Hey everyone. We’ve been reading your comments and discussions these past few weeks and value the things you’ve been saying. In response, we wanted to clarify some things so you might better understand our perspectives on some key issues. Hopefully we’ll then all move forward with more effective and constructive discussions.
In addition, we’ve recently been referencing Korean feedback in our updates and we haven’t given much detail into how that process works, so we wanted to provide more transparency on this topic in order to keep you all as well-informed as possible.
Sourcing Korean Pro Feedback
Over the past year or so, we considered a great many ways to gather feedback from Korean pros, and we have ultimately arrived at a place that provides a comprehensive and consolidated voice via KeSPA. We’ve established a two-way communication channel with KeSPA where we’ve made it easy for them to reach out to us with any feedback they may have. When we have questions for them, they reach out to their players for feedback, and upon receiving it, they identify the key points which the pros have identified and present the feedback as “one KR pro voice” to our design team. How frequently this happens depends on what the current issues are, so some weeks we have multiple back and forth discussions, whereas other weeks we might not have any topics to discuss.
This has had huge advantages for us. Because there’s “one pro voice” coming in from the Korean scene now, we can more easily relay these opinions to you guys like we have been doing so far this year. Because our community has become such an integral part of the development of StarCraft II, we believe that it’s crucial to relay this info, and this method makes it very easy to do so. Another advantage we see is that it makes sharing feedback easier. Not every pro wants to discuss balance with Blizzard, for example, but they may feel more comfortable speaking to coaches, managers, or members of KeSPA with whom they’re closer. This allows us to source feedback from players who are equally as skilled, but may be less vocal about sharing feedback.
That being said, we definitely want to make it clear that we don’t take Korean pro feedback and then immediately make changes to the game based on it. We do use the feedback to balance against what other pro players, our internal data, and the community are indicating to make the best decisions possible. We see true value in gathering different forms of data and feedback before making a decision. This is why we’re relaying their feedback to you, so that our community also has the tools to look at the big picture before making a conclusion. Few things are more harmful than looking at data from only one source and then making definite conclusions, and we hope that the additional transparency into how KR feedback is gathered provides some additional insight.
Balance Test Maps vs. Balance Patches
Moving forward then, we’d like to discuss Balance Test Maps. This week we saw a lot of discussion around how, in Wings of Liberty or Heart of the Swarm, Balance Test Maps translated to balance patches rather often, and how this has not been the case in Legacy of the Void. We discussed this point a while ago (during the beta), but we wanted to re-highlight the topic for additional discussion.
In the past, we worked with the community to determine that we should be aggressively testing various changes even if they don’t end up in the game. This allows us to have a wide array of changes lined up in case they are needed. While this approach may not actually be the best option (because we’re testing such a large number of changes), we wanted to try it out and see how well it worked. Going back to how we did Balance Test Maps in the past (fewer tests, greater likelihood of changes going into the game) is also an option.
We’d love to hear any feedback on this and hear the reasons why we believe one method may be working better than another. For instance, testing changes can cause players to become excited to see a change added to the game. With aggressive testing, however, most changes we test will not be added to the game and so this approach can potentially cause people to become upset when their change is not implemented.
While we haven’t seen this discussed, we want to share one of the main goals we are striving for with StarCraft II—the joy of mastery. Because unit changes only happen when they’re absolutely needed, players can chase the fun of really digging deep into how each specific unit is mastered. We believe this is one of the core fun elements of StarCraft II, and one that is unique to this game. If units were changing drastically all the time, it could feel far less rewarding to invest time and effort to master them. This is a large reason why we believe so strongly in the importance of making as few changes as possible and targeting specific problem areas only when absolutely necessary.
Removing or Re-Testing Changes
There was also a lot of discussion around removing or re-testing changes, so we wanted to clarify some points on this as well. The two main reasons we’ve observed this are:
After sharing a change with the community, additional details are discussed and we realize that our initial direction wasn’t good.
For example, thanks to your input, our Ravager nerf didn’t look to be a good route due to the nerf having a big impact in TvZ, where Ravagers don’t need to be nerfed.
Sometimes, changes are put on hold due to more important things being tested.
For example, Thor changes are something we wanted to spend more time exploring, so they were put on hold.
We strive to give you the justifications for why we’re moving toward (or away from) a specific direction because we believe a close working relationship with our community is critical. If you still have questions—we miss things at times—please just ask and we’ll do our best to clarify.
The last thing we’d like to mention here is that iterating and working on these issues isn’t easy. While it would be easy to just give up and say we’re not getting anywhere, those of you out there who are really putting in the effort to make the game better will clearly see that, over time, you are making a positive impact. This feeling of accomplishment is what keeps our team members going. One of the biggest reasons why we strive for a deep level of community involvement is to enable the most passionate and dedicated players out there to experience this feeling of accomplishment as well. Let’s do our best to continue working together, even though it’s tough at times, for the betterment of the game.
Today’s Balance Test Map
Our stance on the Terran changes remain positive, and we believe that these could be ready to go into the game once the numbers are fully tested. There will be a Balance Test Map where we can focus on testing the changes, and we’d encourage you to discuss your experiences using the Balance Test chat channel. Please try to arrange equally-skilled matchups before giving feedback so that the feedback can be of a much higher quality.
The Photon Cannon changes and Swarm Host changes both look good, but let’s make sure to get to the exact details of them so that we can make a call on whether or not we should push these changes out to the live game. The Photon Cannon changes aim to specifically target the problem that our community pointed out. Additionally, the Swarm Host changes may be helpful because they could alter the usage and reliance on Mutalisks in the matchup, and we wanted to bring another underused unit into play.
I will say it again, balance test maps are simply a bad concept to begin with. A dedicated server for potential balance/design changes would be way better, you could have matchmaking there and also give people who test these changes something for their time. Other games have a pbe server as well, sc2 should have one too!
Please try to arrange equally-skilled matchups before giving feedback so that the feedback can be of a much higher quality.
On April 22 2016 03:03 DinoMight wrote: The Photon Cannon change looks good?
How many things do you specifically need to design to kill Mutalisks before you realize maybe Mutas are the issue?
I mean if you nerf Mutalisks (which are already not as good zvt due to liberators), nobody will build them at all. I would rather stalkers get an AA buff or something, but they will go with the photon overcharge.
On April 22 2016 03:07 The_Red_Viper wrote: I will say it again, balance test maps are simply a bad concept to begin with. A dedicated server for potential balance/design changes would be way better, you could have matchmaking there and also give people who test these changes something for their time. Other games have a pbe server as well, sc2 should have one too!
Please try to arrange equally-skilled matchups before giving feedback so that the feedback can be of a much higher quality.
Starcraft 2 did have a dedicated server for changes back in the day. It wasn't popular and not many players played it. That is why they moved away from it and did the test maps.
and still no changes whatsoever. This pathetic nonsense, a pitiful mixture of excuses, doubts, uncertainties and justifications, every week is freaking glorious. We think X may be broken, but we are not sure about that so may be we will put this on the testmap or may be not, we have not decided yet because korean pros think its not a good idea, so we'll do nothing and next week will continue pouring our doubts about some other random stuff being broken on you, or may be not, we are not so sure, we will go and ask some pros, may be they are some korean pros, noone knows for sure. We call this communication. Best regards, blizzard. p.s. gonna doublepost this on reddit.
On April 22 2016 03:03 DinoMight wrote: The Photon Cannon change looks good?
How many things do you specifically need to design to kill Mutalisks before you realize maybe Mutas are the issue?
I mean if you nerf Mutalisks (which are already not as good zvt due to liberators), nobody will build them at all. I would rather stalkers get an AA buff or something, but they will go with the photon overcharge.
On April 22 2016 03:07 The_Red_Viper wrote: I will say it again, balance test maps are simply a bad concept to begin with. A dedicated server for potential balance/design changes would be way better, you could have matchmaking there and also give people who test these changes something for their time. Other games have a pbe server as well, sc2 should have one too!
Please try to arrange equally-skilled matchups before giving feedback so that the feedback can be of a much higher quality.
Starcraft 2 did have a dedicated server for changes back in the day. It wasn't popular and not many players played it. That is why they moved away from it and did the test maps.
Which is why bandaid fixes are horrible to begin with. The foundation has to be as solid as possible. I hope blizzard realizes this and changes their design/balance philosophy
PBE: Well and now balance test maps are popular? I doubt it? If popularity is a problem give players a reason to play pbe and don't change it to test maps which most likely have the same problem. All this change shows is that blizzard doesn't care
On April 22 2016 03:01 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: Please try to arrange equally-skilled matchups before giving feedback so that the feedback can be of a much higher quality.
How about you give an incentive for people to try? Most pro players don't even bother with test maps, but that's absolutely feedback they could use.
Reading these weekly updates I get the impression that the entire balance team has been laid-off right after LotV release and that only David Kim is left, who is making all these things up (internal testing, KR pro feedback, etc). That would explain why there were no patches since the Protoss nerfs. And even that one was kinda late. Being that DK is working alone, he couldn't do it any sooner.
Buffing canons to do more damage vs bio air units..... Change the terran turret to do extra damage vs shield units.... oh wait that sounds silly to do....
On April 22 2016 03:29 PinoKotsBeer wrote: Buffing canons to do more damage vs bio air units..... Change the terran turret to do extra damage vs shield units.... oh wait that sounds silly to do....
I mean if you nerf Mutalisks (which are already not as good zvt due to liberators), nobody will build them at all. I would rather stalkers get an AA buff or something, but they will go with the photon overcharge.
They should really adress liberator AA IMO. Muta styles ZvT have always been quite good to watch and play when they're been roughly balanced. They could also then make minor changes to the muta and/or to things like stalker anti-light-AA.
Lib can be stronger anti-ground and still be balanced if it's not so good at shutting down units like Mutalisks; that prevents people from playing a style like muta-ling heavy into terrans, even in the early midgame. 2 libs are good at shutting down muta and 6-8 libs are amazing at it
On April 22 2016 03:03 DinoMight wrote: The Photon Cannon change looks good?
