David Kim, April 11 - Map Update on Thursday - Page 11

AKomrade

United States578 Posts

April 13 2016 16:11 GMT

#201

On April 12 2016 04:35 Nerchio wrote:
Nerf medivacs/ immortal/ liberator/ ravager/ tempest/ carrier/ warp prism/lurker

Buff infestor

ggwp perfect game

You mean back to the end of Wings?

Tenks

United States3104 Posts

April 13 2016 17:13 GMT

#202

On April 12 2016 04:35 MikouZonata wrote:

Show nested quote +

It's a sign. We need to reboot SotG.

I was super bored and just randomly tuned into JP's stream yesterday and he didn't even seem to know who Rifkin is ... I don't think he's too interested in SC2 content lol

Charoisaur

Germany13649 Posts

April 13 2016 17:37 GMT

#203

On April 14 2016 01:11 AKomrade wrote:

Show nested quote +

You mean back to the end of Wings?

yes. perfect game for nerchio.

Pugfarmer

70 Posts

April 13 2016 21:04 GMT

#204

I think game is in a pretty good place right now, except for some of the new maps. If you can't win, with any race, it's your problem. Watch the Korean pros and you'll figure it out if you aren't a dummy.

BoBiNoU

France181 Posts

April 13 2016 21:32 GMT

#205

On April 14 2016 06:04 Pugfarmer wrote:
I think game is in a pretty good place right now, except for some of the new maps. If you can't win, with any race, it's your problem. Watch the Korean pros and you'll figure it out if you aren't a dummy.

Relevant when korean pros are not playing on the same map pool as the ladder ...

Cyro

United Kingdom19880 Posts

April 14 2016 11:28 GMT

#206

Yo DKim it's thursday

Big J

Austria16283 Posts

April 14 2016 11:32 GMT

#207

On April 14 2016 20:28 Cyro wrote:
Yo DKim it's thursday

You gotta wait for Murica to wake up and go to work.

petro1987

Brazil373 Posts

April 14 2016 17:23 GMT

#208

Today, we will only have the map updates, right? No update in the liberator/thor, correct?

blade55555

United States17382 Posts

April 14 2016 17:29 GMT

#209

On April 14 2016 20:28 Cyro wrote:
Yo DKim it's thursday

Yo Cyro, it was 4 or 5 AM for blizzard when you posted this

LSN

Germany684 Posts

April 14 2016 17:35 GMT

#210

On April 13 2016 15:40 MoonyD wrote:
Wait, what?! I never knew Zergs found it impossible to beat Protoss in late game. I thought the current meta swinged towards Zerg always winning with mass lurkers. After colossus range was nerfed (and storm being ranged shorted than lurkers), I thought Zerg were favoured more than Protoss. Especially after how Solar and Dark crushed every Protoss they ever played against.

The problem derives from the strong omnipotent bio. I said this 3 years ago and it is still true. Basically everything what is bad about SC2 derives from terran bio being way stronger than it should on its own or with few complements.

A ball of bio units with stim and the basic upgrades is way too volatile to balance the game around and way too alround considering the damage per second output it does.

Protoss got problems with muta regeneration? Zerg was given it back in the days to be able to deal with bio.

Lurkers too much range? If they had only 6-7 range they would be a-move overrun by marauders without dealing any damage at all before they die.

Mech too weak and unplayable? Sure, if mech was stronger then mech/bio combinations would get out of control.

Ultras got 8 armour? Why? Because bio otherwise could endlessly kite them and zerg in any way then needed 3-3 before being able to go ultras, which is now not the case.
etc.

I strongly suggest blizz to try one of the following approaches, I think this can make SC2 a good game in a one year period from now, but it involves reconsidering many major things:

1. Remove the marauder from the game or from early/midgame(t3 unit)! Make terran gameplay evolve around X+Marines instead of mmm+x (marines as min dump just as lings/zealots). Tanks then can be 150/100 with 2 supply costs I am sure and whatever else it needs. Marines still can be dropped with mines, helions etc. in order to put pressure.

2. When introducing or evaluation positions of units try it the other way round.
I. e. in the case of lurker your approach was: How do we have to do the lurker so that it fits in the current state of the game? You should do it the other way round: The question to ask is why does a 6-7 range lurker not fit into the current game. What has to be changed so that it does?
Do that with all units that are in a critical state in certain scenarios and follow it back to the source. If I do that I get to the point where it all comes down to bio, so back to point 1. Especially the marauder complements bio in a way that it should not be complemented.

The problem can be shown when looking at split army fights. Lets take as an example a terran 1-2 medivac drop on z/p: Z/P always needs more stuff in place to defend that. Now ppl. say terran needs to be able to harrass. That is totally not the point. The point is if Z/P needs more investment to defend it. This factors into the meta and causes multiple follow up problems as can be seen e.g. with nexus cannon, muta regen, and so on.

