Hello everyone! We have some small updates planned for next week’s update to the Balance Testing Matchmaking queue. As always these are subject to change prior to a patch going live, so let us know your thoughts and feedback!
Thor We would like to try out a different path with changes to the Thor for the next update. Changing its anti-air weapon to flat damage does make the Thor very powerful in sweeping air units, but we feel it also reduced counter play vs the Thor a bit too much. So instead of flatly increasing its air attack we would like to try a buff to the Thor’s survivability and a minor usability improvement. To this end we will be trying the following:
Reverting Thor anti air attack to its prior values.
Bringing back High Impact Payload
Increasing base armor from 1 to 2
Decreasing transformation time between anti air forms
This increase in armor should quite noticeably improve the Thor’s durability against quick attacking units like Zerglings thus improving its role in absorbing damage while dealing heavy damage in return during combat.
Tempest We like the current direction of the Tempest having more damage against massive air units but would like to tone its damage back very slightly.
Reduce Tempest +massive damage from 25 to 22
#WCS Austin & GSL We would like to thank all the players, casters, organizers and viewers who made WCS Austin such a great tournament this past weekend and shout out to Neeb for his victory! We also wish good luck to those currently battling it out in GSL, it’s been a very exciting season and we look forward to more games!
a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
nerf tempest massive dmg? are u fking serious? blizzard really wants to set tempest as a trash unit, so what about buffing zealots or stalkers? take a look on this http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2017_StarCraft_II_StarLeague_Season_1/Premier also gsl code s, look the amount of zerg-terran-protoss players and their scores, protoss is by far the worst race on results, but its okay for you blizzard, i give up on your balance methods.
Just make the Thor smaller in size a bit. It would make Thors less clunky, more present in a fight, and the damage of multiple Thors would stack abit more in area. It is the rediculous size and clunkiness that is killing its effectiveness.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
The viking production change is simply brilliant. It would solve one of the core problems with the game.
The Swarm Hosts changes are good but the unit will become UP if all of them are implemented. I suggest just testing just a few of them.
On May 05 2017 05:27 wiNgiAN wrote: why people talking about "buff" for tempest, do you read the changers or what? its says REDUCE DAMAGE FROM +25 TO 22, sigh.
Because the current damage is +14 against massive and the +25 was a change they were testing. 14 --> 22 is still a buff.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
The viking production change is simply brilliant. It would solve one of the core problems with the game.
The Swarm Hosts changes are good but the unit will become UP if all of them are implemented. I suggest just testing just a few of them.
SH changes don't make them UP it makes them forced to a harrassment role rather than "being the entire army" role. They are still just as strong and usable from a harrassment perspective, but you will be punished as a player if you decide to make your entire army as swarmhosts. Which is definitely a much better direction for balance than the current "he's going mech - i'll make 20 swarmhost and auto-win."
Also note: there are raven nerfs that correspond with the swarmhost nerfs as well. Ravens 4 supply, etc. My change is optimal and will help save the game.
Instead changing SH you better remove it and change another unit your changes are a joke honestly. It's enough give them light tag so helions can kill them, what you want never see them into the game. lol
I know you hate SH avilo but you claim that they don't support strategic diversity, yet by nerfing them so much you're doing the exact same thing by making them so useless.
On May 05 2017 05:27 wiNgiAN wrote: why people talking about "buff" for tempest, do you read the changers or what? its says REDUCE DAMAGE FROM +25 TO 22, sigh.
Because the current damage is +14 against massive and the +25 was a change they were testing. 14 --> 22 is still a buff.
oh i see, thought they were talking about the total dmg, ty for explain.
On May 05 2017 06:00 PinoKotsBeer wrote: Sometimes its better to just remove a unit (swarmhost) and not to try to balance it.... like they did with the HERC and Warhound
You could honestly say that for A LOT of lotv units :S
I mean i can see what your change does avilo, but you always point out that mass air vs mass air is not interesting and then you wanna make it simply easier for mech to get to that mass air. How is that an actual good change using your own logic? You mention it does help mech while not changing units, but why is that even important? Fix ground to air / dependence on air vs air, your change is a bandaid fix
On May 05 2017 06:19 xTJx wrote: What have this game become? Almost every matchup is about tier 1 units that deal massive damage to workers into mass slow tier 3 units, so boring.
The issue with mech isn't with stats, both tanks and thors have great stats. The issue is that the tempest still has 10/15 range with revelation, and that the vipers and the SH are insanely strong counters to mech. If blizz wants mech to be played, that's where changes should be made.
On May 05 2017 06:26 The_Red_Viper wrote: I mean i can see what your change does avilo, but you always point out that mass air vs mass air is not interesting and then you wanna make it simply easier for mech to get to that mass air. How is that an actual good change using your own logic? You mention it does help mech while not changing units, but why is that even important? Fix ground to air / dependence on air vs air, your change is a bandaid fix
Vikings only shoot air to air. It's not an issue. Whereas carriers shoot up and down, ravens shoot up and down (seeker+auto).
Mass vikings is inherently weak, so allowing it to be more accessible changes nothing badly in terms of balance.
On May 05 2017 07:03 Shield wrote: Blizzard, can you please buff swarm hosts? They're weak at the moment and I think they'll be great for e-sports. Super exciting to watch!
I think a buff to movement speed could be a good move ;P
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Honestly, swarm hosts are a problem in general. Not just against mech. They are simply too cost efficient and have incredibly low risk to use. For the most part, they are ridiculously good against buildings because obviously most buildings cannot get away and cannot fight back. A swarm host player can spawn locusts, kill a few buildings for free to either supply block an opponent, or kill production and then run away to safety. While I think Avilo's opinions on changing them are decent, I think the best way to change them is to make them have more risk. So lowering hp is a decent idea but something like increasing the cast time or "hatching" time (so that they stay in egg form longer) would be better. This will make it so that if your swarm hosts are under fire, you cannot just spawn locusts and get away with minimal losses. The swarm host player would really have to take care of them better. Another idea is to weaken the swarm hosts while they aren't carrying locusts. Maybe they get an armor or health reduction during this time. OR maybe locusts have reduced damage to buildings, so the swarm host player has to decide more carefully on when is the appropriate time to spawn locusts, instead of always being able to get free damage. Really, anything that increases the risk of using their ability would be the right direction.
Another place for concern is that the aerial mobility of the locusts should be an upgrade, not necessarily at hive (although it should be tested), but as long as the swarm host player has to invest more into this time wise, the opponent will have more time to react when they scout. And the first waves would have to be targeted at the most defended place (the most recent expansion)
As of now, the only way to really play against swarm hosts is to go and attack your opponent asap and in may locations as possible. The longer the game goes on, the more the swarm host player just gets ahead and has enough time to tech to whatever they want.
On May 05 2017 06:00 PinoKotsBeer wrote: Sometimes its better to just remove a unit (swarmhost) and not to try to balance it.... like they did with the HERC and Warhound
You could honestly say that for A LOT of lotv units :S
On May 05 2017 06:26 The_Red_Viper wrote: I mean i can see what your change does avilo, but you always point out that mass air vs mass air is not interesting and then you wanna make it simply easier for mech to get to that mass air. How is that an actual good change using your own logic? You mention it does help mech while not changing units, but why is that even important? Fix ground to air / dependence on air vs air, your change is a bandaid fix
Vikings only shoot air to air. It's not an issue. Whereas carriers shoot up and down, ravens shoot up and down (seeker+auto).
Mass vikings is inherently weak, so allowing it to be more accessible changes nothing badly in terms of balance.
The point is that it's bad to promote air vs air to begin with even if mass vikings themselves are not a problem in a vacuum. You still basically will have a big emphasis on whoever wins the air battle which is all about numbers and a few spells here and there and not so much about positioning of air to ground in relation to the map vs ground to air. It would be much better to have a real option presented through the thor or another ground to air unit and not the viking
i am glad to see Blizzard trying to improve the Thor so that they'll be used more often. i like the base armor increase. i hope a better Thor is in the live game soon.
On May 05 2017 07:13 The_Red_Viper wrote: It would be much better to have a real option presented through the thor or another ground to air unit and not the viking
+1 i prefer Terran to have more Ground to Air options. i hope the Thor ends up being an additional option.
Thor change could be ok. However mech is not used not because it is underpowered but coz bio is overpowered, in fact a logical step would be to nerf mules as their role has changed in lotv compared to the initial idea where less expantions were made.. Tempest - good change, no question about it.
Changes look perfectly sensible, no complaints here. Current balance situation is pretty good so there's no need for anything drastic, contrary to all the shrieking balance whiners.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
When you are talking about swamhost being unenjoyable, don't you think mech playstyle is unenjoyable aswell ? Maybe you have fun massing ur mech army on 3 base behind a wall of turets, but's it's far from being fun on the other side, whatever the race is.
On May 05 2017 08:19 Kafka777 wrote: Thor change could be ok. However mech is not used not because it is underpowered but coz bio is overpowered, in fact a logical step would be to nerf mules as their role has changed in lotv compared to the initial idea where less expantions were made.. Tempest - good change, no question about it.
You do know MULEs where nerfed at the beginning of LotV right?
I hope blizzard tries to instead of changing, or maybe along, the thor to try buffing the cyclone AA. Thors are expensive, slow and clunky, cyclones actually allow you to attack and not be stuck inside your base,
Part 1 Rant: I am a simple plebeian of Starcraft. I still like Starcraft 2 and it pains me to see these balance updates that contain limited vision and a total lack of guts (They haven’t deleted or added a single unit thus far in Lotv).
Another grossly apparant lack of guts is that Blizzard doesn’t announce if they think the game is okay as it is. Neither does blizzard tell the community If they actually care about the concept of underused units or not. It’s fine for dead weight units to be in the game and it’s fine if Blizzard tells us they intend to keep them that way. (Moba’s have a bunch of champions that are worthless, fighting games have F tier characters and S Tier and Broodwar has the scout). Where does Blizz stand? For example, it’d be nice to know If they share the view that mech is shit gameplay like some players and TL users do. If so they should just come out and say it. Seriously what is their vision
For discussion of balance between the community and Blizzard it’d be nice if we atleast knew what the hell Blizzard wants (Just 50/50/50 winrates at top lvl? A fun game? A lot of playstyles?). What hill beyond the horizon are they aiming for? Do they even care at all at this point? I’m quite skeptical about how much Blizzard cares. Even the co-op maps that give them indirect revenue are all (was there maybe 1 exception?) recycled from the campaign.
Part 2: Ideas . The balance team should make gimmicky units like the swarmhost (and the raven) ''exciting'' by limiting the amount of swarm hosts that can be active on the map (in TvZ) to a number like 8 and subsequently balance them around that number. It would fit the guerilla image of swarmhosts a lot more too. This way the unit could stay in the game without hardcountering everything that comes out of a factory once you have like 20. We can all agree that we wouldn't like it if Mech, Bio, or ling/bling muta gets countered by a single unit (Idra would say that the marine was that one unit). To play devil's advocate - But that's such lame and inelegant game design! Yes, yes it is. Just like the entire mothership core and pylon overcharge gimmick. The fact that pylon overcharge works even when not near a nexus ermargherd. I don’t hear anyone complaining about pylon overcharge saving their base and their PvT’s from cyclone reactor rushes which would end the game in 3 minutes.
Arbitrary numbers of units obviously only work given a constrained number of variables. Therefore please consider balancing per matchup Blizz. Unless ofcourse your clairvoyance and grand design is of such splendor that the reprecussions of buffs like the corruptor speed buff and the baneling health buff for the metagame of other matchups (PvT and ZvP) were all according to plan. Which I for one atleast doubt. For as conservative as Blizzard has proven themselves to be with balancing, I find it ironic that changes that they do make make to band-aid a specific matchup are changing the metagame of others. We are currently experiencing the adept nerf that was mostly meant to stop phoenix adept in PvT (right?) cause quite some losses for protoss in ZvP. After the nerf adepts are being made less in ZvP which invites zergs to go for ling/bling hydra. Personally I think this is all fine (fuck adepts) but we can’t deny a clear metagame shift in the ZvP matchup.
I just want to say ever since some role changes happened over at blizzard balance I feel like this is starting to go in the right direction; even if just slowly. For a while now I was talking about the thor needing an armor boost because its role in the late game is countered heavily by Tier 1 units. It feels a bit better to when comparing the weakened thor to the ultralisk late play now and change some meta openers for TvT. I felt tempest were a bit strong verse massive units, Even if it is only a 3 dmg decrease which doesn't feel much ontop of the normal damage. I am sure it will help in those big fights.
I also agree with the swarmhost needing a nerf. Currently it is just way to powerful verse mech play. Double stacking a buff with decreased cost and increasing the swoop distance makes it impossible to shoot them out of the air before they jump on the army and in very large numbers early in the game. Changing 1 of these things if not both would help a bit. Though I doubt changing the swooping distance would make much of a change due to the thors clunky air attack and liberator anti air nerf. I think a cost change, redesign, or speed nerf is needed. tbh there are many ways to go about changing the swarmhost that would be appealing.
I've always felt the Thor has needed a much faster, if less damaging AA attack. As it is its AA damage is done in way too short a burst and not very effective when dealing with mass air.
Terran mech in general is far too focused on burst damage which I think a lot of people attribute to its overpowering feel and nature. When watching games it's always seemed that you either lose everything immediately when fighting mech, or you don't and the mech player is overwhelmed. This was the major complaint with the Widow Mine and the reason I felt like multiple attacks that did less damage would make more sense. It gives each player some agency in events, and removes some of the "wait to attack with your currently useless supply" that the unit has.
There isn't a lot of drawn out conflict, or trading, at least how it feels. So for the Terran it feels as if you are helpless and your options are limited, but for the opponents it feels as if you've lost everything.
The Thor is designed around dealing with massed clumped air units. However, the Thor has a very slow firing anti air attack, and it's burst damage isn't high enough to deal with larger threats. Combine this with splitting air units and it becomes a very useless anti air unit. You even see this problem with high impact payload. Yet the counters that other races have for mass anything do insane amounts of damage and rapidly.
The unit simply spends too much time waiting to attack and not enough time attacking. In all honesty I feel like a light AOE attack combined with higher speed with feel better for both players. The Thor does only one job well and that's attract damage. Everything else it does it does half added.
Another idea I wouldn't mind seeing combined with it would be that upgrade for the Goliath that was in WOL campaign that allowed it to attack air and ground at the same time.
When toss turtles to deathball: this is f**king broken and OP and UNENJOYABLE. When Terran turtles to mech deathball: WOW beautiful so much strategy and diversity. Balance whining is already cancer to this game and community, and now people are whining about their SUBJECTIVE FEELINGS about gameplay, it's ridiculous.
On May 05 2017 17:29 WidowMineHero wrote: So what are they trying to achieve with the thor?
1 more base amour would greatly affect those units with low ATK, a.k.a. zerglings and marines. It would help Thors being more tanky, just like Ultralisk in LotV.
The problem is, if Terran players go all-in with Thors, how could Zerg defend? Protoss got Overcharges, whereas Terran could build Thors.
A better solution is simply to decrease Thor ground damage and increase Thor air damage. That way the counter play would be ground units and Thors would to what you expect them to do, that is counter air units.
The problem right now is that Thors do not do their job vs air (except vs muta).
I think the thor armor buff makes Thor cheese "openers" a PITA and otherweise does nothing but strengthen Mech beyond the 12 minute mark. It may be nice to see, but I'd rather see the frustrating points in the game addressed. Pylon Overchage, Adepts, Swarmhost, Nydus, Raven, Battlecruiser.
On May 05 2017 20:23 Rescawen wrote: tempest nerf is well needed to challenge end game skytoss
It's not quite a nerf. It's currently +14 vs massive in the live game. On the test matchmaking queue, it got buffed to +25. In this update, they're considering lowering the buff to +22 for the testing. In the end, it's still a buff compared to the current game.
I'm the only one who is shocked that despite Zerg hasn't won anything recently, they decide to buffs the two race that have done really great recently :
Since patch 3.8 : Terran players win 5/9 (56%), and Protoss 4/9 (44%) Zerg 0/9...
What's the idea of balance team ? "Zerg can't win anyway so we stop balancing them and focus only on T and P" ?
Also i don't get where they take their feedback from, sound like :
"We'll decide to stop analysing replays of the very best progamers to focus on the whines of Avilo/JackOneill/Playa to balance the game"
Here are some ways to make mech more viable. To me, there are two ways to approach this.
A. "A more harass heavy mech"
1. A speed increase to Hellions would make their stick and move a more viable option. LOTV's economy increase has meant that hellions are much less useful in the past, as any standard army clump wards them off. The reaper bomb was added specifically because of this reason, while the hellion had no change. 2. Lowering the damage point (the time between when a unit can attack and when it actually does attack) of Hellions would mean that they can do more damage to mineral lines when they dive in, even for a kamikaze style attack. 3. A dps increase to the air damage of Cyclones would mean mech can get out on the map without danger of losing all the hellions and cyclones for next to nothing.
Any one of these increases would make speed Banshees more powerful, since the main issue with them right now is an opponent who is unbothered by harass will have so much army and static defense strength that no amount of banshees will do much good or something like 4-6 infestors being out makes them a foolish investment.
B. "A more turtle-heavy mech" 1. This is where tweaking the Thor will drive mech. The Thor is just about the turtle-eyest unit in the game with its slow movement and slow attack speed. The design of the Thor and the Seige Tank are the two main factors that make mech require turtle play.
I would personally be more in favor of (A), give mech the option of simple map control and harass options rather than the reliance on the turtle style.
They go from buffing Thors vs air to buffing them against zerglings. I have no words except:
1)AIR ARMIES SUCK to watch and play
2) Mech needs better anti air that is not coming from an air unit (the same goes for all races, because air vs air SUCKS to watch and play)
It's incredible how after 7 years of feedback Blizzard still has no idea what made and makes BW so loved and timeless. Good thing BW HD is a thing, because the RTS "thinking" that exists at Blizzard now is...well, you can see it in the numbers of interested player. "buff thors vs zergling and buff tempests" Jeasus Chris lol.
On May 06 2017 01:43 Sapphire.lux wrote: They go from buffing Thors vs air to buffing them against zerglings. I have no words except:
1)AIR ARMIES SUCK to watch and play
2) Mech needs better anti air that is not coming from an air unit (the same goes for all races, because air vs air SUCKS to watch and play)
It's incredible how after 7 years of feedback Blizzard still has no idea what made and makes BW so loved and timeless. Good thing BW HD is a thing, because the RTS "thinking" that exists at Blizzard now is...well, you can see it in the numbers of interested player. "buff thors vs zergling and buff tempests" Jeasus Chris lol.
It almost makes someone think David Kim is still in the balance team.
Good change on the armor, and I'm loving that the team seems interested in buffing ground mode anti-air options to hopefully start discouraging mass air vs air, and that all begins by giving the races reliable and strong methods of dealing with it.
Gonna just tldr thi
1) Armor change is good 2) Avilo's proposed Viking change it nice but his SH changes are hilarious. Personally I think the Swarm Host should just be flat out removed and the Infestor buffed. Fungal is great but NP and Infested Terrans are a joke. 3) More nerfs to air units, good, SC2 is pretty much about who can amass the biggest aerial deathball at times and it's not fun to watch or play 4) the balance changes seem to make more sense with David Kim gone as was foretold
On May 06 2017 02:11 jpg06051992 wrote: 4) the balance changes seem to make more sense with David Kim gone as was foretold
small sample size.
but if you're looking to grasp at any straw... any how, 3 years ago i said Marco Estrada was a good pitcher. i think we have enough data now.
what is interesting is that their is no officially named "leader" of the balance team. we just get these anonymous posts from the "Balance Team". Personally, I'd like to endorse "Tony Clifton" as the balance team leader. "Tony Clifton" is the balance team leader the community needs.
on topic: I really hope they do something about the mass air armies. They really suck. I dont think giving thor better base armor deals with that and I hope that buffing tempest's massive damage doesnt just promote another sort of air deathball...
On May 06 2017 02:40 Kevin_Sorbo wrote: yeah w/e Jimmy,
on topic: I really hope they do something about the mass air armies. They really suck. I dont think giving thor better base armor deals with that and I hope that buffing tempest's massive damage doesnt just promote another sort of air deathball...
I mean, he's right, we've been without Dayvie for a couple of weeks...
Also, I definitely preferred the old method of a few thought out changes, rather than updates of whatever seems to be flittering into the balance team's head.
As a side note: I can't imagine buffing the damage to a unit that has incredibly long range as doing anything BUT promoting its inclusion in a death ball.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
On May 06 2017 03:57 FarmI3oy wrote: Every sport needs a villain.
indeed. However the villain needs to be strong enough to be a threat to the good guys.
Not necessarily. Sure some villains want to beat the good guys, but there is also the sort of villain that does not care about winning or losing. As long as someone is losing besides themselves they are happy.
On May 06 2017 03:09 Liquid`TLO wrote: Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Yeah, that was pretty disgusting, but that's what you get with Avilo.
On topic, not sure what to think of buffing the Tempest (from how it is now). Air sucks.
Also not sure what to think of proposing Thor buffs against Air one week, then against Zerglings the next. Maybe they could make Zerglings fly, then the air buff works both ways!
Having said that, the Thor should not die so damn fast for its cost.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
You're my Hero, well said sir o7. Inb4 another Avilo excuse after excuse after excuse
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Hahaha I didn't even know that, wow, just wow.
And looking at his Swarm Host "changes", he is really a joke. Thank god Blizzard doesn't listen to someone like him.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Hahaha I didn't even know that, wow, just wow.
And looking at his Swarm Host "changes", he is really a joke. Thank god Blizzard doesn't listen to someone like him.
Avilo isn't a complete and total fraud. his messaging is very sloppy and combined with his "in game character"... this is what happens. he comes off slimey and exploiting a gray area to maximize stream revenue. its pretty hard to tell whether or not he is a fraud ; i can understand why many people would not want to put in the effort and time to figure it out.
I'm just so tired of this mass air gameplay (and lotv in general). Doesn't matter if it's mass liberators, tempest, carrier, broodlords, ravens, BC,... etc.
LotV is currently just not fun to play for me and i hope they will do something about it. I really hope they will do another one of those major patches.
One of the big voids in the terran arsenal right now is a way to deal with corruptors in TvZ before they shrek your medivacs and libs. The only real way to deal with them is vikings which incidentally creates a huge bottleneck on starport production time during the transition from midgame bio to lategame anti hive armies. The AA vs armored Thor could potentially have filled that role.
More armor doesn´t do anything for that specific scenario since it´s a dps race against the corruptors and not about how the thor matches up against ground units.I feel like the balance team completely missed the point on this one.
Lol @Jimmy, whatever makes you and your almost 9K posts feel more elite my dude, I merely meant that the balance team seems more intent on rolling out sensible changes then David did, all I can do is call it as I see it, in a year if they show themselves to be inept then I will change my tune appropriately.
On May 06 2017 03:57 FarmI3oy wrote: Every sport needs a villain.
I thought that was David Kim....
Funny how David Kim leaves and conversations about Avilo suddenly starts dominating the forums.
On topic, the Adept is still in an extremely dissatisfying position. Psionic Transfer is still the problem. It also fills too many roles by removing the need of Stalkers and Zealots in every situation.
Maybe serious consideration should be given to just removing the Adept and giving the Stalker and Zealot buffs.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Hahaha I didn't even know that, wow, just wow.
And looking at his Swarm Host "changes", he is really a joke. Thank god Blizzard doesn't listen to someone like him.
Avilo isn't a complete and total fraud. his messaging is very sloppy and combined with his "in game character"... this is what happens. he comes off slimey and exploiting a gray area to maximize stream revenue. its pretty hard to tell whether or not he is a fraud ; i can understand why many people would not want to put in the effort and time to figure it out.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Hahaha I didn't even know that, wow, just wow.
And looking at his Swarm Host "changes", he is really a joke. Thank god Blizzard doesn't listen to someone like him.
Avilo isn't a complete and total fraud. his messaging is very sloppy and combined with his "in game character"... this is what happens. he comes off slimey and exploiting a gray area to maximize stream revenue. its pretty hard to tell whether or not he is a fraud ; i can understand why many people would not want to put in the effort and time to figure it out.
Why didnt that thread get removed?
well i think the thread contain an accurate portrayal of the events. so its good for informational purposes.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Hahaha I didn't even know that, wow, just wow.
And looking at his Swarm Host "changes", he is really a joke. Thank god Blizzard doesn't listen to someone like him.
Avilo isn't a complete and total fraud. his messaging is very sloppy and combined with his "in game character"... this is what happens. he comes off slimey and exploiting a gray area to maximize stream revenue. its pretty hard to tell whether or not he is a fraud ; i can understand why many people would not want to put in the effort and time to figure it out.
Why didnt that thread get removed?
well i think the thread contain an accurate portrayal of the events. so its good for informational purposes.
If its for informational purposes, then what is the reason for naming someone? Why not write all that without includng someones name. Also why come with such a strong accusation and then no further proof of anything really. As a reader of that thread i dont even know 30%. At the same time i dont even know if there is ANY merit whatsover to the accusation.
I dont fucking get it when you say for information purpose. This is someones name that go to fucking hell but its for informational purpose so its worth it? This feels like media to me.
On May 06 2017 06:19 jpg06051992 wrote: Lol @Jimmy, whatever makes you and your almost 9K posts feel more elite my dude, I merely meant that the balance team seems more intent on rolling out sensible changes then David did, all I can do is call it as I see it, in a year if they show themselves to be inept then I will change my tune appropriately.
in your little scenario trashing DK there is no way DK can end up being seen in a positive light. this is precisely why Blizz is not naming a new balance team lead. undue criticism with insufficient information.
i'll provide a scenario where DK ends up looking pretty good: if the game gets substantially worse we can conclude DK was put in an impossible situation forced to draw compromises across many factors we didn't know existed.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Hahaha I didn't even know that, wow, just wow.