How many things do you specifically need to design to kill Mutalisks before you realize maybe Mutas are the issue?
I mean if you nerf Mutalisks (which are already not as good zvt due to liberators), nobody will build them at all. I would rather stalkers get an AA buff or something, but they will go with the photon overcharge.
On April 22 2016 03:07 The_Red_Viper wrote: I will say it again, balance test maps are simply a bad concept to begin with. A dedicated server for potential balance/design changes would be way better, you could have matchmaking there and also give people who test these changes something for their time. Other games have a pbe server as well, sc2 should have one too!
Please try to arrange equally-skilled matchups before giving feedback so that the feedback can be of a much higher quality.
Starcraft 2 did have a dedicated server for changes back in the day. It wasn't popular and not many players played it. That is why they moved away from it and did the test maps.
I mean, you had to download/login to a completely seperate server to use the PTR. It was very inconvenient.
I mean if you nerf Mutalisks (which are already not as good zvt due to liberators), nobody will build them at all. I would rather stalkers get an AA buff or something, but they will go with the photon overcharge.
They should really adress liberator AA IMO. Muta styles ZvT have always been quite good to watch and play when they're been roughly balanced. They could also then make minor changes to the muta and/or to things like stalker anti-light-AA.
Lib can be stronger anti-ground and still be balanced if it's not so good at shutting down units like Mutalisks; that prevents people from playing a style like muta-ling heavy into terrans, even in the early midgame. 2 libs are good at shutting down muta and 6-8 libs are amazing at it
I actually think it might be in an okay spot. Zergs still go mutas in the matchup, but they can no longer *only* go mutas. You'll usually see 8 mutas while going hive, and they can poke around and find openings just find vs liberators.
Blizzard's goal for LotV seems to be compositions with a variety of units in them. HotS style ZvT was bio mine vs mass muta, and eventually the zerg would just get too many muta. PvZ was pure blink stalker, etc.
I'd say they're doing that pretty well. I think the midgame might be a little short right now, though.
On April 22 2016 03:33 RaFox17 wrote: Did D.Kim say that Z is reliant and uses a lot of mutas in ZvP???
I think he misspoke. Pretty sure he meant that because of the mutalisk threat in ZvP Protoss is almost always forced to open phoenix all the time.. It's not the only use for phoenix obviously but they would be used a hell of a lot less without sucha huge mutalisk threat.
After spore, Phoenix, Phoenix range, Thors 4*(6+6) anti air, spore + bio damage, just another band aid fix for mutas.
And these "lets nerf libs and bring the banshee speed upgrade from tier 3.5 to 2.5" ... really? It has been shown that the new air-mech style with mass banshees and liberators is trash and gets completly shut down by both races, why do they think this would bring anything. The banshee is not good for anything then harassing, the upgrade keeps sitting there like Medivac Energy Upgrade... I can understand nerfs to the liberator, but please then buff something on the ground! The starport is a mess anyway.
Not that I even remotely care about cosmetical stuff in SC2, but Blizz should simply give players unit skins, portraits or achievements for testing balance maps - you could earn a few portraits for Blizzard's custom games (Aiur Chef, StarCraft Master etc.), so that should not be a problem to implement, at all. Maybe do a sick/hard-to-earn meta-achievement for having played a certain number of games on three different test maps (sth. like that). Not that much effort to do and still better than having a rewarding feeling of accomplishment for doing all that customer work lol.
Why not redesign one of Protoss air units to deal splash with 100/50/25 splash damage zones? Or even better - remove Muta regen, reduce speed maybe by 5% or so, I don't know, get down to the root of the problem, instead of treating the symptoms?
changing the liberator damage to 4+3 is too big of a nerf vs corruptors (2base armor) -> from 10 damage to 4; and honestly they arent that big of an issue vs split up corruptors right now. rather nerf the AOE so they are still okay vs corruptors in low number ( such as playing vs the ravager fast ultra into corruptor style thats almost standard zvt rn ) but not hard counter mutas so hard to hopefully make muta bane viable again
On April 22 2016 04:10 Scarlett` wrote: changing the liberator damage to 4+3 is too big of a nerf vs corruptors (2base armor) -> from 10 damage to 4; and honestly they arent that big of an issue vs split up corruptors right now. rather nerf the AOE so they are still okay vs corruptors in low number ( such as playing vs the ravager fast ultra into corruptor style thats almost standard zvt rn ) but not hard counter mutas so hard to hopefully make muta bane viable again
As the thor just got removed from the anti muta field with his new anti air, I guess blizzard have to keep the lib with the + light damage. Or else Terran is again fighting with marines and mines against ling-bane-muta, because, hey, its 2013.
Moving forward then, we’d like to discuss Balance Test Maps. This week we saw a lot of discussion around how, in Wings of Liberty or Heart of the Swarm, Balance Test Maps translated to balance patches rather often, and how this has not been the case in Legacy of the Void. We discussed this point a while ago (during the beta), but we wanted to re-highlight the topic for additional discussion.
In the past, we worked with the community to determine that we should be aggressively testing various changes even if they don’t end up in the game. This allows us to have a wide array of changes lined up in case they are needed. While this approach may not actually be the best option (because we’re testing such a large number of changes), we wanted to try it out and see how well it worked. Going back to how we did Balance Test Maps in the past (fewer tests, greater likelihood of changes going into the game) is also an option.
We’d love to hear any feedback on this and hear the reasons why we believe one method may be working better than another. For instance, testing changes can cause players to become excited to see a change added to the game. With aggressive testing, however, most changes we test will not be added to the game and so this approach can potentially cause people to become upset when their change is not implemented.
While we haven’t seen this discussed, we want to share one of the main goals we are striving for with StarCraft II—the joy of mastery. Because unit changes only happen when they’re absolutely needed, players can chase the fun of really digging deep into how each specific unit is mastered. We believe this is one of the core fun elements of StarCraft II, and one that is unique to this game. If units were changing drastically all the time, it could feel far less rewarding to invest time and effort to master them. This is a large reason why we believe so strongly in the importance of making as few changes as possible and targeting specific problem areas only when absolutely necessary.
i like aggressive testing with lots of experimentation. i realize this means many of the test changes will get scrapped and never used in the real game. i'm totally cool with that.
some self-important community members somehow believe a test map means you're committing to a change ; they get very angry when the change never arrives. too bad for them. i don't care if they get angry and make angry posts; i dont care if they say bad things about David Kim, the dev team, and Blizzard.
the emotional state of self-important community members is meaningless to me.
On April 22 2016 03:29 PinoKotsBeer wrote: Buffing canons to do more damage vs bio air units..... Change the terran turret to do extra damage vs shield units.... oh wait that sounds silly to do....
Turrets kill Oracles just fine.
Im pretty sure he is not talking about Oracles. Maybe Void Rays? They shred Turrets (or any other Static AA) in seconds. You don´t even need Mass Void Rays for this. Static-AA is meant to counter Air Units except Capital ships just like in BW.
"Because our community has become such an integral part of the development of StarCraft II" Good joke. EU and US is mostly left aside for years. EU the most. And Iam NOT talking about Pros.
Am I blind or are the balance map changes not in the OP? It may be relevant.
Also, that Liberator change seems like a very heavy nerf against Corruptors. I would agree with Scarlett, better reduce their splash radius if they want to nerf it a bit. I always felt it was unreasonably big in the first place.
I'd like to see another alternative tested that encourages Protoss players to open with a tech other than Stargate rather than making mutas in ZvP a complete impossibility...
This is not the way to go about solving this problem! I am honestly not sure of a better alternative but I am confident that Blizzard has cause/effect mixed up in this case...
On April 22 2016 05:34 Qwyn wrote: I'd like to see another alternative tested that encourages Protoss players to open with a tech other than Stargate rather than making mutas in ZvP a complete impossibility...
This is not the way to go about solving this problem! I am honestly not sure of a better alternative but I am confident that Blizzard has cause/effect mixed up in this case...
It's certainly a tough situation. If they (and others) view that mutas are a problem, then what's the answer? I don't know if the solution is to buff the stalker. Any buffs to the stalker aa will affect other matchups. If it's a buff to bio AA, then all zerg air will suffer, and also, it makes the stalker damage bonus a lot more complex because you'll run into the situation of damage vs armored air and damage vs armored bio air and damage vs light bio air.
If they swap the damage bonuses of vs armored to vs light, then the PvT matchup gets nerfed unnecessarily, and if you make the vs air damage of a stalker a flat 16, then it's a massive bonus to anything that is not armored air.
However, with the cannon, as inelegant as it might be, it's the smallest change that affects the smallest matchup, because you don't as often see zerg flying air over cannons that are not mutas (corruptors sometimes).
On April 22 2016 05:34 Qwyn wrote: I'd like to see another alternative tested that encourages Protoss players to open with a tech other than Stargate rather than making mutas in ZvP a complete impossibility...
This is not the way to go about solving this problem! I am honestly not sure of a better alternative but I am confident that Blizzard has cause/effect mixed up in this case...
It's certainly a tough situation. If they (and others) view that mutas are a problem, then what's the answer? I don't know if the solution is to buff the stalker. Any buffs to the stalker aa will affect other matchups. If it's a buff to bio AA, then all zerg air will suffer, and also, it makes the stalker damage bonus a lot more complex because you'll run into the situation of damage vs armored air and damage vs armored bio air and damage vs light bio air.
If they swap the damage bonuses of vs armored to vs light, then the PvT matchup gets nerfed unnecessarily, and if you make the vs air damage of a stalker a flat 16, then it's a massive bonus to anything that is not armored air.
However, with the cannon, as inelegant as it might be, it's the smallest change that affects the smallest matchup, because you don't as often see zerg flying air over cannons that are not mutas (corruptors sometimes).
The smallest change, which is not dumb, is buffing Stalker AA damage to a flat 14.