What makes SC2 a relatively bad and unstrategic game is variance and factor of luck/unluck. It is like paying rock paper scissors in many situations.

In silver league:
- protoss recognizes that terran dropped 100% of army into his mainbase while his own army stands at his third to defend potential frontal attacks. Until he moves his units back to his main he lost 60% of his mainbase + nexus and additionally takes a disadvantageous fight upwards his ramp, game lost.
- terran recognizes that protoss for what ever reason has major parts of his army in main base and his doom drop unloads anyway and fails, game lost.

On higher levels:
- this maximum variance gets reduced the higher the level of play, but it is still there and plays a major role.
- it comes down to how many stalkers were left behind in order to snipe dropships and if they do so or not. If too many and terran sees that somehow, he gathers the units in drops quickly with medivac boost with his main army and attacks frontal where protoss cant defend then due to too many stalkers back in base. If not enough defence in place he unloads and deals damage.

The game mechanic of this itself is not what is wrong but the fine mechanics that play into it are. Bio with medivacs can only be engaged with superior forces of defencee in order to have a cost efficient trade. You can't send 5 stalkers vs. 4 marauders and 8 marines + and hope to minimize it until support arrives without accepting to take major losses. It is not the other way round. Inferior bio army can trade cost efficiently against superior forces of defense up to a certain degree, e.g. focussing down 3 stalkers while losing 6 marines and one marauder.

What is given to other races to make up for this is causing the game to be unpleasant for everyone participating (including terrans) because it increases variance again: 15 Mutas got shot down to 10% hp by mines and then escape? Funny, 30 sec later they are full hp and it is like nothing happened. If one more mine landed a shot they were all dead tho and game would likely be over (this is variance, luck). I named several things above but when you go into detail, you recognize that the whole game evolves in major aspects around exactly this.

The major point of concern for me is the marauder because it can be stimmed and healed like marines while it exactly covers the downside of marines, which is fighting armored units and providing tankyness.

In broodwar this role was filled by other units which allowed interesting interactions but didn't add up with both marine damage and mobility at the same time, what the marauders do.

Let me get back to my silver league exampe. The higher the variance the lower the fun to play and the lower the motivations for players to play. This explains why alot of ppl are still following SC2 pro-streams while not playing anymore themselves. In this silver league example, both players are on equal skill but one wins as described and the other one loses.
- If protoss for whatever reason has randomly his units back in base and defends the doom drop out of luck, he wins the game. He doesn't win because he was the better player.
- If protoss has his units at third when the doom drop is taking place terran wins the game, but not because he was the better player.

Everyone always thinks that the game should only be evaluated for pro level. In order to analyse why SC2 is losing interest of players the opposite is true. It is important to note that on any level this silver league example is happening but in smaller instances and less impactful, but it still is happening in exactly this sense, however it gets more visible on lower levels and therefore is more tangible.

Marauders play a major role when it comes to (design-)balancing the game. They are like marines that can only shoot ground with massive hitpoints. Lurkers reliably forced terran to transition into tanks in broodwar. In SC2, bw lurkers would reliably force terran to build more bio instead.

There were changed several things in terms of bio such has healing dropships and marine-shields. But I think these should not be changed back. The marauder however should be removed because it adds majorly to the fact that a bio army cannot be attacked cost efficiently without superiority or massive splash damage. And this caused blizzard to give the other races tools that they shouldn't have as well, as they further increase variance and factor of luck.

I am pretty sure that reducing instead of increasing stuff is the key to make SC2 less volatile and then more popular amongst players.

I don't see a way to bring SC2 back to interest of players in other ordinary ways that only include smallish tweaks. Blizzard is adding more and more stuff which doesn't help the situation but makes it worse. Therefore you even see ppl talking about how great HOTS TvZ was. HOTS TvZ wasn't great but potentially better than current LOTV TvZ. Broodwar TvZ was great, maybe the best matchup in any RTS ever with fun endgame interactions of scourges vs. vessels vs. defiler.

Cyro

United Kingdom19880 Posts

April 14 2016 17:42 GMT

#211

On April 15 2016 02:29 blade55555 wrote:

Show nested quote +

Yo Cyro, it was 4 or 5 AM for blizzard when you posted this

They often update way earlier EU time like 8am rather than 8pm+

Liquid`Snute

Norway839 Posts

April 14 2016 18:23 GMT

#212

live now on EU

Tresher

Germany404 Posts

April 14 2016 18:28 GMT

#213

On April 14 2016 06:32 BoBiNoU wrote:

Show nested quote +

Relevant when korean pros are not playing on the same map pool as the ladder ...

This!

Also not everyone has the the APM/decisionmaking of Korean Pros.

Seriously stop centering the game around 4% Korean Pros. It´s not healthy for the game. Also not everyone wants to be a Pro or competitive. Some people just want to play some games.