a change/lack of.
Riot strategy: Throughouly explains the reasons behind the decision.
Wow so much moaning, seriously? I'm one of the biggest balance whiners myself, but isn't David trying really hard to please the scene?
No it's PR. Look at what he said 1-2 weeks ago on the tank buff. Something about "we want to make them more immobile to create the Siege Tank fantasy". What would have made him change his mind from the last community feedback to this one?
Most likely nothing changed, and I don't believe for a second DK actually believed what he wrote there. He doesn't like Siege Tank mech and he demonstrates that with this Community feedback (and he said so in interviews previously).
Further, clearly loves the high skill cap of pick up micro so Siege Tank pickup was always going to stay. It was just a PR move so he can tell fans "oh we tried to test your solutions, they just didn't work out".
I noticed a lot of the changes where DK opts for extreme solutions in these community feedbacks, and each time I think to myself "no way", and every time I end up being correct.
Also look at all the times he write "we'v seen your feedback on xx, we agreed with your feedback on xx". He uses that quote so many times just to show us that he reads stuff.
But if he really cared about feedback, a proper and interesting way to play mech in all 3 matchups would have existed.
I agree with you. But what really bothers me is that DK and his team crossed the line of not making sense anymore. Well, actually they did during the beta with the 30 dmg zealot charge, but as a terrible singer once said, "oops, they did it again".
The very idea of "biomech", "mixed armies", is actually bio with facto/SP support, which is the norm since WOL. I mean pure bio NEVER worked, excepted for MKP in WoL and Maru in HOTS. And now, we can read "lol go banshee with bio i dunno can be cool lol". Diversity in LOTV, for the terran race, is the wonderfull choice to go for bio liberators, or bio tank. Such interesting diversity.
I used to be concerned, and discuss the community feedback at length. But now I just get angry at the total absence of logic in these posts.
There's also bio with and combination of hellion/hellbat, widow mines and ghosts and vikings as well. Oh and some pro games mix it up with thors vs ultras. And bio consists of 3 different units. But I guess there isn't enough diversity there. But yeah PR man is PR man.
Bio with a combination of hellion/hellbat is a allin/timing attack. Bio with ghosts... is bio. Mines and vikings are used with bio since HOTS and WOL, nothing new here.
So the idea that the comps are now "mixed" is BS.
"And bio constits of three different units" : wooow, such diversity.
Just look at protoss. Every unit in the protoss army has a role, and can be used in every MU except PvP. And just watch pro games. TvT : marine tankivacs TvP : bio mines => bio liberators (+ vikings sometimes) TvZ : bio tanks/bio mines => bio liberators
My prediction : this isn't gonna change. Ever. Because bio needs support units that compensate for the bio's weaknesses. You won't be able to go anything but bio tanks or bio mines in TvZ because you need AoE, for instance.
Just today Alive was using hellion/hellbats in his bio army along with widow mines against Losira as a standard army. Really though, calling all the various combinations of playstyles and unit compositions of everything as bio is getting really tiresome. You are calling all the various combinations of marine, maurader, medivac, widowmine, widow mine, viking, ghost as bio in your post. Absurd.
On March 09 2016 11:04 Superbanana wrote: It does bother me that they are so slow and insecure about changes
For instance, why does Blizzard need months to be able to make a decision on the siege tank? A designer supposedly spending 40 hours a week on improving SC2 ought to be a bit embarrassed if that time is spent tentatively considering failed idea after failed idea for the siege tank without concrete results for like a month.
When they came up with the tankivac everyone said it would change the nature of the siege tank and would create very obnoxious harassment and would make TvT even less positional. All of this happened. Now six months later Blizzard is like: "hm, it seems that this hasn't quite worked out the we way we had hoped (prayed) for, so let's take a few more months to consider what to do about it". Wow, so inspiring. Meanwhile SC1 & SC:BW were made in like a year and a half in total and they still have more well thought out design decisions than SC2 after 10 years of development (with SC:BW as a template to work from!)
Wasn't it obvious that the community updates weren't meant as sudden change in policy and community participation, but rather as a feel-good move that shows they care? If we could evaluate the number of community suggestions that made it through the community updates to be considered that weren't already considered by blizzard I think we would find a pretty circular number on the other side. Let me give a few examples of things that were showcased by blizzard as community suggestions: individual overlord drops: the obvious solution to buff zerg drops without overpowering mass overlord drops. That one, or make overseers the dropship. Tank unsiege when loaded up: wasn't that originally a blizzard suggestion "if tank drops were to be too strong" that wasn't tested in the beta and now gets thrown around as if the community came up with it. Adept damage -1: sure, we came up with it. It's not like, you know, blizzard gave the adept 10(+13 vs light) for the exact purpose of two-shoting SCVs and marines. Nono, that just happened to happen.
I mean, we are talking about some of the best paid and most prestigeous jobs in game design in the whole world. The feedback threads are there to create a resonance, to lead the discussion of the game and prevent negativity and to sell us their ideas as our own. They are not there to fundamentally change the game. They have proven they could do that through betas and expansions. The only reason they don't is that they don't want to. (that still means I like the feedback threads as a source of acquiring knowledge and insights)
Does he think that selling false hope will keep some people attached to the game in some sort of fallow the carrot move? If anything, this sort of thing creates more negativity around the game and ends up hurting their feelings
Well from his perspective; If he said "Guys I hate tank-based mech, and I am not gonna make it viable", he would receive a lot more unpopular opinions. Thus he chooses to go for the PR-strategy.
But in reality the issue is that he is too narrowminded/simplistic in his analysis. He doesn't seem to be capable of explaining the factors that makes mech too turtly and discuss how to make siege tank based mech more interesting; as it was in BW late game.
Something to praise about Riot's community feedback is that its actually much less bullshitty. They will argue why they want to see a certain change and explain why other solutions aren't viable/possible.
The consequence is that David Kim comes out as lacking analytical skills, which I believe is true. Nothing he has written indicates that his analysis goes deeper than "I like actionpaced harass play, let's buff it".
Something I've seen from them is that they design philosophy seems to be (in part) to deviate as far from BW as they can without getting flak, from the overall feel of the races (terran being about bio instead of mech, protoss about big expensive units in contrast to pure gateway, although they are deviating from this, zerg having more powerful lategame units and less about the swarm feeling, altough they still have some)
My biggest guess is that they want SC2 to be many things at once (appealing to casuals and hardcore fans, as different from BW as they can while also engaging as many BW fans, being more fast but also more accesible) and all of this without getting to much heat from the community.
They simply don't really know what they really want with the game, they have ideas of how they want it to be but are not too sure on the direction.
I wish they where at least honest, if they just hated mech from the beggining and simply did it to appeal to the fans they should simply said "hey mech sucks,stop asking for it" instead of teasing us and then throws awaylater.
Tank unsiege when loaded up: wasn't that originally a blizzard suggestion "if tank drops were to be too strong" that wasn't tested in the beta and now gets thrown around as if the community came up with it.
I suggested it on a battlenet forum 3 years ago as a countermeasure to Blinding cloud in HOTS beta. So clearly it was my feedback they were using.
Tank unsiege when loaded up: wasn't that originally a blizzard suggestion "if tank drops were to be too strong" that wasn't tested in the beta and now gets thrown around as if the community came up with it.
I suggested it on a battlenet forum 3 years ago as a countermeasure to Blinding cloud in HOTS beta. So clearly it was my feedback they were sourcing.
Not to mention tank pick ups where something they borrowed from Starbow
On March 09 2016 22:21 Vanadiel wrote: Oh I would be in perfect agreement to have agressive mech viable while turtle mech not. I just don't think it's possible in Starcraft 2, given the overall design of the game, of the layout of the maps, the IA, pathing and so on. I'll add that if we have mech as strong as bio, then the synergy of the two would make it too strong, and thus, even if pure mech could be made viable (which I do not believe), it would needs to sacrifice BIO for it.
We have 5 threads every week explaining how to mech great again, but those have never been convincing. Not to me at least, and apparently to Blizzard as well.
This guy is right. The inherent design of SC II will always make it, that a "agressive mech" might be strong, but a "turtle mech" will be much stronger.
Why?
Bio has a serious problem when it comes from 100 to 200 supply. The more Bio you have, the more splash hits them in main fights and thus makes the fights harder. If you go for a multi point fight, high amount of drops, many fights all over the map with parts of your army, you dont have the problem that one splash attack wipes out the Bio. But you need stellar control to do that, something, we might see from Maru. But nothing we see outside of that box. 99.99% of the Bio players cant play the multi point attack play at 200 supply. And most of the rest will fuck it up, overcommitting one side ofter another. Only a very small number of korean terrans (and online Marinelord) are able to play that style.
On the other hand, you have mech. They dont care about splash form other races, siegetanks outrange splash by far, Thors are loling about splash and helion/helbat are cheap fucks you dont care (and they still survive decent amount of splash attacks). When your mech army becomes bigger, it does not become more vulnerable. It loses one core point of why Bio 200 has weaknesses that aggressive Bio 100 has not. The secound point is that Mech is played as ball, there is no multi point mech play. It will never exists, it is all about that one push to death (or high damage). Following this, Mech 200 is WAY easier to controll then Bio 200. Following this, you mech 100 cant have strenghts that will lead to weaknesses with Mech 200. Players will turtle to Mech 200 no matter what, as it is the best way to win, even when Mech 100 would be viable.
The design of SC II does not allowed a agressive mech to happen, as a trutle mech will always be more viable. In LotV 3 Base echo still gives 1700*6 Gas and 1500*4*3 + 750*4*3 Minerals, the most agressive mech will ever be is pushing out to secure more bases. But mech 100 with agressive style is a non existing myth that will never exists in SC II meta.
And when people say "6 years of Bio is enough!!!". Did you sleep during hots? Mech was common style in HotS in TvT and TvZ and after the SH patch it became the dominant style in TvZ for a year.
Tank unsiege when loaded up: wasn't that originally a blizzard suggestion "if tank drops were to be too strong" that wasn't tested in the beta and now gets thrown around as if the community came up with it.
I suggested it on a battlenet forum 3 years ago as a countermeasure to Blinding cloud in HOTS beta. So clearly it was my feedback they were sourcing.
Not to mention tank pick ups where something they borrowed from Starbow
Yeh that was also my suggestion. It never really fitted the BW-clone version of Starbow, whereas it made a bit more sense in earlier versions of the mod.
That said; I do think a long delay is a better solution than unsieging so I agree with DK there. I just want the game to also be balanced around a strong and cost efficient siege tank.
I wish they where at least honest, if they just hated mech from the beggining and simply did it to appeal to the fans they should simply said "hey mech sucks,stop asking for it" instead of teasing us and then throws awaylater.
They don't have to say that directly though. What they could say on the other hand is that they don't want to see turtle mech being viable so they will be carefully about buffing the Siege Tanks. But they will listen to suggestions/try to make tests them selves to see if they can come out with something that makes for a more engaging mech play.
On top of that, they should also explain what they previously have tested when it comes to mech, and why it hasn't worked out + provide feedback to other mech suggestions. For instance, I actually agree with Avilo that groundbased mech should be the counter to tier 3 air. Air > Air creates for terrible games. It would be nice to see what they thought about that.
TLDR; Be honest and drop the bullshit, and replace it with more analysis/explanations
Tank unsiege when loaded up: wasn't that originally a blizzard suggestion "if tank drops were to be too strong" that wasn't tested in the beta and now gets thrown around as if the community came up with it.
I suggested it on a battlenet forum 3 years ago as a countermeasure to Blinding cloud in HOTS beta. So clearly it was my feedback they were sourcing.
Not to mention tank pick ups where something they borrowed from Starbow
Obviously. It's not like there is an editor value for cargo size, which was set to 0 (= can't be picked up) for the siege tank. As like the only ground unit. The guys who implemented that mega-exception into SC2 probably never thought why they did it and what would happen if they didn't. It obviously took Starbow for the designers to realize that they purposely created that exception and to play around with the value.
Wow so much moaning, seriously? I'm one of the biggest balance whiners myself, but isn't David trying really hard to please the scene?
No it's PR. Look at what he said 1-2 weeks ago on the tank buff. Something about "we want to make them more immobile to create the Siege Tank fantasy". What would have made him change his mind from the last community feedback to this one?
Most likely nothing changed, and I don't believe for a second DK actually believed what he wrote there. He doesn't like Siege Tank mech and he demonstrates that with this Community feedback (and he said so in interviews previously).
Further, clearly loves the high skill cap of pick up micro so Siege Tank pickup was always going to stay. It was just a PR move so he can tell fans "oh we tried to test your solutions, they just didn't work out".
I noticed a lot of the changes where DK opts for extreme solutions in these community feedbacks, and each time I think to myself "no way", and every time I end up being correct.
Also look at all the times he write "we'v seen your feedback on xx, we agreed with your feedback on xx". He uses that quote so many times just to show us that he reads stuff.
But if he really cared about feedback, a proper and interesting way to play mech in all 3 matchups would have existed.
I agree with you. But what really bothers me is that DK and his team crossed the line of not making sense anymore. Well, actually they did during the beta with the 30 dmg zealot charge, but as a terrible singer once said, "oops, they did it again".
The very idea of "biomech", "mixed armies", is actually bio with facto/SP support, which is the norm since WOL. I mean pure bio NEVER worked, excepted for MKP in WoL and Maru in HOTS. And now, we can read "lol go banshee with bio i dunno can be cool lol". Diversity in LOTV, for the terran race, is the wonderfull choice to go for bio liberators, or bio tank. Such interesting diversity.
I used to be concerned, and discuss the community feedback at length. But now I just get angry at the total absence of logic in these posts.
There's also bio with and combination of hellion/hellbat, widow mines and ghosts and vikings as well. Oh and some pro games mix it up with thors vs ultras. And bio consists of 3 different units. But I guess there isn't enough diversity there. But yeah PR man is PR man.
Bio with a combination of hellion/hellbat is a allin/timing attack. Bio with ghosts... is bio. Mines and vikings are used with bio since HOTS and WOL, nothing new here.
So the idea that the comps are now "mixed" is BS.
"And bio constits of three different units" : wooow, such diversity.
Just look at protoss. Every unit in the protoss army has a role, and can be used in every MU except PvP. And just watch pro games. TvT : marine tankivacs TvP : bio mines => bio liberators (+ vikings sometimes) TvZ : bio tanks/bio mines => bio liberators
My prediction : this isn't gonna change. Ever. Because bio needs support units that compensate for the bio's weaknesses. You won't be able to go anything but bio tanks or bio mines in TvZ because you need AoE, for instance.
Just today Alive was using hellion/hellbats in his bio army along with widow mines against Losira as a standard army. Really though, calling all the various combinations of playstyles and unit compositions of everything as bio is getting really tiresome. You are calling all the various combinations of marine, maurader, medivac, widowmine, widow mine, viking, ghost as bio in your post. Absurd.
Bio = The majority of your army composition is mobile. Mech = The backbone of your army composition is immobile/positional
That's how most people perceive it and the reason most people want mech to be viable is that it adds for a very different playing experience than bio. On the other hand whether you go hellbat + bio, raw bio or bio + mines doesn't change that much in the game dynamic.
From the perspective of the designer, the goal should be to try and figure out how to make both playing experiences fun to play, watch and play against. DK on the other hand is like "Mech, that's lame we saw that in HOTS, I don't want that". He is dismissing it instead of trying to figure out how to make it more interesting.
I agree that air versus air end-games are very stale. It renders the map design, boundaries, ledges, choke points, concave - all of it neutralized.
I would much prefer the rock paper scissors that is: Air > Pure Ground > AA Ground (tier 2.5/3) > Air
Much more interesting scouting/interaction and decision making, etc. The dream is that mech could be designed as such - as Avilo and others have stated.
Wow so much moaning, seriously? I'm one of the biggest balance whiners myself, but isn't David trying really hard to please the scene?
No it's PR. Look at what he said 1-2 weeks ago on the tank buff. Something about "we want to make them more immobile to create the Siege Tank fantasy". What would have made him change his mind from the last community feedback to this one?
Most likely nothing changed, and I don't believe for a second DK actually believed what he wrote there. He doesn't like Siege Tank mech and he demonstrates that with this Community feedback (and he said so in interviews previously).
Further, clearly loves the high skill cap of pick up micro so Siege Tank pickup was always going to stay. It was just a PR move so he can tell fans "oh we tried to test your solutions, they just didn't work out".
I noticed a lot of the changes where DK opts for extreme solutions in these community feedbacks, and each time I think to myself "no way", and every time I end up being correct.
Also look at all the times he write "we'v seen your feedback on xx, we agreed with your feedback on xx". He uses that quote so many times just to show us that he reads stuff.
But if he really cared about feedback, a proper and interesting way to play mech in all 3 matchups would have existed.
I agree with you. But what really bothers me is that DK and his team crossed the line of not making sense anymore. Well, actually they did during the beta with the 30 dmg zealot charge, but as a terrible singer once said, "oops, they did it again".
The very idea of "biomech", "mixed armies", is actually bio with facto/SP support, which is the norm since WOL. I mean pure bio NEVER worked, excepted for MKP in WoL and Maru in HOTS. And now, we can read "lol go banshee with bio i dunno can be cool lol". Diversity in LOTV, for the terran race, is the wonderfull choice to go for bio liberators, or bio tank. Such interesting diversity.
