We’ve arrived at a point where we want to work with you guys to lock down changes regarding the ladder revamp and begin work on the implementation side. We have been discussing more based on you previous feedback in a similar post, and have been making improvements as we started implementing the feature little by little. Now we’re at the stage where the overall design looks very solid, and we want to focus on doing the implementation. So we’ll review where we are at now, collect your feedback, and finalize our direction.
GM League
Currently, we’re thinking that the best way to go is to update Grandmaster League with new players, promotions, and demotions each day at a specified time—all based strictly on skill. We see two main advantages to this approach. First, we can have an accurate, skill-based representation of the best 200 players on the server on any given day. Second, it also makes things clearer on the esports side, especially if tournaments pull from this list. As an added bonus, we also like that this could promote more intense competition during this period of the day (though mostly for just this specific group of top players).
Showing MMR
This is something we’ve received the most feedback on and we’ve been exploring the concept heavily internally. Currently, we’re leaning towards clearly displaying your MMR in the UI. The more we dug into the topic of making the ranks, divisions, and leagues as accurate as possible, the more we realized that there were other potential problems that we could have introduced. Since we have the MMR available already, we think it might be best to just show it as the most accurate measurement of a player’s skill.
League & Tier
In developing the new League & Tier system, the main concern was that achieving a high-degree of accuracy required that we enable mid-season demotions. Although we know that there are many players out there who want to see demotions enabled, we believe this feedback mostly stems from the fact that there currently isn’t a reliable way to tell your skill right now. The downside of enabling demotions is that we could potentially take away from a players’ biggest accomplishment that season; this downside is magnified if it’s their first time getting to a specific league, which may make the person not want to play the game anymore due to the risk of losing this reward.
Because we will be showing MMR, we wonder if it’s best to have the ranking system display the highest League & Tier achieved during the current season. There’s really no need to show the same number two different ways, and we can show two cool numbers instead. This way, if I were to tell my friends that I’m in Master Tier 1, but my MMR is a solid Master Tier 2 (naming is not final), it clearly shows 1) the highest I’ve achieved this season and 2) where my skill is at the moment.
For the number of tiers, we’ve spent time analyzing and evaluating how the Heroes of the Storm system works because their 50 ranks would be very similar to our originally announced 10 tiers per league (we would have 60 tiers if we strip out the leagues). For StarCraft II, due to the amount of movement that would occur with having this many tiers, this system doesn’t look to be the way to go. So we debated on going with 5 tiers or 3 tiers, and we’re currently leaning towards 3 for a couple reasons.
First, talking about leagues in StarCraft II has naturally tended towards using 3 tiers. When players talk about where they are at within a league, perhaps the most common way to refer to the tiers currently is to say that he or she is in “High Diamond,” “Mid Diamond,” or “Low Diamond.” So colloquially, this fits well with how players already discuss the ladder. The second reason is that we can always increase the number of tiers available in the future if 3 is not enough. Going from 3 to 5 or 3 to 10 would be easier than doing the reverse, which means we don’t need to remove functionality from the system.
This is where we’re at currently, and as you can see we’ve narrowed in on the most critical components of Ladder Revamp. If you have thoughts on these areas, we’d ask that we get discussions going so that we can lock down the design. We’re currently aiming to finalize the design of this feature within the next couple weeks, and are potentially aiming for a mid- to late-summer release in order to have enough time to fully work through the implementation.
Separate MMR Per Race
We hear your feedback regarding this feature. We had originally set the priority for this to come after ladder revamp, but we’re currently exploring ways to potentially get started on this feature even sooner. Although we haven’t set an exact timeline, we just wanted to let you know that we agree that this feature is important to the game and we’re discussing ways to release it more quickly. We’ll be sure to keep everyone updated!
Balance
Moving onto balance in Legacy of the Void, we’ve been discussing and testing various topics and we want to get a Balance Test Map out as soon as possible after hearing your opinions on our proposed changes for testing. We’re currently aiming to release the Balance Test Map next week, so let’s start discussing the following changes more aggressively this weekend.
Ravager Corrosive Bile cooldown increased from 10 to 14
We definitely hear the pros and cons you’ve discussed that nerfing Overlord drops instead could bring. The reason why we’re more interested in the Ravager nerf being tested is because it is the more impactful, bigger nerf. The main concern many of our community members point out (especially on the KR side) is that this change is a nerf against both Terran and Protoss, whereas nerfing Overlord drops is targeted more as a nerf vs. Protoss. This is true. To be clear—we’re not saying that we have to be going the Ravager nerf route—we just want to test this one first.
Therefore, before we make a decision on what unit to nerf, we wanted to test this concept out fully to know the effects of this change in both matchups. The Overlord drop nerf doesn’t require as much testing because it’s a very safe nerf that can’t really break another area of the game.
Banshee speed upgrade requirement changed to Armory and cost reduced to 100/100
Due to the current state of the Banshees, we wanted to try going more aggressive with this change, so that we can potentially bring various Banshee-based strategies back into the mix. We know from testing before the release of the game that the speed upgrade at a much earlier tier is a huge buff to Terran, and we wanted to make sure to combo this with a nerf in a similar area so that we make sure to not just buff Terran.
Liberator ability radius reduction from 5 to 4
After going through the details of reducing the range of the ability and hearing your feedback on the current strength of Liberators, we thought it might be better to go a bit harder on this nerf so that we can also go heavier on the Banshee buff, so that we can potentially get situations where going one or the other unit can be viable instead of it being Liberators all the time. With this change, the total range of Liberators will be nerfed, as well as the damaging area. We hope this change feels more fitting, and once we get the Balance Test Map online we’d love your opinions on how these changes feel.
Thor AA damage changed to flat and single target
We’re still looking at numbers for this, but we’re thinking something similar to the idea of the Thor’s damage against the ground: High damage per shot with a low rate of fire. With this change, we wonder if we can separate out the Thor’s AA role from units such as the Widow Mine or the Liberator. We considered whether this could overlap with the Viking, and although there will be more overlap than before, there are still many differences between the two units. Between the many obvious differences, the Thor’s resistance to splash damage, and their different flat damage values, the two units will still be in unique places.
Cyclone
We’ve also been testing different numbers for the Cyclone, but we feel that a change to this unit isn’t as critical right now compared to the other unit changes mentioned above, so it might be better to hold off on exploring this route for now. The main goal here is still to eventually get the unit to a place where it has a solid role in the early/mid stages of the game, but not be effective en masse in the late game.
Ravager Corrosive Bile cooldown increased from 10 to 14
We definitely hear the pros and cons you’ve discussed that nerfing Overlord drops instead could bring. The reason why we’re more interested in the Ravager nerf being tested is because it is the more impactful, bigger nerf. The main concern many of our community members point out (especially on the KR side) is that this change is a nerf against both Terran and Protoss, whereas nerfing Overlord drops is targeted more as a nerf vs. Protoss.
Terrible idea IMO. Corrosive Bile cooldown seems - to me - to be much more important in ZvT than in ZvP.
Corrosive bile is not relevant at the time where protoss struggles the most - before having time to stabilize with warpgate research done and multiple photon overcharges available.
Ravagers are central in ZvT armies to deal with siege tanks and liberators while also controlling space and zerg is not ahead in that matchup.
Because of this it feels like this change is going out of your way to nerf a core unit because of an imbalance in another matchup where it's used less and is less important. This has the potential to break ZvT while not having the desired effects on ZvP.
I'm very worried about what quicker/cheaper to get, faster banshees will do to the ZvT match up and whether that will pin zerg to going spire every game or risk never killing banshees. Four second increase in corrosive bile cooldown isn't nearly as bad as I thought they'd do so that's good.
They should really work on protoss, design and balance wise. Why do they keep ignoring protoss? Especially PvZ. Changing zerg is not the solution, changing drops will just make zvz and zvt worse. Increasing the cooldown on bile a bit will not help. Change protoss.Give them more options.
One or more of these things: Make warpgate come sooner, buff zealots, buff stalkers (global, or only their AA). Make sentries useful again, like giving them shield battery option maybe? At least some reason to build them again that synergizes well with (gateway) units. Anything.
The cyclone could fit the AA role just right with a redesign. The thor will never be a reliable good unit because it's so big, clunky, slow and expensive. Nor is the widow mine reliable for obvious reasons.
That liberator change is what I was hoping for. Now, to prepare a hellbat/speed banshee all-in BO. Honestly the banshee buff doesn't sound like a good idea, but the liberator nerf sounds like a really good plan (I already talked about reducing the radius in a previous update thread).
Would like a word on liberator AA though, it's scary good.
compensating the liberator nerf with a banshee buff reminds me of their attempt of compensating the wm nerf with a tank buff. Banshees will never be used with bio play outside of the early game because you need reactored starports for medivacs (no techlabs) and because banshees don't add anything to your army. They are useless in army vs army fights if the opponent has AA and for harassment you already have liberators and bio drops which are equally effective. Really doesn't sound like a well thought out change.
I also don't like the thor change because it will make it useless vs mutas.
Oh yeah, and I would like them to finally address the point that Protoss has to go phoenix against Zerg every game without deviation if they want to play a macro game.
My beef is that Banshee are just too fast with the banshee speed. It's like mutalisk with cloack with 6 range... OP as hell if you ask me. They were a complete nightmare to deal with in the beta until they were promptly struck with the nerf bat.
How about if your buffing Banshees to force Zerg into Spire every game you lower Liberator AA splash so they don't totally rofl stomp Mutalisks, Queens will do little to nothing against speed Banshees so Spire is going to once again be the go to build vs. Terran.
Buffing air units in this game just kind of seems like a bad move anyways, it always leads into turtling.
The Cyclone news sucks as well, seems the balance team is lost on the unit and doesn't really give a shit if it's viable or not, same with the Swarm Host for that matter, 2 new units that see borderline no usage and David's response is, "Not a critical issue" just doesn't strike me as very appropriate.
I'm a little bit disturbed by the lack of Protoss' direct stuff like Disruptor's dmg change and mass Muta threat/dynamic in PvZ . Overall this is a massive update with a lot of super cool changes!
The ladder revamp is a new quality that this game really needed imo.
---- EDIT:
Dear Blizzard,
- if you're addressing such an important thing as laddering system and you try to pressure players to play more and be better gamers, PLEASE do consider allowing us to pick an opponent's race under UNRANKED to enable an easy way to practice certain matchup.
- a "favoured opponent" checkbox could be nice too (unranked).
- why race's level is limited? would you consider unlocking it (infinite) and make the next level require, lets say, 50% of all points gained?
- thank you for finally fixing the Battle.net profile page! Please, make it more customizable though (Dota 2 has a nice approach to it)
- BUG REPORT: please make hotkeys locking system - i have my keys completely revamped and some arcade games can change those settings without any warning. A lot of stuff become unset which is terribly annoying.
I'm a bit disappointed there's nothing about the tank by the way. I think buffing the tank (and maybe looking into removing/changing the pickup) is a better compensatory change for the liberator nerf they intend to do. I'm all for the change, as I'd like the game to be less air centric and believe the liberator is a bit too good at what it does.
However, especially against Protoss, the only thing you could speed banshees for is harass. You can't use them to zone out Protoss units, which is one of the most important things liberators do. A buffed siege tank, meanwhile, could absolutely help zone out ground units if the liberator got nerfed.
so you plan to test 3 different balance options for Terran at a time. I feel that this would be to much to reliably judge on the results. First, Banshee Speed is a huge buff, but in the current Meta Banshees dont do much especially vs. Zerg because many opt for going Hydras and Lurkers. Second, Speed banshees aer really hard to control and are very useless in the core army, they need to fill a roll to smothen a mech transition better. Maybe if they get cloak by default and not as an upgrade they would ft this role better.
The liberator nerf on radius will nerf also its range so its not necessary to reduce also the range, but if it comes only with the speed buff for banshees than it feels overall more like a nerv than a buff for terran, as Liberators can be reactored. I feel that Liberators are vital vs. Zerg to counter Muta play and to have at least something against Ultras.
With the Thor change (i refuse to call it nerf or buff because it's both) I feel anxious, because Mutas are so good, that the AOE from the Thor seems vital in many situations while going mech to buy time. One can say Mines and Marines fill that role also, but both are really bad vs. a transition to ultralisks. Mines still do random damage, you can kill a pack of mutas, or Baneling but you can also get many marines with medivacs put in deep red or get them killed. The thor change will be a very potent buff in ZvT as a reliably safe counter play to mutas eliminated from the game. As terran you are forced then to play Mines and Marines or Liberators which feels counter intuitive to the banshee speed. as the starport is then occupied with building either Medivacs or Liberators.
On March 25 2016 03:37 Charoisaur wrote: compensating the liberator nerf with a banshee buff reminds me of their attempt of compensating the wm nerf with a tank buff. Banshees will never be used with bio play outside of the early game because you need reactored starports for medivacs (no techlabs) and because banshees don't add anything to your army. They are useless in army vs army fights if the opponent has AA and for harassment you already have liberators and bio drops which are equally effective. Really doesn't sound like a well thought out change.
I also don't like the thor change because it will make it useless vs mutas.
Ladder changes are nice.
The terran changes are mostly to buff mech and banshees have been a big part of mech since WoL
I don't want to be negative since people seem to be pretty positive about these changes.. but: Corrosive Bile is the only cool part of the Ravager and without it it's just an even more boring Roach that cannot do Burrow shenanigans and so I hate to see it go more down this route.
Liberator Zone should remain strong, you can nerf it's move speed and anti air, or make it Tech Lab requirement, but the Zoning is super cool and should remain strong.
Thor Single Target seems weird and I actually think it should have a bigger splash radius than Liberators, switching around the anti air attack of the Liberator and the Thor, apart from the range part, actually feels really nice.
Banshee could be made Reactor-able instead.
I mean I think/watch SC2 every day and I'm still not used to the Liberator it's just a weird unit, but this is not the answer.
The ladder changes are good, I approve of them overall. They should of happened a while ago, but better late than never. Also, I want to specifically talk about one of the balance changes. The liberator radius nerf is a mistake, it would likely result in Terran under performing like it did when the widow mine radius nerf happened and Terran didn't win a single tournament for 6 months. It would be far better to just do a range nerf to both the liberator's ATG pre-upgrade and post-upgrade. This is more of a mild nerf and it will weaken liberators, but also keep Terran competitive and balanced in the process.
Not really sure why they want to push back liberator useage and also especially plan to make banshees more popular. Liberators really feel like one of the better LOTV units and as mentioned above banshees and bio just doesn't synergize very well, because you have strong enough harras and rather need something for army vs army engagements. I wish they would express what role they have in mind for the liberator compared to other relevant terran units. Libs sure are a staple of Terrans current army compositions but I'm not sure how its a bad things. It's not like just massing them makes you win the game for sure.
I like the Banshee changes TBO. It's a very interesting unit that should see a lot more play.
The lib nerf is needed because it dominates everything Terran way to much.
Like i said before though, the Thor needs more range if it's to be a counter to armored air like BL or Tampests. It doesn't matter how much dmg it does when it can be kited to oblivion by a unit of the same cost, lower supply and more mobile and with the range advantage.
The Tanckvac still needs a nerf and the dmg a buff. Don't sweep the community feedback under the rug. Get to work!
So what are we supposed to build against mass Hellbat Thor now? Thor can'thave both insane air and ground damage and be complimented perfectly by a unit that comes from the same structure and costs no gas.
Maybe when we see numbers I can balance whine more. But I don't like that they're fundamentally ruining the game based on Avilo's whining.
This idea that the factory needs to have some sort of high single target damage AA is a crutch for lazy play, and an excuse to only make factory units. It has no place in SC2. Those advocating for such a change (and likely for higher siege tank damage, etc..) should really just be playing BW.
Otherwise, good job Blizzard. MMR has been something I've wanted for years, and race split MMR just makes sense.
On March 25 2016 03:28 H0i wrote: They should really work on protoss, design and balance wise. Why do they keep ignoring protoss? Especially PvZ.
I don't know if I'll ever understand why they are so blatantly ignoring Protoss. For the three months since the release of LOTV, the win rate for Protoss in PvZ has been 42%, 45% and 43%.
And they've basically changed nothing except nerfed Adepts and Pylon Overcharge.
People keep saying it is maps, but then the map pool hasn't changed... why not?
On March 25 2016 04:55 DinoMight wrote: So what are we supposed to build against mass Hellbat Thor now? Thor can'thave both insane air and ground damage and be complimented perfectly by a unit that comes from the same structure and costs no gas.
Maybe when we see numbers I can balance whine more. But I don't like that they're fundamentally ruining the game based on Avilo's whining.
This idea that the factory needs to have some sort of high single target damage AA is a crutch for lazy play, and an excuse to only make factory units. It has no place in SC2. Those advocating for such a change (and likely for higher siege tank damage, etc..) should really just be playing BW.
Otherwise, good job Blizzard. MMR has been something I've wanted for years, and race split MMR just makes sense.
Well, they will become bad against mutas because they lose their splash. And they'll still be meh against sufficient amounts of roaches.
Ravager Corrosive Bile cooldown increased from 10 to 14
What? I thought Corrosive Bile cooldown was 7 seconds? Did Blizzard not know their own cooldowns or am I just wrong?
