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On October 15 2016 06:00 Ransomstarcraft wrote:
4. The Cyclone - The new cyclone is much more interesting and better designed than the old one. Terran does not need another unit that has to always be micro'd. Terran is the only race that doesn't have reliable tanking units and therefore is dependent on microing every unit. The live cyclone is so heavily dependent on micro that it's just gimmicky. It doesn't work with too many other units or compositions. These kind of units have a place, but Terran has greater needs in terms of mech and the transition to late game, so it fits better there. The hybrid ground dps and tankiness plus the anti-air potential (raised with micro) is a better design decision for the cyclone.
i know its a very lazy post but i completely agree with this. The only thing i can add is that the new cyclone is way better in multiple compositions the old is so gimmicky and only for special occasions
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On October 15 2016 04:08 ShamanElemental1 wrote:
Blizzards wants more focus on new ideas and more constructive feedback.
Dear Blizzard the current changes in the balance test are pretty good and i respect you guys for trying, but i think the current problems in starcraft is the asimetry and the harassment.
1. Zerg is way stronger on ladder because its easier to play in lower ranks like Masters and Diamond. And the current matchups require alot of aggresion from T and P players who dont have the required skill to execute.
2. Zerg is really bad in Korea and competive play because its very hard to get anything more from the macro race ( who got nerfed in the macro area ), once the race is figured a skilled player can destroy zerg without much of a problem
3. Starcraft 2 suffers more from design problems then balance problems. For example units that overlap or are just better then older tools ( Liberator ) or units that have no place design wise in the race ( Swarmhost )
4. The harassment units seem way to good, i think alot of units are doing way to much damage, and while is flashy... it becomes very stupid with time.
My solution is to revert back the macro mechanics, lower some damage points and add some micro to certain units instead of spammable abiltys.
And we can adjust balance from there.
I think there's a lot of truth in this post. In Wings of Liberty the Asymmetry worked, but one area of design that I think needs to be considered runs right alongside what ShamanElemental is saying here. Here are some thoughts I have.
1. Each race needs to have 1 early-game and 1 or 2 mid-game viable all-in options to keep the enemy from simply macroing with no consequences. Adding more macro mechanics may help here as well, as we may have gone a little too far with "auto-pilot" on macro.
2. Each race should have specific information gathering options to somewhat correspond with the all-in options.
3. The basic design problems I think starcraft has:
a. Terran has weak scouting and no viable tanking units. In Wings of Liberty Terran gained information through harassment with banshees, hellions, reapers, or drops. If this is going to continue to be the case then Terran should be the race with the best harass and defense. Right now bunkers are less useful than at any other time in SC2's existence.
b. Zerg is too dependent on queens and all that they provide. Because of this Zerg cannot be provided with powerful burst damage since then they would always have too much information about the map and map control plus the ability to immediately put units in the right place at the right time. Mass queens as a bread-and-butter zerg style is not interesting.
c. Protoss is too dependent on the Mothership core. It is time to change this unit to some kind of basic spellcaster and give a buff to a core unit. Either the Stalker or the Adept can fill this role. If this happened, then Protoss could even consider an oracle or DT buff. Right now, Protoss has such a strength at early-game defense that you can't give any unit in the early or mid-game a buff otherwise you rush straight to mass immortal/tempest/carrier.
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On October 15 2016 02:19 Musicus wrote:Show nested quote +Tempest Ability Removal + New Ability Add
For the Tempest ability, we agree that the current state isn’t working out. In response, our process is to first identify the issue (which we believe our community has done well), and then to make changes accordingly. In this case, the current ability was functioning more as worker line harassment, but that wasn't the intention, and we agree with your points that Protoss already has enough worker harass options. With that in mind, we’ve been testing a few different abilities instead of the current one. This ability is the one that we’re leaning towards: Tempest targets ground, has a 5 second cast time, and then blasts the target location with electricity, stunning enemy ground units in the target area for 10 seconds (these numbers are obviously subject to change). Enemy will be able to see where the Tempest has targeted when the cast starts, and will also hear an under attack warning.
