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Not Testing Automating Spawn Larva
We agreed with the many strong arguments towards not needing to test this again. We were impressed with the quality of discussions around this topic, and overall we agree that with the Zerg changes already coming in, it is questionable to also make Zerg easier to play. Also, we thoroughly tested what this change means just last year, and there weren’t strong arguments to go against the conclusions that you guys brought up back then (neither from the community nor from the pro players). Therefore, we agree with the majority of you that going back and testing this again is unnecessary at this time.
Next Balance Test Update
The Cyclone, Baneling, and Auto Turret changes we discussed last week will go into testing this week because we haven’t see any alarming issues brought up.
We’ve tested the Stalker change, and feel that it does make Protoss compositions a bit more all-around and Stalker-based. While this might not necessarily be bad, but we’d like to hold off on this change unless it’s absolutely needed We don’t want to lose focus on the goal of seeing a strong diversity of gateway units being used, and we would like to get more feedback around the Zealot changes before pursuing other directions.
For the Tempest, we’d like to get some more feedback because it’s been a bit difficult to tell exactly how strong the fast-teching to Tempests route is. If it is a serious issue, we should definitely look into adding an upgrade or a cool-up time to the ability in order to nerf the time in which the ability hits the field.
We haven’t seen a lot of discussion on potential additional Protoss changes, but we still believe that slightly toning up the Disruptor (without buffing it much in PvP) could be a strong direction. In addition, we’ll keep looking at changes to the Stalker to help Protoss against early/mid game options that may arise due to the changes to other races. As always, we’re open to discussing and considering other ideas as well.
Thanks, and we look forward to seeing your discussions and feedback on these topics!
---Changes---
The following changes are being implemented today to the Testing section of Multiplayer, as well as the Balance Test Extension Mod.
Baneling
+10 Health buff moved to the Centrifugal Hooks upgrade.
Cyclone
Anti-ground weapon attack period changed from 0.07 to 0.1.
Removed random delays from the Anti-ground weapon.
Starport Tech Lab:
The "Explosive Shrapnel Shells" upgrade was replaced with the "Recalibrated Explosives" upgrade.
"Recalibrated Explosives" upgrade:
Increases the Seeker Missile unit's tracking range by 50% (13 to 19.5).
Increases the Seeker Missile's damage by 30%.
BUG FIXES
The Nexus no longer has a kill counter.
Updated multiple tooltip descriptions.
Fixed a display issue with the Infestor when using the Neural Parasite.
Cyclone now deals intended amount of damage over time.
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OP's note: If you want changes to Protoss in the test map, now's the time to push for them.
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Funny enough I did a post on Reddit about this same thing, the response I got was that they didnt wanted anything and would rather have no changes at all, I wonder what the answer will be now, protoss is I guess the strongest race in LotV (as in has the most usable stuff and variety of playstyles not about winrates)
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I love how they state that there's "any alarming issues brought up" while tempest cheeses are horribly game breaking in TvP.
Also TvT is a campfest because there is no ground mech AA. Air domination is only based on raven/vikings, which means that liberators in turn give ground domination. So everyone camps into an air deathball the moment they have a third, and there is nothing the opponent can do about it but mass an air deathball himself.
Good AA on the cyclone (possible an upgrade) would solve that.
Also about protoss, why is the overcharge still in the game? If we're going for design changes, seems like PO is the very first fucking thing to look at.
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Yes, auto-inject denied again.
Now on the adept side, please nerf (if you want, buff stalker and zelot a little)
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Remove +vs Shields on Disruptor and give it 160 damage overall.
It's a bit too common in PvP's and such a change would help get Archons, Immortals and possibly Colossus back into the matchup and bring more diversity. 160 damage is the magic number, if it doesn't one shot Stalkers, it is useless, if it one shots Stalkers it's super strong in PvP.
Also this would make it one shot Siege Tanks, they are now so powerful that this does not actually kill the Siege Tank in the matchup, with all of the +vs armoured that Siege Tank have in the current iteration, it actually trades quite evenly with the Disruptor even with such a change.