The game is still written in "HotS" (or "Blizzard") seconds internally. The community feedback threads use "HotS" seconds. 10 HotS seconds is around 7 real seconds.
On March 25 2016 05:04 BronzeKnee wrote: People keep saying it is maps, but then the map pool hasn't changed... why not?
It's not going to either. Blizzard wants these kinds of maps around for variety. IMHO that means that Protoss' early game capabilities to defend spread-out places is definitely going to have to increase (and I hope it's not a PO buff).
Everytime blizzard knows how to tingle my nerves. Why not just like in hots, optional mode. There was nooooo reason to change that. All it needs is just a bigger range in flat mode so it can attack tempests, and not kited to death.
On March 25 2016 04:55 DinoMight wrote: Maybe when we see numbers I can balance whine more. But I don't like that they're fundamentally ruining the game based on Avilo's whining.
This idea that the factory needs to have some sort of high single target damage AA is a crutch for lazy play, and an excuse to only make factory units. It has no place in SC2. Those advocating for such a change (and likely for higher siege tank damage, etc..) should really just be playing BW.
or C&C where is Technique? i've never seen that guy lose a Tank battle.. like ever.
it weakens the Thor against Mutalisks.
imo Avilo/Goody style play is how a player of low APM can beat a player of higher APM. its only a test map. nothing wrong with some experimenting. sometimes u accidentally discover new things.and maybe.. just maybe.. in this 1 area.. Avilo is actually right?
On March 25 2016 03:28 H0i wrote: They should really work on protoss, design and balance wise. Why do they keep ignoring protoss? Especially PvZ.
I don't know if I'll ever understand why they are so blatantly ignoring Protoss. For the three months since the release of LOTV, the win rate for Protoss in PvZ has been 42%, 45% and 43%.
And they've basically changed nothing except nerfed Adepts and Pylon Overcharge.
People keep saying it is maps, but then the map pool hasn't changed... why not?
Ravager nerf sounds OK, but I'm worried about the exact thing that DK is saying: It's a nerf against Terran as well which might hurt zerg in an unncessary way. But it sounds like a good idea to test and honestly, the testmap could have been implemented weeks ago given that blizzard has been communicating those numbers for weeks already.
Liberator nerf for Banshee buff... sorry, but this is stupid. The liberator is the most important in TvP (though good or even great in all matchups). The banshee has absolute no use in TvP right now. This nerfs the former, but doesn't really make banshees good vs protoss for a thousand and one reasons that are not fixed with banshee speed. It would end up as a plain nerf in TvP, especially to lategame Terran. Which is already way to weak to beat endgame Templar/Tempest play. In my opinion: just test the requirement change and leave cost the same without any liberator nerfs. The only build that really uses both, liberators and banshees is the sky/hellion play against zerg and that is not that strong to begin with.
With PvZ being close to balanced and ZvT being in terrans favour in korea (both depending on maps, obviously) I really hope they don't go through with the ravager nerfs. Also, with the new turtle playstyles in both pvz and tvz on certain maps, I think that they should consider buffing zergs anti air, the corrupter has been a far below average unit for way too long.
Liberator nerf, Banshee buff does not help in TvP. Liberators are essential in that matchup and nerfing them will make TvP much harder.
Banshees do not work well with bio at all. I need reactors on my Starports to build Medivacs, hence I can't build Banshees at all, as building just one to harass would suck.
Can't understand people complaining about Mech being much stronger versus Zerg with the Thor 'buff'. Ever heard of mutalisks - without the splash on the Thor they will trash every unit out of the factory (even WMs).
Otherwise I am OK with it, especially separate MMRs so that I do not have to worry about my ranking when off-racing.
Not a fan of the banshee speed upgrade. It's an invisible unit, and invisible units should not be part of mainstream play because they are too gimmicky by nature. Making them so fast that literally nothing can catch them seems like an odd choice.
Other changes sound good, but liberator AOE damage might still prove problematic late game. Just like protoss late game air is untouchable by zerg as well. (Zerg anti air weak since parasitic bomb nerf)
On March 25 2016 07:26 Comedy wrote: Not a fan of the banshee speed upgrade. It's an invisible unit, and invisible units should not be part of mainstream play because they are too gimmicky by nature. Making them so fast that literally nothing can catch them seems like an odd choice.
That's how SC2's design is intended, apparently. Just what we need, more volatility w/ units that require a very specific counter to be prepared in advance.
On March 25 2016 03:28 H0i wrote: They should really work on protoss, design and balance wise. Why do they keep ignoring protoss? Especially PvZ. Changing zerg is not the solution, changing drops will just make zvz and zvt worse. Increasing the cooldown on bile a bit will not help. Change protoss.Give them more options.
The better question is, why do they only work on balance and ignore design?
The balance issued are caused by design issues/inconsistencies. But instead of repairing the cause of the problems, they try to repair the symptoms.
Funny how Blizzards modern methods are comparable to Western Medicine... In both cases the users sacrifice in order to make the big companies some $$$
I think speed banshee's are going to be way more annoying then liberators will ever be. Don't understand their direction with this.
I love the 99% and 97% approval rates for the league stuff, shows that it's crazy/sad it took them 2 expansions and a year to change it. But very happy were getting it :D
On March 25 2016 07:19 Ej_ wrote: Imho they should try only the drop changes and stop messing around with matchups that aren't broken.
Stop pushing the banshee speed upgrade, it's stupid. Let people play the game, this isn't Dota by Icefrog.
Agree. Nerf ovie drops and see what happens -I don't even think this is needed, with the upcoming map pool P will be more than fine if you ask me. By the way, nerfing liberators would make T wildly UP in TvP, and no banshee buff that's not plain broken would ever compensate that.
After going through the details of reducing the range of the ability and hearing your feedback on the current strength of Liberators, we thought it might be better to go a bit harder on this nerf so that we can also go heavier on the Banshee buff, so that we can potentially get situations where going one or the other unit can be viable instead of it being Liberators all the time. With this change, the total range of Liberators will be nerfed, as well as the damaging area. We hope this change feels more fitting, and once we get the Balance Test Map online we’d love your opinions on how these changes feel.
They actually listened to us :O I will mad as fuck if they choose it's anti ground damage.
Thor AA damage changed to flat and single target
We’re still looking at numbers for this, but we’re thinking something similar to the idea of the Thor’s damage against the ground: High damage per shot with a low rate of fire. With this change, we wonder if we can separate out the Thor’s AA role from units such as the Widow Mine or the Liberator. We considered whether this could overlap with the Viking, and although there will be more overlap than before, there are still many differences between the two units. Between the many obvious differences, the Thor’s resistance to splash damage, and their different flat damage values, the two units will still be in unique places.
I agree thor will overlap with the viking but the situation in this game will make both feel unique.For example: In TvP:Viking is more benefit for bios army than thor even you can neutralize thor's immobility by lift it up but it's second force field for terran because you want place it behind bio army to kill air unit,colosuss or it will be immortal's food.Also because it's ground unit,tempest will abuse it's range to pick of terran army and you don't want place it in front line.Tempest is more supply efficient too.Only viking beats it and can micro. In TvZ:You need to address liberator's AA or terran will only build it + ghost.Even viking is losing it's role in this match up right now...Nerf liberator's AA will help you have easier time to determine how much damage needs to be buff for thor.I want the liberator becomes anti light specialist.Air battle is too fast right now,army of both side disappear in a heartbeat.I don't like it. In TvT: LOL.... as long as marine+ medank is standard army comp,viking is definitely useful than thor....
On March 25 2016 04:55 DinoMight wrote: So what are we supposed to build against mass Hellbat Thor now? Thor can'thave both insane air and ground damage and be complimented perfectly by a unit that comes from the same structure and costs no gas.
Maybe when we see numbers I can balance whine more. But I don't like that they're fundamentally ruining the game based on Avilo's whining.
This idea that the factory needs to have some sort of high single target damage AA is a crutch for lazy play, and an excuse to only make factory units. It has no place in SC2. Those advocating for such a change (and likely for higher siege tank damage, etc..) should really just be playing BW.
Otherwise, good job Blizzard. MMR has been something I've wanted for years, and race split MMR just makes sense.
On March 25 2016 07:25 DeadByDawn wrote: Liberator nerf, Banshee buff does not help in TvP. Liberators are essential in that matchup and nerfing them will make TvP much harder.
Banshees do not work well with bio at all. I need reactors on my Starports to build Medivacs, hence I can't build Banshees at all, as building just one to harass would suck.
Can't understand people complaining about Mech being much stronger versus Zerg with the Thor 'buff'. Ever heard of mutalisks - without the splash on the Thor they will trash every unit out of the factory (even WMs).
Otherwise I am OK with it, especially separate MMRs so that I do not have to worry about my ranking when off-racing.
Radius nerf is OK,liberator is still very strong in high number but damage nerf is crucial.
On March 25 2016 07:18 AdrianHealeyy wrote: I thought it made more sense to
(1 first): half the corrosive bil time (to 5 seconds) ànd half the damage and then: nerf it that way, for example: to 7 seconds.
That way: the interaction stays, it can still hit forcefields and requires more skill to effectively use.
No?
I had the same idea in mind when blizz announced they want a ravager nerf. Actually I'm not sure halving the timeout and damage would be a nerf, this way a zerg can just sit on the rapidfire bile key and pour biles all over the place. It would be harder to avoid. I don't know.
On March 25 2016 07:18 AdrianHealeyy wrote: I thought it made more sense to
(1 first): half the corrosive bil time (to 5 seconds) ànd half the damage and then: nerf it that way, for example: to 7 seconds.
That way: the interaction stays, it can still hit forcefields and requires more skill to effectively use.
No?
I had the same idea in mind when blizz announced they want a ravager nerf. Actually I'm not sure halving the timeout and damage would be a nerf, this way a zerg can just sit on the rapidfire bile key and pour biles all over the place. It would be harder to avoid. I don't know.
bullshit idea, zerg would do free damage more often while the other player is moving his units to avoid the fireball.
On March 25 2016 07:19 Ej_ wrote: Imho they should try only the drop changes and stop messing around with matchups that aren't broken.
Stop pushing the banshee speed upgrade, it's stupid. Let people play the game, this isn't Dota by Icefrog.
Agree. Nerf ovie drops and see what happens -I don't even think this is needed, with the upcoming map pool P will be more than fine if you ask me. By the way, nerfing liberators would make T wildly UP in TvP, and no banshee buff that's not plain broken would ever compensate that.
1 range is a minor nerf and PvT is already slightly Terran favoured.
On March 25 2016 07:19 Ej_ wrote: Imho they should try only the drop changes and stop messing around with matchups that aren't broken.
Stop pushing the banshee speed upgrade, it's stupid. Let people play the game, this isn't Dota by Icefrog.
Agree. Nerf ovie drops and see what happens -I don't even think this is needed, with the upcoming map pool P will be more than fine if you ask me. By the way, nerfing liberators would make T wildly UP in TvP, and no banshee buff that's not plain broken would ever compensate that.
1 range is a minor nerf and PvT is already slightly Terran favoured.
It's 1 radius, which will do more than just 1 range in many situations. Regardless, I'm fine with trying it out. And if it turns out TvP gets broken by this change, they can still tweak a unit that is not the liberator.
My concern with the Thor is its low mobility, size and its range. I wonder if it might not need some additional changes or if the more mobile cyclone would not have been the way to go and leave the Thor for the usual AoE option.
The cyclone could fit the AA role just right with a redesign. The thor will never be a reliable good unit because it's so big, clunky, slow and expensive. Nor is the widow mine reliable for obvious reasons.
We’ve arrived at a point where we want to work with you guys to lock down changes regarding the ladder revamp and begin work on the implementation side. We have been discussing more based on you previous feedback in a similar post, and have been making improvements as we started implementing the feature little by little. Now we’re at the stage where the overall design looks very solid, and we want to focus on doing the implementation. So we’ll review where we are at now, collect your feedback, and finalize our direction.
GM League
Currently, we’re thinking that the best way to go is to update Grandmaster League with new players, promotions, and demotions each day at a specified time—all based strictly on skill. We see two main advantages to this approach. First, we can have an accurate, skill-based representation of the best 200 players on the server on any given day. Second, it also makes things clearer on the esports side, especially if tournaments pull from this list. As an added bonus, we also like that this could promote more intense competition during this period of the day (though mostly for just this specific group of top players).
This is an okay compromise. The current inactivity measure is pretty weak and prone to abuse, so that needed to go. Keeping consistency between the entry condition and the ejection condition is much better. I have some minor concerns about the arbitrary rollover time, but it's probably not that big a deal because they're already using a lock time for WCS qualifiers. That is, if players were already cramming last-minute games at 11:55PM on the day before the WCS cutoff, then it's probably fine that this happens every day at that same time.
Showing MMR
This is something we’ve received the most feedback on and we’ve been exploring the concept heavily internally. Currently, we’re leaning towards clearly displaying your MMR in the UI. The more we dug into the topic of making the ranks, divisions, and leagues as accurate as possible, the more we realized that there were other potential problems that we could have introduced. Since we have the MMR available already, we think it might be best to just show it as the most accurate measurement of a player’s skill.
I assume this means that points and bonus pool will be going away completely? That is tremendous news. When I was going over design proposals for the ladder that incorporated visible MMR, I also came up short when it came to adding in some of the more grind-friendly parts, like the bonus pool. I couldn't figure out how to add that in without muddying up the clear MMR value. Short of showing two values, points and MMR, which could be confusing, the only choice is to go down one road or the other. I'm glad they're taking a chance on transparency.
League & Tier
In developing the new League & Tier system, the main concern was that achieving a high-degree of accuracy required that we enable mid-season demotions. Although we know that there are many players out there who want to see demotions enabled, we believe this feedback mostly stems from the fact that there currently isn’t a reliable way to tell your skill right now. The downside of enabling demotions is that we could potentially take away from a players’ biggest accomplishment that season; this downside is magnified if it’s their first time getting to a specific league, which may make the person not want to play the game anymore due to the risk of losing this reward.
I want to elaborate a little more on this detail. Their previous plan was to create 51 subdivisions (10 per league Bronze-Diamond plus one mega Master/GM league). If they went through with this proposal, then based on the current MMR spectrum, a tier change would happen, on average, every 2-3 consecutive wins or losses. That's a pretty huge amount of volatility and therefore basically requires demotions. It's good that they've wargamed this and realized this probably wasn't a great way to go, because the leagues and tiers still need to have some weight and meaning behind them. Keeping them too fluid reduces a player's sense of belonging since they'd be constantly hovering across multiple tiers.
Because we will be showing MMR, we wonder if it’s best to have the ranking system display the highest League & Tier achieved during the current season. There’s really no need to show the same number two different ways, and we can show two cool numbers instead. This way, if I were to tell my friends that I’m in Master Tier 1, but my MMR is a solid Master Tier 2 (naming is not final), it clearly shows 1) the highest I’ve achieved this season and 2) where my skill is at the moment.
This is a fine option. It helps to identify players who intentionally tank their rating as well, and opens them up to public shaming (for better or for worse). It also gives players a permanent reward for that season and should, in theory, address any concerns about ladder anxiety in the specific case of rank loss aversion.
For the number of tiers, we’ve spent time analyzing and evaluating how the Heroes of the Storm system works because their 50 ranks would be very similar to our originally announced 10 tiers per league (we would have 60 tiers if we strip out the leagues). For StarCraft II, due to the amount of movement that would occur with having this many tiers, this system doesn’t look to be the way to go. So we debated on going with 5 tiers or 3 tiers, and we’re currently leaning towards 3 for a couple reasons.
First, talking about leagues in StarCraft II has naturally tended towards using 3 tiers. When players talk about where they are at within a league, perhaps the most common way to refer to the tiers currently is to say that he or she is in “High Diamond,” “Mid Diamond,” or “Low Diamond.” So colloquially, this fits well with how players already discuss the ladder. The second reason is that we can always increase the number of tiers available in the future if 3 is not enough. Going from 3 to 5 or 3 to 10 would be easier than doing the reverse, which means we don’t need to remove functionality from the system.
The first argument is fairly weak since the system will dictate the conversation rather than the community, but the second makes a lot of sense. It's smart. Better to add some later than take some away in a triage situation.
This is where we’re at currently, and as you can see we’ve narrowed in on the most critical components of Ladder Revamp. If you have thoughts on these areas, we’d ask that we get discussions going so that we can lock down the design. We’re currently aiming to finalize the design of this feature within the next couple weeks, and are potentially aiming for a mid- to late-summer release in order to have enough time to fully work through the implementation.
Overall, really good stuff. I still think there's an outside chance that this makes the ladder--which is the primary form of multiplayer gameplay in SC2--overly competitive. I'd like to see this approach balanced out a bit by grindable currency or loot boxes a la Overwatch, where just playing the game unlocks cosmetic rewards. A regular content cadence with a focus on encouraging Quick Match play could ensure that players could target the specific reward they want: a goal beyond getting to the next league or tier, and one that is gradually obtainable even if skill does not improve.
