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Canada11355 Posts
thread
nobody else made a thread so if someone who normally does these wants to hijack it idc
Hey everyone. We wanted to issue a community feedback update early this week after seeing your feedback around the planned patch we were going to apply today. After reading your feedback, it seemed pretty clear that there is not much support for the proposed changes, so we decided to cancel this week’s balance update and get into more details of what’s happening because community feedback around the changes seems to have changed completely this week. Just a couple weeks ago when we started testing the latest changes, the perception seemed very positive. However, this week, what we’re seeing is completely different. We have some guesses as to why this happened as well as some proposals on how to improve our process going forward, but let’s talk about the specific changes.
Protoss Buff vs. Mutalisks
Previously, this topic seemed to be clearly important to the community, but it seems to have completely changed the other way. Even though Mutalisks are clearly not an issue at the top of pro level, we believed it was a heavy community issue, so we located a change that would have minimal impact at the pro lvl, while looking to help the average skilled player.
We’re not exactly sure why the major switch happened here, but we wonder if a lot of it is the meta game having shifted from Protoss being underpowered against Zerg to the matchup being a lot more even than we initially believed.
Other changes
The other changes we believe are more straight forward. Like many of you point out, we probably didn’t have enough testing time on the other changes and we should gather more feedback over the next week or two before committing to these changes.
Also, there seemed to be less of an understanding as to why we have been moving the way we have with testing out different changes. We wonder if many players out there are getting left behind or stuck in an old line of thinking while another group has moved on. We believe this creates a lot of confusion, and we believe this is a major flaw in our current process which we would like to improve going forward.
Communication Process Improvements
There are a few things that we think we can improve.
First, we believe we can be more proactive about gauging the community’s stance on specific topics. At regular intervals, we would like to begin asking you guys if we are hearing you correctly. This will allow us to double check and make sure there hasn’t been a major change in what the community wants, or that we’re not misunderstanding you.
Second, we can do better on providing a “post-mortem” for our Balance Test Map changes to analyze which changes were effective or not effective. This should also help us keep moving at a similar pace in terms of reasoning.
Third, we will try to be more concise with our messaging to be as clear as possible. Because we tried to get into every detail of every reasoning, we believe this caused some confusion due to how much information we were giving in such short time periods. Instead, we would like to do more updates every week, but each update will be smaller with less details to help with this issue.
If there are more suggestions here, we can definitely look into further improvements to our current process. Thanks for your thoughts and feedback, we’ll have more to discuss as the week continues.
Next Balance Patch
We will have more details coming later this week, and a new test map up early the week after. We are definitely aiming for around 5/22 ~ 5/23 to solidify many of the changes to patch to the live game so let's stay focused both on discussions as well as playtesting as soon as the test map is up early next week. We're pushing very hard on this front not just on the community side but working very heavily with the pro players as well to nail this down.
Besides the issues we're currently working through, the other issues we're currently thinking on are: potential immortal nerfs due to heavy pro player feedback around this being an absolute necessity, potential colossus buffs, and Cyclone changes.
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Poor DK.
(edit : hellbat liberator banshee still has 2 more weeks to live, yeah!)
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Wait so the patch is being pushed back?
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It's almost like he's just reading through reddit posts and TL threads and is surprised that feedback differs. There are one million different opinions, the community will never have 'One true voice.'
Sector 1 - Design, the best thing he can do is play a lot, and listen to the community to what isnt fun and what is really fun, for both players in the game mind you. (a lot of things in SC currently are fun for one user, but makes other user wanna quit).
Sector 2 - Balance - tweaking units stats and things that impact gameplay immidiately, he's best off listening to Kespa pros only. (The highest level).
The bio air buff to cannons is something that is trying to adress sector 1 with a tool from sector 2. This doesn't work.
The change to liberator air stems from a particular maru game vs leenock game a long time ago, zerg has adapted and moved past the problem. Things are very much up in the air right now - the only thing that should be nerfed or removed is the liberator range. (But this is a sympton of bad design- can end games instantly much like oracles, nydusses,).
the 2 sectors are very overlapping, but David Kim is unable to change design things - so he is completly lost and lacks the tools to fix core problems in my opinion.
We need changes to make gameplay more fun for both players a lot more than we need these tiny balance tweaks. And I have the feeling that David Kim is not the person who can make those changes. And I doubt they will ever happen.
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
quoting from bnet forum
Fix the mutalisk
It has a lot of effect on high level PvZ games even if it's not seen often, it creates a lot of pressure to play stargate even if other styles are stronger against other zerg units and aggression (such as ling drop, ling+queen overlord speed drop and ravager all-ins). You'll see protoss playing with a stargate quite early and using it to support double robo immortal in many pro PvZ's because you cannot play that kind of style safely without a stargate
Having static defense for 2 of the 3 races be buffed specifically against bio-air for mutalisk is a bad band-aid fix. I think here that the mutalisk was overbuffed in early HOTS (adding speed and quadrupling regeneration) and we're still seeing the fallout from that. Counters have been (or will be) buffed to be overpowered to get back on the same level. This doesn't just include the +bio air on 2 races static defense, but also units like the widow mine and liberator splash anti air. Without muta being so powerful you can tone down those things and still see a lot of play.
We saw the most mutalisk play in WOL where the mutalisk was a lot weaker but these "OP-counters" didn't exist or need to exist to stabilize the matchups.
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I agree with you, if you also list phoenix with range in the list with liberator, and remove widow mine, but add thor auto-targetting air which was one of the saddest updates of all time to me.
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
Phoenix range predates the mutalisk buffs - it was implemented first because protoss as a race was specifically weaker to air-light units than zerg and terran. Still +1 on the list
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Immortal nerf! Finally...
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On May 04 2016 08:28 Gwavajuice wrote:
Poor DK.
(edit : hellbat liberator banshee still has 2 more weeks to live, yeah!)
+1 to poor DK
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It's pretty big of blizzard to cancel even testing these changes due to community feedback. Promising for communication, but I hope this isn't a pattern of some community members thinking they can bully Blizzard into (or away from) anything.
Looking forward to the communication changes too!
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On May 04 2016 12:23 Kiwan wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2016 08:28 Gwavajuice wrote:
Poor DK.
(edit : hellbat liberator banshee still has 2 more weeks to live, yeah!) +1 to poor DK
another +1
what a shitty job it must be at some times
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Personally, I've said for some time that Blizzard and DK cares too much about the (vocal part of) community. "The community" is a bunch of raging bronzies that find everything they lose to OP. That can't be the basis of balance tweaks. Maybe it can influence design to make the game more fun to play, but they can't blindly follow what people shout at the forums.
Imo, they should make up their own line of thinking about this and stick to that. Screw all the haters on the forums that will never be happy unless you do exactly that nonsensical change they ask for, and probably not even then. Can't do game design by community democracy, or you'll end up with Boaty McBoatface.
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haha we did it! no more liberator nerf!
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I already posted something similiar in the other thread but I want to echo my thoughts here regardless.
DK you and your team are obviously great designers so give yourselves some credit and don't listen to the whiners on the forums. You have already set up the avenues for balance feedback at the pro level so there's no need to crowdsource your design from the vocal minority. People will always play SC2 so just do what you guys do best and make it fun.
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oh my... it happened! DK made me happy 
As @Cascade wrote, I am a "raging bronzie" (ok, Platinum, but it's just shiny Bronze :D ), but I like to believe that LotV has best balance in whole SC2 history. And I judge it based on what I see on streams, not on my own "bronzie" games.
This patch that was planned for 3 May was imo useless in general and not very well thought in some parts. Probably this is the first time in history of SC2 that I really don't have anything that I would like to be changed (ok, maybe I would like to see complete, 100% redesign of Protoss race  ). Of course pro gamers, they know better, so changes will occur.
In the meantime, tomorrow there is Overwatch BETA, and during the weekend I will try to become better at SC2 :D
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So now DK is blaming the community for no action on pvz muta issue. Even though on almost all forums (even bnet) people explain again and again why cannon buff is terrible and plain stupid, so DK ignores it and dismisses the whole matter.
There never was any switch, it's just as if any post with "muta regen/speed" in it was skipped by the devs.
What a bunch of pr bullshit.
Yes, their patch was horrible, good call it didn't make it. But God, their patching process is slow and clueless.
They are fixing issues in completely wrong areas. Cannon +bio buff? And he seriously wonders why community doesn't want this kind of balance?
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I cannot understand the patch supposed to be active today and I think this back up is really smart from David Kim.
