Patch next week After more playtests and more discussions with various people, we believe that it’ll be better to patch the current two changes to the live game sooner than later given the current situation. However, we do also want to point out that we definitely see the foreign community’s concern regarding the Queen buff, and we will definitely make sure to react quick if something breaks. But the two main reasons we would like to hurry up with this update is due to heavy feedback in favor of these changes on the KR pro side, and we also have a major tournament coming up in 2-3 weeks outside of Korea, so we would really love to push the change out to live as quickly as possible so that we can make necessary fixes before the WCS tournament if needed. So looking at this from both regions, it looks to be the right decision to patch quickly.
After the patch next week We definitely hear your feedback regarding the potential for Ultralisk armor needing nerfs and the Liberator needing nerfs. We would really love to look at the impact of the Spore and Queen changes first before we start testing further changes. For example, if Zerg is performing much better in the early/mid game and are dominating in the late game, we can definitely take a look at the Ultralisk armor nerf, whereas if these changes were steps in the right direction but not enough, we can look at potential Liberator +light damage removal to its AA weapon.
Playing Skill vs. Game Design Skill It’s been a while since we discussed more design philosophy based topics, and we noticed a topic being very big in the past couple weeks, so we wanted to share our thoughts regarding this. Specifically, we’re seeing a lot of posts discussing the importance of playing at a high skill level in order to be a good game designer.
Our thought is that these two have some overlap, but are different skillsets. We have seen so many examples of every mix of the two: A top player being so bad at game analysis, a top player being so good at game analysis, a bad player being so good at game design, and a bad player being also bad at game design. They’re just separate skills that one person can be good at none, one, or both of them. And the definition of a good player is so opinion based. For example, I’m currently in master league using random and if I say this to a pro player, they would think I’m pretty bad at the game. As compared to if I say this to a silver level player, they would think I’m good at the game.
The same goes for game design skills. Often times, game design skills are more difficult to quantify than say like awesome concept art skills or awesome programming skills. Interestingly, this is an area game designers on our team have a lot of discussions on regarding what an ideal game designer at Blizzard is, which is another fun topic that we can go into if there is desire for it for this in a future weekly update. And going more into detail on this current topic, the important thing for game designers working on SC2 is the ability to analyze game mechanics well. This is clearly a higher priority than playing the game at a pro level.
Just to finish off, we did want to ask a question that we ask ourselves often: In a perfect world scenario, would it be best to aim to have only game designers who are also the very best players at the game? Granted this might be near impossible to achieve, it is an interesting question because we can look at it from many different points of view. For example, I can argue that this is the best because the best player understand more parts of playing the game so he can analyze the game better as well. But I can also argue this isn’t ideal because he would be unable to see the game from a different perspective other than the top skill level, and the more ideal is to have a good mix of every type of gamer who all are good game designers.
We wanted to share our thoughts here because this is a fun topic to discuss, and we’ve also been leaning a bit more towards one way or another over the years on our team as well. Because there necessarily isn’t one, clear, perfect answer to this question, please let us know your thoughts as well and we will look forward to exploring this discussion from a potentially different angle!
I am against the queen buff, not because of its effect on balance, but because the queen range is already absurd. It's just gonna feel super weird to have your drops sniped by queens from the other side of their hatcheries.
On July 02 2016 05:09 MperorM1 wrote: I am against the queen buff, not because of its effect on balance, but because the queen range is already absurd. It's just gonna feel super weird to have your drops sniped by queens from the other side of their hatcheries.
And the Spore burrow speed feels weird too, almost as fast as a Siege Tank sieging.
is 1 more air range or slower root time gonna help that much vs tankivacs, hellbat marauder pushes, marine tank pushes, or mine marine drops? I fail to see how this addresses Zerg mid-game weakness in ZvT (Liberator harass aside).
Well, definitely looking forward to losing all my low health medivacs to queens. That range is pretty insane.
Some change is necessary for Zerg and I'm glad they're trying to be a bit more aggressive with finding a solution. I'm just not sure they've found the right one.
On July 02 2016 05:09 MperorM1 wrote: I am against the queen buff, not because of its effect on balance, but because the queen range is already absurd. It's just gonna feel super weird to have your drops sniped by queens from the other side of their hatcheries.
Yes it's absurd but what else do you suggest to defend against the liberators ? Make the minerals far away of the edges so that the queens can defend against them ? because right now almost all the zvt revolves around making the roach ravagers fast enough no matter what terrans opening you see...
On July 02 2016 05:09 MperorM1 wrote: I am against the queen buff, not because of its effect on balance, but because the queen range is already absurd. It's just gonna feel super weird to have your drops sniped by queens from the other side of their hatcheries.
Yes it's absurd but what else do you suggest to defend against the liberators ? Make the minerals far away of the edges so that the queens can defend against them ? because right now almost all the zvt revolves around making the roach ravagers fast enough no matter what terrans opening you see...
Nerf liberators instead?
On July 02 2016 05:18 Elentos wrote: Well, definitely looking forward to losing all my low health medivacs to queens. That range is pretty insane.
Some change is necessary for Zerg and I'm glad they're trying to be a bit more aggressive with finding a solution. I'm just not sure they've found the right one.
I feel the same. But at this point in the short term at least getting the wrong zerg buff in is probably better than not buffing at all.
On July 02 2016 05:16 Nazara wrote: is 1 more air range or slower root time gonna help that much vs tankivacs, hellbat marauder pushes, marine tank pushes, or mine marine drops? I fail to see how this addresses Zerg mid-game weakness in ZvT (Liberator harass aside).
With that 1 extra range you can force medivacs to retreat faster than they have to now. You're more likely to snipe them with good focus fire. Killing the medivacs, or at least forcing them away, is a big deal and that ability's getting a buff. Worth to see how it plays out. Plus it's also a buff against Protoss air. Whether it ends up working out? Who knows.
Marauder/hellbat is an all-in but I don't think it's strong enough that Zerg needs extra help against it.
I don't understand why they are buffing queens before looking into liberator AA damage. Liberator AA damage should be adressed first, all the queen buff does is buffing hive rush strategies.
On July 02 2016 06:19 Charoisaur wrote: I don't understand why they are buffing queens before looking into liberator AA damage. Liberator AA damage should be adressed first, all the queen buff does is buffing hive rush strategies.
If they buff something Zerg it can also act as a buff against Protoss at the same time, so that could be a reason.
Altough I can see the need for a buff for zerg early game defense, I really dislike the notion of buffing the queen, is just like what they did with the MsC, instead of addressing the issues they just put a band aid and we end with yet a nother totally dominant unit. If lib harass is a problem adress that, if tankivacs are a problem adress that.
Don't give us another MsC please, having 1 is already too many.
The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
The game design ideas generally sound fine from the blizz staff, just that sometimes the ideas get lost due to reactive changes. A good example is the widowmine, originally conceptualized to be a cheap factory anti-air unit to help mech-heavy openers, it rapidly became the new best friend for bio players, in fact wm came to define much of HOTS, who can forget Polt parade pushing marine marauder medivac across creep with wm backup. So the unit had to be nerfed and buffed and adjusted to balance it with the bio style, loosing the usefulness of it as a core anti-air unit. Now, don't get me wrong, wm is indeed one of the most beautifully balanced units in the game, it can do game winning damage (on both sides!), however, when you compare the original design idea and what it became, that path was reactive rather than proactive. One could have said, lets make wm move slower and shoot faster, so good for mech bad for bio. Several other examples are out there, cyclone meant to be a mobile harassment tool, is a niche defensive unit now, or swarmhost meant to be a siege unit, then a harass unit, now kind of obsolete, most zerg would probably want to get back the idea of a seige unit as originally planned because that gave zerg some options other than bl festor or now ultras.
That's a nifty rhetorical move by Davyie. Instead of focusing on the issue of game design (which is the more important issue) he shifts focus on the game designers, By questioning the ability of a critic to know the abilities of the designers based off metric of designer's in game skill, he effectively puts the "attack" the person rather than the idea. Ethos vs. Logos if you will. In doing so he subtly reinforcing the notion that his game designers do know what they are doing, even if they are not experienced pros, while undercutting several critical position (such as the pro's position vs. the silver league position). Essentially what he is getting at is that our personal experiences with SC2 have no bearing on knowing what's right for the game. Doesn't matter how smart or experienced you are (even though that little random masters comment lends Dayvie credibility, while his argument snidely undermining his credibility), you don't have the right to comment on the designers, which means you don't have the right to comment on the design. Which means, discussing game design ideas would in a way be beneath him, as an actual game designer.
Basically I think an elaborate trolling going on here.
Ironically though if the ability to design the game is not based off of player ability than we all have the right to endless bitch about game design, which in the end still calls the game designer's abilities into question lol. Also if we take Dayvie's message for what it really says: I think it saying that no one really knows how to design a game.
To the game design question, I think the answer is simply to have every level. How else will you cater to all levels, if you don't at least have input from all levels. So optimally these inputs would be good game designers all on the same team, though that's a bit of a dream scenario.
As a zerg i feel this change so bad, it will promote defensive play even more. Why would a zerg player ever try to be offensive when pylons can shoot and tanks can fly? Fixing those issues would make much more sense, mass queen till ultra ftw lol.
On July 02 2016 06:19 Charoisaur wrote: I don't understand why they are buffing queens before looking into liberator AA damage. Liberator AA damage should be adressed first, all the queen buff does is buffing hive rush strategies.
If they buff something Zerg it can also act as a buff against Protoss at the same time, so that could be a reason.
But the problem is the Liberator. Not that the Queen is weak. For an all mineral unit. its actually extremely good. Not to mention they even named the Liberator as a potential problem that needs a nerf in the future,
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
Damn. I still really love playing SC2, but I can't really argue any of your specific gripes. All legit.
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
Best comment i've ever read in a community feedback update.
Fix the tvp design. When a protoss is one basing on a big map, there is no way for the terran to guess what kind of allin is coming (for example going blind turret vs a hidden 4gate blink stalker allin).
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
Best comment i've ever read in a community feedback update.
Yep all true. Design an enjoyable game. Design fun unit interactions. Overall this game is currently frustrating and not fun to watch. These updates consistently show blizzard has no clue and isn't fixing it anytime soon.
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
Yep 100% agree. Buffing queen range is not a good idea. Phoenixes, and banshees, and mutas even in ZvZ...these are some of the only healthy forms of harrassment available to all 3 races.
What do i mean by healthy? I mean that when you play versus muta/phoenix/banshees you feel like you have an opportunity to hold them off.
Mass adept shades, warp prism pick up range, tankivacs, liberators behind mineral lines...all of these things feel incredibly one-sided. The other player just does it, and you have to take it, even if you know they are doing it. Which is not healthy gameplay.
Queen range though...last time they buffed Queen range from 3 -> 5 Terran entirely disappeared from tournament play for over a year (including Korean Terrans where we had the famous "IMBA IMBA IMBA IMBA" moment vs brood infestor in a casted match).
On July 02 2016 10:56 adnap2 wrote: Fix the tvp design. When a protoss is one basing on a big map, there is no way for the terran to guess what kind of allin is coming (for example going blind turret vs a hidden 4gate blink stalker allin).
Blizzard originally had fixed this at the start of LOTV beta. They made it so you could build a missile turret without an engineering bay.
It was great because it removed a lot of the guessing game/coin flip wins/losses. Wish they would consider stuff like that again.
On July 02 2016 08:32 My_Fake_Plastic_Luv wrote: That's a nifty rhetorical move by Davyie. Instead of focusing on the issue of game design (which is the more important issue) he shifts focus on the game designers, By questioning the ability of a critic to know the abilities of the designers based off metric of designer's in game skill, he effectively puts the "attack" the person rather than the idea. Ethos vs. Logos if you will. In doing so he subtly reinforcing the notion that his game designers do know what they are doing, even if they are not experienced pros, while undercutting several critical position (such as the pro's position vs. the silver league position). Essentially what he is getting at is that our personal experiences with SC2 have no bearing on knowing what's right for the game. Doesn't matter how smart or experienced you are (even though that little random masters comment lends Dayvie credibility, while his argument snidely undermining his credibility), you don't have the right to comment on the designers, which means you don't have the right to comment on the design. Which means, discussing game design ideas would in a way be beneath him, as an actual game designer.
Basically I think an elaborate trolling going on here.
Ironically though if the ability to design the game is not based off of player ability than we all have the right to endless bitch about game design, which in the end still calls the game designer's abilities into question lol. Also if we take Dayvie's message for what it really says: I think it saying that no one really knows how to design a game.
Sorry this is not that well written.
He got his jimmies in a bunch because i posted a thread on the battle.net forums about a potential mod with changes the community has been asking for forever. Well to be fair, it's not just me that's taking it into my own hands at this point, i've seen and read many threads from other people in the community that are throwing out ideas and working on putting out balance mods since blizzard seems to not be risking any changes at all.
With things like: -8 armor ultra -adept shades -warp prism range -liberator range -cyclones -mech viability -parasitic bomb -ling/bane/muta viability vs T -invulnerable nydus worm
He basically wrote that post so he can write off anything you or i or anyone else in the community says because he can indeed claim we don't know what we're doing but he knows what he's doing regardless of his skill or game knowledge lol.
The thing is, if they knew what they were doing...the above list of issues would all have had fixes/changes by now. It's really disheartening we just keep getting PR "updates" and not actual balance tweaks/changes over the course of weeks+months.
He got his jimmies in a bunch because i posted a thread on the battle.net forums about a potential mod with changes the community has been asking for forever.
And thank God you have nothing to do with design of this game. While you have identified problems spot on, your solutions are not even biased, but simply crazy. Even fellow Terrans called it out. On Bnet forums. That speaks for itself.
