EPTOn May 16 2016 01:59 LSN wrote:
Polt vs. Elazer shows how much bullshit TvZ matchup is right now.
Polt vs. Elazer shows how much bullshit TvZ matchup is right now.
stopped reading. games with a huge skill difference say nothing about balance.
Community Feedback Update - May 13 - Page 5
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Charoisaur
Germany15883 Posts
stopped reading. games with a huge skill difference say nothing about balance. | ||
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LSN
Germany696 Posts
As it is right now it is the opposite as it should be. Zerg is basically defending only until it gets op units. Terran should be in this position instead as the tools both races were given would work better overall then. It is great to see what kind of ppl I am talking with. Horizons like a smallish cup of tea and cannot imagine any other metagame than what was given to them. Add to that that they are so much focused on balance that they don't see potentials of improved design - also for balance. You probably rather see 8ar ultra vs. liberator endgame meta for the next couple of years instead of rethinking basics. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany15883 Posts
On May 16 2016 02:19 LSN wrote: I am not talking about balance but about game design. As it is right now it is the opposite as it should be. Zerg is basically defending only until it gets op units. Terran should be in this position instead as the tools both races were given would work better overall then. okay then I take back what I said and agree with you. but imo it would be ideal if all races would be equally strong at every stage of the game so it's only the skill that gives players an advantage. | ||
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LSN
Germany696 Posts
But I know one thing for sure: A metagame where terran slowly builds up a strong but slow army which has to over and over get decimated by zerg is the way to go for this matchup. With three different races it is hardly possible to have all equally strong at all times. Of course zerg shouldn't be completely out of means in endgame vs. terran. However a 200/200 terran endgame army (not 80% bio) should win against a 200/200 zerg army. The meta should evolve around zerg trading with terran with +20-30 supply constantly and the guy who trades better wins. | ||
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Athenau
569 Posts
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LSN
Germany696 Posts
On May 16 2016 02:34 Athenau wrote: Marauders have already been nerfed by ~10% (no upgrades) to 20% (+3) against armored targets. After the next patch I bet we'll see them phased out in TvZ in favor of factory support (Thors and a 150/100 cyclone are way more efficient against hive tech) Yes I have suggested a nerf or the complete removal of marauder from early game some years ago. I can explain what is the problem with the marauder: The marauder is basically an armored marine which can only shoot ground. In combination with medivacs it is too strong and forces game designers to give opponents strong counterparts. What SC2 needs is a slower progression. TvZ midgame is almost completely skipped at this point. The interaction: rines better lings lurker better rines tanks better lurker ravager better tanks etc. and not only the rush for ultralisks would make a great metagame and something ppl want to play and watch. Therefore Broodwar was better. The marauder completely denies e.g. the use of units like lurkers in midgame and makes tanks more or less obsolete against alot of things. Mech in general for this reason is in the spot it is. Alot of potentially interesting unit interactions are being skipped due to what the marauder adds to bio and what counterparts game designers have given the other races. I could continue to go into detail but I don't feel like writing more now and I think I have made myself clear enough. The changes I propose would make the game less volatile, less punishing and therefore more rewarding as well. Skill would matter more than lucky/unlucky timings and positioning. That is what SC2 also needs to get the status back it deserves in korea. Some wrote about why SC2 in korea has no clear dominators such as BW had them over periods of times. Skipped game-phase elements, fights that are too quickly decided and single-sided, volatility and luck of positionings and timings in general. | ||
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Sapphire.lux
Romania2620 Posts
On May 16 2016 02:19 LSN wrote: I am not talking about balance but about game design. As it is right now it is the opposite as it should be. Zerg is basically defending only until it gets op units. Terran should be in this position instead as the tools both races were given would work better overall then. Terran doesn't have the strategical option to play defensive; that's why so many people have been asking for ages for mech to be made viable but according to Blizzards view, Terran has to play the same way every game. Bio and do major dmg mid game or loose. | ||
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LSN
Germany696 Posts