Separate MMR Per Race
We hear your feedback regarding this feature. We had originally set the priority for this to come after ladder revamp, but we’re currently exploring ways to potentially get started on this feature even sooner. Although we haven’t set an exact timeline, we just wanted to let you know that we agree that this feature is important to the game and we’re discussing ways to release it more quickly. We’ll be sure to keep everyone updated!
Cool. Interested to hear more. I have some minor concerns with this, too, in that I would always prefer your MMR to represent you as a player (since your offrace skill level won't deviate terribly far because your fundamentals will support you), but I could be mistaken. Let's see what happens. There's no real downside to doing it this way, in any event.
On March 25 2016 07:07 Avi-Love wrote: With PvZ being close to balanced and ZvT being in terrans favour in korea (both depending on maps, obviously) I really hope they don't go through with the ravager nerfs. Also, with the new turtle playstyles in both pvz and tvz on certain maps, I think that they should consider buffing zergs anti air, the corrupter has been a far below average unit for way too long.
With PvZ below 45% since launch, I don't call that close to balanced. And looking at the new maps for S2, I'm having a hard time believing this could change anytime soon without a Zerg nerf or a Protoss change on early game.
Right, Zerg has mostly terrible anti-air... except for the one Parasitic "lol please try to split units that like to stack" Bomb. Corruptors are still kinda lame but at least they get an use. I've seen a lot of games lately where pros use them to piss on buildings and it seems as effective as hilarious.
On March 25 2016 04:44 Terranist wrote: Really wish they would go back to discussing the tank. Flying tank is not fun for either player and it is still killing TvT.
This also. And also the Thor range being a major issue late game.
On March 25 2016 05:43 JimmyJRaynor wrote: also, Avilo did more than whine. he created his own test map. you have to respect people who put time and effort into improving the game.
Yes. And even though some may dislike Avilo he is right on most of what he puts out there and blizzard eventually gets to it 2 years later. (swarmhosts, warpins, blink all ins, parasitic bomb, and now the Thor and Cyclone sucking in LOTV).
So now we just wait 2 years for Avilo's call on Ovie drops, 4 supply tempest and tankivacs ruining the TvT? Diablo 3 became great after the community all quit demanding some redesign - I hope we can get some more initiative on more issues before too long. A year to finish design changes is way too long in 2016.
On March 25 2016 07:07 Avi-Love wrote: With PvZ being close to balanced and ZvT being in terrans favour in korea (both depending on maps, obviously) I really hope they don't go through with the ravager nerfs. Also, with the new turtle playstyles in both pvz and tvz on certain maps, I think that they should consider buffing zergs anti air, the corrupter has been a far below average unit for way too long.
With PvZ below 45% since launch, I don't call that close to balanced. And looking at the new maps for S2, I'm having a hard time believing this could change anytime soon without a Zerg nerf or a Protoss change on early game.
Right, Zerg has mostly terrible anti-air... except for the one Parasitic "lol please try to split units that like to stack" Bomb. Corruptors are still kinda lame but at least they get an use. I've seen a lot of games lately where pros use them to piss on buildings and it seems as effective as hilarious.
I wrote pvz in korea, which is actually pretty balanced - beyond that, vipers are just not good enough lategame in their nerfed state, zerg cannot deal with turtling protoss or terran atm (which might be a map issue).
On March 25 2016 07:07 Avi-Love wrote: With PvZ being close to balanced and ZvT being in terrans favour in korea (both depending on maps, obviously) I really hope they don't go through with the ravager nerfs. Also, with the new turtle playstyles in both pvz and tvz on certain maps, I think that they should consider buffing zergs anti air, the corrupter has been a far below average unit for way too long.
With PvZ below 45% since launch, I don't call that close to balanced. And looking at the new maps for S2, I'm having a hard time believing this could change anytime soon without a Zerg nerf or a Protoss change on early game.
Right, Zerg has mostly terrible anti-air... except for the one Parasitic "lol please try to split units that like to stack" Bomb. Corruptors are still kinda lame but at least they get an use. I've seen a lot of games lately where pros use them to piss on buildings and it seems as effective as hilarious.
I wrote pvz in korea, which is actually pretty balanced - beyond that, vipers are just not good enough lategame in their nerfed state, zerg cannot deal with turtling protoss or terran atm (which might be a map issue).
Any VODs of terran "turtle" lategame vs Z? I would be interested. To me super lategame is clearly P>>Z>>T.
The cyclone could fit the AA role just right with a redesign. The thor will never be a reliable good unit because it's so big, clunky, slow and expensive. Nor is the widow mine reliable for obvious reasons.
This.
But if you focus on cyclone then thor will useless.Make cyclone good enough in early/mid game and thor becomes tier 3 air killer solve both.
On March 25 2016 07:07 Avi-Love wrote: With PvZ being close to balanced and ZvT being in terrans favour in korea (both depending on maps, obviously) I really hope they don't go through with the ravager nerfs. Also, with the new turtle playstyles in both pvz and tvz on certain maps, I think that they should consider buffing zergs anti air, the corrupter has been a far below average unit for way too long.
With PvZ below 45% since launch, I don't call that close to balanced. And looking at the new maps for S2, I'm having a hard time believing this could change anytime soon without a Zerg nerf or a Protoss change on early game.
Right, Zerg has mostly terrible anti-air... except for the one Parasitic "lol please try to split units that like to stack" Bomb. Corruptors are still kinda lame but at least they get an use. I've seen a lot of games lately where pros use them to piss on buildings and it seems as effective as hilarious.
I wrote pvz in korea, which is actually pretty balanced - beyond that, vipers are just not good enough lategame in their nerfed state, zerg cannot deal with turtling protoss or terran atm (which might be a map issue).
Too soon IMO.It's depend on how hard terran and protoss army snowball zerg army.Does it absurd like skyterran in HOTS and even when you remax 2-3 times,you still lose ? Too little game in pro level.
No more nerfs to the liberator. The unit has already been nerfed enough times since the beta. Also when is the warp prism going to be nerfed, that unit is pretty much impossible to stop right now.
the reason terrans don't use banshees is because you gave them ridiculously OP units like widow mines, liberators, tankivacs etc. etc. but blizzard's policy for Terran is ALWAYS "got to get them to use other units, have to buff these units to get them to use them, even though we know full well that we have given them OP units and the reason we KNOW they are OP is BECAUSE the terrans ALWAYS USE THEM. but even though we are well aware of this, and even though we have already made it crystal clear we are willing to nerf a ZERG unit (Swarmhosts) right out of the game because we think it gets used too much, even though it destroys zerg's lategame against Terran mech or Protoss Air, we will NEVER nerf a terran unit so that they don't use it any more, and we will ALWAYS look to buff other terran units to get terrans to use them more. this policy has NEVER been stated when dealing with zerg units. no zerg unit has ever been buffed to get them to use them more. muta heal: so they don't die quite as horribly to widow mines and can actually harass better. hydra speed: so they can actually attack and then retreat again without all dying. Blizzard, here is now you get terrans to use banshees more: NERF widow mines. NERF medivac dropping ability for tanks and widow mines. NERF Liberators. Buffing banshees will NOT cause terrans to use them more because no matter how strong you make banshees, Widow mine drops, tankivacs, liberators and a host of other things are still ridiculously OP and will still get used to death BECAUSE of that. Still dragging feet with necessary changes... and still downplaying necessary changes that have been publicly admitted as such. showcasing non-balance issues first to help distract players from the balance problems. Treat your 3 kids equally Blizzard, and stop using this policy of buffing terran units to help them compete with the other OP units to get more use out of them when you never adopt this policy with zerg. (Ever notice zerg players at top levels not using swarmhosts? ever notice zerg players at top levels rarely using infestors? rarely using broodlords? ever consider buffing these units so zerg uses them more? NEVER in a million years will Blizzard do this with zerg even though if it was Terran they would do this FOR CERTAIN. It's time Blizzard admits to this gaping discrepancy and addresses it instead of pretending they are not doing this. in case this is not clear enough, we have it from Blizzard's own mouth that they buff terran units for NO OTHER REASON then to get them to use them more. Banshees are not a weak unit. they have good damage and quick shots and can cloak. they don't need a buff except that terran has other units that are so good there is no point in them making banshees, they can win way easier with other units. Swarmhosts do not get used because they were nerfed and now are clearly a weak unit with little point to make them. Blizzard's nerf of swarmhosts was way beyond the level of sensibility and they will never reconsider this even though it would be a very smart thing to admit they overdid this. Swarmhosts I'm sure get used LESS than Terrans use banshees. That means, if Blizzard treated its races in a fair manner, they would be discussing buff to swarmhosts to bring them back into the meta. But they aren't. This proves their bias. Unfortunately, no matter now obvious the bias is, they will not change their views on this. Nor would they even make mention of this issue, hoping it doesn't get noticed. but it is too hard not to notice it. How many zergs out there are still stuck with resorting to WoL style Muta ling bane even though now Terrans have widow mines AND liberators to take out half the zerg army before they even get close to the Marines? ravagers don't work long term against terran. zerg needs more mobility and can't really go with lurkers against a mobile bio army that can pick up and drop elsewhere. Protoss and terran both got HUGE buffs in harass capabilities in LoTV and zerg? most of the time when nydus is seen at high level it's a desperate all in that doesn't work and they are going to neft overlord drops which are at best a gimmicky and risky all in for the early game. Where is zerg's harass, Blizzard? what does zerg have that can harass like liberators or adepts? Hey, I know how you can even the odds there. Banelings with shade, which can be cancelled, just like adepts, or overlords which shoot banelings out of them automatically with range equal to liberators. both ridiculous, right? of course. but only as ridiculous as what protoss and terran already have in their possession.
I think a simple and elegance help to Protoss should help us against Zerg: increase the radius of the Pylon by 1 right now 2 Pylons don't even complete cover the mineral line, so an increase by 1 should be helpful enough right now also, please don't even think about buffing Bansee, it's bad enough right now
On March 25 2016 09:56 baabaa wrote: the reason terrans don't use banshees is because you gave them ridiculously OP units like widow mines, liberators, tankivacs etc. etc. but blizzard's policy for Terran is ALWAYS "got to get them to use other units, have to buff these units to get them to use them, even though we know full well that we have given them OP units and the reason we KNOW they are OP is BECAUSE the terrans ALWAYS USE THEM. but even though we are well aware of this, and even though we have already made it crystal clear we are willing to nerf a ZERG unit (Swarmhosts) right out of the game because we think it gets used too much, even though it destroys zerg's lategame against Terran mech or Protoss Air, we will NEVER nerf a terran unit so that they don't use it any more, and we will ALWAYS look to buff other terran units to get terrans to use them more. this policy has NEVER been stated when dealing with zerg units. no zerg unit has ever been buffed to get them to use them more. muta heal: so they don't die quite as horribly to widow mines and can actually harass better. hydra speed: so they can actually attack and then retreat again without all dying. Blizzard, here is now you get terrans to use banshees more: NERF widow mines. NERF medivac dropping ability for tanks and widow mines. NERF Liberators. Buffing banshees will NOT cause terrans to use them more because no matter how strong you make banshees, Widow mine drops, tankivacs, liberators and a host of other things are still ridiculously OP and will still get used to death BECAUSE of that. Still dragging feet with necessary changes... and still downplaying necessary changes that have been publicly admitted as such. showcasing non-balance issues first to help distract players from the balance problems. Treat your 3 kids equally Blizzard, and stop using this policy of buffing terran units to help them compete with the other OP units to get more use out of them when you never adopt this policy with zerg. (Ever notice zerg players at top levels not using swarmhosts? ever notice zerg players at top levels rarely using infestors? rarely using broodlords? ever consider buffing these units so zerg uses them more? NEVER in a million years will Blizzard do this with zerg even though if it was Terran they would do this FOR CERTAIN. It's time Blizzard admits to this gaping discrepancy and addresses it instead of pretending they are not doing this. in case this is not clear enough, we have it from Blizzard's own mouth that they buff terran units for NO OTHER REASON then to get them to use them more. Banshees are not a weak unit. they have good damage and quick shots and can cloak. they don't need a buff except that terran has other units that are so good there is no point in them making banshees, they can win way easier with other units. Swarmhosts do not get used because they were nerfed and now are clearly a weak unit with little point to make them. Blizzard's nerf of swarmhosts was way beyond the level of sensibility and they will never reconsider this even though it would be a very smart thing to admit they overdid this. Swarmhosts I'm sure get used LESS than Terrans use banshees. That means, if Blizzard treated its races in a fair manner, they would be discussing buff to swarmhosts to bring them back into the meta. But they aren't. This proves their bias. Unfortunately, no matter now obvious the bias is, they will not change their views on this. Nor would they even make mention of this issue, hoping it doesn't get noticed. but it is too hard not to notice it. How many zergs out there are still stuck with resorting to WoL style Muta ling bane even though now Terrans have widow mines AND liberators to take out half the zerg army before they even get close to the Marines? ravagers don't work long term against terran. zerg needs more mobility and can't really go with lurkers against a mobile bio army that can pick up and drop elsewhere. Protoss and terran both got HUGE buffs in harass capabilities in LoTV and zerg? most of the time when nydus is seen at high level it's a desperate all in that doesn't work and they are going to neft overlord drops which are at best a gimmicky and risky all in for the early game. Where is zerg's harass, Blizzard? what does zerg have that can harass like liberators or adepts? Hey, I know how you can even the odds there. Banelings with shade, which can be cancelled, just like adepts, or overlords which shoot banelings out of them automatically with range equal to liberators. both ridiculous, right? of course. but only as ridiculous as what protoss and terran already have in their possession.
Good fucking god, why would they compensate a liberator nerf with a banshee buff? The liberator's ground attack is far more interesting than the banshee ever will be. Why would you ever encourage players to use a less interesting unit over a more interesting one? The liberator rewards intelligent positioning on both sides far more than a banshee does.
The game needs less units that can turn games into coinflips.
If they decide to nerf the lib radius they hopefully put +1 radius into advanced ballistics upgrade. I think nerfing the radius is actually a huge deal, because honestly its quite not that hard to walk around liberation zones.
Blizzard should re-consider combining mech air and ground upgrades. Armories should go to brood war price (100/50).
Liberator is only unit keeping Terran playable atm. I think it's OP but there's no other good anti-air unit with splash that T has ever since raven/seeker was nerfed. With liberators sucking...and ravens being unusable it's not a good thing for T imo.
Mech viability? Mech is still pretty bad...thor change might help or it might be so negligible to do nothing and then mech still sucks for another 6+ months =/
Banshee change is nice...but to be honest...it's really, really arbitrary. Like no Terran is going to argue that they don't want that...it's just it's completely random. Why don't they address mech issues more focused like cyclones being garbage....thors vs capital ships...and air units in general being OP.
Imo...liberators should not be nerfed unless tempests, broods, bcs, and carriers are all also nerfed at the same time. You cannot nerf just one races OP air unit. All of those units imo deserve supply increases.
Think about this. If liberators were 4 supply, instead of 3, if tempests were 8 supply instead of 4...if ravens/vipers were 3/4 supply respectively, and broodlords 6 supply...there will be less of these OP air units on the map in a maxed 200/200 army, and the person that focuses on ground units will have an advantage and be able to force action.
Air units inherently are OP in HOTS/LOTV. And that is not how the game should be because air units have the inherent advantage of FLYING. Meaning a lot of the units in the game cannot shoot up and the game becomes "do i have enough anti-air units to kill those? If i don't, all of my ground units are negligible, i must mass air myself."
I think all air still needs a nerf in supply. I've made countless threads about it on TL...but yeah a liberator nerf without nerfing other races corresponding lategame bullshit air is a really, really bad idea imo.
On March 25 2016 13:57 avilo wrote: Blizzard should re-consider combining mech air and ground upgrades. Armories should go to brood war price (100/50).
Liberator is only unit keeping Terran playable atm. I think it's OP but there's no other good anti-air unit with splash that T has ever since raven/seeker was nerfed. With liberators sucking...and ravens being unusable it's not a good thing for T imo.
Mech viability? Mech is still pretty bad...thor change might help or it might be so negligible to do nothing and then mech still sucks for another 6+ months =/
Banshee change is nice...but to be honest...it's really, really arbitrary. Like no Terran is going to argue that they don't want that...it's just it's completely random. Why don't they address mech issues more focused like cyclones being garbage....thors vs capital ships...and air units in general being OP.
Imo...liberators should not be nerfed unless tempests, broods, bcs, and carriers are all also nerfed at the same time. You cannot nerf just one races OP air unit. All of those units imo deserve supply increases.
Think about this. If liberators were 4 supply, instead of 3, if tempests were 8 supply instead of 4...if ravens/vipers were 3/4 supply respectively, and broodlords 6 supply...there will be less of these OP air units on the map in a maxed 200/200 army, and the person that focuses on ground units will have an advantage and be able to force action.
Air units inherently are OP in HOTS/LOTV. And that is not how the game should be because air units have the inherent advantage of FLYING. Meaning a lot of the units in the game cannot shoot up and the game becomes "do i have enough anti-air units to kill those? If i don't, all of my ground units are negligible, i must mass air myself."
I think all air still needs a nerf in supply. I've made countless threads about it on TL...but yeah a liberator nerf without nerfing other races corresponding lategame bullshit air is a really, really bad idea imo.