This change should keep Tempests focused on the front lines rather than on harassment. In combat, we are thinking something like this is more interesting because the correct response for both players will vary in different engagements. An ability like this will be stronger against units like Siege Tanks or Lurkers, which is what we need to target more so than the mobile units or worker lines. We’re hoping to start testing this right away, so we’ll get the changes out as soon as possible if you agree with this direction.
Tuning Changes
We’ve also been testing other changes, but for now we’d like to focus on the changes that we can begin testing out as early as next week.
First, we’d like to test a slightly slower attack speed for the Siege Tank. We agree with everyone in that the damage is quite powerful right now, and we suspect it’s better to adjust the attack speed here rather than nerfing the damage. We’re thinking something like 2.8 to 3.
Second is a slight damage nerf to the Swarm Host. We agree that the buff has been too much in the current pass, and lowering the cost barrier was a good change. However, the effectiveness especially after we upped the swoop range seems too high right now.
For both of these changes, we will be moving in small steps so that we can make sure both of units are in a much more powerful state than in the live game.
Cyclone
We’re seeing a lot of discussion regarding how the Cyclone currently in the live game (on ladder) is turning out much better than before, and players are figuring out cool ways to micro them and they’re seeing more usage than they previously have. Unsurprisingly, this has led to feedback indicating that we should just revert the cyclone back to live, and instead discuss numbers buffs to the unit. This is definitely a possibility, but we do see the pros and cons of the live Cyclone vs. the Cyclone being tested. Therefore, we’d like to ask you to focus your discussions around which Cyclone would be the best for the game especially when considering all the other changes with this major patch.
This is an important topic at the moment, so let’s get constructive discussions going so that we can decide the best direction going forward.
Discussions Within the Community
We’d like to encourage everyone to try your best at working towards having productive discussions. Being negative towards something you don’t like is fine, but contributing no ideas and just being negative for the sake of being negative isn’t helpful. We’re definitely seeing good conversations, but also some of the less useful conversations as well.
Another thing we’d like to mention is that we totally agree with the feedback that we should be making tuning changes more often towards these last couple months of testing, so we’ll aim for patching at least once per 2 weeks at the latest.
We’d like to remind everyone is that working on in progress changes is difficult, but continuing to work at it together with the goal of making the game better will feel extremely rewarding once we get there. Let’s always keep this goal in mind when we get frustrated with some of the details and we already know the huge upside of the heavy community collaboration we’ve been working at for the past 1-2 years, so let’s just keep focused and work at it as one team!
How about giving Tempests Disruption Web already. It's exactly the spell that's needed to disrupt zone control (which I assume is the desired role of the Tempest). The new spell can be used for eco harass just as much as the previous one (the difference being that workers are not killed but prevented from mining). And please push the Stalker change.
On a sidenote, wouldn't it be better to change one race at a time and not all at the same time. Seems easier to manage than what you're doing now.
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Disruption web is already at the viper, don't wanna dupe abilities across races.
Conceptually disagree with tempests being a support-like spellcaster, the only massive support spellcaster in the game is the mothership no? BCs Yamato is basically a damage spell, seems reasonable compared to this.
I like the idea proposed in some other thread, move oracle stasis ward to be much faster casting. Support spells belong on the oracle, not the tempest, and stasis will accomplish a similar job to the current tempest spell.
Many ways to tweak, e.g. make oracles invulnerable when creating wards, since they would probably die trying to lay down wards in battle. And maybe make the wards visible, if this is proving too strong. Point being, lots of freedom with existing spells in the game, no need to turn the tempest, a poke unit, into a spellcaster too.
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in case blizzard reads this thread:
CYCLONE NEEDS TO BE STRONG VS AIR. THIS IS THE ROLE THAT MECH IS MISSING RIGHT NOW.