It's funny how Blizzard went from "we're going to be testing major design changes after the beta end" to "we are only going to implement small changes to the game instead of major overhauls". Tankivacs, Warp Prism pick up, invincible Nydus - none of that is going to be removed guys. Spore Crawler root time changes is what we will be getting people. Better get used to it.
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
You might be the right, but the question is - was Starcraft ever a game where mechanics like the ones you've listed weren't a part of it? Was Brood War or early Starcraft 2 expansions such games where attacking and defending was equally hard, and didn't require a massive amount of mechanical effort(especially on the defender's side)? (I have played little of BW so somebody tell me.)
I cannot tell if fixing the problems you've listed would fix Starcraft 2, or simply make it a completely different game. What if those are the things that make Starcraft what it is? One could say that the need for super fast and efficient mechanics is what makes Starcraft unappealing to very many(Brood War was even worse, requiring a minimum of 300-350 apm at the highest level), but the pure difficulty of playing the game is the defining factor of Starcraft. Were units in Brood War so well designed that scenarios similar to what JackONeill listed never occurred?
Brood War was never truly popular anywhere outside of Korea, and Starcraft 2 was only popular in the west for a year and a half after WoL's release. I feel as if Starcraft 2 is losing popularity simply for what it is as a game, not as a result of some specific decisions on the side of Blizzard. It's possible that trying to 'fix' the things you've listed would simply make Starcraft not Starcraft.
(Disclaimer: I am simply trying to contribute to the conversation, not saying that what I wrote is 100% correct. Please feel free to provide counterpoints.)
He got his jimmies in a bunch because i posted a thread on the battle.net forums about a potential mod with changes the community has been asking for forever.
And thank God you have nothing to do with design of this game. While you have identified problems spot on, your solutions are not even biased, but simply crazy. Even fellow Terrans called it out. On Bnet forums. That speaks for itself.
It's funny how Blizzard went from "we're going to be testing major design changes after the beta end" to "we are only going to implement small changes to the game instead of major overhauls". Tankivacs, Warp Prism pick up, invincible Nydus - none of that is going to be removed guys. Spore Crawler root time changes is what we will be getting people. Better get used to it.
Actually, most of the replies from sensible people on bnet are agreeing with me (there's very few, we all know the bnet forum is basically just full of trolls). It's just the bronze bnet troll posters (as usual) that don't understand the game.
He got his jimmies in a bunch because i posted a thread on the battle.net forums about a potential mod with changes the community has been asking for forever.
And thank God you have nothing to do with design of this game. While you have identified problems spot on, your solutions are not even biased, but simply crazy. Even fellow Terrans called it out. On Bnet forums. That speaks for itself.
It's funny how Blizzard went from "we're going to be testing major design changes after the beta end" to "we are only going to implement small changes to the game instead of major overhauls". Tankivacs, Warp Prism pick up, invincible Nydus - none of that is going to be removed guys. Spore Crawler root time changes is what we will be getting people. Better get used to it.
Actually, most of the replies from sensible people on bnet are agreeing with me (there's very few, we all know the bnet forum is basically just full of trolls). It's just the bronze bnet troll posters (as usual) that don't understand the game.
I'm pretty sure anyone who agrees with you is joking but I guess it's hard to see the truth when your head is so far up your own ass
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue.
Of all these issues, I think Terran having nothing but Liberators and maybe Ravens to fall back on is the most glaring. I know team games don't matter much, but it so evident there (and I play random so I roll Terran sometimes). If a team game goes late and Protoss get Tempest and High Templar with Archons and Immortals, there is nothing Terran can do, and the same can be said about Corrupter/Viper/Broodlord/Infestor. It is such a helpless feeling knowing that Thors and Battlecruisers will do nothing for you.
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
You might be the right, but the question is - was Starcraft ever a game where mechanics like the ones you've listed weren't a part of it? Was Brood War or early Starcraft 2 expansions such games where attacking and defending was equally hard, and didn't require a massive amount of mechanical effort(especially on the defender's side)? (I have played little of BW so somebody tell me.)
I cannot tell if fixing the problems you've listed would fix Starcraft 2, or simply make it a completely different game. What if those are the things that make Starcraft what it is? One could say that the need for super fast and efficient mechanics is what makes Starcraft unappealing to very many(Brood War was even worse, requiring a minimum of 300-350 apm at the highest level), but the pure difficulty of playing the game is the defining factor of Starcraft. Were units in Brood War so well designed that scenarios similar to what JackONeill listed never occurred?
Brood War was never truly popular anywhere outside of Korea, and Starcraft 2 was only popular in the west for a year and a half after WoL's release. I feel as if Starcraft 2 is losing popularity simply for what it is as a game, not as a result of some specific decisions on the side of Blizzard. It's possible that trying to 'fix' the things you've listed would simply make Starcraft not Starcraft.
(Disclaimer: I am simply trying to contribute to the conversation, not saying that what I wrote is 100% correct. Please feel free to provide counterpoints.)
What does Broodwar have to do with what he said? Broodwar had problematic interactions too, just not nearly to the level SC2 has.
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
Well said.
I do wonder whether things like shade and bile could be brought back into a hard to use, but high reward category if the cooldown was much longer, or even if the ability had charges instead of a cooldown. We don't argue about stim or forcefield being too easy to use because they clear drawbacks and if you can bait it, you've gain an advantage. Using a shade however doesn't really cost anything and it's basically better to do it as much as you can.
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
Well said.
I do wonder whether things like shade and bile could be brought back into a hard to use, but high reward category if the cooldown was much longer, or even if the ability had charges instead of a cooldown. We don't argue about stim or forcefield being too easy to use because they clear drawbacks and if you can bait it, you've gain an advantage. Using a shade however doesn't really cost anything and it's basically better to do it as much as you can.
I think stim is too strong, it always has been imo. Forcefields have always been a problem but because of Adepts (and Pylons) Protoss doesn't need them as much anymore. The stupid offensive one forcefield on the ramp to block them all is still possible though
Edit: FF's might make a comeback with the comeback of the deathball/ Colossus btw
For example, if Zerg is performing much better in the early/mid game and are dominating in the late game, we can definitely take a look at the Ultralisk armor nerf, whereas if these changes were steps in the right direction but not enough, we can look at potential Liberator +light damage removal to its AA weapon.
That example would be a bad design decision imo, since game design is not solely about keeping the balance of winrates, but as you mentioned about understanding the game mechanics and making the gameplay feel good.
Regarding the ultralisk, you always need to keep in mind, that it is a melee unit, that can be attacked way before it itself can deal damage. This leads to kiting being an effective way to deal with it. I have the impression, that even now marines and marauders deal cost efficiently with ultras (though it takes a lot of micro, but when you micro them properly, they are good). Add the medivac and the ability to leave a fight whenever the terran wants and it gets even more cost efficient. If ultras armor was reduced I don`t see them dealing enough damage and i would rather have them with high armor and lower damage than lower armor and higher damage as I prefer longer fights in which you can react. A different path to take would be to reduce the size of the ultras when nerfing their armor, which would also improve their pathing, but take away its scary overwhelming appearance. So before any nerf is done on the ultra, I would like to see a proper analysis of their cost efficiency against a (maybe even non-ghost) unit composition and not (only) a balance-related argument.
Regarding the liberator, I think independently of the balance you can say, that it is too strong of a unit, which counters light air and has a more powerful ground attack than even the tank (add the current enormous harass potential on top of that). So a nerf on that part should be in order regardless of the current win-rate. If the win-rate is out of balance because of that, other buffs should be considered. As a side note, I would like the liberator ground attack to have charges (around 5), that regenerate rather slowly, so the terran needs to think about when and how to use them and the opponent can use micro to waste the liberators shots.
So I would indeed like you to start a discussion about game design and to give your opinions on the matter. (Btw Dayvie saying, that game skill is not necessarily relevant to game-design skill, not only puts him and the people working on the game design in a better position, but also the community feedback that comes from non-pros. All he's saying is design decisions should optimally be judged by people with a good game-design skill, he's not saying, that only people at Blizzard have that skill.)
Also, did anyone suggest an increase of the spore crawler range instead of that of the queen? Imo it makes more sense to have high-ranged static defense than a high-ranged moving unit, the purpose of which should not even be to have a good attack. Defense is something that you have to commit to and that gives you an advantage if used with the right timing due to scouting. With slightly improved static defense you could think about slightly increasing the costs, so that it is inefficient to randomly build it, but gives an edge otherwise. To improve air defense, rather than buffing the defending units, you could as Snute pointed out also reduce the speed/acceleration of the attacking flying units, so they are exposed to the opponent's attacks for a longer period of time due to their lower speed, rather than due to an increased range. Same as defense, harassment should be a commitment that the aggressor has to make.
I still think some kind of adept nerf will need to happen at some point. The thing that makes the most sense is increasing the shade cooldown : it doesn't affect their power as fighting units but tones down their -currently far too strong- harass abilities.
On July 02 2016 11:31 avilo wrote: With things like: -8 armor ultra -adept shades -warp prism range -liberator range -cyclones -mech viability -parasitic bomb -ling/bane/muta viability vs T -invulnerable nydus worm
good list in fact. Add tempest supply increase to it. I still have hope they'll dig into those issues after november, especially since most of those things (in fact all of them except mech and LBM) can be dealt with with very simple and sensible measures.
This buff is kind of absurd. I maintain my stance that if the Liberator is the issue then adjust that, not buff a unit that will then impact match-ups outside the troublesome one.
This is really going to hurt PvZ too. Increased queen range is going to affect Phoenix harass which is pretty much still the only viable opening for Toss.
Queens were fine in their pre-buff state. Liberators are problematic across the board. Adept shades are problematic (I'm Protoss and agree the mobility on shades is ridiculous)
In my eyes:
Liberator ground damage needs lowering and the removal of the range upgrade.
Adept shades, there's a few things I think could be better. Longer cooldown on ability. Decrease the movement speed on the shade itself because right now the speed of a moving shade is insanely fast. Stop the shade being able to move through units, this coupled with a longer cooldown on the ability itself should stop games ending when a group of adepts get into a mineral line and help promote better positioning to maximise damage rather than just being able to ignore an army and workers and then just disintegrating the enemy economy.
On July 02 2016 17:57 KatatoniK wrote: This buff is kind of absurd. I maintain my stance that if the Liberator is the issue then adjust that, not buff a unit that will then impact match-ups outside the troublesome one.
This is really going to hurt PvZ too. Increased queen range is going to affect Phoenix harass which is pretty much still the only viable opening for Toss.
Queens were fine in their pre-buff state. Liberators are problematic across the board. Adept shades are problematic (I'm Protoss and agree the mobility on shades is ridiculous)
In my eyes:
Liberator ground damage needs lowering and the removal of the range upgrade.
Adept shades, there's a few things I think could be better. Longer cooldown on ability. Decrease the movement speed on the shade itself because right now the speed of a moving shade is insanely fast. Stop the shade being able to move through units, this coupled with a longer cooldown on the ability itself should stop games ending when a group of adepts get into a mineral line and help promote better positioning to maximise damage rather than just being able to ignore an army and workers and then just disintegrating the enemy economy.
phoenix is much less common than twilight opening right now in pvz
On July 02 2016 17:57 KatatoniK wrote: This buff is kind of absurd. I maintain my stance that if the Liberator is the issue then adjust that, not buff a unit that will then impact match-ups outside the troublesome one.
This is really going to hurt PvZ too. Increased queen range is going to affect Phoenix harass which is pretty much still the only viable opening for Toss.
Queens were fine in their pre-buff state. Liberators are problematic across the board. Adept shades are problematic (I'm Protoss and agree the mobility on shades is ridiculous)
In my eyes:
Liberator ground damage needs lowering and the removal of the range upgrade.
Adept shades, there's a few things I think could be better. Longer cooldown on ability. Decrease the movement speed on the shade itself because right now the speed of a moving shade is insanely fast. Stop the shade being able to move through units, this coupled with a longer cooldown on the ability itself should stop games ending when a group of adepts get into a mineral line and help promote better positioning to maximise damage rather than just being able to ignore an army and workers and then just disintegrating the enemy economy.
phoenix is much less common than twilight opening right now in pvz
indeed
which is why I think an adept shade nerf would be a good idea
Liberator harass puts Terran back on everything. Now it is even less likely to do any damage. Same to banshee. Spores are already the perfect answer. They are a moving unit, which costs no supply at all and they can not be attacked by the Liberator, but in fact can kill the liberator pretty fast. Now it will burrow at the same speed as a liberator changes to ground attack mode.
--> Ultra got buffed -> Terran needs Liberator -> Liberator got nerfed -> Zergs still complain -> Zerg gets 2 Buffs wich aid the "get ultras" gameplay even more, because Queens now become even more decent on killing medevacs and "everything air".
So instead of "Multitask" you better practise your "end the game inb4 Hive game as Terran now. RIP interesting gameplay. Welcome 2 base All-In..and get the Bois ready, its CHOO CHOOO time yet again.
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
Just quoting this so it has already at least one occurrence on each page of this thread. Sc2's designers are so caught up with numbers and small changes despite promising the opposite during beta ("we will continue to implement big changes to change the state of the game even long after beta has ended!").
On July 02 2016 21:24 PolymakTri wrote: Last foreigner terran in the finals of a major tournament participated in April 2012 - more than 4 years ago. 1532 days ago.
Since then, in the finals was 19 foreigner Zergs and 13 Protosses.
Buff Zergs, Blizzard, please!
Well, the thing is foreign Terrans are few and far between
On July 02 2016 21:24 PolymakTri wrote: Last foreigner terran in the finals of a major tournament participated in April 2012 - more than 4 years ago. 1532 days ago.
Since then, in the finals was 19 foreigner Zergs and 13 Protosses.