I used to be concerned, and discuss the community feedback at length. But now I just get angry at the total absence of logic in these posts.
There's also bio with and combination of hellion/hellbat, widow mines and ghosts and vikings as well. Oh and some pro games mix it up with thors vs ultras. And bio consists of 3 different units. But I guess there isn't enough diversity there. But yeah PR man is PR man.
Bio with a combination of hellion/hellbat is a allin/timing attack. Bio with ghosts... is bio. Mines and vikings are used with bio since HOTS and WOL, nothing new here.
So the idea that the comps are now "mixed" is BS.
"And bio constits of three different units" : wooow, such diversity.
Just look at protoss. Every unit in the protoss army has a role, and can be used in every MU except PvP. And just watch pro games. TvT : marine tankivacs TvP : bio mines => bio liberators (+ vikings sometimes) TvZ : bio tanks/bio mines => bio liberators
My prediction : this isn't gonna change. Ever. Because bio needs support units that compensate for the bio's weaknesses. You won't be able to go anything but bio tanks or bio mines in TvZ because you need AoE, for instance.
Just today Alive was using hellion/hellbats in his bio army along with widow mines against Losira as a standard army. Really though, calling all the various combinations of playstyles and unit compositions of everything as bio is getting really tiresome. You are calling all the various combinations of marine, maurader, medivac, widowmine, widow mine, viking, ghost as bio in your post. Absurd.
Bio = The majority of your army composition is mobile. Mech = The backbone of your army composition is immobile/positional
That's how most people perceive it and the reason most people want mech to be viable is that it adds for a very different playing experience than bio. On the other hand whether you go hellbat + bio, raw bio or bio + mines doesn't change that much in the game dynamic.
From the perspective of the designer, the goal should be to try and figure out how to make both playing experiences fun to play, watch and play against. DK on the other hand is like "Mech, that's lame we saw that in HOTS, I don't want that". He is dismissing it instead of trying to figure out how to make it more interesting.
Maybe consider a race change, when you want a fresh and other "playing experience". I heard Zerg and Protoss play quite different from terran Bio.
I would much prefer the rock paper scissors that is: Air > Pure Ground > AA Ground (tier 2.5/3) > Air
Yeh with regards to air, I think it can be divided into two categories:
1. Mobile air units (typical light armor and massable) --> Should be countered by mobile ground units (like stalkers/marines) and could be supported by other mobile AA air units. For instance I think the Viking/Liberator should be merged into one and be massable mobile air units.
2. Somewhat slower but more cost efficient air units (typically massive)--> Should be countered by lower mobility/medium mobility ground units. E.g. look at how the Goliath functioned in BW. In Sc2 the Thor should counter Broodlords/Carriers/Tempests/BC's (though the Tempest needs a complete redesign in my opinion).
This way the Viking/Corrupter isn't used to counter enemy massive tier 3 units. Instead that could become the role of the Hydralisk or maybe open up a role for a new Zerg unit that is somewhat immobile/positional that can kill massive units.
Bio = The majority of your army composition is mobile. Mech = The backbone of your army composition is immobile/positional
This is true - but to go further the reason that it is important for Terran to have different "styles", and not just an equal production of all types of units, is that we must commit quite heavily to only one of the following:
Double EB upgrades into 9+ Barracks; - OR - Double Armory upgrades into 5+ Factories
If you truly want mixed army play - do you combine all weapon upgrades (vehicle + infantry) and armor upgrades (vehicle + infantry), as well as delete the factory from the game entirely and just have all ground vehicles come out from the nine barracks?
How do you get around this so that most of your production buildings create 3-3 units in the late game?
On March 09 2016 22:52 PressureSC2 wrote: I agree that air versus air end-games are very stale. It renders the map design, boundaries, ledges, choke points, concave - all of it neutralized.
I would much prefer the rock paper scissors that is: Air > Pure Ground > AA Ground (tier 2.5/3) > Air
Much more interesting scouting/interaction and decision making, etc. The dream is that mech could be designed as such - as Avilo and others have stated.
Then you should start that quest by giving capital ships and similar units like liberators a different purpose. There are air units whose main, or even only, purpose is to counter ground units. If you want this to turn around, those air units need a different purpose - and it somehow needs to fit the balance and dynamics of the game.
Wow so much moaning, seriously? I'm one of the biggest balance whiners myself, but isn't David trying really hard to please the scene?
No it's PR. Look at what he said 1-2 weeks ago on the tank buff. Something about "we want to make them more immobile to create the Siege Tank fantasy". What would have made him change his mind from the last community feedback to this one?
Most likely nothing changed, and I don't believe for a second DK actually believed what he wrote there. He doesn't like Siege Tank mech and he demonstrates that with this Community feedback (and he said so in interviews previously).
Further, clearly loves the high skill cap of pick up micro so Siege Tank pickup was always going to stay. It was just a PR move so he can tell fans "oh we tried to test your solutions, they just didn't work out".
I noticed a lot of the changes where DK opts for extreme solutions in these community feedbacks, and each time I think to myself "no way", and every time I end up being correct.
Also look at all the times he write "we'v seen your feedback on xx, we agreed with your feedback on xx". He uses that quote so many times just to show us that he reads stuff.
But if he really cared about feedback, a proper and interesting way to play mech in all 3 matchups would have existed.
I agree with you. But what really bothers me is that DK and his team crossed the line of not making sense anymore. Well, actually they did during the beta with the 30 dmg zealot charge, but as a terrible singer once said, "oops, they did it again".
The very idea of "biomech", "mixed armies", is actually bio with facto/SP support, which is the norm since WOL. I mean pure bio NEVER worked, excepted for MKP in WoL and Maru in HOTS. And now, we can read "lol go banshee with bio i dunno can be cool lol". Diversity in LOTV, for the terran race, is the wonderfull choice to go for bio liberators, or bio tank. Such interesting diversity.
I used to be concerned, and discuss the community feedback at length. But now I just get angry at the total absence of logic in these posts.
There's also bio with and combination of hellion/hellbat, widow mines and ghosts and vikings as well. Oh and some pro games mix it up with thors vs ultras. And bio consists of 3 different units. But I guess there isn't enough diversity there. But yeah PR man is PR man.
Bio with a combination of hellion/hellbat is a allin/timing attack. Bio with ghosts... is bio. Mines and vikings are used with bio since HOTS and WOL, nothing new here.
So the idea that the comps are now "mixed" is BS.
"And bio constits of three different units" : wooow, such diversity.
Just look at protoss. Every unit in the protoss army has a role, and can be used in every MU except PvP. And just watch pro games. TvT : marine tankivacs TvP : bio mines => bio liberators (+ vikings sometimes) TvZ : bio tanks/bio mines => bio liberators
My prediction : this isn't gonna change. Ever. Because bio needs support units that compensate for the bio's weaknesses. You won't be able to go anything but bio tanks or bio mines in TvZ because you need AoE, for instance.
Just today Alive was using hellion/hellbats in his bio army along with widow mines against Losira as a standard army. Really though, calling all the various combinations of playstyles and unit compositions of everything as bio is getting really tiresome. You are calling all the various combinations of marine, maurader, medivac, widowmine, widow mine, viking, ghost as bio in your post. Absurd.
Bio = The majority of your army composition is mobile. Mech = The backbone of your army composition is immobile/positional
That's how most people perceive it and the reason most people want mech to be viable is that it adds for a very different playing experience than bio. On the other hand whether you go hellbat + bio, raw bio or bio + mines doesn't change that much in the game dynamic.
From the perspective of the designer, the goal should be to try and figure out how to make both playing experiences fun to play, watch and play against. DK on the other hand is like "Mech, that's lame we saw that in HOTS, I don't want that". He is dismissing it instead of trying to figure out how to make it more interesting.
Maybe consider a race change, when you want a fresh and other "playing experience". I heard Zerg and Protoss play quite different from terran Bio.
Not realistic as the learning curve when playing a new race is pretty high.
Wow so much moaning, seriously? I'm one of the biggest balance whiners myself, but isn't David trying really hard to please the scene?
No it's PR. Look at what he said 1-2 weeks ago on the tank buff. Something about "we want to make them more immobile to create the Siege Tank fantasy". What would have made him change his mind from the last community feedback to this one?
Most likely nothing changed, and I don't believe for a second DK actually believed what he wrote there. He doesn't like Siege Tank mech and he demonstrates that with this Community feedback (and he said so in interviews previously).
Further, clearly loves the high skill cap of pick up micro so Siege Tank pickup was always going to stay. It was just a PR move so he can tell fans "oh we tried to test your solutions, they just didn't work out".
I noticed a lot of the changes where DK opts for extreme solutions in these community feedbacks, and each time I think to myself "no way", and every time I end up being correct.
Also look at all the times he write "we'v seen your feedback on xx, we agreed with your feedback on xx". He uses that quote so many times just to show us that he reads stuff.
But if he really cared about feedback, a proper and interesting way to play mech in all 3 matchups would have existed.
I agree with you. But what really bothers me is that DK and his team crossed the line of not making sense anymore. Well, actually they did during the beta with the 30 dmg zealot charge, but as a terrible singer once said, "oops, they did it again".
The very idea of "biomech", "mixed armies", is actually bio with facto/SP support, which is the norm since WOL. I mean pure bio NEVER worked, excepted for MKP in WoL and Maru in HOTS. And now, we can read "lol go banshee with bio i dunno can be cool lol". Diversity in LOTV, for the terran race, is the wonderfull choice to go for bio liberators, or bio tank. Such interesting diversity.
I used to be concerned, and discuss the community feedback at length. But now I just get angry at the total absence of logic in these posts.
There's also bio with and combination of hellion/hellbat, widow mines and ghosts and vikings as well. Oh and some pro games mix it up with thors vs ultras. And bio consists of 3 different units. But I guess there isn't enough diversity there. But yeah PR man is PR man.
Bio with a combination of hellion/hellbat is a allin/timing attack. Bio with ghosts... is bio. Mines and vikings are used with bio since HOTS and WOL, nothing new here.
So the idea that the comps are now "mixed" is BS.
"And bio constits of three different units" : wooow, such diversity.
Just look at protoss. Every unit in the protoss army has a role, and can be used in every MU except PvP. And just watch pro games. TvT : marine tankivacs TvP : bio mines => bio liberators (+ vikings sometimes) TvZ : bio tanks/bio mines => bio liberators
My prediction : this isn't gonna change. Ever. Because bio needs support units that compensate for the bio's weaknesses. You won't be able to go anything but bio tanks or bio mines in TvZ because you need AoE, for instance.
Just today Alive was using hellion/hellbats in his bio army along with widow mines against Losira as a standard army. Really though, calling all the various combinations of playstyles and unit compositions of everything as bio is getting really tiresome. You are calling all the various combinations of marine, maurader, medivac, widowmine, widow mine, viking, ghost as bio in your post. Absurd.
Bio = The majority of your army composition is mobile. Mech = The backbone of your army composition is immobile/positional
That's how most people perceive it and the reason most people want mech to be viable is that it adds for a very different playing experience than bio. On the other hand whether you go hellbat + bio, raw bio or bio + mines doesn't change that much in the game dynamic.
From the perspective of the designer, the goal should be to try and figure out how to make both playing experiences fun to play, watch and play against. DK on the other hand is like "Mech, that's lame we saw that in HOTS, I don't want that". He is dismissing it instead of trying to figure out how to make it more interesting.
Maybe consider a race change, when you want a fresh and other "playing experience". I heard Zerg and Protoss play quite different from terran Bio.
Not realistic as the learning curve when playing a new race is pretty high.
Really? I think it is pretty easy to learn Zerg. (Comming from Bio Terran). Protoss is a harder nut cause of the important timings, the production and the compositions, but Zerg was very easy to learn for me (and also to control). Much easier then my tries with mech in HotS.
Bio = The majority of your army composition is mobile. Mech = The backbone of your army composition is immobile/positional
This is true - but to go further the reason that it is important for Terran to have different "styles", and not just an equal production of all types of units, is that we must commit quite heavily to only one of the following:
Double EB upgrades into 9+ Barracks; - OR - Double Armory upgrades into 5+ Factories
If you truly want mixed army play - do you combine all weapon upgrades (vehicle + infantry) and armor upgrades (vehicle + infantry), as well as delete the factory from the game entirely and just have all ground vehicles come out from the nine barracks?
How do you get around this so that most of your production buildings create 3-3 units in the late game?
While a contributing factor, I don't agree this is the core issue. Rather the issue is a lack of synergy. LIke why exactly would you mix in banshee's with bio? What does banshee's do you which you couldn't do with bio (+ Liberators).
On the other hand there is room for banshee + mech play as there is a bit of synergy there. However, the gas cost of banshee's would have to be reduced + terran mech also needs a decent tool of taking down static defense so photon cannons/spore crawlers/turrets doesn't hardcounter banshee's.
Really? I think it is pretty easy to learn Zerg. (Comming from Bio Terran). Protoss is a harder nut cause of the important timings, the production and the compositions, but Zerg was very easy to learn for me (and also to control). Much easier then my tries with mech in HotS.
Ton of timings you need to figure out. Also, I find zerg pretty boring (lack of micro). Further note that protoss still doesn't have any real positional units. (Positional = a unit that despite being outnumbered can be extremely cost efficient at a specific location).
IMO the only possibility to make 100 supply Mech good, while not making 200 supply Mech IMBA, is to introduce some kind of AI penalty with higher numbers.
Examples:
- remove smart fire - introduce some kind of range or precision reduction mechanic, if several Siege Tanks are too close to each other - increase friendly fire dealt by Siege Tanks, which would allow for more counterplay (Zealot bombs, unburrowing burrow move Roaches on top of Tanks, etc.)
All these features were present in BW and made Mech scale worse with higher numbers, than it does in SC2.
I pretty much agree with everything written there. It's just amazing to not have to play against mech anymore, because it really is boring. Nerfing this mech bull**** is probably the best change they ever made. I also believe that Zerg doesnt need a buff against Terran. Ultras are so damn strong anyway and in the early game, zerg also has a lot of different Options (to defend AND to attack). I'm curious whether they will nerf ravagers further (not just cooldown) and decrease their damage as well. This would be an overreaction though...
I also believe Protoss underperforming was mainly caused by the old, spamable Photon overcharge. Every Protoss learned to defend early rushes mainly with Photon overcharge and no unit control. They just need some time do adapt, i think.
IMO the only possibility to make 100 supply Mech good, while not making 200 supply Mech IMBA, is to introduce some kind of AI penalty with higher numbers.
200 supply siege tanks won't be OP if they need to be spread out all over the map and the opponent has tools for consistent army trading.
Further, who said the Siege tank needs to counter every single ground unit? What if Siege tanks were bad vs massive units, but the Liberator had bonus damage vs massive units?
This way both positional units gets a unique role and while Siege tanks will be strong in the midgame, there is a bit of counteroptions in the late game.
And if terran gets liberators, opponent can get the counter to liberators --> Then mech player can readjust his composition once again.
IMO the only possibility to make 100 supply Mech good, while not making 200 supply Mech IMBA, is to introduce some kind of AI penalty with higher numbers.
200 supply siege tanks won't be OP if they need to be spread out all over the map and the opponent has tools for consistent army trading.
Further, who said the Siege tank needs to counter every single ground unit? What if Siege tanks were bad vs massive units, but the Liberator had bonus damage vs massive units?
This way both positional units gets a unique role and while Siege tanks will be strong in the midgame, there is a bit of counteroptions in the late game.
And if terran gets liberators, opponent can get the counter to liberators --> Then mech player can readjust his composition once again.
Tons of unused opportunites for mech play in Sc2.
I don't think that that will work out the way you envision it. The following scenario is far more likely: Siege Tanks get a buff because medivac pickup gets removed. Terran suddenly realize that Thanks are now so strong, that they can just hit a timing and kill the opponent. Especially with the aid of stim Marines.
Wow so much moaning, seriously? I'm one of the biggest balance whiners myself, but isn't David trying really hard to please the scene?
No it's PR. Look at what he said 1-2 weeks ago on the tank buff. Something about "we want to make them more immobile to create the Siege Tank fantasy". What would have made him change his mind from the last community feedback to this one?
Most likely nothing changed, and I don't believe for a second DK actually believed what he wrote there. He doesn't like Siege Tank mech and he demonstrates that with this Community feedback (and he said so in interviews previously).
Further, clearly loves the high skill cap of pick up micro so Siege Tank pickup was always going to stay. It was just a PR move so he can tell fans "oh we tried to test your solutions, they just didn't work out".
I noticed a lot of the changes where DK opts for extreme solutions in these community feedbacks, and each time I think to myself "no way", and every time I end up being correct.
Also look at all the times he write "we'v seen your feedback on xx, we agreed with your feedback on xx". He uses that quote so many times just to show us that he reads stuff.
But if he really cared about feedback, a proper and interesting way to play mech in all 3 matchups would have existed.
I agree with you. But what really bothers me is that DK and his team crossed the line of not making sense anymore. Well, actually they did during the beta with the 30 dmg zealot charge, but as a terrible singer once said, "oops, they did it again".
The very idea of "biomech", "mixed armies", is actually bio with facto/SP support, which is the norm since WOL. I mean pure bio NEVER worked, excepted for MKP in WoL and Maru in HOTS. And now, we can read "lol go banshee with bio i dunno can be cool lol". Diversity in LOTV, for the terran race, is the wonderfull choice to go for bio liberators, or bio tank. Such interesting diversity.