This change is not 100% elegant, but there are already units in the game, that have differing AG and AA damage values. The change has limited effect on other matchups. The only fighting units affected in vT and vP are the Banshee and the Phoenix. The Banshee doesn't see much play in the MU anyway and Phoenix should be weaker than it is currently. So it's a good change all around.
The only fighting units effected in vT and vP are the Banshee and the Phoenix.
It affects the Oracle too, but there was a push recently to make the oracle Armored* with one of the main reasons being so that Stalkers dealt with them better. This change also accomplishes that, but it doesn't affect the Oracle vs Phoenix interaction.
They use a lot of words but with very little content. It really feels like blizzard has abandoned sc2 and DK is just making excuses each week. Yeah he says he changes things if they are a problem but we still have 8 armor ultras, 4 supply tempests, parasitic bomb and mass liberators which just lead to bad gameplay regardless of balance.
And things like flying tanks almost everyone hates are still in the game because DK thinks it's cool. Nobody can tell me that the proposed tankivac removal + tank buff wasn't a PR move, I don't believe for a second DK seriously considered "letting the tank fullfil it's fantasy"
No mention of mech remaining utterly unviable. It is very hard to remain positive when
a) laddering is just 75% defending all-ins as a terrran (Masters). Will it be reapers in TvT, roach/rav in TvZ or fucking Pylons under your ramp (or 15 other "all-ins" available to Protoss while they take their third base) b) tankivacs are just stupid. SC2 is an RTS game - for those people without 500APM, WOL and HOTS allowed people to play a positional/more strategic game of SC2. TvT often defaults to who can doom drop most effectively and has a "coin-flip" quality to it nowadays. c) Protoss is too strong vs T. Zest has been showing it for weeks and showcases at the highest level what most Terrans on ladder already know. Cmon. Tempest supply/adepts/immortals. I saw a GM game the other day where a protoss proxied 2 robos outside the terran's natural. It was scouted early and was still impossible to stop. Perhaps Maru could stop it (if he got lucky with the scout) but let me tell you that 99% of ordinary players can't. The difference in skill required to be the protoss and do the attacking (while expanding!) vs being the terran and defending is a joke - especially with the WP pick-up range. I convinced myself of this by off-racing with the build and it's stupid how easy it is to win. d) Zerg... sigh. Where to start. Ultras, invincible nydus, ravager nonsense. Tankivacs and liberators are the only things making tvz playable. Tankivacs shouldn't be in the game and liberators are being nerfed. e) the design of some of the terran's new units are just bizarre. Cyclones are all but never used except sometimes in early game tvt/tvp - where you build one. And that's it. Reaper grenades - what is the point of these except to encourage all-ins in tvt?
There is a reason why, when you take a look at viewing figures on TL for Brood War vs SC2, SC2's viewership is behind and falling: the game is just not fun to play. LotV is a poor cousin of HotS and IMO there needs to be radical redesign. I agree entirely with those above who lament that week after week we get procrastination. Could we not see a "radical" test-map where tankivacs are removed and mech is buffed. At least those of us interested in mech could then try to ascertain what needs to change (ie terran needs proper anti-air from the ground + cyclone needs complete redesign).
I hope the thor buff doesn't go through so I can still use thors against ling bane muta. Would anyone build thors with this change? They still can't fight broodlords and tempests. It seems like they get ripped of their only rrolein the game.
Confused why they want to go through with the banshee change despite almost nobody liking it. Don't think the liberator nerf will make much of a difference.
On April 22 2016 06:39 AdrianHealeyy wrote: Widow Mines => Fast regen for muta's => all other problems
Maybe we should do something about the widow mine-muta interaction and just go back to ordinary muta regen?
I think that minor adjustments to widow mine & liberator AA splash in return for something like that would make the game better in multiple matchups.
You can make Muta more usable against T while also reducing the need for insanely powerful and specific static defenses (large damage bonus to air biological) on both Z and P.
So, they got their PR team to write a few paragraphs to try and control the whining and the accusations of abandoning the game. Only they made things even worse.
Am I the only one to STILL find the liberator ground range ridiculous and not fun, since it encourages so much the terran to turtle or encourages less units in the game with the harverster lines denying ? I feel like it's one of the biggest problems right now, the AOE against air being also ridiculous. I never play mutalisk in zvp since phoenixes are the go to unit in the beginning, so the cannon buff may be ok, but let's not forget that if it's a buff vs bio, it will probably deny baneling drops in mineral lines which allow zergs to harass. The mass adepts nonsense should also be adressed. Yes, the unit is used, so it's ok. But I don't think it's fun to play against, especially with the super shade which can go through units and adepts are far too tanky. A SH buff cost wise would be cool, since even if you could afford more of them, they still can't constitute a proper army because of the cooldown on the locusts.
The mass adepts nonsense should also be adressed. Yes, the unit is used, so it's ok. But I don't think it's fun to play against
I don't think that Marines are fun to play against and they're objectively much more central to the game than Adepts and have been for more than 10x longer
It's not a good enough argument for significant balance or design changes
and adepts are far too tanky
Keeping the same rough balance, would you choose to increase their DPS* further in order to lower HP?
*either just raw DPS or ability to maintain it, such as having better range, speed or less overkill
The beginning was quite interesting, even promising, but that only made the last paragraphs more painful :
1/ the photon cannon change looks good ? To whom ? So you want to definitely kill muta play ? At least if you push this change test a +light bonus that would help in PvP for the phoenix wars or the 14 vs air AA stalkers.
2/ Terran changes look good. Jesus. T are arguably already struggling in high level TvP and you nerf their core unit ? For a banshee on steroids that will be frustrating as hell with 0 counterplay (but such a "cool kill workers harass yeah" factor)... I'm quite puzzled.
3/ since when are mutas central in ZvP ?
A very confusing ending and somewhat disappointing outlooks even though the rest of the community update was rather interesting.
A quick comment about the numerous recent balance test maps and the overall change policy : personally I don't really like it. On a related note I'm unsure weekly community updates are as useful and relevant as they were in beta, especially since the recent ones lacked a firm direction. I'd rather you took more time maturing your suggestions and updates, even if that means only getting one per month or even less.
That being said, I like the game as it is currently and I believe it still has a lot of potential to grow -though probably not with the proposed changes, you can do better than that David
I still thank that they keep talking to the community despite it seems not to work pretty much. Blizzard seems to be very afraid about changing the game because they consider: a) the game is almost finished, and b) heavy or usual changes may scare away players.
But they haven't consider another risk: a) they may be wrong and the game still needs many changes, and b) if that's true, doing nothing or introduce changes very slowly will scare away players.
If they introduce changes faster, they'll reach faster to the unknown afar point where the game will be properly balanced. It's disturbing to know that they consider that the units should be changed the lesser because "mastery them is part of the fun" while EVERY PLAYER consider much more important game balance.
2/ Terran changes look good. Jesus. T are arguably already struggling in high level TvP and you nerf their core unit ? For a banshee on steroids that will be frustrating as hell with 0 counterplay (but such a "cool kill workers harass yeah" factor)... I'm quite puzzled.
The liberator nerf just nerfs their AA vs armored so it makes basically no difference in tvp. It's not like libs can kill tempests currently.
2/ Terran changes look good. Jesus. T are arguably already struggling in high level TvP and you nerf their core unit ? For a banshee on steroids that will be frustrating as hell with 0 counterplay (but such a "cool kill workers harass yeah" factor)... I'm quite puzzled.
The liberator nerf just nerfs their AA vs armored so it makes basically no difference in tvp. It's not like libs can kill tempests currently.
Aren't they talking about the 5->4 radius change ?
2/ Terran changes look good. Jesus. T are arguably already struggling in high level TvP and you nerf their core unit ? For a banshee on steroids that will be frustrating as hell with 0 counterplay (but such a "cool kill workers harass yeah" factor)... I'm quite puzzled.
The liberator nerf just nerfs their AA vs armored so it makes basically no difference in tvp. It's not like libs can kill tempests currently.
Aren't they talking about the 5->4 radius change ?
The change is +damage to biological air, not to biological
The second part is a legit concern though, cannons that do bonus damage vs corruptors would make lategame tempests + storm even more problematic. I really think this would be an extremely bad change for a number of reasons (kills mutas but does nothing to promote diversity in the end since every P will still mass immortals, makes air + storm even more of a checkmate...). I really hope they reconsider their stance on that one, and if they don't well I'll take the free wins on Dusk Towers but I'll be very sad for my Z brothers and the overall state of the game.
Man, I havent been able to play a lot of LoTV yet as I'm workin a new job. Watch as much as I can and they are pretty fun and entertaining games. Majority of interviews I see they say it's way better than HotS/WoL, but reading the feedback is just allllllll over the place. And reading Blizzards community updates, they do seem to be a bit lost on what to do next. I understand wanting to take the best course of action, but at some point you gotta make a decisive decision, for better or worse. The balance test maps only give so much feedback...
Sorry but cannons can't move with my army. Fix stalkers to be decent vs light air units such as mutalisks. I can't see a problem with that. It'll even be helpful vs mass phoenix abuse.
Also, why the heck do air units need to be overpowered vs ground? Mutalisks, liberators..
I feel that this cannon buff will indirectly effect TvP which will make bio pushes a non-option when they have photon overcharge + one cannon if they are playing very defensive. This will also encourage cannon rushers even more than normal and it's already a plague on team ladders, seriously every 1/3 game is a cannon rush.
swarm host cost decrease is very nice, because it's such a shitty unit it deserves a cheaper price but will people ever make them? I doubt it, they have no place in the meta where mutas, nydus, drops or ravagers could do what they do but better. If swarm hosts are harass units or built to force the opponent into a bad position, ravagers and lurkers fill that role and mutas and nydus fill the role for harass. I'll build a few if this change goes live, I don't mind the unit design, I just never ever find a time to build them.