Buff Zergs, Blizzard, please!
Well, the thing is foreign Terrans are few and far between
On July 02 2016 21:24 PolymakTri wrote: Last foreigner terran in the finals of a major tournament participated in April 2012 - more than 4 years ago. 1532 days ago.
Since then, in the finals was 19 foreigner Zergs and 13 Protosses.
Buff Zergs, Blizzard, please!
Without looking at it, I already remember Bunny winning vs Byunn two years ago. Heromarine, Major and Kelazhur also won major events this year.
On July 02 2016 21:24 PolymakTri wrote: Last foreigner terran in the finals of a major tournament participated in April 2012 - more than 4 years ago. 1532 days ago.
Since then, in the finals was 19 foreigner Zergs and 13 Protosses.
Buff Zergs, Blizzard, please!
Without looking at it, I already remember Bunny winning vs Byunn two years ago. Heromarine, Major and Kelazhur also won major events this year.
On July 02 2016 21:24 PolymakTri wrote: Last foreigner terran in the finals of a major tournament participated in April 2012 - more than 4 years ago. 1532 days ago.
Since then, in the finals was 19 foreigner Zergs and 13 Protosses.
Buff Zergs, Blizzard, please!
Without looking at it, I already remember Bunny winning vs Byunn two years ago. Heromarine, Major and Kelazhur also won major events this year.
On July 02 2016 21:24 PolymakTri wrote: Last foreigner terran in the finals of a major tournament participated in April 2012 - more than 4 years ago. 1532 days ago.
Since then, in the finals was 19 foreigner Zergs and 13 Protosses.
Buff Zergs, Blizzard, please!
Well, the thing is foreign Terrans are few and far between
Foreign zergs and protoss just happen to be better.
On July 02 2016 22:10 coolmiyo wrote: well, atleast he is taking action.
i think it is better to change the game constantly than stay 6 months with the game untouched, even if the changes are not that good.
new stuff makes players to use their brain, new playstyles and diferent strategies.
If the changes favor turtle play i'm not sure it's a good idea
ikr, but this is the price we have to pay when korean zergs are worse than foreigner zergs.
Yeah Scarlett would easily be able to get into Code S and SSL and show the korean Zergs how to play right? Oh wait she couldn't even qualify for Code A and the SSL challenge.
On July 02 2016 21:24 PolymakTri wrote: Last foreigner terran in the finals of a major tournament participated in April 2012 - more than 4 years ago. 1532 days ago.
Since then, in the finals was 19 foreigner Zergs and 13 Protosses.
the important thing for game designers working on SC2 is the ability to analyze game mechanics well. This is clearly a higher priority than playing the game at a pro level.
The problem is, it seems that those 'game designers' are terrible at analysing game mechanics; I do not think Tempests, SH or Cyclones are well-designed units.
These changes are not going to affect ZvP at all aside from possibly bettering Zerg's ability to combat the mass endgame airball and do a queen nydus/drop all-in vs void rays. The time it takes for phoenixes and oracles to fly a distance equal to 1 range is not even enough time for queens to get in an extra shot. Maybe one additional shot if you include the time to leave as well. Phoenixes have never had to avoid queens; they completely ignore them as they go in, get drone kills and scouting info, and leave with only their shields damage. For oracles, there could be some change since they're a lot more fragile, but we're still talking maybe one drone kill less if it's making an effort to skirt around the queen's range. Likewise, moving spores around is not going to matter when fighting phoenixes, or even medivacs; that's strictly an anti-liberator and anti-banshee change (maybe a bit anti-muta too, though the spore will just die past a certain early point).
Queen range is going to affect ZvZ a bit, but probably not in an unhealthy way. It's just more of a defender's advantage if you have a lower muta count or are still building a hydra ball. It won't affect muta map control and it won't really affect the power of a queen all-in. The big place it does matter is vs early ovies, though there's not a big change here overall except in situations where the queen gets under the overlord before it starts shooting.
The big change is definitely just the ability to zone medivacs a little better with queens and kill cliff-libs without walking into their range. The current metagame effectively gives Terran afterburners on his medivacs plus tank drops while removing mutalisks from the game. That is the situation that has led to the necessity of this change, as those abilities for Terran were designed with super mutas in mind, not running around a base full of things that can't shoot up. The best alternative to this would probably be to alter how spire tech works in this matchup; the biggest problem is that its relative timing is just too late to matter with LotV's adjusted economy and timings. Then there's the extreme nature of lib vs muta; get 10 mutas and kill the starport reactor/pick off 1-2 libs before he has 4 liberators and you're in a great spot to win by just making more muta/ling/bane, but get 10 mutas when he started liberator production 30 seconds earlier and you likely lose the game.
I don't think the changes will be bad for game balance at all, but I do think that if the current game is destined to stagnate, these changes will only give it a little shove down that path.
new stuff makes players to use their brain, new playstyles and diferent strategies.
Pretty bad approach for a game that is designed to be a competitive esport.
Quite the contrary, the only viable approach for an esport that relies on the viewers being players themselves to appreciate the stuff done by the pros. Perhaps pros like to play the same "build" on the same map a million times, but the casual players get bored rather quickly, and that's exactly what you see - ever declining viewership, unless a new expansion comes around.
If blizzard gave us weekly patches, perhaps just nerfing the most used units/"timings"/etc... and buffing the most unused ones, the game would be far more interesting to play (and watch).
only viable approach for an esport that relies on the viewers being players themselves to appreciate the stuff done by the pros
Agreed. This can be done with mechanics which are hard to perform or outright impossible for an average player. That's how you "wow" people.
Micro, macro, multitasking, spellcasting, splitting, kiting - there is a lot of stuff to do in the game. However, each and every one of those actions can be performed by an average gamer almost as good as a pro can. Anyone can replicate pros and throw around Biles and shit. All of those small Starcraft 2 components are easy, and that's why viewership drops. You can't compare the erections that Jangbi caused with his Storms in BW to blanket Storms that anyone in Silver can do just as well as a GM player. Like it or not, the hardcore difficulty of BW is what made it successful and kept it around for so long.
In SC2, viewer cannot appreciate what pro is doing, because a lot of it is done off-screen. What is done on-screen, is not that amazing in and out of itself. That's the problem.
If blizzard gave us weekly patches, perhaps just nerfing the most used units/"timings"/etc... and buffing the most unused ones, the game would be far more interesting to play (and watch).
True, but it wouldn't be a true sport. Rules for chess, football, cricket etc. didn't change in decades if not hundreds of years. There are no sports with an ever changing set of rules. LoL stays affloat because it is patched constantly. What if developers suddenly stopped supporting it? I reckon there wouldn't be much longevity in the game. LoL is successful because of constant patching, but it also needs constant patching to be successful.
If you need to change rules constantly to keep people having fun, then you have a problem elsewhere.
What this game needs, is not constant patching, but one big overhaul that would make multiple playstyles viable, without any of them being OP, and then no patches at all - only maps to balance the races. One can dream.
only viable approach for an esport that relies on the viewers being players themselves to appreciate the stuff done by the pros
Agreed. This can be done with mechanics which are hard to perform or outright impossible for an average player. That's how you "wow" people.
Micro, macro, multitasking, spellcasting, splitting, kiting - there is a lot of stuff to do in the game. However, each and every one of those actions can be performed by an average gamer almost as good as a pro can. Anyone can replicate pros and throw around Biles and shit. All of those small Starcraft 2 components are easy, and that's why viewership drops. You can't compare the erections that Jangbi caused with his Storms in BW to blanket Storms that anyone in Silver can do just as well as a GM player. Like it or not, the hardcore difficulty of BW is what made it successful and kept it around for so long.
In SC2, viewer cannot appreciate what pro is doing, because a lot of it is done off-screen. What is done on-screen, is not that amazing in and out of itself. That's the problem.
If blizzard gave us weekly patches, perhaps just nerfing the most used units/"timings"/etc... and buffing the most unused ones, the game would be far more interesting to play (and watch).
True, but it wouldn't be a true sport. Rules for chess, football, cricket etc. didn't change in decades if not hundreds of years. There are no sports with an ever changing set of rules. LoL stays affloat because it is patched constantly. What if developers suddenly stopped supporting it? I reckon there wouldn't be much longevity in the game. LoL is successful because of constant patching, but it also needs constant patching to be successful.
If you need to change rules constantly to keep people having fun, then you have a problem elsewhere.
What this game needs, is not constant patching, but one big overhaul that would make multiple playstyles viable, without any of them being OP, and then no patches at all - only maps to balance the races. One can dream.
As a master player I can say I succesfully haven't mastered one aspect of micro, macrro, spellcasting, splitting or kitting as well as most pro's I watch.
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
Hit the nail on the head. Add 2/3 base reaper all ins to the list. The game favors the aggressor/cheeser in almost every way. As a result, people who like to macro and play defensive such as myself are at such a disadvantage. THAT is not good game design
Blizzard seems successful in being divisive on the sc2 scene. Are Riot the same with LoL? I know CS players sometimes criticise Valve, so I won't ask about Valve.
On July 03 2016 04:33 Shield wrote: Blizzard seems successful in being divisive on the sc2 scene. Are Riot the same with LoL? I know CS players sometimes criticise Valve, so I won't ask about Valve.
On July 02 2016 11:31 avilo wrote: With things like: -8 armor ultra -adept shades -warp prism range -liberator range -cyclones -mech viability -parasitic bomb -ling/bane/muta viability vs T -invulnerable nydus worm
good list in fact. Add tempest supply increase to it. I still have hope they'll dig into those issues after november, especially since most of those things (in fact all of them except mech and LBM) can be dealt with with very simple and sensible measures.
I actually forgot to put that on the list, and it's definitely on the list lol
The sad fact is in this last "update" dkim literally put all that mumbo jumbo about game design in the update so he can exonerate himself from being wrong and having to do anything about that list of things that are currently wrong with the game because he can justify it to himself that "he knows better" than we do.
Even though 99% of people with common sense know the above list of things is what he should have been working on this whole time and putting those changes into the game.
Blizzard ego is just too high atm, including Mr. Kims. They're taking the path of "we're right, you're wrong. So we will change the game how we want, and not ever listen to you."
Which is exactly what they did with world of warcraft "we know what you want."
On July 02 2016 21:24 PolymakTri wrote: Last foreigner terran in the finals of a major tournament participated in April 2012 - more than 4 years ago. 1532 days ago.
Since then, in the finals was 19 foreigner Zergs and 13 Protosses.
Buff Zergs, Blizzard, please!
Well, the thing is foreign Terrans are few and far between
Foreign zergs and protoss just happen to be better.
Anyone that makes this argument must accept the possibility that Korean zergs just happen to be worse. I think they're both dumb.
On July 02 2016 21:24 PolymakTri wrote: Last foreigner terran in the finals of a major tournament participated in April 2012 - more than 4 years ago. 1532 days ago.
Since then, in the finals was 19 foreigner Zergs and 13 Protosses.
Buff Zergs, Blizzard, please!
Well, the thing is foreign Terrans are few and far between
Foreign zergs and protoss just happen to be better.
Anyone that makes this argument must accept the possibility that Korean zergs just happen to be worse. I think they're both dumb.
but foreign Terrans have always done worse than Z and P while Korean Zergs started underperforming only after LotV release, that's the reason this argument rose up
On July 02 2016 21:24 PolymakTri wrote: Last foreigner terran in the finals of a major tournament participated in April 2012 - more than 4 years ago. 1532 days ago.
Since then, in the finals was 19 foreigner Zergs and 13 Protosses.
Buff Zergs, Blizzard, please!
Well, the thing is foreign Terrans are few and far between
Foreign zergs and protoss just happen to be better.
Anyone that makes this argument must accept the possibility that Korean zergs just happen to be worse. I think they're both dumb.
but foreign Terrans have always done worse than Z and P while Korean Zergs started underperforming only after LotV release, that's the reason this argument rose up
so if a race is underperforming for a long period it's not a problem anymore because people are used to it?
On July 02 2016 21:24 PolymakTri wrote: Last foreigner terran in the finals of a major tournament participated in April 2012 - more than 4 years ago. 1532 days ago.
Since then, in the finals was 19 foreigner Zergs and 13 Protosses.
Buff Zergs, Blizzard, please!
Well, the thing is foreign Terrans are few and far between
Foreign zergs and protoss just happen to be better.
Anyone that makes this argument must accept the possibility that Korean zergs just happen to be worse. I think they're both dumb.
but foreign Terrans have always done worse than Z and P while Korean Zergs started underperforming only after LotV release, that's the reason this argument rose up
Foreign terrans haven't always done worse than Z and P, it's just been such a long time with a couple long periods of horrible imbalance that some people accept it as the way it is. It also feeds into itself, the longer the painful periods last, the fewer opportunities and success players of a certain race get. The opposite is true too for the beneficiaries of that imbalance. They get more opportunities and support.
On July 03 2016 07:50 Charoisaur wrote: so if a race is underperforming for a long period it's not a problem anymore because people are used to it?
Exactly. Obviously the solution is to let Korean zergs struggle for a year or so and then just accept it as just the way it is. They're not even struggling to the extent of the worst periods of sc2 balance anyway and the international zerg scene is doing just fine if not thriving. We have all our little justification ducks in a row now.
but foreign Terrans have always done worse than Z and P
Really? Jinro was the only foreigner, who twice went into the semi-finals of GSL. Moreover, he beat on his path the best foreign Zerg those times - IdrA. From launch of SC2 WoL in august 2010 till mid of 2012 foreign terrans were not worse than the zergs and protosses.