And looking at his Swarm Host "changes", he is really a joke. Thank god Blizzard doesn't listen to someone like him.
Avilo isn't a complete and total fraud. his messaging is very sloppy and combined with his "in game character"... this is what happens. he comes off slimey and exploiting a gray area to maximize stream revenue. its pretty hard to tell whether or not he is a fraud ; i can understand why many people would not want to put in the effort and time to figure it out.
Why didnt that thread get removed?
well i think the thread contain an accurate portrayal of the events. so its good for informational purposes.
If its for informational purposes, then what is the reason for naming someone? Why not write all that without includng someones name. Also why come with such a strong accusation and then no further proof of anything really. As a reader of that thread i dont even know 30%. At the same time i dont even know if there is ANY merit whatsover to the accusation.
I dont fucking get it when you say for information purpose. This is someones name that go to fucking hell but its for informational purpose so its worth it? This feels like media to me.
when it comes to PR , perception is reality. Avilo needs to tighten up his messaging around donations. He comes off looking like a sloppy, slimey carnival-barker. we're talking about people's money here.
Avilo has been doing the "shock jock" thing for years on Twitch.tv. Sooner or later it'll bite him in the ass... and when that happens i'm pretty sure Avilo will be screaming and whining about how the world just doesn't understand his advanced sense of humour.
my message to Avilo: you ain't Andy Kaufman or Tony Clifton... those guys know how to pull it off.. you don't.
So to create a thread, its allowed to have one-side of the story. Not back it up with proof. Got it. Great site this has become. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/cs-go/521161-how-to-report-him Thats another thread. No proof that its hacking. We see like 5frags or something, in one round. Not removed.
Maybe i dont understand teamliquids rules but it feels like shit knowing it is allowed to do this. Media do this and its wrong, i dont see how its not wrong doing it under any circumstance.
in the thread Avilo provided his side of the story. its there for all to read. furthermore, if people want to do more digging i'm positive Avilo had more to say about on his channel which is amongst the featured streamers on the site. in this case i think TL.Net dealt with things fairly; everyone had their say. if you feel they dealt with things unfairly let's move this conversation to website feedback please. it does not belong in here.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
These changes are very heavy handed and break plenty of design rules. I think without seriously investigating their effects they can be dismissed.
You want a unit which costs 100/75 to be six supply, making it by far the most supply inefficient unit in the game.
You want it to be arbitrarily slower off creep which will make it only useful defensively, and which will create confusion for new players, despite the speed of the queen and hydralisk having historically been problematic or confusing. You also claim this is part of making them a pure harassment unit.
You want this unit to have the light tag, when it has already a biological and armored tag. Presumably you want to remove the armored tag, to turn it into a light unit which is countered by fast hellions. How do you expect the swarm host to harass anything at all if they are slow and they are countered by a fast unit? And what does this accomplish on top of changing the health?
If you want to balance a game you make one minor change and test its impact, you don't create a map with a ton of wild illogical changes which is played by no one and expect it to have any meaning. It might be useful to list possible suggestions, but by themselves they are hardly valuable without analysis and without a way for other people to evaluate them.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Avilo talks about balancing, you talk about donation, what is the relationship? As if without this story you would have paid attention to his words... But no, it is Avilo, you are TLO so you won't listen cause you play better than him, that's all. It's stupid but a lot of pro player think like that. He can ask 300 arguments does not matter, because many pro players patronized idea of players weaker than them ... I do not like Avilo, but the game goes wrong, he has the deserves to seek solutions, even if they may be bad, it's better than watching the game die.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Avilo talks about balancing, you talk about donation, what is the relationship? As if without this story you would have paid attention to his words... But no, it is Avilo, you are TLO so you won't listen cause you play better than him, that's all. It's stupid but a lot of pro player think like that. He can ask 300 arguments does not matter, because many pro players patronized idea of players weaker than them ... I do not like Avilo, but the game goes wrong, he has the deserves to seek solutions, even if they may be bad, it's better than watching the game die.
His suggestions aren't solutions, they're just buffing his niche playstyle that he doesn't even execute well. If he would listen to advice for just a single hour and take it seriously he could probably even be a halfway decent player, but he doesn't care about improving he just loves to whine and victimise himself.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Avilo talks about balancing, you talk about donation, what is the relationship? As if without this story you would have paid attention to his words... But no, it is Avilo, you are TLO so you won't listen cause you play better than him, that's all. It's stupid but a lot of pro player think like that. He can ask 300 arguments does not matter, because many pro players patronized idea of players weaker than them ... I do not like Avilo, but the game goes wrong, he has the deserves to seek solutions, even if they may be bad, it's better than watching the game die.
His suggestions aren't solutions, they're just buffing his niche playstyle that he doesn't even execute well. If he would listen to advice for just a single hour and take it seriously he could probably even be a halfway decent player, but he doesn't care about improving he just loves to whine and victimise himself.
But it doesn't change the fact that mech needs some help right now.
Mech is currently bad in basically every matchup and changing swarmhosts in some way, could help to make it atleast better in TvZ. It's not about removing swarmhosts, it's about improving the unit interaction so that a mech terran can actually counter the unit. You can't just put a unit in the game that shuts down a whole playstyle.
On May 06 2017 09:03 StraKo wrote: But it doesn't change the fact that mech needs some help right now.
and of course once they buff the Thor you can claim you were "right" because Blizzard did indeed buff a mech unit.
i don't care about "mech"... its just some artificial hype term to denote units coming out of the factory(apologies to rory swan). I just want to see more Thors because they are rarely used. Anything they can do to strengthen the unit i'm happy with. I'm more happy if they strengthen it as an effective ground-to-air fighter.
On May 06 2017 09:03 StraKo wrote: But it doesn't change the fact that mech needs some help right now.
and of course once they buff the Thor you can claim you were "right" because Blizzard did indeed buff a mech unit.
i don't care about "mech"... its just some artificial hype term to denote units coming out of the factory(apologies to rory swan). I just want to see more Thors because they are rarely used. Anything they can do to strengthen the unit i'm happy with. I'm more happy if they strengthen it as an effective ground-to-air fighter.
Yes that's exactly what i want. You don't see Thors because they simply don't do their job. They can't keep up anymore.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Avilo talks about balancing, you talk about donation, what is the relationship? As if without this story you would have paid attention to his words... But no, it is Avilo, you are TLO so you won't listen cause you play better than him, that's all. It's stupid but a lot of pro player think like that. He can ask 300 arguments does not matter, because many pro players patronized idea of players weaker than them ... I do not like Avilo, but the game goes wrong, he has the deserves to seek solutions, even if they may be bad, it's better than watching the game die.
His suggestions aren't solutions, they're just buffing his niche playstyle that he doesn't even execute well. If he would listen to advice for just a single hour and take it seriously he could probably even be a halfway decent player, but he doesn't care about improving he just loves to whine and victimise himself.
I agree on most part, and i prefer this explanation
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Seems someone is salty they're irrelevant besides back in WOL Beta. xD.
a) never scammed anyone in my life my donations were for my stream, and as in the other thread here on TL it was known by everyone donating since the beginning that i would not go unless i met the goal otherwise i would be hosting my own tourney
b) on the contrary, players like you that refuse to speak up about balance/game design for years despite having a platform and a huge voice in the community are the ones that only have your own best interest/paycheck in mind. For a long time in this community myself and others have tried to get people on board that SC2 needs more patches and ones that are impactful, not the random -1 adept dmg every 8 months
c) i've put hundreds of my own dollars back into a few SC tourneys i made in the past, and am going to again when i run this next tournament using an extension mod that makes impactful balance and design changes that i think a lot of pros, even yourself, will end up finding make the game a lot better and increase strategic diversity.
I am going to do that again in the next weeks and again that money i'm putting back into SC2 is my own money from my own stream.
lol your post reeks of jealousy. Banned from twitch? Really? Because you don't like me? lol this isn't high school.
Worse off, your post is a shining example of why SC2 has fallen so far in viewership. You ad hominem attack someone you personally don't like, and don't even bother reading or commenting on the goddamn post or the balance changes/ideas.
So instead of discussing how we can help get Blizzard on the right track to making this game better, you just very arbitrarily take a random shot at me in this thread for no reason or gain lol.
Be ashamed of yourself. I'm posting here trying to contribute to ideas that could potentially be implemented into the game to help increase strategic diversity. You're posting here saying "i dont like avilo." Good for you.
Can we just stop talking about avilo and his proposed "changes".
Every single one of these community feedback threads are just the same people talking about the same exact post avilo makes every single time.
I'm glad we have these threads but reading past the OP is usually completely useless because 80% of all posts are about avilo. (I'm guessing this one is too, but it's the first and last I'll make about him)
We should create an avilo whine thread where he can posts these daily if he wants to. Then we can have some discussion about the game;
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Avilo talks about balancing, you talk about donation, what is the relationship? As if without this story you would have paid attention to his words... But no, it is Avilo, you are TLO so you won't listen cause you play better than him, that's all. It's stupid but a lot of pro player think like that. He can ask 300 arguments does not matter, because many pro players patronized idea of players weaker than them ... I do not like Avilo, but the game goes wrong, he has the deserves to seek solutions, even if they may be bad, it's better than watching the game die.
His suggestions aren't solutions, they're just buffing his niche playstyle that he doesn't even execute well. If he would listen to advice for just a single hour and take it seriously he could probably even be a halfway decent player, but he doesn't care about improving he just loves to whine and victimise himself.
My ideas are solutions to mech anti-air issues with a simple accessibility change to vikings. Many masters/gm players that have already tried the map and tested it gave the feedback that they like how now if they scout an air transition they have an immediate factory AA option, rather than automatically losing the game for opting for non-bio play.
The guy that posted is right - you just decided to post here not even talking about gameplay and slander me for no reason. No one gives a fuck if you don't like me or if i like you. We want SC2 to get more love from the developers and get meaningful patches.
It has nothing to do with "avilo's playstyle" or me at all. It has to do with giving mech a viable factory anti-air option and addressing swarmhosts. Perhaps the changes i wrote in this thread are a bit out of context considering there's a myriad of other changes that accompany those such as ravens being 4 supply, and many more, so you are just knee jerk reacting to the swarmhost ideas i put there.
There is a reason why every mech Terran has quit the game or stopped playing. Strelok, goody, htomario, the list goes on. A unit like the swarmhost in it's current state on the live version of the game NEEDS to be addressed by the developers. It's specifically overpowered and braindead against mech and makes mech near unplayable atm.
The game should have strategic diversity in it - not force Terran to play bio 16 marine drop every game. Which is really what my post was about, but if you wanna keep personally attacking me instead of the ideas go ahead.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Seems someone is salty they're irrelevant besides back in WOL Beta. xD.
a) never scammed anyone in my life my donations were for my stream, and as in the other thread here on TL it was known by everyone donating since the beginning that i would not go unless i met the goal otherwise i would be hosting my own tourney
b) on the contrary, players like you that refuse to speak up about balance/game design for years despite having a platform and a huge voice in the community are the ones that only have your own best interest/paycheck in mind. For a long time in this community myself and others have tried to get people on board that SC2 needs more patches and ones that are impactful, not the random -1 adept dmg every 8 months
c) i've put hundreds of my own dollars back into a few SC tourneys i made in the past, and am going to again when i run this next tournament using an extension mod that makes impactful balance and design changes that i think a lot of pros, even yourself, will end up finding make the game a lot better and increase strategic diversity.
I am going to do that again in the next weeks and again that money i'm putting back into SC2 is my own money from my own stream.
lol your post reeks of jealousy. Banned from twitch? Really? Because you don't like me? lol this isn't high school.
Worse off, your post is a shining example of why SC2 has fallen so far in viewership. You ad hominem attack someone you personally don't like, and don't even bother reading or commenting on the goddamn post or the balance changes/ideas.
So instead of discussing how we can help get Blizzard on the right track to making this game better, you just very arbitrarily take a random shot at me in this thread for no reason or gain lol.
Be ashamed of yourself. I'm posting here trying to contribute to ideas that could potentially be implemented into the game to help increase strategic diversity. You're posting here saying "i dont like avilo." Good for you.
TLO has been on one of the most respected teams in esports and been a consistent force in the EU scene since this game came out. You've been unable to get any sponsorships because of your toxic personality and lack of results, and you're calling him irrelevant?
On May 06 2017 11:53 avilo wrote: Seems someone is salty they're irrelevant besides back in WOL Beta. xD.
a) never scammed anyone in my life my donations were for my stream, and as in the other thread here on TL it was known by everyone donating since the beginning that i would not go unless i met the goal otherwise i would be hosting my own tourney
b) on the contrary, players like you that refuse to speak up about balance/game design for years despite having a platform and a huge voice in the community are the ones that only have your own best interest/paycheck in mind. For a long time in this community myself and others have tried to get people on board that SC2 needs more patches and ones that are impactful, not the random -1 adept dmg every 8 months
c) i've put hundreds of my own dollars back into a few SC tourneys i made in the past, and am going to again when i run this next tournament using an extension mod that makes impactful balance and design changes that i think a lot of pros, even yourself, will end up finding make the game a lot better and increase strategic diversity.
I am going to do that again in the next weeks and again that money i'm putting back into SC2 is my own money from my own stream.
lol your post reeks of jealousy. Banned from twitch? Really? Because you don't like me? lol this isn't high school.
Worse off, your post is a shining example of why SC2 has fallen so far in viewership. You ad hominem attack someone you personally don't like, and don't even bother reading or commenting on the goddamn post or the balance changes/ideas.
So instead of discussing how we can help get Blizzard on the right track to making this game better, you just very arbitrarily take a random shot at me in this thread for no reason or gain lol.
Be ashamed of yourself. I'm posting here trying to contribute to ideas that could potentially be implemented into the game to help increase strategic diversity. You're posting here saying "i dont like avilo." Good for you.
Have you thrown this supposed tournament yet? I highly recommend that you do, if you haven't. And show me evidence that you have, if you already did.
On May 06 2017 06:19 jpg06051992 wrote: Lol @Jimmy, whatever makes you and your almost 9K posts feel more elite my dude, I merely meant that the balance team seems more intent on rolling out sensible changes then David did, all I can do is call it as I see it, in a year if they show themselves to be inept then I will change my tune appropriately.
in your little scenario trashing DK there is no way DK can end up being seen in a positive light. this is precisely why Blizz is not naming a new balance team lead. undue criticism with insufficient information.
i'll provide a scenario where DK ends up looking pretty good: if the game gets substantially worse we can conclude DK was put in an impossible situation forced to draw compromises across many factors we didn't know existed.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Hahaha I didn't even know that, wow, just wow.
And looking at his Swarm Host "changes", he is really a joke. Thank god Blizzard doesn't listen to someone like him.
Avilo isn't a complete and total fraud. his messaging is very sloppy and combined with his "in game character"... this is what happens. he comes off slimey and exploiting a gray area to maximize stream revenue. its pretty hard to tell whether or not he is a fraud ; i can understand why many people would not want to put in the effort and time to figure it out.
Why didnt that thread get removed?
well i think the thread contain an accurate portrayal of the events. so its good for informational purposes.
If its for informational purposes, then what is the reason for naming someone? Why not write all that without includng someones name. Also why come with such a strong accusation and then no further proof of anything really. As a reader of that thread i dont even know 30%. At the same time i dont even know if there is ANY merit whatsover to the accusation.
I dont fucking get it when you say for information purpose. This is someones name that go to fucking hell but its for informational purpose so its worth it? This feels like media to me.
when it comes to PR , perception is reality. Avilo needs to tighten up his messaging around donations. He comes off looking like a sloppy, slimey carnival-barker. we're talking about people's money here.
Avilo has been doing the "shock jock" thing for years on Twitch.tv. Sooner or later it'll bite him in the ass... and when that happens i'm pretty sure Avilo will be screaming and whining about how the world just doesn't understand his advanced sense of humour.
my message to Avilo: you ain't Andy Kaufman or Tony Clifton... those guys know how to pull it off.. you don't.
Though I hardly consider what I said "trashing" I really wasn't trying to put David in a positive light. I am not criticizing David Kim based on, "undue criticism with insufficient information", the guy was in charge for over half a decade, theres plenty of information to form an opinion whether you loved DK or hated him so that statement was just unnecessary and not relevant to the other 95% of my post which is praising the new balance team.
On May 06 2017 02:11 jpg06051992 wrote: Good change on the armor, and I'm loving that the team seems interested in buffing ground mode anti-air options to hopefully start discouraging mass air vs air, and that all begins by giving the races reliable and strong methods of dealing with it.
Gonna just tldr thi
1) Armor change is good 2) Avilo's proposed Viking change it nice but his SH changes are hilarious. Personally I think the Swarm Host should just be flat out removed and the Infestor buffed. Fungal is great but NP and Infested Terrans are a joke. 3) More nerfs to air units, good, SC2 is pretty much about who can amass the biggest aerial deathball at times and it's not fun to watch or play 4) the balance changes seem to make more sense with David Kim gone as was foretold
...And I'm not judging the current balance team, If I was bashing on this current balance team then yes I would be judging with as you said undue criticism with no information, did I not explicitly I said their changes seemed good?
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Avilo talks about balancing, you talk about donation, what is the relationship? As if without this story you would have paid attention to his words... But no, it is Avilo, you are TLO so you won't listen cause you play better than him, that's all. It's stupid but a lot of pro player think like that. He can ask 300 arguments does not matter, because many pro players patronized idea of players weaker than them ... I do not like Avilo, but the game goes wrong, he has the deserves to seek solutions, even if they may be bad, it's better than watching the game die.
His suggestions aren't solutions, they're just buffing his niche playstyle that he doesn't even execute well. If he would listen to advice for just a single hour and take it seriously he could probably even be a halfway decent player, but he doesn't care about improving he just loves to whine and victimise himself.
it's disappointing to see a professional player under the liquid banner to drop to this kind of behaviour. as an ambassador of your team you should know better.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Seems someone is salty they're irrelevant besides back in WOL Beta. xD.
I agree with one thing. We need pros to add comments about balance and the design wise of SC2. They act like they're happy with whatever they get, but long-wise that's not the way. I want them to speak about pathing once again, about mech, adepts, macro, etc.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Avilo talks about balancing, you talk about donation, what is the relationship? As if without this story you would have paid attention to his words... But no, it is Avilo, you are TLO so you won't listen cause you play better than him, that's all. It's stupid but a lot of pro player think like that. He can ask 300 arguments does not matter, because many pro players patronized idea of players weaker than them ... I do not like Avilo, but the game goes wrong, he has the deserves to seek solutions, even if they may be bad, it's better than watching the game die.
His suggestions aren't solutions, they're just buffing his niche playstyle that he doesn't even execute well. If he would listen to advice for just a single hour and take it seriously he could probably even be a halfway decent player, but he doesn't care about improving he just loves to whine and victimise himself.
it's disappointing to see a professional player under the liquid banner to drop to this kind of behaviour. as an ambassador of your team you should know better.
Maybe there is nothing in his TL contract that prevents him from saying the truth.
I have never seen anything as broken as the current Swarm Hosts vs mech. Well maybe pre-patch Teutonic Towncenters in Age of Empires II, but apart from that, nothing.
There is basically no working ingame solution to Swarm Hosts if you play mech. None. If pro players were forced to use mech instead of bio the Terran race would basically be extinct.
How can anyone who cares about this game think the current situation is ok? That one unit counters an entire playstyle and that there is no working counter play?
If Ravens have to be nerfed into the ground in order to compensate for a Swarm Host nerf so be it.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Avilo talks about balancing, you talk about donation, what is the relationship? As if without this story you would have paid attention to his words... But no, it is Avilo, you are TLO so you won't listen cause you play better than him, that's all. It's stupid but a lot of pro player think like that. He can ask 300 arguments does not matter, because many pro players patronized idea of players weaker than them ... I do not like Avilo, but the game goes wrong, he has the deserves to seek solutions, even if they may be bad, it's better than watching the game die.
His suggestions aren't solutions, they're just buffing his niche playstyle that he doesn't even execute well. If he would listen to advice for just a single hour and take it seriously he could probably even be a halfway decent player, but he doesn't care about improving he just loves to whine and victimise himself.
it's disappointing to see a professional player under the liquid banner to drop to this kind of behaviour. as an ambassador of your team you should know better.
Maybe there is nothing in his TL contract that prevents him from saying the truth.
TLO's posts in this thread have been totally off-topic and have helped derail the thread completely. Frankly if he wasn't a TL team member I think he would have been warned for his first post and he still should be.
Anyway, back to the topic, I don't understand why Tempests are getting a buff against massive units. Just nerf carriers and tempests will see a bit more use. Thor armour doesn't need to be increased but I wouldn't be opposed to a substantial buff to the single target air attack alongside a nerf to their anti-ground. Adept shading still needs a big nerf as do swarm hosts. To compensate Protoss for the adept nerf, you could perhaps buff stalkers but make blink a longer and more expensive upgrade to deter blink all-ins.
On May 06 2017 22:17 MockHamill wrote: I have played every major RTS since Dune II.
I have never seen anything as broken as the current Swarm Hosts vs mech. Well maybe pre-patch Teutonic Towncenters in Age of Empires II, but apart from that, nothing.
There is basically no working ingame solution to Swarm Hosts if you play mech. None. If pro players were forced to use mech instead of bio the Terran race would basically be extinct.
How can anyone who cares about this game think the current situation is ok? That one unit counters an entire playstyle and that there is no working counter play?
If Ravens have to be nerfed into the ground in order to compensate for a Swarm Host nerf so be it.
At this point I think everyone is too scared of making changes because they like the metagame on the top levels of play. If that wasn't the case all the pro's would be more vocal about specific things. Changing the swarmhost (and the raven) will enable mech which can have immense effects on the current metagame. Why don't the pro's actually complain about tempest revelation carrier storm vs zerg lategame? Has any zerg ever won at that stage?
Honestly at this point we need the balance and dev team to give it to us straight. Do they want to tweak the current game just a little and cater to the existing fanbase? Or do they want to make huge changes in pursuit of the best game possible. As we've clearly seen the balance team has no real ambition so it's probably the former.
Blizzard doesn't dream of making this game better. Or they would've admitted to us the community that units like the thor, the adept and the swarmhost are trash. And they would've killed mass air vs air battles. Instead here they are buffing the tempest's damage.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Avilo talks about balancing, you talk about donation, what is the relationship? As if without this story you would have paid attention to his words... But no, it is Avilo, you are TLO so you won't listen cause you play better than him, that's all. It's stupid but a lot of pro player think like that. He can ask 300 arguments does not matter, because many pro players patronized idea of players weaker than them ... I do not like Avilo, but the game goes wrong, he has the deserves to seek solutions, even if they may be bad, it's better than watching the game die.
His suggestions aren't solutions, they're just buffing his niche playstyle that he doesn't even execute well. If he would listen to advice for just a single hour and take it seriously he could probably even be a halfway decent player, but he doesn't care about improving he just loves to whine and victimise himself.
it's disappointing to see a professional player under the liquid banner to drop to this kind of behaviour. as an ambassador of your team you should know better.
Maybe there is nothing in his TL contract that prevents him from saying the truth.
TLO's posts in this thread have been totally off-topic and have helped derail the thread completely. Frankly if he wasn't a TL team member I think he would have been warned for his first post and he still should be.
Anyway, back to the topic, I don't understand why Tempests are getting a buff against massive units. Just nerf carriers and tempests will see a bit more use. Thor armour doesn't need to be increased but I wouldn't be opposed to a substantial buff to the single target air attack alongside a nerf to their anti-ground. Adept shading still needs a big nerf as do swarm hosts. To compensate Protoss for the adept nerf, you could perhaps buff stalkers but make blink a longer and more expensive upgrade to deter blink all-ins.
This entire thread has basically been off topic balance whines. Very few people are discussing the actual changes, including the person you're trying to defend: avilo comes in on the first page and drops a wildly off topic report on his 'ideal balance change mod' - for some tournament that he keeps promising will happen SOON (TM).
Everyone else is jumping up and down about, "how they can't believe x isn't nerfed, or y is being nerfed when x should be nerfed instead."
Case in point:
On May 06 2017 22:17 MockHamill wrote: I have played every major RTS since Dune II.
I have never seen anything as broken as the current Swarm Hosts vs mech. Well maybe pre-patch Teutonic Towncenters in Age of Empires II, but apart from that, nothing.
There is basically no working ingame solution to Swarm Hosts if you play mech. None. If pro players were forced to use mech instead of bio the Terran race would basically be extinct.
How can anyone who cares about this game think the current situation is ok? That one unit counters an entire playstyle and that there is no working counter play?
If Ravens have to be nerfed into the ground in order to compensate for a Swarm Host nerf so be it.
Gee, I wonder why people are off topic balance whining /sarcasm.
It's probably because the balance changes proposed by Blizzard aren't things that were even remotely close to what the community wanted the balance team to do. Have you ever heard anyone say: I want my thors to die slower against lings. Because that's the only thing this armor buff does. They will still get DESTROYED by anything other than that on the ground.
And the tempest buff against massive. Okay so we'll get less carriers in PvP. but more tempest. This is a good change.. why?
These changes are so irrelevant that it's only natural that the thread derails into personal quips.
Perhaps a late game upgrade to strengthen Cyclone or Thor AA even more would be helpful. I still say some kind of buff to harass potential of Mech would be preferable to a stronger backbone to the army.