On May 16 2016 03:29 Sapphire.lux wrote: Terran doesn't have the strategical option to play defensive; that's why so many people have been asking for ages for mech to be made viable but according to Blizzards view, Terran has to play the same way every game. Bio and do major dmg mid game or loose. Exactly that is what my proposed changes aim for. Terran there is in the position Zerg should be in and the other way round. Terran has the tools for defensive play and zerg got the tools for offensive play. Yet Zerg has to play defensively and terran has to play offensively. With such changes, terran however would not be limited to pure defensive play. It remains to have all the stuff like drops of marines, hellbats, mines, banshees, vikings, liberators. Without marauders drops would not be as deadly as they are now when undefended for a short time. Zerg had to focus less on defending these drops consequentially and the metagame would be given the chance to develop in another way. Right now: 1. Terran has to always harrass Z in order to delay Z op endgame 2. Z has the op endgame as it otherwise would barely get the chance to be offensive at all 3. Z can't be offensive because e.g. when an unscouted 2 dropship attack of terran is on its way to the zerg main while he prepares an attack in front of the doors of terran this drop with marines + marauders focuses down the whole base + one expansion that quickly that terran had enough time to fly the stuff back and defend the zerg attack at home afterwards. 4. repeat with 1. My proposals are to break this cycle. Marauders play a major part in that because they provide survivability in combination with medivac heal. Zerg has to defend that with a superior force of units or massive splash potentially at multiple positions at the same time or subsequently with mechanics like unloading/uploading or Z just dies instantly. Therefore can't afford to be offensive at the same time. Terran has superiority where it should not have it, in the low tier of units. It instead should have that in it's later tiers of units so that Z can be relatively nerfed there ... resulting in less punishing and more rewarding and creative gameplay overall. | ||
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Squaal
11 Posts
Most of them keeps doing all-ins but doesn't know how to execute them properly, so they attack late, and lose to any terran/zerg player that is a bit defensive. Just go safe 3 bases defensive macro with immortals/canons (CANONS!) into storm, and you'll win every PvT/PvZ. That means, you just have to scout... And stop fighting in liberation/lurker zones, for god's sake! Once you'll be able to do that, you'll have a much better macro and you'll be able to execute decent all-ins. | ||
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LSN
Germany696 Posts
Yes the ravager. Is the blizzard way to break the cycle. It is a bad solution because it is overpowered (overpowered in terms of design not in terms of current metagame where overpowered stands against overpowered). Instead of fixing the intrinsic problem itself they once again counter an overpowered situation with another overpowered unit (we haven't forgot the swarmhost approach, did we? Not even talking of infestors). By means of logic this cannot achieve the results we would want. Once again to wrap it up: The intrinsic problem is that bio with marauders and medivac heal creates a situation where terran is overpowered in terms of design. We remember why zerg got mutalisk regeneration. This made mutalisks overpowered to stand against this and cause other problems. Protoss got nexus cannon mainly to deal with terran drops in the backside while a few stimmed bio units attack the frontal line. It is overpowered as early aggression against Protoss became nearly impossible. This enabled the designers to give zerg an early game drop option. Again this turned out to be overpowered as zergs figured out to pack up mass queens + lings into overlords and drop them near the choke of T/P very early. Now we got liberators to deal with overpowered mutalisks. Again they are so much overpowered that mutalisks can hardly be played anymore at all. All this, and I certainly could add more to this list. Is where overpowered units are being countered by overpowered untis. They are overpowered because when you commit on them they create punishing gameplay for the counterpart. Examples: - Mutalisks get hit by a few mines and are all red. Few seconds later they are all full hp again. It is punishing for terran as this is like nothing happened at all. Solution: If mutas didn't have the regen, the gameplay would not be as punishing and hitting the mutalisks with mines would create rewarding gameplay for terran. - Terran drops 2 dropships with 3 marauders + 10 marines into Z main. Z has 4 roaches or 16 lings there to defend while the other army is further away. These four roaches cannot decimate this drop at all and kill at best 2-3 marines before they die, lings about the same. It is punishing because it is about the same as if zerg left nothing behind to defend drops. Solution: without marauders it would not be as punishing as then drop defense could have a more fair fight against the drop. Instead of giving more examples (which all technically work the same way) I wanna emphasize why the two given examples are not only creating punishing gameplay for the one side described but also for the other side. - if mutalisks get one additional mine hit, then they almost all die. Zerg now knows if it was one less hit, it would