What I know for sure is what TY said in the interview before his GSL final against Zest :
" I am sorry to say that but I want to be honest : protoss is really imba "
He is right and I guess you should more work on the immortal nerf, because I see all the time some bioballs completely reckt with only stalkers adepts immos and some sentries.
So reckt without any splash damage like disruptors, colossi or templars.
That's pretty bad and unfair.
Immortals have to be nerfed since marauders suck so much since they have been nerfed at the beginning of LOTV.
And really I do not understand all the last proposed changes.
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instead of nerfing that and nerfing this perhaps they should simply buff stuff? Buff the marauder if it's weak.
Buff the other potentials of zerg arsenal so the protoss have to worry about them instead of blind counter the mutalisk?
Personally I'd like to see a bigger change in unit composition, make more composition available for all races... LotV feels very stale for me at the current state.
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Maybe DK should step down. He got shit for every patch, and every non patch and everything for kind of long now.
There has to be someone who balances the game against the will and Opinion of at least 50% of all players and live through it. Eventually most patches led to the game we have now, wich is pretty balanced.
(Even if Protoss and Terran are kind if boring to play, wich is a design choice and not a 100% balance issue)
If you don't have Zest level, you should not worry about Protoss being imba. Just Mass Liberators and be "hard to engage".
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I want to get off David Kim's wild ride.
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
He is right and I guess you should more work on the immortal nerf, because I see all the time some bioballs completely reckt with only stalkers adepts immos and some sentries.
So reckt without any splash damage like disruptors, colossi or templars.
That's pretty bad and unfair.
You're saying that the game is unfair because upgraded, unsupported t1 is beating upgraded, unsupported t1 sometimes.
There's a lot of nuance in balance but i don't see any design problem in this above statement. Why should one set of units always win? Previously the game has been balanced around units like the Colossus offsetting weaker gateway units, but the Colossus was nerfed to the ground over a year ago; this no longer holds true.
Both protoss and terran have strong support units - medivac, liberator, HT etc - that they rely on as the game hits midgame and it's a reasonable design to have them somewhat equal in power both with and without support units, IMO.
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Am i the only one who finds this hilarious?
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On May 04 2016 16:25 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +He is right and I guess you should more work on the immortal nerf, because I see all the time some bioballs completely reckt with only stalkers adepts immos and some sentries.
So reckt without any splash damage like disruptors, colossi or templars.
That's pretty bad and unfair. You're saying that the game is unfair because upgraded, unsupported t1 is beating upgraded, unsupported t1 sometimes. There's a lot of nuance in balance but i don't see any design problem in this above statement. Why should one set of units always win? Previously the game has been balanced around units like the Colossus offsetting weaker gateway units, but the Colossus was nerfed to the ground over a year ago; this no longer holds true. Both protoss and terran have strong support units - medivac, liberator, HT etc - that they rely on as the game hits midgame and it's a reasonable design to have them somewhat equal in power both with and without support units, IMO.
maybe his point is not that true in tvp, but what about zvp? EVERY toss plays the same - phoenix into double robo immo + archon. and nowadays, nearly every zerg plays also the same - ling bling into hydra/lurker. back in hots and wol, the immortal was supposed to be an anti-armored unit (anti roach, anti tank). now, there are no more armored units played by zerg (atm), so whats the point of the double robo immo? RIGHT, this unit is damn powerfull, but it was never intentioned to be such a huge dmg absorber. it feels just so wrong, if the zerg goes for ling bling hydra and the toss is massing out immortals.
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I'm glad Blizz decided to not go ahead with this patch, the changes were just absurd especially the cannon change.
Their reasoning for why we hate it though, completely off base, just because a few pros have increased the win rate slightly has nothing to do with not wanting an absurd buff. We didn't want the buff because it's absurd and doesn't fix the inherent issues plaguing the matchup. People aren't going to stop opening Stargate because of slightly better cannons, the opener is too flexible for that.
Stargate helps protect against so many Zerg openers and rushes that would otherwise kill the Protoss in the early game. Drops, roach ravager pushes etc.
PvZ is a mess and will be for a long time until Blizz find a way of adequately reworking Protoss early game defence vs Zerg. I'm getting kind of sick of looking at my PvP and PvT match ups sitting at 60+% while my PvZ is stuck at sub 30%. While my ZvP is at 80+% and sub 30% for ZvZ and ZvT. This is with my Protoss main and Zerg offrace being sat in gold.
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On May 04 2016 13:13 Silvana wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2016 12:23 Kiwan wrote:On May 04 2016 08:28 Gwavajuice wrote:
Poor DK.
(edit : hellbat liberator banshee still has 2 more weeks to live, yeah!) +1 to poor DK another +1 what a shitty job it must be at some times
Another +1 this guy can't catch a break.
Buff stalker antiair to 14 flat tho 
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
ow, there are no more armored units played by zerg (atm), so whats the point of the double robo immo?
Mainly because meta is hydra/lurker and playing other stuff doesn't work out that well. Gateway units get wrecked beyond belief against hydra/lurker and stargate-based armies have been repeatedly nerfed until they were not really viable in the midgame, so what else do you expect people to play? If the immortal and disruptor were removed overnight, we wouldn't see protoss switching to other styles and maintaining a 45-50% winrate.
The hardened shield redesign made immortals weaker against the things that they hard countered (like siege tanks and thors) but stronger against units in general (like marines and hydralisks). This was obvious from the moment that it was announced.
Stargate helps protect against so many Zerg openers and rushes that would otherwise kill the Protoss in the early game. Drops, roach ravager pushes etc.
Playing stargate most PvZ's at a high master level i don't think that. If a Z tells you before the game that he's going to do one of the following:
super early ling-drop
overlord speed + queen ling drop
roach/ravager all-in
ling+baneling all-in / etcetc / whatever else
i would go to 4 gateways rather than 2gate+stargate. The motivation for stargate is that it's better in the 5-10 minute window, but you have to live to 5:00 without taking large amounts of damage to get to that point.
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On May 04 2016 13:33 Cascade wrote:
Personally, I've said for some time that Blizzard and DK cares too much about the (vocal part of) community. "The community" is a bunch of raging bronzies that find everything they lose to OP. That can't be the basis of balance tweaks. Maybe it can influence design to make the game more fun to play, but they can't blindly follow what people shout at the forums.
Imo, they should make up their own line of thinking about this and stick to that. Screw all the haters on the forums that will never be happy unless you do exactly that nonsensical change they ask for, and probably not even then. Can't do game design by community democracy, or you'll end up with Boaty McBoatface.
This is what it's all about!! Please ignore the "community". The majority of the players don't write here. They just play the game and enjoy it. Blizzard and DK should obviously listen to the pros when something is broken but to hear what the "community" thinks about balance is the wrong way to go, I think. Screw the haters. There's no way to please them.
A camel is a horse designed by committee (or this "community"). Do your thing DK! The game is awesome and so thinks the majority of the players, otherwise they wouldn't play.
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On May 04 2016 16:54 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +ow, there are no more armored units played by zerg (atm), so whats the point of the double robo immo? Mainly because meta is hydra/lurker and playing other stuff doesn't work out that well. Gateway units get wrecked beyond belief against hydra/lurker and stargate-based armies have been repeatedly nerfed until they were not really viable in the midgame, so what else do you expect people to play? If the immortal and disruptor were removed overnight, we wouldn't see protoss switching to other styles and maintaining a 45-50% winrate. The hardened shield redesign made immortals weaker against the things that they hard countered (like siege tanks and thors) but stronger against units in general (like marines and hydralisks). This was obvious from the moment that it was announced.
i do not have much knowlegde about tvp. but vs zerg, one the paper, the immortal was never good against ling or hydras cuz of relatively low dps and higher numbers of ling/hydra. maybe toss would find a solution in going fast ht or such things, i duno. gate units + ht was always a good alternative to the almighty deathball with colossi. imo, immortals atm are just to well-rounded. you can play them vs anything and that shouldnt be the case for a non-gateway unit.
its btw the same problem with the liberator for me. its just to well-rounded. liberators kill every air and CAN kill every ground with ease. this shouldnt be the case and thats why im rly looking forward to the patch.
adepts are also something to look onto. the early game harrass is just to good. maybe a higher cd for the shade would absolutely solve it, but i dont wanna whine about toss to much here ;D
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
i do not have much knowlegde about tvp. but vs zerg, one the paper, the immortal was never good against ling or hydras cuz of relatively low dps and higher numbers of ling/hydra.