I used to be concerned, and discuss the community feedback at length. But now I just get angry at the total absence of logic in these posts.
There's also bio with and combination of hellion/hellbat, widow mines and ghosts and vikings as well. Oh and some pro games mix it up with thors vs ultras. And bio consists of 3 different units. But I guess there isn't enough diversity there. But yeah PR man is PR man.
Bio with a combination of hellion/hellbat is a allin/timing attack. Bio with ghosts... is bio. Mines and vikings are used with bio since HOTS and WOL, nothing new here.
So the idea that the comps are now "mixed" is BS.
"And bio constits of three different units" : wooow, such diversity.
Just look at protoss. Every unit in the protoss army has a role, and can be used in every MU except PvP. And just watch pro games. TvT : marine tankivacs TvP : bio mines => bio liberators (+ vikings sometimes) TvZ : bio tanks/bio mines => bio liberators
My prediction : this isn't gonna change. Ever. Because bio needs support units that compensate for the bio's weaknesses. You won't be able to go anything but bio tanks or bio mines in TvZ because you need AoE, for instance.
Just today Alive was using hellion/hellbats in his bio army along with widow mines against Losira as a standard army. Really though, calling all the various combinations of playstyles and unit compositions of everything as bio is getting really tiresome. You are calling all the various combinations of marine, maurader, medivac, widowmine, widow mine, viking, ghost as bio in your post. Absurd.
What I'm calling "bio" is what people have been calling bio based compositions for 6 years. You don't understand what I'm not agreeing with : DK is stating that LOTV mixed up bio and mech. Which is wrong. All bio based compositions relied on facto/SP tech since WOL. As you say, mine, vikings, tanks, etc. So the only different thing in LOTV is the addition of the liberator. You get one more support option for bio comps.
So what changed since HOTS? You get one more support unit for bio, and mech isn't viable anymore. That's hardly a fusion between mech and bio. On the two core army options terran had, one is now unviable, and we get liberator support for bio in exchange. Which explains how dishonnest DK post about "mixing up" bio and mech is wrong.
It's really not about "what is bio" or if "mech should be viable". It's about strategic diversity being poorer, and DK being dishonnest about it.
IMO the only possibility to make 100 supply Mech good, while not making 200 supply Mech IMBA, is to introduce some kind of AI penalty with higher numbers.
200 supply siege tanks won't be OP if they need to be spread out all over the map and the opponent has tools for consistent army trading.
Further, who said the Siege tank needs to counter every single ground unit? What if Siege tanks were bad vs massive units, but the Liberator had bonus damage vs massive units?
This way both positional units gets a unique role and while Siege tanks will be strong in the midgame, there is a bit of counteroptions in the late game.
And if terran gets liberators, opponent can get the counter to liberators --> Then mech player can readjust his composition once again.
Tons of unused opportunites for mech play in Sc2.
I don't get it.... right now 200 supply is not OP anymore.The foundation is good so we keep it and tweak it. The turtle play is good or bad depend on how long you turtle,not because you are turtling. Factory mech turtle to 200 is never boring,the reason it boring because T3 teach. We just make mech play like zerg.They can turtle and being aggressive (100 supply mech) but they must reach to point they must move out or they lose advantage. Raven and BC are the reason make mech has infinity advantage. I don't believe the game will be boring if you make 200 supply factory mech and move out. 200 supply factory mech never reach in late game stage.It just need figure out certain timing to punish who just saw mech and go straigh air in start of the game. I like the patern of PvZ.We should make mech like zerg move out 200 supply lurker push before tempest and HT count become too high. We can even buff factory unit and increase it supply to make it max out more easier.Just like zerg.Of course they also have another option is move out in 100 supply. There is nothing wrong about turtle it's about how long you turtle.
IMO the only possibility to make 100 supply Mech good, while not making 200 supply Mech IMBA, is to introduce some kind of AI penalty with higher numbers.
200 supply siege tanks won't be OP if they need to be spread out all over the map and the opponent has tools for consistent army trading.
Further, who said the Siege tank needs to counter every single ground unit? What if Siege tanks were bad vs massive units, but the Liberator had bonus damage vs massive units?
This way both positional units gets a unique role and while Siege tanks will be strong in the midgame, there is a bit of counteroptions in the late game.
And if terran gets liberators, opponent can get the counter to liberators --> Then mech player can readjust his composition once again.
Tons of unused opportunites for mech play in Sc2.
I don't think that that will work out the way you envision it. The following scenario is far more likely: Siege Tanks get a buff because medivac pickup gets removed. Terran suddenly realize that Thanks are now so strong, that they can just hit a timing and kill the opponent. Especially with the aid of stim Marines.
Oh yeh, my suggestion requires a lot of other types of changes. Sc2 is flawed in a ton of way because Blizzard isn't willing to change/redesign exsiting flawed units.
IMO the only possibility to make 100 supply Mech good, while not making 200 supply Mech IMBA, is to introduce some kind of AI penalty with higher numbers.
200 supply siege tanks won't be OP if they need to be spread out all over the map and the opponent has tools for consistent army trading.
Further, who said the Siege tank needs to counter every single ground unit? What if Siege tanks were bad vs massive units, but the Liberator had bonus damage vs massive units?
This way both positional units gets a unique role and while Siege tanks will be strong in the midgame, there is a bit of counteroptions in the late game.
And if terran gets liberators, opponent can get the counter to liberators --> Then mech player can readjust his composition once again.
Tons of unused opportunites for mech play in Sc2.
What makes mech interesting sure is positionning, but it's also composition. I mean you build such costly units that you permanently have to scout and choose what units to build. Too much thors ? You die to roaches. Too much tanks? You leave yourself open to mutas.
Making the cyclone the mech footman would enable mech not to rely solely on siege tanks, therefore kinda killing turtle mech. But hey, why give the option to have another terran core composition that may give unused terran units new support roles. Let's just make facto/sp bio support, especially since it doesn't take much analitical skill to see how does that sentence a lot of terran units to niche/useless roles.
On March 09 2016 23:39 seemsgood wrote: IF turtle mech is the thing we can't evade then we should hasten the time to max out mech to decrease the time it need to turtle.
Its not really necessary, the economy changes and faster pace already mean that the other styles can get more economy and more production faster than the mech player does. This already existed in HotS but its much faster now and thus mech has even less time where they can turtle without leaving themselves open as they try to expand.
As a whole, agressive mech is possible, because of the economy, the many tank counters and the potential for the cyclone to be a mech footman. But that would take from blizzard to stop their pointless attempt to turn every single unit that isn't marine/marauder/medivac into support unit.
On March 09 2016 23:39 seemsgood wrote: IF turtle mech is the thing we can't evade then we should hasten the time to max out mech to decrease the time it need to turtle.
Its not really necessary, the economy changes and faster pace already mean that the other styles can get more economy and more production faster than the mech player does. This already existed in HotS but its much faster now and thus mech has even less time where they can turtle without leaving themselves open as they try to expand.
I am not sure about this.Some mech streamer said you can't do that because mech doesn't strong enough to move out mid game and thus turtle until get rekt by sky army is the only way. But meanwhile forgg still doing his mech style and top 5 GM is his peak..... so conflict LOL. I don't take what fantasy and gumiho said seriously.How could we know what exactly mech style they talked about ?They said it isn't avaiable because raven,BC doest work anymore or something else ? Too little information.
But hey, why give the option to have another terran core composition that may give unused terran units new support roles.
No let's instead have terrible maps in the pool that noone wants to play because they create "exciting" and "different" games. Why would you want to make a unit composition that your customers actually want to play viable? That seems like a weird way of rewarding diversity.
But hey, why give the option to have another terran core composition that may give unused terran units new support roles.
No let's instead have terrible maps in the pool that noone wants to play because they create "exciting" and "different" games. Why would you want to make a unit composition that your customers actually want to play viable? That seems like a weird way of rewarding diverrsity.
# David Kim logic.
i like the map pool i'm having fun.
i'd like terran to be slightly more ground oriented .. that said ... its a nit-picky type of criticism that won't stop me from playing.
But hey, why give the option to have another terran core composition that may give unused terran units new support roles.
No let's instead have terrible maps in the pool that noone wants to play because they create "exciting" and "different" games. Why would you want to make a unit composition that your customers actually want to play viable? That seems like a weird way of rewarding diverrsity.
# David Kim logic.
i like the map pool i'm having fun.
i'd like terran to be slightly more ground oriented .. that said ... its a nit-picky type of criticism that won't stop me from playing.
The map pool has been around for way too long. But except for Central Protocol they weren't half as bad as people say. But again, way overplayed. Look at how people complained about amazing maps like Overgrowth and King Sejong Station after a year in competitive play. Orbital Shipard has been around for equally long and never was at quite that level to begin with.
Probably its not their priority now but anyone else is frustrated by mutafest in zvz? Seriously, in Lotv muta play is way better than any other play and eventually it becomes mass muta vs muta and whoever try to transition loses the game. Hydras don't counter mutas, hydras don't counter phoneix, hydras don't counter banshees, hydras don't counter new immortals, so what hydras does? Their sole purpose in game is to evolve in a lurker. I think hydras need a serious AA buff along with the corrosive bile cd nerf & pb removal.
On March 10 2016 01:05 Aegwynn wrote: Probably its not their priority now but anyone else is frustrated by mutafest in zvz? Seriously, in Lotv muta play is way better than any other play and eventually it becomes mass muta vs muta and whoever try to transition loses the game. Hydras don't counter mutas, hydras don't counter phoneix, hydras don't counter banshees, hydras don't counter new immortals, so what hydras does? Their sole purpose in game is to evolve in a lurker. I think hydras need a serious AA buff along with the corrosive bile cd nerf & pb removal.
From what I've seen of pro ZvZ, mutas seems to be the strongest lair choice for ZvZ.
However, in TvT marine tankivac is the ONLY viable compositionnal choice. So I suppose taking care of TvT comes first, then PvP disruptor ping pong, then ZvZ. But that's based on the fact that blizzard isn't happy with the state of the PvP, which is already a huge leap of faith ("WOW PVP CONSTANT AGRESSION SUCH MICRO AMAZING DISRUPTOR SHOTS")
On March 10 2016 01:05 Aegwynn wrote: Probably its not their priority now but anyone else is frustrated by mutafest in zvz? Seriously, in Lotv muta play is way better than any other play and eventually it becomes mass muta vs muta and whoever try to transition loses the game. Hydras don't counter mutas, hydras don't counter phoneix, hydras don't counter banshees, hydras don't counter new immortals, so what hydras does? Their sole purpose in game is to evolve in a lurker. I think hydras need a serious AA buff along with the corrosive bile cd nerf & pb removal.
I think ground focused play is better. But muta play has always been a lot easier to understand. Everyone under Masters always seems to prefer mutas in ZvZ and only once you reach the higher skill levels it becomes apparent why mutalisk play is not always the best approach to the matchup. At the prolevel there seems to be a healthy mix, though I also believe unpunished mutalisk play might have slight advantages in macro games, but it gets fucked pretty hard by early aggression.
I think muta play is in a okay place in ZvZ, overall it seems pretty even. Compared to HoTS you can't deny the third base as sometimes you could, you can more freely build Hydralisk now that you can transition toward lurkers and nyddus is now a bigger threat.
Right now on TING, SolO showcased perfectly how to beat a mutalisk strategy in a macro game, even if you are behind. An even better example would be Snute vs Hydra from the WCS semifinals.
But hey, why give the option to have another terran core composition that may give unused terran units new support roles.
No let's instead have terrible maps in the pool that noone wants to play because they create "exciting" and "different" games. Why would you want to make a unit composition that your customers actually want to play viable? That seems like a weird way of rewarding diverrsity.
# David Kim logic.
i like the map pool i'm having fun.
i'd like terran to be slightly more ground oriented .. that said ... its a nit-picky type of criticism that won't stop me from playing.
The map pool has been around for way too long. But except for Central Protocol they weren't half as bad as people say. But again, way overplayed. Look at how people complained about amazing maps like Overgrowth and King Sejong Station after a year in competitive play. Orbital Shipard has been around for equally long and never was at quite that level to begin with.
previous poster stated no one wants to play on the maps. i do. post is incorrect and indicative of the myopic, echo chamber TL.Net can be.
But hey, why give the option to have another terran core composition that may give unused terran units new support roles.
No let's instead have terrible maps in the pool that noone wants to play because they create "exciting" and "different" games. Why would you want to make a unit composition that your customers actually want to play viable? That seems like a weird way of rewarding diverrsity.
# David Kim logic.
i like the map pool i'm having fun.
i'd like terran to be slightly more ground oriented .. that said ... its a nit-picky type of criticism that won't stop me from playing.
The map pool has been around for way too long. But except for Central Protocol they weren't half as bad as people say. But again, way overplayed. Look at how people complained about amazing maps like Overgrowth and King Sejong Station after a year in competitive play. Orbital Shipard has been around for equally long and never was at quite that level to begin with.
Yeah with the changes to central protocol and prion terraces I think the mappool is actually decent. We just don't have a stand-out map like overgrowth etc. I wouldn't be sad if any of the current maps get removed however I was extremely sad when KSS, Merry go round, vaani research station, echo, akilon waste, daybreak, cloud kingdom, belshir vestige, frost, whirlwind etc got removed.
But hey, why give the option to have another terran core composition that may give unused terran units new support roles.
No let's instead have terrible maps in the pool that noone wants to play because they create "exciting" and "different" games. Why would you want to make a unit composition that your customers actually want to play viable? That seems like a weird way of rewarding diverrsity.
# David Kim logic.
i like the map pool i'm having fun.
i'd like terran to be slightly more ground oriented .. that said ... its a nit-picky type of criticism that won't stop me from playing.
The map pool has been around for way too long. But except for Central Protocol they weren't half as bad as people say. But again, way overplayed. Look at how people complained about amazing maps like Overgrowth and King Sejong Station after a year in competitive play. Orbital Shipard has been around for equally long and never was at quite that level to begin with.
previous poster stated no one wants to play on the maps. i do. post is incorrect and indicative of the myopic, echo chamber TL.Net can be.
And I think you need to understand that there are outliars in this world. Would you really disagree that the general community has voiced a strong dislike towards the new maps?
But hey, why give the option to have another terran core composition that may give unused terran units new support roles.
No let's instead have terrible maps in the pool that noone wants to play because they create "exciting" and "different" games. Why would you want to make a unit composition that your customers actually want to play viable? That seems like a weird way of rewarding diverrsity.
# David Kim logic.
i like the map pool i'm having fun.
i'd like terran to be slightly more ground oriented .. that said ... its a nit-picky type of criticism that won't stop me from playing.
The map pool has been around for way too long. But except for Central Protocol they weren't half as bad as people say. But again, way overplayed. Look at how people complained about amazing maps like Overgrowth and King Sejong Station after a year in competitive play. Orbital Shipard has been around for equally long and never was at quite that level to begin with.
previous poster stated no one wants to play on the maps. i do. post is incorrect and indicative of the myopic, echo chamber TL.Net can be.
And I think you need to understand that there are outliars in this world. Would you really disagree that the general community has voiced a strong dislike towards the new maps?
We have a poll of 7226 votes on the front page of TL - the three most imbalanced maps are the least liked
- Some of the staler, more boring games (to play and watch) have been mech only.
I guess good job in creating something that you think is boring? I guess mech will stay that way forever since you don't want to make any changes to it? Do you just not care that part of your game is boring?
If terran strategic diversity was really what you are worried about then you would want mech to be a stand alone comp. I don't really consider MMM + anything every game to be diverse. It just depends on what you need as a terran, whether it be a meat shield, splash dmg, or AA support. The core army is always the same though... That sounds a bit stale to me.
Internally, we tried the changes proposed in recent weeks and they may have felt better than just removing Siege mode pick up entirely. We also tried the popular suggestion of picking up Siege Tanks in Siege mode, with them reverting to normal mode while carried by the Medivac. This wasn’t as good of a solution as increasing the delay before firing because it provides fewer knobs to tune. With this method, we have to make the delay before players can unload Siege Tanks equal to the unsiege time to prevent Medivac pickup from being the main way players should unsiege their tanks. Instead, we can adjust the firing delay upon being dropped to what feels best after testing, from where it is now to the same time it would take to unsiege.
We should, from a design point of view, keep a relative immobility of the Siege Tank, but LOTV being fast and furious, the actual tank without medivac feel painfully slow, and is very slow versus other slow-mobility units (lurkers, disruptors, collosus, etc. ). Only BL matches them.
Blizzard proposition : While definitively improving TvT a bit, thanks to tankivacs not being speed-boosted to chase marines flocks, and making instant abusive re-positioning a bit more dangerous vs stimed marines, tankivacs will still be the way to go in TvT and TvZ. Simply a bit less powerful.
Siege vs Unsiege : While Siege Time Delay is important to keep a slow mobility while attacking (that's actually one of the main issues with Tankivacs ), Unsiege Time delay principally penalize a defending player re-positioning his army (from third base to 4th, for instance )
A Proposition : So a moderate time reduction to siege (to 3/4 or 1/2 of the actual time) with a drastic time reduction to unsiege (to less than 1/4 of actual time) could improve the tank a lot, while still fulfilling his fantasy. To be relevant, this changes should come along a tankivac change : either a plain removal, or with Siege Pick-Up+Unsiege drop. In this case, the incentive to use medivac to only unsiege would be very, very small.