On April 22 2016 06:27 terrantosaur wrote: No mention of mech remaining utterly unviable. It is very hard to remain positive when
a) laddering is just 75% defending all-ins as a terrran (Masters). Will it be reapers in TvT, roach/rav in TvZ or fucking Pylons under your ramp (or 15 other "all-ins" available to Protoss while they take their third base) b) tankivacs are just stupid. SC2 is an RTS game - for those people without 500APM, WOL and HOTS allowed people to play a positional/more strategic game of SC2. TvT often defaults to who can doom drop most effectively and has a "coin-flip" quality to it nowadays. c) Protoss is too strong vs T. Zest has been showing it for weeks and showcases at the highest level what most Terrans on ladder already know. Cmon. Tempest supply/adepts/immortals. I saw a GM game the other day where a protoss proxied 2 robos outside the terran's natural. It was scouted early and was still impossible to stop. Perhaps Maru could stop it (if he got lucky with the scout) but let me tell you that 99% of ordinary players can't. The difference in skill required to be the protoss and do the attacking (while expanding!) vs being the terran and defending is a joke - especially with the WP pick-up range. I convinced myself of this by off-racing with the build and it's stupid how easy it is to win. d) Zerg... sigh. Where to start. Ultras, invincible nydus, ravager nonsense. Tankivacs and liberators are the only things making tvz playable. Tankivacs shouldn't be in the game and liberators are being nerfed. e) the design of some of the terran's new units are just bizarre. Cyclones are all but never used except sometimes in early game tvt/tvp - where you build one. And that's it. Reaper grenades - what is the point of these except to encourage all-ins in tvt?
There is a reason why, when you take a look at viewing figures on TL for Brood War vs SC2, SC2's viewership is behind and falling: the game is just not fun to play. LotV is a poor cousin of HotS and IMO there needs to be radical redesign. I agree entirely with those above who lament that week after week we get procrastination. Could we not see a "radical" test-map where tankivacs are removed and mech is buffed. At least those of us interested in mech could then try to ascertain what needs to change (ie terran needs proper anti-air from the ground + cyclone needs complete redesign).
Agree with all of that, and it will only be worse when liberators suck more and Zerg essentially gets another unit in LOTV while Terran's only new unit, the liberator (cyclone doesn't count until it's fixed), is nerfed.
Why is it of sudden priority to buff the swarmhost rather than fixing all of the actual problems with the game? Invincible nydus, pylon cannon, 8 armor ultra, para bomb, tankivac, reaper grenade, tempest supply...list goes on. Oh, and of course - THE MAP POOL PLEASE this needs a change asap.
For me every game right now is like this: TvT - you reaper all-in/attack or meta the reapers. Randomness, especially on new maps, because reaper grenade is just promoting players to all-in like this. It's really bad =/
TvZ - opponent masses 100% roach ravager into ultras into they probably won or you managed to amass enough liberators and ghosts to not die and you can only win if you emp the vipers, even then it's very hard.
TvP - this match-up is currently not playable. It seems to me throughout LOTV i never have played a game where i am ahead of the Protoss in any way, shape, or form. Protoss gets the 3rd nexus + defends with pylons and i am behind in tech, economy, production, units. You're basically forced to turtle on 2-3 base in this match-up, which then exacerbates the mass tempest issue. Since you are stuck on 2-3 base economy, and probably taking damage from bullshit prism+adept, Protoss has 3-4 sometimes a 5 base economy and just simply masses pure tempest with high templar or anything underneath. It's incredibly frustrating to play this match-up knowing i am behind every single game before anything even happens.
The mass adepts nonsense should also be adressed. Yes, the unit is used, so it's ok. But I don't think it's fun to play against
I don't think that Marines are fun to play against and they're objectively much more central to the game than Adepts and have been for more than 10x longer
It's not a good enough argument for significant balance or design changes
Keeping the same rough balance, would you choose to increase their DPS* further in order to lower HP?
*either just raw DPS or ability to maintain it, such as having better range, speed or less overkill
Well I like playing against marines they're strong but can be killed... the problem with adepts or new reapers or phoenixes is that it is very tough to kill them once they're in high numbers and even so, you have to build a strategy around their destruction. To me the fun aspect is essential, and DK also said it, we need the game to be enjoyable by players of all skill levels, but still allow skill to express itself and let good players distinguish themselves.
I would not increase their dps, still less overkill would maybe be a good idea to maintain balance. The problem is that I don't know how to solve the early game zerg shenanigans now that they don't want to nerf the ravager, and then nerfs regarding the immortal or the adept would not seem fair.
The problem is that I don't know how to solve the early game zerg shenanigans now that they don't want to nerf the ravager, and then nerfs regarding the immortal or the adept would not seem fair.
10 seconds off warpgate (OR chrono buff which does the same thing), overlord speed to lair, sane maps. Done.
The mass adepts nonsense should also be adressed. Yes, the unit is used, so it's ok. But I don't think it's fun to play against
I don't think that Marines are fun to play against and they're objectively much more central to the game than Adepts and have been for more than 10x longer
It's not a good enough argument for significant balance or design changes
and adepts are far too tanky
Keeping the same rough balance, would you choose to increase their DPS* further in order to lower HP?
*either just raw DPS or ability to maintain it, such as having better range, speed or less overkill
Well I like playing against marines they're strong but can be killed...
In exchange, everything needs to be extremely bursty to compete.
The mass adepts nonsense should also be adressed. Yes, the unit is used, so it's ok. But I don't think it's fun to play against
I don't think that Marines are fun to play against and they're objectively much more central to the game than Adepts and have been for more than 10x longer
People wouldn't have to play against marines all the time if we could mech.
Man, I played SC2 since WotL consistently, but if they really lower the banshee speed tech, I might just quit playing this game anymore because it's already pretty annoying to deal with other 'harasses'.
On April 22 2016 12:17 redloser wrote: Man, I played SC2 since WotL consistently, but if they really lower the banshee speed tech, I might just quit playing this game anymore because it's already pretty annoying to deal with other 'harasses'.
But didn't you hear the Blizz guys? Game ending and extremely difficult to deal with harass at the 5 minute mark makes exciting games /s
Terran has so much harass options it is disgusting. At least I hope that lowering tech level of Banshee speed upgrade can at least the odd of having a Liberator killing my mineral line.
Got a spore? He just re-position. Crazy how one unit can have this impact. Other harass units are way easier to deal with.
Of course I am just NA diamond but I can confirm that for me personally this is the most frustrating unit to play against. At least if they nerf the AA I will be able to deal with them a lot easier with Corruptors. But this does not affect their strength early game. They are still way too good. They are way easier to use compared to how difficult it is to deal with them.
I still think buffing cannons to + bio is very dangerous for the cannon/corrupter interaction when it comes to the super late game where tempest/archon/templar and skytoss is unbeatable already. Add some cannons in the mix and this now becomes even harder.
Also, speedbanshees are not fun. They might be fun to use because with the upgrade they are the fastest unit on the field and you can harass with them endlessly, but for anyone playing against them, it makes you wanna uninstall the game, no matter what race you are.
Nerf Liberator anti air so Mutalisks can be useful again
Buff Infestor and Ghost/Ravens so they are as strong as Templars
Remove Nydus Worm from game
Remove tankivac and buff tanks so they hold ground as is their intended purpose
Remove Thors/Colossus from the game
Buff Cyclones to be factory primary anti air response
Until these happen, this game is not going to be what it can potentially be, zero idea why they aren't at least experimenting with some of these changes, especially the tankivac changes. These balance updates are becoming progressively less worthwhile to even bother keeping up with. Seems like a buch of PR.
I wish somebody would just format *all* 'community feedback updates' of the last six months in one column on the left hand and what actually was changed ingame in the same period of time in the right column.
Add racial win rates, viewer numbers, statements regarding team size and nebulous references to 'Korean Pro feedback'.
On April 22 2016 12:17 redloser wrote: Man, I played SC2 since WotL consistently, but if they really lower the banshee speed tech, I might just quit playing this game anymore because it's already pretty annoying to deal with other 'harasses'.
But didn't you hear the Blizz guys? Game ending and extremely difficult to deal with harass at the 5 minute mark makes exciting games /s
On April 22 2016 04:10 Scarlett` wrote: changing the liberator damage to 4+3 is too big of a nerf vs corruptors (2base armor) -> from 10 damage to 4; and honestly they arent that big of an issue vs split up corruptors right now. rather nerf the AOE so they are still okay vs corruptors in low number ( such as playing vs the ravager fast ultra into corruptor style thats almost standard zvt rn ) but not hard counter mutas so hard to hopefully make muta bane viable again
^ I like this. The proposed Blizz change increases the hardcounter system of corruptors > libs > mutas.
Keeping the current damage but decreasing the aoe makes the lib less of a hardcounter to mutas but still keeps them somewhat relevant against corruptors (instead of basically useless).
As for the underused units, I would rather if they focus on the cyclone and/or BC rather than the swarmhost. The SH has actual uses against terran mech already (just saw them do serious work in a foreigner pro game yesterday).
My initial ideas for the cyclone would be one of these: +10hp and -1 supply; flat +20hp; or a cost reduction of -25/-25.
For the BC I would make their damage pierce the armor of the enemy unit, as in always deal full damage no matter what their amor is (like spells). Maybe also increase the movement speed a little.
The Thor could also use some faster speed movement.
And since I'm in my wishlist mode already, why not add an upgrade at robotics bay that decreases the cooldown of the disruptor's purification nova? (by like 10 seconds, nothing too big )
- DK and his team are still considering the game to be more or less finished and are most probably not gonna fix bad design areas, just tweak numbers. Simply put, instead of changing badly designed stuff (parasitic bomb, disruptors, cyclones, for instance), they're gonna tweak numbers to reach 50 % win ratio in all matchups - DK and his still are still expecting the community to do their jobs. We can see that at "Please try to arrange equally-skilled matchups before giving feedback so that the feedback can be of a much higher quality." : this is not how you integrate community feedback to your patches/updates/changes to the game. Expecting people to test changes that are unwanted/only numbers instead of design/not a product of the community's voice, is trying to have the community enforce your decisions, instead of integrating community feedback. For instance, doing some POLLS about what people want and then create a specific unranked ladder for it (why not make the unranked ladder the balance map ladder) in the game would be much more constructive => BUT agreeing to do design changes to the game.