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On October 15 2016 03:02 ZigguratOfUr wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2016 02:58 SetGuitarsToKill wrote:
So Tempest get a stun storm instead of a psistorm...
Honestly I don't think the Tempest needs any ability. Keep the nerfed ground range and leave it. Anything else and we're just going to see mass tempest late game against since its objectively better than the carrier. The existence of turtle mech disagrees. Protoss needs some sort of anti-turtle tool, and while the tempest isn't an elegant solution, it is a solution.
since when was mech ever viable vs protoss enough to ever show that? Has tank mech ever been a problem as a protoss?
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10 seconds is a REALLY long time
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Is prefer they don't change cyclones direction. Current cyclone is lackluster anti air any way, new cyclones lets the meching player get out on the map early and assert some semblance of map control. This makes mech more interactive by encouraging the meching player to fight for map presence/slow down opponents growth rather than just turtle up and play passivley. Reactored marines can be an answer to thing like oracles early on for meching players and if thier oponent comits to air they can build Viking, lib ect. It's not ideal. I'd love a good ground to air unit for mech but the cyclone in its state on the current patch does not fulfill this role well any way so unless its aa is heavily reworked I prefer the new iteration. New cyclones are better vs everything but air compared to old cyclone and they are far more useful overall throughout the game.
If the new cyclone is to strong mabey tweek it a bit but keep its ability to skirmish with p units early on and focuse its role in early map presence, like a vulture without mines. Hellions can't fill this role well in tvp due to thier light armor type vs adepts and poor attack dmg vs stalkers.
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This ability on the Tempest is way better, but it's just yet another Protoss unit that has another activated ability so that's lame, instead of just making the unit good and balanced it has to have some button to push. On the other hand, this ability is way better designed, so it's certainly better then nothing.
Siege tank change seems appropriate, attack speed can always be further slightly tuned down if it's not heavy enough or vice versa.
Cyclone should go on ladder imo, it's test map incarnation is far superior, only thing that needs to be done with this unit is tone down ground damage a wee bit and keep it strong vs air and it will be in a great spot, a much needed and well executed improvement by the team.
Things that still need to be done in my opinion across the board, feel free to disagree with any of them.
Zerg
- Lurkers are still a wee bit powerful vs Protoss but suck vs Terran because they take so long to get go, maybe reducing the overall power of the Lurker but shortening the upgrade time for the Lurker Den itself so they can be fielded earlier?
- 8 Armor Ultralisks still seem a bit overwhelming at times, not sure if it's still considered imba or not
- Reduce the out of the gate range for the Hydra, I think a simpler change is just to give it +10 HP and +1 armor innately or +20 HP, the units problem isn't really anything other then it's so incredibly fragile, it pumps out great DPS.
Terran
- Buff Raven utility, stop buffing it's damage, energy units dealing tons of damage is just screaming for turtle/mass raven builds
- Either revert Ultralisk nerf or revert the Marauder 2 attack nerf so it isn't so stifled vs chitnous plating
- Thor is still a terrible clunky a move deathball unit, if there was a ever a time to give this unit some overhaul work now is the time, a Goliath would fit far better into a more mobile harass heavy mech compared to the lumbering Thor.
Protoss
- There is still a weird balance of power with Gateway units. Stalkers are currently very bad but Adepts and the new Doomlots are very strong, strong enough to perhaps even necessitate some type of Warp Gate nerf (should have been done away with entirely with LOTV beta but oh well) so Stalkers definitely need love, even at the expense of a mild Blink nerf, they aren't very good in any match up really.
- Turn Disruptor (gag) into the Reaver and be done with it or at least make the Disruptor attack like the Reaver
- Remove Warp Prism pick up it's imba as shit lol or put some type of cap on many Warp Gates the prism can utilize
- Remove Chargelot (noob) and give them legs for Speedlots (not lame)
- Completely overhaul the Oracle
Oracle
- Nerf Pulsar Beam damage to light units but increase it's range by either +1 or +2 (mild damage nerf +1 heavy damage nerf +2) to respond to micro better and to not be made useless by the addition of 1 or 2 static anti air buildings.