Poll: Your Prefered Solution :
Siege & Unsiege delays nerfs + Siege Pick-up-Unsiege drop (7)
On March 09 2016 11:41 avilo wrote: Don't have words for their update.
Their update is terrible. Honestly pretty frustrated they won't listen to anyone, including myself about how to make mech viable. It's really simple - make thors/cyclones able to kill air units so less supply has to be invested into mass vikings which forces turtling and 20-40 more supply late game can be put into mech units and more factories.
What a surprise! The words of a man insulting everyone of hackers, disrespectful toward Blizzard team, which has never been performing in any tournament, have not been listened when suggesting to add nuclear bomb to Thors? Go figure why, because I really do not understand them.
We would also like to discuss the strength of Zerg drops in PvZ. We definitely hear feedback, especially from our KR community, and are keeping a close eye on this strategy as well as having regular discussions on what the best move is here.
While this is another good hook to help out Protoss in PvZ if needed, we worry that it won’t be easy to do a minor nerf where we can still see this strategy happen. There are only so many building requirements that we can place to this, so it won’t be easy to target specific areas with a slight nerf. Still, we need to ensure that this strategy remains viable because this type of diversity helps makes the game fun. Zerg macro play has often relied on defending and droning up, so it’s quite cool seeing more offensive options from Zerg, including this strategy and the early Ravager options.
Obviously, if there is a clear balance issue, we would definitely have to address it, but we wonder if we can do the Ravager timing nerf first, and then discuss this one if further nerfs to Zerg are needed in ZvP.
I feel like the issue with the zerglings+queens drop all-in on close-by-air positions is.. the queens. The Queen is a very, very good early-game unit, becoming awesome with some heals in stock. Usually it is balanced by total immobility off-creep, thus making it an purely defensive unit. But with early drops at a moderate price, and only 2 cargo supply, it breaks the rules.
Nerfing it to take at least 3, or preferably 4, cargo supply, would make this very, very strong all-in a bit less powerful without impacting other areas of the game.
When they came up with the tankivac everyone said it would change the nature of the siege tank and would create very obnoxious harassment and would make TvT even less positional
To be fair, it's not that simple. TvT tank + marine isn't less positional than it was in HOTS. However, the issue is that it makes it much harder to control the units, which significantly raises the learning barrier, and opportunites for a ton of small mistakes that costs you the game.
And from their perspective, if they nerfed Siege tank pick up, Ravagers would be overpowered; hence they needed to be sure that Ravagers should be nerfed as well.
I can see how siege tanks need the defensive mobility the medivac gives them in a game where corrosive bile exists, but the effects still were predicted very early on.
But I just get very depressed following DK's design decisions, because it always feels so lazy, shallow and reactive, and whenever I read anything he writes I despair at the inconsistencies and lack of logic. It's kinda like you're in a relationship with someone for many years and despite them having many positive qualities you eventually realize that deep down you really just don't like and respect them. It's not an immediate judgment, and it is difficult to explain, but it is a feeling which becomes overwhelming over time.
It is so apparent to me that you can virtually never take DK at face value and that all his decisions are at heart confused and misguided, even if the damage is mitigated by his professional skills and inertia of the design process. The fact that whatever he writes is muddled by PR considerations makes it even more unintelligible. There are so many things in SC2 that could have and should have been done better, and not just in retrospect. If you or I can predict negative consequences of design decisions then Blizzard should also be able to, and more, they should be able to fix them before they become problematic. If Blizzard is incapable of this (which they often are), then their designers do not meet the standards I expect of them, ergo DK's analytical skills are not adequate for his position. *mutters*
When they came up with the tankivac everyone said it would change the nature of the siege tank and would create very obnoxious harassment and would make TvT even less positional
To be fair, it's not that simple. TvT tank + marine isn't less positional than it was in HOTS. However, the issue is that it makes it much harder to control the units, which significantly raises the learning barrier, and opportunites for a ton of small mistakes that costs you the game.
And from their perspective, if they nerfed Siege tank pick up, Ravagers would be overpowered; hence they needed to be sure that Ravagers should be nerfed as well.
I can see how siege tanks need the defensive mobility the medivac gives them in a game where corrosive bile exists, but the effects still were predicted very early on.
But I just get very depressed following DK's design decisions, because it always feels so lazy, shallow and reactive, and whenever I read anything he writes I despair at the inconsistencies and lack of logic. It's kinda like you're in a relationship with someone for many years and despite them having many positive qualities you eventually realize that deep down you really just don't like and respect them. It's not an immediate judgment, and it is difficult to explain, but it is a feeling which becomes overwhelming over time.
It is so apparent to me that you can virtually never take DK at face value and that all his decisions are at heart confused and misguided, even if the damage is mitigated by his professional skills and inertia of the design process. The fact that whatever he writes is muddled by PR considerations makes it even more unintelligible. There are so many things in SC2 that could have and should have been done better, and not just in retrospect. If you or I can predict negative consequences of design decisions then Blizzard should also be able to, and more, they should be able to fix them before they become problematic. If Blizzard is incapable of this (which they often are), then their designers do not meet the standards I expect of them, ergo DK's analytical skills are not adequate for his position. *mutters*
The thing is, he was originally just a player, then a balancer... not a designer. But they started putting design decisions in his hands... They started blurring the liens between the two. While the two should at times work together to come up with a solution, in the end they should be completely separated, as design should be set as a priority THEN balancing work can take place. The balance must be applied in the framework of the design, not the other way around.
But as you stated, much (most?) of it is PR. These reasons we're being given in most circumstances aren't even what's really going on. You can find many examples of them bending the truth, or just straight up not telling the truth, at least when it comes to the dev team behind this game.
To the earlier posts saying hes a "9.5/10" game designer... By what standards or credentials??? He was only a CS major with no design history when he was hired by Blizzard for balancing. He has no actual game design history or credentials, and many of the decisions he makes are straight up rookie mistakes in software development (not even getting in to game design, where he admits to choosing inferior design decisions).
I don't even think his analytical skills are the problem. He's just not an actual designer so he's chasing the wrong carrot for solutions, instead of sticking to what he's good at, which is balancing the numbers.
On March 09 2016 08:08 Charoisaur wrote: So increasing the delay before firing is better than entirely removing siege tank pickup because "it feels better"? What a great reasoning.
It actually is pretty good reasoning: they can keep a cool and diverse mechanics in the game that shows off skills, but still tweaking it through a couple of knobs.
How do flying Tanks show of skill? Basically any other micro in the game is harder to pull of than that. Siegetank pickup is the definition of forgivable ant-skill play.
I totally disagree with you: i find tank pickup a great show of skills and timing.
Am I the only one concerned about their views on different balance at different points in the game? If you have different balance at different points in the game, it will turn out to be a very weird game, assuming you still want the final outcome to be 50%.
When one race has an advantage earlier game, the other race must have an even bigger advantage late game, to keep the overall 50%.
I'm not sure I want to play a game where assuming i get through the opening 5 minutes that I only have a 40% chance of winning and then free win after that at 70% (or whatever the maths come out to be).
assymetrical balance means one race is stronger than another in late game. Which leads to turtling. Even in HOTS mech TvZ, mid game was quite weak for terran, especially against roach hydra viper pushes. But hey, when you've got ravens and BCs late game, who cares about midgame? The plan was to turtle on 3-4 bases until you got 180 pop with mainly tanks and 3 thors, and then build 4 BCs and take the rest of the map. Because late game was so terran favored.
Assymetrical balance also brought us THE FANTASTIC LOTV TvP. Where terran has absolutely no agressive options other than : - 1/1/1 allin that only works on ulrena - gamble with a liberator to lock down a mineral line - mine drop (which is kind of a gamble because overcharge 6 shots medivacs) And that's it. NOTHING ELSE.
Whereas toss... - blink pressure - drop adept - drop DTs - drop disruptors - oracle harass - phenix harass - 1 base allins (robo allin, SG allin, DT rush, proxy stargate, etc etc etc) - 2 bases allin (ultra mass adepts usually) - the "2 pylones next to your wall that I'll overcharge while taking B2, and your only option is to hope for a decent trade 2 supplies vs 2 pylones"
You're being a lot more critical of terran than protoss when you write those options. You don't include it on the terran options unless it's twice as good as something that you're happy to write on protoss options, you also take 6 items on the list to describe similar strategies for toss vs only 2 for terran.
Seriously there - protoss gets 3 different items for dropping units, yet terrans can only drop widow mines? Terrans have dropped religiously in TvP forever. There's a widow mine drop opening that is popular, but that's only a small fraction of the usage that medivacs get.
Any decent protoss player could make a list similar to yours, write 3 options for protoss and 10 for terran because what does and doesn't fit on the list or get its own line is so extremely subjective
On March 10 2016 13:33 JackONeill wrote: assymetrical balance means one race is stronger than another in late game. Which leads to turtling. Even in HOTS mech TvZ, mid game was quite weak for terran, especially against roach hydra viper pushes. But hey, when you've got ravens and BCs late game, who cares about midgame? The plan was to turtle on 3-4 bases until you got 180 pop with mainly tanks and 3 thors, and then build 4 BCs and take the rest of the map. Because late game was so terran favored.
Assymetrical balance also brought us THE FANTASTIC LOTV TvP. Where terran has absolutely no agressive options other than : - 1/1/1 allin that only works on ulrena - gamble with a liberator to lock down a mineral line - mine drop (which is kind of a gamble because overcharge 6 shots medivacs) And that's it. NOTHING ELSE.
Whereas toss... - blink pressure - drop adept - drop DTs - drop disruptors - oracle harass - phenix harass - 1 base allins (robo allin, SG allin, DT rush, proxy stargate, etc etc etc) - 2 bases allin (ultra mass adepts usually) - the "2 pylones next to your wall that I'll overcharge while taking B2, and your only option is to hope for a decent trade 2 supplies vs 2 pylones"
Agressive =/= fully commit.So there is nothing to do about all in.It is strat choice. Assymetrical balance created because they designed this game base on characteristics of each race. How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut? Terran also has stim timing and hellbat drop and cyclone poke.
I for one love the fact that Blizzard is being slow and methodical with their balance tweaks and not instituting balance changes based off knee jerk reactions by the community.
I for one love the fact that Blizzard is being slow and methodical with their balance tweaks and not instituting balance changes based off knee jerk reactions by the community.
The problem is inconsistency, they have created balance problems with exactly one of those knee-jerk reactions to design problems
- Some of the staler, more boring games (to play and watch) have been mech only.
I guess good job in creating something that you think is boring? I guess mech will stay that way forever since you don't want to make any changes to it? Do you just not care that part of your game is boring?
If terran strategic diversity was really what you are worried about then you would want mech to be a stand alone comp. I don't really consider MMM + anything every game to be diverse. It just depends on what you need as a terran, whether it be a meat shield, splash dmg, or AA support. The core army is always the same though... That sounds a bit stale to me.
Exactly this. Isnt that what professional designers are for, fixing things that is boring and lame(?) In the beta, it felt like you didnt change much at all when it comes down to it. You still have a great opportunity to change things around NOW but feels like you guys dont want to. I dont buy "carrers on the line". With PTR patches and really bold changes, i really think alot of people would play those PTR, including me. Right now I never play them.
And could you answer some questions in your next community feedback such as, what do you feel about air vs air, i found it super boring and uninteresting and always has but what do you feel about it? Is that something you would like to change or are you happy with it?
How do you feel about ravens? Why not redesign this unit quite dramatically?
What do you guys feel about this sentence: "Ground should counter air", is this something you could agree on at all?
DKs touching on the aspect of timings. Should timings come en bloc? No, I don't see any inherent advantages to entire time periods being favored toward one race or the other. However, the impetus to strike is great for action. Ideally you'd like to create timings within the same game phases, differentiated by composition choices, this would further throw the meta into uncertainty. I want the meta of this or that race being good for early/mid/late phase to end. Perhaps you could tailor your design choice to populating phase specific timings where they lack.
ZvP drops: I do not think Protoss have been reacting well to drops, probably because this is a new thing. With the strength of phoenix and templars Protoss have what they need to respond, and Protoss can easily pressure while still leaving units at home, lurker comps are not mobile enough to engage the Protoss army.. disruptors may still effectively harass regardless. With weak drops Zerg will have big problems taking a 5th / 6th actually, it's still difficult as it is now.
- Some of the staler, more boring games (to play and watch) have been mech only.
I guess good job in creating something that you think is boring? I guess mech will stay that way forever since you don't want to make any changes to it? Do you just not care that part of your game is boring?
If terran strategic diversity was really what you are worried about then you would want mech to be a stand alone comp. I don't really consider MMM + anything every game to be diverse. It just depends on what you need as a terran, whether it be a meat shield, splash dmg, or AA support. The core army is always the same though... That sounds a bit stale to me.
Exactly this. Isnt that what professional designers are for, fixing things that is boring and lame(?)
They did fix it: they removed this option from the game, same as they did with swarmhost. At least mech units are still usable, even if pure mech is not possible, while the only reason you would build SH is because of a missclick.
- Some of the staler, more boring games (to play and watch) have been mech only.
Designs a race to have no viable lategame other than by turtling hard and massing starport tech - complains about games with turtling being boring.
Clueless.
Dear David, you fucking job is to prevent that first issue from occuring. Instead, you are now using your own shortcomings as an argument to not pursue solid mech play any further, all because you're afraid of importing the Goliath and Spider Mine. Why?
ZvP drops: I do not think Protoss have been reacting well to drops, probably because this is a new thing. With the strength of phoenix and templars Protoss have what they need to respond
The strength of drops is not @ the phase of the game where phoenix squads and templar are out. It's when Z is dropping with about 18-30 drones & protoss is scrambling to get production up from the natural.
If anything, zerg drops are weaker than WOL+HOTS in the mid and lategame - they used to be able to give all of their overlords drop capability with a single upgrade. The new power comes from drop being on t1 now with no significant research time; speedling drops can now hit before warpgate research.
Has someone tried to "design" a ground protoss unit that could trade cost for cost against a sieged liberator? I mean a simple elegant one, no special activated abilities or other special nonsense. I'm not sure it's even possible, it would be too good against the other flying units lol
When they came up with the tankivac everyone said it would change the nature of the siege tank and would create very obnoxious harassment and would make TvT even less positional
To be fair, it's not that simple. TvT tank + marine isn't less positional than it was in HOTS. However, the issue is that it makes it much harder to control the units, which significantly raises the learning barrier, and opportunites for a ton of small mistakes that costs you the game.
And from their perspective, if they nerfed Siege tank pick up, Ravagers would be overpowered; hence they needed to be sure that Ravagers should be nerfed as well.
I can see how siege tanks need the defensive mobility the medivac gives them in a game where corrosive bile exists, but the effects still were predicted very early on.
But I just get very depressed following DK's design decisions, because it always feels so lazy, shallow and reactive, and whenever I read anything he writes I despair at the inconsistencies and lack of logic. It's kinda like you're in a relationship with someone for many years and despite them having many positive qualities you eventually realize that deep down you really just don't like and respect them. It's not an immediate judgment, and it is difficult to explain, but it is a feeling which becomes overwhelming over time.
It is so apparent to me that you can virtually never take DK at face value and that all his decisions are at heart confused and misguided, even if the damage is mitigated by his professional skills and inertia of the design process. The fact that whatever he writes is muddled by PR considerations makes it even more unintelligible. There are so many things in SC2 that could have and should have been done better, and not just in retrospect. If you or I can predict negative consequences of design decisions then Blizzard should also be able to, and more, they should be able to fix them before they become problematic. If Blizzard is incapable of this (which they often are), then their designers do not meet the standards I expect of them, ergo DK's analytical skills are not adequate for his position. *mutters*
The thing is, he was originally just a player, then a balancer... not a designer. But they started putting design decisions in his hands... They started blurring the liens between the two. While the two should at times work together to come up with a solution, in the end they should be completely separated, as design should be set as a priority THEN balancing work can take place. The balance must be applied in the framework of the design, not the other way around.
But as you stated, much (most?) of it is PR. These reasons we're being given in most circumstances aren't even what's really going on. You can find many examples of them bending the truth, or just straight up not telling the truth, at least when it comes to the dev team behind this game.
To the earlier posts saying hes a "9.5/10" game designer... By what standards or credentials??? He was only a CS major with no design history when he was hired by Blizzard for balancing. He has no actual game design history or credentials, and many of the decisions he makes are straight up rookie mistakes in software development (not even getting in to game design, where he admits to choosing inferior design decisions).
I don't even think his analytical skills are the problem. He's just not an actual designer so he's chasing the wrong carrot for solutions, instead of sticking to what he's good at, which is balancing the numbers.
afaik David Kim has a bachelor in CS and he worked at balancing Dawn of War before being hired by Blizzard. I think that for a long time Blizzard has been in a position where they do not have to hire people without experience in the industry. For instance, multiple members of the SC2 team have their roots in C&C games. Because it was obvious that they needed someone to balance Starcraft II, Blizzard looked around and discovered two people with previous experience balancing a well received multiplayer RTS game in David Kim and Matt Cooper, maybe the only two people in the world with this background.