be as almost nothing happened and I would be fine. As I got one more hit (which is what I mean with volatility, luck and chance of positioning and timing) I got punished all the way. Result: punishing gameplay for either of the sides. - if terran splitted up the 2 dropships instead of dropping them both at the same location suddenly the 4 roaches are enough to decimate the one drop almost completely while the other ship might be flying closer to zergs main army anyway and therefore have to return. Terran now knows if I had kept them together I would have overcome these 4 roaches nearly without any losses, as I did not I get 100% punished. Again this is what I mean with volatility, luck and chance of positioning and timing. We have 100% vs. 0% situations here and I certainly could fill up this post with a dozen more exampes like that (want the liberator example? no matter if I build 8 or 16 mutalisks, 4 liberators kill them equally as quickly and there is no difference if I built 8 or 16). Where is the middleground? Where are the shades of grey? As they don't exist we have this punishing gameplay and skill matters less. It is important to acknowledge that this has effect on all skill levels. It drives noobs away as well as pros. Ppl. want to be rewarded for playing and not punished. A good game-design and balance tries to reduce these situations and not actively provoke them. It is necessary that blizzard executes a change in politics and philosophy in terms of game design. Stop to come up with overpowered solution against existing overpowered situations. These make the game more volatile, less skill based and therefore punishing and not rewarding. I take any bet that if SC2 had rewarding gameplay instead of punishing gameplay not only dozen of thousands of noobs would find fun again in SC2 on their very own level of game but also ppl. like flash would return and play SC2 instead of broodwar. He surely doesnt want to constantly deal with and rely on situations where mines hit the banelings/mutalisks in big numbers or not (refering to hots here). And if he wins or loses a match is solely decided by that, which is majorly luck, chance, timing and positioning of overpowered units that stand against each other. And if we reduce the overpoweredness of many of these units, mech certainly might not be underpowered anymore. The problem of mech isn't necessarily that it is underpowered, but that almost everything else is overpowered while mech is not. You cannot reduce overpowered units of Z/P as much as wanted as they are there to deal with overpowered bio. You cannot buff mech alot more as terran composition that usually consist of 80% bio + mech would then require the other races to get even more overpowered units to counter that. The solution is to go the opposite way instead. Mech is not overpowered because it doesn't have the mobility to go somewhere deal 100% damage with 0% losses and then teleport out, fly out or load into dropships and fly away. Tankivacs add this to tanks and therefore they are overpowered and should go. Warp prism with increased speed does add this to protoss (we all remember ppl. complaining about the speed increase): Fly in deal damage, load up from increased range and fly away with increased speed without terran being able to catch it. It is overpowered and should go. The whole system of SC2 and more so broodwar can be described as 100dreds of risk vs. reward situations. As long as there exist 0% risk vs 100% reward situations the metagame will evolve around them. By nature this excludes alot of other options which are not about 0 vs. 100 and otherwise would be viable. Mech is just the most visible of them. This by nature again reduces skill needed to play SC2 on high levels as we all know the opponent is trying to abuse these 0 vs. 100 situations. The metagame evolves around both players trying to abuse these 0 vs 100 things as much as possible so macrogames always go the same directions with the few exceptions of semi-allinish things like e.g. the banshee thing that masa did yesterday at dreamhack or e.g. a hellbat push. Doing bio drops is technically always better because they don't throw your macrogame back (0%) while you get the 100% chance to potentially deal damage with them and it is hardly possible to lose the drop at all in the early stages (0%). Why did masa not go for a single banshee harrasment? Because dropping bio is better than that. Why is this? Because queens with increased range can nullify their effect all the way. Why again do we have queens with this range? Because stupidly overpowered rine/rauder + scv pushes and 4-5 gate protoss was too difficult to defend otherwise. The issue with that is that by design the banshee should be the better harrassment option than a drop of bio units. Why? Because it could offer reward that is not 100 for a risk that is not 0 and the units main purpose is to offer harrassment and mapcontrol to terran. But bio can potentially boost in, unload, deal damage, upload without any losses and boost away. Therefore it is the 100 vs. 0 thing that excludes other options. It doesn't evel delay the macrogame of terran while banshee does. Now what you have to do blizzard, is, to identify all these things and eliminate them as best as possible. Mutas should not be able to fly in deal damage and heal up again. We need a risk vs. reward situation here. When you fly in and deal damage and half of the mutas are orange after that they should at best be yellow some minutes later when they are needed. Then we would not need overpowered liberators to deal with mutalisks and mutalisks would still be an option. Again I cannot emphasize enough that this is about skill caps of SC2 at the end of the day. Everybody can fly into terrans base kill 2-3 turrets, kill few scvs and delay mining time and move out as soon as defense moves in. 100 vs 0. It is so unlikely to hit 4 mines at the same place without having an overseer. 