On May 07 2017 01:24 Ransomstarcraft wrote: Perhaps a late game upgrade to strengthen Cyclone or Thor AA even more would be helpful. I still say some kind of buff to harass potential of Mech would be preferable to a stronger backbone to the army.
Like helion runbys? Like Widow mine drops? Like Raven AutoTurrets? Like Banshees?
small sample size. you are so locked into a negative view of DK that if the game gets substantially worse you're unwilling to acknowledge that any problems SC2 is having go beyond DK's level of influence.
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Avilo talks about balancing, you talk about donation, what is the relationship? As if without this story you would have paid attention to his words... But no, it is Avilo, you are TLO so you won't listen cause you play better than him, that's all. It's stupid but a lot of pro player think like that. He can ask 300 arguments does not matter, because many pro players patronized idea of players weaker than them ... I do not like Avilo, but the game goes wrong, he has the deserves to seek solutions, even if they may be bad, it's better than watching the game die.
His suggestions aren't solutions, they're just buffing his niche playstyle that he doesn't even execute well. If he would listen to advice for just a single hour and take it seriously he could probably even be a halfway decent player, but he doesn't care about improving he just loves to whine and victimise himself.
My ideas are solutions to mech anti-air issues with a simple accessibility change to vikings. Many masters/gm players that have already tried the map and tested it gave the feedback that they like how now if they scout an air transition they have an immediate factory AA option, rather than automatically losing the game for opting for non-bio play.
The guy that posted is right - you just decided to post here not even talking about gameplay and slander me for no reason. No one gives a fuck if you don't like me or if i like you. We want SC2 to get more love from the developers and get meaningful patches.
It has nothing to do with "avilo's playstyle" or me at all. It has to do with giving mech a viable factory anti-air option and addressing swarmhosts. Perhaps the changes i wrote in this thread are a bit out of context considering there's a myriad of other changes that accompany those such as ravens being 4 supply, and many more, so you are just knee jerk reacting to the swarmhost ideas i put there.
There is a reason why every mech Terran has quit the game or stopped playing. Strelok, goody, htomario, the list goes on. A unit like the swarmhost in it's current state on the live version of the game NEEDS to be addressed by the developers. It's specifically overpowered and braindead against mech and makes mech near unplayable atm.
The game should have strategic diversity in it - not force Terran to play bio 16 marine drop every game. Which is really what my post was about, but if you wanna keep personally attacking me instead of the ideas go ahead.
Your problem is that you have a completely skewed view on SC2 that only exists in your own bubble. You're playing mech but when I tried watching your stream once your build order made no sense and just put you incredibly far behind by default. So I suggest learning some real Mech build orders from players like Major, TY or Gumiho.
Also playing only Mech makes it insanely hard for you to win games because everybody knows you only play mech so people can just blind counter. The same goes for any player that would only play a single style in any other matchup. That's just not the way you're supposed to play. So your Mech would become twice as strong if you would be able to play Bio in just 33% of your games so people can't just take freewins by ignoring the Bio threat.
If Terran know a Zerg only plays LBM you can abuse that as Terran and increase your winrate by 20% by just completely ignoring fast hive or Roach threat and only countering LBM from the start of the game.
If Zerg knows a Protoss always goes for adept pressure into fast Carrier he always just make enough units to defend the adepts and then drone like crazy and make units that counter Carrier and even in equal MMR would almost always win.
The singularity of your playstyle is causing you to have an incredibly biased view on balance and the game. Because you've been unwilling to learn how to play SC2 for the last 6 years. I really don't know if you're just acting, or if you started out acting and then actually became that person but you're the most delusional RTS player I've ever seen in my Life. Your view on the game and the reality of SC2 is so far apart that it's almost unfathomable.
Also if you want to talk about relevance please just take a look at your Aligulac rating and then take a good look at yourself: http://aligulac.com/players/987-avilo/
On May 05 2017 05:12 avilo wrote: a) So not fixing or addressing mech anti-air, instead going backwards again b) tempest does not need buffs, all air units in the game need nerfs to prevent turtle/stalemate gameplay/mass air
These changes took weeks to come up with? They don't address anything, and they move the game backwards, particularly the tempest change.
And mech anti-air is still left in the dust. Mass raven / swarmhost are still in the game.
Why is there not a single word about swarmhosts being abusive versus mech? It's been since November 2016 when patch 3.8 came out and swarmhosts became ridiculous to play against for anyone opting for mech play.
I love Blizzard games, i love SC2. But it's clear there's no direction from the balance team for a while, or they do not know or understand mech problems enough to propose good solutions to making mech more viable without making it OP.
Considering I have played mech since Wings of Liberty Beta almost exclusively over bio, and been Grandmasters playing around 95% mech games versus every race, i would like to sincerely extend my knowledge and expertise to Blizzard if they are willing to work with someone in the community to get some impactful changes into the game.
Riot Games commonly consults 1 trick ponies in the LoL community for changes to specific champions, such as when they were thinking about buffing the champion Annie they consulted a well known streamer "Annie Bot" to get his opinions and feedback on what would be good and bad changes in terms of buffs and nerfs.
I would love it if Blizzard reached out to me and directly talked with me about some good ideas to implement to help out mech viability, specifically in the department of mech not having any anti-air available.
A lot of people know i am running a tournament soon and it will be on an extension mod. I specifically address one core problem for mech viability, being that mech has no AA. The core design change i did was as follows, as well as a few other quality of life changes that allow mech to be more playable without changing much at all with how units operate - just simply the accessibly of anti-air for mech:
Vikings can now be produced from factories, reactor factories, and starports. Vikings produced from factories come out in assault mode (ground mode). Vikings produced from starports come out in air mode. Vikings by default can no longer transform between ground and air mode (to prevent early game cheeses vs Z).
Armory price reduced to 100/50 from 150/100. Transformation servos upgrade available at the factory tech lab for 50/50, research time 41 seconds. Transformation servos requires an armory to be researched.
Transformation servos allows hellions and vikings to transform between modes freely.
I have already tested this change across many games, and it's proven to give mech a viable AA option and response to air that already exists in the game without doing any unit statistic changes.
The impact of the change means a meching Terran now can react to the opponent's air transition by mass producing vikings from the factories that they already have, essentially giving mech a mass producible anti-air option similar to the goliath.
The change also means that a meching Terran is saving around 400-600 vespene gas and potentially 1-2 minutes of build time on starports. The gas saved from not forcing a mech Terran to have to turtle into 5 starports to counter air changes the flow of the game entirely, allowing a mech Terran to now attack more often as well as go past 5 factories and play a true macro game instead of being limited to not going past 5 factories.
I would highly encourage Blizzard to consult me about this idea, as i mentioned i have already tested it and will be running a tournament using the change. Many of the players that have played mech with this change were amazed that they had a viable AA option and a true anti-air response from the factory to the opponent massing air units.
I've played and streamed this game for 5-6 years now and love the game like everyone here on the forums do, and like i'm sure Blizzard does, but it's clear the changes that are being proposed by blizzard really have little to no impact on helping mech viability, so sincerely again i would hope they will consider consulting with me about changes to help mech viability.
Swarmhosts are also a huge issue right now for mech viability and on the map i made the changes:
Swarmhosts are slower off of creep. Swarmhosts remain fast on creep. Swarmhost hp reduced to 120 from 160. Swarmhosts now have the light tag. Swarmhosts are 6 supply.
These might seem heavy handed but the unit is really making the game unenjoyable for quite a ton of people, and it's limiting strategic diversity all by itself in terms of mech Terran.
Also p.s. the original thor flat 12 damage change is also on the mod i made with Darkblizzard (name of the arcade mapmaker/map designer). Blizzard needs to stop being afraid of strategic diversity and letting mech become playable. The thor flat AA change was a really good change. Ground anti-air should be stronger than air units.
Hard to take someone seriously who scams his viewers off money for trips to Austin and Katowice, takes donations for that and then doesn't show up. You don't have the best interest of anyone in mind but yourself. You're a disgrace that honestly should be banned from TL and Twitch.
Avilo talks about balancing, you talk about donation, what is the relationship? As if without this story you would have paid attention to his words... But no, it is Avilo, you are TLO so you won't listen cause you play better than him, that's all. It's stupid but a lot of pro player think like that. He can ask 300 arguments does not matter, because many pro players patronized idea of players weaker than them ... I do not like Avilo, but the game goes wrong, he has the deserves to seek solutions, even if they may be bad, it's better than watching the game die.
His suggestions aren't solutions, they're just buffing his niche playstyle that he doesn't even execute well. If he would listen to advice for just a single hour and take it seriously he could probably even be a halfway decent player, but he doesn't care about improving he just loves to whine and victimise himself.
My ideas are solutions to mech anti-air issues with a simple accessibility change to vikings. Many masters/gm players that have already tried the map and tested it gave the feedback that they like how now if they scout an air transition they have an immediate factory AA option, rather than automatically losing the game for opting for non-bio play.
The guy that posted is right - you just decided to post here not even talking about gameplay and slander me for no reason. No one gives a fuck if you don't like me or if i like you. We want SC2 to get more love from the developers and get meaningful patches.
It has nothing to do with "avilo's playstyle" or me at all. It has to do with giving mech a viable factory anti-air option and addressing swarmhosts. Perhaps the changes i wrote in this thread are a bit out of context considering there's a myriad of other changes that accompany those such as ravens being 4 supply, and many more, so you are just knee jerk reacting to the swarmhost ideas i put there.
There is a reason why every mech Terran has quit the game or stopped playing. Strelok, goody, htomario, the list goes on. A unit like the swarmhost in it's current state on the live version of the game NEEDS to be addressed by the developers. It's specifically overpowered and braindead against mech and makes mech near unplayable atm.
The game should have strategic diversity in it - not force Terran to play bio 16 marine drop every game. Which is really what my post was about, but if you wanna keep personally attacking me instead of the ideas go ahead.
Your problem is that you have a completely skewed view on SC2 that only exists in your own bubble. You're playing mech but when I tried watching your stream once your build order made no sense and just put you incredibly far behind by default. So I suggest learning some real Mech build orders from players like Major, TY or Gumiho.
Also playing only Mech makes it insanely hard for you to win games because everybody knows you only play mech so people can just blind counter. The same goes for any player that would only play a single style in any other matchup. That's just not the way you're supposed to play. So your Mech would become twice as strong if you would be able to play Bio in just 33% of your games so people can't just take freewins by ignoring the Bio threat.
If Terran know a Zerg only plays LBM you can abuse that as Terran and increase your winrate by 20% by just completely ignoring fast hive or Roach threat and only countering LBM from the start of the game.
If Zerg knows a Protoss always goes for adept pressure into fast Carrier he always just make enough units to defend the adepts and then drone like crazy and make units that counter Carrier and even in equal MMR would almost always win.
The singularity of your playstyle is causing you to have an incredibly biased view on balance and the game. Because you've been unwilling to learn how to play SC2 for the last 6 years. I really don't know if you're just acting, or if you started out acting and then actually became that person but you're the most delusional RTS player I've ever seen in my Life. Your view on the game and the reality of SC2 is so far apart that it's almost unfathomable.
Also if you want to talk about relevance please just take a look at your Aligulac rating and then take a good look at yourself: http://aligulac.com/players/987-avilo/
I really don't think Avilo should be taken seriously. He is just doing it for money and knows people will watch him if he whines. Look at his Twitter feed all you will find is stuff like "if you want me to play sc2 then sub to me if you don't sub I will have to play other games [where he has 30ish viewers] to grow my stream".
He is just a failure representing a part of what is wrong with online communities these days...
And again the grandmasters aren't even willing to remotely say anything relating to balance. Great.
Strategic diversity-> higher winrate? If that is so why don't pro terrans play mech more often? Oh right it's about as valid as proxy ghost cloak vs protoss.
Avilo's latest tweet was probably just a way of saying: I hate starcraft as it is atm, sub so I have a reason to play.
Oh well keep it up people. Atleast it's amusing to read.
On May 07 2017 03:31 Suchbalancemuchwow wrote: And again the grandmasters aren't even willing to remotely say anything relating to balance. Great.
Strategic diversity-> higher winrate? If that is so why don't pro terrans play mech more often? Oh right it's about as valid as proxy ghost cloak vs protoss.
Avilo's latest tweet was probably just a way of saying: I hate starcraft as it is atm, sub so I have a reason to play.
Oh well keep it up people. Atleast it's amusing to read.
Mech is the niche and Bio the standard, that's just how the game developed, making Mech as valid as Bio isn't anything most people desire and changing such a core concept at this point is an almost impossible undertaking. There's plenty of Terrans that occasionally Mech on a much higher level than Avilo even though he does it full time and it's really hard to play vs Mech if you faced a strong standard opening that could transition either way but you prepared more for Bio. Those Terrans play real build orders and are willing to admit they lost because of their own mistakes instead of making incredibly unpleasant sounds into their microphone.
On May 07 2017 03:31 Suchbalancemuchwow wrote: And again the grandmasters aren't even willing to remotely say anything relating to balance. Great.
Strategic diversity-> higher winrate? If that is so why don't pro terrans play mech more often? Oh right it's about as valid as proxy ghost cloak vs protoss.
Avilo's latest tweet was probably just a way of saying: I hate starcraft as it is atm, sub so I have a reason to play.
Oh well keep it up people. Atleast it's amusing to read.
Mech is the niche and Bio the standard, that's just how the game developed, making Mech as valid as Bio isn't anything most people desire and changing such a core concept at this point is an almost impossible undertaking.
That is correct. There is absolutely no flaw in that reasoning. I just wish Blizzard would straight out tell us for once that they intend to keep it that way, so we can accept that the swarm host is meant to keep mech the niche.
If they did then people would have no choice but to let this ''discussion'' end. Avilo could stop preaching to the choir and these community feedback updates wouldn't be filled with a myriad of philosophical game changes either.
Honestly why is blizzard even opting for transparancy without being transparant themselves about what they want starcraft 2 lotv to be.
Anyway what do you personally think of the thor and the tempest buff? I'd like to know that much atleast.
On May 07 2017 03:31 Suchbalancemuchwow wrote: And again the grandmasters aren't even willing to remotely say anything relating to balance. Great.
Strategic diversity-> higher winrate? If that is so why don't pro terrans play mech more often? Oh right it's about as valid as proxy ghost cloak vs protoss.
Avilo's latest tweet was probably just a way of saying: I hate starcraft as it is atm, sub so I have a reason to play.
Oh well keep it up people. Atleast it's amusing to read.
Mech is the niche and Bio the standard, that's just how the game developed, making Mech as valid as Bio isn't anything most people desire and changing such a core concept at this point is an almost impossible undertaking.
That is correct. There is absolutely no flaw in that reasoning. I just wish Blizzard would straight out tell us for once that they intend to keep it that way, so we can accept that the swarm host is meant to keep mech the niche.
If they did then people would have no choice but to let this ''discussion'' end. Avilo could stop preaching to the choir and these community feedback updates wouldn't be filled with a myriad of philosophical game changes either.
Honestly why is blizzard even opting for transparancy without being transparant themselves about what they want starcraft 2 lotv to be.
Anyway what do you personally think of the thor and the tempest buff? I'd like to know that much atleast.
First of all I really don't think swarmhost are the end to Mech, most Zerg pros I know have really mixed feelings about swarmhosts. They can be amazing but if your opponent knows what they're doing they can also help Terran transition into a sick lategame while you delayed your path to Hive and are stuck with bad mid game units.
Thor buff is alright, I don't mind it. Small changes like that are great because they can be quite impactful without breaking the game. SC2 fights can snowball numberwise if you even just add a single upgrade or a single additional unit. (for example 9 roaches crush 7 roaches and 7-8 of the 9 roaches survive)
Tempest buff is a bit awkward it's mostly to deal with Carrier vs Carrier but at least they realised +25 would allow 4 shooting broodlords with upgrades which would make them unviable. I think there would be more elegant solutions to it tho.
On May 07 2017 03:31 Suchbalancemuchwow wrote: And again the grandmasters aren't even willing to remotely say anything relating to balance. Great.
Strategic diversity-> higher winrate? If that is so why don't pro terrans play mech more often? Oh right it's about as valid as proxy ghost cloak vs protoss.
Avilo's latest tweet was probably just a way of saying: I hate starcraft as it is atm, sub so I have a reason to play.
Oh well keep it up people. Atleast it's amusing to read.
Mech is the niche and Bio the standard, that's just how the game developed, making Mech as valid as Bio isn't anything most people desire and changing such a core concept at this point is an almost impossible undertaking.
That is correct. There is absolutely no flaw in that reasoning. I just wish Blizzard would straight out tell us for once that they intend to keep it that way, so we can accept that the swarm host is meant to keep mech the niche.
If they did then people would have no choice but to let this ''discussion'' end. Avilo could stop preaching to the choir and these community feedback updates wouldn't be filled with a myriad of philosophical game changes either.
Honestly why is blizzard even opting for transparancy without being transparant themselves about what they want starcraft 2 lotv to be.
Anyway what do you personally think of the thor and the tempest buff? I'd like to know that much atleast.
First of all I really don't think swarmhost are the end to Mech, most Zerg pros I know have really mixed feelings about swarmhosts. They can be amazing but if your opponent knows what they're doing they can also help Terran transition into a sick lategame while you delayed your path to Hive and are stuck with bad mid game units.
Mech shines the most when the initial Hellion/Hellbat/Raven/Mine/Marine/Drop (pick your poison) kind of harrass does decent damage, then Mech can secure a victory and avoid the danger of losing in late late game because very late game of Mech is actually superior to Zergs. I feel like swarmhosts are only very strong when Zerg is ahead anyway.
Thor buff is alright, I don't mind it. Small changes like that are great because they can be quite impactful without breaking the game. SC2 fights can snowball numberwise if you even just add a single upgrade or a single additional unit. (for example 9 roaches crush 7 roaches and 7-8 of the 9 roaches survive)
Tempest buff is a bit awkward it's mostly to deal with Carrier vs Carrier but at least they realised +25 would allow 4 shooting broodlords with upgrades which would make them unviable. I think there would be more elegant solutions to it tho.
On May 07 2017 03:31 Suchbalancemuchwow wrote: And again the grandmasters aren't even willing to remotely say anything relating to balance. Great.
Strategic diversity-> higher winrate? If that is so why don't pro terrans play mech more often? Oh right it's about as valid as proxy ghost cloak vs protoss.
Avilo's latest tweet was probably just a way of saying: I hate starcraft as it is atm, sub so I have a reason to play.
Oh well keep it up people. Atleast it's amusing to read.
Mech is the niche and Bio the standard, that's just how the game developed, making Mech as valid as Bio isn't anything most people desire and changing such a core concept at this point is an almost impossible undertaking.
That is correct. There is absolutely no flaw in that reasoning. I just wish Blizzard would straight out tell us for once that they intend to keep it that way, so we can accept that the swarm host is meant to keep mech the niche.
If they did then people would have no choice but to let this ''discussion'' end. Avilo could stop preaching to the choir and these community feedback updates wouldn't be filled with a myriad of philosophical game changes either.
Honestly why is blizzard even opting for transparancy without being transparant themselves about what they want starcraft 2 lotv to be.
Anyway what do you personally think of the thor and the tempest buff? I'd like to know that much atleast.
First of all I really don't think swarmhost are the end to Mech, most Zerg pros I know have really mixed feelings about swarmhosts. They can be amazing but if your opponent knows what they're doing they can also help Terran transition into a sick lategame while you delayed your path to Hive and are stuck with bad mid game units.
Thor buff is alright, I don't mind it. Small changes like that are great because they can be quite impactful without breaking the game. SC2 fights can snowball numberwise if you even just add a single upgrade or a single additional unit. (for example 9 roaches crush 7 roaches and 7-8 of the 9 roaches survive)
Tempest buff is a bit awkward it's mostly to deal with Carrier vs Carrier but at least they realised +25 would allow 4 shooting broodlords with upgrades which would make them unviable. I think there would be more elegant solutions to it tho.
Alright, thanks for the taking the time to put forward some insightful commentary.
I obviously have no clue how good things are or aren't at the very high level. So swarmhosts might actually be slightly overhyped for all I know. But I personally found that if the zerg is ahead economically and gets a large number of swarmhosts it becomes very hard for terran to build his army or tech. It's this frustrating feeling of actually already being defeated and dying a slow death which makes them feel overpowered and annoying at the very least (And ofcourse that for purely mech units it's hard to catch them). I believe that this is the reason why people are vocal about them.
On May 07 2017 03:31 Suchbalancemuchwow wrote: And again the grandmasters aren't even willing to remotely say anything relating to balance. Great.
Strategic diversity-> higher winrate? If that is so why don't pro terrans play mech more often? Oh right it's about as valid as proxy ghost cloak vs protoss.
Avilo's latest tweet was probably just a way of saying: I hate starcraft as it is atm, sub so I have a reason to play.
Oh well keep it up people. Atleast it's amusing to read.
Mech is the niche and Bio the standard, that's just how the game developed, making Mech as valid as Bio isn't anything most people desire and changing such a core concept at this point is an almost impossible undertaking.
That is correct. There is absolutely no flaw in that reasoning. I just wish Blizzard would straight out tell us for once that they intend to keep it that way, so we can accept that the swarm host is meant to keep mech the niche.
If they did then people would have no choice but to let this ''discussion'' end. Avilo could stop preaching to the choir and these community feedback updates wouldn't be filled with a myriad of philosophical game changes either.
Honestly why is blizzard even opting for transparancy without being transparant themselves about what they want starcraft 2 lotv to be.
Anyway what do you personally think of the thor and the tempest buff? I'd like to know that much atleast.
First of all I really don't think swarmhost are the end to Mech, most Zerg pros I know have really mixed feelings about swarmhosts. They can be amazing but if your opponent knows what they're doing they can also help Terran transition into a sick lategame while you delayed your path to Hive and are stuck with bad mid game units.
Thor buff is alright, I don't mind it. Small changes like that are great because they can be quite impactful without breaking the game. SC2 fights can snowball numberwise if you even just add a single upgrade or a single additional unit. (for example 9 roaches crush 7 roaches and 7-8 of the 9 roaches survive)
Tempest buff is a bit awkward it's mostly to deal with Carrier vs Carrier but at least they realised +25 would allow 4 shooting broodlords with upgrades which would make them unviable. I think there would be more elegant solutions to it tho.
Alright, thanks for the taking the time to put forward some insightful commentary.
I obviously have no clue how good things are or aren't at the very high level. So swarmhosts might actually be slightly overhyped for all I know. But I personally found that if the zerg is ahead economically and gets a large number of swarmhosts it becomes very hard for terran to build his army or tech. It's this frustrating feeling of actually already being defeated and dying a slow death which makes them feel overpowered and annoying at the very least (And ofcourse that for purely mech units it's hard to catch them). I believe that this is the reason why people are vocal about them.
Oh well, again thanks for answering.
Swarmhosts are incredibly powerful if Zerg is ahead after the early game. I think what most people that play Mech need to realise is that in the early game you can't play passive at all. If you want to mech you need to make work with your initial hellions/hellbats/raven/banshee/Mine/MarineDrop (pick your poison). Only after you secured an advantage or at least slowed down the Zerg can you transition into a more passive style, otherwise Zerg has too many options.
Pig wrote an excellent pair of Strategy Articles about the current state of Mech and how to play/counterplay with it, using the example of Dark vs. Gumiho. I highly recommend checking then out.
Incidentally, swarmhosts are a complete non-issue.
Strictly from my personal observations, most people (including Blizzard) just like Bio more than Mech. As long as that remains true and Bio remains viable Mech will never become a thing.
And for the sake of the viewers I hope that the insanely awesome 4M vs LBM games that are currently displayed by guys like INnoVation and ByuL never revert to that infamous turtle mech Game 5 on Coda that effectively won INnoVation his second GSL.
There are many ways to make Mech work. I am only around 6100 MMR but I definitly meet a lot of Mech.
I open 2 Hatch every ZvT anyways so I just go Mutalisk --> 3 hatch Sat --> 8 Swarmhost --> 16 Swarmhost Ling Hydra Bane allin and kill them....
Here is an example of a 6.4k terran dying to it. + Show Spoiler +
Here is a Replay versus a Mech Terran who just walks over my Swarmhost Hydra Broodlord composition while I had a Spending Quotient of 161: http://sc2replaystats.com/replay/4164250
Here is me explaing a fellow Zerg how to beat a Raven Viking Ghost Tank Turtle: + Show Spoiler +
Honestly the problem is not the Swarmhost there are definitly many ways to straight up roll Swarmhosts or to just turtle to death. I just don't understand what these Mech Terrans actually want. There are definitly Mech Compositions that just roll me over and I lose a decent amount of Games to Mech Terran.
I suggest ignoring what Avilo thinks on the Mech Balance though and question people who actually play the style to win and not to whine and blame maphackers.
EDIT:
Don't forget that some Terrans just don't micro their Mech at all even at 6k MMR+...
On May 07 2017 04:30 Railgan wrote: There are many ways to make Mech work. I am only around 6100 MMR but I definitly meet a lot of Mech.
I open 2 Hatch every ZvT anyways so I just go Mutalisk --> 3 hatch Sat --> 8 Swarmhost --> 16 Swarmhost Ling Hydra Bane allin and kill them....
Here is an example of a 6.4k terran dying to it. + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnCufl6uoow
Here is a Replay versus a Mech Terran who just walks over my Swarmhost Hydra Broodlord composition while I had a Spending Quotient of 161: http://sc2replaystats.com/replay/4164250
Here is me explaing a fellow Zerg how to beat a Raven Viking Ghost Tank Turtle: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp20Jy1Vl0A&t=28m
Honestly the problem is not the Swarmhost there are definitly many ways to straight up roll Swarmhosts or to just turtle to death. I just don't understand what these Mech Terrans actually want. There are definitly Mech Compositions that just roll me over and I lose a decent amount of Games to Mech Terran.