By the way, I don't think that being the lead multiplayer designer for Starcraft 2 for the latter half of the development taxes one's creative ability that much, especially if you take into account the community feedback and suggestions that arise and can substitute for original ideas. If you think of a spectrum ranging from on one end: creative, artistic and intuitive temperament and on the other hand rigorous, analytical, logical temperament, then I'm sure that the role of balance designer draws heavily on skills and mindsets associated with the latter end of the spectrum. For instance, I've often thought that Blizzard should pick a random person with a PhD in theoretical physics to balance their games. And maybe that's slightly excessive, but at least it proves high analytical ability.
- Some of the staler, more boring games (to play and watch) have been mech only.
I guess good job in creating something that you think is boring? I guess mech will stay that way forever since you don't want to make any changes to it? Do you just not care that part of your game is boring?
If terran strategic diversity was really what you are worried about then you would want mech to be a stand alone comp. I don't really consider MMM + anything every game to be diverse. It just depends on what you need as a terran, whether it be a meat shield, splash dmg, or AA support. The core army is always the same though... That sounds a bit stale to me.
What do you guys feel about this sentence: "Ground should counter air", is this something you could agree on at all?
I don't agree with that. Anti Air in general should be stronger than Anti Ground though
On March 10 2016 13:38 Cyro wrote: You're being a lot more critical of terran than protoss when you write those options. You don't include it on the terran options unless it's twice as good as something that you're happy to write on protoss options, you also take 6 items on the list to describe similar strategies for toss vs only 2 for terran.
Seriously there - protoss gets 3 different items for dropping units, yet terrans can only drop widow mines? Terrans have dropped religiously in TvP forever. There's a widow mine drop opening that is popular, but that's only a small fraction of the usage that medivacs get.
Any decent protoss player could make a list similar to yours, write 3 options for protoss and 10 for terran because what does and doesn't fit on the list or get its own line is so extremely subjective
Subjective? Man just watch KR TvP. It's terran turtle until the "I've got liberator range and a few liberators !" bell rings. Even TY, the guy which is probably the most succesfull terran ATM plays the TvP full turtle. And "you don't include it on the terran options unless it's twice as good as something that you're happy to write on protoss options"? Really? Have you watched any pro stream recently? The adept drops are omnipresent, and very effective. Disruptor drops with speed prism too. Anything I listed actually. "Any decent protoss player could make a list similar to yours, write 3 options for protoss and 10 for terran" => be my guest. Really. List any agressive option that terran has that would result in 5+ probe kills OR require appropriate defense/scouting/adaptation from the protoss player to avoid taking eco damage, and that are viable (aka seen in pro games).
Just as a precision, this has nothing to do with balance. The liberator is more broken than the warhound was, which makes many TvP fights hilarious because you're just not allowed to walk into liberator fire. Ever. The aim here is to show how assymetrical balance at different moments of the game is terrible (leading to turtling/ultra defensive play)
On March 10 2016 13:33 JackONeill wrote: assymetrical balance means one race is stronger than another in late game. Which leads to turtling. Even in HOTS mech TvZ, mid game was quite weak for terran, especially against roach hydra viper pushes. But hey, when you've got ravens and BCs late game, who cares about midgame? The plan was to turtle on 3-4 bases until you got 180 pop with mainly tanks and 3 thors, and then build 4 BCs and take the rest of the map. Because late game was so terran favored.
Assymetrical balance also brought us THE FANTASTIC LOTV TvP. Where terran has absolutely no agressive options other than : - 1/1/1 allin that only works on ulrena - gamble with a liberator to lock down a mineral line - mine drop (which is kind of a gamble because overcharge 6 shots medivacs) And that's it. NOTHING ELSE.
Whereas toss... - blink pressure - drop adept - drop DTs - drop disruptors - oracle harass - phenix harass - 1 base allins (robo allin, SG allin, DT rush, proxy stargate, etc etc etc) - 2 bases allin (ultra mass adepts usually) - the "2 pylones next to your wall that I'll overcharge while taking B2, and your only option is to hope for a decent trade 2 supplies vs 2 pylones"
Agressive =/= fully commit.So there is nothing to do about all in.It is strat choice. Assymetrical balance created because they designed this game base on characteristics of each race. How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut? Terran also has stim timing and hellbat drop and cyclone poke.
"Agressive =/= fully commit.So there is nothing to do about all in.It is strat choice" => agressive includes full "fully commit". And anything but the items refered as "allins" aren't "fully commit".
"Assymetrical balance created because they designed this game base on characteristics of each race." => makes no sense whatsoever
"How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut?" => how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship?
"Terran also has stim timing and hellbat drop and cyclone poke" => Stim timing isn't an "early game agressive option". And I'd be very interested to see any pro player drop hellbats or get out on the map with his cyclone to achieve whatever in TvP
On March 09 2016 11:04 Superbanana wrote: It does bother me that they are so slow and insecure about changes
For instance, why does Blizzard need months to be able to make a decision on the siege tank? A designer supposedly spending 40 hours a week on improving SC2 ought to be a bit embarrassed if that time is spent tentatively considering failed idea after failed idea for the siege tank without concrete results for like a month.
When they came up with the tankivac everyone said it would change the nature of the siege tank and would create very obnoxious harassment and would make TvT even less positional. All of this happened. Now six months later Blizzard is like: "hm, it seems that this hasn't quite worked out the we way we had hoped (prayed) for, so let's take a few more months to consider what to do about it". Wow, so inspiring. Meanwhile SC1 & SC:BW were made in like a year and a half in total and they still have more well thought out design decisions than SC2 after 10 years of development (with SC:BW as a template to work from!)
Wasn't it obvious that the community updates weren't meant as sudden change in policy and community participation, but rather as a feel-good move that shows they care? If we could evaluate the number of community suggestions that made it through the community updates to be considered that weren't already considered by blizzard I think we would find a pretty circular number on the other side. Let me give a few examples of things that were showcased by blizzard as community suggestions: individual overlord drops: the obvious solution to buff zerg drops without overpowering mass overlord drops. That one, or make overseers the dropship. Tank unsiege when loaded up: wasn't that originally a blizzard suggestion "if tank drops were to be too strong" that wasn't tested in the beta and now gets thrown around as if the community came up with it. Adept damage -1: sure, we came up with it. It's not like, you know, blizzard gave the adept 10(+13 vs light) for the exact purpose of two-shoting SCVs and marines. Nono, that just happened to happen.
I mean, we are talking about some of the best paid and most prestigeous jobs in game design in the whole world. The feedback threads are there to create a resonance, to lead the discussion of the game and prevent negativity and to sell us their ideas as our own. They are not there to fundamentally change the game. They have proven they could do that through betas and expansions. The only reason they don't is that they don't want to. (that still means I like the feedback threads as a source of acquiring knowledge and insights)
In recent months I've occasionally suspected Blizzard of almost outsourcing the development of the game by posing questions and then testing popular suggestions posted on reddit. I forgot about some other changes, but they include most of the ones you mentioned. I think that it might be that they are loathe to do anything radical which is not widely popular and supported on reddit, so they wait for popular suggestions as a pretext to changing the game in ways they want to. The process of selecting, arranging or editing other people's ideas leaves plenty of room to push the game towards a certain direction anyhow.
List any agressive option that terran has that would result in 5+ probe kills OR require appropriate defense/scouting/adaptation from the protoss player to avoid taking eco damage, and that are viable (aka seen in pro games).
If that's the standard of evidence you're using, i'd like to see the multiple pro games of the 1 base all ins w/ DT rush, inbase robo and inbase stargate PvT. I don't think i've seen any of those even once in 700 games of Legacy, success or fail. If you're counting them like that (and listing each unit drop as a seperate strategy) then you can write a dozen ways for terran to be aggressive on 1 cc in about 20 seconds and have it be just as solid as your list.
This is exactly what i'm talking about, you're judging your own races capabilites far more harshly than that of other races because you have a better understanding of the drawbacks of different styles from your own race than you do of others
List any agressive option that terran has that would result in 5+ probe kills OR require appropriate defense/scouting/adaptation from the protoss player to avoid taking eco damage, and that are viable (aka seen in pro games).
If that's the standard of evidence you're using, i'd like to see the multiple pro games of the 1 base all ins w/ DT rush, inbase robo and inbase stargate PvT. I don't think i've seen any of those even once in 700 games of Legacy, success or fail.
This is exactly what i'm talking about, you're judging your own races capabilites far more harshly than that of other races because you have a better understanding of the drawbacks of different styles from your own race than you do of others
I don't know if you are serious but from watching progames it's clear that protoss has far FAR more options then terran. You don't even have to make a list to notice that. but I think it's already far better than in HotS where all terran could do was 3 rax or widowmine drop.
On March 10 2016 13:38 Cyro wrote: You're being a lot more critical of terran than protoss when you write those options. You don't include it on the terran options unless it's twice as good as something that you're happy to write on protoss options, you also take 6 items on the list to describe similar strategies for toss vs only 2 for terran.
Seriously there - protoss gets 3 different items for dropping units, yet terrans can only drop widow mines? Terrans have dropped religiously in TvP forever. There's a widow mine drop opening that is popular, but that's only a small fraction of the usage that medivacs get.
Any decent protoss player could make a list similar to yours, write 3 options for protoss and 10 for terran because what does and doesn't fit on the list or get its own line is so extremely subjective
Subjective? Man just watch KR TvP. It's terran turtle until the "I've got liberator range and a few liberators !" bell rings. Even TY, the guy which is probably the most succesfull terran ATM plays the TvP full turtle. And "you don't include it on the terran options unless it's twice as good as something that you're happy to write on protoss options"? Really? Have you watched any pro stream recently? The adept drops are omnipresent, and very effective. Disruptor drops with speed prism too. Anything I listed actually. "Any decent protoss player could make a list similar to yours, write 3 options for protoss and 10 for terran" => be my guest. Really. List any agressive option that terran has that would result in 5+ probe kills OR require appropriate defense/scouting/adaptation from the protoss player to avoid taking eco damage, and that are viable (aka seen in pro games).
Just as a precision, this has nothing to do with balance. The liberator is more broken than the warhound was, which makes many TvP fights hilarious because you're just not allowed to walk into liberator fire. Ever. The aim here is to show how assymetrical balance at different moments of the game is terrible (leading to turtling/ultra defensive play)
On March 10 2016 13:33 JackONeill wrote: assymetrical balance means one race is stronger than another in late game. Which leads to turtling. Even in HOTS mech TvZ, mid game was quite weak for terran, especially against roach hydra viper pushes. But hey, when you've got ravens and BCs late game, who cares about midgame? The plan was to turtle on 3-4 bases until you got 180 pop with mainly tanks and 3 thors, and then build 4 BCs and take the rest of the map. Because late game was so terran favored.
Assymetrical balance also brought us THE FANTASTIC LOTV TvP. Where terran has absolutely no agressive options other than : - 1/1/1 allin that only works on ulrena - gamble with a liberator to lock down a mineral line - mine drop (which is kind of a gamble because overcharge 6 shots medivacs) And that's it. NOTHING ELSE.
Whereas toss... - blink pressure - drop adept - drop DTs - drop disruptors - oracle harass - phenix harass - 1 base allins (robo allin, SG allin, DT rush, proxy stargate, etc etc etc) - 2 bases allin (ultra mass adepts usually) - the "2 pylones next to your wall that I'll overcharge while taking B2, and your only option is to hope for a decent trade 2 supplies vs 2 pylones"
Agressive =/= fully commit.So there is nothing to do about all in.It is strat choice. Assymetrical balance created because they designed this game base on characteristics of each race. How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut? Terran also has stim timing and hellbat drop and cyclone poke.
"Agressive =/= fully commit.So there is nothing to do about all in.It is strat choice" => agressive includes full "fully commit". And anything but the items refered as "allins" aren't "fully commit".
"Assymetrical balance created because they designed this game base on characteristics of each race." => makes no sense whatsoever
"How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut?" => how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship?
"Terran also has stim timing and hellbat drop and cyclone poke" => Stim timing isn't an "early game agressive option". And I'd be very interested to see any pro player drop hellbats or get out on the map with his cyclone to achieve whatever in TvP
"agressive includes full "fully commit". And anything but the items refered as "allins" aren't "fully commit"." -If you call all in include aggressive then assymetrical balance does nothing here. "makes no sense whatsoever" -Thank for your helpful and insight feedback! "how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship??" Does it relate to assymetrical balance ? " Stim timing isn't an "early game agressive option". And I'd be very interested to see any pro player drop hellbats or get out on the map with his cyclone to achieve whatever in TvP"
Sr for call it hellbat
I won't quote you again if you keep being ignorance like that.
"How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut?" => how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship?
Glad we didnt hear those comments when a phoenix is picking up a tank :D :D :D
"How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut?" => how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship?
Glad we didnt hear those comments when a phoenix is picking up a tank :D :D :D
tbh it would be nice if siege tank had immunity from that. similarly, if you could not adbuct sieged tanks.
not for gameplay reasons, but just cuz of the laws of physics. so it would make a lot of sense for players and it would not be a very difficult exception to remember, and it makes the game more realistic
Why is the liberator range nerf not being talked about? There are broken spots especially on dusk where if you didn't open Phoenix the liberator can deny your entire natural and you have to sacrifice a million stalkers to kill it cause only one can shoot at a time and liberators 2 shot them. It limits map design, that unit needs a nerf.
"How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut?" => how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship?
Glad we didnt hear those comments when a phoenix is picking up a tank :D :D :D
tbh it would be nice if siege tank had immunity from that. similarly, if you could not adbuct sieged tanks.
not for gameplay reasons, but just cuz of the laws of physics. so it would make a lot of sense for players and it would not be a very difficult exception to remember, and it makes the game more realistic
the laws of physics should never have any bearing on competitive game design lol. there are thousands of things you can list about the SC2 engine that don't make any physical sense, not the least of which is that nothing is to scale
if you want scientific accuracy play a hardcore simulation game
"How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut?" => how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship?
Glad we didnt hear those comments when a phoenix is picking up a tank :D :D :D
tbh it would be nice if siege tank had immunity from that. similarly, if you could not adbuct sieged tanks.
not for gameplay reasons, but just cuz of the laws of physics. so it would make a lot of sense for players and it would not be a very difficult exception to remember, and it makes the game more realistic
the laws of physics should never have any bearing on competitive game design lol. there are thousands of things you can list about the SC2 engine that don't make any physical sense, not the least of which is that nothing is to scale
if you want scientific accuracy play a hardcore simulation game
I don't want to argue this, but this is a really dumb point of view. of course you should aim for realism, just while accepting that it's not achievable or super important. the laws of physics is not something abstract and theoretical, it's just basic stuff like things falling down that everyone knows about
Even TY, the guy which is probably the most succesfull terran ATM plays the TvP full turtle.
Even?? You realize Ty has the most passive TvP out of any of the korean terrans right? And even in some of his games he does go for early aggression.
Man just watch KR TvP. It's terran turtle until the "I've got liberator range and a few liberators !" bell rings.
No, Liberator range is very rarely researched. Ty does it, but I would estimate its in less than 10% of all Korean TvP games. Seems like you only watched Ty play.
"How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut?" => how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship?
Glad we didnt hear those comments when a phoenix is picking up a tank :D :D :D
tbh it would be nice if siege tank had immunity from that. similarly, if you could not adbuct sieged tanks.
not for gameplay reasons, but just cuz of the laws of physics. so it would make a lot of sense for players and it would not be a very difficult exception to remember, and it makes the game more realistic
the laws of physics should never have any bearing on competitive game design lol. there are thousands of things you can list about the SC2 engine that don't make any physical sense, not the least of which is that nothing is to scale
if you want scientific accuracy play a hardcore simulation game
I don't want to argue this, but this is a really dumb point of view. of course you should aim for realism, just while accepting that it's not achievable or super important. the laws of physics is not something abstract and theoretical, it's just basic stuff like things falling down that everyone knows about
Yet the falling platform didn't fall. They played on that map several games and it didn't crash! I was waiting for it, how long does it take for a platform that is burning in atmosphere from falling too fast. Yet it has no consequences!
Basic laws of physics say Viper cannot pull Mothership, Thor, Colossus, all capital ships, siege tank.
These laws also say it is not possible to have the same egg for an ultralisk and 2 zerglings.
Also medicine says you cannot transfuse something by puring goo all over them.
Also based on math and Euclidean space you cannot transport Colossus in Warp Prism(though there will be some mumbo jumbo from Star Trek when it transports Colossus in its data storage). Based on the same thing you cannot control units with that HUGE thingy Infestor has, unless it's taken from T-X, but that's more for Terrans or Protoss, Zergs are not into tech. But how does it come that you can load 4 helions into medevac but 2 hellbats? When Hellbat takes less ground space? Maybe hellions are transported on shells
C'mon, leave reality alone! SC2 is full of scientifically wrong stuff. Let it go
"How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut?" => how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship?