LOTV is hemoraging players. People are widely frustrated when playing the game, and their voice isn't heard since blizz/DK considers the game is in a good place design-wise. DO DESIGN CHANGES FROM COMMUNITY POLLS.
The mass adepts nonsense should also be adressed. Yes, the unit is used, so it's ok. But I don't think it's fun to play against
I don't think that Marines are fun to play against and they're objectively much more central to the game than Adepts and have been for more than 10x longer
It's not a good enough argument for significant balance or design changes
and adepts are far too tanky
Keeping the same rough balance, would you choose to increase their DPS* further in order to lower HP?
*either just raw DPS or ability to maintain it, such as having better range, speed or less overkill
Well I like playing against marines they're strong but cannot be killed without aoe... the problem with marines is that it is very tough to kill them once they're in high numbers and even so, you have to build AOE around their destruction. To me the fun aspect for terrans is essential, and DK also said it, we need the game to be enjoyable by terrans of all skill levels, but still allow skill to express itself and let good players distinguish themselves.
I would not increase their dps, still less overkill would maybe be a good idea to maintain balance. The problem is that I don't know how to solve the early game zerg shenanigans now that they don't want to nerf the ravager, and then nerfs regarding the immortal or the adept would not seem fair.
On April 22 2016 19:40 JackONeill wrote: LOTV is hemoraging players. People are widely frustrated when playing the game, and their voice isn't heard since blizz/DK considers the game is in a good place design-wise. DO DESIGN CHANGES FROM COMMUNITY POLLS.
You should understand that community polls are usually skewed. For example, when there is a controversial article on a site with rating system, it may itself have huge differential in favour of upvotes but the most upvoted comments would be negative. Frustrated people are more likely to do something (like vote in community polls) than content one.
On April 22 2016 19:40 JackONeill wrote: LOTV is hemoraging players. People are widely frustrated when playing the game, and their voice isn't heard since blizz/DK considers the game is in a good place design-wise. DO DESIGN CHANGES FROM COMMUNITY POLLS.
You should understand that community polls are usually skewed. For example, when there is a controversial article on a site with rating system, it may itself have huge differential in favour of upvotes but the most upvoted comments would be negative. Frustrated people are more likely to do something (like vote in community polls) than content one.
I agree. That's why the polls should appear on the main page of starcraft 2. You log into the game, and you have an option to vote with your account. This way, pretty much every single player will eventually vote, while pro feedback can be harvested through other ways. Of course a TL or Bnet forums poll is biais, so the best way to avoid it is to make sure that players logging regurarly in the game pretty much all vote.
some self-important community members somehow believe a test map means you're committing to a change ; they get very angry when the change never arrives. too bad for them. i don't care if they get angry and make angry posts; i dont care if they say bad things about David Kim, the dev team, and Blizzard.
the emotional state of self-important community members is meaningless to me.
Keep Up the Great Work Mr. Kim!
There is a difference between thinking you are self-important, and wanting to support changes that will make the game's lifespan and enjoyment greater for the great majority of players. For example, when EA had horrible net-coding on BF4, the community as a whole pushed to have it changed - and it eventually did but not soon enough for the game to be known for having a "good launch". It had nothing to do with self-importance. If anyone claims the game is in a great state as regarded by the community - that is not at all what I am hearing from GMs that stream. Let's just say there is alot of cussing, and this even considering that some of them are indirectly being paid to support the game in its current state.
It is not a question of committing to a change or not. It's making a statement like: "we believe the next move is to buff these two units", and then not having anything hit the test map for months. Or, it's making a statement like: "The Thor could use some help", and then testing a single overpowered version of the unit on the test map, and not giving proper effort/follow up or justification to the community as to why Blizzard cannot commit to any change to the Thor for several months. In my mind, proper effort would be testing 10 different changes over 10 weeks to eventually narrow down on the best solution, while posting at least a one liner on your findings each week before you make the next adjustment.
If you disagree - sorry for sharing my self-important view.
all this misdirection is the result of increased transparency. the more you delve into any group's behaviour the more self contradictory it becomes. and it is a group of people exploring balance issues with 1 guy making a final decision. final decisions get made that disagree with many ideas thrown around by the group. The misdirection and confusion is all part of the Blizzard philosophy. Blizzard could lower their transperancy to solve this.
its total chaos man. that's how they develop stuff and that is why they named themselves Chaos and later Blizzard.
i think that David Kim and Greg Black are 1000X better game designers than i am. i'm just some guy who has been playing RTS games for years. i chip in my $0.02 which is that eventually i'd like to see stronger Terran ground and weaker Terran air. However, if David Kim replied with a 12 minute speech that had 1000 reasons why i'm wrong.. he is probably correct.
i don't think GMs are the be-all and end-all. Now, if the 50 best players in the world all hate the game then we have a problem. GMs are just another level in a multilayered community. The GMs i meet in person think the game is ok. I go by face-time a lot more than forum talk. As it is I'm having fun and i hear complaining about the game from players i beat. When they beat me they are strangely silent. Check out games that grew like crazy in 2009 , 2010.. their forum boards are still up. The moaning , whining and complaining about Borderlands from 2009 to 2012 made for entertaining reading. The franchise was doomed.
Furthermore, regarding complaints, there is a general dissatisfaction with the game because the genre is 20+ years old and people are tired of the genre's fundamentals. lots of mid-90s RTS games had horrific design flaws but the genre's fundamentals were so new and novel no one cared. the genre grew any way.
What about the stupid design, ghost 175 dmg snipe but can be canceled, ultra 8 armor, liberators, invincible nydus, thor/battlecruiser/reaper/viking/raven/widowmine/hellion/hellbat being useless and not incoorporated into the army but they are prioritizing buffing the swarmhost?!
Broodwar had boxer, we have avilo/ruff/mario/ketroc/gumiho and now blizzard basically has killed every style that is not straight bio for terran.
please don't put Boxer and Avilo in the same paragraph. it destroys any credibility your post might have. Boxer was an innovator on the cutting edge of Brood War. Even in SC2 ... Slayers Team frying every opponent with +15 Blue Flame Hellions at MLG-Anaheim prompted the Hellion nerf.
On April 22 2016 21:42 JimmyJRaynor wrote: please don't put Boxer and Avilo in the same paragraph. it destroys any credibility your post might have. Boxer was an innovator on the cutting edge of Brood War. Even in SC2 ... Slayers Team frying every opponent with +15 Blue Flame Hellions at MLG-Anaheim prompted the Hellion nerf.
What an incredible good post. Very constructive, i would appreciate if it became a sticky for everyone to see.
SC2 was sold as the great worthy sequel to SC1 but falls flat on its face compared to the better RTS of over 10 years ago with a lot less depth and fun, plus it was sold three times and designed in ways that make it stressful (artificial skill cap based on speed and volatility) and less strategic which is pretty much the opposite of what most people want to play or what makes RTS a unique genre in its best characteristics. There are too many PR lies and money baits. It is based on superficial cliches and brand popularity rather than creativity. It doesn't justify it's own publicity or price very well at all and lacks in features that older games did better with a lot less funding. It goes steps further to bring more money in to the shareholders at the cost of quality of game and features, so that it is less enjoyable and interesting for players. It represents a decline of gaming due to business interest of the owners of companies and capitalist system where profit results are all that truly drive activity of bought press and developers. Many older RTS built new things and brought progress and fun, SC2 mostly regresses and is a pinnacle or fake hype. There is room for improvement and creativity in the RTS genre but developers need to be free of low-risk max-profit owners to make new great games. Blizzard was bought and morphed into this type of machine, today's transparency of it is fake and superficial (bunch of text saying and doing almost nothing every week and misleading communities into keeping to play to sustain the esport and micro-transaction business model with cross-game rewards).
my advice to any SC2 player is if you love RTS, check out the real starcraft or age of empires 2 or warcraft 3 for more skill-based, deep, smart and fun games.
I am progressively happier with each of these updates. They seem to have no clear direction and to be doing these just to make the whiners happy that "something" is going on. It's thus promising that they will end up doing almost no changes at all and that I would like.
On April 22 2016 18:10 Salteador Neo wrote: ^ I like this. The proposed Blizz change increases the hardcounter system of corruptors > libs > mutas.
Keeping the current damage but decreasing the aoe makes the lib less of a hardcounter to mutas but still keeps them somewhat relevant against corruptors (instead of basically useless).
Kind of like devourers > valkyries > mutas? Yeah we wouldn't want to emulate a system that actually works....
On April 22 2016 22:31 ProMeTheus112 wrote: It represents a decline of gaming due to business interest of the owners of companies and capitalist system where profit results are all that truly drive activity of bought press and developers.
i thought that happened in 1978 when Time-Warner bought Atari off of Nolan Bushnell. i thought the industry was doomed because it was all about Time-Warner shareholders and not fun?
Nolan Bushnell, lifetime game designer was gone; he was replaced by a bunch of bean-counting accountants in suits. It was over.
thanks for the laugh guy.
RTS gaming is the only thing in decline... the rest of the industry marches on... including the rest of Blizzard.
more like your rhetoric is in decline^^ profit making does not imply respect, passion, fun or quality. People may buy and not stay. Next time they may not buy. When a group of skilled developers free of profit-maxing owners engage their creativity to make a great new RTS, the big money hype machine looks ridiculous. PoE > D3
the next title SC2 was D3... it set a PC sales record and has moved 30+ million units... then WoW went back over 11 million subscribers.. so i guess Blizzard's reputation survived the release of SC2.
if Blizzard games were so bad people wouldn't be playing them year.. .after year... after year.. and decade after decade.