Thorzain, Lucifron, BratOK, Strelok, Kas, Happy, SjoW and others - their career was broken by Blizzard policy for WCS (2013-2015) and the permanent problems with balance (first Broodlord/Infestors, then Blink toss, then Adept toss). The reality is that on the top level only korean terrans with korean hands in the current metagame can beat top zergs and protosses. Play protoss and zerg on non-korean level much easier. For more than 4 years. It's a fact. Blizzard ignores it all the time, which leads to retirement of the top foreigner terrans from pro scene.
On July 03 2016 02:58 Nazara wrote: Agreed. This can be done with mechanics which are hard to perform or outright impossible for an average player. That's how you "wow" people.
Agreed, but you only "wow" people who play the game themselves. A new viewer who sees marines splitting against banelings or focus fire banelings just takes it for granted. He'd rather ask "why are those marines just standing around?" if a player does sub-optimal or no splitting.
True, but it wouldn't be a true sport. Rules for chess, football, cricket etc. didn't change in decades if not hundreds of years. There are no sports with an ever changing set of rules.
Take a look at road racing, formula one or skiing - they have new rules at least every season. They're no more true or untrue sport as chess or soccer just because of that.
Ye, always wondered how naive some people are to believe being gm/pro makes their ideas for the game automatically superior to others.
Blizzard is right that it is somewhat independent, but:
Being a progamer requires you to get along with the current setup, accept it, adapt to it as good as possible, abuse it where you can, etc. Being a game designer requires you more to question current things and find and spend time with potential solution that do not exist yet and have no meaning in current play of the game. This however is detrimental for your performance cause when you shift your mindset towards thinking in alternatives that do not exist and as well never might exist, you by default lose at least a bit of grip to what matters for the current game and perform worse.
There are personalities that enjoy and get along best with repeating the same/similar things many times and get very good at it. There are other personalities that get bored with things more easily and from then on think more in ways of how to improve systems behind these things instead of continuing to master them. Imo these are even two to a certain extend contradictory skillsets which obviously must limit each other to a certain extend.
One thing can be said for sure: The best game designer cannot at the same time get to be the best player cause in order to become the best player he would have to give up these parts of his mindset that made him the best game-designer beforehand (and the other way round).
I assume SC2 needs a game/balance designer exactly as david kim is one: High game understanding through sufficient level of play but main focus is not on mastering SC2. And following from this we can even assume that DK probably was and is a bit too much of a high level player and a bit too few of someone who focusses on good game design. You hardly can explain bad game-designs like invincible nydus (we want z to be able to harrass, we want nydus to be used), tankivacs (t need that right now so lets forget about game design and just do it) and the many other things with other reasons. Too many ideals where sacrificed for quickly balancing numbers and without respect to if this is what we actually want and need in terms of gameplay in SC2. Too much focus on changing as little as possible instead of making the game as good as possible no matter the costs.
Sure, you can hardly explain that to someone who is barely out of his teens, has managed to abuse/grind himself to gm twice in a row and therefore believes he knows best about everything concerning SC2.
From launch of SC2 WoL in august 2010 till mid of 2012 foreign terrans were not worse than the zergs and protosses.
No they were. Zerg still had Idra, Ret, Sen, Stephano and probably others I forgot.
Who did terran have in 2011-2012? Thorzain won TSL, but after that he didn't do a lot either.
Lucifron, BratOK, Strelok, Kas, Happy, SjoW
These guys only performed on the ladder/online. They were never close to being relevant in actual tournaments unlike the foreign zerg and protoss counterparts.
Agreed, but you only "wow" people who play the game themselves. A new viewer who sees marines splitting against banelings or focus fire banelings just takes it for granted. He'd rather ask "why are those marines just standing around?" if a player does sub-optimal or no splitting
I disagree. You don't have to play Street Fighter to figure out that this play is not something to be taken for granted. You can simply tell by the reaction of the crowd. The fans don't cheer because a better strategy won, but mechanical skill, something hard as f*ck to perform.
Take a look at road racing, formula one or skiing - they have new rules at least every season. They're no more true or untrue sport as chess or soccer just because of that
They kind of have to - those sports combine human performance with machine performance and technological advancements. Seeing as there are improvements to car design every year, rules have to be changed to accommodate for it. A lot of the rules are about limiting what teams can use, to preserve as much human involvement (skill) in the race as possible (anyway, my knowledge on racing is limited as I find it dull and uninteresting, so I might be wrong in this case, if so, I apologise). Meanwhile we had Blizzard who stated they wanted to test automatised production back in the beta and people saying they appreciate strategic/planning more (equivalent would be no restrictions on all of the computer assistance in F1) more then human/mechanical skill (which is the whole point of sport and what makes it fun).
Anyway I think our little conversation might be a bit off-topic
These guys only performed on the ladder. They were never close to being relevant in actual tournaments unlike the foreign zerg and protoss counterparts.
Only ladder?
- Jinro won MLG Dallas 2010 and was top4 GSL twice (beat MC on his peak, Ensnare and IdrA on GSL). - ThorZaIN won TSL3 over FruitDealer, MC!!! and NaNiwa. Two GSL champions in a row! And won Dreamhack 2012 Stockholm over Polt! - MorroW (as a terran) won IEM 2010 Season V Cologne - Loner was 2nd at Blizzcon 2010 over HuK and Sen - Naama won Dreamhack 2010 over MaNa - SjoW won IEM Season V European Championships over WhiteRa - Kas was 3rd at TSL3 and WCG2011 - over MarinKing!!! in 1/4 WCG. Also 3rd at IEM Season VI Kiev. Won many minor tournaments (like Ritmix RSL I, Copenhagen Games 2012, HomerJ Cup) and earned 65k$ in tournaments - BratOK won game vs NesTea in one of the most beautifull late TvZ of all time vs NesTea at Blizzcon2011, was 4rd at ASUS ROG Summer 2011 and earned 35k$ on major and minor tournaments until retire in 2012. - Strelok won some minor tournaments like HD World Tournament, Sennheiser Regular Cup and earned ~25k$. Not only ladder, right? - Happy and LucifroN also top5 foreign terrans of all time. They won over 65k$ each and many minor tournaments as well.
And after queen patch of 2012 and new WCS system, results of most foreign terrans went down. Crush down. Only Bunny on the top.
From launch of SC2 WoL in august 2010 till mid of 2012 foreign terrans were not worse than the zergs and protosses.
No they were. Zerg still had Idra, Ret, Sen, Stephano and probably others I forgot.
Who did terran have in 2011-2012? Thorzain won TSL, but after that he didn't do a lot either.
Lucifron, BratOK, Strelok, Kas, Happy, SjoW
These guys only performed on the ladder. They were never close to being relevant in actual tournaments unlike the foreign zerg and protoss counterparts.
Only ladder?
- Jinro won MLG Dallas 2010 and was top4 GSL twice (beat MC on his peak, Ensnare and IdrA on GSL). - ThorZaIN won TSL3 over FruitDealer, MC!!! and NaNiwa. Two GSL champions in a row! And won Dreamhack 2012 Stockholm over Polt! - MorroW (as a terran) won IEM 2010 Season V Cologne - Loner was 2nd at Blizzcon 2010 over HuK and Sen - Naama won Dreamhack 2010 over MaNa - SjoW won IEM Season V European Championships over WhiteRa - Kas was 3rd at TSL3 and WCG2011 - over MarinKing!!! in 1/4 WCG. Also 3rd at IEM Season VI Kiev. Won many minor tournaments (like Ritmix RSL I, Copenhagen Games 2012, HomerJ Cup) and earned 65k$ in tournaments - BratOK won game vs NesTea in one of the most beautifull late TvZ of all time vs NesTea at Blizzcon2011, was 4rd at ASUS ROG Summer 2011 and earned 35k$ on major and minor tournaments until retire in 2012. - Strelok won some minor tournaments like HD World Tournament, Sennheiser Regular Cup and earned ~25k$. Not only ladder, right? - Happy and LucifroN also top5 foreign terrans of all time. They won over 65k$ each and many minor tournaments as well.
And after queen patch of 2012 and new WCS system, results of most foreign terrans went down. Crush down. Only Bunny on the top.
Do you read? Hider speaks about 2011-2012, anyone who followed the scene at this period knows how hard it was for the T for. Naniwa, Huk, Mana did way more than every terrans at this time except Thorzain and there were a plethora of very good protoss, way more than T. (ElfiGod, Sase, Titan, Socke, Hasu) The same goes for Z with Stephano (who did way more than Thorzain and in fact, way more than all the for T achievements of this period, Nerchio, Dimaga, Ret, Idra, Sen were extremely strongs too, once again, Thorzain is the only T who could compete with their achievements. Foreigners T were really strongs in the beginning of Wol but rapidly fell down, except Thorzain in some short moments (DH valencia or his victories over Polt), any T has been counted in the top 5 for. Well, maybe we could have included Lucifron in july and august 2011 as he was a threat for a very good and focused Stephano but as a student, he never released his full potential in tournaments except at the WCS eu 2012 with a beautiful 3rd place in the core of the BL/infest area. Kas and Happy always shocked hard in "Lan tournaments". Brat_ok was fairly beaten by Mana at Asus rog and his defeat in the match for the 3rd place against Stephano was a total no match, otherwise yes, he took one map from Nestea in the Blizzcom. Even during the HBM period, the zerg eu were doing goods, without MVP who crushed Dimaga, Steph and Tlo, the record would have been pretty bad for T in zvt and Snute was already considered as a nightmare in the MU.
From launch of SC2 WoL in august 2010 till mid of 2012 foreign terrans were not worse than the zergs and protosses.
No they were. Zerg still had Idra, Ret, Sen, Stephano and probably others I forgot.
Who did terran have in 2011-2012? Thorzain won TSL, but after that he didn't do a lot either.
Lucifron, BratOK, Strelok, Kas, Happy, SjoW
These guys only performed on the ladder. They were never close to being relevant in actual tournaments unlike the foreign zerg and protoss counterparts.
Only ladder?
- Jinro won MLG Dallas 2010 and was top4 GSL twice (beat MC on his peak, Ensnare and IdrA on GSL). - ThorZaIN won TSL3 over FruitDealer, MC!!! and NaNiwa. Two GSL champions in a row! And won Dreamhack 2012 Stockholm over Polt! - MorroW (as a terran) won IEM 2010 Season V Cologne - Loner was 2nd at Blizzcon 2010 over HuK and Sen - Naama won Dreamhack 2010 over MaNa - SjoW won IEM Season V European Championships over WhiteRa - Kas was 3rd at TSL3 and WCG2011 - over MarinKing!!! in 1/4 WCG. Also 3rd at IEM Season VI Kiev. Won many minor tournaments (like Ritmix RSL I, Copenhagen Games 2012, HomerJ Cup) and earned 65k$ in tournaments - BratOK won game vs NesTea in one of the most beautifull late TvZ of all time vs NesTea at Blizzcon2011, was 4rd at ASUS ROG Summer 2011 and earned 35k$ on major and minor tournaments until retire in 2012. - Strelok won some minor tournaments like HD World Tournament, Sennheiser Regular Cup and earned ~25k$. Not only ladder, right? - Happy and LucifroN also top5 foreign terrans of all time. They won over 65k$ each and many minor tournaments as well.
And after queen patch of 2012 and new WCS system, results of most foreign terrans went down. Crush down. Only Bunny on the top.
Do you read? Hider speaks about 2011-2012, anyone who followed the scene at this period knows how hard it was for the T for. Naniwa, Huk, Mana did way more than every terrans at this time except Thorzain and there were a plethora of very good protoss, way more than T. (ElfiGod, Sase, Titan, Socke, Hasu) The same goes for Z with Stephano (who did way more than Thorzain and in fact, way more than all the for T achievements of this period, Nerchio, Dimaga, Ret, Idra, Sen were extremely strongs too, once again, Thorzain is the only T who could compete with their achievements. Foreigners T were really strongs in the beginning of Wol but rapidly fell down, except Thorzain in some short moments (DH valencia or his victories over Polt), any T has been counted in the top 5 for. Well, maybe we could have included Lucifron in july and august 2011 as he was a threat for a very good and focused Stephano but as a student, he never released his full potential in tournaments except at the WCS eu 2012 with a beautiful 3rd place in the core of the BL/infest area. Kas and Happy always shocked hard in "Lan tournaments". Brat_ok was fairly beaten by Mana at Asus rog and his defeat in the match for the 3rd place against Stephano was a total no match, otherwise yes, he took one map from Nestea in the Blizzcom. Even during the HBM period, the zerg eu were doing goods, without MVP who crushed Dimaga, Steph and Tlo, the record would have been pretty bad for T in zvt and Snute was already considered as a nightmare in the MU.
If korean zergs continue to underperform for a few years we can say the same about them and accept it as the way it is.
If a race is underperforming it's either because they are underpowered at a certain level or because their players happen to be worse. If people say foreign terrans happen to be worse they must also accept the possibility that korean zergs happen to be worse. Don't know what foreign terrans underperforming for a long period has to do with that.
Most of the comments here is just whine. Tankivacs and other things have all multiple counter and are not a problem. Even the liberator has a counter, you just need 3 ravagers.
The liberator harass is a problem, when terran starts multiple attacks and queue up liberators. The zerg cant react fast enough and loses mining time or drones. Spore change was enough for that. If we make liberators useless, nobody will make them anymore. They are made, because they are so versatile!
- Jinro won MLG Dallas 2010 and was top4 GSL twice (beat MC on his peak, Ensnare and IdrA on GSL). - ThorZaIN won TSL3 over FruitDealer, MC!!! and NaNiwa. Two GSL champions in a row! And won Dreamhack 2012 Stockholm over Polt!
Reread the comment I responded too. Thorzain and Jinro weren't included.