Glad we didnt hear those comments when a phoenix is picking up a tank :D :D :D
tbh it would be nice if siege tank had immunity from that. similarly, if you could not adbuct sieged tanks.
not for gameplay reasons, but just cuz of the laws of physics. so it would make a lot of sense for players and it would not be a very difficult exception to remember, and it makes the game more realistic
the laws of physics should never have any bearing on competitive game design lol. there are thousands of things you can list about the SC2 engine that don't make any physical sense, not the least of which is that nothing is to scale
if you want scientific accuracy play a hardcore simulation game
I don't want to argue this, but this is a really dumb point of view. of course you should aim for realism, just while accepting that it's not achievable or super important. the laws of physics is not something abstract and theoretical, it's just basic stuff like things falling down that everyone knows about
you don't want to argue it, but you're arguing it? so basically you wanted to get a last word in and not have to back it up?
the laws of physics for a game engine are indeed abstract and theoretical. you should reconsider what you wrote in the context of a computer game that exists virtually, because i can hardly imagine anything MORE abstract or theoretical. in fact, even the real-world laws of physics are also "theoretical" - you seem out completely of your league in what you're trying to debate here.
obviously real world physics are mimicked to a degree in artificial environments because that's the only point of reference we have as human beings, and it's helpful for the physics to be familiar in at least the most basic senses - yes, things fall down, cool, that adds up. but you're trying to make it sound as if i'm arguing "make things go in random directions! total chaos! everything happens randomly!" when what i'm actually saying is that if the only impetus to make a change in game design is "it would be more realistic" then it's not worthwhile to do in a game like starcraft. as soon as we start using that reasoning then marines are going to stop doing damage to any mechanical unit in the game.
"How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut?" => how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship?
Glad we didnt hear those comments when a phoenix is picking up a tank :D :D :D
tbh it would be nice if siege tank had immunity from that. similarly, if you could not adbuct sieged tanks.
not for gameplay reasons, but just cuz of the laws of physics. so it would make a lot of sense for players and it would not be a very difficult exception to remember, and it makes the game more realistic
the laws of physics should never have any bearing on competitive game design lol. there are thousands of things you can list about the SC2 engine that don't make any physical sense, not the least of which is that nothing is to scale
if you want scientific accuracy play a hardcore simulation game
I don't want to argue this, but this is a really dumb point of view. of course you should aim for realism, just while accepting that it's not achievable or super important. the laws of physics is not something abstract and theoretical, it's just basic stuff like things falling down that everyone knows about
you don't want to argue it, but you're arguing it? so basically you wanted to get a last word in and not have to back it up?
the laws of physics for a game engine are indeed abstract and theoretical. you should reconsider what you wrote in the context of a computer game that exists virtually, because i can hardly imagine anything MORE abstract or theoretical. in fact, even the real-world laws of physics are also "theoretical" - you seem out completely of your league in what you're trying to debate here.
obviously real world physics are mimicked to a degree in artificial environments because that's the only point of reference we have as human beings, and it's helpful for the physics to be familiar in at least the most basic senses - yes, things fall down, cool, that adds up. but you're trying to make it sound as if i'm arguing "make things go in random directions! total chaos! everything happens randomly!" when what i'm actually saying is that if the only impetus to make a change in game design is "it would be more realistic" then it's not worthwhile to do in a game like starcraft. as soon as we start using that reasoning then marines are going to stop doing damage to any mechanical unit in the game.
Imagine a game where Zerg catches some fleet of guard, walks under it, kills it with hydras and the debris will kill hydras EPIC!
"How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut?" => how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship?
Glad we didnt hear those comments when a phoenix is picking up a tank :D :D :D
tbh it would be nice if siege tank had immunity from that. similarly, if you could not adbuct sieged tanks.
not for gameplay reasons, but just cuz of the laws of physics. so it would make a lot of sense for players and it would not be a very difficult exception to remember, and it makes the game more realistic
the laws of physics should never have any bearing on competitive game design lol. there are thousands of things you can list about the SC2 engine that don't make any physical sense, not the least of which is that nothing is to scale
if you want scientific accuracy play a hardcore simulation game
I don't want to argue this, but this is a really dumb point of view. of course you should aim for realism, just while accepting that it's not achievable or super important. the laws of physics is not something abstract and theoretical, it's just basic stuff like things falling down that everyone knows about
you don't want to argue it, but you're arguing it? so basically you wanted to get a last word in and not have to back it up?
the laws of physics for a game engine are indeed abstract and theoretical. you should reconsider what you wrote in the context of a computer game that exists virtually, because i can hardly imagine anything MORE abstract or theoretical. in fact, even the real-world laws of physics are also "theoretical" - you seem out completely of your league in what you're trying to debate here.
obviously real world physics are mimicked to a degree in artificial environments because that's the only point of reference we have as human beings, and it's helpful for the physics to be familiar in at least the most basic senses - yes, things fall down, cool, that adds up. but you're trying to make it sound as if i'm arguing "make things go in random directions! total chaos! everything happens randomly!" when what i'm actually saying is that if the only impetus to make a change in game design is "it would be more realistic" then it's not worthwhile to do in a game like starcraft. as soon as we start using that reasoning then marines are going to stop doing damage to any mechanical unit in the game.
So let me get this clear:
1. You feel it's obvious that you should use existing frames of reference and that you should mimic real world physics to a degree. 2. When I say that it would be nice if some interactions in the game would more clearly mimic real world physics this is completely absurd and requires that you insult me and tell me I'm out of my depth.
This sort of reaction is why I didn't feel like arguing the point, it's because to actually explain it would be condescending and distracting, yet to not explain it invites comments from people such as yourself that are super eager to tell me how obviously games are full of unrealistic things and how that is okay (geeh thanks).
On March 10 2016 13:38 Cyro wrote: You're being a lot more critical of terran than protoss when you write those options. You don't include it on the terran options unless it's twice as good as something that you're happy to write on protoss options, you also take 6 items on the list to describe similar strategies for toss vs only 2 for terran.
Seriously there - protoss gets 3 different items for dropping units, yet terrans can only drop widow mines? Terrans have dropped religiously in TvP forever. There's a widow mine drop opening that is popular, but that's only a small fraction of the usage that medivacs get.
Any decent protoss player could make a list similar to yours, write 3 options for protoss and 10 for terran because what does and doesn't fit on the list or get its own line is so extremely subjective
Subjective? Man just watch KR TvP. It's terran turtle until the "I've got liberator range and a few liberators !" bell rings. Even TY, the guy which is probably the most succesfull terran ATM plays the TvP full turtle. And "you don't include it on the terran options unless it's twice as good as something that you're happy to write on protoss options"? Really? Have you watched any pro stream recently? The adept drops are omnipresent, and very effective. Disruptor drops with speed prism too. Anything I listed actually. "Any decent protoss player could make a list similar to yours, write 3 options for protoss and 10 for terran" => be my guest. Really. List any agressive option that terran has that would result in 5+ probe kills OR require appropriate defense/scouting/adaptation from the protoss player to avoid taking eco damage, and that are viable (aka seen in pro games).
Just as a precision, this has nothing to do with balance. The liberator is more broken than the warhound was, which makes many TvP fights hilarious because you're just not allowed to walk into liberator fire. Ever. The aim here is to show how assymetrical balance at different moments of the game is terrible (leading to turtling/ultra defensive play)
On March 10 2016 14:10 seemsgood wrote:
On March 10 2016 13:33 JackONeill wrote: assymetrical balance means one race is stronger than another in late game. Which leads to turtling. Even in HOTS mech TvZ, mid game was quite weak for terran, especially against roach hydra viper pushes. But hey, when you've got ravens and BCs late game, who cares about midgame? The plan was to turtle on 3-4 bases until you got 180 pop with mainly tanks and 3 thors, and then build 4 BCs and take the rest of the map. Because late game was so terran favored.
Assymetrical balance also brought us THE FANTASTIC LOTV TvP. Where terran has absolutely no agressive options other than : - 1/1/1 allin that only works on ulrena - gamble with a liberator to lock down a mineral line - mine drop (which is kind of a gamble because overcharge 6 shots medivacs) And that's it. NOTHING ELSE.
Whereas toss... - blink pressure - drop adept - drop DTs - drop disruptors - oracle harass - phenix harass - 1 base allins (robo allin, SG allin, DT rush, proxy stargate, etc etc etc) - 2 bases allin (ultra mass adepts usually) - the "2 pylones next to your wall that I'll overcharge while taking B2, and your only option is to hope for a decent trade 2 supplies vs 2 pylones"
Agressive =/= fully commit.So there is nothing to do about all in.It is strat choice. Assymetrical balance created because they designed this game base on characteristics of each race. How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut? Terran also has stim timing and hellbat drop and cyclone poke.
"Agressive =/= fully commit.So there is nothing to do about all in.It is strat choice" => agressive includes full "fully commit". And anything but the items refered as "allins" aren't "fully commit".
"Assymetrical balance created because they designed this game base on characteristics of each race." => makes no sense whatsoever
"How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut?" => how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship?
"Terran also has stim timing and hellbat drop and cyclone poke" => Stim timing isn't an "early game agressive option". And I'd be very interested to see any pro player drop hellbats or get out on the map with his cyclone to achieve whatever in TvP
"agressive includes full "fully commit". And anything but the items refered as "allins" aren't "fully commit"." -If you call all in include aggressive then assymetrical balance does nothing here. "makes no sense whatsoever" -Thank for your helpful and insight feedback! "how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship??" Does it relate to assymetrical balance ? " Stim timing isn't an "early game agressive option". And I'd be very interested to see any pro player drop hellbats or get out on the map with his cyclone to achieve whatever in TvP"
I won't quote you again if you keep being ignorance like that.
Your exemples are : - a 1/1/1 allin on ulrena, which I mentionned - the gamble timing Polt does since WOL, with few bio units with stim, where he deals damage or loose his entire force. I watched his stream the other day, the toss was prepared he lost everything and the game - a hellion drop?
I don't see how that even compares to the panel of agressive option protoss has early game (and early game ending potential they've got). Anyway I don't really understand some stuff you say, like "If you call all in include aggressive then assymetrical balance does nothing here" (not teasing you about your english, just don't really see your point), but I'd like to say again that I'm talking about diversity, not about balance. At pro level, expand => harass seems like the standard protoss build. Terran seem to go expo => trying to take a third while unlocking bio upgrades. Your exemple seem to be wacky offtiming gambly drops. Well maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I see most of the time on pro streams. Maybe I keep "being ignorance" (ok now I'm teasing you about your english XD)
Man just watch KR TvP. It's terran turtle until the "I've got liberator range and a few liberators !" bell rings.
No, Liberator range is very rarely researched. Ty does it, but I would estimate its in less than 10% of all Korean TvP games. Seems like you only watched Ty play.
And he's the guy with the most success in TvP. Aslso watched Taeja go turtle => mass ghost viking, which isn't how I remember Taeja from WOL.
From what I watched of polt stream also, where he basically does nothing until going out on the map, and his game is determined by how well he deals with the adept drop. As a whole, it's no surprise that terran doesn't have much agressive options compared to toss, I mean it's been a topic since the introduction of the overcharge. With drop and ravagers zergs seem to have very good agressive options, but I really don't see any reliable terran agressive builds. Maybe I'm just biased, but most of the time I see protoss go 1g expo => SG/dt drop/adept drop/disru drop, while the terran goes reaper => 3 rax => SP => try to take his third while defending the harass.
And about the tank pickup, well of course physics aren't to be taken into account, but meh, design wise, the tankivac gives mobility to a unit that's supposed to sacrifice mobility for firepower. Phenixes lifting tanks are fair, it's like a soft "skirmish" counter
ZvP drops: I do not think Protoss have been reacting well to drops, probably because this is a new thing. With the strength of phoenix and templars Protoss have what they need to respond
The strength of drops is not @ the phase of the game where phoenix squads and templar are out. It's when Z is dropping with about 18-30 drones & protoss is scrambling to get production up from the natural.
If anything, zerg drops are weaker than WOL+HOTS in the mid and lategame - they used to be able to give all of their overlords drop capability with a single upgrade. The new power comes from drop being on t1 now with no significant research time; speedling drops can now hit before warpgate research.
Drops are far stronger now without the upgrade and are necessary when expanding with lurkers. The opening drops I rarely use, I don't think they're imbalanced ... nor do I think ravagers are imbalanced, but if they want to tweak this I dont care much.
I did watch a fair amount of KR pro games lately. I don't think "stream watching penis contest" is really called for here. I mentionned things like "i can be biased", etc, so your "such confidence" is also uncalled for.
I also tried (boy did I try to do a lot of things here) to sum up the idea that : "most of the time I see protoss go 1g expo => SG/dt drop/adept drop/disru drop, while the terran goes reaper => 3 rax => SP => try to take his third while defending the harass"
Which seems quite fair to me. So really, I don't see what do you bring to the table ?
I did watch a fair amount of KR pro games lately. I don't think "stream watching penis contest" is really called for here. I mentionned things like "i can be biased", etc, so your "such confidence" is also uncalled for.
If you don't watch KR games you cannot talk about how the meta is in all of the games. Yet you did, and got caught in something that's completely incorrect (liberator range). Not sure why you cannot admit you made a mistake and move on.
The reason terrans cannot turtle as much as you seem to think is that toss has better end-game due to tempest/HT. It is however true that terrans play more passively in the early midgame than in HOTS. However, they need to be ahead before toss gets Tempests, and Liberators are basically useless vs a critical mass of tempests, so its not good to invest too much into them.
I mentionned liberator range as an obvious ironic statement with quotation marks (exagerated to show how TvP relies heavily on liberators). Difference I see here is that you act like you watched every single KR games for the past two months, where I leave myself room for having missed somehthing. (I mean you say "if you don't watch" when I stated just before I watched a fair amount of them)
And I've not seen protoss rely that much on tempest even against TY. I mean appart from niche late game situations on dusk towers, games were over before that. Also, I don't agree that terran has a weaker late game. When bio hits 3/3 with a good amount of ghost, the money invested on tempest and the supply they take becomes pretty much useless. Maybe very late game, saw Taeja go for mass viking ghosts on dusk towers, leaving room for the toss to cut the map in half with canons, spread templars and tempest + revelation.
But anyhow, I did not say terrans were turtling up to lategame. My point was that early game seems to show the variety of protoss harass while terrans tend to be quite defensive until mid game, so I don't see why you bring up tempest and late game.
Anyways, you just agreed with the fact that terrans play more defensively in early game than in HOTS, when it was already said that terran had limited early game agressive options. Which is the only point I'm trying to show from the start.
On March 10 2016 13:38 Cyro wrote: You're being a lot more critical of terran than protoss when you write those options. You don't include it on the terran options unless it's twice as good as something that you're happy to write on protoss options, you also take 6 items on the list to describe similar strategies for toss vs only 2 for terran.
Seriously there - protoss gets 3 different items for dropping units, yet terrans can only drop widow mines? Terrans have dropped religiously in TvP forever. There's a widow mine drop opening that is popular, but that's only a small fraction of the usage that medivacs get.
Any decent protoss player could make a list similar to yours, write 3 options for protoss and 10 for terran because what does and doesn't fit on the list or get its own line is so extremely subjective
Subjective? Man just watch KR TvP. It's terran turtle until the "I've got liberator range and a few liberators !" bell rings. Even TY, the guy which is probably the most succesfull terran ATM plays the TvP full turtle. And "you don't include it on the terran options unless it's twice as good as something that you're happy to write on protoss options"? Really? Have you watched any pro stream recently? The adept drops are omnipresent, and very effective. Disruptor drops with speed prism too. Anything I listed actually. "Any decent protoss player could make a list similar to yours, write 3 options for protoss and 10 for terran" => be my guest. Really. List any agressive option that terran has that would result in 5+ probe kills OR require appropriate defense/scouting/adaptation from the protoss player to avoid taking eco damage, and that are viable (aka seen in pro games).
Just as a precision, this has nothing to do with balance. The liberator is more broken than the warhound was, which makes many TvP fights hilarious because you're just not allowed to walk into liberator fire. Ever. The aim here is to show how assymetrical balance at different moments of the game is terrible (leading to turtling/ultra defensive play)
On March 10 2016 14:10 seemsgood wrote:
On March 10 2016 13:33 JackONeill wrote: assymetrical balance means one race is stronger than another in late game. Which leads to turtling. Even in HOTS mech TvZ, mid game was quite weak for terran, especially against roach hydra viper pushes. But hey, when you've got ravens and BCs late game, who cares about midgame? The plan was to turtle on 3-4 bases until you got 180 pop with mainly tanks and 3 thors, and then build 4 BCs and take the rest of the map. Because late game was so terran favored.
Assymetrical balance also brought us THE FANTASTIC LOTV TvP. Where terran has absolutely no agressive options other than : - 1/1/1 allin that only works on ulrena - gamble with a liberator to lock down a mineral line - mine drop (which is kind of a gamble because overcharge 6 shots medivacs) And that's it. NOTHING ELSE.
Whereas toss... - blink pressure - drop adept - drop DTs - drop disruptors - oracle harass - phenix harass - 1 base allins (robo allin, SG allin, DT rush, proxy stargate, etc etc etc) - 2 bases allin (ultra mass adepts usually) - the "2 pylones next to your wall that I'll overcharge while taking B2, and your only option is to hope for a decent trade 2 supplies vs 2 pylones"
Agressive =/= fully commit.So there is nothing to do about all in.It is strat choice. Assymetrical balance created because they designed this game base on characteristics of each race. How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut? Terran also has stim timing and hellbat drop and cyclone poke.
"Agressive =/= fully commit.So there is nothing to do about all in.It is strat choice" => agressive includes full "fully commit". And anything but the items refered as "allins" aren't "fully commit".