The Immortal has more DPS against light units than the Stalker does, it's always been that way. On paper they're similar against light units but the immortal is like a marine in that it doesn't waste any damage.
Wasting damage is a massive weakness of the stalker because of their large size (can't fit many into a small space) and medium ROF projectile based attack.
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The new immortal shield is great IMO. The whole point is that it deters the enemies from focusing it down and killing it in one second, and I think that's great because then the unit is able to deal the damage it needs to deal to justify its cost. I understand the complains about the unit being so strong, but I don't think lowering the damage it soaks will change much. I'm sure in most fights it doesn't soak the full 200 damage or anything close, the 2 second duration runs out way way before than that.
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On May 04 2016 16:27 insitelol wrote:
Am i the only one who finds this hilarious? Maybe, yes. Since the patch was pretty hefty and I didn't want it to happen – especially with Dreamhack just around the corner!
To the people yelling DK shouldn't listen to plebs: 1) Plebs keep the game alive, and 2) I'm shure they can weigh different voices accordingly.
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On May 04 2016 17:08 Jj_82 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2016 16:27 insitelol wrote:
Am i the only one who finds this hilarious? Maybe, yes. Since the patch was pretty hefty and I didn't want it to happen – especially with Dreamhack just around the corner! To the people yelling DK shouldn't listen to plebs: 1) Plebs keep the game alive, and 2) I'm shure they can weigh different voices accordingly.
But plebs don't have one voice and overall they lack game knowledge (me included). That's why it's impossible to listen to them regarding such advanced things as balance. Chaos, that's what you get.
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On May 04 2016 17:15 Legobiten wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2016 17:08 Jj_82 wrote:On May 04 2016 16:27 insitelol wrote:
Am i the only one who finds this hilarious? Maybe, yes. Since the patch was pretty hefty and I didn't want it to happen – especially with Dreamhack just around the corner! To the people yelling DK shouldn't listen to plebs: 1) Plebs keep the game alive, and 2) I'm shure they can weigh different voices accordingly. But plebs don't have one voice and overall they lack game knowledge (me included). That's why it's impossible to listen to them regarding such advanced things as balance. Chaos, that's what you get. No, data is what you get. And a feel. That's two pretty important things.
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Haven't been on reddit, since I'm trying to avoid spoilers, so I'm not sure what happened.
This whole community helping design the game, makes it feel as though we're dating David Kim. Are we the nagging wife disabling David from fulfilling his dreams? It's good that they listen, but perhaps they should also get to do their job and actually be able to push a patch through..
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This is one of the funniest things i've read in SC2. As if they just read the latest comments on the game and did whatever they suggested. Also they are going to get trapped in a loop.
People complain -> make a patch. Now the mad people are happy they get a patch and won't complain. Now the people who don't want a patch complain -> cancle patch. Rinse and repeat forever
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Isn't it obvious that there is no such thing as "community game design". Who the hell came up with idea with that every step a developer makes should be approved by the mob? This is complete BS and this countless threads every week are pointless. I have no love for DK and do not support him at all and never did. But watching him making these pathetic excuses every day just forces me to feel pity for him. Does he have any respect for himself? He should take responsibilty for his decisions. But all i see is him trying to be appealing to everyone, having no clear goal nor understanding of major game flaws. I'm not even talking about core design problems. This is something i learned to live with. But he managed to fail even in every minor aspect and it continues. Map pool... Gawd, please, if this game is complete crap PLEASE, at least let us play on decent maps, that's all i beg for, DK. For gods sake. It takes NOTHING, literally nothing, just open the corresponding tl thread and boom, suddenly ur game becomes 100 times attractive. And stop making excuses, please.
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On May 04 2016 17:20 Jj_82 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2016 17:15 Legobiten wrote:On May 04 2016 17:08 Jj_82 wrote:On May 04 2016 16:27 insitelol wrote:
Am i the only one who finds this hilarious? Maybe, yes. Since the patch was pretty hefty and I didn't want it to happen – especially with Dreamhack just around the corner! To the people yelling DK shouldn't listen to plebs: 1) Plebs keep the game alive, and 2) I'm shure they can weigh different voices accordingly. But plebs don't have one voice and overall they lack game knowledge (me included). That's why it's impossible to listen to them regarding such advanced things as balance. Chaos, that's what you get. No, data is what you get. And a feel. That's two pretty important things.
Yeah they shouldn't ignore what's going on on the forums. But that doesn't mean they should blindly follow what is being shouted out by the vocal community members either.
They have to be able to go "yeah, we know you don't like to play against X, and that you want to nerf X, but we don't think that'd work out well, so we will buff Y instead, even though the community doesn't like that."
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Several ideas I'd like to discuss. I am not mentionning obvious changes such as immortal nerf, these are just several ideas that I have never seen discussed before.
Protoss:
- reduce AA damage of overcharged pylones (weaken phoenix opening since phoenix defend everything with lifting units in front of pylones/canons)
- nerf disruptors damage (to 120 for instance or /2 against burried units)
- remove detection from oracle tag or make it a lot shorter
- warp prism: reduce pick-up range, put a timer on warp and maximize warp-in to 8 supply with upgrade to 16 on bay.
Zerg:
- swarmhost possible new design: when burried: creates a locust (hp/dps to determine) every 20 seconds. Locusts die when the SH unburries. Maximum 3 living locusts at a time.
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
Protoss:
- reduce AA damage of overcharged pylones (weaken phoenix opening since phoenix defend everything with lifting units in front of pylones/canons)
You have this completely backwards if you think that reducing overcharge damage vs air units will weaken oracle/phoenix openings.
Overcharge has 4.2x the DPS and 1.167x the range of stalkers vs light air units and is the first line of defense against them
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On May 04 2016 17:15 Legobiten wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2016 17:08 Jj_82 wrote:On May 04 2016 16:27 insitelol wrote:
Am i the only one who finds this hilarious? Maybe, yes. Since the patch was pretty hefty and I didn't want it to happen – especially with Dreamhack just around the corner! To the people yelling DK shouldn't listen to plebs: 1) Plebs keep the game alive, and 2) I'm shure they can weigh different voices accordingly. But plebs don't have one voice and overall they lack game knowledge (me included). That's why it's impossible to listen to them regarding such advanced things as balance. Chaos, that's what you get.
If you don't listen to reasons people give to back up their points, you shouldn't propose weird balance changes which aren't even aimed at the highest competitive level in the first place.
Yes, we don't know everything and aren't pros (who can be just as biased) at the game, but after playing this game for over 5 years and following its course lots of us are THE core of SC2 and I think have a decent understanding of what they expect and want from this game. Sure, there are also the guys who are pretty happy with the way things went so far, to each his own, but then you should also respect the thoughts of those who aren't.
Overall good move to roll back on the patch, unsure why this process can't be more streamlined with providing some data from those balance test maps to explain your line of argument better, having this weekly drama generator seems unhealthy to me in the long run.
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On May 04 2016 17:55 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +Protoss:
- reduce AA damage of overcharged pylones (weaken phoenix opening since phoenix defend everything with lifting units in front of pylones/canons) You have this completely backwards if you think that reducing overcharge damage vs air units will weaken oracle/phoenix openings. Overcharge has 4.2x the DPS and 1.167x the range of stalkers vs light air units and is the first line of defense against them
I meant in PvZ and PvT (especially PvZ). I don't care about PvP which is by definition balanced.
To my understanding, PvZ is unbalanced now because phoenix openings are too good and allows to have harass, map control, overlord kill, and still allow to defend everything with PO + lift. This allows the protoss to transition very safely to double robo and get all of his tech while being very safe.
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Cyro I think you should give up your holy crusade against mutas. Mutas are not strong. Mutas are barely seen. Yes the threat of them is something very real that protoss has to consider, but realistically, they are only truely powerfull if you let zerg have enough money to build 25+ at once.
Giving protoss a carefree early game like you seem to want with buffs against mutas for protoss, where scouting is even less important, and improving their strenght vs all these 'allins' that you are talking about (ling,queen, rav-roach, ling-bane) would just give zerg an even harder time in the matchup at the highest level than it has currently.
All this stuff is easy to hold for top protoss, but maybe not for you because you are 'high master' and you just don't have the level, preparation, and perfected reactions to all strategies. You are quite clearly constantly putting your very biased opinion out there based on your own ladder games and that kind of stuff is exactly what David Kim does not need to hear. Let him collect feedback from Kespa pros instead before something stupid like this cannon buffs gets in the game that fucks with corrupter interaction as well. A stalker buff vs air is ridiculous, it helps P in many situations not just vs mutas and stalkers already do pretty well vs mutas in mass numbers, as do archons.