0 Risk 100% reward. Every noob can do a decisionmaking in this case. If mutas did not regenerate the skill cap of SC2 would rise as the player had to do the decision and evaluation if he can afford to trade mutalisk hp vs. harrassment or if not. This would allow players to create more of a difference amongst themselves based on skill. The same is true for bio drops. Everybody can drop kill the queen + few drones, fly away. 0 risk vs 100 reward. No decision to be made about that. Same is true for the named warp prism that can load in units from safe distance and fly away without being catched. The whole wrong philosophy of blizzard comes to surface here (we want harrassment to be rewarding). What they create is the opposite, highly punishing situations. Now I recognize this is getting pretty long. But I have another important thing to say: In the community I observe the discussion being stuck oftenly. When warp prism was buffed alot of ppl. said it is op while the other half said it is required. Both are right. I sometimes feel like in a house of monkeys there. One side arguments by design. It is rightfully blamed to be overpowered by design. The other side arguments by metagame. It is rightfully claimed to be required to equal out other overpowered by design situations. Both are right while literally everyone is too blind to see the source of this. Which I described here. And David Kim. I am sorry to say. You are the head of mp design and balance. If you are not in the position to acknowledge that mistakes were made and correct them, you are the wrong guy to be there. You are responsible for dividing the community, creating hate and disrespect amongst them. You are in position to stop it with good decisionmaking in game design, bring ppl. together again and form a game that makes them happy to play and not frustrated. I just remember reaver drops in broodwar. Very high risk of losing both/single reaver + shuttle against very high potential reward. Things like that can work when they are not 0 vs. 100 and when not the whole game and metagame evolves around them. Btw. I remember we didn't have so much disrespect and hateful discussions in broodwar at all - at least not about balance. It might be about new generations but I think a major part is the game design itself (as described) that supports that. On May 16 2016 02:17 Charoisaur wrote: stopped reading. games with a huge skill difference say nothing about balance. Look the attitude of this guy, just one amongst many. He doesn't even know the slightes bit where I am coming from and comes up with maximum disrespect. I am done :p | ||
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Sapphire.lux
Romania2620 Posts
The current problem with mech IMO is that DK decided to remove the core weakness of the composition: mobility. With Tankvacks Tanks are one of the most mobile units in the game, so they become perfect for bio support. The negative is that their raw strength in stand and fight situations is mediocre at best. So you can't give them the power they need to be a solid core for mech because they become to strong with bio and medivacs. I don't believe DK wanted intentionally to kill mech, i think it was incompetence and tunnel vision on his new found obsession with mobility and micro that blinded him on the repercussions of his design and balance decisions, but now, he probably sees it as to late. You can see this in his comments where he's talking about making mech viable, nerfing hard counters, giving more units to the Factory, and then suddendl says things like "maybe it's better to not have mech and bio distionction but a mix". He realised his blunder and is doing dmg control. SC2 needs a major multiplayer patch like BW and WC had where for a significant amount of time the balance and design team analyze things as not just a per unit bases(as they do now), but in terms of synergy and unit interaction. Open play styles and not just individual unit viability. But IMO this kind of thinking hasn't been done in SC2 since the creation of WOL; the expansions have a distinct feel of having the focus only on individual units. So realistically we will have some balance changes here, some balance changes there, these two will create some problems over there and some more balance changes will be needed, and so on and so on a never ending cycle that can never really change much of anything and as they fix a little of this, they will break a little of that. So what SC2 is today will probably always be, love it or not. | ||
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Tyrhanius
France947 Posts