C&C4 was released around the same time SC2 was. Hows that C&C ladder doing these days?
actually blizzard reputation was hit enormously by D3, it was the biggest blow they ever took though the game got sold on the hype
SC2 longevity seems pretty damn small compared to SC1 even in a society where gamers are a much larger proportion
apparently D2 has a lot more players than D3 today^^ even though it's riddled with bots as they stopped banning cdkeys of botters. So yeah D3 longevity compared to D2 is peanuts. That's because they used to make good games, now they sell hype and implement money-grabbing crap in their games, so people leave. And then stop buying.
buying is not speaking, and leaving the game means a lot like I said, reasoning purely on money is meaningless. This will either kill blizzard or turn it into a pure cashcow for the most casual. And you'll be here chanting how beautiful their profits look. Maybe you want a slice. What else? money means nothing
money is a tool of exchange which can not exist without goods produced and men capable of producing them... money is the root of all good.
i'm having fun playing Blizzard's games for years and still enjoy their most current titles today. if you are going years hating the games they make you should probably play different games.
i'm having fun and i think DK is doing a great job. he is not as good as Rob Pardo, but Pardo is a once in a lifetime type of genius.
nice chart but are a lot of people playing D3? not really. Looks like more people playing D2 right now. Again just a misleading detail. Google searches, well I guess people look for info on the latest game more often, doesn't mean they like it. If it's more advertised, of course more people will google it, doesn't mean it's any good.
the fact that WoW still exists shows you how good it is. How is C&C4 doing?
where is C&C4? where is the #2 RTS ... where oh where is Command And Conquer? How is Ensemble Studios and AoE doing?
you can yap away all you want.. and this much is clear... the teams that make C&C and AoE no longer exist. How cool is that. Microsoft couldn't even sell of Ensemble Studios for 10 cents. EA couldn't sell VIctory Games and EALA for a plug nickel.
so we're left with volunteer teams running the C&C COmmunity Server. hows that going?
its over boys... RTS is done.. and its a small miracle ATVI and Blizzard have managed to draw blood from the profit stone known as the RTS community.
now if you'll excuse me... i've got a big platinum league tournament game to play! i'm going for my 5th trophy!
i think these automated tournaments are more addicting than cocaine and i'd like to thank DK and the team for making automated tournaments.
On April 23 2016 00:20 JimmyJRaynor wrote: money is a tool of exchange which can not exist without goods produced and men capable of producing them... money is the root of all good.
i'm having fun playing Blizzard's games for years and still enjoy their most current titles today. if you are going years hating the games they make you should probably play different games.
i'm having fun and i think DK is doing a great job. he is not as good as Rob Pardo, but he is a once in a lifetime type of genius.
wow man, money is the root of all good, seriously? you can't make a more braindead statement. Your rhetoric is now completely dead. I guess you just want a slice of the fame or money.
As for me I stopped buying their crap and play the older better games or check out other developers who haven't turned to shit. DK is just a staler that poses as game designer when he's really just a "community manager", his role is to give an illusion of transparency (and hide the true intents) and active improvement on the game based on what the players want, when all the company is interested in is to sell some more crap and have no real interest in even understanding how to make a great strategy game. It's the opposite of what they want, because they want to sell more games, as much stuff as possible, so if you stop playing after a few years and buy their next they're happiest. The shareholder board does not want the company to make really great games again.
human productive effort is the root of money. i consider that good. those pieces of paper in your wallet are your statement of hope that someone somewhere will not default on the trading principle that is money.
another thought that proves i'm not brain dead. i knew it would only be a matter of time before you'd start hurling personal insults. LOL.
On April 22 2016 19:40 JackONeill wrote: LOTV is hemoraging players. People are widely frustrated when playing the game, and their voice isn't heard since blizz/DK considers the game is in a good place design-wise. DO DESIGN CHANGES FROM COMMUNITY POLLS.
You should understand that community polls are usually skewed. For example, when there is a controversial article on a site with rating system, it may itself have huge differential in favour of upvotes but the most upvoted comments would be negative. Frustrated people are more likely to do something (like vote in community polls) than content one.
I agree. That's why the polls should appear on the main page of starcraft 2. You log into the game, and you have an option to vote with your account. This way, pretty much every single player will eventually vote, while pro feedback can be harvested through other ways. Of course a TL or Bnet forums poll is biais, so the best way to avoid it is to make sure that players logging regurarly in the game pretty much all vote.
This wasn't done for beta and won't be done for full release. Stop dreaming (I was suggesting it in beta)
On April 23 2016 00:30 JimmyJRaynor wrote: brain dead? i think therefore i am not brain dead. sorry i'm not brain dead.
in reply to your comment:
human productive effort is the root of money. i consider that good.
another thought that proves i'm not brain dead.
i knew it would only be a matter of time before you'd start hurling personal insults. LOL.
That's because you know you deserve it.
There are many roots for money, sometimes just pure inactivity or speculation (did you not know that?). Also "money is the root of all good" is what you said originally. If you're not stupid, you're probably just a liar. Like DK, that's why you "respect" him
i think the money-philosophy stuff belongs in PMs not here.
i think DK is an honest guy and is as transparent as he can be. if you think he is a liar and that makes him bad.... well LOL.. its hilarious you're in this forum and discussing his game.
back to actual SC2 feedback... i don't like it when i get put in tournaments with all Diamond players while i'm playing my Protoss platinum account. i hope this can be fixed. Maybe my account is due for a promotion. However, i've been slaughtered each of the 4 times i've been put in a diamond tournament with my protoss platinum account.
What about the stupid design, ghost 175 dmg snipe but can be canceled, ultra 8 armor, liberators, invincible nydus, thor/battlecruiser/reaper/viking/raven/widowmine/hellion/hellbat being useless and not incoorporated into the army but they are prioritizing buffing the swarmhost?!
Wow you never open reaper into reactor helions in TvZ?
On April 22 2016 03:08 OzhMa wrote: and still no changes whatsoever. This pathetic nonsense, a pitiful mixture of excuses, doubts, uncertainties and justifications, every week is freaking glorious. We think X may be broken, but we are not sure about that so may be we will put this on the testmap or may be not, we have not decided yet because korean pros think its not a good idea, so we'll do nothing and next week will continue pouring our doubts about some other random stuff being broken on you, or may be not, we are not so sure, we will go and ask some pros, may be they are some korean pros, noone knows for sure. We call this communication. Best regards, blizzard. p.s. gonna doublepost this on reddit.
On April 23 2016 00:42 JimmyJRaynor wrote:i think DK is an honest guy and is as transparent as he can be. if you think he is a liar and that makes him bad.... well LOL.. its hilarious you're in this forum and discussing his game.
it makes no sense, what is your point if what you wanted to write was "this game" ok bye
i don't play and I understand better than you because I have skill in RTS from playing better games^^ (got master in SC2 easy in 3 weeks, playing custom crazy builds the first 2 and "meta" the next - when master was top 2%)
On April 22 2016 21:42 JimmyJRaynor wrote: please don't put Boxer and Avilo in the same paragraph. it destroys any credibility your post might have. Boxer was an innovator on the cutting edge of Brood War. Even in SC2 ... Slayers Team frying every opponent with +15 Blue Flame Hellions at MLG-Anaheim prompted the Hellion nerf.
I was using blue flame hellion drops every TvT before slayers found out about it. Ask painuser or anyone that played the game at that time or played me on ladder
I did innovate a ton of stuff in SC2, whether or not i won with it, that people always later adopt themselves because they realize how strong it is.
You do not have to win every single tourney to have come up with something people will copy. I happen to do it with every single race, at masters/gm level. Hell, i've even beaten some korean pros on ladder in the past simply because i understand the next level meta quite well, even if i don't have 800 apm.
Also FYI, in those early MLGS, i won almost 99% of my TvTs going mech every game with blue flame hellions (the MLGs b4 MLG anaheim too where slayers basically copied the fast blue flame drop).
Just ask anyone - people were deathly afraid of playing me in TvT. Admittedly my TvP / TvZ sucked monkey balls back then lol.
i used Blue Flame Hellions in the first week of March 2010 as soon as i saw i got +15 against light.... while you were still begging people for a beta key in March of 2010 on Gr.Org... ask AGMLauncher..
does that mean that i taught you .. and you taught Boxer and so i'm Boxer's grand-daddy?
Boxer is an innovator at the top level of play.. you are not..and neither am i.
this is right up there with you claiming you invented the double-wall in RA3.
On April 22 2016 21:42 JimmyJRaynor wrote: please don't put Boxer and Avilo in the same paragraph. it destroys any credibility your post might have. Boxer was an innovator on the cutting edge of Brood War. Even in SC2 ... Slayers Team frying every opponent with +15 Blue Flame Hellions at MLG-Anaheim prompted the Hellion nerf.
I was using blue flame hellion drops every TvT before slayers found out about it. Ask painuser or anyone that played the game at that time or played me on ladder
I did innovate a ton of stuff in SC2, whether or not i won with it, that people always later adopt themselves because they realize how strong it is.
You do not have to win every single tourney to have come up with something people will copy. I happen to do it with every single race, at masters/gm level. Hell, i've even beaten some korean pros on ladder in the past simply because i understand the next level meta quite well, even if i don't have 800 apm.
Also FYI, in those early MLGS, i won almost 99% of my TvTs going mech every game with blue flame hellions (the MLGs b4 MLG anaheim too where slayers basically copied the fast blue flame drop).
Just ask anyone - people were deathly afraid of playing me in TvT. Admittedly my TvP / TvZ sucked monkey balls back then lol.
here is a TvT i recall that you lost pretty easily...
funny how when the spot light of tournament play is placed upon you... reality sets in
it was an entertaining game. you are an entertaining character and are full value for every twitch subscriber you have.. but please do not claim you taught boxer anything.
how you were remembered by the $100 tournaments was that you were a good NA player always somewhere near the top 200 of the NA ladder who won nothing.
avilo didn't claim he taught boxer and it looks like he has much deeper understanding of SC2 and of its flaws which jjr seems utterly unable to acknowledge in his continued efforts to blindly praise the profits of blizzard
maybe this guy is one of those paid forum posters lawl
bully bully trying to make other feel bad pointing out one loss, must be jealous he never won an actual tournament too
i provide evidence to back up my claims. if you have actual data and evidence and some kind of sources to back up your claims it makes your posts more credible.