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
I don't care about PvP which is by definition balanced.
Statistically balanced, that doesn't mean designed well. Phoenixes and Oracles are actually quite strong in the matchup right now, strong enough to bring recent movements like this - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/505739-a-change-to-the-oracle - even though PO has its current damage.
The photon overcharge nerf in the last patch, which doubled its cost, has skewed the favor towards the harassing player against the defending player slightly more than what should be considered healthy in a mirror matchup. Namely, the stargate route has become so hard to deal with that rather than relying on stalkers and overcharge for defense, players prefer to play stargate themselves.
We get design changes quite often for mirror matchups, one of the easiest examples is the spore crawler +bio change which was targetted not just at one mirror matchup, but at one unit (the mutalisk).
PO damage nerf vs air units would have a lot of bad effects. It's critically important for defending against a lot of air units - the situation where you have phoenixes lifting units up while they get shot by the PO is actually only a small fraction of the time that PO is using its air attack.
A stalker buff vs air is ridiculous, it helps P in many situations not just vs mutas and stalkers already do pretty well vs mutas in mass numbers, as do archons.
Stalkers are very weak against non-armored AA, that's most obvious against phoenix and mutas. They hit 1.4x higher against armored air and that damage point seems to be in a good place (for example, look at stalker vs medivac, stalker vs liberator, stalker vs viking, flying buildings, battlecruisers, void rays, carriers) but it's obvious that the AA-nonarmored damage is very low, maybe too low. It's been kinda that way for a very long time but we have gone along with it.
Other stuff:
All this stuff is easy to hold for top protoss
Maybe top-top level, but top-top level has much more selective map choice and you have to take that into account as well as skill.
It's not a holy crusade, i am trying to make feedback somewhat clear because it's not at the moment. I (like many others in the thread and poll) said that if there was going to be a change made, another massive damage multiplier on a static defense vs bio-air was probably not the best change to make.
Highmaster level feedback is much better than far lower levels, it's high enough to have a feeling of what's relevant in pro games. You can't completely ignore the 99% of players below that skill level even if it's appropriate to put more focus on the singular best player in the world; some other stats are relevant here, like diamond league being 21% protoss rather than 32-33% to all races.
DKim is always free to listen to the people that are winning tournaments for dat $$ - A council of $$-winners will know best when it comes to raw balance and it's hard to argue against that, though a council is quite neccesary because of inherant racial biases. State of the Game was quite excellent to watch and had some good debates, i feel that we could really use a similar show today.
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They've missed their shot at making the game what it should be when they decided to provide no deep design changes along the release of LotV. No patch will ever make up for that.
I agree this community can be toxic and overly negative at times but it's also been providing the very best and most competent feedback I've ever seen.
Blizzard's PR strategy was conceptually fine but hasn't worked out because of how repetitive and uninformative DK's messages have been. The guy is lost, this communication job isn't what he's paid for and he can't be expected to perform it well, I feel sorry enough for him.
The more time passes by, the more I feel like SC2 can't be saved. It's not a bad game (granted not an amazing one either), it's miles above all of the other members of its genre, but real-time strategy won't ever be as popular as we'd like it to be. It's not that hard to understand from a spectator's point of view (especially compared to the graphical/tactical mess that MOBAs can be), it's just too hard to play and get into. The learning curve is way too steep. Blizzard has understood this a few years ago already and they're moving on to a casual philosophy that's serving them well.
So yeah, HotS and Hearthstone will never be as deep and potentially interesting as SC2 or WC3, but anyone can be good at them. That goes an incredibly long way at making them popular.
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On May 04 2016 19:18 CptMarvel wrote:
They've missed their shot at making the game what it should be when they decided to provide no deep design changes along the release of LotV. No patch will ever make up for that.
I agree this community can be toxic and overly negative at times but it's also been providing the very best and most competent feedback I've ever seen.
Blizzard's PR strategy was conceptually fine but hasn't worked out because of how repetitive and uninformative DK's messages have been. The guy is lost, this communication job isn't what he's paid for and he can't be expected to perform it well, I feel sorry enough for him.
The more time passes by, the more I feel like SC2 can't be saved. It's not a bad game (granted not an amazing one either), it's miles above all of the other members of its genre, but real-time strategy won't ever be as popular as we'd like it to be. It's not that hard to understand from a spectator's point of view (especially compared to the graphical/tactical mess that MOBAs can be), it's just too hard to play and get into. The learning curve is way too steep. Blizzard has understood this a few years ago already and they're moving on to a casual philosophy that's serving them well.
So yeah, HotS and Hearthstone will never be as deep and potentially interesting as SC2 or WC3, but anyone can be good at them. That goes an incredibly long way at making them popular.
This is so wrong. DK is only lead game dev. He isn't in charge of budgeting and stuff. Also he is not in charge of how many people can actually WORK on LotV at the same time.
Since there is no post-release profit. You can't except 50+ developers to working on it. That's why you dont see many deep design changes and stuff. There are simply no human resources on SC2 atm. They did not provide any monotenization?(sry if i missed the work) no voice pack, no skins, no premium features.
Devs are ppl, ppl need to pay bills and stuffs. And since WCS wont generate much money(low subscriber count) and almost 95% of viewers got active adblock. You should be okay with band aid changes. Beucase there is simply no budged or Blizzard might not see that BIG potential in SC2 anymore.
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
They did not provide any monotenization?(sry if i missed the work) no voice pack, no skins, no premium features.
This is the fault of blizzard alone, people have been asking for these things for the last 6 years. Paid skins, voice packs, even custom maps for the arcade to support game and map development.
They have started now with nova covert ops missions, but it's little content and very late.
Blizzard (after seeing a lot of concerns about how legacy was going) promised significant changes after legacy dropped and used that as justification for holding back on changes in the last months of the beta, that is why people pressure them about it now.
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On May 04 2016 20:05 PharaphobiaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2016 19:18 CptMarvel wrote:
They've missed their shot at making the game what it should be when they decided to provide no deep design changes along the release of LotV. No patch will ever make up for that.
I agree this community can be toxic and overly negative at times but it's also been providing the very best and most competent feedback I've ever seen.
Blizzard's PR strategy was conceptually fine but hasn't worked out because of how repetitive and uninformative DK's messages have been. The guy is lost, this communication job isn't what he's paid for and he can't be expected to perform it well, I feel sorry enough for him.
The more time passes by, the more I feel like SC2 can't be saved. It's not a bad game (granted not an amazing one either), it's miles above all of the other members of its genre, but real-time strategy won't ever be as popular as we'd like it to be. It's not that hard to understand from a spectator's point of view (especially compared to the graphical/tactical mess that MOBAs can be), it's just too hard to play and get into. The learning curve is way too steep. Blizzard has understood this a few years ago already and they're moving on to a casual philosophy that's serving them well.
So yeah, HotS and Hearthstone will never be as deep and potentially interesting as SC2 or WC3, but anyone can be good at them. That goes an incredibly long way at making them popular. This is so wrong. DK is only lead game dev. He isn't in charge of budgeting and stuff. Also he is not in charge of how many people can actually WORK on LotV at the same time. Since there is no post-release profit. You can't except 50+ developers to working on it. That's why you dont see many deep design changes and stuff. There are simply no human resources on SC2 atm. They did not provide any monotenization?(sry if i missed the work) no voice pack, no skins, no premium features. Devs are ppl, ppl need to pay bills and stuffs. And since WCS wont generate much money(low subscriber count) and almost 95% of viewers got active adblock. You should be okay with band aid changes. Beucase there is simply no budged or Blizzard might not see that BIG potential in SC2 anymore.
Do you think it is really so difficult to make deep design changes that it needs a whole team? With the powerful editor sc2 has, one guy can do the job. It's really quite easy. Changing around some number in the editor can be done in minutes and completely changes the game. There are a ton of unit models that can be added to the game instantly coming from the single player campaign if there is the need/desire to create a new unit.
It just needs to be someone willing to make big changes to the design. Willing to make leap forwards, instead of backwards. It isn't a matter of lack of manpower, money, or anything like that. And of course it needs to be someone with a good vision of starcraft, a good vision of game design and with the right goals in mind.