I actually agree on air units in general. Either air should be nerfed globally, or anti air should be buffed globally. Air should never truly be "game enders" except in rare cases that the ground units are able to completely prevent the ground units from getting in range.
Okay, it's official. Blizzard has no fucking idea about what they're doing. I mean really, banshee speed armory required for 100/100 ? That's like the 30 dmg zealot charge.
What confuses me is that of all races they want to buff Terran's midgame and nerf the lategame by making banshee speed available earlier but weakening the liberator overall.
Isn't Terran already the race that's powerful in the midgame but tends to fall behind once the ultimate armies (mass tempest/storm, mass viper/corruptor/ultra) have been out for a while?
On March 25 2016 13:57 avilo wrote: Blizzard should re-consider combining mech air and ground upgrades. Armories should go to brood war price (100/50).
Liberator is only unit keeping Terran playable atm. I think it's OP but there's no other good anti-air unit with splash that T has ever since raven/seeker was nerfed. With liberators sucking...and ravens being unusable it's not a good thing for T imo.
Mech viability? Mech is still pretty bad...thor change might help or it might be so negligible to do nothing and then mech still sucks for another 6+ months =/
Banshee change is nice...but to be honest...it's really, really arbitrary. Like no Terran is going to argue that they don't want that...it's just it's completely random. Why don't they address mech issues more focused like cyclones being garbage....thors vs capital ships...and air units in general being OP.
Imo...liberators should not be nerfed unless tempests, broods, bcs, and carriers are all also nerfed at the same time. You cannot nerf just one races OP air unit. All of those units imo deserve supply increases.
Think about this. If liberators were 4 supply, instead of 3, if tempests were 8 supply instead of 4...if ravens/vipers were 3/4 supply respectively, and broodlords 6 supply...there will be less of these OP air units on the map in a maxed 200/200 army, and the person that focuses on ground units will have an advantage and be able to force action.
Air units inherently are OP in HOTS/LOTV. And that is not how the game should be because air units have the inherent advantage of FLYING. Meaning a lot of the units in the game cannot shoot up and the game becomes "do i have enough anti-air units to kill those? If i don't, all of my ground units are negligible, i must mass air myself."
I think all air still needs a nerf in supply. I've made countless threads about it on TL...but yeah a liberator nerf without nerfing other races corresponding lategame bullshit air is a really, really bad idea imo.
Totally agree with the nerfs to air units. I guess they like air because these units have more movement options and they are obsessed with action-action speed-speed. But most of the fun comes i think from unit interactions, and air vs air is the worst unit interaction possible.
On March 25 2016 05:43 JimmyJRaynor wrote: also, Avilo did more than whine. he created his own test map. you have to respect people who put time and effort into improving the game.
Yes. And even though some may dislike Avilo he is right on most of what he puts out there and blizzard eventually gets to it 2 years later. (swarmhosts, warpins, blink all ins, parasitic bomb, and now the Thor and Cyclone sucking in LOTV).
So now we just wait 2 years for Avilo's call on Ovie drops, 4 supply tempest and tankivacs ruining the TvT? Diablo 3 became great after the community all quit demanding some redesign - I hope we can get some initiative on more issues before too long. A year to finish design changes is way too long in 2016.
On March 25 2016 13:57 avilo wrote: Blizzard should re-consider combining mech air and ground upgrades. Armories should go to brood war price (100/50).
Liberator is only unit keeping Terran playable atm. I think it's OP but there's no other good anti-air unit with splash that T has ever since raven/seeker was nerfed. With liberators sucking...and ravens being unusable it's not a good thing for T imo.
Mech viability? Mech is still pretty bad...thor change might help or it might be so negligible to do nothing and then mech still sucks for another 6+ months =/
Banshee change is nice...but to be honest...it's really, really arbitrary. Like no Terran is going to argue that they don't want that...it's just it's completely random. Why don't they address mech issues more focused like cyclones being garbage....thors vs capital ships...and air units in general being OP.
Imo...liberators should not be nerfed unless tempests, broods, bcs, and carriers are all also nerfed at the same time. You cannot nerf just one races OP air unit. All of those units imo deserve supply increases.
Think about this. If liberators were 4 supply, instead of 3, if tempests were 8 supply instead of 4...if ravens/vipers were 3/4 supply respectively, and broodlords 6 supply...there will be less of these OP air units on the map in a maxed 200/200 army, and the person that focuses on ground units will have an advantage and be able to force action.
Air units inherently are OP in HOTS/LOTV. And that is not how the game should be because air units have the inherent advantage of FLYING. Meaning a lot of the units in the game cannot shoot up and the game becomes "do i have enough anti-air units to kill those? If i don't, all of my ground units are negligible, i must mass air myself."
I think all air still needs a nerf in supply. I've made countless threads about it on TL...but yeah a liberator nerf without nerfing other races corresponding lategame bullshit air is a really, really bad idea imo.
Totally agree with the nerfs to air units. I guess they like air because these units have more movement options and they are obsessed with action-action speed-speed. But most of the fun comes i think from unit interactions, and air vs air is the worst unit interaction possible.
actually no. if both players start massing air units there isn't really much action going on...
On March 25 2016 13:57 avilo wrote: Blizzard should re-consider combining mech air and ground upgrades. Armories should go to brood war price (100/50).
Liberator is only unit keeping Terran playable atm. I think it's OP but there's no other good anti-air unit with splash that T has ever since raven/seeker was nerfed. With liberators sucking...and ravens being unusable it's not a good thing for T imo.
Mech viability? Mech is still pretty bad...thor change might help or it might be so negligible to do nothing and then mech still sucks for another 6+ months =/
Banshee change is nice...but to be honest...it's really, really arbitrary. Like no Terran is going to argue that they don't want that...it's just it's completely random. Why don't they address mech issues more focused like cyclones being garbage....thors vs capital ships...and air units in general being OP.
Imo...liberators should not be nerfed unless tempests, broods, bcs, and carriers are all also nerfed at the same time. You cannot nerf just one races OP air unit. All of those units imo deserve supply increases.
Think about this. If liberators were 4 supply, instead of 3, if tempests were 8 supply instead of 4...if ravens/vipers were 3/4 supply respectively, and broodlords 6 supply...there will be less of these OP air units on the map in a maxed 200/200 army, and the person that focuses on ground units will have an advantage and be able to force action.
Air units inherently are OP in HOTS/LOTV. And that is not how the game should be because air units have the inherent advantage of FLYING. Meaning a lot of the units in the game cannot shoot up and the game becomes "do i have enough anti-air units to kill those? If i don't, all of my ground units are negligible, i must mass air myself."
I think all air still needs a nerf in supply. I've made countless threads about it on TL...but yeah a liberator nerf without nerfing other races corresponding lategame bullshit air is a really, really bad idea imo.
Totally agree with the nerfs to air units. I guess they like air because these units have more movement options and they are obsessed with action-action speed-speed. But most of the fun comes i think from unit interactions, and air vs air is the worst unit interaction possible.
actually no. if both players start massing air units there isn't really much action going on...
On March 25 2016 07:07 Avi-Love wrote: With PvZ being close to balanced and ZvT being in terrans favour in korea (both depending on maps, obviously) I really hope they don't go through with the ravager nerfs. Also, with the new turtle playstyles in both pvz and tvz on certain maps, I think that they should consider buffing zergs anti air, the corrupter has been a far below average unit for way too long.
With PvZ below 45% since launch, I don't call that close to balanced. And looking at the new maps for S2, I'm having a hard time believing this could change anytime soon without a Zerg nerf or a Protoss change on early game.
Right, Zerg has mostly terrible anti-air... except for the one Parasitic "lol please try to split units that like to stack" Bomb. Corruptors are still kinda lame but at least they get an use. I've seen a lot of games lately where pros use them to piss on buildings and it seems as effective as hilarious.
I wrote pvz in korea, which is actually pretty balanced - beyond that, vipers are just not good enough lategame in their nerfed state, zerg cannot deal with turtling protoss or terran atm (which might be a map issue).
You mean the PvZ in Korea where it is 47.30% in Starleague Season 1 (31.82% if you exclude the qualifiers and only count the main tournament), 40.94% in GSL Pre-season, 43.37% in GSL Season 1. At some point you need a reality check. The numbers in Korea do not look vastly different from what we see everywhere else. GSL does not even use exactly the same map pool as Starleague and ladder, so maybe it is time to consider it is not entirely related to the maps.
On March 25 2016 07:07 Avi-Love wrote: With PvZ being close to balanced and ZvT being in terrans favour in korea (both depending on maps, obviously) I really hope they don't go through with the ravager nerfs. Also, with the new turtle playstyles in both pvz and tvz on certain maps, I think that they should consider buffing zergs anti air, the corrupter has been a far below average unit for way too long.
With PvZ below 45% since launch, I don't call that close to balanced. And looking at the new maps for S2, I'm having a hard time believing this could change anytime soon without a Zerg nerf or a Protoss change on early game.
Right, Zerg has mostly terrible anti-air... except for the one Parasitic "lol please try to split units that like to stack" Bomb. Corruptors are still kinda lame but at least they get an use. I've seen a lot of games lately where pros use them to piss on buildings and it seems as effective as hilarious.
I wrote pvz in korea, which is actually pretty balanced - beyond that, vipers are just not good enough lategame in their nerfed state, zerg cannot deal with turtling protoss or terran atm (which might be a map issue).
You mean the PvZ in Korea where it is 47.30% in Starleague Season 1 (31.82% if you exclude the qualifiers and only count the main tournament), 40.94% in GSL Pre-season, 43.37% in GSL Season 1. At some point you need a reality check. The numbers in Korea do not look vastly different from what we see everywhere else. GSL does not even use exactly the same map pool as Starleague and ladder, so maybe it is time to consider it is not entirely related to the maps.
Code A PvZ is 47.5%, Code S is 58.3%. In Proleague it is 50%. The closer to the present we get, the better the winrates for Protoss against Zerg become in Korea. So yeah, right now it's more even in Korea than outside of it.
Why not just move the Thor's AA to the Cyclone? You would get a mobile unit that can use its speed to kite and it's range to zone out air units. Meanwhile the attack is relatively weak, so you have to kite/retreat into safe zones around turrets and the unit is not beefy enough to take on an air army on its own and cannot be massed because of the weak ground attack.
Finally a Liberator nerf. I mean it was obvious since day 1 it was coming but they took so long about it. Feels like our discussions on other threads could have helped them choose on this particular nerf (instead of lets say range or damage) which is cool.
If Blizzard is using 3 tiers per league they need to think of the following:
Do not divide each league in 3 equally large slices.
The current vocabulary describing someone as high Master does not mean that he is in the top 33% of master league. It means maybe the top 10% or so of master league. Same for the other leagues.
I also suggest that you adopt the high, medium and low vocabulary when describing the rating. Tier 1, 2, 3 is not intuitive, at least for people like me that are not native English speakers. How do I I know if Tier 1 is better Than Tier 3? Level 3 is better than level 1, and tiers going in the opposite direction is just feels weird.
So high, medium and low is easier for everyone to understand.
I love the idea of such ladder changes! Now ladder is rather static. Most of players sit on their leagues for years. Also cool idea about different MMR for each race
On March 25 2016 07:07 Avi-Love wrote: With PvZ being close to balanced and ZvT being in terrans favour in korea (both depending on maps, obviously) I really hope they don't go through with the ravager nerfs. Also, with the new turtle playstyles in both pvz and tvz on certain maps, I think that they should consider buffing zergs anti air, the corrupter has been a far below average unit for way too long.
With PvZ below 45% since launch, I don't call that close to balanced. And looking at the new maps for S2, I'm having a hard time believing this could change anytime soon without a Zerg nerf or a Protoss change on early game.
Right, Zerg has mostly terrible anti-air... except for the one Parasitic "lol please try to split units that like to stack" Bomb. Corruptors are still kinda lame but at least they get an use. I've seen a lot of games lately where pros use them to piss on buildings and it seems as effective as hilarious.
I wrote pvz in korea, which is actually pretty balanced - beyond that, vipers are just not good enough lategame in their nerfed state, zerg cannot deal with turtling protoss or terran atm (which might be a map issue).
You mean the PvZ in Korea where it is 47.30% in Starleague Season 1 (31.82% if you exclude the qualifiers and only count the main tournament), 40.94% in GSL Pre-season, 43.37% in GSL Season 1. At some point you need a reality check. The numbers in Korea do not look vastly different from what we see everywhere else. GSL does not even use exactly the same map pool as Starleague and ladder, so maybe it is time to consider it is not entirely related to the maps.
Unfortunately you're delusional and as such have to carefully nitpick which stats to include in order to support your incorrect assessment; starleague season 1? qualifiers? gsl pre-season? The majority of these games were played months ago, on a different patch, on different maps. The only useful sample size we have from korea right now, while it is rather small, is code S, the last half of SSL and proleague - if you add up those stats, zvp is quite close to 50% and zvt is not. If you then look further into the games that were actually played, you will see that many of the zerg wins came from some kind of cheese. I already compiled the stats from code S, proleague and SSL played on the current ladder map pool in another thread, and I will happily share them here aswell: Dusk: TvZ 11-5, ZvP 8-7 Lerilak: TvZ 4-8, ZvP 8-7 Orbital: TvZ 2-2, ZvP 1-1 Prion: TvZ 2-2, ZvP 3-2 Ruins: TvZ 5-2, ZvP 9-9 Ulrena: TvZ 3-2, ZvP 4-3
Furthermore, I cannot help but feel that a lot of people in this thread are out of touch with what is actually happening in this game, maybe they don't have the time to follow all 3 big korean leagues, which is understandable - but liberators are NOT just used tvp, and terran does NOT lose lategame tvz anymore, if you want proof of such, look at this game between jin air and KT from the proleague playoffs + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anar2XBZ_pk Leenock is maxed out at 200/200 before his opponent, he has a huuuge bank while Maru does not, and he can make whichever ultimate army composition he wants - but the sad truth is that liberator/ghosts/viking demolish any composition zerg can create, mostly because zergs anti air is simply trash against terrans that know how vipers work
My personal opinion is that passive playstyles, such as the one displayed in the proleague game, should not be encouraged, it makes for very stale gameplay - much like mech and swarmhosts did previously. I don't think it's fun to watch, nor do I think it's fun to play, or play against.
Regardless of any disappointment with the limited changes in this balance test map, and with the fact that the slow Thor has been selected to offer the AA solution to the Terran Factory, I do believe that Blizzard deserves much recognition for the new MMR/ladder recommendations and also for continuing to release fairly detailed community updates. Also, we appreciate your review of our feedback and recommendations on how to improve the game.
I also believe that mass air in the end-game is a detriment to this strategy game. Here are some things that no longer matter as much when the game becomes one of "the race for the sky army":
I think you solve alot of issues for Terran and the air massing overall if you either make the Thor more manageable (more speed, mobility, maybe a bit smaller for pathing, etc.), or if you focus on the Cyclone instead of the Banshee which many feel will create problems anyhow.
If Cyclone or Thor could actually get in range to challenge Tempest/BL - we would see some very interesting exchanges and much more varied games. Maybe protoss transitions out of Tempests, or Zerg make a tech switch after BL, etc.
An earlier and somewhat mobile Cyclone might actually make TvT enjoyable again, because you could zone out flying entrenched Artillery drops (lol?) to some degree.
Zerg has no counter to the liberator. I put 4 liberators (600 mins 600 gas) and 5 corruptors (750/500) into the unit tester, pressed attack and the corruptors lost. WTF David?
On March 25 2016 23:08 BaronVonOwn wrote: Zerg has no counter to the liberator. I put 4 liberators (600 mins 600 gas) and 5 corruptors (750/500) into the unit tester, pressed attack and the corruptors lost. WTF David?
Is this sarcasm? Spread the corruptors. Or build vipers.
On March 25 2016 23:08 BaronVonOwn wrote: Zerg has no counter to the liberator. I put 4 liberators (600 mins 600 gas) and 5 corruptors (750/500) into the unit tester, pressed attack and the corruptors lost. WTF David?
You need to have Vipers. Also 4 liberators isn't that hard to stop, it's more when they get 15 that you need the vipers.
On March 25 2016 23:08 BaronVonOwn wrote: Zerg has no counter to the liberator. I put 4 liberators (600 mins 600 gas) and 5 corruptors (750/500) into the unit tester, pressed attack and the corruptors lost. WTF David?
Is this sarcasm? Spread the corruptors. Or build vipers.
No, it's not. The only joke here is liberators. Maybe we've all forgotten what a well-designed RTS looks like. That must be convenient for Blizzard's revenues. Vikings are countered by spore colonies, scourge, hydralisks, and devourers all without imposing a lopsided micro burden on one player. How did they do it (actual sarcasm)? Liberators force zerg to go spire just to keep their base from getting wrecked, because on top of great harassment, an extremely strong ground attack, and very efficient AA trades, liberators are extremely fast and can easily outrun corruptors so just building the faux counter unit doesn't mean you're going to actually kill them. All this from a basic starport unit that can be reactor-pumped. Lol?