It doesn't take a few seconds for mutas to recover from a wm shot, it takes 28.5s ! Compared to other units : it takes 21s for any Protoss unit to get back their shield, and 3.1s for medivac to heal 40hp !! And with the natural zerg regeneration if mutas have no regen it would take 104s ! Do the maths before starting to argument based on "popular lies". | ||
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insitelol
845 Posts
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LSN
Germany696 Posts
On May 16 2016 19:15 Sapphire.lux wrote: You are correct LSN, but this stuff was exposed in huge blogs and threads back in WOL BETA among other things. The Marauder is here to stay, hard counters and all or nothing situations have actually been slightly reduced with LOTV compared to WOL; not enough maybe. The current problem with mech IMO is that DK decided to remove the core weakness of the composition: mobility. With Tankvacks Tanks are one of the most mobile units in the game, so they become perfect for bio support. The negative is that their raw strength in stand and fight situations is mediocre at best. So you can't give them the power they need to be a solid core for mech because they become to strong with bio and medivacs. I don't believe DK wanted intentionally to kill mech, i think it was incompetence and tunnel vision on his new found obsession with mobility and micro that blinded him on the repercussions of his design and balance decisions, but now, he probably sees it as to late. You can see this in his comments where he's talking about making mech viable, nerfing hard counters, giving more units to the Factory, and then suddendl says things like "maybe it's better to not have mech and bio distionction but a mix". He realised his blunder and is doing dmg control. SC2 needs a major multiplayer patch like BW and WC had where for a significant amount of time the balance and design team analyze things as not just a per unit bases(as they do now), but in terms of synergy and unit interaction. Open play styles and not just individual unit viability. But IMO this kind of thinking hasn't been done in SC2 since the creation of WOL; the expansions have a distinct feel of having the focus only on individual units. So realistically we will have some balance changes here, some balance changes there, these two will create some problems over there and some more balance changes will be needed, and so on and so on a never ending cycle that can never really change much of anything and as they fix a little of this, they will break a little of that. So what SC2 is today will probably always be, love it or not. I am happy to see someone is willing to join the argument instead of just flaming. I have edited and added alot of things in my previous posts that refer to or add up with what you say. In opposite to you I strongly believe there is still an option to let things go the correct way. It takes time and effort tho. On May 16 2016 19:20 Tyrhanius wrote: Again a whine about mutalisk with big lies. It doesn't take a few seconds for mutas to recover from a wm shot, it takes 28.5s ! Compared to other units : it takes 21s for any Protoss unit to get back their shield, and 3.1s for medivac to heal 40hp !! And with the natural zerg regeneration if mutas have no regen it would take 104s ! Do the maths before starting to argument based on "popular lies". Look this guy. He understands nothing. I am in this comunity for about 20 years and have hosted some of the biggest leagues in broodwar outside of korea. I am not willing to explain things to him more than I did. He is poisened and stuck in a who got the advantage, my race vs. rest of the world of things without asking for reasons, causes and interactions. Probably many are too young to understand. Look I don't want to look poisoned myself, and I am not. But I have absolutely zero tolerance for posts like that. I have chosen to take an approach and explain with the larger view and scale of things why things are as they are. This gives reason for many questions of the community, such as: - why do so many ppl play mobas and why does all leave SC2 - why do even progamers like flash (just prominent example) go back to broodwar and dont play SC2 - why do I and other ppl I talk with who are here since 98' get frustrated about SC2 as quickly as it is after playing it again for some weeks. - why is so much misunderstanding and disrespect in the community when it comes to talking balance and balance vs. design. - I gave detailed examples and explanations of what I am refering to so that as many ppl. as possible get into the position to understand the overall malfunctioning of SC2 and its reasons. You should appreciate that instead of flaming and getting stuck on this unit needs one more or less armour discussions. You can claim I am wrong at this or that point but please stop this smallish way of thinking of your race being at disposal and blame. I tried to keep it as neutral as possible and give examples for all races as all of them got these described mechanis everywhere. We did discuss about smallish balance +/-1 armour issues for 5 years now. It didn't get us anywhere. Noone is any more happy about the state of SC2 than in the beginning. Balance and metagames of matchups have shifted but are in no way in a better position than before (watching nerchio vs. polt in this moment). It is time to get back to the roots and question them. And if the community doesn't want that as a whole, we wont get anywhere in the future as well. | ||