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On May 04 2016 20:13 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +They did not provide any monotenization?(sry if i missed the work) no voice pack, no skins, no premium features. This is the fault of blizzard alone, people have been asking for these things for the last 6 years. Paid skins, voice packs, even custom maps for the arcade to support game and map development. They have started now with nova covert ops missions, but it's little content and very late. Blizzard (after seeing a lot of concerns about how legacy was going) promised significant changes after legacy dropped and used that as justification for holding back on changes in the last months of the beta, that is why people pressure them about it now.
It's good that we remember this, I suspected they were hoping we'd forget or the population of players would have mostly renewed itself or turn the newcomers against the others or something... "stuck in an old line of thinking"..
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Good call on this one Blizzard. If you are attentive to what the community is saying, and what issues you can fix in the game without impairing top level gamplay/balance - I think that you can come up with a much better balance patch to issue.
I respect this pause and possible change of direction, including putting the Thor changes on hold/cancelled to take a closer look at the Cyclone's role. Takes alot of guts.
Really hoping you can find the right solutions for the broader 99% of player base game play, along with pro balance.
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I play random and in my opinion the Immortal is by far the strongest unit in the game ^^
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On May 04 2016 20:50 H0i wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2016 20:05 PharaphobiaSC wrote:On May 04 2016 19:18 CptMarvel wrote:
They've missed their shot at making the game what it should be when they decided to provide no deep design changes along the release of LotV. No patch will ever make up for that.
I agree this community can be toxic and overly negative at times but it's also been providing the very best and most competent feedback I've ever seen.
Blizzard's PR strategy was conceptually fine but hasn't worked out because of how repetitive and uninformative DK's messages have been. The guy is lost, this communication job isn't what he's paid for and he can't be expected to perform it well, I feel sorry enough for him.
The more time passes by, the more I feel like SC2 can't be saved. It's not a bad game (granted not an amazing one either), it's miles above all of the other members of its genre, but real-time strategy won't ever be as popular as we'd like it to be. It's not that hard to understand from a spectator's point of view (especially compared to the graphical/tactical mess that MOBAs can be), it's just too hard to play and get into. The learning curve is way too steep. Blizzard has understood this a few years ago already and they're moving on to a casual philosophy that's serving them well.
So yeah, HotS and Hearthstone will never be as deep and potentially interesting as SC2 or WC3, but anyone can be good at them. That goes an incredibly long way at making them popular. This is so wrong. DK is only lead game dev. He isn't in charge of budgeting and stuff. Also he is not in charge of how many people can actually WORK on LotV at the same time. Since there is no post-release profit. You can't except 50+ developers to working on it. That's why you dont see many deep design changes and stuff. There are simply no human resources on SC2 atm. They did not provide any monotenization?(sry if i missed the work) no voice pack, no skins, no premium features. Devs are ppl, ppl need to pay bills and stuffs. And since WCS wont generate much money(low subscriber count) and almost 95% of viewers got active adblock. You should be okay with band aid changes. Beucase there is simply no budged or Blizzard might not see that BIG potential in SC2 anymore. Do you think it is really so difficult to make deep design changes that it needs a whole team? With the powerful editor sc2 has, one guy can do the job. It's really quite easy. Changing around some number in the editor can be done in minutes and completely changes the game. There are a ton of unit models that can be added to the game instantly coming from the single player campaign if there is the need/desire to create a new unit. It just needs to be someone willing to make big changes to the design. Willing to make leap forwards, instead of backwards. It isn't a matter of lack of manpower, money, or anything like that. And of course it needs to be someone with a good vision of starcraft, a good vision of game design and with the right goals in mind.
i never understood why ppl argue that balancing/designing sc2 is rocket science. any small team of ambitioned ppl who understand the game can do it. just look at PoE vs diablo 3 to understand why companies fail. they dont understand their own games.
just look me straight in the eye and tell me that you do not think that some of the head honchos in the community like day9, artosis, morrow, etc etc etc could make a better game than lotv without even having the resources. i will tell you you are either lying or stupid.
personally, im still convinced even my mod can easily be better than lotv, but thats beside the point since im obviously not objective on the issue
thing is: you dont need money. you dont need many ppl. all you need is a bunch of ppl who love the game and understand it. i would much rather play a lotv that was never in DKs hands, let alone builds up on stuff invented by DBs. DB was incompetent. DK is scared of changing stuff. the community has been providing great input all along, but they decided not to listen. its no wonder the community is toxic now and the game is daed
now go play heptacraft
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On May 04 2016 22:48 summerloud wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2016 20:50 H0i wrote:On May 04 2016 20:05 PharaphobiaSC wrote:On May 04 2016 19:18 CptMarvel wrote:
They've missed their shot at making the game what it should be when they decided to provide no deep design changes along the release of LotV. No patch will ever make up for that.
I agree this community can be toxic and overly negative at times but it's also been providing the very best and most competent feedback I've ever seen.
Blizzard's PR strategy was conceptually fine but hasn't worked out because of how repetitive and uninformative DK's messages have been. The guy is lost, this communication job isn't what he's paid for and he can't be expected to perform it well, I feel sorry enough for him.
The more time passes by, the more I feel like SC2 can't be saved. It's not a bad game (granted not an amazing one either), it's miles above all of the other members of its genre, but real-time strategy won't ever be as popular as we'd like it to be. It's not that hard to understand from a spectator's point of view (especially compared to the graphical/tactical mess that MOBAs can be), it's just too hard to play and get into. The learning curve is way too steep. Blizzard has understood this a few years ago already and they're moving on to a casual philosophy that's serving them well.
So yeah, HotS and Hearthstone will never be as deep and potentially interesting as SC2 or WC3, but anyone can be good at them. That goes an incredibly long way at making them popular. This is so wrong. DK is only lead game dev. He isn't in charge of budgeting and stuff. Also he is not in charge of how many people can actually WORK on LotV at the same time. Since there is no post-release profit. You can't except 50+ developers to working on it. That's why you dont see many deep design changes and stuff. There are simply no human resources on SC2 atm. They did not provide any monotenization?(sry if i missed the work) no voice pack, no skins, no premium features. Devs are ppl, ppl need to pay bills and stuffs. And since WCS wont generate much money(low subscriber count) and almost 95% of viewers got active adblock. You should be okay with band aid changes. Beucase there is simply no budged or Blizzard might not see that BIG potential in SC2 anymore. Do you think it is really so difficult to make deep design changes that it needs a whole team? With the powerful editor sc2 has, one guy can do the job. It's really quite easy. Changing around some number in the editor can be done in minutes and completely changes the game. There are a ton of unit models that can be added to the game instantly coming from the single player campaign if there is the need/desire to create a new unit. It just needs to be someone willing to make big changes to the design. Willing to make leap forwards, instead of backwards. It isn't a matter of lack of manpower, money, or anything like that. And of course it needs to be someone with a good vision of starcraft, a good vision of game design and with the right goals in mind. i never understood why ppl argue that balancing/designing sc2 is rocket science. any small team of ambitioned ppl who understand the game can do it. just look at PoE vs diablo 3 to understand why companies fail. they dont understand their own games. just look me straight in the eye and tell me that you do not think that some of the head honchos in the community like day9, artosis, morrow, etc etc etc could make a better game than lotv without even having the resources. i will tell you you are either lying or stupid. personally, im still convinced even my mod can easily be better than lotv, but thats beside the point since im obviously not objective on the issue thing is: you dont need money. you dont need many ppl. all you need is a bunch of ppl who love the game and understand it. i would much rather play a lotv that was never in DKs hands, let alone builds up on stuff invented by DBs. DB was incompetent. DK is scared of changing stuff. the community has been providing great input all along, but they decided not to listen. its no wonder the community is toxic now and the game is daed now go play heptacraft
I don't agree with you here. It's very different to get a small group of homogeneous hardcore followers to like your idea. Those that don't like it will just go back to play retail sc2. You won't have them whining on your mod forums. You'll mostly hear feedback from those that first liked the idea enough to bother trying the mod, and then liked it enough to continue playing.
It is very different to market it to a wide audience like sc2, and make it enjoyable for everyone from 30 APM first time RTS players, to korean 10-hours-per day professionals, The fact that there is no big competitor in sc2s niche (I don't consider MOBAs similar enough) makes the RTS lovers stay, even if they are not too happy about some aspects of sc2.
So yeah, I have no idea what your mod is, but if we were to replace live sc2 with your mod overnight, I'm convinced there would be a shitstorm of community members raging to get retail sc2 back within 24 hours. I don't think day9 and those guys could pull it off either. I think even a very developed mod like starbow would be quickly picked to pieces by the wider player base if were to replace live sc2.