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I like these changes, especially the baneling changes, but I'll come right out and say that I'm tired of upgrades that are so damn strong, why do Seekers need a 50 % range increase with the upgrade? It's just so drastic when 25 % would be more then sufficient, preferably the Raven should be a strong utility support as this game already has a ton of damage so why we need yet another burst damage ability in the game is unknown to me right off the bat.
Zerg
- Bring back Ventral sacks to allow Overseers to be turned into drop ships as well, keep it the expensive 200/200 it was or whatever, bringing more ability for Zerg to attack should be key for this balance patch as now that Ravagers have been put back into their place Zerg will be more defensive then ever.
- Nerf Ultralisk armor at least 1 so Bio doesn't have to go Skyterran or mass Ghost to defeat them, they just need a mild durability nerf
- Reduce Lurker Den research time (my God in heaven it takes an eternity for this thing to get done) but nerf Lurker damage so they aren't so ridiculously oppressive and punishing to micro against. Even in ZvZ, you either kill the guy before Lurkers or you have Lurkers of your own or you need a smooth transition into heavy Brood Lord play, they are just so damn powerful, granted, they have to be because they take so long to get, but I think a better dynamic would be to make them slightly weaker but come out slightly quicker to help Zerg hold ground in the early mid game.
- Make Fungals faster but remove root and replace it with a slow. Fungal fucking sucks outside of lucky money shots because everything in LOTV is so quick, everyone knows the root is cancer, just redesign this ability a wee bit and be done with it sheesh
- Screw the idiotic easy mode automated inject, just make hatcheries spawn larvae slightly quicker (buff for early game production and enables easier comebacks after drone losses) but lower the cap on them to limit broken late game max outs (clear late game nerf will make macro hatcheries necessary)
Protoss
-Tempest - Reduce the duration of the stasis web thing
-Zealots - Are pretty awesome, wish they would just remove charge, buff movement speed right out of the Gateway and make Charge (so noob) just good old Zealot legs to make Zealots a fast moving micro beneficial melee unit (able to more easily move out early game, respond to drops better)
-Stalker - buff this unit, it's crap, Protoss gateway has always needed help, it just shoots tickle me rainbow bolts, nerf Blink if necessary but new Hydralisks eat these things for breakfast even with Blink lol
-Disruptor - Turn it into the Reaver, I rarely hear anything positive about it's attack mechanism controls, or just make it shoot the balls normally like the Reaver and leave the Disruptor unit model in I guess.
-Adept - Nerf shade actually for real and not some hilarious vision reduction which does little to nothing to reduce the power of being able to threaten a secondary area while being able to safely retreat while 2 shotting drones, this unit is ridiculous and everyone knows it, nerf it and stop playing games no pun intended. The unit is already beefy, hits hard, shreds workers and light units, nerf the Adept and buff the Stalker and redesign the Sentry because FF sucks.
-Oracle - Nerf this unit vs workers somehow, pretty absurd that both the Oracle and the Phoenix are premier worker killing units that contribute to cancer proxy nonsense, yes, even at the pro level lol
-Sentry - Redesign this unit from the ground up to be a reliable and sturdy Gateway support unit which will enable small groups of Gateway units to take skirmishes more effectively.
- Remove attack entirely and replace it with a poor mans Shield Battery
- Give +1 armor and extra HP for added beefiness
Terran
- Remove Thor, replace it with the Goliath, or reduce Thor size and turn it into the Goliath. Factory has no mobile AA and the balance team seems obsessed with turning the Cyclone into yet another strong vs ground units crap vs air units instead of making the unit itself good against fast moving air units...which is pretty much mechs crippling handicap
- Everything else with Terran seems fine, the Ghost still doesn't compete with High Templars in terms of caster utility but I've given up on the team making the Ghost good at all
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On October 07 2016 05:29 ejozl wrote:
Remove +vs Shields on Disruptor and give it 160 damage overall.
It's a bit too common in PvP's and such a change would help get Archons, Immortals and possibly Colossus back into the matchup and bring more diversity. 160 damage is the magic number, if it doesn't one shot Stalkers, it is useless, if it one shots Stalkers it's super strong in PvP.