MorroW (as a terran) won IEM 2010 Season V Cologne - Loner was 2nd at Blizzcon 2010 over HuK and Sen - Naama won Dreamhack 2010 over MaNa - SjoW won IEM Season V European Championships over WhiteRa - Kas was 3rd at TSL3 and WCG2011 - over MarinKing!!! in 1/4 WCG. Also 3rd at IEM Season VI Kiev. Won many minor tournaments (like Ritmix RSL I, Copenhagen Games 2012, HomerJ Cup) and earned 65k$ in tournaments - BratOK won game vs NesTea in one of the most beautifull late TvZ of all time vs NesTea at Blizzcon2011, was 4rd at ASUS ROG Summer 2011 and earned 35k$ on major and minor tournaments until retire in 2012. - Strelok won some minor tournaments like HD World Tournament, Sennheiser Regular Cup and earned ~25k$. Not only ladder, right?
Half of the accomplishments you list are 2010/very very early 2011, so once again I suggest you make sure to actually look at the context before responding.
And the other half consists of tournaments with no real competition.
I hope you never considered Kas, Bratok, Strelok, Loner or Sjow as top 5 foreigners in mid 2011/afterwards. The only terran that was relevant after early 2011 was Thorzain (Note: I define relevant as someone who for a period was a top 5 foreign player)
After meta changed to a more macrooriented game, foreign terrans slowly died until HOTS where they recovered somewhat.
Further, notice some of the results you feel forced to in clude in order to support your premise that foreign terrans performed well in WO: You need to say that Bratok won a single game over Nestea! I could also have included Dimaga actually beating Nestea in a series when Nestea was at his peak!
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
This so much. Blizzard please try to solve the real issues instead of something that only affect 5-10 Zergs in Korea.
You need to make the game more fun and less frustrating not just try to maintain a 50/50 balance for the top 0.1% of the playerbase.
From launch of SC2 WoL in august 2010 till mid of 2012 foreign terrans were not worse than the zergs and protosses.
No they were. Zerg still had Idra, Ret, Sen, Stephano and probably others I forgot.
Who did terran have in 2011-2012? Thorzain won TSL, but after that he didn't do a lot either.
Lucifron, BratOK, Strelok, Kas, Happy, SjoW
These guys only performed on the ladder. They were never close to being relevant in actual tournaments unlike the foreign zerg and protoss counterparts.
Only ladder?
- Jinro won MLG Dallas 2010 and was top4 GSL twice (beat MC on his peak, Ensnare and IdrA on GSL). - ThorZaIN won TSL3 over FruitDealer, MC!!! and NaNiwa. Two GSL champions in a row! And won Dreamhack 2012 Stockholm over Polt! - MorroW (as a terran) won IEM 2010 Season V Cologne - Loner was 2nd at Blizzcon 2010 over HuK and Sen - Naama won Dreamhack 2010 over MaNa - SjoW won IEM Season V European Championships over WhiteRa - Kas was 3rd at TSL3 and WCG2011 - over MarinKing!!! in 1/4 WCG. Also 3rd at IEM Season VI Kiev. Won many minor tournaments (like Ritmix RSL I, Copenhagen Games 2012, HomerJ Cup) and earned 65k$ in tournaments - BratOK won game vs NesTea in one of the most beautifull late TvZ of all time vs NesTea at Blizzcon2011, was 4rd at ASUS ROG Summer 2011 and earned 35k$ on major and minor tournaments until retire in 2012. - Strelok won some minor tournaments like HD World Tournament, Sennheiser Regular Cup and earned ~25k$. Not only ladder, right? - Happy and LucifroN also top5 foreign terrans of all time. They won over 65k$ each and many minor tournaments as well.
And after queen patch of 2012 and new WCS system, results of most foreign terrans went down. Crush down. Only Bunny on the top.
Do you read? Hider speaks about 2011-2012, anyone who followed the scene at this period knows how hard it was for the T for. Naniwa, Huk, Mana did way more than every terrans at this time except Thorzain and there were a plethora of very good protoss, way more than T. (ElfiGod, Sase, Titan, Socke, Hasu) The same goes for Z with Stephano (who did way more than Thorzain and in fact, way more than all the for T achievements of this period, Nerchio, Dimaga, Ret, Idra, Sen were extremely strongs too, once again, Thorzain is the only T who could compete with their achievements. Foreigners T were really strongs in the beginning of Wol but rapidly fell down, except Thorzain in some short moments (DH valencia or his victories over Polt), any T has been counted in the top 5 for. Well, maybe we could have included Lucifron in july and august 2011 as he was a threat for a very good and focused Stephano but as a student, he never released his full potential in tournaments except at the WCS eu 2012 with a beautiful 3rd place in the core of the BL/infest area. Kas and Happy always shocked hard in "Lan tournaments". Brat_ok was fairly beaten by Mana at Asus rog and his defeat in the match for the 3rd place against Stephano was a total no match, otherwise yes, he took one map from Nestea in the Blizzcom. Even during the HBM period, the zerg eu were doing goods, without MVP who crushed Dimaga, Steph and Tlo, the record would have been pretty bad for T in zvt and Snute was already considered as a nightmare in the MU.
If korean zergs continue to underperform for a few years we can say the same about them and accept it as the way it is.
If a race is underperforming it's either because they are underpowered at a certain level or because their players happen to be worse. If people say foreign terrans happen to be worse they must also accept the possibility that korean zergs happen to be worse. Don't know what foreign terrans underperforming for a long period has to do with that.
That's not "if people say foreign terrans happen to be worse", that's they happen to be worse for reasons which had been discussed for age, I guess most ppl agree on the fact that the race is really hard to master at high level so there are very few guys who have the investissment and the skills to reach a top eu level if you compare to Z and P and so, when they are less people, the individuals can matter. That's commonly stated that Kas and even more Happy were a waste of talent, they were extremely goods but could do very stupids stuff when it mattered, Lucifron was a student, Jinro and Thorzain performed wells, same goes for Bunny but that's all whereas the two other races had a bigger talent pool because they were easier to play. Anyway, during the 1/1/1 area, there were a lot of guys like you who were saying that the protoss foreigners were doing fines against their Terrans counterparts so it was not a problem to see 1 protoss in ro16 of GSL, nowadays, this build is considered as the biggest bullshit of this year but they were rights, foreigner toss were doing really goods against T. Moreover Z kor situation can not be seriously compared to T for for the same, numerous and already stated reasons but as I am a good guy and a repetition is always pedagogic, I repeat: _ Korea is the place where the level is the hightest, a flawless play tells always more about balance that an imperfect one. _ Even if to be honest (and not as baised as some others), korean Zergs had sometime be a bit off toward the meta eu, they played infestor after the foreigners, they rarely bother to play the mass static D/swarmhost compo in the very late game against toss and today, when I see soO playing hydras against a T who make obviously liberators who osed them I'm like "WTF mate?!"and I am pretty angry when I see all the fails of Loisira. However, a top korean T will most likely wreck even more a top Foreigner Z than Kor. _ Even if zerg kor are now less good than their P or T counterparts, I am still skeptic when I see every T kor having for favorite MU the tvz but hey, maybe soO, Byul, Curious, Rogue are suddenly becoming bads while T are now super handsome.(Alive 2-0 rogue and beats Dark in SL and that's not even surprising)
Zergs don't perform well on korea cause their units have really poor micro abilities. You can't kill twice, three times the value of your units with zerg units unlike P/T.
It's supposed to be the design of the race, where Z overwelm T/P with more units.
But when you nerf zerg eco, while Zerg need to takes more bases. Now zerg feel really awkward : Your macro lead is little while your units are not way more cost effective, so you see zerg trying to get some infest/bile compo really gaz heavy to be cost effective vs some low gaz Terra bio, then ultra to be cost effective.
The race isn't anymore the swarm, but closer to protoss while no photon canon or heavy cost effective units.
So zerg say buff back our eco, while blizzard show they prefer zerg stay like protoss but less stronger.
If anything it helps vs Medivacs and Oracles a bit , otherwise the main problem is still there.
Liberator needs to be a late game unit , not a harass unit. Tankivacs should be an upgrade or at least drop the tank in unsieged mode , flying tanks are pretty dumb in both TvT and ZvT
I mean who had the idea of a thor + banshee + tank combined, geting a free pass as a harass unit while also being reactored to mass it ? ( David please follow Lilbow and let sc2 follow another path )
Also... LBM still has to little larva ( you can buff the style by making banelings cheaper and mutalisk cheaper )
Okay some people throw two different things together. I think the massive player drop has nothing to do with the game design. I also would have wished for better patches. But i think people just have become lazy and want fast success. This is the era of mobas where you can learn a hero fast and u are able to master the game over a long time. When you play starcraft 1 or 2 you get crushed and it feels so much worse than in other games. I think the trend has a much higher impact than some faults of blizzard. The game is still great imo, but not for this generation (sorry i repeat myself).
On July 04 2016 00:23 Tyrhanius wrote: Zergs don't perform well on korea cause their units have really poor micro abilities. You can't kill twice, three times the value of your units with zerg units unlike P/T.
It's supposed to be the design of the race, where Z overwelm T/P with more units.
But when you nerf zerg eco, while Zerg need to takes more bases. Now zerg feel really awkward : Your macro lead is little while your units are not way more cost effective, so you see zerg trying to get some infest/bile compo really gaz heavy to be cost effective vs some low gaz Terra bio, then ultra to be cost effective.
The race isn't anymore the swarm, but closer to protoss while no photon canon or heavy cost effective units.
So zerg say buff back our eco, while blizzard show they prefer zerg stay like protoss but less stronger.
Pretty much this.
But hey David logic is always better.
I mean he ignored the Kespa feedback that asked for 4 larva, they also insisted that there is a big problem...and David basically nitpick into the Liberator being the only problem because "foreign community" rejected the kespa idea.
And what does he do ?
He tries to use bandaids like +1 range to queen AA and spore buff. And people keep prasing the guy....
I have alot of respect for Jay Wilson but he clearly failed at Diablo 3
Why cant David Kim accept that he failed and needs to go just like Jay did ?
On July 04 2016 00:23 Tyrhanius wrote: Zergs don't perform well on korea cause their units have really poor micro abilities. You can't kill twice, three times the value of your units with zerg units unlike P/T.
It's supposed to be the design of the race, where Z overwelm T/P with more units.
But when you nerf zerg eco, while Zerg need to takes more bases. Now zerg feel really awkward : Your macro lead is little while your units are not way more cost effective, so you see zerg trying to get some infest/bile compo really gaz heavy to be cost effective vs some low gaz Terra bio, then ultra to be cost effective.
The race isn't anymore the swarm, but closer to protoss while no photon canon or heavy cost effective units.
So zerg say buff back our eco, while blizzard show they prefer zerg stay like protoss but less stronger.
I agree on the zerg gameplay, it's really protoss-like with a micro based on spell casting and a lot of camping with the hope of reaching a particulary tech... However, it can be very cost efficient (ultra +8armours/queen/vipères/ravagers/infest can be deadly) but it is still very boring and the patch would maybe reequilibrate the MU but would not give me the desire to play it again. (I would still try some games to see a bit the effects but only for 2-3 hours)
On July 03 2016 21:03 Nazara wrote: The fans don't cheer because a better strategy won, but mechanical skill, something hard as f*ck to perform.
Apart from the fact that, say, chess tournaments, wouldn't have any viewers/fans at all, and that's clearly not true, from my personal experience as viewer, I never was able to appreciate mechanical skill. I always think something like "man, that was inefficient - Automaton 2000 would have done that 10x better... doh..."
On July 03 2016 21:03 Nazara wrote: The fans don't cheer because a better strategy won, but mechanical skill, something hard as f*ck to perform.
Apart from the fact that, say, chess tournaments, wouldn't have any viewers/fans at all, and that's clearly not true, from my personal experience as viewer, I never was able to appreciate mechanical skill. I always think something like "man, that was inefficient - Automaton 2000 would have done that 10x better... doh..."
Come on, you're not even enjoying micro like this?
Mechanics are an important part of the game, speed, fluidity, taking instant decisions, that can be beautiful and that's why most people loved ling's control of Life.... And this control brings tactical brightness on his play. A rts would and should never be like chess which is mostly about calcul and I would not call this a "strategy game" either even if I love chess. (Caruana <3)
Apart from the fact that, say, chess tournaments, wouldn't have any viewers/fans at all
Chess, being only a strategy game, is also nowhere near as popular as physical sports. On average, physical feats and competition is more entertaining (to greater array of people) then mental gymnastics.
The majority of viewers definitely appreciate sports for the execution. No question about it. And I also feel they should have streamlined the skillcap of Zerg with that of the other races by increasing the microability of zerg units.
For instance having the Roach as an a-move unit is dumb. Also overlord drop play should be a much bigger part of the race because it adds more multitasking and micro.
I would also love to see Lurker viability vs terran. And Ultralisk shouldn't be an OP amove unit, but should require skill to use effectively. Add some type of Dark-Swam type of ability that synergizes well with Ultra's and Lurkers, and then balance them around that ability.
Honestly, there are tons of ways you can fix zerg without getting rid of its "swarm"-feeling but rather making the units worse when a-moved and more efficient when well microed.
On July 04 2016 09:14 Hider wrote: The majority of viewers definitely appreciate sports for the execution. No question about it. And I also feel they should have streamlined the skillcap of Zerg with that of the other races by increasing the microability of zerg units.
For instance having the Roach as an a-move unit is dumb. Also overlord drop play should be a much bigger part of the race because it adds more multitasking and micro.
I would also love to see Lurker viability vs terran. And Ultralisk shouldn't be an OP amove unit, but should require skill to use effectively. Add some type of Dark-Swam type of ability that synergizes well with Ultra's and Lurkers, and then balance them around that ability.