I suggest ignoring what Avilo thinks on the Mech Balance though and question people who actually play the style to win and not to whine and blame maphackers.
EDIT:
Don't forget that some Terrans just don't micro their Mech at all even at 6k MMR+...
This guy just attacked nothing but my Queens with his tanks and got steamrolled because of it
Thanks for the good post.
I looked at these games, and I am aware of the lategame turtle potential of mech (oh god why). Ofcourse in the one game where you lost there were 2 major differences with what people currently dislike about swarmhost play in TvZ
The first being that your hydra's were 10 hp weaker in january. The second part is that swarmhosts snowball out of control when you have like 16, the number which you had in the game where you won. What people are frustrated about (I imagine) is losing units to an overwhelming amount of swarmhosts, enabling the zerg to be very cost-efficient-> remax on hive army/or static D.
In that case mech players feel like they have no other choice but to turtle since they feel they can't walk out on the map and beat the standing hydra swarm host army + the eventual remax. Ofcourse people with higher mmr are better at knowing if they can move out or not but others might feel inclined to stay at home.
I just.. I personally can't tell if they are too powerful or not. It's such a weird unit that either dominates a game or is kind of there. But with the recent hydra buff they've become a more powerful presence for sure. I also don't know how your games would pan out if you went straight hydra swarm host instead of a muta opener. It's true that you force thors/turrets which aren't exactly the best units vs hydra swarm host but it's also true that your muta investment = 10 swarm hosts.
What I do know is that playing against swarmhosts might not be what people think is fun. Just like how playing against mech isn't fun for others. But yea like always, Blizzard should just give it to us straight if they think mech is fine atm.
On May 07 2017 04:30 Railgan wrote: There are many ways to make Mech work. I am only around 6100 MMR but I definitly meet a lot of Mech.
I open 2 Hatch every ZvT anyways so I just go Mutalisk --> 3 hatch Sat --> 8 Swarmhost --> 16 Swarmhost Ling Hydra Bane allin and kill them....
Here is an example of a 6.4k terran dying to it. + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnCufl6uoow
Here is a Replay versus a Mech Terran who just walks over my Swarmhost Hydra Broodlord composition while I had a Spending Quotient of 161: http://sc2replaystats.com/replay/4164250
Here is me explaing a fellow Zerg how to beat a Raven Viking Ghost Tank Turtle: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp20Jy1Vl0A&t=28m
Honestly the problem is not the Swarmhost there are definitly many ways to straight up roll Swarmhosts or to just turtle to death. I just don't understand what these Mech Terrans actually want. There are definitly Mech Compositions that just roll me over and I lose a decent amount of Games to Mech Terran.
I suggest ignoring what Avilo thinks on the Mech Balance though and question people who actually play the style to win and not to whine and blame maphackers.
EDIT:
Don't forget that some Terrans just don't micro their Mech at all even at 6k MMR+...
This guy just attacked nothing but my Queens with his tanks and got steamrolled because of it
Thanks for the good post.
I looked at these games, and I am aware of the lategame turtle potential of mech (oh god why). Ofcourse in the one game where you lost there were 2 major differences with what people currently dislike about swarmhost play in TvZ
The first being that your hydra's were 10 hp weaker in january. The second part is that swarmhosts snowball out of control when you have like 16, the number which you had in the game where you won. What people are frustrated about (I imagine) is losing units to an overwhelming amount of swarmhosts, enabling the zerg to be very cost-efficient-> remax on hive army/or static D.
In that case mech players feel like they have no other choice but to turtle since they feel they can't walk out on the map and beat the standing hydra swarm host army + the eventual remax. Ofcourse people with higher mmr are better at knowing if they can move out or not but others might feel inclined to stay at home.
I just.. I personally can't tell if they are too powerful or not. It's such a weird unit that either dominates a game or is kind of there. But with the recent hydra buff they've become a more powerful presence for sure. I also don't know how your games would pan out if you went straight hydra swarm host instead of a muta opener. It's true that you force thors/turrets which aren't exactly the best units vs hydra swarm host but it's also true that your muta investment = 10 swarm hosts.
What I do know is that playing against swarmhosts might not be what people think is fun. Just like how playing against mech isn't fun for others. But yea like always, Blizzard should just give it to us straight if they think mech is fine atm.
Neither is it fun for Zergs to deal with Archon Drops that you can't really punish... or oracles or 16 marine drops or ravens and the list goes on. It's part of the game and there are things that every race struggles with.
If he goes mass Swarmhost you can use BC's / Liberators / Banshees that the Swarmhosts can't shoot at. If he has Mass Swarmhost, Mass Corruptor and Viper then you probably messed up and deserve the loss that you have coming.
Furthermore, as I mentioned previously you can always punish swarmhosts with hellbats as long as the banes don't get insane connections on your hellbats. I play Mech too and I just go Tank Thor Hellbat and amove over the Zergs at 5.2k mmr as their locusts all get abused by my single hellions that I drive into their army so the locusts all land immediatly far away from my army.
On May 07 2017 04:30 Railgan wrote: There are many ways to make Mech work. I am only around 6100 MMR but I definitly meet a lot of Mech.
I open 2 Hatch every ZvT anyways so I just go Mutalisk --> 3 hatch Sat --> 8 Swarmhost --> 16 Swarmhost Ling Hydra Bane allin and kill them....
Here is an example of a 6.4k terran dying to it. + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnCufl6uoow
Here is a Replay versus a Mech Terran who just walks over my Swarmhost Hydra Broodlord composition while I had a Spending Quotient of 161: http://sc2replaystats.com/replay/4164250
Here is me explaing a fellow Zerg how to beat a Raven Viking Ghost Tank Turtle: + Show Spoiler +
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp20Jy1Vl0A&t=28m
Honestly the problem is not the Swarmhost there are definitly many ways to straight up roll Swarmhosts or to just turtle to death. I just don't understand what these Mech Terrans actually want. There are definitly Mech Compositions that just roll me over and I lose a decent amount of Games to Mech Terran.
I suggest ignoring what Avilo thinks on the Mech Balance though and question people who actually play the style to win and not to whine and blame maphackers.
EDIT:
Don't forget that some Terrans just don't micro their Mech at all even at 6k MMR+...
This guy just attacked nothing but my Queens with his tanks and got steamrolled because of it
Thanks for the good post.
I looked at these games, and I am aware of the lategame turtle potential of mech (oh god why). Ofcourse in the one game where you lost there were 2 major differences with what people currently dislike about swarmhost play in TvZ
The first being that your hydra's were 10 hp weaker in january. The second part is that swarmhosts snowball out of control when you have like 16, the number which you had in the game where you won. What people are frustrated about (I imagine) is losing units to an overwhelming amount of swarmhosts, enabling the zerg to be very cost-efficient-> remax on hive army/or static D.
In that case mech players feel like they have no other choice but to turtle since they feel they can't walk out on the map and beat the standing hydra swarm host army + the eventual remax. Ofcourse people with higher mmr are better at knowing if they can move out or not but others might feel inclined to stay at home.
I just.. I personally can't tell if they are too powerful or not. It's such a weird unit that either dominates a game or is kind of there. But with the recent hydra buff they've become a more powerful presence for sure. I also don't know how your games would pan out if you went straight hydra swarm host instead of a muta opener. It's true that you force thors/turrets which aren't exactly the best units vs hydra swarm host but it's also true that your muta investment = 10 swarm hosts.
What I do know is that playing against swarmhosts might not be what people think is fun. Just like how playing against mech isn't fun for others. But yea like always, Blizzard should just give it to us straight if they think mech is fine atm.
Neither is it fun for Zergs to deal with Archon Drops that you can't really punish... or oracles or 16 marine drops or ravens and the list goes on. It's part of the game and there are things that every race struggles with.
If he goes mass Swarmhost you can use BC's / Liberators / Banshees that the Swarmhosts can't shoot at. If he has Mass Swarmhost, Mass Corruptor and Viper then you probably messed up and deserve the loss that you have coming.
Furthermore, as I mentioned previously you can always punish swarmhosts with hellbats as long as the banes don't get insane connections on your hellbats. I play Mech too and I just go Tank Thor Hellbat and amove over the Zergs at 5.2k mmr as their locusts all get abused by my single hellions that I drive into their army so the locusts all land immediatly far away from my army.
Not too sure about those comparisons and mass swarmhost but okay. I realize there's stuff that people hate in all matchups though. BC's liberators and banshees excluding speed banshee's can't catch swarmhosts and even if they did, they'd get killed by hydra's without the ground army support. Surely this is the reason why you go tank thor hellbat is it not? I'm not too sure about air V swarmhost in general since that means the standing ground army gets owned by locusts.
And it's ofcourse rather tragic that 5.2k mmr zergs can't manually move their locusts to not attack the first hellions. Also how do you even drive a hellion into their army when it should get killed by some hydra's
But yea, there's a lot to dislike and like about Sc2. So it'd be nice for our conscience (atleast mine) to know whether something will ever get changed or not.
On May 06 2017 22:17 MockHamill wrote: I have played every major RTS since Dune II. I have never seen anything as broken as the current Swarm Hosts vs mech.
parking your submarine in your opponents harbour in Utopia.
On May 07 2017 04:30 Railgan wrote: There are many ways to make Mech work. I am only around 6100 MMR but I definitly meet a lot of Mech..... .... Don't forget that some Terrans just don't micro their Mech at all even at 6k MMR+...
thx for your insights man.
On May 07 2017 04:06 Liquid`TLO wrote: Swarmhosts are incredibly powerful if Zerg is ahead after the early game. I think what most people that play Mech need to realise is that in the early game you can't play passive at all. If you want to mech you need to make work with your initial hellions/hellbats/raven/banshee/Mine/MarineDrop (pick your poison). Only after you secured an advantage or at least slowed down the Zerg can you transition into a more passive style, otherwise Zerg has too many options.
thx for ur insights sir. TL should pay its SC2 team members to provide feedback in these threads. Just 20 minutes a week makes a world of difference. TL would easily squeeze another $30/year out of me if they did that.
i think its really cool that one must "earn" your opportunity to tech into a big mech build. i like the gradual crescendo of battles... starting with a few small skirmishes... and gradually building to bigger and bigger fights.
On May 07 2017 03:31 Suchbalancemuchwow wrote: And again the grandmasters aren't even willing to remotely say anything relating to balance. Great.
Strategic diversity-> higher winrate? If that is so why don't pro terrans play mech more often? Oh right it's about as valid as proxy ghost cloak vs protoss.
Avilo's latest tweet was probably just a way of saying: I hate starcraft as it is atm, sub so I have a reason to play.
Oh well keep it up people. Atleast it's amusing to read.
Mech is the niche and Bio the standard, that's just how the game developed, making Mech as valid as Bio isn't anything most people desire and changing such a core concept at this point is an almost impossible undertaking.
That is correct. There is absolutely no flaw in that reasoning. I just wish Blizzard would straight out tell us for once that they intend to keep it that way, so we can accept that the swarm host is meant to keep mech the niche.
If they did then people would have no choice but to let this ''discussion'' end. Avilo could stop preaching to the choir and these community feedback updates wouldn't be filled with a myriad of philosophical game changes either.
Honestly why is blizzard even opting for transparancy without being transparant themselves about what they want starcraft 2 lotv to be.
Anyway what do you personally think of the thor and the tempest buff? I'd like to know that much atleast.
First of all I really don't think swarmhost are the end to Mech, most Zerg pros I know have really mixed feelings about swarmhosts. They can be amazing but if your opponent knows what they're doing they can also help Terran transition into a sick lategame while you delayed your path to Hive and are stuck with bad mid game units.
Thor buff is alright, I don't mind it. Small changes like that are great because they can be quite impactful without breaking the game. SC2 fights can snowball numberwise if you even just add a single upgrade or a single additional unit. (for example 9 roaches crush 7 roaches and 7-8 of the 9 roaches survive)
Tempest buff is a bit awkward it's mostly to deal with Carrier vs Carrier but at least they realised +25 would allow 4 shooting broodlords with upgrades which would make them unviable. I think there would be more elegant solutions to it tho.
Alright, thanks for the taking the time to put forward some insightful commentary.
I obviously have no clue how good things are or aren't at the very high level. So swarmhosts might actually be slightly overhyped for all I know. But I personally found that if the zerg is ahead economically and gets a large number of swarmhosts it becomes very hard for terran to build his army or tech. It's this frustrating feeling of actually already being defeated and dying a slow death which makes them feel overpowered and annoying at the very least (And ofcourse that for purely mech units it's hard to catch them). I believe that this is the reason why people are vocal about them.
Oh well, again thanks for answering.
Swarmhosts are incredibly powerful if Zerg is ahead after the early game. I think what most people that play Mech need to realise is that in the early game you can't play passive at all. If you want to mech you need to make work with your initial hellions/hellbats/raven/banshee/Mine/MarineDrop (pick your poison). Only after you secured an advantage or at least slowed down the Zerg can you transition into a more passive style, otherwise Zerg has too many options.
TLO telling it like it is. As far as balance goes, the key to all of this is activity and interactivity. Players have to interact in order for it to be a good multiplayer game. That's something that a lot of professional players as well as casters understand and constantly talk about, and the dev team makes balance decisions with this in mind.
When a player rages about not being to play passively they fail to understand that and so, so many other things. Swarm Hosts, as I've said idk how many times, are part of keeping players from being passive in 1v1 matches, and understanding exactly what they are so strong against and why is so key. The problem with Mech and Mech players is that it (historically, in SC2) rewarded Terrans for not interacting with their opponent until they could easily walk over them, it rewarded passive play, and a small group of players got used to this playstyle which is threatened by the Swarm Host unit. StarCraft is all about interactions, and with Legacy of the Void the team has been making it very difficult for Terran Mech players to play that same way in the matchup, and across all matchups to a lesser extent, which is a good thing for the game's design.
A lot of Terran players will quote David Kim as saying, on multiple occasions, that him and the team work very hard to make Mech viable and then rage at the current state of the game because the team still hasn't "fixed" Mech, and they'll believe that their negative feelings are justified somehow because of D. Kim's quotes. The team has made so many Mech units very powerful and they are always (as shown by 3.8 and patches since) looking at Mech units and the playstyle. Right now the Widow Mine, Cyclone, Hellion/Hellbat, Siege Tank, Viking, Raven, Battlecruiser, and even the Thor are extremely powerful when used in the right situations by an active player. However, they haven't made the old Turtle Mech playstyle more powerful. When used by a passive player, all of these units stop working properly because the game is not designed to be played passively. So, in the case of a player being passive and getting rolled over by an active player using a specific unit (the Swarm Host), it isn't a bad thing.
"You can't play passive at all." Yeah you have to get your buns in gear or you get destroyed, dawg. That's the game, ever since 1998. There's a countdown, a slight pause as the map loads, then you immediately have to start making decisions as to how you will interact with your opponent. If you don't want your Zerg enemy to win with SH you have to do something about it on the battlefield starting as soon as the game begins. Now that I think about it, they're actually very similar to Ravagers in how they really punish static things, just with a much more narrow use. Anyway. I'm rambling. My bad.
Sc2 in a nutshell is a rock-scissors-paper game with micro-management elements which makes it so fun to play.
But most mech players just want free-wins instead of adapting and using all the tools at their disposal to grind out a win, expecting to win with pure mech while other races have to mix & match full range of techs just to survive to late game.
Well the minor problem is that the pressure options that mech has are so easily deflected by Zerg.
The major problem is that the units that you accumulate when you pressure Zerg (typically hellions and a few banshees) are not effective enough to slow down the Swarm Hosts transition.
If Swarm Hosts had less hit points or were light units you could use the units that you built earlier to chase them down so that Zerg had to invest in support units for the Swarm Hosts earlier, thus slowing down the Swarm Hosts transition.
In the current situation hellions only tickle Swarm Hosts and you can typically only can get a few banshees out. That is not enough to delay Swarm Hosts from attacking your bases or even being able to punish them for it.
Basically the counter play to Swarm Hosts exists but is is much too weak. It would be great if Blizzard could try changing the Swarm Host to light or lower their hit points on the test map so that the balance between play and counter play would be more even.
On May 07 2017 17:32 MockHamill wrote: Well the minor problem is that the pressure options that mech has are so easily deflected by Zerg.
The major problem is that the units that you accumulate when you pressure Zerg (typically hellions and a few banshees) are not effective enough to slow down the Swarm Hosts transition.
If Swarm Hosts had less hit points or were light units you could use the units that you built earlier to chase them down so that Zerg had to invest in support units for the Swarm Hosts earlier, thus slowing down the Swarm Hosts transition.
In the current situation hellions only tickle Swarm Hosts and you can typically only can get a few banshees out. That is not enough to delay Swarm Hosts from attacking your bases or even being able to punish them for it.
Basically the counter play to Swarm Hosts exists but is is much too weak. It would be great if Blizzard could try changing the Swarm Host to light or lower their hit points on the test map so that the balance between play and counter play would be more even.
One or two banshees are enough to stop the initial Swarmhosts, it's very hard to have fast swarmhosts and also anti air on the Terran side of the map. So if you don't waste your banshees when you scout what's going on that's all you need to not have to deal with them for quite some time. Then once you have Blueflame hellbats swarmhosts lose most of their power and you need speedbanes and amazing control to still make swarmhosts work.
On May 07 2017 17:32 MockHamill wrote: Well the minor problem is that the pressure options that mech has are so easily deflected by Zerg.
The major problem is that the units that you accumulate when you pressure Zerg (typically hellions and a few banshees) are not effective enough to slow down the Swarm Hosts transition.
If Swarm Hosts had less hit points or were light units you could use the units that you built earlier to chase them down so that Zerg had to invest in support units for the Swarm Hosts earlier, thus slowing down the Swarm Hosts transition.
In the current situation hellions only tickle Swarm Hosts and you can typically only can get a few banshees out. That is not enough to delay Swarm Hosts from attacking your bases or even being able to punish them for it.
Basically the counter play to Swarm Hosts exists but is is much too weak. It would be great if Blizzard could try changing the Swarm Host to light or lower their hit points on the test map so that the balance between play and counter play would be more even.
One or two banshees are enough to stop the initial Swarmhosts, it's very hard to have fast swarmhosts and also anti air on the Terran side of the map. So if you don't waste your banshees when you scout what's going on that's all you need to not have to deal with them for quite some time. Then once you have Blueflame hellbats swarmhosts lose most of their power and you need speedbanes and amazing control to still make swarmhosts work.
Not to sound presumptious. But is it really such an investment to invest in a drop overlord with some queens to back up your swarm hosts against the banshees? I'm sure you would know they are out on the map since terran would've gone after your drones. In that case you would probably have some spores to defend against them at home too no?
Or hell, even burrow whilst running towards and away from their base would force several scans and minimal damage no? Or ofcourse. A nydus network.
On May 07 2017 17:32 MockHamill wrote: Well the minor problem is that the pressure options that mech has are so easily deflected by Zerg.
The major problem is that the units that you accumulate when you pressure Zerg (typically hellions and a few banshees) are not effective enough to slow down the Swarm Hosts transition.
If Swarm Hosts had less hit points or were light units you could use the units that you built earlier to chase them down so that Zerg had to invest in support units for the Swarm Hosts earlier, thus slowing down the Swarm Hosts transition.
In the current situation hellions only tickle Swarm Hosts and you can typically only can get a few banshees out. That is not enough to delay Swarm Hosts from attacking your bases or even being able to punish them for it.
Basically the counter play to Swarm Hosts exists but is is much too weak. It would be great if Blizzard could try changing the Swarm Host to light or lower their hit points on the test map so that the balance between play and counter play would be more even.
One or two banshees are enough to stop the initial Swarmhosts, it's very hard to have fast swarmhosts and also anti air on the Terran side of the map. So if you don't waste your banshees when you scout what's going on that's all you need to not have to deal with them for quite some time. Then once you have Blueflame hellbats swarmhosts lose most of their power and you need speedbanes and amazing control to still make swarmhosts work.
Not to sound presumptious. But is it really such an investment to invest in a drop overlord with some queens to back up your swarm hosts against the banshees? I'm sure you would know they are out on the map since terran would've gone after your drones. In that case you would probably have some spores to defend against them at home too no?
Or hell, even burrow whilst running towards and away from their base would force several scans and minimal damage no? Or ofcourse. A nydus network.
Yeah, those are all investments into the midgame so if you stack those things there's no hope for any lategame transitions on the zerg side, unless they do absurd amounts of damage. So as long as Terran just focuses on defending by making more banshees and making sure to get hellbat blueflame + thors in time that's a gift to Terran to transition into an extremely strong defensive late game or go for a maxed out death push with few tanks but many thors, hellbats and banshees.
The biggest mistake by a bit lower ranked mech players that I see is that they love to go double armory and often get supply blocked or go to crazy on tech. So as long as you continuously produce out of your 3-4 factories and 1 starport you'll mass an army very quickly (I've lost plenty of times to 10 minute mech maxouts when I went swarmhosts) so Zerg actually has to be careful to not just die because they overmade harrass units
Terran mech basically has 3 power spikes vs Zerg.
Early game harrass with Hellions or hellbats + whatever starport preference you have Mid game maxed-out or near maxed out push + potential hellion runbys or drops or liberator harrass Late game Mega turtle style with many tanks some thors and mass viking some ravens and or ghosts and of course the ongoing hellion/hellbat runbys if zerg doesn't have infinite static defense yet.
Zerg is strongest in between all those stages so your goal is to make sure you hit your spikes and read the game properly to exploit your strengths. Of course that's an oversimplification because SC2 is a WHOLE lot more complicated than that but it's an okay generalisation.
The problem I have with the swarm host isn't balance related, it's design related. From my point of view, any unit dealing damage for free with little to no risk is problematic. You could argue that casters are dealing "free and risk-free" damage, but most casters in the game have to close in to cast their spells (even infested terrans), and somewhat endanger theirselves while doing so. The SH is basically a X money Y supply investment to get a free doom drop every 43 seconds. And frankly, I don't think that's a bad way to design zerg's mech counter if it didn't mean the best counter is "mass sensor tower turtle into mass ravens" : because the SHs are free, most of the agressive options you can go for are not worthwhile because zerg uses a free army, which means he can replenish drones or switch tech very easily. The problem is that the locusts are free, and that they can also be casted on the main mech army to deal free damage.
This means that terrans needs free, risk-free damage to deflect free, risk-free damage. And if you look at it, both the raven (with the turret and the upgraded seeker) and the BC (with yamato + jump) are based on dealing free damage with very little commitment. Also, the road blizzard took for mech is giving mech game-breaking stats, while giving other races mech-breaking mechanics. Vipers and SHs are entirely designed to counter mech, while the tank got buffed to a whooping 70dmg, and that the thor maybe gaining +1 armor, adding even more versatility its already all-purpose role.
From there, there's two ways to look at things : - either we continue increasing the mech units general strength while keeping very strong spells/abilities to specifically counter said mech units - either we tone down these mechanics and stop buffing the mech units stats
Personnally I'd gladly remove the tank's +15 hp buff and tone down its anti armored damage to 60 in exchange for changes to the SH and the viper. However, I think we're too far down the road for the dev team to start making big design decisions.
A good compromise, I think, would be to leave the thor as it is (not go through with the armor buff), but give the SH a light tag to be chased down by hellions, and nerf the locust swoop range to 4 in stead of 6 so that thors can once again be a soft counter to swarm hosts if they're positionned to intercept the locusts. This wouldn't change the SH's ability to stretch mech players defenses, while exposing theirselves to hellions.
Finally, i think that mech shouldn't necessarily be terran "niche" play. By its very design, bio play is very restrictive because the undivisable stim+shileds+medivacs+baracks production+2 ebays upgrades leaves very little space for diversity. Once you payed for the "bio package", you have very little money left to produce other units, which means that bio compositions are always the same. Mech, on the other hand, gives players a lot of choices because they can build whatever they feel like. You don't need to build tanks if you get other units to fill the role the tank usually play.
On May 07 2017 22:51 JackONeill wrote: The problem I have with the swarm host isn't balance related, it's design related. From my point of view, any unit dealing damage for free with little to no risk is problematic. You could argue that casters are dealing "free and risk-free" damage, but most casters in the game have to close in to cast their spells (even infested terrans), and somewhat endanger theirselves while doing so. The SH is basically a X money Y supply investment to get a free doom drop every 43 seconds. And frankly, I don't think that's a bad way to design zerg's mech counter if it didn't mean the best counter is "mass sensor tower turtle into mass ravens" : because the SHs are free, most of the agressive options you can go for are not worthwhile because zerg uses a free army, which means he can replenish drones or switch tech very easily. The problem is that the locusts are free, and that they can also be casted on the main mech army to deal free damage.
This means that terrans needs free, risk-free damage to deflect free, risk-free damage. And if you look at it, both the raven (with the turret and the upgraded seeker) and the BC (with yamato + jump) are based on dealing free damage with very little commitment. Also, the road blizzard took for mech is giving mech game-breaking stats, while giving other races mech-breaking mechanics. Vipers and SHs are entirely designed to counter mech, while the tank got buffed to a whooping 70dmg, and that the thor maybe gaining +1 armor, adding even more versatility its already all-purpose role.
From there, there's two ways to look at things : - either we continue increasing the mech units general strength while keeping very strong spells/abilities to specifically counter said mech units - either we tone down these mechanics and stop buffing the mech units stats
Personnally I'd gladly remove the tank's +15 hp buff and tone down its anti armored damage to 60 in exchange for changes to the SH and the viper. However, I think we're too far down the road for the dev team to start making big design decisions.