Also this would make it one shot Siege Tanks, they are now so powerful that this does not actually kill the Siege Tank in the matchup, with all of the +vs armoured that Siege Tank have in the current iteration, it actually trades quite evenly with the Disruptor even with such a change.
Disruptors can outrange siege tanks if the shot is straight, as of right now they can counter all of mech ground because they are faster than all mech units (including hellions) and can oneshot everything but siege tanks, new cyclones (wich are left with 15 and 35 health) and thors. (I'm talking about the sphere it shoots ofc).
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i would love to see the stalker buff, then u dont have to play that much adepts and stalker with blink are more fun to play & watch compared to adept.
A adept nerf is not good, it will prevent harass vs zerg completly and can shot down by lings pretty well. Adept allins are out of fassion as well.
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Increases the Seeker Missile unit's tracking range by 50% (13 to 19.5)
This is huge,i fear mass ravens will become viable in all matchup.
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In my opinion, there are a lot of problems with Protoss design
- Stalkers and Zealots are too weak, Adepts are too strong
- Phoenix more or less mandatory in PvZ (to guard against heavy Muta play)
- Oracle harassment is too strong
- Mothership Core exists and is actually necessary for early game defense (and enables offensive pylon rushes)
- Void Ray only has a niche role
- Overlapping splash (Colossus, Disruptor, Psi Storm)
- Too many spells and abilities
So, just to name the change with the most potential for a positive impact: please try changing the Stalkers damage to flat 14 damage and in turn increase its cost. For example
Stalker
Minerals: 150
Gas: 75
Damage: 14
This makes Stalkers trade much better with massable units like Marines, Zerglings, Zealots, Mutaliks. Stalkers would also kill probes and drones (3 hits instead of 4) and SCVs faster (4 hits instead of 5). The idea is to make Stalkers the all-round, clear-cut but ressource intensive damage dealer of the Protoss Army so that Adepts and Zealots can fill more specialized roles (harass/high vs. light damage/scouting for Adepts, and tanking/ drops for Zealots).
The change previously suggested was to give Stalkers a damage modifier against light armor:
Some of the ideas here that we’re currently discussing are: Finding ways to potentially buff Disruptors vs. Terran and/or Zerg, or Stalker base damage increased vs. light while keeping the total damage vs. armored the same.
In my opinion, this is the right direction but—as I said—the change should be more drastic and clean.
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On October 07 2016 07:26 Turb0Sw4g wrote:In my opinion, there are a lot of problems with Protoss design - Stalkers and Zealots are too weak, Adepts are too strong
- Phoenix more or less mandatory in PvZ (to guard against heavy Muta play)
- Oracle harassment is too strong
- Mothership Core exists and is actually necessary for early game defense (and enables offensive pylon rushes)
- Void Ray only has a niche role
- Overlapping splash (Colossus, Disruptor, Psi Storm)
- Too many spells and abilities
So, just to name the change with the most potential for a positive impact: please try changing the Stalkers damage to flat 14 damage and in turn increase its cost. For example This makes Stalkers trade much better with massable units like Marines, Zerglings, Zealots, Mutaliks. Stalkers would also kill probes and drones (3 hits instead of 4) and SCVs faster (4 hits instead of 5). The idea is to make Stalkers the all-round, clear-cut but ressource intensive damage dealer of the Protoss Army so that Adepts and Zealots can fill more specialized roles (harass/high vs. light damage/scouting for Adepts, and tanking/ drops for Zealots). The change previously suggested was to give Stalkers a damage modifier against light armor: Show nested quote +Some of the ideas here that we’re currently discussing are: Finding ways to potentially buff Disruptors vs. Terran and/or Zerg, or Stalker base damage increased vs. light while keeping the total damage vs. armored the same. In my opinion, this is the right direction but—as I said—the change should be more drastic and clean.
Regarding the proposed staler change I feel it makes the stalker too powerful for being so readily available. Seems what you propose is stalkers become the protoss hydralisk which should mean that you would need to tech to get it, and with tech I don't mean just a ccore but for example a twilight. This would make protoss extremely weak to air pressure if they can't get anything but sentry and overcharge that shoots up until twilight is done. Seems hard to balance out.