Now you're saying you need Hive tech and vipers on top of that because there is no 1 single unit that can counter it. QED
On March 25 2016 23:08 BaronVonOwn wrote: Zerg has no counter to the liberator. I put 4 liberators (600 mins 600 gas) and 5 corruptors (750/500) into the unit tester, pressed attack and the corruptors lost. WTF David?
I put 4 liberators (12 supply) and 5 corruptors (10 supply) into the unit tester and did no micro and the corruptors won. WTF David?
If the corruptors are microed that fight isn't even close.
On March 25 2016 23:08 BaronVonOwn wrote: Zerg has no counter to the liberator. I put 4 liberators (600 mins 600 gas) and 5 corruptors (750/500) into the unit tester, pressed attack and the corruptors lost. WTF David?
Is this sarcasm? Spread the corruptors. Or build vipers.
No, it's not. The only joke here is liberators. Maybe we've all forgotten what a well-designed RTS looks like. That must be convenient for Blizzard's revenues. Vikings are countered by spore colonies, scourge, hydralisks, and devourers all without imposing a lopsided micro burden on one player. How did they do it (actual sarcasm)? Liberators force zerg to go spire just to keep their base from getting wrecked, because on top of great harassment, an extremely strong ground attack, and very efficient AA trades, liberators are extremely fast and can easily outrun corruptors so just building the faux counter unit doesn't mean you're going to actually kill them. All this from a basic starport unit that can be reactor-pumped. Lol?
Now you're saying you need Hive tech and vipers on top of that because there is no 1 single unit that can counter it. QED
At this point I'm pretty sure I'm responding to a troll.
For starters you say "Vikings" and then talk about units from Brood War. So I'm not even sure what version of Starcraft we're playing right now.
Then we talk about "lopsided micro" like somehow in some universe magic boxing air units became sick micro. Terrans have to split marines versus banes to trade efficiently. The concept of micro or die isn't something unheard of in this game.
Then you complain you can't just build hard counters to kill a unit. Which is it? Do you want your pure RTS like Brood Wars which required certain units in low numbers combined with other units to counter or do you want the one finger death punch unit?
On March 26 2016 04:17 Tenks wrote: For starters you say "Vikings" and then talk about units from Brood War. So I'm not even sure what version of Starcraft we're playing right now.
Then we talk about "lopsided micro" like somehow in some universe magic boxing air units became sick micro. Terrans have to split marines versus banes to trade efficiently. The concept of micro or die isn't something unheard of in this game.
Then you complain you can't just build hard counters to kill a unit. Which is it? Do you want your pure RTS like Brood Wars which required certain units in low numbers combined with other units to counter or do you want the one finger death punch unit?
No, your problem isn't that you're talking to a troll. It's that you have the reading comprehension of a special needs 5th grader and you have no absolutely no fucking clue how Starcraft or strategy games in general work. Apparently, in a discussion of game design I now have to spell out the fact that when I bring up examples from a well-designed game, it is meant to compare and contrast with the present subject and inform conclusions and changes. Seriously are you home-schooled? Is English not your first language? I fear for the future.
Also, banelings are a counter unit for marines. Pure marines are not supposed to trade efficiently with banelings. Jesus Christ. No wonder Donald Trump is going to be our next president.
Am I just being bitter if I am disgusted at how long it has taken to consider showing MMR? It seems like Blizzard is consistently 4-5 years late of obvious changes people have been begging for since release.
Liberators seem overpowered for sure, everyone knows they're strong.Terran really relies on them to stay in the game though. I can't help but feel Terran will be pretty weak against Protoss if this is a really strong Nerf. Would definitely prefer a tank buff instead of some speed banshee thing to compensate..
On March 25 2016 13:57 avilo wrote: Blizzard should re-consider combining mech air and ground upgrades. Armories should go to brood war price (100/50).
Liberator is only unit keeping Terran playable atm. I think it's OP but there's no other good anti-air unit with splash that T has ever since raven/seeker was nerfed. With liberators sucking...and ravens being unusable it's not a good thing for T imo.
Mech viability? Mech is still pretty bad...thor change might help or it might be so negligible to do nothing and then mech still sucks for another 6+ months =/
Banshee change is nice...but to be honest...it's really, really arbitrary. Like no Terran is going to argue that they don't want that...it's just it's completely random. Why don't they address mech issues more focused like cyclones being garbage....thors vs capital ships...and air units in general being OP.
Imo...liberators should not be nerfed unless tempests, broods, bcs, and carriers are all also nerfed at the same time. You cannot nerf just one races OP air unit. All of those units imo deserve supply increases.
Think about this. If liberators were 4 supply, instead of 3, if tempests were 8 supply instead of 4...if ravens/vipers were 3/4 supply respectively, and broodlords 6 supply...there will be less of these OP air units on the map in a maxed 200/200 army, and the person that focuses on ground units will have an advantage and be able to force action.
Air units inherently are OP in HOTS/LOTV. And that is not how the game should be because air units have the inherent advantage of FLYING. Meaning a lot of the units in the game cannot shoot up and the game becomes "do i have enough anti-air units to kill those? If i don't, all of my ground units are negligible, i must mass air myself."
I think all air still needs a nerf in supply. I've made countless threads about it on TL...but yeah a liberator nerf without nerfing other races corresponding lategame bullshit air is a really, really bad idea imo.
I actually agree on air units in general. Either air should be nerfed globally, or anti air should be buffed globally. Air should never truly be "game enders" except in rare cases that the ground units are able to completely prevent the ground units from getting in range.
The biggest niche for Protoss capital ships at the moment is dealing with an excessively defensive opponent. Nerf that and you're encouraging slower games by destroying Protoss' main weapon for fighting overly defensive play. Couple that with Avilo's campaign to "make mech great again" and all you've done is replace the swarmhost era with the mass Thor / tank / planetary era.
Still don't think ovi drop is a good nerf, just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. Would much rather see a mothership core strengthened or just expect people to deal with the drops. If the queen ling drop is such a problem than just change the ovi speed upgrade, make it slower or something. But I don't really see the need for this nerf. Don't screw with drops
On March 26 2016 04:30 ZackAttack wrote: Am I just being bitter if I am disgusted at how long it has taken to consider showing MMR? It seems like Blizzard is consistently 4-5 years late of obvious changes people have been begging for since release.
They already have a huge problem with new player frustration and retention rates. Showing MMR will only make that worse, then again, at this point I think they pretty much gave up about expanding the multiplayer player base.
On March 26 2016 15:09 crazedrat wrote: Still don't think ovi drop is a good nerf, just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. Would much rather see a mothership core strengthened or just expect people to deal with the drops. If the queen ling drop is such a problem than just change the ovi speed upgrade, make it slower or something. But I don't really see the need for this nerf. Don't screw with drops
Honestly the solution should just be to make gateway stronger. Protoss have been begging for that since WoL. It's just retarded that the only way one race can survive a timing is by abusing choke points and the moment they are gone the army can't trade (read: gets annihilated). The MSC is a band-aid fix to begin with and fixes like that can only carry you so far until they feel clunky (which the msc has been from the beginning). I understand where BaronVonOwn is coming from (although he could actually read posts and be nicer about it). The moment a unit that's supposed to be a counter gets countered by the thing that's supposed to be weak to it without any micro involved things get one-sided. If a player micros his countered unit to get an even trade out of it, sure fine. But the micro burden should be on the one who has the weaker composition.
Also I'm not an expert in sc1, but from what I could tell in sc1 you countered one unit with one unit. Protoss f.e. got arbiter/carrier to deal with tanks and goons against vultures. They used temps to deal with hydras and massed corsairs against mutas.
I agree that mass air should never be the solution. Air has the high mobility advantage, it shouldn't also have an advantage in fights. Goes less for capital ships bc capital ships aren't mobile.
On March 26 2016 04:30 ZackAttack wrote: Am I just being bitter if I am disgusted at how long it has taken to consider showing MMR? It seems like Blizzard is consistently 4-5 years late of obvious changes people have been begging for since release.
They already have a huge problem with new player frustration and retention rates. Showing MMR will only make that worse, then again, at this point I think they pretty much gave up about expanding the multiplayer player base.
This a bold statement to just interject with in this thread, but I think it's time to implement Box Limit! *cue car crash sound byte*
On March 26 2016 04:30 ZackAttack wrote: Am I just being bitter if I am disgusted at how long it has taken to consider showing MMR? It seems like Blizzard is consistently 4-5 years late of obvious changes people have been begging for since release.
They already have a huge problem with new player frustration and retention rates. Showing MMR will only make that worse, then again, at this point I think they pretty much gave up about expanding the multiplayer player base.
This a bold statement to just interject with in this thread, but I think it's time to implement Box Limit! *cue car crash sound byte*
Deathball must be killed.
I got to admit you completely lost me. I'm guessing I'm missing some vital reference because I have zero idea what you are talking about.
On March 26 2016 04:30 ZackAttack wrote: Am I just being bitter if I am disgusted at how long it has taken to consider showing MMR? It seems like Blizzard is consistently 4-5 years late of obvious changes people have been begging for since release.
They already have a huge problem with new player frustration and retention rates. Showing MMR will only make that worse, then again, at this point I think they pretty much gave up about expanding the multiplayer player base.
This a bold statement to just interject with in this thread, but I think it's time to implement Box Limit! *cue car crash sound byte*
Deathball must be killed.
I got to admit you completely lost me. I'm guessing I'm missing some vital reference because I have zero idea what you are talking about.
I guess he means a limit to the amount of units you can select at the same time with box limit? Not that that'd kill the deathball unless you set it to <20.
On March 26 2016 04:30 ZackAttack wrote: Am I just being bitter if I am disgusted at how long it has taken to consider showing MMR? It seems like Blizzard is consistently 4-5 years late of obvious changes people have been begging for since release.
They already have a huge problem with new player frustration and retention rates. Showing MMR will only make that worse, then again, at this point I think they pretty much gave up about expanding the multiplayer player base.
I don't think showing MMR will have a great impact on this. Dota 2, for instance, shows the MMR directly and they have a huge player base.
On March 26 2016 04:30 ZackAttack wrote: Am I just being bitter if I am disgusted at how long it has taken to consider showing MMR? It seems like Blizzard is consistently 4-5 years late of obvious changes people have been begging for since release.
They already have a huge problem with new player frustration and retention rates. Showing MMR will only make that worse, then again, at this point I think they pretty much gave up about expanding the multiplayer player base.
I don't think showing MMR will have a great impact on this. Dota 2, for instance, shows the MMR directly and they have a huge player base.
but dota 2 is 5vs5, u can blame everyone and complain about ur bad luck.
On March 26 2016 05:04 AxionSteel wrote: Liberators seem overpowered for sure, everyone knows they're strong.Terran really relies on them to stay in the game though. I can't help but feel Terran will be pretty weak against Protoss if this is a really strong Nerf. Would definitely prefer a tank buff instead of some speed banshee thing to compensate..
It feels like terran got left behind in LOTV. Marauder nerf, ultra buff, adepts and the immortal change have really weakened terran's ground game. Terran's additions were all gimmicks. As someone said earlier cyclones and thors really need to be revamped and for that matter I think liberator needs some changes too. I imagine liberators could be given the corsair/valkyrie treatment with high attack speed / low damage.
As for terran mech I feel like all the abilities need to be swapped around. For example I agree with the devs that thors should have a strong single-target anti-air attack to deal with capital ships / armored air. But then terran would have no ground anti-light air attack so cyclones should pick up thor's attack albeit with higher mobility and a lower range to balance that.
Lastly it would make my Starcraft dreams come true if hot pickups were removed and tanks could take the cyclone's shoot-while-moving ability so I can micro tank battles and tank mode would finally not be useless.
On March 26 2016 04:30 ZackAttack wrote: Am I just being bitter if I am disgusted at how long it has taken to consider showing MMR? It seems like Blizzard is consistently 4-5 years late of obvious changes people have been begging for since release.
They already have a huge problem with new player frustration and retention rates. Showing MMR will only make that worse, then again, at this point I think they pretty much gave up about expanding the multiplayer player base.
I don't think showing MMR will have a great impact on this. Dota 2, for instance, shows the MMR directly and they have a huge player base.
Losing in any team game or MOBA means
1) You can blame your teammates/shift blame elsewhere 2) The games are longer so you can't just drop like 200 points in a blink of an eye
SC is unique because the games start faster so you can be tilted from previous games, 1v1 so you can't blame anyone and tilt actually will affect you more, and it's more mechanically and attention demanding than other comparable games.
How many days do you believe you will need to determine what might be a good damage amount to initially try out on a balance test map for the Thor? We could begin to run some numbers on hits per unit against BL, Tempest, etc.
How many weeks before it could be ok to try out some numbers/changes to the Cyclone?
I am sure that everyone would welcome some kind of timetable on beginning to test.
- Tankivac: Increase delay time on shooting + damage buff to siege (what blizzard talked about for the last 2 months) - Liberator: 4 supply cost, radius nerf but gets it back with the range upgrade, reduce move speed to 4.25 (instead of 4.72) - Thor: new upgrade that requires fusion core and give 15 range in AA (similar to Bw goliath range upgrade) - Cyclone: Lower cost to 150/75/2, Increase Hp to 150
ZERG
- Ravager: Increase corrosive bile cooldown, Increase morph time to 20 sec (instead of 9 sec Hots time) - Lurker: Reduce range to 8 - Nydus: Remove invulnerability, decrease cost to 150/100 - Ultra: 6 armor in total (instead of 8) - Brood lord: 6 supply cost
PROTOSS
- Warp Prism: Increase cost to 200/100 - Phenix: Reduce move speed to 5.4 (instead of 5.95) - Oracle: Increase creation time to 43 sec (instead of 36 hots time) - Voidray: Increase Charge cooldown to 75 sec (instead of 60 sec hots time) - Tempest: 6 supply cost
On March 29 2016 04:42 MaxTa wrote: Here are my suggestions for balance :
TERRAN
- Tankivac: Increase delay time on shooting + damage buff to siege (what blizzard talked about for the last 2 months) - Liberator: 4 supply cost, radius nerf but gets it back with the range upgrade, reduce move speed to 4 (instead of 4.72) - Thor: new upgrade that requires fusion core and give 15 range in AA (similar to Bw goliath range upgrade) - Cyclone: Lower cost to 150/75/2, Increase Hp to 150
ZERG
- Ravager: Increase corrosive bile cooldown, Increase morph time to 20 sec (instead of 9 sec Hots time) - Lurker: Reduce range to 7 - Nydus: Remove invulnerability, decrease cost to 150/100 - Ultra: 6 armor in total (instead of 8) - Brood lord: 8 supply cost
PROTOSS
- Warp Prism: Increase cost to 200/100 - Phenix: Reduce move speed to 5 (instead of 5.95) - Voidray: Increase Charge cooldown to 75 sec (instead of 60 sec hots time) - Tempest: 6 supply cost - Carrier: 8 supply cost
8 supply broods? 8 supply carriers? Excluding everything else, these should not happen at the least. No one is going to waste 24 supply to have 3 broods.
8 supply broods? 8 supply carriers? Excluding everything else, these should not happen at the least. No one is going to waste 24 supply to have 3 broods.
Well maybe it might me too much so I agree we could try it at 6 to see... I will update that ^^
We’ve arrived at a point where we want to work with you guys to lock down changes regarding the ladder revamp and begin work on the implementation side. We have been discussing more based on you previous feedback in a similar post, and have been making improvements as we started implementing the feature little by little. Now we’re at the stage where the overall design looks very solid, and we want to focus on doing the implementation. So we’ll review where we are at now, collect your feedback, and finalize our direction.
GM League
Currently, we’re thinking that the best way to go is to update Grandmaster League with new players, promotions, and demotions each day at a specified time—all based strictly on skill. We see two main advantages to this approach. First, we can have an accurate, skill-based representation of the best 200 players on the server on any given day. Second, it also makes things clearer on the esports side, especially if tournaments pull from this list. As an added bonus, we also like that this could promote more intense competition during this period of the day (though mostly for just this specific group of top players).
Showing MMR
This is something we’ve received the most feedback on and we’ve been exploring the concept heavily internally. Currently, we’re leaning towards clearly displaying your MMR in the UI. The more we dug into the topic of making the ranks, divisions, and leagues as accurate as possible, the more we realized that there were other potential problems that we could have introduced. Since we have the MMR available already, we think it might be best to just show it as the most accurate measurement of a player’s skill.
League & Tier
In developing the new League & Tier system, the main concern was that achieving a high-degree of accuracy required that we enable mid-season demotions. Although we know that there are many players out there who want to see demotions enabled, we believe this feedback mostly stems from the fact that there currently isn’t a reliable way to tell your skill right now. The downside of enabling demotions is that we could potentially take away from a players’ biggest accomplishment that season; this downside is magnified if it’s their first time getting to a specific league, which may make the person not want to play the game anymore due to the risk of losing this reward.
Because we will be showing MMR, we wonder if it’s best to have the ranking system display the highest League & Tier achieved during the current season. There’s really no need to show the same number two different ways, and we can show two cool numbers instead. This way, if I were to tell my friends that I’m in Master Tier 1, but my MMR is a solid Master Tier 2 (naming is not final), it clearly shows 1) the highest I’ve achieved this season and 2) where my skill is at the moment.