A good compromise, I think, would be to leave the thor as it is (not go through with the armor buff), but give the SH a light tag to be chased down by hellions, and nerf the locust swoop range to 4 in stead of 6 so that thors can once again be a soft counter to swarm hosts if they're positionned to intercept the locusts. This wouldn't change the SH's ability to stretch mech players defenses, while exposing theirselves to hellions.
Finally, i think that mech shouldn't necessarily be terran "niche" play. By its very design, bio play is very restrictive because the undivisable stim+shileds+medivacs+baracks production+2 ebays upgrades leaves very little space for diversity. Once you payed for the "bio package", you have very little money left to produce other units, which means that bio compositions are always the same. Mech, on the other hand, gives players a lot of choices because they can build whatever they feel like. You don't need to build tanks if you get other units to fill the role the tank usually play.
It's not true that swarmhosts deal ''free'' damage tho. Making Swarmhosts is like taking a loan, If I make 10 swarmhost I'm in debt with with 1000/750 and 30 supply, the longer my swarmhosts don't deal damage the more damage they deal to myself cause I took a loan that is not paying off. Swarmhosts becoming more useless every single second that goes by and even a single wrongly send locusts wave can lose you the game. Swarmhosts styles are insanely hard to make work if Terran knows how to abuse the downtimes and knows how to deflect waves or push out during the downtimes. I've lost so many games because I send one wave to harras and then Terran a moved me and I only had one more wave at home which won't be enough to make my swarmhosts cost efficient. Swarmhosts actually need to get really close to do anything, if Locusts wave spawn from too far away you can just ignore it, lift buildings or run away workers/army.
The problem is that some mech players have planted this seeds that swarmhosts are simply too strong rather than looking at the solutions of strong players or finding their own too it. I've given you many examples how to deal with swarmhosts.
You should try to look at swarmhosts as an opportunity, because they're very gimmicky and a single mistake will kill Zerg. But if you fear a unit and think it's OP or broken design wise it's a self fulfilling prophecy cause you'll stop looking for weaknesses and solutions. I've been in that spot myself many times and once you are in that mindset you'll stop enjoying the game and just keep losing to it.
On May 07 2017 22:51 JackONeill wrote: This means that terrans needs free, risk-free damage to deflect free, risk-free damage. And if you look at it, both the raven (with the turret and the upgraded seeker) and the BC (with yamato + jump) are based on dealing free damage with very little commitment.
the time and money required to put BCs into a position to attack and jump away.. or alternatively jump-in and attack is hardly free. I've badly damaged countless players while in the middle of their "transition to BC".
On May 07 2017 22:51 JackONeill wrote: The problem I have with the swarm host isn't balance related, it's design related. From my point of view, any unit dealing damage for free with little to no risk is problematic. You could argue that casters are dealing "free and risk-free" damage, but most casters in the game have to close in to cast their spells (even infested terrans), and somewhat endanger theirselves while doing so. The SH is basically a X money Y supply investment to get a free doom drop every 43 seconds. And frankly, I don't think that's a bad way to design zerg's mech counter if it didn't mean the best counter is "mass sensor tower turtle into mass ravens" : because the SHs are free, most of the agressive options you can go for are not worthwhile because zerg uses a free army, which means he can replenish drones or switch tech very easily. The problem is that the locusts are free, and that they can also be casted on the main mech army to deal free damage.
This means that terrans needs free, risk-free damage to deflect free, risk-free damage. And if you look at it, both the raven (with the turret and the upgraded seeker) and the BC (with yamato + jump) are based on dealing free damage with very little commitment. Also, the road blizzard took for mech is giving mech game-breaking stats, while giving other races mech-breaking mechanics. Vipers and SHs are entirely designed to counter mech, while the tank got buffed to a whooping 70dmg, and that the thor maybe gaining +1 armor, adding even more versatility its already all-purpose role.
From there, there's two ways to look at things : - either we continue increasing the mech units general strength while keeping very strong spells/abilities to specifically counter said mech units - either we tone down these mechanics and stop buffing the mech units stats
Personnally I'd gladly remove the tank's +15 hp buff and tone down its anti armored damage to 60 in exchange for changes to the SH and the viper. However, I think we're too far down the road for the dev team to start making big design decisions.
A good compromise, I think, would be to leave the thor as it is (not go through with the armor buff), but give the SH a light tag to be chased down by hellions, and nerf the locust swoop range to 4 in stead of 6 so that thors can once again be a soft counter to swarm hosts if they're positionned to intercept the locusts. This wouldn't change the SH's ability to stretch mech players defenses, while exposing theirselves to hellions.
Finally, i think that mech shouldn't necessarily be terran "niche" play. By its very design, bio play is very restrictive because the undivisable stim+shileds+medivacs+baracks production+2 ebays upgrades leaves very little space for diversity. Once you payed for the "bio package", you have very little money left to produce other units, which means that bio compositions are always the same. Mech, on the other hand, gives players a lot of choices because they can build whatever they feel like. You don't need to build tanks if you get other units to fill the role the tank usually play.
Why do you all think Swarmhosts are what breaks the Neck of Terran? You can do just fine without Swarmhost against them. People are just up in arms because they think Swarmhosts do free damage.
I'd say that Swarmhost are not even the strongest Style to play vs Mech. Ling Bane Hydra Broodlord Ultra Corruptor Viper is the composition I usually am for. Swarmhosts are only needed if they turtle really heavily and go to Sky heavy.
On May 07 2017 22:51 JackONeill wrote: This means that terrans needs free, risk-free damage to deflect free, risk-free damage. And if you look at it, both the raven (with the turret and the upgraded seeker) and the BC (with yamato + jump) are based on dealing free damage with very little commitment.
the time and money required to put a BC into a position to attack and jump away.. or alternatively jump-in and attack is hardly free. I've badly damaged countless players while in the middle of their "transition to BC".
Thank God we Zergs spawn with Swarmhosts or Hive Tech in our Base and have no trouble dealing with Terran Harrass while our Swarmhosts attack them for 20 seconds before they have to wait another 20.
On May 07 2017 22:51 JackONeill wrote: This means that terrans needs free, risk-free damage to deflect free, risk-free damage. And if you look at it, both the raven (with the turret and the upgraded seeker) and the BC (with yamato + jump) are based on dealing free damage with very little commitment.
the time and money required to put a BC into a position to attack and jump away.. or alternatively jump-in and attack is hardly free. I've badly damaged countless players while in the middle of their "transition to BC".
Thank God we Zergs spawn with Swarmhosts or Hive Tech in our Base and have no trouble dealing with Terran Harrass while our Swarmhosts attack them for 20 seconds before they have to wait another 20.
ya well, "H" stands for Hive right? and the Hive is only 300 whereas a Command Center is 400 and costs more time and money to upgrade.
On May 07 2017 22:51 JackONeill wrote: This means that terrans needs free, risk-free damage to deflect free, risk-free damage. And if you look at it, both the raven (with the turret and the upgraded seeker) and the BC (with yamato + jump) are based on dealing free damage with very little commitment.
the time and money required to put a BC into a position to attack and jump away.. or alternatively jump-in and attack is hardly free. I've badly damaged countless players while in the middle of their "transition to BC".
Thank God we Zergs spawn with Swarmhosts or Hive Tech in our Base and have no trouble dealing with Terran Harrass while our Swarmhosts attack them for 20 seconds before they have to wait another 20.
ya well, "H" stands for Hive right? and the Hive is only 300 whereas a Command Center is 400 and costs more time and money to upgrade.
On May 07 2017 22:51 JackONeill wrote: The problem I have with the swarm host isn't balance related, it's design related. From my point of view, any unit dealing damage for free with little to no risk is problematic. You could argue that casters are dealing "free and risk-free" damage, but most casters in the game have to close in to cast their spells (even infested terrans), and somewhat endanger theirselves while doing so. The SH is basically a X money Y supply investment to get a free doom drop every 43 seconds. And frankly, I don't think that's a bad way to design zerg's mech counter if it didn't mean the best counter is "mass sensor tower turtle into mass ravens" : because the SHs are free, most of the agressive options you can go for are not worthwhile because zerg uses a free army, which means he can replenish drones or switch tech very easily. The problem is that the locusts are free, and that they can also be casted on the main mech army to deal free damage.
This means that terrans needs free, risk-free damage to deflect free, risk-free damage. And if you look at it, both the raven (with the turret and the upgraded seeker) and the BC (with yamato + jump) are based on dealing free damage with very little commitment. Also, the road blizzard took for mech is giving mech game-breaking stats, while giving other races mech-breaking mechanics. Vipers and SHs are entirely designed to counter mech, while the tank got buffed to a whooping 70dmg, and that the thor maybe gaining +1 armor, adding even more versatility its already all-purpose role.
From there, there's two ways to look at things : - either we continue increasing the mech units general strength while keeping very strong spells/abilities to specifically counter said mech units - either we tone down these mechanics and stop buffing the mech units stats
Personnally I'd gladly remove the tank's +15 hp buff and tone down its anti armored damage to 60 in exchange for changes to the SH and the viper. However, I think we're too far down the road for the dev team to start making big design decisions.
A good compromise, I think, would be to leave the thor as it is (not go through with the armor buff), but give the SH a light tag to be chased down by hellions, and nerf the locust swoop range to 4 in stead of 6 so that thors can once again be a soft counter to swarm hosts if they're positionned to intercept the locusts. This wouldn't change the SH's ability to stretch mech players defenses, while exposing theirselves to hellions.
Finally, i think that mech shouldn't necessarily be terran "niche" play. By its very design, bio play is very restrictive because the undivisable stim+shileds+medivacs+baracks production+2 ebays upgrades leaves very little space for diversity. Once you payed for the "bio package", you have very little money left to produce other units, which means that bio compositions are always the same. Mech, on the other hand, gives players a lot of choices because they can build whatever they feel like. You don't need to build tanks if you get other units to fill the role the tank usually play.
It's not true that swarmhosts deal ''free'' damage tho. Making Swarmhosts is like taking a loan, If I make 10 swarmhost I'm in debt with with 1000/750 and 30 supply, the longer my swarmhosts don't deal damage the more damage they deal to myself cause I took a loan that is not paying off. Swarmhosts becoming more useless every single second that goes by and even a single wrongly send locusts wave can lose you the game. Swarmhosts styles are insanely hard to make work if Terran knows how to abuse the downtimes and knows how to deflect waves or push out during the downtimes. I've lost so many games because I send one wave to harras and then Terran a moved me and I only had one more wave at home which won't be enough to make my swarmhosts cost efficient. Swarmhosts actually need to get really close to do anything, if Locusts wave spawn from too far away you can just ignore it, lift buildings or run away workers/army.
The problem is that some mech players have planted this seeds that swarmhosts are simply too strong rather than looking at the solutions of strong players or finding their own too it. I've given you many examples how to deal with swarmhosts.
You should try to look at swarmhosts as an opportunity, because they're very gimmicky and a single mistake will kill Zerg. But if you fear a unit and think it's OP or broken design wise it's a self fulfilling prophecy cause you'll stop looking for weaknesses and solutions. I've been in that spot myself many times and once you are in that mindset you'll stop enjoying the game and just keep losing to it.
I get what you're meaning but i don't think i have a "despair complex" towards SHs. I don't really have an issue with their balance, i don't think they're OP if the map doesn't allow the zerg player to mass them (big "hallway" maps where you can basically mass SHs behind spore/spines/queens and activate 1/3 of them and constantly swarm the terran player with locusts while banking huge amounts of cash). And actually mech games against SHs on cactus valley are a lot of fun because there's so many pathways to attack. The only problem I see is with their design, and how they make the game devolve into terran pushing out and murdering the zerg because he sent a locust wave the wrong way, or into massive turtling while massing ravens.
And by "free" i don't mean that there's no initial investment. You're paying for something that you hope to reimburse through the game, sure. The design issue there is that they can't really be killed. If you compare them to mutas, mech players having a thor in a medivac can not only shoo them away, but kill off one or two if they were damaged by a turret or something. Mutas have a clear downside in the way that they need to get at 3 range to shoot, so you can loose a few of them over the course of the game (so you need to pay for more once in a while). SHs, on the other hand, can only fight 18secs every 30ish secs, but they probably won't ever be killed because only speed banshees can run them down. Giving mech players a different counterplay than either Amoving like morons when they see SHs or build 4 sensors and 200 turrets, by switching the SH to light tag would be a good way to reduce how gimmicky MechvsSH is. There'd be a real map control stake with hellions roaming to catch SHs. My initial point was that would be better than to just buff mech units stats again.
On May 07 2017 22:51 JackONeill wrote: This means that terrans needs free, risk-free damage to deflect free, risk-free damage. And if you look at it, both the raven (with the turret and the upgraded seeker) and the BC (with yamato + jump) are based on dealing free damage with very little commitment.
the time and money required to put a BC into a position to attack and jump away.. or alternatively jump-in and attack is hardly free. I've badly damaged countless players while in the middle of their "transition to BC".
Thank God we Zergs spawn with Swarmhosts or Hive Tech in our Base and have no trouble dealing with Terran Harrass while our Swarmhosts attack them for 20 seconds before they have to wait another 20.
ya well, "H" stands for Hive right? and the Hive is only 300 whereas a Command Center is 400 and costs more time and money to upgrade.
On May 07 2017 22:51 JackONeill wrote: The problem I have with the swarm host isn't balance related, it's design related. From my point of view, any unit dealing damage for free with little to no risk is problematic. You could argue that casters are dealing "free and risk-free" damage, but most casters in the game have to close in to cast their spells (even infested terrans), and somewhat endanger theirselves while doing so. The SH is basically a X money Y supply investment to get a free doom drop every 43 seconds. And frankly, I don't think that's a bad way to design zerg's mech counter if it didn't mean the best counter is "mass sensor tower turtle into mass ravens" : because the SHs are free, most of the agressive options you can go for are not worthwhile because zerg uses a free army, which means he can replenish drones or switch tech very easily. The problem is that the locusts are free, and that they can also be casted on the main mech army to deal free damage.
This means that terrans needs free, risk-free damage to deflect free, risk-free damage. And if you look at it, both the raven (with the turret and the upgraded seeker) and the BC (with yamato + jump) are based on dealing free damage with very little commitment. Also, the road blizzard took for mech is giving mech game-breaking stats, while giving other races mech-breaking mechanics. Vipers and SHs are entirely designed to counter mech, while the tank got buffed to a whooping 70dmg, and that the thor maybe gaining +1 armor, adding even more versatility its already all-purpose role.
From there, there's two ways to look at things : - either we continue increasing the mech units general strength while keeping very strong spells/abilities to specifically counter said mech units - either we tone down these mechanics and stop buffing the mech units stats
Personnally I'd gladly remove the tank's +15 hp buff and tone down its anti armored damage to 60 in exchange for changes to the SH and the viper. However, I think we're too far down the road for the dev team to start making big design decisions.
A good compromise, I think, would be to leave the thor as it is (not go through with the armor buff), but give the SH a light tag to be chased down by hellions, and nerf the locust swoop range to 4 in stead of 6 so that thors can once again be a soft counter to swarm hosts if they're positionned to intercept the locusts. This wouldn't change the SH's ability to stretch mech players defenses, while exposing theirselves to hellions.
Finally, i think that mech shouldn't necessarily be terran "niche" play. By its very design, bio play is very restrictive because the undivisable stim+shileds+medivacs+baracks production+2 ebays upgrades leaves very little space for diversity. Once you payed for the "bio package", you have very little money left to produce other units, which means that bio compositions are always the same. Mech, on the other hand, gives players a lot of choices because they can build whatever they feel like. You don't need to build tanks if you get other units to fill the role the tank usually play.
It's not true that swarmhosts deal ''free'' damage tho. Making Swarmhosts is like taking a loan, If I make 10 swarmhost I'm in debt with with 1000/750 and 30 supply, the longer my swarmhosts don't deal damage the more damage they deal to myself cause I took a loan that is not paying off. Swarmhosts becoming more useless every single second that goes by and even a single wrongly send locusts wave can lose you the game. Swarmhosts styles are insanely hard to make work if Terran knows how to abuse the downtimes and knows how to deflect waves or push out during the downtimes. I've lost so many games because I send one wave to harras and then Terran a moved me and I only had one more wave at home which won't be enough to make my swarmhosts cost efficient. Swarmhosts actually need to get really close to do anything, if Locusts wave spawn from too far away you can just ignore it, lift buildings or run away workers/army.
The problem is that some mech players have planted this seeds that swarmhosts are simply too strong rather than looking at the solutions of strong players or finding their own too it. I've given you many examples how to deal with swarmhosts.
You should try to look at swarmhosts as an opportunity, because they're very gimmicky and a single mistake will kill Zerg. But if you fear a unit and think it's OP or broken design wise it's a self fulfilling prophecy cause you'll stop looking for weaknesses and solutions. I've been in that spot myself many times and once you are in that mindset you'll stop enjoying the game and just keep losing to it.
I get what you're meaning but i don't think i have a "despair complex" towards SHs. I don't really have an issue with their balance, i don't think they're OP if the map doesn't allow the zerg player to mass them (big "hallway" maps where you can basically mass SHs behind spore/spines/queens and activate 1/3 of them and constantly swarm the terran player with locusts while banking huge amounts of cash). And actually mech games against SHs on cactus valley are a lot of fun because there's so many pathways to attack. The only problem I see is with their design, and how they make the game devolve into terran pushing out and murdering the zerg because he sent a locust wave the wrong way, or into massive turtling while massing ravens.
And by "free" i don't mean that there's no initial investment. You're paying for something that you hope to reimburse through the game, sure. The design issue there is that they can't really be killed. If you compare them to mutas, mech players having a thor in a medivac can not only shoo them away, but kill off one or two if they were damaged by a turret or something. Mutas have a clear downside in the way that they need to get at 3 range to shoot, so you can loose a few of them over the course of the game (so you need to pay for more once in a while). SHs, on the other hand, can only fight 18secs every 30ish secs, but they probably won't ever be killed because only speed banshees can run them down. Giving mech players a different counterplay than either Amoving like morons when they see SHs or build 4 sensors and 200 turrets, by switching the SH to light tag would be a good way to reduce how gimmicky MechvsSH is. There'd be a real map control stake with hellions roaming to catch SHs. My initial point was that would be better than to just buff mech units stats again.
Honestly swarmhosts wouldn't have problems with hellions, you have map control vs Terran anyway if they mech so you can protect them. If you make them light they become stronger not weaker. I could just walk up to tanks in melee range and tank shots like crazy for the rest of my army. So that's not a very good suggestion, you'd be buffing zvt Swarmhosts not nerfing them. Your idea is a huge nerf vs Protoss tho because they'd just die to oracle and adepts and become useless in that matchup, especially cause you can't really afford anti air vs protoss.
On May 07 2017 22:51 JackONeill wrote: The problem I have with the swarm host isn't balance related, it's design related. From my point of view, any unit dealing damage for free with little to no risk is problematic. You could argue that casters are dealing "free and risk-free" damage, but most casters in the game have to close in to cast their spells (even infested terrans), and somewhat endanger theirselves while doing so. The SH is basically a X money Y supply investment to get a free doom drop every 43 seconds. And frankly, I don't think that's a bad way to design zerg's mech counter if it didn't mean the best counter is "mass sensor tower turtle into mass ravens" : because the SHs are free, most of the agressive options you can go for are not worthwhile because zerg uses a free army, which means he can replenish drones or switch tech very easily. The problem is that the locusts are free, and that they can also be casted on the main mech army to deal free damage.
This means that terrans needs free, risk-free damage to deflect free, risk-free damage. And if you look at it, both the raven (with the turret and the upgraded seeker) and the BC (with yamato + jump) are based on dealing free damage with very little commitment. Also, the road blizzard took for mech is giving mech game-breaking stats, while giving other races mech-breaking mechanics. Vipers and SHs are entirely designed to counter mech, while the tank got buffed to a whooping 70dmg, and that the thor maybe gaining +1 armor, adding even more versatility its already all-purpose role.
From there, there's two ways to look at things : - either we continue increasing the mech units general strength while keeping very strong spells/abilities to specifically counter said mech units - either we tone down these mechanics and stop buffing the mech units stats
Personnally I'd gladly remove the tank's +15 hp buff and tone down its anti armored damage to 60 in exchange for changes to the SH and the viper. However, I think we're too far down the road for the dev team to start making big design decisions.
A good compromise, I think, would be to leave the thor as it is (not go through with the armor buff), but give the SH a light tag to be chased down by hellions, and nerf the locust swoop range to 4 in stead of 6 so that thors can once again be a soft counter to swarm hosts if they're positionned to intercept the locusts. This wouldn't change the SH's ability to stretch mech players defenses, while exposing theirselves to hellions.
Finally, i think that mech shouldn't necessarily be terran "niche" play. By its very design, bio play is very restrictive because the undivisable stim+shileds+medivacs+baracks production+2 ebays upgrades leaves very little space for diversity. Once you payed for the "bio package", you have very little money left to produce other units, which means that bio compositions are always the same. Mech, on the other hand, gives players a lot of choices because they can build whatever they feel like. You don't need to build tanks if you get other units to fill the role the tank usually play.
It's not true that swarmhosts deal ''free'' damage tho. Making Swarmhosts is like taking a loan, If I make 10 swarmhost I'm in debt with with 1000/750 and 30 supply, the longer my swarmhosts don't deal damage the more damage they deal to myself cause I took a loan that is not paying off. Swarmhosts becoming more useless every single second that goes by and even a single wrongly send locusts wave can lose you the game. Swarmhosts styles are insanely hard to make work if Terran knows how to abuse the downtimes and knows how to deflect waves or push out during the downtimes. I've lost so many games because I send one wave to harras and then Terran a moved me and I only had one more wave at home which won't be enough to make my swarmhosts cost efficient. Swarmhosts actually need to get really close to do anything, if Locusts wave spawn from too far away you can just ignore it, lift buildings or run away workers/army.
The problem is that some mech players have planted this seeds that swarmhosts are simply too strong rather than looking at the solutions of strong players or finding their own too it. I've given you many examples how to deal with swarmhosts.
You should try to look at swarmhosts as an opportunity, because they're very gimmicky and a single mistake will kill Zerg. But if you fear a unit and think it's OP or broken design wise it's a self fulfilling prophecy cause you'll stop looking for weaknesses and solutions. I've been in that spot myself many times and once you are in that mindset you'll stop enjoying the game and just keep losing to it.
I get what you're meaning but i don't think i have a "despair complex" towards SHs. I don't really have an issue with their balance, i don't think they're OP if the map doesn't allow the zerg player to mass them (big "hallway" maps where you can basically mass SHs behind spore/spines/queens and activate 1/3 of them and constantly swarm the terran player with locusts while banking huge amounts of cash). And actually mech games against SHs on cactus valley are a lot of fun because there's so many pathways to attack. The only problem I see is with their design, and how they make the game devolve into terran pushing out and murdering the zerg because he sent a locust wave the wrong way, or into massive turtling while massing ravens.
And by "free" i don't mean that there's no initial investment. You're paying for something that you hope to reimburse through the game, sure. The design issue there is that they can't really be killed. If you compare them to mutas, mech players having a thor in a medivac can not only shoo them away, but kill off one or two if they were damaged by a turret or something. Mutas have a clear downside in the way that they need to get at 3 range to shoot, so you can loose a few of them over the course of the game (so you need to pay for more once in a while). SHs, on the other hand, can only fight 18secs every 30ish secs, but they probably won't ever be killed because only speed banshees can run them down. Giving mech players a different counterplay than either Amoving like morons when they see SHs or build 4 sensors and 200 turrets, by switching the SH to light tag would be a good way to reduce how gimmicky MechvsSH is. There'd be a real map control stake with hellions roaming to catch SHs. My initial point was that would be better than to just buff mech units stats again.
Honestly swarmhosts wouldn't have problems with hellions, you have map control vs Terran anyway if they mech so you can protect them. If you make them light they become stronger not weaker. I could just walk up to tanks in melee range and tank shots like crazy for the rest of my army. So that's not a very good suggestion, you'd be buffing zvt Swarmhosts not nerfing them. Your idea is a huge nerf vs Protoss tho because they'd just die to oracle and adepts and become useless in that matchup, especially cause you can't really afford anti air vs protoss.
The light tag would mean the tanks would 4shot the SH instead of 3 shotting it (in the most usual upgrades situations), so I don't think you could walk into tank fire And you don't necessarily have "map control" when you're playing versus mech : if you go for roaches, you can't really match the hellion's speed if you want to cover your SH. And if you go for ling they'll get roasted once blue flame is out.
However, you bring fair points for PvZ since people started using them in this matchup. Phenixes would also kill SH very fast. A light tag would suck for PvZ indeed.
I'm confident that at some point, blizz will be forced to look into the SH situation, and just buffing thor's armor won't really change much. They may survive fast attack units better, but since vipers can still grab them, i feel that once zergs identify every mech player will start getting more and more thors they'll go back to rushing vipers with roach hydras like in HOTS.
in general, i find there is too much Adept usage and not enough Zealots. I'm in favour of another small nerf to Adepts and if it weakens Protoss too much please buff Zealots.
DISCLAIMER: i play as Random and Terran in NA Diamond.
On May 08 2017 21:07 JimmyJRaynor wrote: in general, i find there is too much Adept usage and not enough Zealots. I'm in favour of another small nerf to Adepts and if it weakens Protoss too much please buff Zealots.
DISCLAIMER: i play as Random and Terran in NA Diamond.
I'm extremely glad blizzard doesn't balance around how players "feel"
On May 08 2017 21:07 JimmyJRaynor wrote: in general, i find there is too much Adept usage and not enough Zealots. I'm in favour of another small nerf to Adepts and if it weakens Protoss too much please buff Zealots.