Naniwa routinely rofl-stomped every CraftCup he played in. which wasn't many. the stuff he did to top NA GMs.. shouldn't happen to a dog. they were brutal beatings man.
On April 23 2016 02:41 ProMeTheus112 wrote: random evidence makes no back up to meaningless claim
its not random. the meaningless claim is that Avilo somehow innovated a technique Boxer used.
Guys like Naniwa and Boxer were just on another level. It ain't even close. Which is why they won the money they won and Avilo.. won? what? a few debates on GR.ORg?
It's the opposite of what they want, because they want to sell more games, as much stuff as possible, so if you stop playing after a few years and buy their next they're happiest. The shareholder board does not want the company to make really great games again.
This is actually the part that disappoints me, and that makes me sad. Time to accept reality perhaps. Brood war was like the old washing machine that would last 20 years. No money or extended warranties to be made out of those...
It's the opposite of what they want, because they want to sell more games, as much stuff as possible, so if you stop playing after a few years and buy their next they're happiest. The shareholder board does not want the company to make really great games again.
This is actually the part that disappoints me, and that makes me sad. Time to accept reality perhaps. Brood war was like the old washing machine that would last 20 years. No money or extended warranties to be made out of those...
I doubt its a true, if starcraft 2 would hit big as broodwar it would earn way way WAY more than relasing even few more games. Tourneys n stuff.
On April 23 2016 02:26 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i used Blue Flame Hellions in the first week of March 2010 as soon as i saw i got +15 against light.... while you were still begging people for a beta key in March of 2010 on Gr.Org... ask AGMLauncher..
does that mean that i taught you .. and you taught Boxer and so i'm Boxer's grand-daddy?
Boxer is an innovator at the top level of play.. you are not..and neither am i.
this is right up there with you claiming you invented the double-wall in RA3.
On April 22 2016 21:42 JimmyJRaynor wrote: please don't put Boxer and Avilo in the same paragraph. it destroys any credibility your post might have. Boxer was an innovator on the cutting edge of Brood War. Even in SC2 ... Slayers Team frying every opponent with +15 Blue Flame Hellions at MLG-Anaheim prompted the Hellion nerf.
I was using blue flame hellion drops every TvT before slayers found out about it. Ask painuser or anyone that played the game at that time or played me on ladder
I did innovate a ton of stuff in SC2, whether or not i won with it, that people always later adopt themselves because they realize how strong it is.
You do not have to win every single tourney to have come up with something people will copy. I happen to do it with every single race, at masters/gm level. Hell, i've even beaten some korean pros on ladder in the past simply because i understand the next level meta quite well, even if i don't have 800 apm.
Also FYI, in those early MLGS, i won almost 99% of my TvTs going mech every game with blue flame hellions (the MLGs b4 MLG anaheim too where slayers basically copied the fast blue flame drop).
Just ask anyone - people were deathly afraid of playing me in TvT. Admittedly my TvP / TvZ sucked monkey balls back then lol.
here is a TvT i recall that you lost pretty easily...
funny how when the spot light of tournament play is placed upon you... reality sets in
it was an entertaining game. you are an entertaining character and are full value for every twitch subscriber you have.. but please do not claim you taught boxer anything.
how you were remembered by the $100 tournaments was that you were a good NA player always somewhere near the top 200 of the NA ladder who won nothing.
Why do you compare "getting" an uppgrade to using hellion drops as a means of harassment at a time when nobody else was doing it?
In my book, anyone who is first at something is the guy who innovated it, and on NA avilo innovated this independently of anyone else.
On April 22 2016 05:34 Qwyn wrote: I'd like to see another alternative tested that encourages Protoss players to open with a tech other than Stargate rather than making mutas in ZvP a complete impossibility...
This is not the way to go about solving this problem! I am honestly not sure of a better alternative but I am confident that Blizzard has cause/effect mixed up in this case...
You mean Ravager bio nerf. But you don't want that!
The problem is that I don't know how to solve the early game zerg shenanigans now that they don't want to nerf the ravager, and then nerfs regarding the immortal or the adept would not seem fair.
10 seconds off warpgate (OR chrono buff which does the same thing), overlord speed to lair, sane maps. Done.
I always thought making building warp-in chrono boostable would help a lot amd it increased the uncertainty of timing.
On April 22 2016 21:42 JimmyJRaynor wrote: please don't put Boxer and Avilo in the same paragraph. it destroys any credibility your post might have. Boxer was an innovator on the cutting edge of Brood War. Even in SC2 ... Slayers Team frying every opponent with +15 Blue Flame Hellions at MLG-Anaheim prompted the Hellion nerf.
I was using blue flame hellion drops every TvT before slayers found out about it. Ask painuser or anyone that played the game at that time or played me on ladder
I did innovate a ton of stuff in SC2, whether or not i won with it, that people always later adopt themselves because they realize how strong it is.
You do not have to win every single tourney to have come up with something people will copy. I happen to do it with every single race, at masters/gm level. Hell, i've even beaten some korean pros on ladder in the past simply because i understand the next level meta quite well, even if i don't have 800 apm.
Also FYI, in those early MLGS, i won almost 99% of my TvTs going mech every game with blue flame hellions (the MLGs b4 MLG anaheim too where slayers basically copied the fast blue flame drop).
Just ask anyone - people were deathly afraid of playing me in TvT. Admittedly my TvP / TvZ sucked monkey balls back then lol.
You invented or innovated NOTHING! Maybe whining, but that´s it. Reminds me of that one Simpsons episode where Stephen Hawking claims everything for himself. And your others races were Diamond level, maybe low masters at maximum. NA server that is. Stop making yourself better than you actually are.
And the only thing you did to Koreans was flaming them or accusing them of cheating/maphacking/stream sniping (parting f.e.). While your TvT was good, they never were afraid of you. They soon realised how turtly you play and adapted, like rush tactics etc. They even used your unstable mentality against you. The only mech player people were afraid of in TvT was Goody because they knew how he played but still lost to it.
As if Slayers would adopt from an NA player that is constantly complaining.
On April 22 2016 21:42 JimmyJRaynor wrote: please don't put Boxer and Avilo in the same paragraph. it destroys any credibility your post might have. Boxer was an innovator on the cutting edge of Brood War. Even in SC2 ... Slayers Team frying every opponent with +15 Blue Flame Hellions at MLG-Anaheim prompted the Hellion nerf.
I was using blue flame hellion drops every TvT before slayers found out about it. Ask painuser or anyone that played the game at that time or played me on ladder
I did innovate a ton of stuff in SC2, whether or not i won with it, that people always later adopt themselves because they realize how strong it is.
You do not have to win every single tourney to have come up with something people will copy. I happen to do it with every single race, at masters/gm level. Hell, i've even beaten some korean pros on ladder in the past simply because i understand the next level meta quite well, even if i don't have 800 apm.
Also FYI, in those early MLGS, i won almost 99% of my TvTs going mech every game with blue flame hellions (the MLGs b4 MLG anaheim too where slayers basically copied the fast blue flame drop).
Just ask anyone - people were deathly afraid of playing me in TvT. Admittedly my TvP / TvZ sucked monkey balls back then lol.
You invented or innovated NOTHING! Maybe whining, but that´s it. Reminds me of that one Simpsons episode where Stephen Hawking claims everything for himself. And your others races were Diamond level, maybe low masters at maximum. NA server that is. Stop making yourself better than you actually are.
And the only thing you did to Koreans was flaming them or accusing them of cheating/maphacking/stream sniping (parting f.e.). While your TvT was good, they never were afraid of you. They soon realised how turtly you play and adapted, like rush tactics etc. They even used your unstable mentality against you. The only mech player people were afraid of in TvT was Goody because they knew how he played but still lost to it.
As if Slayers would adopt from an NA player that is constantly complaining.
Two players can come to the same conclusion. If anything, I'm sure there are others beside Avilo and SlayerS Terrans who discovered it on their own. Avilo is just being pathetic.
Who cares if someone creates a style if they cannot demonstrate its power? SlayerS dominated and showed the rest of the world.
On April 22 2016 21:42 JimmyJRaynor wrote: please don't put Boxer and Avilo in the same paragraph. it destroys any credibility your post might have. Boxer was an innovator on the cutting edge of Brood War. Even in SC2 ... Slayers Team frying every opponent with +15 Blue Flame Hellions at MLG-Anaheim prompted the Hellion nerf.
I was using blue flame hellion drops every TvT before slayers found out about it. Ask painuser or anyone that played the game at that time or played me on ladder
I did innovate a ton of stuff in SC2, whether or not i won with it, that people always later adopt themselves because they realize how strong it is.
You do not have to win every single tourney to have come up with something people will copy. I happen to do it with every single race, at masters/gm level. Hell, i've even beaten some korean pros on ladder in the past simply because i understand the next level meta quite well, even if i don't have 800 apm.
Also FYI, in those early MLGS, i won almost 99% of my TvTs going mech every game with blue flame hellions (the MLGs b4 MLG anaheim too where slayers basically copied the fast blue flame drop).
Just ask anyone - people were deathly afraid of playing me in TvT. Admittedly my TvP / TvZ sucked monkey balls back then lol.
You invented or innovated NOTHING! Maybe whining, but that´s it. Reminds me of that one Simpsons episode where Stephen Hawking claims everything for himself. And your others races were Diamond level, maybe low masters at maximum. NA server that is. Stop making yourself better than you actually are.
And the only thing you did to Koreans was flaming them or accusing them of cheating/maphacking/stream sniping (parting f.e.). While your TvT was good, they never were afraid of you. They soon realised how turtly you play and adapted, like rush tactics etc. They even used your unstable mentality against you. The only mech player people were afraid of in TvT was Goody because they knew how he played but still lost to it.
As if Slayers would adopt from an NA player that is constantly complaining.