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Tyrhanius
France947 Posts
You say things based on your opinion like they are admitted facts while it's just some bias ideas. Now you're martyring yoursef rather that argue with facts, use persuasion :authority argument ("i've host games some i'm right), or discredit me with condescendant :he must be too young ("i'm superior, so i'm right). You're using exactly the speech of the people who want to manipulate the truth for their own benefit and not the speech of someone impartial and open minded that just want to say the truth. | ||
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LSN
Germany696 Posts
On May 16 2016 20:01 Tyrhanius wrote: You're arrogant and act like only you understand the game while you only have superficial game knowledge. You say things based on your opinion like they are admitted facts while it's just some bias ideas. Now you're martyring yoursef rather that argue with facts, use persuasion :authority argument ("i've host games some i'm right), or discredit me with condescendant :he must be too young ("i'm superior, so i'm right). You're using exactly the speech of the people who want to manipulate the truth for their own benefit and not the speech of someone impartial and open minded that just want to say the truth. When WOL was new, these problems I describe where initially recognized by alot of ppl who played broodwar. But it took almost no time that everybody accepted this as that what blizzards wants and stopped questioning it. I am sorry to say that a certain arrogance is required to deal with people like you who are arrogant themselves. You wont make me feel bad about it. ;-) Read what I edited into the post above. Watch nerchio vs. polt. It is imbalance vs. imbalance. It is who abuses his op mechanics more than the other - only. It might be fun to watch for some time but it is in no way fun to play and maximum frustrating. This causes all the hate see here in the forums. I can't bring more evidence to my arguments than what reality provides me. SC2 is in a very bad spot design and balance vs. design wise and the more DK goes into this direction the more difficult it gets to balance this game by design and metagame. Basically in every ladder game I play ppl. claim balance and are highly frustrated. I am sometimes myself. Almost everyone else I know who cares does. When I talk about balance, I stopped looking at winrates, I only look at game mechanics. Cause when TvZ has a 50/50 winrate and terran wins 100% of all-ins but loses 100% of macrogames and lets assume both are equally played as often then we get a 50/50 winrate where ppl. assume it is 100% balanced. It is not. And this is one of the major problems we have here in TL forums when discussing it. As ppl still come up with aligulac and all the other things and base their arguments on it take my approach to psuh the balance and design discussion to another more reasonable level. You have to admit that something is wrong at least, don't you? If you don't like my approach, which makes sense overall and gives reason for all that, then come up with your own. I might be wrong on certain details as everyone is here and then but I am pretty sure that what I came up with overall explains the status of SC2 - with an experience of 20 years in my back, which is nothing I am ashamed of telling you. | ||
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ProMeTheus112
France2027 Posts
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
On May 16 2016 20:01 Tyrhanius wrote: You're arrogant and act like only you understand the game while you only have superficial game knowledge. You say things based on your opinion like they are admitted facts while it's just some bias ideas. Now you're martyring yoursef rather that argue with facts, use persuasion :authority argument ("i've host games some i'm right), or discredit me with condescendant :he must be too young ("i'm superior, so i'm right). You're using exactly the speech of the people who want to manipulate the truth for their own benefit and not the speech of someone impartial and open minded that just want to say the truth. Agreed. | ||
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Charoisaur
Germany15883 Posts
On May 16 2016 18:14 LSN wrote: Look the attitude of this guy, just one amongst many. He doesn't even know the slightes bit where I am coming from and comes up with maximum disrespect. I am done :p Hey, I already took back what I said because I misunderstood you. I thought you were complaining about balance which apparently you weren't. | ||
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LSN
Germany696 Posts
Masa vs Showtime. That adapt drop play. What else then getting frustrated would happen to any of us if you lose a game like that? What do you think how many terran players SC2 will lose about that in the ladder again? This is pure furstration. Rotti said "unlucky timing". Skill doesn't play a role when winning games like that. It was abusive play at its best. Not saying showtime is unskilled, he in fact is one of the highest potential players in europe in terms of mindset and general approach to the game. But it is questionable if SC2 can ever get rid of these things without rethinking basics. | ||
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