DISCLAIMER: i play as Random and Terran in NA Diamond.
I'm extremely glad blizzard doesn't balance around how players "feel"
Yeah having fun is stupid, balance numbers being 50-50 is much more important
Adding to the discussion about Mech in TvZ... "The Lament of the Floating Factory"
Mech is a Bad Strategic Decision in TvZ Here's the issue: going the Mech route is simply a poor decision at any time, even if you gain an early advantage. For all the talk of how Mech has certain points of strength, here is a simple fact: no GSL level Korean Terran is going mech in any form right now, whether for cheese or macro builds. Why? Because it is strategically limited. There is no surprise factor to it. Bio is always better. Now, before someone hears me "complaining that bio is too good", here's what I'm actually saying: either Mech should have strategic variations and greater potential to be out on the map getting something done, or Mech should be dropped as an idea and all the rest of the Terran units should be reworked to support bio.
Terran has no Strategic Diversity My main problem with the way Terran is designed now in LOTV is just that: strategic limitations. There is no way to surprise your opponent, whether in the early, mid, or late game with your tech choice. Obvious work was done in LOTV to give Zerg the ability to be aggressive and throw off the opponent in the early and mid-game with things such as single-overlord drops, fast ravagers, burrowed infestors, and invincible building nydus worms. I like this, I think it adds both strategic variation and more interesting games.
Terran Design has been Stagnant for a Long Time I've been playing Terran for 7 years in SC2, and I'm still building Marines, Marauders, and Medivacs and trying to manage multi-pronged drops. This is still the single best way to throw my opponent off balance. Look, this is a cool thing. It's an interesting design and it has both potential for great damage and for great loss. But there should be more to the race than this. Yes, mines and liberators have made this stronger, but the core of gameplay is still 1 dimensional for Terran.
Effort has been Made to Address this Issue in the Past, and Should be Made Now There was at least a small attempt at addressing this issue in the Herc. This unit both added a tanking function to a barracks army and, when paired with a reaper, unique early-game back-door harassment capability. The Herc failed as a unit, but I have seen no effort at diversifying Early and Mid-game options for Terran since then. Perhaps a single-bunker upgrade to higher capacity, or a change to the Hellbat to make it function better with bio. (Maybe Hellbats found all the dead Herc's grappling hooks? ) Whatever the case, there is too little diversity in the matchup, and this is true for both TvZ and TvP.
On May 08 2017 23:38 Ransomstarcraft wrote: Adding to the discussion about Mech in TvZ... "The Lament of the Floating Factory"
Mech is a Bad Strategic Decision in TvZ Here's the issue: going the Mech route is simply a poor decision at any time, even if you gain an early advantage. For all the talk of how Mech has certain points of strength, here is a simple fact: no GSL level Korean Terran is going mech in any form right now, whether for cheese or macro builds. Why? Because it is strategically limited. There is no surprise factor to it. Bio is always better. Now, before someone hears me "complaining that bio is too good", here's what I'm actually saying: either Mech should have strategic variations and greater potential to be out on the map getting something done, or Mech should be dropped as an idea and all the rest of the Terran units should be reworked to support bio.
I mean, mech units are pretty strong in their own. If they get in a good position, they'll chew up a lot of army. Bio definitely is more mobile, but lacks some of the staying power that a mech army has. You basically sacrifice mobility for firepower
Terran has no Strategic Diversity My main problem with the way Terran is designed now in LOTV is just that: strategic limitations. There is no way to surprise your opponent, whether in the early, mid, or late game with your tech choice. Obvious work was done in LOTV to give Zerg the ability to be aggressive and throw off the opponent in the early and mid-game with things such as single-overlord drops, fast ravagers, burrowed infestors, and invincible building nydus worms. I like this, I think it adds both strategic variation and more interesting games.
This one I don't get. You can open reapers, open hellions, open cc first, open with cloaked banshees. There are a lot of ways to open and transition into a later army. T can drop, use banshees, a run by, or Raven turrets to harass in a lot of different ways.
Terran Design has been Stagnant for a Long Time I've been playing Terran for 7 years in SC2, and I'm still building Marines, Marauders, and Medivacs and trying to manage multi-pronged drops. This is still the single best way to throw my opponent off balance. Look, this is a cool thing. It's an interesting design and it has both potential for great damage and for great loss. But there should be more to the race than this. Yes, mines and liberators have made this stronger, but the core of gameplay is still 1 dimensional for Terran.
Those units synergize well together. They moved at about the same speed, shoot at about the same distance, and benefit from the same upgrades.
It's the exact same reason you see people doing roach Hydra, or ling bling, because things that benefit one, benefit the other.
Effort has been Made to Address this Issue in the Past, and Should be Made Now There was at least a small attempt at addressing this issue in the Herc. This unit both added a tanking function to a barracks army and, when paired with a reaper, unique early-game back-door harassment capability. The Herc failed as a unit, but I have seen no effort at diversifying Early and Mid-game options for Terran since then. Perhaps a single-bunker upgrade to higher capacity, or a change to the Hellbat to make it function better with bio. (Maybe Hellbats found all the dead Herc's grappling hooks? ) Whatever the case, there is too little diversity in the matchup, and this is true for both TvZ and TvP.
[/Quote]
And this is where we disagree on design principles. I don't think bio or mech should be able to do everything. You sacrifice health for mobility (bio) or sacrifice mobility for a ton of HP and burst damage (mech). Just like with LBM, you have a ton of fast, weak units. If I want more staying power, I'd go roach Hydra.
I feel like there already are a lot of openings and possibilities. Just because you don't like some doesn't mean they aren't there.
On May 08 2017 23:38 Ransomstarcraft wrote: Adding to the discussion about Mech in TvZ... "The Lament of the Floating Factory"
Mech is a Bad Strategic Decision in TvZ Here's the issue: going the Mech route is simply a poor decision at any time, even if you gain an early advantage. For all the talk of how Mech has certain points of strength, here is a simple fact: no GSL level Korean Terran is going mech in any form right now, whether for cheese or macro builds. Why? Because it is strategically limited. There is no surprise factor to it. Bio is always better. Now, before someone hears me "complaining that bio is too good", here's what I'm actually saying: either Mech should have strategic variations and greater potential to be out on the map getting something done, or Mech should be dropped as an idea and all the rest of the Terran units should be reworked to support bio.
Terran has no Strategic Diversity My main problem with the way Terran is designed now in LOTV is just that: strategic limitations. There is no way to surprise your opponent, whether in the early, mid, or late game with your tech choice. Obvious work was done in LOTV to give Zerg the ability to be aggressive and throw off the opponent in the early and mid-game with things such as single-overlord drops, fast ravagers, burrowed infestors, and invincible building nydus worms. I like this, I think it adds both strategic variation and more interesting games.
Terran Design has been Stagnant for a Long Time I've been playing Terran for 7 years in SC2, and I'm still building Marines, Marauders, and Medivacs and trying to manage multi-pronged drops. This is still the single best way to throw my opponent off balance. Look, this is a cool thing. It's an interesting design and it has both potential for great damage and for great loss. But there should be more to the race than this. Yes, mines and liberators have made this stronger, but the core of gameplay is still 1 dimensional for Terran.
Effort has been Made to Address this Issue in the Past, and Should be Made Now There was at least a small attempt at addressing this issue in the Herc. This unit both added a tanking function to a barracks army and, when paired with a reaper, unique early-game back-door harassment capability. The Herc failed as a unit, but I have seen no effort at diversifying Early and Mid-game options for Terran since then. Perhaps a single-bunker upgrade to higher capacity, or a change to the Hellbat to make it function better with bio. (Maybe Hellbats found all the dead Herc's grappling hooks? ) Whatever the case, there is too little diversity in the matchup, and this is true for both TvZ and TvP.
I can get behind most of what you're saying, but I don't really agree with the point that "you can't surprise" with mech. Actually, mech has much more surprise potential than bio : - hellbats allins - hellion drops - mine drops - heavy banshee/cloack banshee - lib range rush - raven harass - viking killing overlords into hellion drops - 2 reactored factories hellions/cyclones - 1 reactored factory hellions/1 reactored starport liberators for a 6 hellions 2 liberators push - probably much more
That's one of the cool things in MechVZerg : your opponent has to scout if he want to prevent heavy losses from some kind of agression.
However I do think that these options are often too much of a hit or miss. If you deal damage with your 2 bases agression, you're in a good spot or a very good spot in some instance, but if you don't you're in a dire situation. I'm not a big fan of mech (or bio actually) being so reliant on terran dealing damage early game. The matchup has always been about terran "containing" the zerg's economy by the time his third base is completing, but right now it's either you kill 10+ drones and you're in a good spot, or deal very little damage and be in a terrible spot. There's no alternative, and that's kind of sad.
Compared to TvP or TvT, TvZ often feels like a non stop stream of terran agression and a constant zerg defense. And don't get me wrong i like being agressive like any terran, but it'd be nice if terran could actually be played so other way. Mech could be that playstyle, but you actually need to be extremely agressive when playing mech if you don't want to end up facing the entire zerg mech-killing-swissknife.
On May 09 2017 01:27 reneg wrote: And this is where we disagree on design principles. I don't think bio or mech should be able to do everything. You sacrifice health for mobility (bio) or sacrifice mobility for a ton of HP and burst damage (mech). Just like with LBM, you have a ton of fast, weak units. If I want more staying power, I'd go roach Hydra.
i agree, good analogy also, Mech isn't a race. its a subset of units within a race.
On May 08 2017 23:38 Ransomstarcraft wrote: Adding to the discussion about Mech in TvZ... "The Lament of the Floating Factory"
Mech is a Bad Strategic Decision in TvZ Here's the issue: going the Mech route is simply a poor decision at any time, even if you gain an early advantage. For all the talk of how Mech has certain points of strength, here is a simple fact: no GSL level Korean Terran is going mech in any form right now, whether for cheese or macro builds. Why? Because it is strategically limited. There is no surprise factor to it. Bio is always better. Now, before someone hears me "complaining that bio is too good", here's what I'm actually saying: either Mech should have strategic variations and greater potential to be out on the map getting something done, or Mech should be dropped as an idea and all the rest of the Terran units should be reworked to support bio.
Terran has no Strategic Diversity My main problem with the way Terran is designed now in LOTV is just that: strategic limitations. There is no way to surprise your opponent, whether in the early, mid, or late game with your tech choice. Obvious work was done in LOTV to give Zerg the ability to be aggressive and throw off the opponent in the early and mid-game with things such as single-overlord drops, fast ravagers, burrowed infestors, and invincible building nydus worms. I like this, I think it adds both strategic variation and more interesting games.
Terran Design has been Stagnant for a Long Time I've been playing Terran for 7 years in SC2, and I'm still building Marines, Marauders, and Medivacs and trying to manage multi-pronged drops. This is still the single best way to throw my opponent off balance. Look, this is a cool thing. It's an interesting design and it has both potential for great damage and for great loss. But there should be more to the race than this. Yes, mines and liberators have made this stronger, but the core of gameplay is still 1 dimensional for Terran.
Effort has been Made to Address this Issue in the Past, and Should be Made Now There was at least a small attempt at addressing this issue in the Herc. This unit both added a tanking function to a barracks army and, when paired with a reaper, unique early-game back-door harassment capability. The Herc failed as a unit, but I have seen no effort at diversifying Early and Mid-game options for Terran since then. Perhaps a single-bunker upgrade to higher capacity, or a change to the Hellbat to make it function better with bio. (Maybe Hellbats found all the dead Herc's grappling hooks? ) Whatever the case, there is too little diversity in the matchup, and this is true for both TvZ and TvP.
Terran is not less limited than Zerg. Also this is not really as big of a problem as you make it out to be. It is not a balance problem, since the winrates are ok. The main reason however is that mech is a miserable boring turtle composition that is inherently a deathball comp and also a comp that cannot deal with losing units at all, which leads to less interesting games. A critical mass is required and retreats are basically impossible.
Mech is completely viable at anything but pro level btw. If you want to try it on ladder you will probably do better than with bio because mech is easier to pull of mechanically.
And this is where we disagree on design principles. I don't think bio or mech should be able to do everything. You sacrifice health for mobility (bio) or sacrifice mobility for a ton of HP and burst damage (mech). Just like with LBM, you have a ton of fast, weak units. If I want more staying power, I'd go roach Hydra.
I feel like there already are a lot of openings and possibilities. Just because you don't like some doesn't mean they aren't there. [/QUOTE]
I'm fine with neither bio nor mech being able to "do everything". My preference would be for Mech to exist as a viable strategy similar to the way Roach/Ravager, Roach/Hydra, or Hydra/Lurker exists. I simply found it strange that this thread had developed into some sort of idea like "oh yeah, Mech kind of does work vs. Zerg." As the game stands right now it is possible to see just about any Zerg unit in a top-level ZvT, where those units are cohesive and work well together. Effort has been made to give Zerg both unit diversity and strategic diversity, and this has been very creatively applied in such cases as single-overlord drops and invincible-building Nydus worms. Meanwhile, you will never see around a third of the Terran units, and this is because Terran has design problems and strategic limitations.
Mech is a bad move in TvZ because, as has been mentioned, if your surprise attack fails or is countered you generally lose the game. If you hellion all-in and he makes Roaches or Mutas, the game is over. This is because Mech AA is so expensive and one-dimensional (Slow/powerful) that you can't get aggressive units and have any options for Anti-air at the same time. Imagine if, when the Zerg went Muta, you were already going for Thor tech, and that meant the game was over for the Zerg. This is how mech works right now for Terrans.
My core argument is simply this: either Mech should be a risk-comparable-to-rewards strategy that makes use of these units that are extremely niche (Thor, Hellbat, Hellion to an extent), or the Factory & Starport setup needs to be rethought to support Terran Bio compositions comparable to the way the Robo supports all Protoss compositions. At the moment the Balance Team seems to be working to make the first option happen, though changing the Thor's armor will do nothing but encourage the "Turtle to victory" style that I don't have much interest in.
Terran is not less limited than Zerg. Also this is not really as big of a problem as you make it out to be. It is not a balance problem, since the winrates are ok. The main reason however is that mech is a miserable boring turtle composition that is inherently a deathball comp and also a comp that cannot deal with losing units at all, which leads to less interesting games. A critical mass is required and retreats are basically impossible.
The double standard here is rich. European zergs regularly play the most cancerous turtle styles and apparently that's A-ok. But when terrans want a defensive playstyle to become viable, suddenly turtling is the worst thing ever.
Meanwhile, pretty much every zerg unit, including the much maligned corruptor sees play in standard games as part of standard compositions, whereas terran still has several units that find no place in any standard composition (Thor, Hellion/Hellbat, Cyclone, Banshee) outside of harass openers or dumb cheeses.
Terran is not less limited than Zerg. Also this is not really as big of a problem as you make it out to be. It is not a balance problem, since the winrates are ok. The main reason however is that mech is a miserable boring turtle composition that is inherently a deathball comp and also a comp that cannot deal with losing units at all, which leads to less interesting games. A critical mass is required and retreats are basically impossible.
The double standard here is rich. European zergs regularly play the most cancerous turtle styles and apparently that's A-ok. But when terrans want a defensive playstyle to become viable, suddenly turtling is the worst thing ever.
Meanwhile, pretty much every zerg unit, including the much maligned corruptor sees play in standard games as part of standard compositions, whereas terran still has several units that find no place in any standard composition (Thor, Hellion/Hellbat, Cyclone, Banshee) outside of harass openers or dumb cheeses.
Did you just mention that hellbat find no place in any standard composition? Damn, i must have been missing out on some, some friends of mines still rolled stuff with hellbat thor timings last time i checked.
Also, european zergs generally do not whine on forums asking to nerf whatever makes their cancer less convinient to play. Hell, Stephano made a point to get SHs nerfed back in early HotS, didn't he.
Did you just mention that hellbat find no place in any standard composition? Damn, i must have been missing out on some, some friends of mines still rolled stuff with hellbat thor timings last time i checked.
Not at the pro-level, no? Maybe if mech were viable (and Gumiho playing it occasionally on Newkirk doesn't make it viable) it'd be a different story, but as it is you only see them as part of early timings.
Also, european zergs generally do not whine on forums asking to nerf whatever makes their cancer less convinient to play. Hell, Stephano made a point to get SHs nerfed back in early HotS, didn't he.
Why would they? Those playstyles work at the highest level and have for years. What, exactly, is there to complain about?
That isn't to say that the calls to nerf swarm hosts are valid, but the more general sentiment of wanting more unit diversity deserves more than a dumb "lawl, you just want to turtle into deathball" response, which is especially lame coming from zergs.
Terran is not less limited than Zerg. Also this is not really as big of a problem as you make it out to be. It is not a balance problem, since the winrates are ok. The main reason however is that mech is a miserable boring turtle composition that is inherently a deathball comp and also a comp that cannot deal with losing units at all, which leads to less interesting games. A critical mass is required and retreats are basically impossible.
The double standard here is rich. European zergs regularly play the most cancerous turtle styles and apparently that's A-ok. But when terrans want a defensive playstyle to become viable, suddenly turtling is the worst thing ever.
Meanwhile, pretty much every zerg unit, including the much maligned corruptor sees play in standard games as part of standard compositions, whereas terran still has several units that find no place in any standard composition (Thor, Hellion/Hellbat, Cyclone, Banshee) outside of harass openers or dumb cheeses.
I've heard Beastyqt say this a lot of times and i agree totally.
First of all being turtly and passive has little to do with race or composition choice. It's about style. Thorzain was known to play very passive turtly gameplay with bio. In TvZ, you can be extremely turtly if you want to with MMMtanks into ghost/liberators. I've seen a lot of top masters/low GM zerg players play lings banes mutas without ever attacking, just taking bases and spreading creep. However, metas crystalise into turtly and passive play when some late game units or compositions grant a massive advantage over the opponent. Historically, that has always been zerg or protoss. It's been very rare to see eras when terran (and terran mech) was very advantaged at some realistically rushable point in the late game, except maybe for HOTS after the SH nerf. Saying playing mech is boring is therefore quite rich from zerg players. Whether it was BLfestor during WOL, ultra rushes during LOTV, or SH cancer strats during HOTS, zerg pretty much always had passive, boring and turtly styles be common meta. TvZ historically always has been about terran needing to attack and inducing rythm. What mech does (or should be doing) is simply reversing roles.
Also, saying mech "should even exist" or "be used as a composition" or "stay niche play" doesn't make sense. The way terran and bio are designed, units will be bound to be used as anectodic additions, since bio play requires such a "by default" investment that you have very little freedom and variety concerning what other units you can build. Terran having a whole batch of units (hellbats cyclones banshees ravens thors for instance) be extremely rarely used in regular compositions is normal when you're playing bio. However if mech isn't played, we end up never really see these units get some use.
We've seen a whole lot of different zerg ZvT compositions lately, and it's been very exciting. Pro players have shown hydra/lurkers, lings bane hydras, lings bane mutas, roach ravagers into ultra, roach ravagers infestor, etc. Terran being pigeonholed into MMMM+libs or MMM+tanks every single game in every single matchup is a problem for terran diversity. And i've never seen anyone not be excited seing innovation or gumiho play mech in LOTV.
Terran is not less limited than Zerg. Also this is not really as big of a problem as you make it out to be. It is not a balance problem, since the winrates are ok. The main reason however is that mech is a miserable boring turtle composition that is inherently a deathball comp and also a comp that cannot deal with losing units at all, which leads to less interesting games. A critical mass is required and retreats are basically impossible.
The double standard here is rich. European zergs regularly play the most cancerous turtle styles and apparently that's A-ok. But when terrans want a defensive playstyle to become viable, suddenly turtling is the worst thing ever.
Meanwhile, pretty much every zerg unit, including the much maligned corruptor sees play in standard games as part of standard compositions, whereas terran still has several units that find no place in any standard composition (Thor, Hellion/Hellbat, Cyclone, Banshee) outside of harass openers or dumb cheeses.
I've heard Beastyqt say this a lot of times and i agree totally.
First of all being turtly and passive has little to do with race or composition choice. It's about style. Thorzain was known to play very passive turtly gameplay with bio. In TvZ, you can be extremely turtly if you want to with MMMtanks into ghost/liberators. I've seen a lot of top masters/low GM zerg players play lings banes mutas without ever attacking, just taking bases and spreading creep. However, metas crystalise into turtly and passive play when some late game units or compositions grant a massive advantage over the opponent. Historically, that has always been zerg or protoss. It's been very rare to see eras when terran (and terran mech) was very advantaged at some realistically rushable point in the late game, except maybe for HOTS after the SH nerf. Saying playing mech is boring is therefore quite rich from zerg players. Whether it was BLfestor during WOL, ultra rushes during LOTV, or SH cancer strats during HOTS, zerg pretty much always had passive, boring and turtly styles be common meta. TvZ historically always has been about terran needing to attack and inducing rythm. What mech does (or should be doing) is simply reversing roles.
Also, saying mech "should even exist" or "be used as a composition" or "stay niche play" doesn't make sense. The way terran and bio are designed, units will be bound to be used as anectodic additions, since bio play requires such a "by default" investment that you have very little freedom and variety concerning what other units you can build. Terran having a whole batch of units (hellbats cyclones banshees ravens thors for instance) be extremely rarely used in regular compositions is normal when you're playing bio. However if mech isn't played, we end up never really see these units get some use.
We've seen a whole lot of different zerg ZvT compositions lately, and it's been very exciting. Pro players have shown hydra/lurkers, lings bane hydras, lings bane mutas, roach ravagers into ultra, roach ravagers infestor, etc. Terran being pigeonholed into MMMM+libs or MMM+tanks every single game in every single matchup is a problem for terran diversity. And i've never seen anyone not be excited seing innovation or gumiho play mech in LOTV.
i wish every feedback thread didnt turn into a 10 page argument for mech/against mech or swarmhosts
the reason mech is bad is because every unit that comes from the factory is terrible and theres honestly not more to it than that. so much theorycrafting goes on
really think we need to take an honest look at the factory and recognize it for what it is, a building that cranks out poorly thought out terran units that this videogame was not balanced around
rax + starport is the game now, and its expressly because of the ideas the developers had for this game/what they wanted. we should really just be asking for factory units to be moved to the starport, because then they might be designed by someone who doesnt completely hate terran
On May 09 2017 08:57 c0sm0naut wrote: i wish every feedback thread didnt turn into a 10 page argument for mech/against mech or swarmhosts
the reason mech is bad is because every unit that comes from the factory is terrible and theres honestly not more to it than that. so much theorycrafting goes on
really think we need to take an honest look at the factory and recognize it for what it is, a building that cranks out poorly thought out terran units that this videogame was not balanced around
rax + starport is the game now, and its expressly because of the ideas the developers had for this game/what they wanted. we should really just be asking for factory units to be moved to the starport, because then they might be designed by someone who doesnt completely hate terran
This type of wild hyperbole is the problem.
Just because you want to go mech, doesn't mean you should just skip the other production facilities when trying to build a well rounded army.
On May 09 2017 08:57 c0sm0naut wrote: i wish every feedback thread didnt turn into a 10 page argument for mech/against mech or swarmhosts
the reason mech is bad is because every unit that comes from the factory is terrible and theres honestly not more to it than that. so much theorycrafting goes on
really think we need to take an honest look at the factory and recognize it for what it is, a building that cranks out poorly thought out terran units that this videogame was not balanced around
rax + starport is the game now, and its expressly because of the ideas the developers had for this game/what they wanted. we should really just be asking for factory units to be moved to the starport, because then they might be designed by someone who doesnt completely hate terran
This type of wild hyperbole is the problem.
maybe its hyperbolized but the reality is that factory units are worse than any other units in the game and unfortunately, blizzard has tied Bio's solution to ling/bane/muta and other styles to the widow mine
i hate knowing that i have 20+ supply totally wasted in these units late game and watching enemy units drag splash onto mine (while being perfectly aware that if i ditched widow mines i would be completely overrun by adepts/LBM)
BW siege tank == worth building BW goliath == if you need it, always worth building
widow mine? maybe it kills your army widow mine? maybe your units arent sitting directly on top of them at all times, and you end up with 10 supply of your army which does not benefit from upgrades, triggered on lings, doing nothing and costing you factory time cyclone? cant even kill an oracle if the oracle flies into lock on range, sits there for two seconds and then starts flying away. terrible early game, check. even worse late game, check. gotta be a factory unit! hellions? useful for the first 2 minutes of every tvz
"yeah i know splash could kill your own units in sc1. but what if it could REALLY kill your own units in sc2??"
the actual tvp meta before blizzard nerfed mindless adept strats^
id like to personally thank you though, for making me think deeper about this problem and realize that in fact i was right, factory units are designed to be bad but necessary
Terran is not less limited than Zerg. Also this is not really as big of a problem as you make it out to be. It is not a balance problem, since the winrates are ok. The main reason however is that mech is a miserable boring turtle composition that is inherently a deathball comp and also a comp that cannot deal with losing units at all, which leads to less interesting games. A critical mass is required and retreats are basically impossible.
The double standard here is rich. European zergs regularly play the most cancerous turtle styles and apparently that's A-ok. But when terrans want a defensive playstyle to become viable, suddenly turtling is the worst thing ever.
Meanwhile, pretty much every zerg unit, including the much maligned corruptor sees play in standard games as part of standard compositions, whereas terran still has several units that find no place in any standard composition (Thor, Hellion/Hellbat, Cyclone, Banshees) outside of harass openers or dumb cheeses.
Did you just mention that hellbat find no place in any standard composition? Damn, i must have been missing out on some, some friends of mines still rolled stuff with hellbat thor timings last time i checked.