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On May 04 2016 22:12 wjat wrote:
I play random and in my opinion the Immortal is by far the strongest unit in the game ^^
IMO the best units per cost are: MSC, probe, marine and Queen
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mcore makes games really boring , since they are invulnerable to basically anything even in mid game..
immortal might be overpowered too , but the main problem i feel as zerg or terran is vs air ..... phoenix completly own early , and mid game..... as a zerg if you see them going phoenix , you know its going to be a very long or short game... all in or take all bases you can... which create a very boring game that is decided with the best death ball , instead protoss have like 10 ways of finishing off you effectively.. while zerg or terran dont , nothing like dt.. or oracles really ,you kind of have to allin if you want to hurt toss if you make corruptors or hydra , they usually have a zealot , adept allin coming up , so you have to go roach hydra and wait all game in your base.. that considering both are at the same lvl...
same for terran , none of them can do enough damage to finish protoss.. as protoss can ,with oracles dts or any of their pushes... which can be recalled back if fail anyway.... so i really dont see any weakness right now for protoss , mutas are really really easy to stop as protoss.. i honestly dont know why people even complained.. you just need a couple of phoenix and maybe 1 archon... and you melt mutas. and the best part is that zerg doesnt have a counter vs carriers or high templars.... broodlords we all know what it means to go broodlords... and SH are long gone from sc2
we all saw what inhuman skill took TY to beat Zest in game 1 finals... but the second game was a cake for zest... thats the resume of toss.. they can finish you instantly in many ways.. while terran and zerg dont really have that power.. unless they REALLY commit (nydus , wm drop etc,,banes) its not comparable to how easy is to win with oracles or DTs.. carriers etc.. at least zerg and terran should also have a way to beat others in seconds if thats the design you want..
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It looks like this balance issues became an infinite loop. Do they think it is too late to do radical changes? I mean they can balance the game in the end with this small weird changes but all the fun will die eventually. I really think bad designed units (tempest,sh,wm,cyclone) & concepts (tankivac, ranged warp prism, invincible nydus) should be removed completely from the game with better replacements. Of course some people can disagree with some of these but in the end these things never liked by the majority of the players and it is definetly much more important issue than the canon's aa damage.
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On May 04 2016 08:18 Fecalfeast wrote:
DK
Second, we can do better on providing a “post-mortem” for our Balance Test Map changes to analyze which changes were effective or not effective. This should also help us keep moving at a similar pace in terms of reasoning.
i'd like a post mortem on the Siege Tank that did 40/60 damage in Siege Mode. was that provided?
On May 04 2016 08:18 Fecalfeast wrote:
DK
Besides the issues we're currently working through, the other issues we're currently thinking on are: potential immortal nerfs due to heavy pro player feedback around this being an absolute necessity, potential colossus buffs, and Cyclone changes.
as per your own suggestion in a previous update: please give a slight buff to the Collossus.. but keep it less powerful than the HotS Collo.
Please find a role for the Cyclone and nerf Terran air and maybe nerf the Hellbat in some way to make up for the more powerful Cyclone. in general i want Terran ground more powerful and Terran air less powerful. The Banshee and Liberator feel gimmicky to me. And there is nothing wrong with winning using gimmicks once and a while.. but not every game. i want to be able to punch a guy directly in the face during some of my Terran games.
Disclaimer: diamond player on all 3 races with ~110 APM. my main is terran.
On May 04 2016 23:14 Cascade wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2016 22:48 summerloud wrote:On May 04 2016 20:50 H0i wrote:On May 04 2016 20:05 PharaphobiaSC wrote:On May 04 2016 19:18 CptMarvel wrote:
They've missed their shot at making the game what it should be when they decided to provide no deep design changes along the release of LotV. No patch will ever make up for that.
I agree this community can be toxic and overly negative at times but it's also been providing the very best and most competent feedback I've ever seen.
Blizzard's PR strategy was conceptually fine but hasn't worked out because of how repetitive and uninformative DK's messages have been. The guy is lost, this communication job isn't what he's paid for and he can't be expected to perform it well, I feel sorry enough for him.
The more time passes by, the more I feel like SC2 can't be saved. It's not a bad game (granted not an amazing one either), it's miles above all of the other members of its genre, but real-time strategy won't ever be as popular as we'd like it to be. It's not that hard to understand from a spectator's point of view (especially compared to the graphical/tactical mess that MOBAs can be), it's just too hard to play and get into. The learning curve is way too steep. Blizzard has understood this a few years ago already and they're moving on to a casual philosophy that's serving them well.
So yeah, HotS and Hearthstone will never be as deep and potentially interesting as SC2 or WC3, but anyone can be good at them. That goes an incredibly long way at making them popular. This is so wrong. DK is only lead game dev. He isn't in charge of budgeting and stuff. Also he is not in charge of how many people can actually WORK on LotV at the same time. Since there is no post-release profit. You can't except 50+ developers to working on it. That's why you dont see many deep design changes and stuff. There are simply no human resources on SC2 atm. They did not provide any monotenization?(sry if i missed the work) no voice pack, no skins, no premium features. Devs are ppl, ppl need to pay bills and stuffs. And since WCS wont generate much money(low subscriber count) and almost 95% of viewers got active adblock. You should be okay with band aid changes. Beucase there is simply no budged or Blizzard might not see that BIG potential in SC2 anymore. Do you think it is really so difficult to make deep design changes that it needs a whole team? With the powerful editor sc2 has, one guy can do the job. It's really quite easy. Changing around some number in the editor can be done in minutes and completely changes the game. There are a ton of unit models that can be added to the game instantly coming from the single player campaign if there is the need/desire to create a new unit. It just needs to be someone willing to make big changes to the design. Willing to make leap forwards, instead of backwards. It isn't a matter of lack of manpower, money, or anything like that. And of course it needs to be someone with a good vision of starcraft, a good vision of game design and with the right goals in mind. i never understood why ppl argue that balancing/designing sc2 is rocket science. any small team of ambitioned ppl who understand the game can do it. just look at PoE vs diablo 3 to understand why companies fail. they dont understand their own games. just look me straight in the eye and tell me that you do not think that some of the head honchos in the community like day9, artosis, morrow, etc etc etc could make a better game than lotv without even having the resources. i will tell you you are either lying or stupid. personally, im still convinced even my mod can easily be better than lotv, but thats beside the point since im obviously not objective on the issue thing is: you dont need money. you dont need many ppl. all you need is a bunch of ppl who love the game and understand it. i would much rather play a lotv that was never in DKs hands, let alone builds up on stuff invented by DBs. DB was incompetent. DK is scared of changing stuff. the community has been providing great input all along, but they decided not to listen. its no wonder the community is toxic now and the game is daed now go play heptacraft I don't agree with you here. It's very different to get a small group of homogeneous hardcore followers to like your idea. Those that don't like it will just go back to play retail sc2. You won't have them whining on your mod forums. You'll mostly hear feedback from those that first liked the idea enough to bother trying the mod, and then liked it enough to continue playing. It is very different to market it to a wide audience like sc2, and make it enjoyable for everyone from 30 APM first time RTS players, to korean 10-hours-per day professionals, The fact that there is no big competitor in sc2s niche (I don't consider MOBAs similar enough) makes the RTS lovers stay, even if they are not too happy about some aspects of sc2. So yeah, I have no idea what your mod is, but if we were to replace live sc2 with your mod overnight, I'm convinced there would be a shitstorm of community members raging to get retail sc2 back within 24 hours. I don't think day9 and those guys could pull it off either. I think even a very developed mod like starbow would be quickly picked to pieces by the wider player base if were to replace live sc2.
someone who can see the forest through the trees.
+1 , ya true. good points.
also, the game is not "daed". its slowly declining like many Blizzard games do as they age.
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I feel like we need to set up a Republic or something and elect senators from each race and each playstyle (aka, the mech senator from Minnesota, or the muta/ling/bane senator from Pusan) to more adequately address our local balance issues and playstyle constraints. this is where my campaign starts. elect me to go to Anaheim California and lobby for safe, IdrA-approved, macro game promoting changes. I will also campaign against multiple building selection, and toward the complete removal of Protoss from the game.
PEACE
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
instead protoss have like 10 ways of finishing off you effectively.. while zerg or terran dont
Feels kinda backwards to me for PvZ - In legacy it seems like Z can take 3 hatch with impunity.