For the number of tiers, we’ve spent time analyzing and evaluating how the Heroes of the Storm system works because their 50 ranks would be very similar to our originally announced 10 tiers per league (we would have 60 tiers if we strip out the leagues). For StarCraft II, due to the amount of movement that would occur with having this many tiers, this system doesn’t look to be the way to go. So we debated on going with 5 tiers or 3 tiers, and we’re currently leaning towards 3 for a couple reasons.
First, talking about leagues in StarCraft II has naturally tended towards using 3 tiers. When players talk about where they are at within a league, perhaps the most common way to refer to the tiers currently is to say that he or she is in “High Diamond,” “Mid Diamond,” or “Low Diamond.” So colloquially, this fits well with how players already discuss the ladder. The second reason is that we can always increase the number of tiers available in the future if 3 is not enough. Going from 3 to 5 or 3 to 10 would be easier than doing the reverse, which means we don’t need to remove functionality from the system.
This is where we’re at currently, and as you can see we’ve narrowed in on the most critical components of Ladder Revamp. If you have thoughts on these areas, we’d ask that we get discussions going so that we can lock down the design. We’re currently aiming to finalize the design of this feature within the next couple weeks, and are potentially aiming for a mid- to late-summer release in order to have enough time to fully work through the implementation.
Separate MMR Per Race
We hear your feedback regarding this feature. We had originally set the priority for this to come after ladder revamp, but we’re currently exploring ways to potentially get started on this feature even sooner. Although we haven’t set an exact timeline, we just wanted to let you know that we agree that this feature is important to the game and we’re discussing ways to release it more quickly. We’ll be sure to keep everyone updated!
Balance
Moving onto balance in Legacy of the Void, we’ve been discussing and testing various topics and we want to get a Balance Test Map out as soon as possible after hearing your opinions on our proposed changes for testing. We’re currently aiming to release the Balance Test Map next week, so let’s start discussing the following changes more aggressively this weekend.
Ravager Corrosive Bile cooldown increased from 10 to 14
We definitely hear the pros and cons you’ve discussed that nerfing Overlord drops instead could bring. The reason why we’re more interested in the Ravager nerf being tested is because it is the more impactful, bigger nerf. The main concern many of our community members point out (especially on the KR side) is that this change is a nerf against both Terran and Protoss, whereas nerfing Overlord drops is targeted more as a nerf vs. Protoss. This is true. To be clear—we’re not saying that we have to be going the Ravager nerf route—we just want to test this one first.
Therefore, before we make a decision on what unit to nerf, we wanted to test this concept out fully to know the effects of this change in both matchups. The Overlord drop nerf doesn’t require as much testing because it’s a very safe nerf that can’t really break another area of the game.
Banshee speed upgrade requirement changed to Armory and cost reduced to 100/100
Due to the current state of the Banshees, we wanted to try going more aggressive with this change, so that we can potentially bring various Banshee-based strategies back into the mix. We know from testing before the release of the game that the speed upgrade at a much earlier tier is a huge buff to Terran, and we wanted to make sure to combo this with a nerf in a similar area so that we make sure to not just buff Terran.
Liberator ability radius reduction from 5 to 4
After going through the details of reducing the range of the ability and hearing your feedback on the current strength of Liberators, we thought it might be better to go a bit harder on this nerf so that we can also go heavier on the Banshee buff, so that we can potentially get situations where going one or the other unit can be viable instead of it being Liberators all the time. With this change, the total range of Liberators will be nerfed, as well as the damaging area. We hope this change feels more fitting, and once we get the Balance Test Map online we’d love your opinions on how these changes feel.
Thor AA damage changed to flat and single target
We’re still looking at numbers for this, but we’re thinking something similar to the idea of the Thor’s damage against the ground: High damage per shot with a low rate of fire. With this change, we wonder if we can separate out the Thor’s AA role from units such as the Widow Mine or the Liberator. We considered whether this could overlap with the Viking, and although there will be more overlap than before, there are still many differences between the two units. Between the many obvious differences, the Thor’s resistance to splash damage, and their different flat damage values, the two units will still be in unique places.
Cyclone
We’ve also been testing different numbers for the Cyclone, but we feel that a change to this unit isn’t as critical right now compared to the other unit changes mentioned above, so it might be better to hold off on exploring this route for now. The main goal here is still to eventually get the unit to a place where it has a solid role in the early/mid stages of the game, but not be effective en masse in the late game.
I don't understand. The ladder maps have been mostly frustrating. I guess to add diversity to play they just make it so one race is broken. Trying to grind out all 3 races is super frustrating(as random, you get no vetoes and I swear you get the maps and styles that are vetoed by the other players). I hate lerilak so fucking bad. I've hated that map since it came out. Its been on rotation for soo long. I play it almost exclusively as protoss, even though I'm a random player and have an abysmal 38% win rate on that map with nearly 3 times the number of games as protoss over the other 2 races on it. The level of stress from the map pool makes the game really not good after a day of working.
As far as ladder showing MMR. I could really care less. There isn't a rewards system in starcraft 2 and the only reward is having some internet nerds shove their e-penis in your face with a MMR number. Just another way to have people feel some kind of reward for playing by putting other's down. Not really going to make me want to play more or less.
What is the exact purpose of the cyclone? I really want to know. Blizzard what is this unit supposed to do? If you want it used in the mid game. It shouldn't cost so much gas. You get 2 cyclone vs 2 cloaked banshees, but with 0 harass potential and almost no defensive potential. It is literally only effective in 1 on 1 anti-air fights, with absolutely no other units present. This is something that a viking or liberator is better at. There is nothing else worth saying about this unit. I don't know which is worse swarm hosts or cyclones. It is not designed for the mid-game. Never has been, and never will be. I would like to see if the game designers are random players. They make decisions that don't feel right for play sometimes.
Also, as far as ravager balance. The biggest issue is not ravager damage. It's the ability to choose between, burrow, nydus, lurker, mutas, ling drops, or ravagers when the units are already across the map. There is no commitment to the unit until morphing and it kills many openers if you don't prepare for it. I don't understand why there isn't a ravager den in the game like a lurker den. This could be used to allow more scouting, fine tune upgrades for the unit, and keep all the great features that ravagers have. It would bring back much more stabilty to PvZ with forge openers. (that could be bypassed by ling drops if you skip the cannon in the main.) Why this options isn't being discussed is confusing? Did the koreans say it was a bad idea? As far as the ones i'm talked to they all agree its a good idea, similar to the oracle changes proposed.
On March 29 2016 04:42 MaxTa wrote: Here are my suggestions for balance :
TERRAN
- Tankivac: Increase delay time on shooting + damage buff to siege (what blizzard talked about for the last 2 months) - Liberator: 4 supply cost, radius nerf but gets it back with the range upgrade, reduce move speed to 4 (instead of 4.72) - Thor: new upgrade that requires fusion core and give 15 range in AA (similar to Bw goliath range upgrade) - Cyclone: Lower cost to 150/75/2, Increase Hp to 150
ZERG
- Ravager: Increase corrosive bile cooldown, Increase morph time to 20 sec (instead of 9 sec Hots time) - Lurker: Reduce range to 7 - Nydus: Remove invulnerability, decrease cost to 150/100 - Ultra: 6 armor in total (instead of 8) - Brood lord: 8 supply cost
PROTOSS
- Warp Prism: Increase cost to 200/100 - Phenix: Reduce move speed to 5 (instead of 5.95) - Voidray: Increase Charge cooldown to 75 sec (instead of 60 sec hots time) - Tempest: 6 supply cost - Carrier: 8 supply cost
8 supply broods? 8 supply carriers? Excluding everything else, these should not happen at the least. No one is going to waste 24 supply to have 3 broods.
With those changes Immortal/archon/charge zealot composition would be even more difficult for zerg to beat. At this point they often walk trough even heavy lurker lines. You would need to nerf immortals quite heavily to compensate for those nerfs.
On March 29 2016 04:42 MaxTa wrote: Here are my suggestions for balance :
TERRAN
- Tankivac: Increase delay time on shooting + damage buff to siege (what blizzard talked about for the last 2 months) - Liberator: 4 supply cost, radius nerf but gets it back with the range upgrade, reduce move speed to 4 (instead of 4.72) - Thor: new upgrade that requires fusion core and give 15 range in AA (similar to Bw goliath range upgrade) - Cyclone: Lower cost to 150/75/2, Increase Hp to 150
ZERG
- Ravager: Increase corrosive bile cooldown, Increase morph time to 20 sec (instead of 9 sec Hots time) - Lurker: Reduce range to 7 - Nydus: Remove invulnerability, decrease cost to 150/100 - Ultra: 6 armor in total (instead of 8) - Brood lord: 8 supply cost
PROTOSS
- Warp Prism: Increase cost to 200/100 - Phenix: Reduce move speed to 5 (instead of 5.95) - Voidray: Increase Charge cooldown to 75 sec (instead of 60 sec hots time) - Tempest: 6 supply cost - Carrier: 8 supply cost
8 supply broods? 8 supply carriers? Excluding everything else, these should not happen at the least. No one is going to waste 24 supply to have 3 broods.
With those changes Immortal/archon/charge zealot composition would be even more difficult for zerg to beat. At this point they often walk trough even heavy lurker lines. You would need to nerf immortals quite heavily to compensate for those nerfs.
Nah, you missed that he included a nerf to Phoenix to be notably slower than Mutalisks (which have a speed of 5.6), so Protoss probably just rolls over and dies to any sort of Muta play.
On March 29 2016 04:42 MaxTa wrote: Here are my suggestions for balance :
TERRAN
- Tankivac: Increase delay time on shooting + damage buff to siege (what blizzard talked about for the last 2 months) - Liberator: 4 supply cost, radius nerf but gets it back with the range upgrade, reduce move speed to 4 (instead of 4.72) - Thor: new upgrade that requires fusion core and give 15 range in AA (similar to Bw goliath range upgrade) - Cyclone: Lower cost to 150/75/2, Increase Hp to 150
ZERG
- Ravager: Increase corrosive bile cooldown, Increase morph time to 20 sec (instead of 9 sec Hots time) - Lurker: Reduce range to 7 - Nydus: Remove invulnerability, decrease cost to 150/100 - Ultra: 6 armor in total (instead of 8) - Brood lord: 8 supply cost
PROTOSS
- Warp Prism: Increase cost to 200/100 - Phenix: Reduce move speed to 5 (instead of 5.95) - Voidray: Increase Charge cooldown to 75 sec (instead of 60 sec hots time) - Tempest: 6 supply cost - Carrier: 8 supply cost
8 supply broods? 8 supply carriers? Excluding everything else, these should not happen at the least. No one is going to waste 24 supply to have 3 broods.
With those changes Immortal/archon/charge zealot composition would be even more difficult for zerg to beat. At this point they often walk trough even heavy lurker lines. You would need to nerf immortals quite heavily to compensate for those nerfs.
Nah, you missed that he included a nerf to Phoenix to be notably slower than Mutalisks (which have a speed of 5.6), so Protoss probably just rolls over and dies to any sort of Muta play.
So the answer to Immortal/archon/charge is to go muta´s and not use lurkers any more? That would be terrible design. Now we don´t really see mutas because of phoenix and this would just possibly make muta/corruptor OP or the only viable option.
Nah, you missed that he included a nerf to Phoenix to be notably slower than Mutalisks (which have a speed of 5.6), so Protoss probably just rolls over and dies to any sort of Muta play
Mutas have 5.6 and I'm sugesting lowering phoenix to around 5.4. I think this would greatly improve PvP (instead of putting oracle armored) and mutas would still easily be countered with the phoenix range upgrade (that no one even bothers to get most of the time) Also, medivacs would be able to evade when boosting (T currently has no way to evade and all harass gets shut down as soon as phoenix are out) I really do think protoss air overall is a little too strong and easy to do and I can see future PvP only being stargate wars if nothing is done...
On March 29 2016 23:20 MaxTa wrote: and mutas would still easily be countered with the phoenix range upgrade (that no one even bothers to get most of the time)
um, what?
everyone gets phoenix range any time they go above 5-6 phoenix... like phoenix vs phoenix or phoenix vs mass muta... why would anyone ever NOT get it? you dont get it vs muta is if its only a small number of muta and zerg is transitioning, which is more common, but if zerg ever goes mass muta its necessary
everyone gets phoenix range any time they go above 5-6 phoenix... like phoenix vs phoenix or phoenix vs mass muta... why would anyone ever NOT get it?
Honestly in pvz with their current speed you don't even have to until late mid-game at least. Also, getting 4-5 pheonix should not shut down muta play for good like it is doing right now. Countering mutas should be a mix of phoenix with stalkers blink, canons for defense and even archons but right now you don't even need that... And like I said I'm seeing the future of PvP being phoenix wars basically...
everyone gets phoenix range any time they go above 5-6 phoenix... like phoenix vs phoenix or phoenix vs mass muta... why would anyone ever NOT get it?
Honestly in pvz with their current speed you don't even have to until mid-game at least. Also, getting 4-5 pheonix should not shut down muta play for good like it is doing right now. Countering mutas should be a mix of phoenix with blink stalkers, canons for defense and even archons but right now you don't even need that... And like I said I'm seeing future PvP being phoenix wars basically...
I think 5-6 pheonix shutting down mutas is fine. You can still trade with those numbers, as zerg. It just forces zerg to make units other than mutas, which in turn forces the protoss to make units other than pheonix.
On March 29 2016 05:29 tokinho wrote: Also, as far as ravager balance. The biggest issue is not ravager damage. It's the ability to choose between, burrow, nydus, lurker, mutas, ling drops, or ravagers when the units are already across the map. There is no commitment to the unit until morphing and it kills many openers if you don't prepare for it. I don't understand why there isn't a ravager den in the game like a lurker den. This could be used to allow more scouting, fine tune upgrades for the unit, and keep all the great features that ravagers have. It would bring back much more stabilty to PvZ with forge openers. (that could be bypassed by ling drops if you skip the cannon in the main.) Why this options isn't being discussed is confusing? Did the koreans say it was a bad idea? As far as the ones i'm talked to they all agree its a good idea, similar to the oracle changes proposed.
The ravager is the way it is so that zerg has at least one early game threat and I don't think it should be changed. They're fun to use and they're needed to help deal with liberators as well. But I could easily part with invulnerable nydus worms and the overlord drop change.
I get that workers shouldn't be able to stop nydus worms. But a more reasonable solution would be to buff their armor/HP instead of giving them straight-up invulnerability. They could have a high armor value like 4 only while morphing and workers would literally be doing 1 damage to them. After morph they might have like 250 HP and 2 armor. I always felt like nydus worms were too fragile but invulnerability as a solution is pretty gross.
As for overlord drops... Honestly just put this back to lair. If you want to buff overlord drops I have a question: why are speed upgraded overlords as slow as a high templar or a thor, in fact much slower than workers, whereas terran and protoss transports are some of the fastest units in the game?
I think 5-6 pheonix shutting down mutas is fine. You can still trade with those numbers, as zerg. It just forces zerg to make units other than mutas, which in turn forces the protoss to make units other than pheonix.
But spire play is basically gone because of that and instead all we are seing is lurkers because they outrange immortals and even trade with colossus... So P has no other option but to tank up lurker's damage with immortal's shield and charge in with zealots and archons... If mutas become slightly better because they could get saved from phoenix, then we would see more of them to counter zealots/immortals so P would make more stalkers. Also, with a nerf on the range of Lurker, Colossus would be back...
Regarding mid-season demotions and their pros/cons: just separate season rewards from current ranking.
If a player capped out at Diamond rank 24, let that be their "season high" which gets displayed for bragging rights, even if their current position is Platinum rank 67. No reason to complicate the ranking system and artificially keep players above their actual skill level, just so they can feel good about playing the game without fear of losing their accomplishments. Refusing to allow for fluid movement between leagues has the effect of either:
1. inflating the player % in higher leagues, reducing their value (if league % isn't strictly upheld) 2. locking out players that become more deserving of being in higher leagues (if league % is strictly upheld)
Heck, you could even add on a new reward tier for players that both reach a certain league and are actively part of said league, and allow ranking/mmr decay on inactive players (who still retain their "season best" rewards). For example:
1. Player 1 reached Masters and then stopped playing. He decays back into Diamond, but gets a "season best" of Masters. 2. Player 2 reached Masters and remained active. He gets both "season best" of Masters and an additional reward for ending the season in that league.
Adding decay to inactives removes the old "reach League X and stop playing" mentality caused by mid-season demotion, because you're going to lose it anyway if you stop playing (so, you know, keep playing and don't worry about it -- you got your "season best").
Don't want to refer to all those changes, but regarding the playerbase, in my opinion StarCraft should just be free to play. What kind of Pay-Features Blizz's gonna add, could be thought of afterwards.
This step is way more important than any kind of MMR change.
On March 30 2016 07:42 EXRNaRa wrote: Don't want to refer to all those changes, but regarding the playerbase, in my opinion StarCraft should just be free to play. What kind of Pay-Features Blizz's gonna add, could be thought of afterwards.
This step is way more important than any kind of MMR change.