- Change Revelation to function like Parasite from BW
- Make the Oracle detector innately
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the new cyclone is a boring 1A mech marine. bring back lock-on!
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On October 15 2016 04:51 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2016 04:08 ShamanElemental1 wrote:
1. Zerg is way stronger on ladder because its easier to play in lower ranks like Masters and Diamond. And the current matchups require alot of aggresion from T and P players who dont have the required skill to execute.
T is my favourite race to play. Z is my best race. Its been that way for years.. not just lately. i just accept that i'll have a lower rank playing T. My micro for Zerg is acceptable ... my micro for T is comically bad. most of my scrub pals have the same experience with T and Z that i do. i'm a diamond random. just my $0.02.
True for me also as a random player who tries to be more macro focused. I'm winning ~75% Zerg, 50% Protoss and 35% as Terran.
Once you can macro and vaguely understand early game timings, Zerg is ridiculously easy, I'm sat high plat/low diamond and I'm 2 for 2 against masters players ZvT.
Terran's the most fun but it's by far the hardest of the three to play,
Mid to late game TvZ is stupid hard. It's not a balance issue, just relative difficulty, dealing with ultras and lurkers feels impossible at my skill level. ZvT feels like I have to do something really dumb to lose, even without going to T3 units. Currently its all positional or presplit move and A-move stuff that's vastly easier to use than to defend against. I'd like to see some zerg units that are harder to use, so you can get more but you have to micro more. None of it really calls for much in the way of micro as it stands. Marauders going back to single attacks would be nice as you need magic to deal with armoured stuff now (even if the damage per shot has to come down a little).
This is the case for me, in the middle of the skill curve anyway.
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& why does Protoss need another spellcaster unit?
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Quick the swarm hosts might be viable units roll back the buff before anyone figures out a way to handle them.
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Added a Cyclone poll to the OP, so go vote  .
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tempests going to stun my worker lines now
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Why do all unit seem to need a spell Blizzard? There are already too many. I m playing sc not war3 (which is a great game! Because it was designed around spells and micro directly). Give us an arbiter! If you want a spellcaster.
Remove the momocore then.
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Well lately its obvious that the actual cyclone is rly nice to spetacte with lockon and some more damage against air units than the new one ( which aa is awful and its 8 damage per shot :/ ) i would leave the actuall cyclone lower it lockon damage and increase its health and slow the movment speed a bit tempest change is interesting though i think it would be still ncie to see tempest haveing at least 9 range anti ground cuz its a joke unit hydras outrange it just wtf. Carrier: pls give it back 50 hp that were taken for no reason at start of lotv if u remove release interceptors this flag unit of toss deserves some love
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The cyclone just needs to be kept as it is in the current game (without test map changes) but :
- give it 160 health
- make it 3 pop instead of 4
- reduce the range of the lock to 13 or 12 instead of 15, and increase its cooldown to 6 secs instead of 4
and maybe :
- make it reactorable
- cost ajusted to 150/75
- remove the damage upgrade
This would make the cyclone's lock less of a spammable autocast, while keeping the base design and niche role (AA/skirmisher/chaser), and making it have a less terrible health over supply/cost ratio.
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People are clamoring for the old cyclone because it has better niche uses than the new one not because it has a better design.
Terran doesn't need another unit that's powerful in a gimmicky all in, Terran needs units that help DEFEND gimmicky all ins which is what the Cyclone on the live version of the game does.
More than anything else, the Cyclone on the live realm has better ground to air combat value than the PTR one. That can be adjusted with numbers tuning which is really what the PTR version needs right now more than anything else. Its damage scales horribly against Armor and its high gas cost makes it a pointless unit later on in the game once higher tech units from the oppposing races come out.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CM809rKWoAAiV0C.jpg)