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hilarious to see an increasing # posts criticizing the concept of using player feedback from forums.
the forum feedback is "stop taking forum feedback".
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
On May 05 2016 01:13 JimmyJRaynor wrote:hilarious to see an increasing # posts criticizing the concept of using player feedback from forums. the forum feedback is "stop taking forum feedback".
Criticizing players for leaving feedback too.
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On May 04 2016 08:53 GGzerG wrote:
Wait so the patch is being pushed back?
Just like the tank patch from a few months ago. The development for the patch just magically vanished.
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DK addressed that by stating he'd be better at providing a post mort-em of PTR patches.
if SC2 made D3 , WoW or Hearthstone money Blizz would be able to have dozens of employees playing in every league to provide internal feedback and cross reference that with the wild jungle of public internet fora. Alas, LotV was only $40 and didn't even sell 2 million copies.
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On May 05 2016 02:24 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
DK addressed that by stating he'd be better at providing a post mort-em of PTR patches.
if SC2 made D3 , WoW or Hearthstone money Blizz would be able to have dozens of employees playing in every league to provide internal feedback and cross reference that with the wild jungle of public internet fora. Alas, LotV was only $40 and didn't even sell 2 million copies.
From a business point of view it's more than understandable, as it's quite easy to see where the money comes from, I mean, Hearthstone is a card game, after all, almost pure $$$.
Just seems to be the final straw for an era of sophisticated gaming compared to the p2w/casual/f2p cash grab they seem to be doing nowadays. Everything they touch they casualize, dumb down, make it more accessible, but I'm quite unsure if it's such a smart move to drive away their core audience as what made Blizzard special as a developer from the start was their ability to deliver games of such longevity and quality. Numbers will be good for a while, I guess, but what comes after that?
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these community posts make me so sad.. why on earth would you go to the community to balance your game?
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On May 05 2016 03:55 Creager wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2016 02:24 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
DK addressed that by stating he'd be better at providing a post mort-em of PTR patches.
if SC2 made D3 , WoW or Hearthstone money Blizz would be able to have dozens of employees playing in every league to provide internal feedback and cross reference that with the wild jungle of public internet fora. Alas, LotV was only $40 and didn't even sell 2 million copies. From a business point of view it's more than understandable, as it's quite easy to see where the money comes from, I mean, Hearthstone is a card game, after all, almost pure $$$. Just seems to be the final straw for an era of sophisticated gaming compared to the p2w/casual/f2p cash grab they seem to be doing nowadays. Everything they touch they casualize, dumb down, make it more accessible, but I'm quite unsure if it's such a smart move to drive away their core audience as what made Blizzard special as a developer from the start was their ability to deliver games of such longevity and quality. Numbers will be good for a while, I guess, but what comes after that?
I'm just curious, how much of the community do you think would go for a game (i.e. a sc3 or wc4) that was sold at a lower price, but only included single-player campaign, with a cost of something like $5 a month for multiplayer ladder access?
I'm saying this because I'm pretty frustrated with LotV right now and would myself gladly pay a monthly fee to get the game fixed in the long run, or at least partially fixed.
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Bisutopia19234 Posts
On May 05 2016 06:31 feanaro wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2016 03:55 Creager wrote:On May 05 2016 02:24 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
DK addressed that by stating he'd be better at providing a post mort-em of PTR patches.
if SC2 made D3 , WoW or Hearthstone money Blizz would be able to have dozens of employees playing in every league to provide internal feedback and cross reference that with the wild jungle of public internet fora. Alas, LotV was only $40 and didn't even sell 2 million copies. From a business point of view it's more than understandable, as it's quite easy to see where the money comes from, I mean, Hearthstone is a card game, after all, almost pure $$$. Just seems to be the final straw for an era of sophisticated gaming compared to the p2w/casual/f2p cash grab they seem to be doing nowadays. Everything they touch they casualize, dumb down, make it more accessible, but I'm quite unsure if it's such a smart move to drive away their core audience as what made Blizzard special as a developer from the start was their ability to deliver games of such longevity and quality. Numbers will be good for a while, I guess, but what comes after that? I'm just curious, how much of the community do you think would go for a game (i.e. a sc3 or wc4) that was sold at a lower price, but only included single-player campaign, with a cost of something like $5 a month for multiplayer ladder access? I'm saying this because I'm pretty frustrated with LotV right now and would myself gladly pay a monthly fee to get the game fixed in the long run, or at least partially fixed.
A monthly fee would have stopped me from buying the game. I'm happy paying a one time fee. I won't feel ripped off if they decide to go free to play and make money off of microtransactions to increase the user base.
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It's been pretty clear for a long time, but now is clearer than ever: DK is not the person to balance the game. His hesitation will lead to nowhere
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I would bet the delay of the patch is mostly based on feedback from kespa and gsl.
As much as everyone of their respective race wants to whine about the unit comp they struggle vs - the current meta is pretty balanced. You saw the top Korean toss wreck the top Korean terran with liberators at their current strength (though I do think the nerf is based more for tvz it will also have an impact on tvp) - you see in proleague week after week great games in tvz which is almost completely balanced results wise this season - if the zerg survives until late game he is favored - if not the terran is - basically same story up until blord/infestor and the widowmine nerf in hots.
As much as it's easy to get drawn into the whine - to me if the game is very close to balanced (which it is not possible to be completely 100% balanced) we should tread carefully with changes - which seems like they are doing - which I think is a positive thing. We've seen more times than not (for sure) that changes made when the game is showing very close to balanced results can have a tremendous negative impact on the overall balance - so waiting for more sample size to me is the wise thing.
Disclaimer- when I say close to balanced results I'm referencing at the highest level of play - which is where the balance is most exploited and absolutely where the changes that are made need to be coming from - no one cares that you can't deal with some unit comp on ladder - just enjoy the game at your level and try to improve.
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As much as I dislike microtransaction models, particularily for an RTS game like SC2, I think I have to agree with BisuDagger here, as it would most likely help keeping Blizzard's continued investment in the game justified.
As a former WoW-player I honestly don't know if I would support a monthly subscription model, probably not, because I overall (and in hindsight) disliked the direction they went with that game over the years albeit them spending huge budgets on further development, which would, at least according to my personal experience, contradict your presumption that such measure would improve the game long term.
In addition to that there's no guarantee you'd be happy with the direction the game is going despite having a substancial increase in development funding, maybe if they decide to shift on their target audience (which I guess they already did somehow with LotV).
In the process of the development of LotV there as been a lot of eyewashing on Blizzard's end, I feel, maybe their hands are tied due to some shareholder decisions, I don't know, maybe they really wanna try and do the best they can to help the game, but reality for me is that I was a happy SC2 player at the end of HotS, game was good, a bit stale maybe, but I really liked it. Now, with LotV, although they made all those big announcements and even implemented some new stuff like co-op and DLC missions, I'm not a happy SC2 player anymore, at all.
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Wait what, they never went ahead with the tank patch ? O.o
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Mr. Kim,
Patch version, (what you got now)
A balance map, (what you've been proposing)
And a Nightly-build-balance map. (what could have been around since Wing of Liberty launched from beta... no big deal didnt miss any potential, with all the brilliant talent around to experiment with random changes the results can still be amazing.)
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I agreed that Blizzard shouldn't go to the whole community (bronze,plat, diamond player) to balance the game. They should focus on listening feedbacks from pro players and observe matches at the highest level. IMO, anyone else who ain't a GM have too much bias and don't have the skills to push the game to its full potential to determine whether any race is not balance.
Sure, the lower level players can complain about certain units feeling abusive (widow mines, liberators etc.). But their own skills limitation makes it hard to compare. I am just a mid Diamond player and I know my own input might not be the fact that the game is imbalance but rather my own skill level limitation.
I rather they focus on refining the game like they did with BW. Too many chefs spoil the broth.
...
As a separate note, we often argue that if Blizzard has more financial incentive they will be better at balancing the game. The point is that I do not know if this arguement works..or the logic works. They are already doing micro-transaction-like manner with the Nova campaign. Even if they roll out more micro-transactions for decals or special unit models, i really doubt it will change the way they manage the game balancing aspect. I thought the original Arcade was also have micro-transactions as well (to buy a custom game) but that didn't roll out.
Personally, i feel like they are trying to hit too many targets at once (Nova campaign, Arcade, balancing the game etc). Wheras in BW, they only focus on 1v1 balancing.