"Assymetrical balance created because they designed this game base on characteristics of each race." => makes no sense whatsoever
"How terran and zerg have strong late game as protoss when protoss is the most advance race ? wut?" => how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship?
"Terran also has stim timing and hellbat drop and cyclone poke" => Stim timing isn't an "early game agressive option". And I'd be very interested to see any pro player drop hellbats or get out on the map with his cyclone to achieve whatever in TvP
"agressive includes full "fully commit". And anything but the items refered as "allins" aren't "fully commit"." -If you call all in include aggressive then assymetrical balance does nothing here. "makes no sense whatsoever" -Thank for your helpful and insight feedback! "how is the siege tank, a unit that's bolted to the ground, supposed to be picked up by a dropship??" Does it relate to assymetrical balance ? " Stim timing isn't an "early game agressive option". And I'd be very interested to see any pro player drop hellbats or get out on the map with his cyclone to achieve whatever in TvP"
I won't quote you again if you keep being ignorance like that.
Your exemples are : - a 1/1/1 allin on ulrena, which I mentionned - the gamble timing Polt does since WOL, with few bio units with stim, where he deals damage or loose his entire force. I watched his stream the other day, the toss was prepared he lost everything and the game - a hellion drop?
I don't see how that even compares to the panel of agressive option protoss has early game (and early game ending potential they've got). Anyway I don't really understand some stuff you say, like "If you call all in include aggressive then assymetrical balance does nothing here" (not teasing you about your english, just don't really see your point), but I'd like to say again that I'm talking about diversity, not about balance. At pro level, expand => harass seems like the standard protoss build. Terran seem to go expo => trying to take a third while unlocking bio upgrades. Your exemple seem to be wacky offtiming gambly drops. Well maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I see most of the time on pro streams. Maybe I keep "being ignorance" (ok now I'm teasing you about your english XD)
Even TY, the guy which is probably the most succesfull terran ATM plays the TvP full turtle.
Even?? You realize Ty has the most passive TvP out of any of the korean terrans right? And even in some of his games he does go for early aggression.
Man just watch KR TvP. It's terran turtle until the "I've got liberator range and a few liberators !" bell rings.
No, Liberator range is very rarely researched. Ty does it, but I would estimate its in less than 10% of all Korean TvP games. Seems like you only watched Ty play.
And he's the guy with the most success in TvP. Aslso watched Taeja go turtle => mass ghost viking, which isn't how I remember Taeja from WOL.
From what I watched of polt stream also, where he basically does nothing until going out on the map, and his game is determined by how well he deals with the adept drop. As a whole, it's no surprise that terran doesn't have much agressive options compared to toss, I mean it's been a topic since the introduction of the overcharge. With drop and ravagers zergs seem to have very good agressive options, but I really don't see any reliable terran agressive builds. Maybe I'm just biased, but most of the time I see protoss go 1g expo => SG/dt drop/adept drop/disru drop, while the terran goes reaper => 3 rax => SP => try to take his third while defending the harass.
And about the tank pickup, well of course physics aren't to be taken into account, but meh, design wise, the tankivac gives mobility to a unit that's supposed to sacrifice mobility for firepower. Phenixes lifting tanks are fair, it's like a soft "skirmish" counter
"- a 1/1/1 allin on ulrena, which I mentionned - the gamble timing Polt does since WOL, with few bio units with stim, where he deals damage or loose his entire force. I watched his stream the other day, the toss was prepared he lost everything and the game" Problem ? He can chose another option is not overcommit.Of course if you invest something to attack and enemy prepare for it,you will be behind.Protoss' option are the same Your point ? "a hellion drop? " Wut ? "Anyway I don't really understand some stuff you say, like "If you call all in include aggressive then assymetrical balance does nothing here" (not teasing you about your english, just don't really see your point), but I'd like to say again that I'm talking about diversity, not about balance." Then why the hell you said this ? "Assymetrical balance also brought us THE FANTASTIC LOTV TvP. Where terran has absolutely no agressive options other than :" Why ? are you dodging your previous statement ? NO so fast. I agree terran will prepare for protoss's all kind of bullshit almost of the time but it doesn't mean terran option is limited.You saw alot terran player play standard doesn't mean terran can only always do that.Both has same early aggressive option,the different lied in timing.I already proved it and i count more than 3 ,Your move ? And please give me something more meaningful not "?"
Terran doesn't have a lot of good early aggressive options, but there are a few ones I have seen work quite well. Widow mine drops or rather plain marine move outs. And on specific maps like Ulrena there are clearly more options.
I personally feel the matchup is quite fun if you survive the early game stage against Protoss, but at that stage Protoss can do whatever they want without strategical considerations. That's really the part that annoys me the most about the matchup, it's not that Protoss got tons of early options, but that the choices Protoss can make are not based on information gathered or assumed gameplay. Units like oracles or warp prisms are balanced in a way that you can play them no matter what in the early game, but you also can open without them no matter what. You can pylon rush ramps and just breaks even. You can DT drop and with warp prism range pick up it only comes down to your own execution. Basically all the Protoss builds come down to Protoss execution and regardless how you prepare, as Terran you can never get an advantage unless the Protoss makes a mistake (while constantly being under the threat of losing the game or falling behind if you make a mistake or he just got a lucky BO-interaction).
On March 11 2016 00:49 Big J wrote: Terran doesn't have a lot of good early aggressive options, but there are a few ones I have seen work quite well. Widow mine drops or rather plain marine move outs. And on specific maps like Ulrena there are clearly more options.
I personally feel the matchup is quite fun if you survive the early game stage against Protoss, but at that stage Protoss can do whatever they want without strategical considerations. That's really the part that annoys me the most about the matchup, it's not that Protoss got tons of early options, but that the choices Protoss can make are not based on information gathered or assumed gameplay. Units like oracles or warp prisms are balanced in a way that you can play them no matter what in the early game, but you also can open without them no matter what. You can pylon rush ramps and just breaks even. You can DT drop and with warp prism range pick up it only comes down to your own execution. Basically all the Protoss builds come down to Protoss execution and regardless how you prepare, as Terran you can never get an advantage unless the Protoss makes a mistake (while constantly being under the threat of losing the game or falling behind if you make a mistake or he just got a lucky BO-interaction).
You described it very well. To take the example of the widowminedrop: If i go widowmine drop and it fails i am somehow behind (even without losing the medivac and units). And this is how it should be for all races. one programer said "as protoss you always got a second chance". But i dont want to say that it is imbalanced it is just mentally stressfull to know you have to defend strat x perfectly to get a even game. And it takes longer to master the followups to all strats protoss can send at you than choosing one of these strats as protoss and master it. I think thats why the top tier terrans do so much better than the european pro terrans.
Terran doesn't have a lot of good early aggressive options, but there are a few ones I have seen work quite well. Widow mine drops or rather plain marine move outs.
Widow mine drops are just easily denied by 4-5 stalkers in one base and mothership core in another base + decent map awareness. Double overcharge can kill both widow mines before any of them fire. Thus, it should do absolutely nothing and its not worth it if you sacrifice your own economy or do an unsafe build.
Terran early game aggression can only work if the protoss player goes tech heavy which means he sacrifices the unit count and thus has a harder time dealing with harass.
I personally feel the matchup is quite fun if you survive the early game stage against Protoss, but at that stage Protoss can do whatever they want without strategical considerations.
Post Adept nerf, Protoss really doesn't have that strong game-ending tools either. DT + warp prism is the only exception I guess. The difference is though that protoss has more viable and low-risk harass options.
Overall the matchup is improved quite a lot. My biggest complaint is Tempests late game. A liberator nerf would provide an excellent oppotunity to either give terran a counter tool (like make Cyclone or Thors deal with it) or redesign/nerf it.
But i dont want to say that it is imbalanced it is just mentally stressfull to know you have to defend strat x perfectly to get a even game.
What exact build is it that's even remotely difficult to survive against as terran in TvP?
Terran doesn't have a lot of good early aggressive options, but there are a few ones I have seen work quite well. Widow mine drops or rather plain marine move outs.
Widow mine drops are just easily denied by 4-5 stalkers in one base and mothership core in another base + decent map awareness. The drop play should do absolutely nothing and its not worth it if you sacrifice your own economy or do an unsafe build.
But that is how commited aggression before setting up properly should work out, if the opponent is aware of the situation and prepares properly as you explain (you don't have 4-5 stalkers randomly being positioned against drops).
As I said, what bothers me is that the other way around it is often not the case.
But that is how commited aggression before setting up properly should work out, if the opponent is aware of the situation and prepares properly as you explain (you don't have 4-5 stalkers randomly being positioned against drops).
Why not? Terran cannot move out on the map if he goes 1/1/1. And toss can see if terran opens gas or not. If he opens, it's very unlikely he will go for a 3 rax pressure. And even then toss can always scout that with observer.
So there is no reason for Stalkers to actually not be defending your bases preemptively.
Anyway, I thought abit about the changes I would like to see in next patch. While I ideally would redesign alot of the units in the game, I try to be much more realistic in terms of the changes that actually could happen.
Zerg - Ravager damage vs. structures removed.
Protoss - Disruptor cost reduced to 150/125 from 150/150 - Disruptor bonus damage vs shield reduced to 25 from 55 - 1 second delay on Pylon overcharge before it activates Terran - Liberator range nerfed to 4 or 4.5 from 5 - Thor damage increased to 6 +6 vs. massive & light from 6 +6 vs light - Thor AA ranged increased to 11 from 10 - Thor ground damage reduced to 30 from 25 - Siege tank medivac unload delay increased by 100% - Siege tank attack cooldown reduced to 2.6 from 2.8
Intention of changes Protoss will benefit from Ravager nerf as zerg timing attacks will be much weaker. Disruptors are buffed vs zerg/terran while somewhat unchanged vs toss. The delay on Pylon overcharge adds for more counterplay and is an overall nerf in denying early game harass.
Liberators are generally weaker, but Thor can function as a counter to late game units such as BC's, Tempests, Carriers and Broodlords. That will make bio + liberators + thors stronger + also be benefical for mech play. To prevent the Thor from being too good overall, its now weaker vs ground units.
Siege tank change makes it better to move siege tanks around without medivacs, and instead siege tanks will function better as a positional unit due to being more cost efficient. The micro potential is still there though.
Unresolved issues An issue that isn't adressed with these changes is Zerg overlord drops vs zerg. Not sure what the best course of action is there. Perhaps it needs to be lair tech. Further, perhaps Banshee's could use some tweaks (like lower gas cost, more accessible speed research). Stalkers could also use a buff vs Muta's in my opinion.
From the standpoint of the players... it seems like a lot of the more important changes are taking so long because Blizzard now has two things to consider:
a) does this change increase balance overall? b) does this change make the game more exciting to watch?
I get frustrated because sometimes it seems like they place too much emphasis on how fun/action packed a particular change will make the game look vs actually focusing on balance and improving the playability/fun of the game.
Though, now that I'm thinking about it, making the game more fun probably makes it more watchable as well.
In regards to the how poorly terrans are doing in the European scene. Terran is probably the most micro intensive race. There aren't any REALLY good Terran players outside of Korea (only notables contenders are Marinelord and uThermal). However, the strongest players in Europe just happens to be zergs.
you know what could be a good idea, im not sure how blizz playtest their stuff and im pretty sure noone but the dev team knows the ideas the had at design stage, every fortnight why dont they post a HAVE YOU TRIED: for eg, fast ling drop into 8 roach rush or something like that (i know this is stupid but something they have seen in their testing to let other people play a 1000 more games with it than they ever could)
just my idea ,the game still seems to be shifting all over the place on the streams im watching but at the same time i dont mind new changes to keep the game more isnteresting
Have to admit that I will miss Siege tank pick up abuse early game vs zerg. God its fun, and zerg players apparently doesn't understand they should be getting alot of queens out as a response.
When they came up with the tankivac everyone said it would change the nature of the siege tank and would create very obnoxious harassment and would make TvT even less positional
To be fair, it's not that simple. TvT tank + marine isn't less positional than it was in HOTS. However, the issue is that it makes it much harder to control the units, which significantly raises the learning barrier, and opportunites for a ton of small mistakes that costs you the game.
And from their perspective, if they nerfed Siege tank pick up, Ravagers would be overpowered; hence they needed to be sure that Ravagers should be nerfed as well.
I can see how siege tanks need the defensive mobility the medivac gives them in a game where corrosive bile exists, but the effects still were predicted very early on.
But I just get very depressed following DK's design decisions, because it always feels so lazy, shallow and reactive, and whenever I read anything he writes I despair at the inconsistencies and lack of logic. It's kinda like you're in a relationship with someone for many years and despite them having many positive qualities you eventually realize that deep down you really just don't like and respect them. It's not an immediate judgment, and it is difficult to explain, but it is a feeling which becomes overwhelming over time.
It is so apparent to me that you can virtually never take DK at face value and that all his decisions are at heart confused and misguided, even if the damage is mitigated by his professional skills and inertia of the design process. The fact that whatever he writes is muddled by PR considerations makes it even more unintelligible. There are so many things in SC2 that could have and should have been done better, and not just in retrospect. If you or I can predict negative consequences of design decisions then Blizzard should also be able to, and more, they should be able to fix them before they become problematic. If Blizzard is incapable of this (which they often are), then their designers do not meet the standards I expect of them, ergo DK's analytical skills are not adequate for his position. *mutters*
The thing is, he was originally just a player, then a balancer... not a designer. But they started putting design decisions in his hands... They started blurring the liens between the two. While the two should at times work together to come up with a solution, in the end they should be completely separated, as design should be set as a priority THEN balancing work can take place. The balance must be applied in the framework of the design, not the other way around.
But as you stated, much (most?) of it is PR. These reasons we're being given in most circumstances aren't even what's really going on. You can find many examples of them bending the truth, or just straight up not telling the truth, at least when it comes to the dev team behind this game.
To the earlier posts saying hes a "9.5/10" game designer... By what standards or credentials??? He was only a CS major with no design history when he was hired by Blizzard for balancing. He has no actual game design history or credentials, and many of the decisions he makes are straight up rookie mistakes in software development (not even getting in to game design, where he admits to choosing inferior design decisions).
I don't even think his analytical skills are the problem. He's just not an actual designer so he's chasing the wrong carrot for solutions, instead of sticking to what he's good at, which is balancing the numbers.
afaik David Kim has a bachelor in CS and he worked at balancing Dawn of War before being hired by Blizzard. I think that for a long time Blizzard has been in a position where they do not have to hire people without experience in the industry. For instance, multiple members of the SC2 team have their roots in C&C games. Because it was obvious that they needed someone to balance Starcraft II, Blizzard looked around and discovered two people with previous experience balancing a well received multiplayer RTS game in David Kim and Matt Cooper, maybe the only two people in the world with this background.
By the way, I don't think that being the lead multiplayer designer for Starcraft 2 for the latter half of the development taxes one's creative ability that much, especially if you take into account the community feedback and suggestions that arise and can substitute for original ideas. If you think of a spectrum ranging from on one end: creative, artistic and intuitive temperament and on the other hand rigorous, analytical, logical temperament, then I'm sure that the role of balance designer draws heavily on skills and mindsets associated with the latter end of the spectrum. For instance, I've often thought that Blizzard should pick a random person with a PhD in theoretical physics to balance their games. And maybe that's slightly excessive, but at least it proves high analytical ability.
He has a balancing history, not a design history, and those subjects are entirely different. And he has shown the ability to do the balancing job fairly well - he can get the numbers to statistically be narrow enough variance to be acceptable on a pro level.
But since he is not a designer, the question of "fun" does not come in to play. He may know how to balance it statistically, but that does not mean he is able to make the game "fun" to play, nor does it mean the game will "feel" balanced. That's the downfall of balancing solely on statistics, when "fun" is not one of the statistics involved.
That's been the problem with DK in his increased roles. At the times that the game was most statistically balanced, there was the most discontent, as the game was not FUN during those phases because it did not FEEL fair.
His glaring weakness in design comes from the fact that he is not directing the ship. Sure, he may be altering the course based around feedback, but without moving towards any sort of planned destination, changing the direction is meaningless.
A designers job is to make sure the software has a direction, and all of the changes have a very specific meaning in the bigger picture. Not simply because it's "cool" or "fun to watch". It should be "fun to play", and fit in to the bigger picture of where they want StarCraft 2 to be a year and further in to the future.
He has shown absolutely no plan as to where he wants to bring the series in to the future. If he did, then people might be willing to put up with phases of the game not feeling satisfactory, as it is simply growing pains while transitioning to the final destination that will be much better in the end.
But he doesn't have a plan. Hell, he doesn't even know what he wants to do with anything he has mentioned in the community updates lately. He doesn't know what to do with medivac - balance-wise or design wise. These types of mechanics would be very easy to make a decision if there was a direction plotted out, as you can simply say "does this mechanic fit what we want SC2 to be in the future?". But without that, it comes down to whether its "cool" or "fun to watch" - things that a designer should NOT be putting ahead of whether the game is FUN or not.