Honestly, there are tons of ways you can fix zerg without getting rid of its "swarm"-feeling but rather making the units worse when a-moved and more efficient when well microed.
completely agree. when blizz promotes sc2, they always appeal to the "swarm" factor of zerg... sprawling nydus networks, overlord drops, flocks of mutas engulfing the skies and tumors creeping all over the place. in reality the game is nothing like that. I play terran, but my favorite zerg units are banelings, baneling mines and lurkers. they are fun to play against. when you lose, you can appreciate the patience and reaction time of the zerg player. spectators go nuts at tournaments watching a terran walk his army near a bunch of baneling mines. on the other hand, roach/ravager/ultra play is like watching paint dry and watching a zerg "micro" those units is thoroughly unspectacular.
On July 04 2016 00:23 Tyrhanius wrote: Zergs don't perform well on korea cause their units have really poor micro abilities. You can't kill twice, three times the value of your units with zerg units unlike P/T.
It's supposed to be the design of the race, where Z overwelm T/P with more units.
But when you nerf zerg eco, while Zerg need to takes more bases. Now zerg feel really awkward : Your macro lead is little while your units are not way more cost effective, so you see zerg trying to get some infest/bile compo really gaz heavy to be cost effective vs some low gaz Terra bio, then ultra to be cost effective.
The race isn't anymore the swarm, but closer to protoss while no photon canon or heavy cost effective units.
So zerg say buff back our eco, while blizzard show they prefer zerg stay like protoss but less stronger.
Exactly the truth. I don't like current design of Zerg being hardcore defensive till Hive. Buffing queens and spores means that Blizzard wants Zerg to stay that way. But that doesn't solve midgame issues of Zerg. We cannot be agressive, because that leaves a big window to receive "the fist of fury" of T or P harras or death by counter attack. I would like to see 4 larva injects back with 1 armour nerf on Ultras. In the same time Liberator nerf. It would solve the lategame issues for Terran in ZvT and midgame issues for Zerg as with 4 larva we could build our midgame economy that lets us to engage and exchange our armies with T or P without fear that we die.
On July 04 2016 00:23 Tyrhanius wrote: Zergs don't perform well on korea cause their units have really poor micro abilities. You can't kill twice, three times the value of your units with zerg units unlike P/T.
It's supposed to be the design of the race, where Z overwelm T/P with more units.
But when you nerf zerg eco, while Zerg need to takes more bases. Now zerg feel really awkward : Your macro lead is little while your units are not way more cost effective, so you see zerg trying to get some infest/bile compo really gaz heavy to be cost effective vs some low gaz Terra bio, then ultra to be cost effective.
The race isn't anymore the swarm, but closer to protoss while no photon canon or heavy cost effective units.
So zerg say buff back our eco, while blizzard show they prefer zerg stay like protoss but less stronger.
Exactly the truth. I don't like current design of Zerg being hardcore defensive till Hive. Buffing queens and spores means that Blizzard wants Zerg to stay that way. But that doesn't solve midgame issues of Zerg. We cannot be agressive, because that leaves a big window to receive "the fist of fury" of T or P harras or death by counter attack. I would like to see 4 larva injects back with 1 armour nerf on Ultras. In the same time Liberator nerf. It would solve the lategame issues for Terran in ZvT and midgame issues for Zerg as with 4 larva we could build our midgame economy that lets us to engage and exchange our armies with T or P without fear that we die.
I don't like it either and I agree with you, as I don't believe this buff goes to the right direction. But in general, the idea I believe they have is that, if early game Zerg have better defensive play, Zerg could cut more corners and get a bit more economy arriving into midgame and thus sustain a larger army which could be used for more offensive play. Unfortunately, since it also help to go turtle play I believe most will use it that way.
As for the larva buff I am for, but not a direct buff from 3 to 4.First of all it seems to be too big of a buff in my opinion, but it's also one which will be beneficial for every Zerg no matter their level which might make the race too easy to play for non-Korean. I believe a buff to inject is a better idea, like decreasing the energy cost from 25 to 20 for example (and the time to see the larva hatch accordingly): the better player you are the more you will benefit from it and I think it's the way to balance Korea (which remains the most important thing to do IMO, no matter what we read in this thread) without breaking the scene by making Zerg too easy in the other region. Any buff to Zerg must be, a "difficult to master " one, which is why I disagree with this queen buff and also a flat 3 to 4 larvas.
It feels like going from 3 to 4 larvae would be huge because the early additional drones would change the numbers game quite a bit. Earlier drones means more resources to spend on more units later (possible again due to more larvae). Also the possibility of more early lings could mean the other races need to play a bit more defensive?
The idea of making Lair/Hive give +1/+2 larva sounds so much better. Keeps the early economy in check but gives a little more larva to mass lings for LBM play
Another option could be to add a 50/50 research at Hatch or Lair that improves Queen larva spawn (?)
On July 04 2016 19:27 Salteador Neo wrote: It feels like going from 3 to 4 larvae would be huge because the early additional drones would change the numbers game quite a bit. Earlier drones means more resources to spend on more units later (possible again due to more larvae). Also the possibility of more early lings could mean the other races need to play a bit more defensive?
The idea of making Lair/Hive give +1/+2 larva sounds so much better. Keeps the early economy in check but gives a little more larva to mass lings for LBM play
Another option could be to add a 50/50 research at Hatch or Lair that improves Queen larva spawn (?)
I would not agree as the early economy is the big issue here. We all agree that Zerg macro was nerfed the most from all three races. I would say that 4 larva inject would make this game equal compared to Terran or Toss. While we watch pro games we can observe that in LOTV Terran and Toss are equal or ahead in economy compared to Zerg. In HOTS and WOL it was Zerg that kept his lead in this department. Lacking of those addicional larvae in the early game starts a snowball effect that is setting Zerg to much behind in midgame, that slows taking the 4th base and that's why Muta/Bling is not viable anymore- because Zerg has no economy to trade with cost efficient BIO of Terran or Adepts for example. We must remember that Zerg supposed to be swarm- cheaper units, lots of them but with the masses we shopuld be able to overhelm Toss or Terra. Now it's not a case anymore and all Zergs in the world understand, that in order to be cost efficient, we must turtle, defend and go tech. It's not Zerg supposed to be.
Wat Blizzard actually did in LOTv was nerfing Zerg macro to the bone and buffing Protoss and Terran harras a lot. And i mean- a lot with all those new reapers, tankivacks, liberators and in other hand buffed warprism, adepts and for example- disruptor drops. That's the core problem. I would be more than happy if Blizz would buff larva inject back to 4, even if this would cost us armour nerf on ultras. It would make Zerg more versatile in midgame and less dominant in lategame. I don't understand Blizzard dropping the idea of 4 larva. I really think they should at least put this change on the test map and then we would see how it works.
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
This so much. Blizzard please try to solve the real issues instead of something that only affect 5-10 Zergs in Korea.
You need to make the game more fun and less frustrating not just try to maintain a 50/50 balance for the top 0.1% of the playerbase.
(]WARNING : BIG RANT)
Sorry but the post you're quoting is wrong on so many levels.
You can't take it seriously it's just random whine that are so not on point with the realiity of the game that you'd wonder if the guy is playing at all, or maybe he's one of this gold/plat that insult you when you beat them for playing the race you play and blaming some imaginary design balance issues for all their defeats.
So let's take a close look if you may :
- Massive drop in player base whine : based on what? twitch tv figures? (which don't even take proleague in their count btw) or on what source? nios.kr has shut down and rankedftw says there were more people on ladder at the end of last season (205 000) than at the end of the one before (197 000).
Where is the massive drop? in OP's wet dreams?
- Ravager whine : even in plat league people know how to not let their army under bile rain. Ravager kill static defense and sieged units. Again, it's a tool to kill turtling opponent and to force dynamic play instead of dull stalemate BS. - adept shades enabling multipronged harass whine. Ok, it took people a few monthes to get used to it, but right now, how can one say it'zs a design issue? unless you want to heavily promote turtling? -disruptor being hit or miss whine : so what? means you need micro? how is this a problem? Is this the fact that you can micro to avoid it? should it be as easy to land as storm maybe? I don't think so. Like fungals, or baneling, the opponent can micro to avoid the spell and that's cool. What would we want? just another unit pew-pewing? What would it bring to the game?
- air sieged unit whine : sorry but it is a cool design, and no it's not the tanks job, any player playing terran knows there are situation when you need a tank and others when you need a liberator. Also they are not countered the same way at all. So maybe Libs have a balance issue (which these proposed changes are trying to adress) but it's not a design issue at all sorry.
- viper's PB whine : are you kidding me? why is it so bad that a tier 3 spell forces the opponent to micro? If you don' tmicro against ravens you die the same way.
-Performing difficulty vs reacting difficulty whine : now that's totally made up and makes no sense. The defender is always forced to react, by definition but it's not unreasonably harder. Like if you don't have any detection you die by DTs but it's not because it's harder, it's just because you played poorly or were caught off guard. But it's not difficult to counter, just like shades are not difficult to counter when you get used to it, raising a depot, splitting your roaches or havng your MSC and army not balled up in the same spot are just little adpatation that are not hard in any way and that shuts down adpat harass pretty well.
- TvZ terran either wins before late game or dies whine Yeah we were missing that cliche. Oh breaking news : it's totally wrong.
- all the rest of the post is the samekind of bullshit, and this post is already too long but really :
Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue
WTF! Just WTF!!! nobody that is playing the game as terran can seriously even remotly think this. You have many styles of bio comp, you have mech, you have sky, you have so many combination of opening, transitions, late game comp, so many options to harass, so many all in and timings. We see new builds poping up every damn week!
How long this community will keep on circlejerking with made up whines that don't even relate to the game? are those post made with a random bullshit generator? Have the famous whining streamers given brain cancer to all the community?
And you'd want Blizzard to give any credit to this kind of post?
Is this what people refer to when they say they want DK to listen to the community? gimme a break.
So let's get this straight : you don't like the game? fine, don't play it, nobody will think less of you. But Blizzard has to listen people that are actually playing it and enjoying it, their opinion matters much more cause their the one that will bring the good ideas. It's commone sense to focus on your core player base and not listen to all the quitters who : 1) probably won't come back 2) all have their own personal reason to quit. They're not compatible and probably not consistent either because at the end of the day they're just based on personnal taste and biased percepetion rather than actual facts.
(RANT OFF)
Ok off to play the game, I don't even know why I'm reading this site ...
Well, the discussion here has taken a completely different route.
Just quoting what an intelligent guy said: some interactions are still pretty broken and purely designed while it should be otherwise. And in some cases it should be relatively easy to adress them, but they have to commit to fuck the perfect 50 50 50 winrate bullshit for a while.
Just to quote an example, Tempest deathball. It should be relatively easy to adress by changing the micro aspect from Tempests. Righ now, they behave like most aerial units, but they have siege range, so hit and run is relatively easy to pull off, and the constant poke at max supply count with Toss fully teched is annoying to deal with since it promotes heavy turtling and endless poke to death. If instead the Tempest moved slightly faster but with very a long attack animation before releasing the projectile (channeled attack), it would behave more like a siege unit and could be easilly killed, instead of having to deal with the poking deathball and praising that the storms aren't on point before the clash. In exchange, it should be buffed in some aspect, potentially vision range.
Liberators should be easy to rebalance, with siege mode maybe needing Armory to be activated, or maybe even the unit itself. Oracles could also be reviewed, even if they don't feel as powerful in LotV. Same with Adept shade. I mean, the game and worker harass is ok, but having the game lost because they rushed a unit that is able to destroy half your economy in 10s at the start of the game is not ideal.
Adressing terran lategame shouldn't be so difficult, ultras can be nerfed safely and there's a big part of the Mech army that is pretty unnefective in most cases, so there are a ton of possibilties worth studying.
The tankivac thing can also be delayed even with a cheap 50/50 tech simply concieved to buy time , and its mechanical aspect could be reviewed too, since instapick instadrop is not exactly balanced.
There are a ton of adjustements that can be done, and its what we should ask for. Revision of what it could be improved, retaining their strengths or raising the mechanical skill cap or adressing the one-sided scenarios caused by the strength of some aspects.
And at the same time, there should be some room for improvement in different areas. For exampe, testing non-light Hellions (buff vs Protoss), Reexploring some aspects for the Adept, having a second look at the Void Ray, reworking SH, etc.
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
This so much. Blizzard please try to solve the real issues instead of something that only affect 5-10 Zergs in Korea.
You need to make the game more fun and less frustrating not just try to maintain a 50/50 balance for the top 0.1% of the playerbase.
- Massive drop in player base whine : based on what? twitch tv figures? (which don't even take proleague in their count btw) or on what source? nios.kr has shut down and rankedftw says there were more people on ladder at the end of last season (205 000) than at the end of the one before (197 000).
TvZ terran either wins before late game or dies whine Yeah we were missing that cliche. Oh breaking news : it's totally wrong.
do you watch pro games? terrans very very rarely win in lategame. on ladder it's even worse because of the difficulty of controlling ghost/liberator compared to controlling ultras.
WTF! Just WTF!!! nobody that is playing the game as terran can seriously even remotly think this. You have many styles of bio comp, you have mech, you have sky, you have so many combination of opening, transitions, late game comp, so many options to harass, so many all in and timings. We see new builds poping up every damn week!
???
if you want to go on a rant please inform yourself first about the things you are raging about. I don't agree with all things the guy you responded to said but your post is at least just as false.
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
This so much. Blizzard please try to solve the real issues instead of something that only affect 5-10 Zergs in Korea.
You need to make the game more fun and less frustrating not just try to maintain a 50/50 balance for the top 0.1% of the playerbase.