Not that the pro-level, no? Maybe if mech were viable (and Gumiho playing it occasionally on Newkirk doesn't make it viable) it'd be a different story, but as it is you only see them as part of early timings.
Also, european zergs generally do not whine on forums asking to nerf whatever makes their cancer less convinient to play. Hell, Stephano made a point to get SHs nerfed back in early HotS, didn't he.
Why would they? Those playstyles work at the highest level and have for years. What, exactly, is there to complain about? That isn't to say that the calls to nerf swarm hosts are valid, but the more general sentiment of wanting more unit diversity deserves more than a dumb "lawl, you just want to turtle into deathball" response, which is especially lame coming from zergs.
"Maybe if Mech were viable..." Hello?
There's plenty of unit diversity in the game, even for Terran Mech players who pretend otherwise. For Zerg, the only "standard" composition is Ling Bane in the first few minutes or Roach Ravager, everything else is some amalgamation of units dictated by the enemy comp and tech. For Protoss it's not just Adept Phoenix, all kinds of combinations of Stalkers, Sentries, Immortals, Archons, Oracles, etc. are seen all over the place, and Zealot Archon with supporting units is seen quite often too. For Terran, Thors are used extremely often to very effectively defend against Mutalisks or to add standing power to an aggressive army outside of using Siege Tanks; Hellions are used in timing attacks, harassing, as well as in mobile Mech army compositions to chase down Zerg and to push back Creep; Cyclones are used as a core Mech unit in timing attacks and as support units; and Banshees, while not as popular right now despite being very powerful against Swarm Hosts that are supposedly the be-all-end-all of Mech players, have always been the same: timing attacks, "cheese strats", quick assassinations/harassment, and to support AA-heavy Air armies; and I haven't even covered Reapers, Widow Mines, Vikings, Ravens, or Battlecruisers, and the obvious MMM which are seen frequently and are completely viable to use in several kinds of situations. + Show Spoiler +
Or, perhaps I should say, can be used in these ways at various skill levels from Bronze to Masters, but supposedly are not.
Where's the problem with all of those options, exactly? That all of them aren't seen all the time at the absolute highest level of play? With the tiny number of players at that level, some of them are going to be drawn more to Bio than to Mech, but even then Innovation still uses Mech and a big chunk of the top Korean Terrans did for ages, but they're also known to be the absolute least creative players out there and that hasn't changed a whole lot so it's expected to see similar things from them each time and see their opponent respond in similar ways each time.
Lastly, the majority of vocal Terran players who prefer Mech-based armies and slower, area of control strategies actively demand nerfs for anything that threatens them as well as actively demand buffs for any unit they don't feel is supremely powerful. Zergs and Protoss don't do this. There's no double standard here, Terrans aren't pigeon-holed into anything because of game design right now, as I see it they put themselves in their own artificial corner.
On May 09 2017 08:24 JackONeill wrote: Saying playing mech is boring is therefore quite rich from zerg players. Whether it was BLfestor during WOL, ultra rushes during LOTV, or SH cancer strats during HOTS, zerg pretty much always had passive, boring and turtly styles be common meta. TvZ historically always has been about terran needing to attack and inducing rythm. What mech does (or should be doing) is simply reversing roles.
Interesting. From I recall of SC2 history, TvZ is actually about fast-paced, technical, make-one-hiccup-and-you-lose battles, starting out with a bang with Marines in Bunkers or Reapers or Hellions zipping around the map to beat back the Zerg Rush and Baneling or Roach onslaughts and getting more hectic from there until both players reach an awkward stalemate in the late game with a split map, not purposefully turtling from the get-go by Zergs. Zerg was always focused on aggression and all-ins (who knows how many early Pool Ling or Spine rushes and 3-11 Roach timings) to force the game to end early on or Brood Lord Infestor (the build made to be used against Mech), while Terrans were focused on Bunker rushes (followed by a transition into economic, defensive play into the mid and late game, from what I remember it involved a lot of walls and Planetaries), Proxy Rax, fast expands, double Factory Mech, and Marine Hellion into Siege Tanks and Starports.
The slower, everyone-hated-it-especially-the-Zerg-players ZvT of Swarm Hosts, countless Spores, Queens, and Brood Lords stemmed from and was balanced the way it was because of the surge of Mech play and mass PF or OC, Ravens with Turrets, extreme area denial Siege Tanks and WM, etc. forcing sluggish, gruelingly long games, getting more and more powerful, more rewarding for passive players in HotS, in large part because of the economy (Mules for Terran with old Minerals) and map design of the time. Those strategies are definitely not seen anymore on the Zerg end, at least I haven't seen them, and no Zerg or Protoss wants anything to do with that, but a big piece of the (vocal) Terran audience advocates for it despite already having options for both Bio and Mech. They don't ask for diversity, they demand to be all-powerful above and beyond everyone else and cite their shortcomings as individuals or refer to gameplay environments from a generation ago when talking about balance as if that's what dictates game design.
On May 09 2017 08:24 JackONeill wrote: i've never seen anyone not be excited seing innovation or gumiho play mech in LOTV.
It's because they don't force themselves to play defensively and will use Mech units in an active way that is fun to watch and they play intelligently, the former facets made possible because of better economic design and better overall unit design and balance in LotV, the latter because they're skilled players and smart individuals, of course.
---
That's how I see things, at least. If I contradicted myself or made a bad typo somewhere feel free to let me know, I did a good heap of condensing my writing into something... less convoluted, let's say.
Terran is not less limited than Zerg. Also this is not really as big of a problem as you make it out to be. It is not a balance problem, since the winrates are ok. The main reason however is that mech is a miserable boring turtle composition that is inherently a deathball comp and also a comp that cannot deal with losing units at all, which leads to less interesting games. A critical mass is required and retreats are basically impossible.
The double standard here is rich. European zergs regularly play the most cancerous turtle styles and apparently that's A-ok. But when terrans want a defensive playstyle to become viable, suddenly turtling is the worst thing ever.
Meanwhile, pretty much every zerg unit, including the much maligned corruptor sees play in standard games as part of standard compositions, whereas terran still has several units that find no place in any standard composition (Thor, Hellion/Hellbat, Cyclone, Banshees) outside of harass openers or dumb cheeses.
Did you just mention that hellbat find no place in any standard composition? Damn, i must have been missing out on some, some friends of mines still rolled stuff with hellbat thor timings last time i checked.
Not that the pro-level, no? Maybe if mech were viable (and Gumiho playing it occasionally on Newkirk doesn't make it viable) it'd be a different story, but as it is you only see them as part of early timings.
Also, european zergs generally do not whine on forums asking to nerf whatever makes their cancer less convinient to play. Hell, Stephano made a point to get SHs nerfed back in early HotS, didn't he.
Why would they? Those playstyles work at the highest level and have for years. What, exactly, is there to complain about? That isn't to say that the calls to nerf swarm hosts are valid, but the more general sentiment of wanting more unit diversity deserves more than a dumb "lawl, you just want to turtle into deathball" response, which is especially lame coming from zergs.
"Maybe if Mech were viable..." Hello?
There's plenty of unit diversity in the game, even for Terran Mech players who pretend otherwise. For Zerg, the only "standard" composition is Ling Bane in the first few minutes or Roach Ravager, everything else is some amalgamation of units dictated by the enemy comp and tech. For Protoss it's not just Adept Phoenix, all kinds of combinations of Stalkers, Sentries, Immortals, Archons, Oracles, etc. are seen all over the place, and Zealot Archon with supporting units is seen quite often too. For Terran, Thors are used extremely often to very effectively defend against Mutalisks or to add standing power to an aggressive army outside of using Siege Tanks; Hellions are used in timing attacks, harassing, as well as in mobile Mech army compositions to chase down Zerg and to push back Creep; Cyclones are used as a core Mech unit in timing attacks and as support units; and Banshees, while not as popular right now despite being very powerful against Swarm Hosts that are supposedly the be-all-end-all of Mech players, have always been the same: timing attacks, "cheese strats", quick assassinations/harassment, and to support AA-heavy Air armies; and I haven't even covered Reapers, Widow Mines, Vikings, Ravens, or Battlecruisers, and the obvious MMM which are seen frequently and are completely viable to use in several kinds of situations. + Show Spoiler +
Or, perhaps I should say, can be used in these ways at various skill levels from Bronze to Masters, but supposedly are not.
Where's the problem with all of those options, exactly? That all of them aren't seen all the time at the absolute highest level of play? With the tiny number of players at that level, some of them are going to be drawn more to Bio than to Mech, but even then Innovation still uses Mech and a big chunk of the top Korean Terrans did for ages, but they're also known to be the absolute least creative players out there and that hasn't changed a whole lot so it's expected to see similar things from them each time and see their opponent respond in similar ways each time.
Lastly, the majority of vocal Terran players who prefer Mech-based armies and slower, area of control strategies actively demand nerfs for anything that threatens them as well as actively demand buffs for any unit they don't feel is supremely powerful. Zergs and Protoss don't do this. There's no double standard here, Terrans aren't pigeon-holed into anything because of game design right now, as I see it they put themselves in their own artificial corner.
On May 09 2017 08:24 JackONeill wrote: Saying playing mech is boring is therefore quite rich from zerg players. Whether it was BLfestor during WOL, ultra rushes during LOTV, or SH cancer strats during HOTS, zerg pretty much always had passive, boring and turtly styles be common meta. TvZ historically always has been about terran needing to attack and inducing rythm. What mech does (or should be doing) is simply reversing roles.
Interesting. From I recall of SC2 history, TvZ is actually about fast-paced, technical, make-one-hiccup-and-you-lose battles, starting out with a bang with Marines in Bunkers or Reapers or Hellions zipping around the map to beat back the Zerg Rush and Baneling or Roach onslaughts and getting more hectic from there until both players reach an awkward stalemate in the late game with a split map, not purposefully turtling from the get-go by Zergs. Zerg was always focused on aggression and all-ins (who knows how many early Pool Ling or Spine rushes and 3-11 Roach timings) to force the game to end early on or Brood Lord Infestor (the build made to be used against Mech), while Terrans were focused on Bunker rushes (followed by a transition into economic, defensive play into the mid and late game, from what I remember it involved a lot of walls and Planetaries), Proxy Rax, fast expands, double Factory Mech, and Marine Hellion into Siege Tanks and Starports.
The slower, everyone-hated-it-especially-the-Zerg-players ZvT of Swarm Hosts, countless Spores, Queens, and Brood Lords stemmed from and was balanced the way it was because of the surge of Mech play and mass PF or OC, Ravens with Turrets, extreme area denial Siege Tanks and WM, etc. forcing sluggish, gruelingly long games, getting more and more powerful, more rewarding for passive players in HotS, in large part because of the economy (Mules for Terran with old Minerals) and map design of the time. Those strategies are definitely not seen anymore on the Zerg end, at least I haven't seen them, and no Zerg or Protoss wants anything to do with that, but a big piece of the (vocal) Terran audience advocates for it despite already having options for both Bio and Mech. They don't ask for diversity, they demand to be all-powerful above and beyond everyone else and cite their shortcomings as individuals or refer to gameplay environments from a generation ago when talking about balance as if that's what dictates game design.
On May 09 2017 08:24 JackONeill wrote: i've never seen anyone not be excited seing innovation or gumiho play mech in LOTV.
It's because they don't force themselves to play defensively and will use Mech units in an active way that is fun to watch and they play intelligently, the former facets made possible because of better economic design and better overall unit design and balance in LotV, the latter because they're skilled players and smart individuals, of course.
---
That's how I see things, at least. If I contradicted myself or made a bad typo somewhere feel free to let me know, I did a good heap of condensing my writing into something... less convoluted, let's say.
be completely honest do you play this videogame on a daily basis? or even lets say 2 days a week
On May 09 2017 09:45 c0sm0naut wrote: i hate knowing that i have 20+ supply totally wasted in these units late game
Have you heard of this cool new Zerg unit that literally cannot attack nor gather minerals for a period of time? It's called the Swarm Host and, get this, people actually have to make them to force the game to progress.
The rest of your post is citing specific situations in which you fail to use a unit without taking a look at the bigger picture which shows all of them being used extremely effectively and trying to victimize yourself with hyperbole. So, yeah, no.
On May 09 2017 09:45 c0sm0naut wrote: i hate knowing that i have 20+ supply totally wasted in these units late game
Have you heard of this cool new Zerg unit that literally cannot attack nor gather minerals for a period of time? It's called the Swarm Host and, get this, people actually have to make them to force the game to progress.
The rest of your post is citing specific situations in which you fail to use a unit without taking a look at the bigger picture which shows all of them being used extremely effectively and trying to victimize yourself with hyperbole. So, yeah, no.
[B]On May 09 2017 09:54 blunderfulguy wrote: That's how I see things, at least. If I contradicted myself or made a bad typo somewhere feel free to let me know, I did a good heap of condensing my writing into something... less convoluted, let's say.
no you wrote a bunch of noob garbage, and the way you phrased it or made it more succinct ultimately did nothing to distract from your uninformed arm-chair-perspective
On May 09 2017 09:56 c0sm0naut wrote: be completely honest do you play this videogame on a daily basis? or even lets say 2 days a week
Lemme guess, next you'e going to ask: "are you even grandmaster bro?"
no its just real apparent to me that u reached a league you felt was meaningful, moved onto a different game and now write paragraphs on TL for some reason
if you still play this game, my bad! i couldnt tell
Not buying it. If you think mech is viable right now, when there's exactly one player playing it, and on pretty much one map (Innovation doesn't play mech in tournament games, and almost never on ladder), then we have a fundamental disagreement on what constitutes "viable" and no amount of discussion is going to change anything.
Finally, this attempt to rewrite history is really quite ridiculous.
Zerg was always focused on aggression and all-ins (who knows how many early Pool Ling or Spine rushes and 3-11 Roach timings) to force the game to end early on or Brood Lord Infestor (the build made to be used against Mech)
What? Broodlord-infestor as a response to mech? Terran played bio-tank for almost all of WoL, including the broodfestor era. It was only when MvP started experimenting with mech (and late-air transitions) as a response to broodlord-infestor that mech became somewhat common in the match-up, and by then WoL was almost over anyway.
Zerg players played broodfester in WoL, swarmhost turtle in HoTS, and hive-rush in LotV. The last is so common that it might as well be standard play outside of Korea (and Dark and Solar do it a fair amount in Korea as well). Pretending that zerg pros play turtle styles out of necessity is just nonsense--after six years and three expansions it's clear that those players are playing the way they want to, and not because they have to. And you know what? That's fine. But don't pretend that zerg turtling isn't a thing, or hasn't been one for ages.
On May 09 2017 10:11 Athenau wrote: @blunderfulguy
Not buying it.
Not buying what has been discussed in this thread and several other threads in this forum for the past year by amateurs and professionals alike? Sure, go ahead and ignore it all, that's a choice you can make, no worries.
On May 09 2017 10:11 Athenau wrote: @blunderfulguy
Not buying it.
Not buying what has been discussed in this thread and several other threads in this forum for the past year by amateurs and professionals alike? Sure, go ahead and ignore it all, that's a choice you can make, no worries.
yeah because its been discussed for 7 years and played for 0
blunder here are your options, choose wisely:
Mech is not played because:
a. terrans are simply not creative enough, and after 7 years of trying to figure it out and developers actively trying to make mech work, the only people terrans can blame are themselves. this is especially true at the highest echelons of play, where the least creative players of any sport or videogame are typically found, where mech play is not seen at all
b. maybe, just fucking maybe, mech is a suboptimal strategy
On May 09 2017 10:11 Athenau wrote: @blunderfulguy
Not buying it.
Not buying what has been discussed in this thread and several other threads in this forum for the past year by amateurs and professionals alike? Sure, go ahead and ignore it all, that's a choice you can make, no worries.
You are right, it has been discussed and dissected a lot and confirmed by pros and amateur in this thread and others.
Isn't it impossible on the onset for traditional mech to be viable at the highest lvl of play in LOTV? The general idea of mech is to survive and get to a critical cost-efficient mass that can't be beat or that atleast trades very efficiently (you know like in TvP broodwar). A largely tank based army (tanks are the most cost-efficient factory unit ofc) doesn't even trade that well vs the armies the other races can put on the table in the same time. Or I'm mistaken and it does, but it doesn't matter because the other races have enough disposable income cause they got a lot of bases very quickly. it's also quite painful that it's still every bit as hard as it was in earlier iterations to remake tanks quickly enough.
Like TLO said (I am paraphrasing) it's all about your early game harass actually causing a setback to the opponent to even stand a chance whilst playing mech. This fact means that LOTV is all about killing workers and that trading cost efficiently with army isn't all that important anymore (Mech's strong point).That's why the current mech we see is mostly a rush to 200/200 with hellbat thor and some tanks, and not a mech that predominately uses tanks. Instead of tanks people realize they need air units and mass air to beat air, if they want to play the long game.
Literally everything would need a nerf to make traditional mech viable at the highest lvl of play. Like people have said it's not even swarmhosts that are nescessarily the bane of mech. Zerg can beat mech with whatever (Hydra/viper/brood/ultra/banes/corruptor basically a mix of everything). Protoss can beat it with blink timings, warp prism play, chargelot immortal archon and ofcourse carrier tempest (though mech'ers can transition to BC widow mines to deal with the protoss air switch).
The only ways I see traditional mech being closer to viable is if the max army supply gets raised, if tanks get produced quicker or if mech actually gets a decent anti air ground unit. But I digress, I am of the opinion that mech will simply never work as well in LOTV as it did in slower iterations of Starcraft.
Terran is not less limited than Zerg. Also this is not really as big of a problem as you make it out to be. It is not a balance problem, since the winrates are ok. The main reason however is that mech is a miserable boring turtle composition that is inherently a deathball comp and also a comp that cannot deal with losing units at all, which leads to less interesting games. A critical mass is required and retreats are basically impossible.
The double standard here is rich. European zergs regularly play the most cancerous turtle styles and apparently that's A-ok. But when terrans want a defensive playstyle to become viable, suddenly turtling is the worst thing ever.
Meanwhile, pretty much every zerg unit, including the much maligned corruptor sees play in standard games as part of standard compositions, whereas terran still has several units that find no place in any standard composition (Thor, Hellion/Hellbat, Cyclone, Banshee) outside of harass openers or dumb cheeses.
I've heard Beastyqt say this a lot of times and i agree totally.
First of all being turtly and passive has little to do with race or composition choice. It's about style. Thorzain was known to play very passive turtly gameplay with bio. In TvZ, you can be extremely turtly if you want to with MMMtanks into ghost/liberators. I've seen a lot of top masters/low GM zerg players play lings banes mutas without ever attacking, just taking bases and spreading creep. However, metas crystalise into turtly and passive play when some late game units or compositions grant a massive advantage over the opponent. Historically, that has always been zerg or protoss. It's been very rare to see eras when terran (and terran mech) was very advantaged at some realistically rushable point in the late game, except maybe for HOTS after the SH nerf. Saying playing mech is boring is therefore quite rich from zerg players. Whether it was BLfestor during WOL, ultra rushes during LOTV, or SH cancer strats during HOTS, zerg pretty much always had passive, boring and turtly styles be common meta. TvZ historically always has been about terran needing to attack and inducing rythm. What mech does (or should be doing) is simply reversing roles.
Also, saying mech "should even exist" or "be used as a composition" or "stay niche play" doesn't make sense. The way terran and bio are designed, units will be bound to be used as anectodic additions, since bio play requires such a "by default" investment that you have very little freedom and variety concerning what other units you can build. Terran having a whole batch of units (hellbats cyclones banshees ravens thors for instance) be extremely rarely used in regular compositions is normal when you're playing bio. However if mech isn't played, we end up never really see these units get some use.
We've seen a whole lot of different zerg ZvT compositions lately, and it's been very exciting. Pro players have shown hydra/lurkers, lings bane hydras, lings bane mutas, roach ravagers into ultra, roach ravagers infestor, etc. Terran being pigeonholed into MMMM+libs or MMM+tanks every single game in every single matchup is a problem for terran diversity. And i've never seen anyone not be excited seing innovation or gumiho play mech in LOTV.
Pretty spot on post imo. And it seems most Zerg arguments against Mech becoming viable are "because it shouldn't be viable" or "we don't want turtle mech." I think 99% people don't want turtle mech. But yes, Zerg has always had a ton of viable style, i play Zerg myself masters/gm level and there will be so many times i'm literally questioning out loud "what should i build now, there's so many different ways i can play this game out guys."
On May 09 2017 11:46 Suchbalancemuchwow wrote: Isn't it impossible on the onset for traditional mech to be viable at the highest lvl of play in LOTV? The general idea of mech is to survive and get to a critical cost-efficient mass that can't be beat or that atleast trades very efficiently (you know like in TvP broodwar). A largely tank based army (tanks are the most cost-efficient factory unit ofc) doesn't even trade that well vs the armies the other races can put on the table in the same time. Or I'm mistaken and it does, but it doesn't matter because the other races have enough disposable income cause they got a lot of bases very quickly. it's also quite painful that it's still every bit as hard as it was in earlier iterations to remake tanks quickly enough.
Like TLO said (I am paraphrasing) it's all about your early game harass actually causing a setback to the opponent to even stand a chance whilst playing mech. This fact means that LOTV is all about killing workers and that trading cost efficiently with army isn't all that important anymore (Mech's strong point).That's why the current mech we see is mostly a rush to 200/200 with hellbat thor and some tanks, and not a mech that predominately uses tanks. Instead of tanks people realize they need air units and mass air to beat air, if they want to play the long game.
Literally everything would need a nerf to make traditional mech viable at the highest lvl of play. Like people have said it's not even swarmhosts that are nescessarily the bane of mech. Zerg can beat mech with whatever (Hydra/viper/brood/ultra/banes/corruptor basically a mix of everything). Protoss can beat it with blink timings, warp prism play, chargelot immortal archon and ofcourse carrier tempest (though mech'ers can transition to BC widow mines to deal with the protoss air switch).
The only ways I see traditional mech being closer to viable is if the max army supply gets raised, if tanks get produced quicker or if mech actually gets a decent anti air ground unit. But I digress, I am of the opinion that mech will simply never work as well in LOTV as it did in slower iterations of Starcraft.
It's interesting that you just mentioned "mech being closer to viable if the max army supply gets raised" because that can actually be done in a round about way by increasing the supply of most of the troublesome air units in the game.
If carrier, tempest, raven, BC, broodlords, liberators had supply increases, intrinsically that means more supply of a player's army can be committed to ground and it could potentially change some unit relationships to where ground units like hydralisks could overwhelm a player attempting to mass BCS or liberators or ravens or what not in mega late game.
A player could invest more of their supply into ground AA and not get punished for not going mass air themselves.
Terran is not less limited than Zerg. Also this is not really as big of a problem as you make it out to be. It is not a balance problem, since the winrates are ok. The main reason however is that mech is a miserable boring turtle composition that is inherently a deathball comp and also a comp that cannot deal with losing units at all, which leads to less interesting games. A critical mass is required and retreats are basically impossible.
The double standard here is rich. European zergs regularly play the most cancerous turtle styles and apparently that's A-ok. But when terrans want a defensive playstyle to become viable, suddenly turtling is the worst thing ever.
Meanwhile, pretty much every zerg unit, including the much maligned corruptor sees play in standard games as part of standard compositions, whereas terran still has several units that find no place in any standard composition (Thor, Hellion/Hellbat, Cyclone, Banshee) outside of harass openers or dumb cheeses.
I've heard Beastyqt say this a lot of times and i agree totally.
First of all being turtly and passive has little to do with race or composition choice. It's about style. Thorzain was known to play very passive turtly gameplay with bio. In TvZ, you can be extremely turtly if you want to with MMMtanks into ghost/liberators. I've seen a lot of top masters/low GM zerg players play lings banes mutas without ever attacking, just taking bases and spreading creep. However, metas crystalise into turtly and passive play when some late game units or compositions grant a massive advantage over the opponent. Historically, that has always been zerg or protoss. It's been very rare to see eras when terran (and terran mech) was very advantaged at some realistically rushable point in the late game, except maybe for HOTS after the SH nerf. Saying playing mech is boring is therefore quite rich from zerg players. Whether it was BLfestor during WOL, ultra rushes during LOTV, or SH cancer strats during HOTS, zerg pretty much always had passive, boring and turtly styles be common meta. TvZ historically always has been about terran needing to attack and inducing rythm. What mech does (or should be doing) is simply reversing roles.
Also, saying mech "should even exist" or "be used as a composition" or "stay niche play" doesn't make sense. The way terran and bio are designed, units will be bound to be used as anectodic additions, since bio play requires such a "by default" investment that you have very little freedom and variety concerning what other units you can build. Terran having a whole batch of units (hellbats cyclones banshees ravens thors for instance) be extremely rarely used in regular compositions is normal when you're playing bio. However if mech isn't played, we end up never really see these units get some use.
We've seen a whole lot of different zerg ZvT compositions lately, and it's been very exciting. Pro players have shown hydra/lurkers, lings bane hydras, lings bane mutas, roach ravagers into ultra, roach ravagers infestor, etc. Terran being pigeonholed into MMMM+libs or MMM+tanks every single game in every single matchup is a problem for terran diversity. And i've never seen anyone not be excited seing innovation or gumiho play mech in LOTV.
Pretty spot on post imo. And it seems most Zerg arguments against Mech becoming viable are "because it shouldn't be viable" or "we don't want turtle mech." I think 99% people don't want turtle mech. But yes, Zerg has always had a ton of viable style, i play Zerg myself masters/gm level and there will be so many times i'm literally questioning out loud "what should i build now, there's so many different ways i can play this game out guys."