He can say how he thinks it's "cool" that 9 different map types offers various type of gameplay. But what is his plan on balancing around that? He hasn't even stated a balance perspective on that. It's common knowledge that maps favor certain races, and BW has proven maps have a drastic enough effect on balance that you can balance the game simply on maps alone. But you can't do that with 9 different archetypes of maps like the image they showed recently! Will it be statistically acceptable to him if Zerg is OP on some maps but weak on other, as long as it totals 50% win in the end?? Does anyone think that will be well-received by players at all? Or that it will feel fair that player have to gamble with map choice, and have that in the back of their mind if they lose a tournament due to a map they are weak on?
Something like balancing numbers of units, or making gateway stronger vs bio - those type of things is where David Kim has shown some skill at. But many of the units in the game currently have severe design issues. Cyclone, SH, etc, even Hydra have had issues ever since WoL (except in ZvP). Those type of changes require the actual design to be changed to provide them more of a fitting purpose in the metagame.
All of these go beyond balance, in to design issues. That is not a place that David Kim has a history, nor has he shown any skill in that area. He can make a unit balanced, but he doesn't know how to make a unit fun. It needs to be fun, then you can balance it. If it's not fun without being OP, then there's a fundamental design issue.
He has only shown to be very good at balancing numbers and statistics. The person in charge of SC2 needs to be skilled in improving the design of the game... then let David Kim do his job with what he is given by the design lead. David Kim shouldn't be at the helm.
On March 09 2016 08:20 coolman123123 wrote: I think that when you don't seperate Bio and mech, every game will be 90% MMM with a few extra units splashed in. Just like protoss, there is no unique or differing strategies, just a ball of units consisting of varying amount of the same shit. No diversity.
??? You obviously have 0 clue what you are talking about.
This includes before and after the map changes, since it's a pain to filter them out right now and makes sample size a lot smaller.
3 of those maps within any reasonable margin for error. Zerg won 1.13x more overall.
Those extra wins disproportionately come from the three zerg favored maps where they're winning 1.34, 1.38 and 2x more
I'm interested in before/after stats for the maps if anyone has them
Completely agree btw. I should have stated, in the past he has shown he can be good with balancing numbers. But he has hardly done a damn thing in LotV. One of the reasons I'm so annoyed with them.
PvZ has also trended downwards when you compare this month to the 3 before it (with the "good" protoss maps falling in winrate and the bad ones staying bad) despite the map changes and more time to let the matchup stabilize
seeing stats like this everywhere & the worst race distribution in the history of sc2 alongside comments such as
Obviously, if there is a clear balance issue, we would definitely have to address it, but
is just infuriating. This hasn't sprung up out of nowhere. We're been on Legacy for a year and live servers for 4 months. Lowering the corrosive bile damage, leaving the map pool the same and then re-evaluating in another 2 months is not just insufficient but wrong and it feels wrong to sit back and watch this continue to happen
@ code S PvZ, 11 of the 15 games are on dusk towers, seras and a non-ladder map - it's obvious why. Central is not even in the pool
Well as someone who has done nothing but watch starcraft 2 be played since the middle of WoL here are my thoughts as a spectator: - Siege Tanks: I think they are really trying too hard with this.. I think the idea of forcing a reversion to tank mode makes way more sense than these dumb delays and all this other junk. I don't get why they are stuck on this idea of having the transform time match the pickup revert time. It's stupid and really this game hasn't given a crap about real world logic in the longest time. Who cares if the default or preferred method of getting a tank out of siege mode is a medivac? The transformation time is one of the major sticking points to the unit, and I doubt many players who have to play against them are going to overly complain about the lost 4 seconds it takes the unit to transform one way. Seriously that is an eternity, in this game. Not to mention adding a delay hasn't taken into fact that after the tank is dropped its damned TURRET also has to turn to lock onto a target even before it fires. If the pick up is to be in the game at all then just make it a defensive usage. People want to save their tanks, and everyone else is saying the tank drop is too powerful. This is a fine middle ground, and at some point you as a company need to get over this whole idea of "yeah but it's COOL" if you want people to take SC seriously. You literally have two other units in the game that were designed to do what you're forcing the tank to do. Use them.
- Mech Viability: seems like MAYBE this would have been good to nail down BEFORE you released your game? Like that this should have been on a white board and many hours hashed out over this. So now at this point we have to decide whether this is a thing we want and what the pro's and con's are and bla bla bla. The honest truth is you blizzard don't want this, and have never wanted it. Pick a damned side and just stick with it already. Stop waffling. The truth is for mech to be viable you're going to make a butt ton of changes to it and revert some changes to bio so THAT matters more again, especially considering all of the new units Terran has are mech and air. Nothing bio has right now is designed to deal with any of this new crap effectively, and is even worse off than they were in previous games. So make a choice. Let's not have discussion on this thing we've been discussing for a decade. Want that, go dig on the forums.
Most of the changes done in LOTV counter any attempt to build a lot of siege tanks. Between adept shade, disruptor outranging the tank (rofl), ravagers, and liberator, I suppose we're never gonna see anyone build more than 8 siege tanks.
Why not. I don't really mind. But as KaZeFenrir said, Blizzard can't say "yeah mech viability is somehting we think about", and then say "should we really split mech and bio again?" (a statement, which as I previously explained, makes no sense whatsoever since there was no bio/mech merging in LOTV), all of this while actively killing WOL/HOTS mech.
So yeah, thor/cyclone buffs might give way for a new kind of mech. Of course, siege tank would still have a central place in mech play, but maybe not as dominant as before. Why not, the important thing is to give back to terrans their other core army option, therefore giving units that don't synergise with bio new uses. However, if DK's next update is "yeah guys so we increased thor and cyclone move speed and gave them a jump ability to HARASS LOL", that'd be even worse. Keeping in mind the "slow but powerful" aspect of mech should be a priority.
On March 11 2016 08:35 Spyridon wrote: He has shown absolutely no plan as to where he wants to bring the series in to the future. If he did, then people might be willing to put up with phases of the game not feeling satisfactory, as it is simply growing pains while transitioning to the final destination that will be much better in the end.
But he doesn't have a plan. Hell, he doesn't even know what he wants to do with anything he has mentioned in the community updates lately. He doesn't know what to do with medivac - balance-wise or design wise. These types of mechanics would be very easy to make a decision if there was a direction plotted out, as you can simply say "does this mechanic fit what we want SC2 to be in the future?". But without that, it comes down to whether its "cool" or "fun to watch" - things that a designer should NOT be putting ahead of whether the game is FUN or not.
He can say how he thinks it's "cool" that 9 different map types offers various type of gameplay. But what is his plan on balancing around that? He hasn't even stated a balance perspective on that. It's common knowledge that maps favor certain races, and BW has proven maps have a drastic enough effect on balance that you can balance the game simply on maps alone. But you can't do that with 9 different archetypes of maps like the image they showed recently! Will it be statistically acceptable to him if Zerg is OP on some maps but weak on other, as long as it totals 50% win in the end?? Does anyone think that will be well-received by players at all? Or that it will feel fair that player have to gamble with map choice, and have that in the back of their mind if they lose a tournament due to a map they are weak on?
Something like balancing numbers of units, or making gateway stronger vs bio - those type of things is where David Kim has shown some skill at. But many of the units in the game currently have severe design issues. Cyclone, SH, etc, even Hydra have had issues ever since WoL (except in ZvP). Those type of changes require the actual design to be changed to provide them more of a fitting purpose in the metagame.
All of these go beyond balance, in to design issues. That is not a place that David Kim has a history, nor has he shown any skill in that area. He can make a unit balanced, but he doesn't know how to make a unit fun. It needs to be fun, then you can balance it. If it's not fun without being OP, then there's a fundamental design issue.
He has only shown to be very good at balancing numbers and statistics. The person in charge of SC2 needs to be skilled in improving the design of the game... then let David Kim do his job with what he is given by the design lead. David Kim shouldn't be at the helm.
your complaint about being directionless is all apart of the Blizzard philosophy of total anarchy and confusion. Hence their chosen names Chaos Studios and Blizzard Entertainment. People are great a ripping to shreds every form of communication DK creates. The rob pardo method is to not communicate at all. Blizzard's chaotic development methods are vulnerable to harsh criticism and Pardo's decision to keep the lid shut was a good one.
how much of a design background does Greg Black have? how much design background did Pardo have when he started with Blizzard? Blizzard is great at recognizing and nurturing game design talent. if he were Jay-Wilson-bad then David Kim would be long gone. The fact they keep giving him more responsibility shows me 2 things. He is "good enough" and their primary focus not on the RTS genre.
there is no money to pay a guy of Pardo's calibre to work on the game. so David Kim is what we get and he just ain't as good as Rob Pardo and no amount of complaining is going to change that fact. SC/RTS is Blizzard's #6 priority .. the franchise is 18 years old and has yet to generate a billion dollars.
Look for Blizzard's next big exploration/investment into the SC Universe to be outside of the PC-RTS genre.
in conclusion, i'm having a lot of fun with the game and i love how fast it is compared to HotS and WoL. I think DK did a very good job with LotV multiplayer and some ballsy changes. I don't think he is as good as Pardo though.
On March 11 2016 08:35 Spyridon wrote: He has shown absolutely no plan as to where he wants to bring the series in to the future. If he did, then people might be willing to put up with phases of the game not feeling satisfactory, as it is simply growing pains while transitioning to the final destination that will be much better in the end.
But he doesn't have a plan. Hell, he doesn't even know what he wants to do with anything he has mentioned in the community updates lately. He doesn't know what to do with medivac - balance-wise or design wise. These types of mechanics would be very easy to make a decision if there was a direction plotted out, as you can simply say "does this mechanic fit what we want SC2 to be in the future?". But without that, it comes down to whether its "cool" or "fun to watch" - things that a designer should NOT be putting ahead of whether the game is FUN or not.
He can say how he thinks it's "cool" that 9 different map types offers various type of gameplay. But what is his plan on balancing around that? He hasn't even stated a balance perspective on that. It's common knowledge that maps favor certain races, and BW has proven maps have a drastic enough effect on balance that you can balance the game simply on maps alone. But you can't do that with 9 different archetypes of maps like the image they showed recently! Will it be statistically acceptable to him if Zerg is OP on some maps but weak on other, as long as it totals 50% win in the end?? Does anyone think that will be well-received by players at all? Or that it will feel fair that player have to gamble with map choice, and have that in the back of their mind if they lose a tournament due to a map they are weak on?
Something like balancing numbers of units, or making gateway stronger vs bio - those type of things is where David Kim has shown some skill at. But many of the units in the game currently have severe design issues. Cyclone, SH, etc, even Hydra have had issues ever since WoL (except in ZvP). Those type of changes require the actual design to be changed to provide them more of a fitting purpose in the metagame.
All of these go beyond balance, in to design issues. That is not a place that David Kim has a history, nor has he shown any skill in that area. He can make a unit balanced, but he doesn't know how to make a unit fun. It needs to be fun, then you can balance it. If it's not fun without being OP, then there's a fundamental design issue.
He has only shown to be very good at balancing numbers and statistics. The person in charge of SC2 needs to be skilled in improving the design of the game... then let David Kim do his job with what he is given by the design lead. David Kim shouldn't be at the helm.
your complaint about being directionless is all apart of the Blizzard philosophy of total anarchy and confusion. Hence their chosen names Chaos Studios and Blizzard Entertainment. People are great a ripping to shreds every form of communication DK creates. The rob pardo method is to not communicate at all. Blizzard's chaotic development methods are vulnerable to harsh criticism and Pardo's decision to keep the lid shut was a good one.
how much of a design background does Greg Black have? how much design background did Pardo have when he started with Blizzard? Blizzard is great at recognizing and nurturing game design talent. if he were Jay-Wilson-bad he'd be long gone.
there is no money to pay a guy of Pardo's calibre to work on the game. so David Kim is what we get and he just ain't as good as Rob Pardo and no amount of complaining is going to change that fact. SC/RTS is Blizzard's #6 priority .. the franchise is 18 years old and has yet to generate a billion dollars.
Look for Blizzard's next big exploration/investment into the SC Universe to be outside of the PC-RTS genre.
First off, Jay Wilson isn't gone, he was moved to another project which is still unannounced.
Second, their name has no indication of how their business actually performs.
Third, yeah Blizzard has had some great designers in the past. And they lived up to expectations. What expectations has DK lived up to?
Noone wants to change the fact - noone can change DK. But if you could plainly see DK simply is not very good, then management should also be able to see this, and should take steps to correct the problem.
You keep saying the franchise has yet to generate a billion (which can't even be proven), but keep leaving out the fact that if you consider their eSports performance rather than their sales figures alone, they have generated well over a billion.
Regardless, SC2 alone has made hundreds of millions of dollars. They can easily hire a designer worth a damn if they decided to.
On March 11 2016 08:35 Spyridon wrote: He has shown absolutely no plan as to where he wants to bring the series in to the future. If he did, then people might be willing to put up with phases of the game not feeling satisfactory, as it is simply growing pains while transitioning to the final destination that will be much better in the end.
But he doesn't have a plan. Hell, he doesn't even know what he wants to do with anything he has mentioned in the community updates lately. He doesn't know what to do with medivac - balance-wise or design wise. These types of mechanics would be very easy to make a decision if there was a direction plotted out, as you can simply say "does this mechanic fit what we want SC2 to be in the future?". But without that, it comes down to whether its "cool" or "fun to watch" - things that a designer should NOT be putting ahead of whether the game is FUN or not.
He can say how he thinks it's "cool" that 9 different map types offers various type of gameplay. But what is his plan on balancing around that? He hasn't even stated a balance perspective on that. It's common knowledge that maps favor certain races, and BW has proven maps have a drastic enough effect on balance that you can balance the game simply on maps alone. But you can't do that with 9 different archetypes of maps like the image they showed recently! Will it be statistically acceptable to him if Zerg is OP on some maps but weak on other, as long as it totals 50% win in the end?? Does anyone think that will be well-received by players at all? Or that it will feel fair that player have to gamble with map choice, and have that in the back of their mind if they lose a tournament due to a map they are weak on?
Something like balancing numbers of units, or making gateway stronger vs bio - those type of things is where David Kim has shown some skill at. But many of the units in the game currently have severe design issues. Cyclone, SH, etc, even Hydra have had issues ever since WoL (except in ZvP). Those type of changes require the actual design to be changed to provide them more of a fitting purpose in the metagame.
All of these go beyond balance, in to design issues. That is not a place that David Kim has a history, nor has he shown any skill in that area. He can make a unit balanced, but he doesn't know how to make a unit fun. It needs to be fun, then you can balance it. If it's not fun without being OP, then there's a fundamental design issue.
He has only shown to be very good at balancing numbers and statistics. The person in charge of SC2 needs to be skilled in improving the design of the game... then let David Kim do his job with what he is given by the design lead. David Kim shouldn't be at the helm.
your complaint about being directionless is all apart of the Blizzard philosophy of total anarchy and confusion. Hence their chosen names Chaos Studios and Blizzard Entertainment. People are great a ripping to shreds every form of communication DK creates. The rob pardo method is to not communicate at all. Blizzard's chaotic development methods are vulnerable to harsh criticism and Pardo's decision to keep the lid shut was a good one.
how much of a design background does Greg Black have? how much design background did Pardo have when he started with Blizzard? Blizzard is great at recognizing and nurturing game design talent. if he were Jay-Wilson-bad he'd be long gone.
there is no money to pay a guy of Pardo's calibre to work on the game. so David Kim is what we get and he just ain't as good as Rob Pardo and no amount of complaining is going to change that fact. SC/RTS is Blizzard's #6 priority .. the franchise is 18 years old and has yet to generate a billion dollars.
Look for Blizzard's next big exploration/investment into the SC Universe to be outside of the PC-RTS genre.
First off, Jay Wilson isn't gone, he was moved to another project which is still unannounced.
Second, their name has no indication of how their business actually performs.
Third, yeah Blizzard has had some great designers in the past. And they lived up to expectations. What expectations has DK lived up to?
Noone wants to change the fact - noone can change DK. But if you could plainly see DK simply is not very good, then management should also be able to see this, and should take steps to correct the problem.
You keep saying the franchise has yet to generate a billion (which can't even be proven), but keep leaving out the fact that if you consider their eSports performance rather than their sales figures alone, they have generated well over a billion.
Regardless, SC2 alone has made hundreds of millions of dollars. They can easily hire a designer worth a damn if they decided to.
easily? not according to every Blizz employee i've ever talked to. top notch design talent is very hard to find and they are very picky. its easy to say everything is easy in a forum post though.
ATVI measures their revenue in Billions and LotV has zero chance of making $0.1 Billion.
you want to get into semantics.. Jay Wilson is no longer the designer of Diablo3. if you are a good employee you get promoted and given more responsibility and Blizzard knows how nurture and promote talent.
the RTS genre has made negligable cash over 20+ years and its not a high priority.
On March 12 2016 01:28 Spyridon wrote: You keep saying the franchise has yet to generate a billion (which can't even be proven), but keep leaving out the fact that if you consider their eSports performance rather than their sales figures alone, they have generated well over a billion.
ATVI twisted every # in every way possible to make that big billion dollar announcement. The retail price of every stupid plastic figurine was included to hit that billion dollar mark.
SC2 hit what? 6 million in sales? Brood War? 7 million of its sales occurred at a heavily discounted price years after the games release.
no where near a billion dollars guy.
SC2-eSports is a giant money loser which is why each year Blizzard scales back the size of the GSL and WCS. Handing out all that free Pizza gets expensive after a while.
EPT![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CM809rKWoAAiV0C.jpg)
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