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I don't know why so many people are against auto casting larva. As a zerg player, the most fun I have had playing sc2 was when larva was auto-injected. There is so much more time to focus on macro, micro and tasks that generally provide impact to the game, not a mundane click on a hatchery that is required or the race cannot be played.
Zerg already has the most difficult macro in the game due to having more bases than the other races, and constantly having to deal with harass on an expanded front. If really necessary, there are also many other ways to make zerg's macro feel a little more difficult.
1.increase base larva spawn on the hatchery, and give queen an ability with a large cooldown to further increase the spawn rate. Or just simply increase the time between each cycle so that zerg's have more time in between to focus on other tasks.
-this will keep the larva mechanic in play, but not force zerg to inject as many cycles per game.
2.Use the auto-cast larva mechanic, but change creep tumors so that they spread much less creep, and have a slightly shorter cooldown.
-this will require the zerg to focus much more attention to spreading creep, which will generally feel more impactful then spawning larva.
These are just two ideas that I came up with that will generally add more fun to the zerg race, and all of its matchups. I have played starcraft and visited this website for over 8 years and I have just now created this account in order to make this post, that is how strongly I feel about this issue. I don't think I am the only one who feels this way, but if the majority of zergs like spawning larva aimlessly every game, then the ability should obviously not be removed. However, I cannot take those arguing that they have spend years "mastering" this mechanic seriously because this mechanic is very simple, it can be mastered in a very short amount of time, and on top of all, we have had to adapt to much larger changes since SC2's inception.
Cheers.
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no auto-inject? STOP THE PRESSES
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On October 07 2016 08:04 Victory1 wrote:
I don't know why so many people are against auto casting larva. As a zerg player, the most fun I have had playing sc2 was when larva was auto-injected. There is so much more time to focus on macro, micro and tasks that generally provide impact to the game, not a mundane click on a hatchery that is required or the race cannot be played.
Zerg already has the most difficult macro in the game due to having more bases than the other races, and constantly having to deal with harass on an expanded front. If really necessary, there are also many other ways to make zerg's macro feel a little more difficult.
1.increase base larva spawn on the hatchery, and give queen an ability with a large cooldown to further increase the spawn rate. Or just simply increase the time between each cycle so that zerg's have more time in between to focus on other tasks.
-this will keep the larva mechanic in play, but not force zerg to inject as many cycles per game.
2.Use the auto-cast larva mechanic, but change creep tumors so that they spread much less creep, and have a slightly shorter cooldown.
-this will require the zerg to focus much more attention to spreading creep, which will generally feel more impactful then spawning larva.
These are just two ideas that I came up with that will generally add more fun to the zerg race, and all of its matchups. I have played starcraft and visited this website for over 8 years and I have just now created this account in order to make this post, that is how strongly I feel about this issue. I don't think I am the only one who feels this way, but if the majority of zergs like spawning larva aimlessly every game, then the ability should obviously not be removed. However, I cannot take those arguing that they have spend years "mastering" this mechanic seriously because this mechanic is very simple, it can be mastered in a very short amount of time, and on top of all, we have had to adapt to much larger changes since SC2's inception.
Cheers.
Both creep spreading and injecting are macro mechanics, inject is more impactful thats a fact. Both have very limited strategic decision in them, so you're just suggesting to push whichever more fun to you? Well maybe its not the case for everyone.
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Change the phoenix range to 6, and remove the upgrade. The unit is too weak or too strong versus mutas.
Replace the Thor with the goliath (please, you know it's time)
Make Lurker tech faster but make them with flat damage of 20, they are too strong.
Reduce a bit of adepts HP, exchange zealtos charge with legs.
Remove mothership core and give sentry a spell to full shields.
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On October 07 2016 04:14 Lexender wrote:
Funny enough I did a post on Reddit about this same thing, the response I got was that they didnt wanted anything and would rather have no changes at all, I wonder what the answer will be now, protoss is I guess the strongest race in LotV (as in has the most usable stuff and variety of playstyles not about winrates)
That's a pretty poor metric for strongest race
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Random Protoss Ideas
Buildings powered by 1 pylon are constructed slightly slower than they do currently. Buildings powered by more than 1 pylon are constructed at a faster rate depending on the number of pylons.
