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Patching quickly or slowly
We noticed a lot of discussion around whether it’s good to balance patch often or almost never do a balance patch. Interestingly, our community looked to be leaning towards the second option. Compared to say like last year, this is the opposite of what we’re seeing from the community side. We’ve also seen this go back and forth heavily among the pros. For example, when Kespa pros first came in, we were getting heavy feedback that we can never patch the game because pro players will always figure out everything on their own + there is no reason to ever patch the game. These days, we almost never hear this type of feedback from pro players.
Our stance on this definitely used to lean towards almost never patching the game back in wings or early days of HotS, but towards the end of HotS and start of LotV, this line of thought has changed due to more experience. The correct answer we believe to this question is that it really depends on the issue.
For example, if something is seen as overpowered but makes for fun games, we can wait longer to see if players find their own solutions. A good example of this is if things like Marine drops or Ravagers are seen as overpowered, we can wait a bit longer to see if players find their own solutions. The reason is that units or strategies that promote more action within the game can create more fun both in terms of playing and watching.
On the flip side, for the Brood Lord / Infestor situation we saw back in Wings, we believe we needed to act much quicker due to how stale each game becomes. The Swarm Host issue back in HotS was the same sort of issue, and that’s why we made a move to nerf the unit even when top Korean pro players at the time were saying there was no balance problem with Swarm Hosts (since we mostly only saw the stalemate games outside of KR).
And like we’ve discussed in the past couple weeks, we believe the current issues we are looking at such as the Ultralisk, Adept, Liberator, or Warp Prism are all issues within the first category. So while we definitely should work towards discussing or testing potential solutions in case they do turn out to be overpowered, these are definitely issues that we can take our time to evaluate while giving players the time they need to potentially figure out their own solutions.
So in this specific scenario we can wait for the pro feedback to confirm the list of changes, and then go through with the balance test map right away even if it means we’re not patching to the live game right away.
Pro feedback regarding proposed changes
Because Kespa is preparing for the Proleague finals in IEM Shanghai this weekend, they haven’t gotten around to pinging all of their players yet, but we will definitely let you guys know when this comes in next week. However, after having a brief conversation with them yesterday, they seem to have the most issues with Siege Tanks being dropped in Siege mode from Medivacs and the problems it causes for TvZ. We’ll definitely make sure to pay close attention to both the proleague finals as well as the IEM games this weekend.
Previous Community Update (July 15)
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Remove Tankivacs and make TvT truly great again!
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Only 2 Terran qualified for IEM and only 1 remains because he cheesed 2 games. Yeh guys, seige tanks against zerg are a big problem /s
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"For example, if something is seen as overpowered but makes for fun games"
Tell us how TvZ/P late game is fun for the terran player?
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I would love it if flying tanks were removed. I feel like it would make ling/bane better then it is now. My only concern with it is siege tanks being shit in tvz. Not sure if that will happen, but that is my only concern. I don't want that option to be removed, but we shall see.
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I guess I understand the lack of movement since the PL finals are coming up, but I believe there is still alot of issues that seem swept under the rug, since balance is only half of David's job the other half being design I'm wondering when anything of any substance will get brought to the light.
- tankivacs being problematic (I mean obviously) while the tank itself isn't all that great, especially late game vs Zerg and totally worthless vs. Protoss 5 long years later.
- Aerial armies almost unanimously being stronger in any situation to ground armies (leads to defensive turtle games)
- Ultralisks rofl stomping bio but being utterly useless vs Protoss is a weird dynamic for a tier 3 unit
- Liberators cancelling out the amazing skill and micro it takes to use Mutalisks in ZvT is just bad/lazy design
- Liberators being mandatory for Terrans against Protoss doesn't feel very fun or strategic for Terrans
- Mech being worse then it's ever been (Soo many hard counters, Vipers, Immortals, Chargelots, any air unit besides Mutalisks really) creating a serious lack of diversity in Terran play. 5 years later of bio bio bio bio bio bio OP Skyterran bio bio bio bio is not good for viewership.
- The Cyclone being the new retard unit in the game next to the Swarm Host due to having unbalance able gimmick ability instead of just good raw stats. Just make the unit a foot man for mech or something it has zero role or identity in the Terran army.
- All spell casters suck besides the High Templar and Viper, Ghosts and Ravens are unwieldy at best and Infestors are a very very fragile easy to focus down 150 gas sink while the High Templar is a standard unit in every match up.
- Vikings and Banshees being pushed to the way side because the Liberator does both of their jobs better then them (Just like the Adept making Stalkers and Zealots seem like a waste of supply)
I don't know maybe I'm just splitting hairs because I watch and play the game all the time but these all feel like design issues that if rectified would make the game have alot more depth to it.
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I think it would be nice if thinks like mech would get more viable or units that are not really played atm in most matchups like Bcs, Carriers, Ravens or Shs... Or abilitys that have no real use atm like Neural Parasite or upgrades like Gravitic Boosters or High Capacity Fuel Tanks... These things are not reallly played atm so why not change them so they are being used again.