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Maybe this is crazy, and obviously I'm not a pro player, but at this point, why do we even need balance changes anymore? I feel like the game is balanced enough that it can be changed/tweaked primarily through community maps at this point, like in BW. Having pro players and random forum members having this much power over the game, with people having the idea that if they whine hard enough, Blizzard will change the game in their favor, is just weird. BW worked fine without any balance changes, even if sometimes crap did get unbalanced.
I'm kind of an old grump at this point, though, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
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On May 04 2016 19:01 Cyro wrote:
Stalkers are very weak against non-armored AA, that's most obvious against phoenix and mutas. They hit 1.4x higher against armored air and that damage point seems to be in a good place (for example, look at stalker vs medivac, stalker vs liberator, stalker vs viking, flying buildings, battlecruisers, void rays, carriers) but it's obvious that the AA-nonarmored damage is very low, maybe too low. It's been kinda that way for a very long time but we have gone along with it.
This has nothing to do with stalkers. Stacked air units are always very strong, no matter what, because you stack all the health and damage to one point or to a small area. Thats why you need aoe damage against air.
You can buff as much as you want, there will be always a number of mutas that will be stronger because of stacking. Thats how air units work. They stack all the health and damage at one point. Thats why you combat mass air units always with aoe which counters stacking.
Nontheless sentry shield and stalkers do well against mutas and you can counter micro (circle, stutter step when low numbers).
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
why do we even need balance changes anymore? I feel like the game is balanced enough that it can be changed/tweaked primarily through community maps at this point
Blizzard runs the ladder and nonkorean map pools right now
This has nothing to do with stalkers. Stacked air units are always very strong, no matter what, because you stack all the health and damage to one point or to a small area. Thats why you need aoe damage against air.
You can buff as much as you want, there will be always a number of mutas that will be stronger because of stacking. Thats how air units work.
It's clearly different w/ the stalker - this point in the scaling happens way way earlier for stalkers than for units like the Marine for a few different reasons. One of the main ones being that marines will never waste a shot because they fire an instant attack, while stalkers will waste 0% of their damage in a 1v1 but maybe 20%+ of their damage when there are a lot of stalkers and a lot of stacked mutas.
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I am curious , which community are Blizzard using to interface with. I only know of two TL or Reddit. Is there any others?
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
On May 05 2016 14:44 Topdoller wrote:
I am curious , which community are Blizzard using to interface with. I only know of two TL or Reddit. Is there any others?
Bnet forums and some kespa guys
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On May 05 2016 14:44 Topdoller wrote:
I am curious , which community are Blizzard using to interface with. I only know of two TL or Reddit. Is there any others? And PlayXP (https://www.playxp.com/sc2/)
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Even DK seems to think that winrates settling means balance getting better. Judging from stats, it seems that this current "protoss getting better" is just protoss players distribution settling to lower leagues.
In a ladder system where system tries to get every player to winrate of 50%, winrates obviously don't mean much if anything. However, if we take a look how players are distributed to leagues, we see the following:
Protoss players in platinum or higher out of all protoss players: 28,5%
Terran players in platinum or higher out of all terran players: 35,3%
Zerg players in platinum or higher out of all zerg players: 40,8%
I think the difference between P and Z is massive. The percentage of zerg players in diamond or higher is pretty close to protosses in platinum or higher (out of all players in respective races).
That being said, on the top level balance seems pretty good, all races have made finals and it doesn't seem like players race is barring players from doing good. It just seems that Blizzard doesn't really see what happens below top level.
Source: http://www.rankedftw.com/stats/races/1v1/#v=2&r=-2&l=-2
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In my view, the pro balance of the game is only really an important/significant issue after most people that have been playing this game at a fairly high level for several years believe that the game design itself is in a good state.
There are many other games/titles on the PC that may be proven to be balanced for competitive play, but you will not necessarily see very many players, spectators or even a community rally behind the game if the game design is deemed to be poor for the year 2016.
The community had a certain level of expectation with respect to SC2 game design for the last expansion in the series. There were expectations of improvement, not of regression (HOTS). Rather than building over fundamentals, it seems that Blizzard has invested too heavily in the shiny/flashy mechanics (to the detriment of fundamentals), and the result is disappointing game design.
Fix the game design, and then I am sure you will be able to still balance it for the 0.01% of top players (GSL). GSL balance should not be the most important thing at this stage of the LOTV process, because whether anyone wants to admit/accept it or not LOTV should still be considered in development as it relates to the multiplayer aspect.
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On May 05 2016 05:34 Ignorant prodigy wrote:
these community posts make me so sad.. why on earth would you go to the community to balance your game?
Because there's no point in balancing a game that no one plays? If all you do is force-feed the community shit sandwiches, that's what you'll end up with. I don't think the community is good for proposing changes but it's pretty good for vetoing bad changes.
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as a person who did heavy test map testing during thor flat splash period, let me offer some opinion on the thor change
I really don't like it- I believe that single target long range AA should go into cyclone and make it cheaper/more disposable instead of the current mess of the lock on mechanics.
Even if the above wasn't possible, Thor being single target could use more help in that department as it is losing the splash damage
Now onto my points:
Thor change:
Thor change is really overall nerf to utility of the unit- Thor is 6 supply unit that does 35+15- numbers may look impressive at glance, but it really is population inefficient. Its not really useful at all but vs broodlords- which it doesn't do great against since both sides can kite each other and broodlings block the thors. Thors also have clunky firing delay that worked with burst damage nature of the javline missles, but doesn't work as well with faster-firing current change missles.
Not only that, the damage isn't really great- 25 air DPS vs armored for 6 pop unit isn't really "worth" it when its huge, blocky (blocks other thor from firing at same time) when vikings can stack and do just as well and offer fast, reliable single target focus-
You may argue that Parasitic bomb is a big threat for the vikings, but binding cloud does just as much vs AA thors in denying damage. There is no real reason to make thors against lategame air except in TvT when it becomes liberator coutner.
For comparison, Vikings do 19.6 single target DPS vs armored air, while thor offers 25 single target dps. Thors cost 6 supply while vikings cost 2 and is more mobile. There is no real incentive to make thors for the anti air capacity when it does so poorly. It had its niche as AA vs muta in past, now it doesn't do anything much.
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build diversity:
Also, opening factory is difficult now with 2 base muta becoming a much larger threat- turret+thor isn't enough anymore vs 2 base muta openers since thors do so poorly against mutas as it became a single target 17.5 dps unit-
What made thors great vs muta was the splash and also the burst damage of thor that punished mutas flying into base. Thor offered an instant, splash damage response but with change, it doesn't anymore. Thor right now offers 14 dps over 3 seconds with small splash, while the change makes thor a 17.5 dps SINGLE target over 2 seconds, which is whole lot worse against mutas.
Not only is it less burst and instantaneously punishing. it loses the splash damage for very minor 3.5 dps upgrade.
Its worse even vs magic boxed muta. Factory openings are simply discouraged with this change going through.
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fix tempests, fix liberators, fix siege tanks, fix ravagers, fix ravens, fix vipers, fix cyclones
....
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To me, the biggest problem with protoss is that twilight council, immortals and warp prism are just too good. Let me explain a bit: every all-in are done with putting a TC and a robo to get the prism just before starting to push. Then, if the all-in fails, the protoss already have a robo (and even often an empty but up third for a few weeks), and with prism being so good, the protoss can still prevent the zerg from attacking for a few minutes with adept harass or possibly a DT that also can be used to defend (or kill a third...). This gives him the time to build 3-6 immortals (possibly be adding a second robo) so that he can still secure a third easily.
My point is the following: before, when a protoss failed a all-in, it was hard to come back as the protoss needed to go for colossus (so possibly robo + bay + upgrade) and terran/zerg was able to punish the protoss. Now, with immortal being so good and so easy to build (just robo, no upgrade, robo already used for prism), it is much harder to punish an all-in if the protoss is good at harassing with a prism (which is very easy against zerg).
Conclusion: nerf immortal/prism!
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On May 04 2016 13:33 Cascade wrote:
Can't do game design by community democracy, or you'll end up with Boaty McBoatface.
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Maybe you could, if there was a system of polls and something to help decide what to put in the polls by the community, and then those polls decide of the proposed modification (of course after enough discussion). But with a "CFU" weekly arbitrarily deciding which feedback is heard and which is ignored (including polls), it makes it look like community democracy is bad but really it's not at all the community who decided of these changes at all is it. You'd need polls on various topics and iterations on polls.
Skilled developpers can still make great games without community polls...
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Protosses are like unicorns... so rare these days :/
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EPT