On March 30 2016 07:42 EXRNaRa wrote: Don't want to refer to all those changes, but regarding the playerbase, in my opinion StarCraft should just be free to play. What kind of Pay-Features Blizz's gonna add, could be thought of afterwards.
This step is way more important than any kind of MMR change.
no, it will have too many hackers.
If thats the reason why we have no free to play i could not stop laughing. In League and CS its managable, and so it would be in SC2. Thats an hilarious argument tbh.
The "Apple" side of Blizzard was okay when it had some kind of quality seal. You knew you payed more than for another game, but you were ensured quality. LOTV took a big stinking dump on this concept. I'm not surprised by the playerbase shrinking, and I'm not surprised by the overall lack of hype about Overwatch (unless I missed something massive). Simple solution for expanding LOTV's playerbase : designing the game to be played ("by the average Joe" can be added, but the first part would already be a big step), and then balance it for the top levels. I'm still baffled on how WOL introduced so much cool new RTS units. Colossi being able to walk cliffs but are suceptible to AA. Banelings. Roaches. Man, you take BW and WOL, you see some real innovation. You take WOL and LOTV, and you only have your eyes left to cry ("disruptor wow such a good RTS unit wow much good design wow great innovation").
Still preordered the nova mission pack because I'm a massive moron though.
On March 30 2016 07:42 EXRNaRa wrote: Don't want to refer to all those changes, but regarding the playerbase, in my opinion StarCraft should just be free to play. What kind of Pay-Features Blizz's gonna add, could be thought of afterwards.
This step is way more important than any kind of MMR change.
At least make the SC2 multiplayer part F2P and sell single-player-content and skins/sounds.
On March 31 2016 02:25 _Croc wrote: The Liberator should also require a tech-lab to build.
It's currently the key Terran unit, it keeps the entire race afloat in TvZ late game and TvP in general. But if you can't make it with the same add-on as medivacs it becomes ridiculously bad compared to now even if you don't change its cost or stats.
On March 31 2016 02:25 _Croc wrote: The Liberator should also require a tech-lab to build.
It's currently the key Terran unit, it keeps the entire race afloat in TvZ late game and TvP in general. But if you can't make it with the same add-on as medivacs it becomes ridiculously bad compared to now even if you don't change its cost or stats.
True but this just shows how badly messed up terran is in LOTV. Having one really OP unit propping up an entire sewer full of shit is hardly good design nor should it continue.
On March 31 2016 02:25 _Croc wrote: The Liberator should also require a tech-lab to build.
It's currently the key Terran unit, it keeps the entire race afloat in TvZ late game and TvP in general. But if you can't make it with the same add-on as medivacs it becomes ridiculously bad compared to now even if you don't change its cost or stats.
True but this just shows how badly messed up terran is in LOTV. Having one really OP unit propping up an entire sewer full of shit is hardly good design nor should it continue.
On March 31 2016 02:25 _Croc wrote: The Liberator should also require a tech-lab to build.
It's currently the key Terran unit, it keeps the entire race afloat in TvZ late game and TvP in general. But if you can't make it with the same add-on as medivacs it becomes ridiculously bad compared to now even if you don't change its cost or stats.
True but this just shows how badly messed up terran is in LOTV. Having one really OP unit propping up an entire sewer full of shit is hardly good design nor should it continue.
Mothership core?
Wow, that makes me really hopeful that this will be fixed.
On March 31 2016 02:25 _Croc wrote: The Liberator should also require a tech-lab to build.
It's currently the key Terran unit, it keeps the entire race afloat in TvZ late game and TvP in general. But if you can't make it with the same add-on as medivacs it becomes ridiculously bad compared to now even if you don't change its cost or stats.
Yes it is and that is why it needs to be toned down. The liberator overshadows so many terran units.
- They overshadow Banshees because they are more powerful, more supply efficient and can be reactored.
- They overshadow Siege Tanks because they have over 3 times as much DPS against ground and are a lot more mobile.
The liberator should be nerfed to add more diversity to Terran.
On March 31 2016 02:25 _Croc wrote: The Liberator should also require a tech-lab to build.
It's currently the key Terran unit, it keeps the entire race afloat in TvZ late game and TvP in general. But if you can't make it with the same add-on as medivacs it becomes ridiculously bad compared to now even if you don't change its cost or stats.
Yes it is and that is why it needs to be toned down. The liberator overshadows so many terran units.
- They overshadow Banshees because they are more powerful, more supply efficient and can be reactored.
- They overshadow Siege Tanks because they have over 3 times as much DPS against ground and are a lot more mobile.
The liberator should be nerfed to add more diversity to Terran.
The Liberator has 74.6 DPS against ground. That is 423 % as much as sieged Siege Tanks have against non-armored and 297 % as much as sieged Siege Tank have against armored.
It is not weird or surprising that this unit has become a key Terran unit.
On March 31 2016 02:25 _Croc wrote: The Liberator should also require a tech-lab to build.
It's currently the key Terran unit, it keeps the entire race afloat in TvZ late game and TvP in general. But if you can't make it with the same add-on as medivacs it becomes ridiculously bad compared to now even if you don't change its cost or stats.
Yes it is and that is why it needs to be toned down. The liberator overshadows so many terran units.
- They overshadow Banshees because they are more powerful, more supply efficient and can be reactored.
- They overshadow Siege Tanks because they have over 3 times as much DPS against ground and are a lot more mobile.
The liberator should be nerfed to add more diversity to Terran.
Nerfing Libs will just push Terrans to play even more MMM - it is not like Tanks, BCs and Ravens are going to be staples in TvP cause Libs get nerfed.
Nerfing Libs just makes Terran even more one dimensional, not the other way around...
On March 31 2016 02:25 _Croc wrote: The Liberator should also require a tech-lab to build.
It's currently the key Terran unit, it keeps the entire race afloat in TvZ late game and TvP in general. But if you can't make it with the same add-on as medivacs it becomes ridiculously bad compared to now even if you don't change its cost or stats.
Yes it is and that is why it needs to be toned down. The liberator overshadows so many terran units.
- They overshadow Banshees because they are more powerful, more supply efficient and can be reactored.
- They overshadow Siege Tanks because they have over 3 times as much DPS against ground and are a lot more mobile.
The liberator should be nerfed to add more diversity to Terran.
Nerfing Libs will just push Terrans to play even more MMM
Except, of course, MMM without liberators can't even beat sensible Protoss compositions anymore. Or ultras. Either you nerf the liberator and a dozen other units along with it, or you nerf the liberator and buff the tank.
On March 31 2016 17:25 _Croc wrote: It is not weird or surprising that this unit has become a key Terran unit.
No, it's not surprising that it became a key unit. Because it turned out that not making them results in losing the vast majority of your games.
On March 31 2016 02:25 _Croc wrote: The Liberator should also require a tech-lab to build.
It's currently the key Terran unit, it keeps the entire race afloat in TvZ late game and TvP in general. But if you can't make it with the same add-on as medivacs it becomes ridiculously bad compared to now even if you don't change its cost or stats.
Yes it is and that is why it needs to be toned down. The liberator overshadows so many terran units.
- They overshadow Banshees because they are more powerful, more supply efficient and can be reactored.
- They overshadow Siege Tanks because they have over 3 times as much DPS against ground and are a lot more mobile.
The liberator should be nerfed to add more diversity to Terran.
The Liberator has 74.6 DPS against ground. That is 423 % times as much as sieged Siege Tanks have against non-armored and 297 % as much as sieged Siege Tank have against armored.
It is not weird or surprising that this unit has become a key Terran unit.
Every race has those units. Nerfing the liberator because of that is a) hypocritial (where's the zergling nerf? where's the nerf to the MsC that makes it worth as much as two reapers instead of being a solve-all-problem bandaid?) b) it doesn't make the units it "overshadows" more playable. Noone's going to go banshee harass because of a liberator nerf, or make thors or BCs as your lategame source of high-dps singlefire unit. Noone's gonna mass tanklines like they do with liberators now in the lategame.
It's not weird or surprising that it's a key unit. It's also not weird or suprising that after 5+ years of MMM blizzard has finally given Terran another unit that isn't blatantly underpowered vs Protoss.
Blizz already said they are thinking about nerfing the radius of freedom. That won't make hydras viable against them, but it's a nerf that also affects their harrassment power which is nice. Let's wait and see how that goes, and talk from there.
On March 31 2016 02:25 _Croc wrote: The Liberator should also require a tech-lab to build.
It's currently the key Terran unit, it keeps the entire race afloat in TvZ late game and TvP in general. But if you can't make it with the same add-on as medivacs it becomes ridiculously bad compared to now even if you don't change its cost or stats.
Yes it is and that is why it needs to be toned down. The liberator overshadows so many terran units.
- They overshadow Banshees because they are more powerful, more supply efficient and can be reactored.
- They overshadow Siege Tanks because they have over 3 times as much DPS against ground and are a lot more mobile.
The liberator should be nerfed to add more diversity to Terran.
Nerfing Libs will just push Terrans to play even more MMM
Except, of course, MMM without liberators can't beat sensible Protoss compositions. Or ultras. Either you nerf the liberator and a dozen other units along with it, or you nerf the liberator and buff the tank.
TBH I'm not exactly sure if that is the case in TvP. making comparison between HotS and LotV and pointing the changes: 1. Colossus being main dmg dealing unit in HotS was nerfed so heavily (deals ~33% dmg less in LotV) so P do not have that option anymore -> dealing with bio is harder in that regard 2. Chrono nerfed harder than Mules, Protoss rely heavily on upgrades and tech units and that nerf is really hitting that. 3. General changes to eco makes P more uncomfortable the longer the game lasts -> have to take bases eariler than can hold them, more spread out against drops, cannot lift up freely etc.
Imaging only these 3 changes in HotS env -> protoss is totally dead, even without liberators in the picture.
ofc there are changes for protoss which should help: 4. Marauder attack split -> slight nerf but helps protoss gateway units to stay a bit longer on field against stimmed bio. 5. Adept introduction -> Adept is like consolation prize for colossus nerf. However Adept has different scaling than colo - colossus is viable all game long and scales really good with upgrades into the late game whereas adept is OP in early game but scales really badly in to late game. That's why Terran is defending hard on 2 bases to not die to some all-in/cheese but after that period it gets better and better for terran. 6. Immortal changes might be considerate as a slight buff in PvT but still they never gonna be really good in that match up because marines + stim, mobility and EMP. Personally I do not think that points 4,5,6 outweights 1,2,3 and if you add liberator to this equation...
On March 31 2016 02:25 _Croc wrote: The Liberator should also require a tech-lab to build.
It's currently the key Terran unit, it keeps the entire race afloat in TvZ late game and TvP in general. But if you can't make it with the same add-on as medivacs it becomes ridiculously bad compared to now even if you don't change its cost or stats.
Yes it is and that is why it needs to be toned down. The liberator overshadows so many terran units.
- They overshadow Banshees because they are more powerful, more supply efficient and can be reactored.
- They overshadow Siege Tanks because they have over 3 times as much DPS against ground and are a lot more mobile.
The liberator should be nerfed to add more diversity to Terran.
Nerfing Libs will just push Terrans to play even more MMM
Except, of course, MMM without liberators can't beat sensible Protoss compositions. Or ultras. Either you nerf the liberator and a dozen other units along with it, or you nerf the liberator and buff the tank.
TBH I'm not exactly sure if that is the case in TvP. making comparison between HotS and LotV and pointing the changes: 1. Colossus being main dmg dealing unit in HotS was nerfed so heavily (deals ~33% dmg less in LotV) so P do not have that option anymore -> dealing with bio is harder in that regard 2. Chrono nerfed harder than Mules, Protoss rely heavily on upgrades and tech units and that nerf is really hitting that. 3. General changes to eco makes P more uncomfortable the longer the game lasts -> have to take bases eariler than can hold them, more spread out against drops, cannot lift up freely etc.
Imaging only these 3 changes in HotS env -> protoss is totally dead, even without liberators in the picture.
ofc there are changes for protoss which should help: 4. Marauder attack split -> slight nerf but helps protoss gateway units to stay a bit longer on field against stimmed bio. 5. Adept introduction -> Adept is like consolation prize for colossus nerf. However Adept has different scaling than colo - colossus is viable all game long and scales really good with upgrades into the late game whereas adept is OP in early game but scales really badly in to late game. That's why Terran is defending hard on 2 bases to not die to some all-in/cheese but after that period it gets better and better for terran. 6. Immortal changes might be considerate as a slight buff in PvT but still they never gonna be really good in that match up because marines + stim, mobility and EMP. Personally I do not think that points 4,5,6 outweights 1,2,3 and if you add liberator to this equation...
Let me tell you as a Terran, few things crush marine/marauder/medivac harder in a straight-up fight than adept/stalker/immortal + guardian shield (even without storm). That's why some Terrans have been playing around with marine/tank (which incidentally still loses to colossi).
On March 31 2016 02:25 _Croc wrote: The Liberator should also require a tech-lab to build.
It's currently the key Terran unit, it keeps the entire race afloat in TvZ late game and TvP in general. But if you can't make it with the same add-on as medivacs it becomes ridiculously bad compared to now even if you don't change its cost or stats.
Yes it is and that is why it needs to be toned down. The liberator overshadows so many terran units.
- They overshadow Banshees because they are more powerful, more supply efficient and can be reactored.
- They overshadow Siege Tanks because they have over 3 times as much DPS against ground and are a lot more mobile.
The liberator should be nerfed to add more diversity to Terran.
Nerfing Libs will just push Terrans to play even more MMM
Except, of course, MMM without liberators can't beat sensible Protoss compositions. Or ultras. Either you nerf the liberator and a dozen other units along with it, or you nerf the liberator and buff the tank.
TBH I'm not exactly sure if that is the case in TvP. making comparison between HotS and LotV and pointing the changes: 1. Colossus being main dmg dealing unit in HotS was nerfed so heavily (deals ~33% dmg less in LotV) so P do not have that option anymore -> dealing with bio is harder in that regard 2. Chrono nerfed harder than Mules, Protoss rely heavily on upgrades and tech units and that nerf is really hitting that. 3. General changes to eco makes P more uncomfortable the longer the game lasts -> have to take bases eariler than can hold them, more spread out against drops, cannot lift up freely etc.
Imaging only these 3 changes in HotS env -> protoss is totally dead, even without liberators in the picture.
ofc there are changes for protoss which should help: 4. Marauder attack split -> slight nerf but helps protoss gateway units to stay a bit longer on field against stimmed bio. 5. Adept introduction -> Adept is like consolation prize for colossus nerf. However Adept has different scaling than colo - colossus is viable all game long and scales really good with upgrades into the late game whereas adept is OP in early game but scales really badly in to late game. That's why Terran is defending hard on 2 bases to not die to some all-in/cheese but after that period it gets better and better for terran. 6. Immortal changes might be considerate as a slight buff in PvT but still they never gonna be really good in that match up because marines + stim, mobility and EMP. Personally I do not think that points 4,5,6 outweights 1,2,3 and if you add liberator to this equation...
Let me tell you as a Terran, few things crush marine/marauder/medivac harder in a straight-up fight than adept/stalker/immortal + guardian shield (even without storm).
Hmm, maybe - it is still hard for me to tell for sure. I personally always die in such scenarios unless I have heavily superior numbers. Tell me is Adept really THAT strong in such fights and at that game point? I mean like 120-150 supply? Because in Hots if You would exchange Adept for zealot in composition You have mentioned then Terran for sure obliterates Protoss army.
On March 31 2016 02:25 _Croc wrote: The Liberator should also require a tech-lab to build.
It's currently the key Terran unit, it keeps the entire race afloat in TvZ late game and TvP in general. But if you can't make it with the same add-on as medivacs it becomes ridiculously bad compared to now even if you don't change its cost or stats.
Yes it is and that is why it needs to be toned down. The liberator overshadows so many terran units.
- They overshadow Banshees because they are more powerful, more supply efficient and can be reactored.
- They overshadow Siege Tanks because they have over 3 times as much DPS against ground and are a lot more mobile.
The liberator should be nerfed to add more diversity to Terran.
Nerfing Libs will just push Terrans to play even more MMM
Except, of course, MMM without liberators can't beat sensible Protoss compositions. Or ultras. Either you nerf the liberator and a dozen other units along with it, or you nerf the liberator and buff the tank.
TBH I'm not exactly sure if that is the case in TvP. making comparison between HotS and LotV and pointing the changes: 1. Colossus being main dmg dealing unit in HotS was nerfed so heavily (deals ~33% dmg less in LotV) so P do not have that option anymore -> dealing with bio is harder in that regard 2. Chrono nerfed harder than Mules, Protoss rely heavily on upgrades and tech units and that nerf is really hitting that. 3. General changes to eco makes P more uncomfortable the longer the game lasts -> have to take bases eariler than can hold them, more spread out against drops, cannot lift up freely etc.