Mothership travels 33% slower if going up or down a cliff. Same speed over all other terrain/space (ramps and dead space included)
Rotate how Collosus deals splash damage. Collosus keeps the same range but it's attacks sweep up and down. Rather than side to side. Widen the splash radius and/or increase the damage and/or limit the number of lasers per attack to 1. (More micro required, but stronger in chokepoints)
Void Ray ideas.... Increase turn rate and/or acceleration. Make them micro-able/useable. Slight increase in base damage against non-armor. Or give void rays a cast-able ability. Possible ideas... Something like Kunka's KoKo-rum in which incoming damage is delayed or a portion of the damage the void ray does is recovered as shield health. Or give void rays initial attack on a target a knock-back so that the targeted unit gets knocked back to the void rays maximum attack range. Still possible to overrun/outnumber a void ray, but gives the void ray a tool to deal with small groups of units that would otherwise run it over.
Give carrier interceptors slightly less health and significantly more armor. (more effective vs. high attack speed units, less effective vs. high damage attacks)
Adepts - Reduce the damage an adept does on its first hit on a target. Increase the damage of the second consecutive attack to compensate. All consecutive attacks afterwards would be affected by the bonus damage. An adept would still do the same amount of damage as it does now if it hits the target twice. But if two adepts hit the same target. They do less combined damage because their first attack is weaker. A drone doesn't get 1 shot by 2 adepts, but it still gets 2 shot by 1 adept.
Reduce damage of overcharge. Units affected by overcharge are slowed. Possibly increase range of overcharge as well.
Feel free to cut/paste to reddit thread if you like any of them. I don't have a reddit account.
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Adepts should have to be made from gateways....as in trained...they should not be able to be warped in...this will force the toss player to value them more and not spam them...
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I was bored so I created a short table to see what the current test-map Cyclone might be good at outside of the early-game:
Unit Cost HP DPSvsL_0 DPSvL_1 DPSvA DPSvB DPSvB_+3
Marine 50/0/1 45 14.7 12.5 12.5 12.5 20
Marauder 100/25/2 105 14 11.2 25.2 25.2 33.6
Cyclone 150/100/3 180 30 20 50 50 80
DPSvsL_0 = DPS vs light with 0 base armor
DPSvsL_1 = DPS vs light with 1 base armor
DPSvsA = DPS vs armored
DPSvsB = DPS vs buildings
DPSvsB_+3 = DPS vs buildings with +3 upgrades
The upshot is that relative to other Terran units with similar mobility (aka bio) the Cyclone is:
* More supply efficient vs armored on both a health and DPS basis
* Less cost efficient
* Incredibly good at killing buildings once upgraded
* Surprisingly decent at killing light units without any base armor.
That last point deserves a little more examination. Below is a table of shots and time to kill (in parentheses) vs a few non-armored units:
Unit vsZergling* vsBaneling* vsDrone* vsProbe vsSCV
Marine 6(2.4) 7(3) 7(3) 7(3) 8(3.4)
Marauder 4(2.84) 5(3.55) 5(3.55) 4(2.84) 5(3.55)
Cyclone 12(1.2) 14(1.4) 14(1.4) 14(1.4) 15(1.5)
* Includes natural health regeneration
The marine obviously handily outperforms the Cyclone for cost and supply, but what's surprising is how badly the Cyclone beats the marauder when it comes to time to kill. This is because with such a high-ROF, low damage weapon, the Cyclone has almost no overkill on low-health targets.
So..a unit that's really really good at killing buildings (especially static-d), and pretty good at killing workers and small groups of low-health combat units, while packing that damage into fewer units. Hmm, what does that sound good for?
If you answered "drop play" you're a winner. The damage profile, and the fact that you only have to drop two cyclones (as opposed to eight marines or four marauders) to start doing full damage makes it a surprisingly potent raiding/harass option for mech, at least on paper.
So there you have it folks, test-map Cyclones are good at harassing with medivacs (loool).
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EPT![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CM809rKWoAAiV0C.jpg)