- Massive drop in player base whine : based on what? twitch tv figures? (which don't even take proleague in their count btw) or on what source? nios.kr has shut down and rankedftw says there were more people on ladder at the end of last season (205 000) than at the end of the one before (197 000).
TvZ terran either wins before late game or dies whine Yeah we were missing that cliche. Oh breaking news : it's totally wrong.
do you watch pro games? terrans very very rarely win in lategame. on ladder it's even worse because of the difficulty of controlling ghost/liberator compared to controlling ultras.
WTF! Just WTF!!! nobody that is playing the game as terran can seriously even remotly think this. You have many styles of bio comp, you have mech, you have sky, you have so many combination of opening, transitions, late game comp, so many options to harass, so many all in and timings. We see new builds poping up every damn week!
???
if you want to go on a rant please inform yourself first about the things you are raging about. I don't agree with all things the guy you responded to said but your post is at least just as false.
TvZ terran either wins before late game or dies whine Yeah we were missing that cliche. Oh breaking news : it's totally wrong.
do you watch pro games? terrans very very rarely win in lategame. on ladder it's even worse because of the difficulty of controlling ghost/liberator compared to controlling ultras.
Well. Zerg almost never survive until lategame anyway, and terrans build are design to kill before it so we almost never see it especially in Korea, since Zerg are less and less played in Proleague and have almost all dropped out of SSL. So indeed, when zerg reaches lategame + 4th base they win most of the very few games that goes at that stage, but it's also because terrans build and game plan are design for a kill before it and thus are not prepared for a late game battle. Pre-liberator AA nerf, when Maru was playing late game from the start in TvZ, he rolled every zerg he played with that style. While weaker since the nerf of the liberator AA, it does not mean that it's an impossible strategy to pull off now.
TvZ terran either wins before late game or dies whine Yeah we were missing that cliche. Oh breaking news : it's totally wrong.
do you watch pro games? terrans very very rarely win in lategame. on ladder it's even worse because of the difficulty of controlling ghost/liberator compared to controlling ultras.
Well. Zerg almost never survive until lategame anyway, and terrans build are design to kill before it so we almost never see it especially in Korea, since Zerg are less and less played in Proleague and have almost all dropped out of SSL. So indeed, when zerg reaches lategame + 4th base they win most of the very few games that goes at that stage, but it's also because terrans build and game plan are design for a kill before it and thus are not prepared for a late game battle. Pre-liberator AA nerf, when Maru was playing late game from the start in TvZ, he rolled every zerg he played with that style. While weaker since the nerf of the liberator AA, it does not mean that it's an impossible strategy to pull off now.
but at foreign level we have seen some terrans playing for the lategame and they got completely destroyed. Also maru played only 2 games with the mass liberator style
TvZ terran either wins before late game or dies whine Yeah we were missing that cliche. Oh breaking news : it's totally wrong.
do you watch pro games? terrans very very rarely win in lategame. on ladder it's even worse because of the difficulty of controlling ghost/liberator compared to controlling ultras.
Well. Zerg almost never survive until lategame anyway, and terrans build are design to kill before it so we almost never see it especially in Korea, since Zerg are less and less played in Proleague and have almost all dropped out of SSL. So indeed, when zerg reaches lategame + 4th base they win most of the very few games that goes at that stage, but it's also because terrans build and game plan are design for a kill before it and thus are not prepared for a late game battle. Pre-liberator AA nerf, when Maru was playing late game from the start in TvZ, he rolled every zerg he played with that style. While weaker since the nerf of the liberator AA, it does not mean that it's an impossible strategy to pull off now.
but at foreign level we have seen some terrans playing for the lategame and they got completely destroyed. Also maru played only 2 games with the mass liberator style
Those two games weren't even the same style. One was him going bio but not managing to kill his opponent before hive tech. The other was him going sky Terran from the start.
On July 05 2016 19:36 JackONeill wrote: He played two games with this style. Then TY i think tried it and go shreked. Also maru only played it on prion if i recall correctly.
TY lost one game in Proleague with it because he forgot liberator range. The next time he crushed his opponent. Then he used it in Kung Fu Cup and won all his games against Zerg there, and he used it a bit in the Cross Finals against Dark where he won 1 and lost 1 with it. But yeah, with the liberator AA nerf the style isn't that good anymore.
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
This so much. Blizzard please try to solve the real issues instead of something that only affect 5-10 Zergs in Korea.
You need to make the game more fun and less frustrating not just try to maintain a 50/50 balance for the top 0.1% of the playerbase.
TvZ terran either wins before late game or dies whine Yeah we were missing that cliche. Oh breaking news : it's totally wrong.
do you watch pro games? terrans very very rarely win in lategame. on ladder it's even worse because of the difficulty of controlling ghost/liberator compared to controlling ultras.
So terrans wins before late game = terran would loose if they hit late game? are you serious? since when libs are hard to control?
I would link the pro game where Terran wins but I won't bother cause all you'll answer will be "Zerg messed up" or "Terrans was already hugely ahead".
So instead I will do the opposite : did you find in SSL, SPL or GSL any game where terran was ahaed and then lost simply because the zerg hit tier 3 and made ultras? - be aware I can be as hypocritical as you, though...
WTF! Just WTF!!! nobody that is playing the game as terran can seriously even remotly think this. You have many styles of bio comp, you have mech, you have sky, you have so many combination of opening, transitions, late game comp, so many options to harass, so many all in and timings. We see new builds poping up every damn week!
???
if you want to go on a rant please inform yourself first about the things you are raging about. I don't agree with all things the guy you responded to said but your post is at least just as false.
OK let's go through this :
- In all match ups, bio, mech and sky are viable. You can even go like nathanias and mass cyclone every game
- now for the builds :
TvT : see TY vs INno, TY vs Maru, and Ryung vs Alive in SPL week 3 and 4 and you'll have almost 6 different builds
TvZ : 2 weeks ago it was 2-1-1 stim drop this week it's 111 naked drop, but of course reaper expand still works wonders
TvP : 2 weeks ago Forte beats Hero with a one base early attack with hellion medivac marines followed by cyclone tanks liberators. This week Maru beats hush with something similar but does one mine instead of hélions and bring scv's to build bunkers. Then Gumiho beats Patience with the same kind of push but on 2 bases which catches Patience totally offguard. But of course you can reaper expand. Or use TY's 2 hellions EB block build. Or steal Gumiho's strat agains MC?
All this games were played in the last 3 weeks, isn't this enough variety for you?
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
This so much. Blizzard please try to solve the real issues instead of something that only affect 5-10 Zergs in Korea.
You need to make the game more fun and less frustrating not just try to maintain a 50/50 balance for the top 0.1% of the playerbase.
TvZ terran either wins before late game or dies whine Yeah we were missing that cliche. Oh breaking news : it's totally wrong.
do you watch pro games? terrans very very rarely win in lategame. on ladder it's even worse because of the difficulty of controlling ghost/liberator compared to controlling ultras.
So terrans wins before late game = terran would loose if they hit late game? are you serious? since when libs are hard to control?
I would link the pro game where Terran wins but I won't bother cause all you'll answer will be "Zerg messed up" or "Terrans was already hugely ahead".
So instead I will do the opposite : did you find in SSL, SPL or GSL any game where terran was ahaed and then lost simply because the zerg hit tier 3 and made ultras? - be aware I can be as hypocritical as you, though...
ok not bothering anymore. If you still think tvz lategame is fine you won't change your opinion no matter what I say. + Show Spoiler +
for the rest of people INnoVation vs Dark game 5 alternatively you can just look at the numerous lategame tvz's we're seeing at foreign level where terrans usually get rolled
And if you think TvZ lategame is broken you are equally wrong, because it is still an uncharted territory for now, so it's not judicious to draw any definitive conclusion on wether it's balanced or not.
And I was talking about Maru, but Byuun won a lot of games in lategame.
On July 05 2016 19:36 JackONeill wrote: He played two games with this style. Then TY i think tried it and go shreked. Also maru only played it on prion if i recall correctly.
Also, it's now completely dead because mass liberators don't kill mass corruptors anymore. Which is why no pro player does it anymore.
Oh it's weaker, for sure. Completely dead because it's too weak? I would not be so sure, imagine it's a 50-50, balanced strategy you wouldn't be saying that it's a useless strategy right? But why, at the moment, would anyone play this strategy when the one played most of the time gives you more chance of success?
- In all match ups, bio, mech and sky are viable. You can even go like nathanias and mass cyclone every game
I choked on my coffe in laughter. Builds and compositions are two different things you know. Every single terran is abusing liberators and tankivacs because it's the only real option. Obviously i've hurt your feelings, but since most of what you "ranted" about was wrong, you seem to be a lost cause.
On July 02 2016 06:47 JackONeill wrote: The massive drop in playerbase means blizz isn't designing the game well, it's not about wether the balance team knows how to play the game. Ravager spamming ability, adept shade meaning they can threaten two mineral lines at once, disruptor being hit or miss BS, liberator doing the tank's job and therefore provoking design issues because it flies, viper's PB, etc... It's about how easy it is to perform something against how hard it is to react to it. It's easy to siege liberators. It's easy to spamm bile. It's easy to warp adepts, and shade in another mineral line. But it's so much harder to react to it. And because it has a lot to do with worker harass, it's even more frustrating because you can loose so many workers and have no option to come back into the game.
That's the real issues the game faces. That's why TvZ is "either terran wins before late game or he dies". That's why TvP is about bio killing stalkers to prevent them from killing liberators that kill every single protoss unit but the stalker. That's why once protoss cuts the map in PvZ with tempest, canons and HTs, the game is over.
To fix this (even though i know it's pointless to point out the obvious) : rework units that induces very onesided scenarii. Tempest being able to hit from 15 range with revelation, while being extremely massable? It's an issue. Ultras being so cost efficient in TvZ terran has to stay in the air? It's an issue. Tankivac harass being overwhelming and breaking defender's advantage? It's an issue. Liberators sieging mineral lines so easily but the opponent has to spend a lot of APM to defend? It's an issue. Terran being pigeonholed into one comp per matchup? It's an issue. Work on that. Work on the frustrating BS that make players leave the game. THAT'S THE ISSUES THE GAME FACE, NO ONE CARES ABOUT DK'S LEVEL ON THE LADDER.
This so much. Blizzard please try to solve the real issues instead of something that only affect 5-10 Zergs in Korea.
You need to make the game more fun and less frustrating not just try to maintain a 50/50 balance for the top 0.1% of the playerbase.
TvZ terran either wins before late game or dies whine Yeah we were missing that cliche. Oh breaking news : it's totally wrong.
do you watch pro games? terrans very very rarely win in lategame. on ladder it's even worse because of the difficulty of controlling ghost/liberator compared to controlling ultras.
So terrans wins before late game = terran would loose if they hit late game? are you serious? since when libs are hard to control?
I would link the pro game where Terran wins but I won't bother cause all you'll answer will be "Zerg messed up" or "Terrans was already hugely ahead".
So instead I will do the opposite : did you find in SSL, SPL or GSL any game where terran was ahaed and then lost simply because the zerg hit tier 3 and made ultras? - be aware I can be as hypocritical as you, though...
ok not bothering anymore. If you still think tvz lategame is fine you won't change your opinion no matter what I say. + Show Spoiler +
for the rest of people INnoVation vs Dark game 5 alternatively you can just look at the numerous lategame tvz's we're seeing at foreign level where terrans usually get rolled
Yeah TvZ is imba in KR because terrans manage to deal way too much damage mid game, however this means that they have to commit so much to agression that they die whenver zerg manages to secure T3/4bases. One could argue that if terrans reduced agression and went for more macro gamestyles they'd be able to deal with Z lategame, but if you don't commit a lot to agression you'll die anyway because zerg lategame still is overwhelming. It's really not about balance, it's about game design. Terran having to kill zerg before T3 with abusive harass tools while zerg turtles and waits for T3 isn't fun
On July 05 2016 21:33 Vanadiel wrote: And if you think TvZ lategame is broken you are equally wrong, because it is still an uncharted territory for now, so it's not judicious to draw any definitive conclusion on wether it's balanced or not.
And I was talking about Maru, but Byuun won a lot of games in lategame.
On July 05 2016 19:36 JackONeill wrote: He played two games with this style. Then TY i think tried it and go shreked. Also maru only played it on prion if i recall correctly.
Also, it's now completely dead because mass liberators don't kill mass corruptors anymore. Which is why no pro player does it anymore.
Oh it's weaker, for sure. Completely dead because it's too weak? I would not be so sure, imagine it's a 50-50, balanced strategy you wouldn't be saying that it's a useless strategy right? But why, at the moment, would anyone play this strategy when the one played most of the time gives you more chance of success?
I dunno : because it's kind of a 2 SP banshee build (sort of), if you surprise the zerg of course you'll be able to snowball with banshee/liberators. However, since zergs tend to research pneumatic more and more, I don't think you can hide it. Tried it on ladder a few times, if you go for some kind of harass (Cure's reac hellion reac SP build for instance), then switch into 3 SPs, it's kinda strong.
Also, thor and cyclone buffs may help this kind of compositions.But I really don't see it working on equal economy "straight up" macro game. If terran typed in chat "i'm going for this", zerg would just pop 10 corruptors and kill terran with an endless stream of roaches.
they should rework the adept shade, the actual one is boring and pointless.
i would remove and replace it by a new skill which allow adepts to gain inmunity and speed for about 5 seconds. that way they cant trick you with the fake shade movement and they will take some risk if they move through your entire army or base.
obviously they could not attack while using this skill.
this is a lot better for the game than the actual shade.
On July 05 2016 21:41 coolmiyo wrote: they should rework the adept shade, the actual one is boring and pointless.
i would remove and replace it by a new skill which allow adepts to gain inmunity and speed for about 5 seconds. that way they cant trick you with the fake shade movement and they will take some risk if they move through your entire army or base.
obviously they could not attack while using this skill.
this is a lot better for the game than the actual shade.