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I think tanks are very hard to balance at this point. Without tankivacs, they would be just too weak, even weaker than the HoTS version, because they added additional counters. They could try to add some damage, like they did in a previous balance test map, but tanks would still be too vulnerable vs ravagers and other counters.
One way to address tanks is to do what many people have suggested before: 1) Increase the damage a bit 40 (60 vs armored) and 2) tanks can be picked up sieged, but are dropped unsieged, transitioning to sieged state (which takes some seconds).
I guess this would be a good alternative to try.
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Russian Federation15 Posts
There is a clearly problem with current state of TvP. Main problems are:
- Adepts with Warp Prism. It is just strange when Protoss kills 7-10 workers with 4 adepts even if they are being targeted. While at the same time Protoss can defend 1 Medivac drop with 8 marines with single Mothership Core alone and it deals usually 0 worker kills.
- DT's with Warp Prism. This combination is totally broken. You use scan -> WP just picks DT. Scan over -> DT dropped again... and again... and again. You can't deal with it without great economic damage. Even Maru and TY died many times to that thing or were put far behind and then killed by Protoss death ball
I really do not understand current position of David. He completely ignores facts. Every single terran struggles nowadays against protoss if they have the same level of skill
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On July 30 2016 02:34 CTBM wrote:
Only 2 Terran qualified for IEM and only 1 remains because he cheesed 2 games. Yeh guys, seige tanks against zerg are a big problem /s
The skill level at IEM isn't exactly high.
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The tankivac is a necessary evil in non-mirrors, especially in LotV thanks to the existence of things like ravagers and adepts. It needs the mobility because everything else has insane mobility. The amount of dps you'd have to give the tank in order to justify building them in TvZ/TvP would be crazy, because you would have to put it at a level that guarantees a certain amount of damage before they just die. And that would truly wreck TvT.
How would you even deal with ravager rushes without the tankivac? Open really fast defensive banshee every game and then get nothing done against buffed AA queens after holding off the rush/if the rush never comes?
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On July 30 2016 02:34 CTBM wrote:
Only 2 Terran qualified for IEM and only 1 remains because he cheesed 2 games. Yeh guys, seige tanks against zerg are a big problem /s
foreign terrans have always been weaker than korean terrans in relation to the other races. besides, masa played 2 tvps and barely lost 2-3 to showtime, one of the best foreigners there is. uthermal absolutely rekt snute in the 1 "real" game they played using double factory tanks.
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Remove Tankivacs would fix so much of the game. You can buff them in some other way but please god they shouldn't be that mobile.
You can give the ravager a heavy nerf to go with it if you must.
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On July 30 2016 03:04 Executer08 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2016 02:34 CTBM wrote:
Only 2 Terran qualified for IEM and only 1 remains because he cheesed 2 games. Yeh guys, seige tanks against zerg are a big problem /s foreign terrans have always been weaker than korean terrans in relation to the other races. besides, masa played 2 tvps and barely lost 2-3 to showtime, one of the best foreigners there is. uthermal absolutely rekt snute in the 1 "real" game they played using double factory tanks.
Foreign Zergs are currently stronger than Korean zergs atm i'm not sure i see your point.
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On July 30 2016 03:04 Executer08 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2016 02:34 CTBM wrote:
Only 2 Terran qualified for IEM and only 1 remains because he cheesed 2 games. Yeh guys, seige tanks against zerg are a big problem /s foreign terrans have always been weaker than korean terrans in relation to the other races. besides, masa played 2 tvps and barely lost 2-3 to showtime, one of the best foreigners there is. uthermal absolutely rekt snute in the 1 "real" game they played using double factory tanks.
'Korean zergs have always been weaker in relation to the other races in lotv.'
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560 words with no content, Mr Kim should be a politician 
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On July 30 2016 03:07 SetGuitarsToKill wrote:
Remove Tankivacs would fix so much of the game. You can buff them in some other way but please god they shouldn't be that mobile.
You can give the ravager a heavy nerf to go with it if you must.
More like a redesign for Corrosive Bile, any ability that hard counters another unit to the point where it necessitates a crazy gimmick change (like tanks being able to be picked up) needs the redesign in the first place.
Ravagers fucking suck as straight combat units as well, they are only good because Bile can win games outright (as if SC2 really needed more of that right?)
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On July 30 2016 03:13 Topdoller wrote:560 words with no content, Mr Kim should be a politician
He is.
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On July 30 2016 03:11 CTBM wrote:Show nested quote +On July 30 2016 03:04 Executer08 wrote:On July 30 2016 02:34 CTBM wrote:
Only 2 Terran qualified for IEM and only 1 remains because he cheesed 2 games. Yeh guys, seige tanks against zerg are a big problem /s foreign terrans have always been weaker than korean terrans in relation to the other races. besides, masa played 2 tvps and barely lost 2-3 to showtime, one of the best foreigners there is. uthermal absolutely rekt snute in the 1 "real" game they played using double factory tanks. Foreign Zergs are currently stronger than Korean zergs atm i'm not sure i see your point.
Post evidence
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EPT![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CM809rKWoAAiV0C.jpg)