Two players can come to the same conclusion. If anything, I'm sure there are others beside Avilo and SlayerS Terrans who discovered it on their own. Avilo is just being pathetic.
Who cares if someone creates a style if they cannot demonstrate its power? SlayerS dominated and showed the rest of the world.
Avilo was merely defending himself from the attack that he cant be named as an innovator of starcraft 2, the op you copied was an insult to me saying that i am wrong in invoking avilo as such, because i also named boxer among others which is an argument against those who say mech shouldnt be viable.
Unorthodox play was what sparked the interest in broodwar to begin with, people like boxer, nal_ra, saviOr, Yellow, bisu... people who innovated and found styles of play outside what was conventional.
Avilos innovation in this case of the blue flame hellion is adequate to qualify him as an innovator of sc2.
Foxdog has 58 posts that do nothing except parrot the Avilo agenda in Avilo-centric topics. Foxdog has no other posts.
i watched Goody roll Avilo multiple times in 2011 in TvTs. One of those times there is still a VOD kicking around so i posted it. I never saw Avilo beat Goody in a cahs prize event. Beating guys who are screwing around on ladder accounts in 2011 that they could care less about doesn't mean much. If Foxdog has some actual independent evidence of Avilo beating Goody he should post it. Otherwise, its just hearsay from someone who is probably sitting behind a VPN.
Boxer was a team owner. a great innovator and a great ambassador for both Brood War and SC2 competitive eSports. Do not compare Avilo to Boxer.
Avilo is an entertainer; Boxer was an esports competitor. Totally different jobs.
I was using blue flame hellion drops every TvT before slayers found out about it. Ask painuser or anyone that played the game at that time or played me on ladder
You realize that Slayers-hellions were an opener and not actually a midgame harass style?
I was using blue flame hellion drops every TvT before slayers found out about it. Ask painuser or anyone that played the game at that time or played me on ladder
You realize that Slayers-hellions were an opener and not actually a midgame harass style?
i remember how they would start a fight with the Hellions not in enemy vision. Get the enemy units to line up how they wanted.. and then in came the Hellions to deal max damage.
I was using blue flame hellion drops every TvT before slayers found out about it. Ask painuser or anyone that played the game at that time or played me on ladder
You realize that Slayers-hellions were an opener and not actually a midgame harass style?
i remember how they would start a fight with the Hellions not in enemy vision. Get the enemy units to line up how they wanted.. and then in came the Hellions to deal max damage.
It was a 1/1/1 variation that had a unique useage of reactor-switching + drop army into enemy base. Noone had used that specific build prior to that MLG.
The reason it was so strong was because it directly countered speedling openings. And if people responded with Roaches - which intuitively made sense because Roaches > blueflame - they also lost as Marines + medivacs could beat that. The only proper response was very quick baneling/speedlings.
After that it is true that people in general began experimenting alot more with Hellions. People also just never left any defenses at home to defend against hellion harass (at the time) so harassing was super easy w/ them as well.
But "Slayers hellions" was a build, not a playstyle.
On April 26 2016 00:06 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Foxdog has 58 posts that do nothing except parrot the Avilo agenda in Avilo-centric topics. Foxdog has no other posts.
i watched Goody roll Avilo multiple times in 2011 in TvTs. One of those times there is still a VOD kicking around so i posted it. I never saw Avilo beat Goody in a cahs prize event. Beating guys who are screwing around on ladder accounts in 2011 that they could care less about doesn't mean much. If Foxdog has some actual independent evidence of Avilo beating Goody he should post it. Otherwise, its just hearsay from someone who is probably sitting behind a VPN.
Boxer was a team owner. a great innovator and a great ambassador for both Brood War and SC2 competitive eSports. Do not compare Avilo to Boxer.
Avilo is an entertainer; Boxer was an esports competitor. Totally different jobs.
I would normally be inclined not to respond to ad hominem, but for the sake of others that might be watching i will.
You have apparantly exhausted your facts and arguments and being cornered by having to accept Avilo as an innovator albeit not a good one by your standard, you resort to this, personal attack and defamation of me.
He also is requesting a replay of Avilo beating GoOdy as if the winner of this contest was the better innovator, this logic is warped.
On April 26 2016 01:51 FoxDog wrote: He also is requesting a replay of Avilo beating GoOdy as if the winner of this contest was the better innovator, this logic is warped.
his claim is he won 99% of his TvT games. 99%? against what calibre of competition? i posted 1 loss against a low APM European Terran. We need 99 wins to balance that out. Where are all these wins? We can go through the VOD and check out the build order as well. He didn't use Hellions as an opener or harassment tactic in the VOD i posted.
Against weak and slow competition a much stronger mechanical player can open a game in 1000 ways and win. That same player can also employ any one of 1000 playstyles. In doing so they are innovating nothing regardless of the opener and playstyle they happen to use.
All this abstract philosophy talk is boring though. Post some VODs during this 99% TvT win rate and we can check it out.
It's really tiring to see JimmyJRaynor always pop up. He's always there to save the day and share his knowledge on the internal workings of Blizzard, it's budget allocation or the absolute brilliance of its CEO, David Kim or any of their associates.
Always there to derail the thread, talking about things that people don't care about or that shouldn't be cared about.
This time it's about Avilo's supposed TvT win ratings and his claim to have played a role in innovating a match-up.
On April 26 2016 03:13 InfCereal wrote: This couldn't possibly be further from the original topic.
How did you avilo vs goody come up? Is this 2011?
If people talk about goody, it must be 2011, right?
From what I gather the original topic only says that blizzard now mostly balances around official kespa opinions. And some PR stuff on why there are no updates on community feedback updates.
On April 26 2016 03:51 B-royal wrote: It's really tiring to see JimmyJRaynor always pop up. He's always there to save the day and share his knowledge on the internal workings of Blizzard, it's budget allocation or the absolute brilliance of its CEO, David Kim or any of their associates.
Always there to derail the thread, talking about things that people don't care about or that shouldn't be cared about.
This time it's about Avilo's supposed TvT win ratings and his claim to have played a role in innovating a match-up.
someone stated Avilo was an innovator like Boxer and i disagreed. I never made the claim. I merely disagreed and explained why. and then it just went on and on and on... Then Avilo jumped in and said .. ya man 5 years ago i had a 99% winnning rate in TvT.
i merely added my take on the derailed topic which actually contains real evidence and not hearsay unlike the individuals who hold opposing views.
and ya, i'm really enjoying LotV and i like how DK has changed LotV from HotS and i like the state of multiplayer from my random-race diamond league perspective which is only a small slice of the cross section of people Mr. Kim must please to make this a successful product. Greg Black is doing a great job too!
Of course the photon cannon buff vs. bio air is a bandaid - everything blizzard does is a bandaid. You probably don't even notice it anymore, but the bottoms of your ramps have some random rocks lying around (or even a neutral supply depot, presumably built by emperor mengsk some 50 years ago) for the sole purpose of preventing me from blocking your ramp with buildings.
A game that is so unhealthily centered on esports will inevitably be balanced by bandaids and become an incoherent mess that no sane person could ever understand. Remember how in 2011 we were all so happy that SC2 tournaments had mass appeal because you can more or less understand what is happening even if you've never played the game? Good luck with that now LOL. Mommy, why does that thor shoot 8 rockets but only do damage to one of the enemy air units? Son, thats because the anti-air capabilities of terran were deemed to not work well and were shuffled around in may 2016.
Anyway, here are my balance change suggestions. Increase supply to 500, make 3vs3 the mandatory mode of competition and create some giant-ass 3vs3 maps. We'd get a good laugh out of it at least.
On April 26 2016 16:27 Surth wrote: Of course the photon cannon buff vs. bio air is a bandaid - everything blizzard does is a bandaid. You probably don't even notice it anymore, but the bottoms of your ramps have some random rocks lying around (or even a neutral supply depot, presumably built by emperor mengsk some 50 years ago) for the sole purpose of preventing me from blocking your ramp with buildings.
A game that is so unhealthily centered on esports will inevitably be balanced by bandaids and become an incoherent mess that no sane person could ever understand. Remember how in 2011 we were all so happy that SC2 tournaments had mass appeal because you can more or less understand what is happening even if you've never played the game? Good luck with that now LOL. Mommy, why does that thor shoot 8 rockets but only do damage to one of the enemy air units? Son, thats because the anti-air capabilities of terran were deemed to not work well and were shuffled around in may 2016.
Anyway, here are my balance change suggestions. Increase supply to 500, make 3vs3 the mandatory mode of competition and create some giant-ass 3vs3 maps. We'd get a good laugh out of it at least.
We wouldn't because guess what - the engine cannot handle that.
On April 26 2016 03:51 B-royal wrote: It's really tiring to see JimmyJRaynor always pop up. He's always there to save the day and share his knowledge on the internal workings of Blizzard, it's budget allocation or the absolute brilliance of its CEO, David Kim or any of their associates.
Always there to derail the thread, talking about things that people don't care about or that shouldn't be cared about.
This time it's about Avilo's supposed TvT win ratings and his claim to have played a role in innovating a match-up.
someone stated Avilo was an innovator like Boxer and i disagreed. I never made the claim. I merely disagreed and explained why. and then it just went on and on and on... Then Avilo jumped in and said .. ya man 5 years ago i had a 99% winnning rate in TvT.
i merely added my take on the derailed topic which actually contains real evidence and not hearsay unlike the individuals who hold opposing views.
and ya, i'm really enjoying LotV and i like how DK has changed LotV from HotS and i like the state of multiplayer from my random-race diamond league perspective which is only a small slice of the cross section of people Mr. Kim must please to make this a successful product. Greg Black is doing a great job too!
You are right. I made that post when I was in a bad mood, I apologize. But anyway, there's no point in trying to dismiss such assertions.
If you have a 99% win rate in a match-up, it's because you've chosen your opponents wisely.
EPT![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CM809rKWoAAiV0C.jpg)
)![[image loading]](http://1u88jj3r4db2x4txp44yqfj1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/chaos-mike-morhaime-800x558.jpg)