I think that making Adepts interesting was not that hard. First of all, their "shade" ability is borderline broken in terms of early game harass, the option you proposed feels better to me. If they wanted to create a harass-friendly unit, I think that they could have given some passive bonus to their attack so they get extra bonus and range if they don't attack for some seconds, making adepts very good at poking around vs early game units, still micro friendly. Shade is not that bad in the mid-lategame, even if its kinda boring.
I don't really know if the main issue with adept shade is design related, or "easiness of execution" related.
What I mean is that just like with liberators, it's so easy to warp adepts in a mineral line, and send shades into the next mineral line. It's extremly easy, just like sieging a liberator onto a mineral line is also very easy. However, both force a very APM heavy reaction. Running after adepts with bio or roaches, or shooing away a liberator requires a huge amount of attention, and even then, you still can end up eating a lot of damage even with an overall good reaction.
Remember the last time Blizzard ignored the concerns of the player-base and buffed Queens back in Wings of Liberty?
It singlehandedly broke the meta, made every ZvX game a virtually unstoppable 14 minute eco-rush to Tier 3 Brood Lord Infestor comps, and launched the pro gamer careers of XLorD, Ziktomini and JonnyRecco.
In fact, after the Patch 1.4.3 Balance Update, I'm really surprised David Kim is still working at Blizzard on the same team to this day.
It actually baffles me that Blizzard are putting legit concerns like Tankivacs and +2 armor Ultralisks into the trash and focusing on nonsensical changes like "giving queens increased AA attack range."
I dunno : because it's kind of a 2 SP banshee build (sort of), if you surprise the zerg of course you'll be able to snowball with banshee/liberators. However, since zergs tend to research pneumatic more and more, I don't think you can hide it. Tried it on ladder a few times, if you go for some kind of harass (Cure's reac hellion reac SP build for instance), then switch into 3 SPs, it's kinda strong.
Also, thor and cyclone buffs may help this kind of compositions.But I really don't see it working on equal economy "straight up" macro game. If terran typed in chat "i'm going for this", zerg would just pop 10 corruptors and kill terran with an endless stream of roaches.
I don't know either, I'm still questioning. For now there are not a lot of reasons for pro to try them, maybe when we'll get deeper in GSL/SSL in BO5/7 some terran will try them to be less predictable (assuming there are still zerg at that stage :p ) , still I'd guess that should be very map dependent too.
On July 05 2016 21:41 coolmiyo wrote: i would remove and replace it by a new skill
Why? I just don't get this mentality. Why must it have an ability?
Why not just give it faster movement speed (or even an upgrade for faster movement speed)? We'll never see things like in-combat surrounds / splits from Protoss if they never get the tools to effectively do these things.
On July 05 2016 21:41 coolmiyo wrote: i would remove and replace it by a new skill
Why? I just don't get this mentality. Why must it have an ability?
Why not just give it faster movement speed (or even an upgrade for faster movement speed)? We'll never see things like in-combat surrounds / splits from Protoss if they never get the tools to effectively do these things.
Why do people compare this Queen buff to the WoL one? This is not about making Queens able to easily defend against all harrassment (like they did in WoL as the only T harrass were Hellions...).
On July 05 2016 22:14 JackONeill wrote: I don't really know if the main issue with adept shade is design related, or "easiness of execution" related.
What I mean is that just like with liberators, it's so easy to warp adepts in a mineral line, and send shades into the next mineral line. It's extremly easy, just like sieging a liberator onto a mineral line is also very easy. However, both force a very APM heavy reaction. Running after adepts with bio or roaches, or shooing away a liberator requires a huge amount of attention, and even then, you still can end up eating a lot of damage even with an overall good reaction.
Same. We used to complain about Oracles, but at least they get exhausted from energy pretty fast, the unit is easy to kill with most AA units (at least in equal cost value), defence, and it kinda forces early game commitement to that stargate which is bad (Stargate has not the great synergy that a RaxStarport can bring to Terran).
Liberators, in comparaison, feel kinda stupid. Easy siege and worker kills and destroys any ground units under the siege area (which is not that small) insanely fast because has the highest DPS in the game.
The thing with Adepts is trickier, because actually any kind of Warp/drop can be insane, it's not exclusive to Protoss. Doom drops are Terran's signature. I would relate this problem to how vulnerable shit is if you don't have an army. Toss can drop some Pylon overcharge, Zerg has some queens which is something, but Terran doesn't have ground defense until they commit to Fortress, and the Macro is balanced around having Orbitals so you'll never have much base defense.
Regarding the early game harass, they also feel destructive to me. But I always thought that the unit was poorly designed. IMAO they could have tried with some retuning to Zealot move speed (2.5/2.75) and having Adepts as a midgame unit with different balance, because Adepts are actually ranged Zealots considering how much damage they are able to pull before dying and health pools. With that in mind, Protoss could still be active around the map and early game pressure would still be possible in a manly way. I guess that since LotV threw all the PvT mechancs away with the introduction of the Adept, it would be interesting if they reevaluated both units and tested some changes. If it doesn't break PvZ, that would be a great improvement.
On July 06 2016 04:21 PressureSC2 wrote: Change Cylcone, Change Thor, Delete Tankivac. Are any of these being tested internally now?
I guess Cyclone is tested contiously, Thor only really needs buffs to shine because it's plainly bad as a T3 unit in most cases.
The thing about tankivac is that it surely needs rebalance. It is actually a good idea and dinamizes Mech a lot, but can be exploited easily. In my opinion, it could be very easy to rebalance: - Add 50 or 100 cost investigation, with mid-low downtime, delaying the early game pressure. - Add some delays to the pick up thing, since it's insanely easy to pick up tanks to avoid projectiles. The interaction about siegevac should feel kinda different mechanically, same with Thor.
Thors really need something, they feel very underwhelming. A very small AoE effect on hit, 2.25 speed (same as bio) and +1 armor would help them insanely.
Buffing the cyclone slightly would be perfectly okay because it doesn't synergize at all with bio. It'd help terrans to explore some new compositions. I'm thinking reverting to 3 population, adding something like 15 or 20 hps on the thing, and lowering slightly the build time. Maybe at the cost of reducing slightly its movespeed.
Thor could simply use an upgrade that allows it to shoot it's AA weapon while shooting with its AG weapon. Many of the situations where the thor sucks balls is when it starts targeting the wrong stuff, and that since its autoattack cooldowns are very long, you loose 1-2 seconds to refocus. A 150/150 armory-required upgrade that takes a long time (as long as stim) to research would be nice. Maybe +1 native armor would be fair too, thor having only 1 armor is kinda stupid for sure.
Of course these buff would need to be accompanied by slight nerfs of the overused crap (liberator and tankivac abuse in every single MU). For instance, increasing the tankivac shooting delay, and nerfing the liberator AG from 85 to 70 to 2 shot hydras and 3 shot protoss gate units?
These buffs might seem very strong, but they'd even out terran : - encourages terrans to expore other compositions. Mech could be a thing in TvP with cylones? Mech could be decent in TvZ? It'd be a good thing to see new terran comps - would allow for some slight nerfs on over-emphasised units (liberator-tankivac) - doesn't synergize with bio (except for the thor, but in TvZ late game scenarii where terran needs help) so current pro scene won't be plagued by blatant abuse
Blizzard has a tendency to try already tested numbers when making balance changes, so I fully expect the next Cyclone buff (if there is one) to be a reduction in supply back to 3 or an increase in HP to 160 which were both tested in the beta.
On July 06 2016 05:52 JackONeill wrote: Buffing the cyclone slightly would be perfectly okay because it doesn't synergize at all with bio. It'd help terrans to explore some new compositions. I'm thinking reverting to 3 population, adding something like 15 or 20 hps on the thing, and lowering slightly the build time. Maybe at the cost of reducing slightly its movespeed.
Thor could simply use an upgrade that allows it to shoot it's AA weapon while shooting with its AG weapon. Many of the situations where the thor sucks balls is when it starts targeting the wrong stuff, and that since its autoattack cooldowns are very long, you loose 1-2 seconds to refocus. A 150/150 armory-required upgrade that takes a long time (as long as stim) to research would be nice. Maybe +1 native armor would be fair too, thor having only 1 armor is kinda stupid for sure.
Of course these buff would need to be accompanied by slight nerfs of the overused crap (liberator and tankivac abuse in every single MU). For instance, increasing the tankivac shooting delay, and nerfing the liberator AG from 85 to 70 to 2 shot hydras and 3 shot protoss gate units?
These buffs might seem very strong, but they'd even out terran : - encourages terrans to expore other compositions. Mech could be a thing in TvP with cylones? Mech could be decent in TvZ? It'd be a good thing to see new terran comps - would allow for some slight nerfs on over-emphasised units (liberator-tankivac) - doesn't synergize with bio (except for the thor, but in TvZ late game scenarii where terran needs help) so current pro scene won't be plagued by blatant abuse
1 thing I've been spamming for 1 year could be interesting too.
Hellions or Banshees not being light (keep it on Hellbats). Both things would make Mech much powerful vs Protoss while not affecting TvZ much, specially since the only Zerg unit that deals bonus dmage vs light are banelings and they are not the real counter to Hellions, and the only real unit that cares a ton about light armor in air battles are phoenixes.
All these patches are incredibly small. At the current rate of patching, by the time they fix everything, nobody will be playing the game anymore. They need to do a lot of big changes to the design to fix the fundamentals of the game, then maybe give players a month to adjust, then balance around the results.
Even if the game is "balanced" at the top. everything below that is facing a lot annoying stuff non stop, gimmicky stuff. Everytime im in the mood to play sc2 it disappears within 2 games. Pylon msc stalker rush while expanding and not much later a third base. 8 armor ultralisks, invincible nydus, liberator range, the insane buffed crackling, hyperfast cheap warprism with huge pick up range, 4 supply tempest, the list is endless. LOTV feels so coinflippy. Its "only" 8 months since the release of LOTV and it we are still facing the same stuff the community complained about during the beta. The game is imho not fun as terran (like HTOmario said as well and so many others).
If only the SC2 team could be as proactive as the HotS team. Just today they released a game changing major balance patch greatly affecting more than 10 heroes, and much more. They are still actively cranking out new content as well. Where is that amount of support for SC2?
On July 06 2016 09:19 PinoKotsBeer wrote: Even if the game is "balanced" at the top. everything below that is facing a lot annoying stuff non stop, gimmicky stuff. Everytime im in the mood to play sc2 it disappears within 2 games. Pylon msc stalker rush while expanding and not much later a third base. 8 armor ultralisks, invincible nydus, liberator range, the insane buffed crackling, hyperfast cheap warprism with huge pick up range, 4 supply tempest, the list is endless. LOTV feels so coinflippy. Its "only" 8 months since the release of LOTV and it we are still facing the same stuff the community complained about during the beta. The game is imho not fun as terran (like HTOmario said as well and so many others).
I don't think lotv feels coin flippy at all. If I lose its because I got outplayed. That's it.
On July 05 2016 23:48 Railgan wrote: Why do people compare this Queen buff to the WoL one? This is not about making Queens able to easily defend against all harrassment (like they did in WoL as the only T harrass were Hellions...).
In TvZ zerg is forced into it's least mobile unit composition while terran uses maximum mobility units like liberators, tankivacs, stimmed bio, dropped bio and helions. Zerg is very fragile and is to play the defenders game with inferior defence mechanics. Any sort of semi commitment aggression or counter aggression can be shut down easily by the superior defence mechanics of terran.
Now what you do is to buff queens and spore crawlers. What for? So that zerg can defend better. Will it change anything fundamental? No.
I tell you what. If you think anyone is having fun playing the defenders game with zerg in every game with the least mobile composition of units aside of some korean masochits, you are mistaken (actually I guess not even them). Ravagers were to become a bit of an exception and allow zerg to get offensive but it really doesn't cut it for me and is the wrong choice: It only makes the matchup more fragile as massing ravagers is a thing and anything else isn't.
In a healthy state of the game the roles should be the other way round. Zerg in the offensive position to abuse it's mobility and terran in the defensive position to abuse what they can achieve with only very few units at defending.
Mission failed.
Why? 1. Even if you get winrates right, it still will hardly be fun to play. 2. TvZ is fragile. Ravager massing is strong. Little shifts in the meta might enable zerg to overpower terran with roach/ravagers in many games. Ultralisk follow up as well. 3. Everything which is too strong can be massed and built too early. Very few adaptions needed, both build their best composition from minute one, no variability, barely any progress through the techs and units. Terran just masses bio, liberator and tankivacs from the beginning. Zerg masses roaches/ravagers only and potentially later transitions into utlralisks and air if the game lasts as long.
SC2 is rightfully to decline in this state. I don't see many people having fun with it (the opposite).
So what would be right for sc2? Bring back and stretch early and midgame. Liberators shouldn't be an option for harrassment but an endgame unit, ravagers should be available alot later only. Bio should lose marauder so that lurkers can get a sooner but weaker appearance and positional play tanks vs. lurkers gets a place (bw-like). Nerf baneling dmg by 50%, etc. (not listing every detail now). Adjust endgame so that zerg has a weaker 200/200 army and is forced to engage terran all the time to not let him get to 200/200. Easy as that. I would love to play that as both terran and zerg. It would feel right as you can abuse each race's strenth which is unit efficiency as terran and mobility and quickly shifting units as zerg.
Strengthen strenghts instead of weaken weaknesses! What you do is the opposite. You weaken zergs weakness which is defending. And yes therefore it is fundamentally wrong. You haven't understood your own game the slightest.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/uDahNHW.png)
lol