Imaging only these 3 changes in HotS env -> protoss is totally dead, even without liberators in the picture.
ofc there are changes for protoss which should help: 4. Marauder attack split -> slight nerf but helps protoss gateway units to stay a bit longer on field against stimmed bio. 5. Adept introduction -> Adept is like consolation prize for colossus nerf. However Adept has different scaling than colo - colossus is viable all game long and scales really good with upgrades into the late game whereas adept is OP in early game but scales really badly in to late game. That's why Terran is defending hard on 2 bases to not die to some all-in/cheese but after that period it gets better and better for terran. 6. Immortal changes might be considerate as a slight buff in PvT but still they never gonna be really good in that match up because marines + stim, mobility and EMP. Personally I do not think that points 4,5,6 outweights 1,2,3 and if you add liberator to this equation...
Let me tell you as a Terran, few things crush marine/marauder/medivac harder in a straight-up fight than adept/stalker/immortal + guardian shield (even without storm).
Hmm, maybe - it is still hard for me to tell for sure. I personally always die in such scenarios unless I have heavily superior numbers. Tell me is Adept really THAT strong in such fights and at that game point? I mean like 120-150 supply? Because in Hots if You would exchange Adept for zealot in composition You have mentioned then Terran for sure obliterates Protoss army.
Well, it's multiple things I guess. For one, immortals have always crushed marauders, the reason you didn't make that many against Terran was basically marines. Barrier makes them better against marines.
The marauder attack got split up, so guardian shield is now twice as good against marauders. Also adepts are pretty tanky while doing solid damage (at least to marines).
You really need ghosts/mines/liberators (something) to make those fights go your way as Terran, even if the Protoss hasn't added storm/colossi/disruptors/all of them yet.
The worst thing is when tempests come out and you get forced to waste a ton of supply on vikings ._.
On March 31 2016 02:25 _Croc wrote: The Liberator should also require a tech-lab to build.
It's currently the key Terran unit, it keeps the entire race afloat in TvZ late game and TvP in general. But if you can't make it with the same add-on as medivacs it becomes ridiculously bad compared to now even if you don't change its cost or stats.
Yes it is and that is why it needs to be toned down. The liberator overshadows so many terran units.
- They overshadow Banshees because they are more powerful, more supply efficient and can be reactored.
- They overshadow Siege Tanks because they have over 3 times as much DPS against ground and are a lot more mobile.
The liberator should be nerfed to add more diversity to Terran.
Nerfing Libs will just push Terrans to play even more MMM
Except, of course, MMM without liberators can't beat sensible Protoss compositions. Or ultras. Either you nerf the liberator and a dozen other units along with it, or you nerf the liberator and buff the tank.
TBH I'm not exactly sure if that is the case in TvP. making comparison between HotS and LotV and pointing the changes: 1. Colossus being main dmg dealing unit in HotS was nerfed so heavily (deals ~33% dmg less in LotV) so P do not have that option anymore -> dealing with bio is harder in that regard 2. Chrono nerfed harder than Mules, Protoss rely heavily on upgrades and tech units and that nerf is really hitting that. 3. General changes to eco makes P more uncomfortable the longer the game lasts -> have to take bases eariler than can hold them, more spread out against drops, cannot lift up freely etc.
Imaging only these 3 changes in HotS env -> protoss is totally dead, even without liberators in the picture.
ofc there are changes for protoss which should help: 4. Marauder attack split -> slight nerf but helps protoss gateway units to stay a bit longer on field against stimmed bio. 5. Adept introduction -> Adept is like consolation prize for colossus nerf. However Adept has different scaling than colo - colossus is viable all game long and scales really good with upgrades into the late game whereas adept is OP in early game but scales really badly in to late game. That's why Terran is defending hard on 2 bases to not die to some all-in/cheese but after that period it gets better and better for terran. 6. Immortal changes might be considerate as a slight buff in PvT but still they never gonna be really good in that match up because marines + stim, mobility and EMP. Personally I do not think that points 4,5,6 outweights 1,2,3 and if you add liberator to this equation...
Let me tell you as a Terran, few things crush marine/marauder/medivac harder in a straight-up fight than adept/stalker/immortal + guardian shield (even without storm).
Hmm, maybe - it is still hard for me to tell for sure. I personally always die in such scenarios unless I have heavily superior numbers. Tell me is Adept really THAT strong in such fights and at that game point? I mean like 120-150 supply? Because in Hots if You would exchange Adept for zealot in composition You have mentioned then Terran for sure obliterates Protoss army.
Well, it's multiple things I guess. For one, immortals have always crushed marauders, the reason you didn't make that many against Terran was basically marines. Barrier makes them better against marines.
The marauder attack got split up, so guardian shield is now twice as good against marauders. Also adepts are pretty tanky while doing solid damage (at least to marines).
You really need ghosts/mines/liberators (something) to make those fights go your way as Terran.
Hmm, maybe I underestimate the changes to marauder & immortal. For me they feel really negligible but maybe it makes the difference. I really want to test it in some test map right now hahaha
On March 31 2016 02:25 _Croc wrote: The Liberator should also require a tech-lab to build.
It's currently the key Terran unit, it keeps the entire race afloat in TvZ late game and TvP in general. But if you can't make it with the same add-on as medivacs it becomes ridiculously bad compared to now even if you don't change its cost or stats.
Yes it is and that is why it needs to be toned down. The liberator overshadows so many terran units.
- They overshadow Banshees because they are more powerful, more supply efficient and can be reactored.
- They overshadow Siege Tanks because they have over 3 times as much DPS against ground and are a lot more mobile.
The liberator should be nerfed to add more diversity to Terran.
Nerfing Libs will just push Terrans to play even more MMM
Except, of course, MMM without liberators can't beat sensible Protoss compositions. Or ultras. Either you nerf the liberator and a dozen other units along with it, or you nerf the liberator and buff the tank.
TBH I'm not exactly sure if that is the case in TvP. making comparison between HotS and LotV and pointing the changes: 1. Colossus being main dmg dealing unit in HotS was nerfed so heavily (deals ~33% dmg less in LotV) so P do not have that option anymore -> dealing with bio is harder in that regard 2. Chrono nerfed harder than Mules, Protoss rely heavily on upgrades and tech units and that nerf is really hitting that. 3. General changes to eco makes P more uncomfortable the longer the game lasts -> have to take bases eariler than can hold them, more spread out against drops, cannot lift up freely etc.
Imaging only these 3 changes in HotS env -> protoss is totally dead, even without liberators in the picture.
ofc there are changes for protoss which should help: 4. Marauder attack split -> slight nerf but helps protoss gateway units to stay a bit longer on field against stimmed bio. 5. Adept introduction -> Adept is like consolation prize for colossus nerf. However Adept has different scaling than colo - colossus is viable all game long and scales really good with upgrades into the late game whereas adept is OP in early game but scales really badly in to late game. That's why Terran is defending hard on 2 bases to not die to some all-in/cheese but after that period it gets better and better for terran. 6. Immortal changes might be considerate as a slight buff in PvT but still they never gonna be really good in that match up because marines + stim, mobility and EMP. Personally I do not think that points 4,5,6 outweights 1,2,3 and if you add liberator to this equation...
Let me tell you as a Terran, few things crush marine/marauder/medivac harder in a straight-up fight than adept/stalker/immortal + guardian shield (even without storm).
Hmm, maybe - it is still hard for me to tell for sure. I personally always die in such scenarios unless I have heavily superior numbers. Tell me is Adept really THAT strong in such fights and at that game point? I mean like 120-150 supply? Because in Hots if You would exchange Adept for zealot in composition You have mentioned then Terran for sure obliterates Protoss army.
The worst thing is when tempests come out and you get forced to waste a ton of supply on vikings ._.
Oh yeah the whole liberator -> tempest interaction is totally fucked up. I HATE it that i have to transition to tempest because terran have 6+ libs and then terran gets viking and we go to full air vs air game which makes me always miss HotS PvT atm T_T
On March 31 2016 02:25 _Croc wrote: The Liberator should also require a tech-lab to build.
It's currently the key Terran unit, it keeps the entire race afloat in TvZ late game and TvP in general. But if you can't make it with the same add-on as medivacs it becomes ridiculously bad compared to now even if you don't change its cost or stats.
Yes it is and that is why it needs to be toned down. The liberator overshadows so many terran units.
- They overshadow Banshees because they are more powerful, more supply efficient and can be reactored.
- They overshadow Siege Tanks because they have over 3 times as much DPS against ground and are a lot more mobile.
The liberator should be nerfed to add more diversity to Terran.
Nerfing Libs will just push Terrans to play even more MMM
Except, of course, MMM without liberators can't beat sensible Protoss compositions. Or ultras. Either you nerf the liberator and a dozen other units along with it, or you nerf the liberator and buff the tank.
TBH I'm not exactly sure if that is the case in TvP. making comparison between HotS and LotV and pointing the changes: 1. Colossus being main dmg dealing unit in HotS was nerfed so heavily (deals ~33% dmg less in LotV) so P do not have that option anymore -> dealing with bio is harder in that regard 2. Chrono nerfed harder than Mules, Protoss rely heavily on upgrades and tech units and that nerf is really hitting that. 3. General changes to eco makes P more uncomfortable the longer the game lasts -> have to take bases eariler than can hold them, more spread out against drops, cannot lift up freely etc.
Imaging only these 3 changes in HotS env -> protoss is totally dead, even without liberators in the picture.
ofc there are changes for protoss which should help: 4. Marauder attack split -> slight nerf but helps protoss gateway units to stay a bit longer on field against stimmed bio. 5. Adept introduction -> Adept is like consolation prize for colossus nerf. However Adept has different scaling than colo - colossus is viable all game long and scales really good with upgrades into the late game whereas adept is OP in early game but scales really badly in to late game. That's why Terran is defending hard on 2 bases to not die to some all-in/cheese but after that period it gets better and better for terran. 6. Immortal changes might be considerate as a slight buff in PvT but still they never gonna be really good in that match up because marines + stim, mobility and EMP. Personally I do not think that points 4,5,6 outweights 1,2,3 and if you add liberator to this equation...
Let me tell you as a Terran, few things crush marine/marauder/medivac harder in a straight-up fight than adept/stalker/immortal + guardian shield (even without storm).
Hmm, maybe - it is still hard for me to tell for sure. I personally always die in such scenarios unless I have heavily superior numbers. Tell me is Adept really THAT strong in such fights and at that game point? I mean like 120-150 supply? Because in Hots if You would exchange Adept for zealot in composition You have mentioned then Terran for sure obliterates Protoss army.
Well, it's multiple things I guess. For one, immortals have always crushed marauders, the reason you didn't make that many against Terran was basically marines. Barrier makes them better against marines.
The marauder attack got split up, so guardian shield is now twice as good against marauders. Also adepts are pretty tanky while doing solid damage (at least to marines).
You really need ghosts/mines/liberators (something) to make those fights go your way as Terran.
Hmm, maybe I underestimate the changes to marauder & immortal. For me they feel really negligible but maybe it makes the difference. I really want to test it in some test map right now hahaha
I already did, MMM vs stalker/adepts/centry with guardian shield. Protoss wins. it varies with the specific comp. Inmortal/adept is also incredibly good and less GS dependant than pure gateway.
Marauders hit at 5x2 vs adepts. I think adepts have 1 armor, and guardian shield removes 2 damage per instance. Which means that marauders hit adepts at 2x2, and marines at 3 dmg.
It's no surprise that bio gets mauled by gateway/immo. Right now the saving grace of terran relies in widow mine gimmicks and liberator's insane damage. But while pro koreans seem to make it work easily, us plebs have a really hard time in TvP.
The last posts nails the match up IMO. Gateway units now stand their ground vs Bio and without Libs I dont see Terrans standing a chance. Berfing the Lib hard will Force Terrans to gimmicky two base pushes, SCV pulls and what not.
Mass Cyclones, Reaper Swarms or BC rushes wont be used cause Libs get nerfed... Neither would Carriers or 5 base of 1-gates see mote play if we removed MSC from the game..
imo they need to remove all leagues, but well also it would be good if they realized that having a separate MMR per matchup, as well as the possibility to choose your MU when playing Unranked, would be a huge step forward for the game
On March 31 2016 20:01 OtherWorld wrote: imo they need to remove all leagues, but well also it would be good if they realized that having a separate MMR per matchup, as well as the possibility to choose your MU when playing Unranked, would be a huge step forward for the game
They haven't even commented on that one ever, right? They probably have some reasons that they don't want to share publically...
On March 31 2016 20:01 OtherWorld wrote: imo they need to remove all leagues, but well also it would be good if they realized that having a separate MMR per matchup, as well as the possibility to choose your MU when playing Unranked, would be a huge step forward for the game
They haven't even commented on that one ever, right? They probably have some reasons that they don't want to share publically...
I believe the main argument against this is that it would potentially prolong game-search time, but I dunno if Blizzard actually said that or if it originated from a regular Liquidian.
On March 31 2016 02:33 Elentos wrote: [quote] It's currently the key Terran unit, it keeps the entire race afloat in TvZ late game and TvP in general. But if you can't make it with the same add-on as medivacs it becomes ridiculously bad compared to now even if you don't change its cost or stats.
Yes it is and that is why it needs to be toned down. The liberator overshadows so many terran units.
- They overshadow Banshees because they are more powerful, more supply efficient and can be reactored.
- They overshadow Siege Tanks because they have over 3 times as much DPS against ground and are a lot more mobile.
The liberator should be nerfed to add more diversity to Terran.
Nerfing Libs will just push Terrans to play even more MMM
Except, of course, MMM without liberators can't beat sensible Protoss compositions. Or ultras. Either you nerf the liberator and a dozen other units along with it, or you nerf the liberator and buff the tank.
TBH I'm not exactly sure if that is the case in TvP. making comparison between HotS and LotV and pointing the changes: 1. Colossus being main dmg dealing unit in HotS was nerfed so heavily (deals ~33% dmg less in LotV) so P do not have that option anymore -> dealing with bio is harder in that regard 2. Chrono nerfed harder than Mules, Protoss rely heavily on upgrades and tech units and that nerf is really hitting that. 3. General changes to eco makes P more uncomfortable the longer the game lasts -> have to take bases eariler than can hold them, more spread out against drops, cannot lift up freely etc.
Imaging only these 3 changes in HotS env -> protoss is totally dead, even without liberators in the picture.
ofc there are changes for protoss which should help: 4. Marauder attack split -> slight nerf but helps protoss gateway units to stay a bit longer on field against stimmed bio. 5. Adept introduction -> Adept is like consolation prize for colossus nerf. However Adept has different scaling than colo - colossus is viable all game long and scales really good with upgrades into the late game whereas adept is OP in early game but scales really badly in to late game. That's why Terran is defending hard on 2 bases to not die to some all-in/cheese but after that period it gets better and better for terran. 6. Immortal changes might be considerate as a slight buff in PvT but still they never gonna be really good in that match up because marines + stim, mobility and EMP. Personally I do not think that points 4,5,6 outweights 1,2,3 and if you add liberator to this equation...
Let me tell you as a Terran, few things crush marine/marauder/medivac harder in a straight-up fight than adept/stalker/immortal + guardian shield (even without storm).
Hmm, maybe - it is still hard for me to tell for sure. I personally always die in such scenarios unless I have heavily superior numbers. Tell me is Adept really THAT strong in such fights and at that game point? I mean like 120-150 supply? Because in Hots if You would exchange Adept for zealot in composition You have mentioned then Terran for sure obliterates Protoss army.
Well, it's multiple things I guess. For one, immortals have always crushed marauders, the reason you didn't make that many against Terran was basically marines. Barrier makes them better against marines.
The marauder attack got split up, so guardian shield is now twice as good against marauders. Also adepts are pretty tanky while doing solid damage (at least to marines).
You really need ghosts/mines/liberators (something) to make those fights go your way as Terran.
Hmm, maybe I underestimate the changes to marauder & immortal. For me they feel really negligible but maybe it makes the difference. I really want to test it in some test map right now hahaha
I already did, MMM vs stalker/adepts/centry with guardian shield. Protoss wins. it varies with the specific comp. Inmortal/adept is also incredibly good and less GS dependant than pure gateway.
I just want to add that I've also tested this yesterday and it's true - I stand corrected MMM mostly loses vs Adept/Stalker/Immortal/Sentry + GS.
I tested: ratios: Marine/Marauder/Medivac = 3/3/1 Adept/Stalker/Immortal/Sentry = 5/5/1/1 (maybe ratios are not the best when it comes to actual, real armies ratios in the game idk) With all bio/gateway upgrades (Combat shield. Concussive shells, Stim, Blink, Resonating G.) Same cost of armies (mineral + gas = const) I tried 3 different army sizes (~20/50/80) and 4 sets of upgrades (0/0 1/1 2/2 3/3) Stim + a-move & GS +a-move - no micro
What I found out is that in low numbers and no upgrades Protoss owns Terran hard. Going up with army supply -> gap is slightly narrowing Going up with upgrades -> gap is slightly narrowing ~80 supply + 3/3 -> Trade is really close but still favors Protoss slightly.
Also I found out that the outcome changes severely when sentry with GS gets randomly sniped so i tried without sentry GS/micro couple of Terran units to snipe sentry. The outcome was: Terran army started winning, especially with higher supply counts/upgrades. Looks like the GS is THE most important ability in pure bio vs pure gateway fights and that corresponds well with Marauder Nerf in LotV.
EPT![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CM809rKWoAAiV0C.jpg)