I wouldn't call 4700 mmr gm level zerg... but I do agree that Zerg does have a lot more option compared to Terran. I think the reason why people are so against mech is because of the way sc2 is designed. Due to unit pathing, smart targeting tanks, and how the bases are located, it's pretty hard to break into a turtled Terran in the early/mid game as Zerg. Likewise on the Terran side, once they set up their turtle base, T literally can't move out until they have mass enough units. If only mobile/ positional mech was viable. At the moment, i feel like mech is really gimmicky.
On May 09 2017 11:46 Suchbalancemuchwow wrote: Isn't it impossible on the onset for traditional mech to be viable at the highest lvl of play in LOTV? The general idea of mech is to survive and get to a critical cost-efficient mass that can't be beat or that atleast trades very efficiently (you know like in TvP broodwar). A largely tank based army (tanks are the most cost-efficient factory unit ofc) doesn't even trade that well vs the armies the other races can put on the table in the same time. Or I'm mistaken and it does, but it doesn't matter because the other races have enough disposable income cause they got a lot of bases very quickly. it's also quite painful that it's still every bit as hard as it was in earlier iterations to remake tanks quickly enough.
Like TLO said (I am paraphrasing) it's all about your early game harass actually causing a setback to the opponent to even stand a chance whilst playing mech. This fact means that LOTV is all about killing workers and that trading cost efficiently with army isn't all that important anymore (Mech's strong point).That's why the current mech we see is mostly a rush to 200/200 with hellbat thor and some tanks, and not a mech that predominately uses tanks. Instead of tanks people realize they need air units and mass air to beat air, if they want to play the long game.
Literally everything would need a nerf to make traditional mech viable at the highest lvl of play. Like people have said it's not even swarmhosts that are nescessarily the bane of mech. Zerg can beat mech with whatever (Hydra/viper/brood/ultra/banes/corruptor basically a mix of everything). Protoss can beat it with blink timings, warp prism play, chargelot immortal archon and ofcourse carrier tempest (though mech'ers can transition to BC widow mines to deal with the protoss air switch).
The only ways I see traditional mech being closer to viable is if the max army supply gets raised, if tanks get produced quicker or if mech actually gets a decent anti air ground unit. But I digress, I am of the opinion that mech will simply never work as well in LOTV as it did in slower iterations of Starcraft.
It's interesting that you just mentioned "mech being closer to viable if the max army supply gets raised" because that can actually be done in a round about way by increasing the supply of most of the troublesome air units in the game.
If carrier, tempest, raven, BC, broodlords, liberators had supply increases, intrinsically that means more supply of a player's army can be committed to ground and it could potentially change some unit relationships to where ground units like hydralisks could overwhelm a player attempting to mass BCS or liberators or ravens or what not in mega late game.
A player could invest more of their supply into ground AA and not get punished for not going mass air themselves.
Yea that's definetly one way of making ground better vs air. It still wouldn't make mech much better vs the ground armies I described though. I also noticed that you didn't include the viper in your list of troublesome air units even though it is in my opinion the most blatant counter to mech (blinding cloud and abduct on 1 unit okay). Going with this line of thinking I'd personally like it the most if they upped the air supply a little whilst also opting for something like 220/220 so that it's still possible to make a decent amount of air units.
Compared to sc1, sc2 armies aren't even that big to begin with. This is a problem in Lotv because the player that has map control often also has an economic advantage. What this means is that he doesn't have to be cost-efficient. If however the max army supply were bigger, one would have to trade better despite the better economy. (You can't remax as fast when you need to get a bigger army after all)
But of course these are giant changes that would be a lot of fun to see in the PTR for once, even if just for the lulz.
Avilo...Saying that your Zerg play is even near of GM level is overstatement.
Look at all this mech fanboys reaping off another balance topic. Guys, this game has more problems than "Terran not having unvincible a-move composition".
All u want is EZ response to everything that opponent will throw at you at every stage of the game. Newsflash- every style or vomp has its weaknesses. Mech weakness is lack of mobility and lil bit vulnerability vs air comps. But to be honest Zerg rushing to air vs mech is pretty much dead if u are active with harras while building your beloved deatch ball. I know that u miss late HOTS where Mech was pretty much unstopabble vs Zerg. But it was cancer. And we don't want cancer back, do we?
On May 09 2017 14:15 hiroshOne wrote: Avilo...Saying that your Zerg play is even near of GM level is overstatement.
Look at all this mech fanboys reaping off another balance topic. Guys, this game has more problems than "Terran not having unvincible a-move composition".
All u want is EZ response to everything that opponent will throw at you at every stage of the game. Newsflash- every style or vomp has its weaknesses. Mech weakness is lack of mobility and lil bit vulnerability vs air comps. But to be honest Zerg rushing to air vs mech is pretty much dead if u are active with harras while building your beloved deatch ball. I know that u miss late HOTS where Mech was pretty much unstopabble vs Zerg. But it was cancer. And we don't want cancer back, do we?
With all due respect, your reading comprehension needs some work. All these ''mech fanboys'' weren't just saying that they want mech to be the best ever, but we were also discussing the relevance of the way blizzard is balancing, the importance of air armies in sc2 and the questionable design of the swarmhost regardless of it's strength.
Disregarding all that and coming in hot with a sloppily written Iel Avilo comment complete with dergatory prose speaks volumes about the worth of your comment. It's overall just a tragic thing to read.
On May 09 2017 10:11 Athenau wrote: @blunderfulguy
Not buying it.
Not buying what has been discussed in this thread and several other threads in this forum for the past year by amateurs and professionals alike? Sure, go ahead and ignore it all, that's a choice you can make, no worries.
yeah because its been discussed for 7 years and played for 0
blunder here are your options, choose wisely:
Mech is not played because:
a. terrans are simply not creative enough, and after 7 years of trying to figure it out and developers actively trying to make mech work, the only people terrans can blame are themselves. this is especially true at the highest echelons of play, where the least creative players of any sport or videogame are typically found, where mech play is not seen at all
b. maybe, just fucking maybe, mech is a suboptimal strategy
Woah hold on there sparky, mech is not played? Nobody plays mech? You're sure? Not seen at all? Whatsoever? HA good one, looks like we've reached the end of this thread's life cycle now, catch you all in a couple of weeks.
On May 10 2017 00:24 lolfail9001 wrote: You know what, i now want to see someone complain about pure bio's viability in Brood War. Just to make the picture complete.
Need more even be said really?
Why stop there though? Why not comeone complain about pure bio viability in BW, let's get some Zerg's complaining that Roach/Hydra CAN work against Terran but 90% of the time it's substandard. Then we can bring up some of the old but gold, "Gateway comps are bad" and then we will have every race complaining at the same time about the same stuff :D
On a serious note, mech is just sub optimal, but it's pretty much the same 4 people complaining about mech not being able to be just as potent and just as go to of a style as Bio so meh, there is always optimal comps and not optimal, if you choose to utilize a weaker comp then at least be sure it's on the right maps in the right niche situations. Don't complain if you go blind mech because, "thats just what I want to do" and get owned by an opponent who is prepared.
On May 10 2017 00:24 lolfail9001 wrote: You know what, i now want to see someone complain about pure bio's viability in Brood War. Just to make the picture complete.
Need more even be said really?
Why stop there though? Why not comeone complain about pure bio viability in BW, let's get some Zerg's complaining that Roach/Hydra CAN work against Terran but 90% of the time it's substandard. Then we can bring up some of the old but gold, "Gateway comps are bad" and then we will have every race complaining at the same time about the same stuff :D
On a serious note, mech is just sub optimal, but it's pretty much the same 4 people complaining about mech not being able to be just as potent and just as go to of a style as Bio so meh, there is always optimal comps and not optimal, if you choose to utilize a weaker comp then at least be sure it's on the right maps in the right niche situations. Don't complain if you go blind mech because, "thats just what I want to do" and get owned by an opponent who is prepared.
I don't know, it seems pretty reasonable to talk about the Thor and mech when the Thor is the main subject of this community feedback update. In the last month Blizzard has said they were "gathering feedback about Swarm hosts" in regard to mech, as well as the statement in the March 30 update that they "haven't seen as much mech play as they would like".
When they ask about the Gateway or how underpowered Roach/Hydra is now, that will be a great opportunity to talk about those things.
On May 09 2017 10:11 Athenau wrote: @blunderfulguy
Not buying it.
Not buying what has been discussed in this thread and several other threads in this forum for the past year by amateurs and professionals alike? Sure, go ahead and ignore it all, that's a choice you can make, no worries.
yeah because its been discussed for 7 years and played for 0
blunder here are your options, choose wisely:
Mech is not played because:
a. terrans are simply not creative enough, and after 7 years of trying to figure it out and developers actively trying to make mech work, the only people terrans can blame are themselves. this is especially true at the highest echelons of play, where the least creative players of any sport or videogame are typically found, where mech play is not seen at all
b. maybe, just fucking maybe, mech is a suboptimal strategy
Woah hold on there sparky, mech is not played? Nobody plays mech? You're sure? Not seen at all? Whatsoever? HA good one, looks like we've reached the end of this thread's life cycle now, catch you all in a couple of weeks.
apetier post
your posting rights should be rescinded, this is just argumentative, trolling garbage
On May 10 2017 03:03 Espartaquen wrote: So... still no mention of the LOTV economy? is that train over?
I hope not, but how big are the chances of another big patch !? The lead balance designer left the game, LotV is the last expansion, Blizzard makes much more money with every other game in their line-up,... I would like to be more optimistic, but i fear there won't be any big meaningful changes anymore.
if the unit skins and the War Chest do great the chance of Blizzard committing more resources to multiplayer increases.
vote with your wallet. money speaks louder than words. and damn those new Hellions are so fucking cool! even the Marauder. i saw the unit skin and i didn't think i'd be that impressed. even the new Marauder is cool.
i can't wait for a new skin of the Tank.
i'll bet Blizzard makes more money off of Co-op microtransactions than they do from those unit skins.
On May 10 2017 00:24 lolfail9001 wrote: You know what, i now want to see someone complain about pure bio's viability in Brood War. Just to make the picture complete.
Need more even be said really?
Why stop there though? Why not comeone complain about pure bio viability in BW, let's get some Zerg's complaining that Roach/Hydra CAN work against Terran but 90% of the time it's substandard. Then we can bring up some of the old but gold, "Gateway comps are bad" and then we will have every race complaining at the same time about the same stuff :D
On a serious note, mech is just sub optimal, but it's pretty much the same 4 people complaining about mech not being able to be just as potent and just as go to of a style as Bio so meh, there is always optimal comps and not optimal, if you choose to utilize a weaker comp then at least be sure it's on the right maps in the right niche situations. Don't complain if you go blind mech because, "thats just what I want to do" and get owned by an opponent who is prepared.
I don't know, it seems pretty reasonable to talk about the Thor and mech when the Thor is the main subject of this community feedback update. In the last month Blizzard has said they were "gathering feedback about Swarm hosts" in regard to mech, as well as the statement in the March 30 update that they "haven't seen as much mech play as they would like".
When they ask about the Gateway or how underpowered Roach/Hydra is now, that will be a great opportunity to talk about those things.
Talking about the Thor compared to the same people posting over and over again about how unviable mech is (even though Avilo has been playing it on ladder since forever and has always be GM so how under powered can it truly be?) is a world of difference.
Don't even bring up the Host dude, it's OP vs. tanks and crap vs. everything else (mostly), it is a unit that is so terribly designed that its been overhauled, buffed, nerfed, and still is crap. I want it discarded from the Swarm immediately. The Swarm Host is a flawless example of a failed pet project from David Kim, instead of just manning up and giving it the Warhound treatment, he found it better to give it every change under the sun even though the role it was supposed to fill has long since been bastardized into oblivion.
P and T shouldn't receive any buffs, particulary vs Z, and a fortiori they shouldn't get some lategame buff.
Just take a look on the last tournaments, Zerg isn't competitive.
P and T just repete their builds, and if they do it right, they end up being ahead, even if Zerg scout it, know it's coming, and have seen this buff 1000 times already, it keeps working.
Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs Zerg.
They now have an even economy than Zerg, and always more drone on early game. This is already insane.
But Protoss has now uncounterable harass. With oracle, WP pickup, adept shade, Protoss is able to kill drones without any loss, while they have already more probe than the zerg... There is nothing zerg can do if the P is able to control his units right, he will fall behind in economy.
After the Zerg need to make something, else the "macro game" is designed to make him lose, so he makes a random timing with some random composition, and pray.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. Zerg hasn't really played better when it works compared when he get crushed, it's just :
Has the protoss player been surprised or not, transition too fast, or too slow, hasn't look when baneling runbies/baneling drops come.
When it's ladder, or BO3, Zerg can take some games, but when it's BO5-BO7, Zerg hasn't won any premier tournaments for 8 months...
On May 11 2017 06:18 Tyrhanius wrote: P and T shouldn't receive any buffs, particulary vs Z, and a fortiori they shouldn't get some lategame buff.
Just take a look on the last tournaments, Zerg isn't competitive.
P and T just repete their builds, and if they do it right, they end up being ahead, even if Zerg scout it, know it's coming, and have seen this buff 1000 times already, it keeps working.
Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs Zerg.
They now have an even economy than Zerg, and always more drone on early game. This is already insane.
But Protoss has now uncounterable harass. With oracle, WP pickup, adept shade, Protoss is able to kill drones without any loss, while they have already more probe than the zerg... There is nothing zerg can do if the P is able to control his units right, he will fall behind in economy.
After the Zerg need to make something, else the "macro game" is designed to make him lose, so he makes a random timing with some random composition, and pray.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. Zerg hasn't really played better when it works compared when he get crushed, it's just :
Has the protoss player been surprised or not, transition too fast, or too slow, hasn't look when baneling runbies/baneling drops come.
When it's ladder, or BO3, Zerg can take some games, but when it's BO5-BO7, Zerg hasn't won any premier tournaments for 8 months...
While they might not be winning outright, look at DH: Austin, there were 10 zergs in the final 16. To say that they aren't competitive is laughable; you have to look at more than just who wins the final tournament.
On May 11 2017 06:18 Tyrhanius wrote: P and T shouldn't receive any buffs, particulary vs Z, and a fortiori they shouldn't get some lategame buff.
Just take a look on the last tournaments, Zerg isn't competitive.
P and T just repete their builds, and if they do it right, they end up being ahead, even if Zerg scout it, know it's coming, and have seen this buff 1000 times already, it keeps working.
Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs Zerg.
They now have an even economy than Zerg, and always more drone on early game. This is already insane.
But Protoss has now uncounterable harass. With oracle, WP pickup, adept shade, Protoss is able to kill drones without any loss, while they have already more probe than the zerg... There is nothing zerg can do if the P is able to control his units right, he will fall behind in economy.
After the Zerg need to make something, else the "macro game" is designed to make him lose, so he makes a random timing with some random composition, and pray.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. Zerg hasn't really played better when it works compared when he get crushed, it's just :
Has the protoss player been surprised or not, transition too fast, or too slow, hasn't look when baneling runbies/baneling drops come.
When it's ladder, or BO3, Zerg can take some games, but when it's BO5-BO7, Zerg hasn't won any premier tournaments for 8 months...
While they might not be winning outright, look at DH: Austin, there were 10 zergs in the final 16. To say that they aren't competitive is laughable; you have to look at more than just who wins the final tournament.
Have you looked the level of the qualifiers ?
It's a bit like you say : "Zerg is very strong, Lamdo, Serral & co manage to be promoted on GM".
On May 10 2017 03:03 Espartaquen wrote: So... still no mention of the LOTV economy? is that train over?
I hope not, but how big are the chances of another big patch !? The lead balance designer left the game, LotV is the last expansion, Blizzard makes much more money with every other game in their line-up,... I would like to be more optimistic, but i fear there won't be any big meaningful changes anymore.
if the unit skins and the War Chest do great the chance of Blizzard committing more resources to multiplayer increases.
vote with your wallet. money speaks louder than words. and damn those new Hellions are so fucking cool! even the Marauder. i saw the unit skin and i didn't think i'd be that impressed. even the new Marauder is cool.
i can't wait for a new skin of the Tank.
i'll bet Blizzard makes more money off of Co-op microtransactions than they do from those unit skins.
Skins aren't cool in SC2, microtransactions aren't cool for a full price game, so yeah, voting with my wallet by buying stuff I neither want nor like to see... Brilliant. Next step is you have to unlock graphics settings by paying for them, or basic game functions like chat, to each his own, right?
On May 10 2017 03:03 Espartaquen wrote: So... still no mention of the LOTV economy? is that train over?
I hope not, but how big are the chances of another big patch !? The lead balance designer left the game, LotV is the last expansion, Blizzard makes much more money with every other game in their line-up,... I would like to be more optimistic, but i fear there won't be any big meaningful changes anymore.
if the unit skins and the War Chest do great the chance of Blizzard committing more resources to multiplayer increases.
vote with your wallet. money speaks louder than words. and damn those new Hellions are so fucking cool! even the Marauder. i saw the unit skin and i didn't think i'd be that impressed. even the new Marauder is cool.
i can't wait for a new skin of the Tank.
i'll bet Blizzard makes more money off of Co-op microtransactions than they do from those unit skins.
Skins aren't cool in SC2, microtransactions aren't cool for a full price game, so yeah, voting with my wallet by buying stuff I neither want nor like to see... Brilliant. Next step is you have to unlock graphics settings by paying for them, or basic game functions like chat, to each his own, right?
but that's just like... your opinion.. man
also concluding that blizzard will become greedy, with starcraft, and turn it into a pay2win-game, just because they added cosmetics to it, is just lol.
On May 10 2017 03:03 Espartaquen wrote: So... still no mention of the LOTV economy? is that train over?
I hope not, but how big are the chances of another big patch !? The lead balance designer left the game, LotV is the last expansion, Blizzard makes much more money with every other game in their line-up,... I would like to be more optimistic, but i fear there won't be any big meaningful changes anymore.
if the unit skins and the War Chest do great the chance of Blizzard committing more resources to multiplayer increases.
vote with your wallet. money speaks louder than words. and damn those new Hellions are so fucking cool! even the Marauder. i saw the unit skin and i didn't think i'd be that impressed. even the new Marauder is cool.
i can't wait for a new skin of the Tank.
i'll bet Blizzard makes more money off of Co-op microtransactions than they do from those unit skins.
Skins aren't cool in SC2, microtransactions aren't cool for a full price game, so yeah, voting with my wallet by buying stuff I neither want nor like to see... Brilliant. Next step is you have to unlock graphics settings by paying for them, or basic game functions like chat, to each his own, right?
but that's just like... your opinion.. man
also concluding that blizzard will become greedy, with starcraft, and turn it into a pay2win-game, just because they added cosmetics to it, is just lol.
"blizzard will become greedy"
Will. Nice one, first laugh of the day. Paying for skins in a full priced game is already somewhat of a scam. Everything coming out of blizzard is grossely overpriced. And there's a huge difference between paying for content and paying for cometics.
So personally, i did vote with my wallet and refused to buy anything from coop, skins or announcer packs because i'm not seeing any good faith/will to improve concerning multiplayer.
"And there's a huge difference between paying for content and paying for cometics. " In this whiny context: "Next step is you have to unlock graphics settings by paying for them, or basic game functions like chat, to each his own, right?"
That's the thing though. In context to popular f2p games, sc2 players have already paid for at least $120 worth of patches, graphics and gameplay improvements. It's no suprise that people who have paid for such express fustration with such a blatant money grabbing, when nowadays you can buy great product for no real cost except for cosmetics. You may think he is supposing but Blizzard IS a business that released Bnet 2.0 without any real chat functions and clan support and only added them in for HotS. In essence, you had to pay to unlock what is considered a basic chat game function nowadays such as clan support.
On May 11 2017 18:41 ihatevideogames wrote: You guys always seem to forget, it's not Blizzard anymore, it's ACTIVISION-BLIZZARD.
This
and as usual Jack is on point in this discussion on pretty much everything.
i have proudly not bought a single cosmetic or coop commander frm Blizz. never bought cosmetic in other games. its just not worth it like if they want to charge $60 for a videogame or howver much it's been at this point, they have to release all the content. if one of my students turned in a project that was 60% done and then continued to add to it during their presentation, they would get a failing grade. lets not hold blizzard to a lower standard
On May 11 2017 06:18 Tyrhanius wrote: P and T shouldn't receive any buffs, particulary vs Z, and a fortiori they shouldn't get some lategame buff.
Just take a look on the last tournaments, Zerg isn't competitive.
P and T just repete their builds, and if they do it right, they end up being ahead, even if Zerg scout it, know it's coming, and have seen this buff 1000 times already, it keeps working.
Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs Zerg.
They now have an even economy than Zerg, and always more drone on early game. This is already insane.
But Protoss has now uncounterable harass. With oracle, WP pickup, adept shade, Protoss is able to kill drones without any loss, while they have already more probe than the zerg... There is nothing zerg can do if the P is able to control his units right, he will fall behind in economy.
After the Zerg need to make something, else the "macro game" is designed to make him lose, so he makes a random timing with some random composition, and pray.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. Zerg hasn't really played better when it works compared when he get crushed, it's just :
Has the protoss player been surprised or not, transition too fast, or too slow, hasn't look when baneling runbies/baneling drops come.
When it's ladder, or BO3, Zerg can take some games, but when it's BO5-BO7, Zerg hasn't won any premier tournaments for 8 months...
It's because Terrans and Protosses macro booster where almost untouched in LOTV. Zerg had his nerfed into oblivion. Thats why I would like to see 4 larvae injects back. That would give back the Zerg his main strengh which is superior economy and macro as Zerg has the weakest units.
It makes sense especially that Terran and Protoss have easy ways to kill drones for free.
According to Blizzard this game was released finished, apart from bug fixes and balancing.
These cosmetics are extras, for people who care about such stuff, they were not part of the content that you bought for $60. I do not expect Blizz to release free stuff forever for a game I bought many years ago. That is not how economics works.
I bought all the Terran related cosmetics, and the announcer packs, including TB. I hope Blizz continue to release extra content, but I also want them to fix MP.
On May 10 2017 03:03 Espartaquen wrote: So... still no mention of the LOTV economy? is that train over?
I hope not, but how big are the chances of another big patch !? The lead balance designer left the game, LotV is the last expansion, Blizzard makes much more money with every other game in their line-up,... I would like to be more optimistic, but i fear there won't be any big meaningful changes anymore.
if the unit skins and the War Chest do great the chance of Blizzard committing more resources to multiplayer increases.
vote with your wallet. money speaks louder than words. and damn those new Hellions are so fucking cool! even the Marauder. i saw the unit skin and i didn't think i'd be that impressed. even the new Marauder is cool.
i can't wait for a new skin of the Tank.
i'll bet Blizzard makes more money off of Co-op microtransactions than they do from those unit skins.
Skins aren't cool in SC2, microtransactions aren't cool for a full price game, so yeah, voting with my wallet by buying stuff I neither want nor like to see... Brilliant. Next step is you have to unlock graphics settings by paying for them, or basic game functions like chat, to each his own, right?
but that's just like... your opinion.. man
also concluding that blizzard will become greedy, with starcraft, and turn it into a pay2win-game, just because they added cosmetics to it, is just lol.
"blizzard will become greedy"
Will. Nice one, first laugh of the day. Paying for skins in a full priced game is already somewhat of a scam. Everything coming out of blizzard is grossely overpriced. And there's a huge difference between paying for content and paying for cometics.
So personally, i did vote with my wallet and refused to buy anything from coop, skins or announcer packs because i'm not seeing any good faith/will to improve concerning multiplayer.
The sad thing is that Blizzard should be capable of releasing high quality RTS for a minimal cost every three years or so, but they don't because of the blockbuster effect where they have to invest in (imo unnecessary) production values to compete with other high profile releases and to create a certain cachet and exclusivity for the Blizzard brand. I think the industry changed so that this is no longer necessarily the best option though.
On May 10 2017 03:03 Espartaquen wrote: So... still no mention of the LOTV economy? is that train over?
I hope not, but how big are the chances of another big patch !? The lead balance designer left the game, LotV is the last expansion, Blizzard makes much more money with every other game in their line-up,... I would like to be more optimistic, but i fear there won't be any big meaningful changes anymore.
if the unit skins and the War Chest do great the chance of Blizzard committing more resources to multiplayer increases.
vote with your wallet. money speaks louder than words. and damn those new Hellions are so fucking cool! even the Marauder. i saw the unit skin and i didn't think i'd be that impressed. even the new Marauder is cool.
i can't wait for a new skin of the Tank.
i'll bet Blizzard makes more money off of Co-op microtransactions than they do from those unit skins.
Skins aren't cool in SC2, microtransactions aren't cool for a full price game, so yeah, voting with my wallet by buying stuff I neither want nor like to see... Brilliant. Next step is you have to unlock graphics settings by paying for them, or basic game functions like chat, to each his own, right?
but that's just like... your opinion.. man
also concluding that blizzard will become greedy, with starcraft, and turn it into a pay2win-game, just because they added cosmetics to it, is just lol.
No-one said anything about pay2win, please read properly and don't project opinions in other people's posts that aren't there. In addition to that, yes, that is just like... my opinion... man, same as you have your opinion which I assume sounds something like "Shut up and take my money!" because you just love to pay some extra cash to feel better, right?
If you keep throwing money at companies to support them, even if you don't concur with their business models or the even the products they're offering just to support the game you care for, nothing's gonna change, because all that matters is profit and publicity (meaning negative feedback coming from a wider audience would also force action). The thing is that Blizzard and also other companies are so getting away with it, remember the Xbox One fiasco when they announced the initially planned Kinect features? Imagine people would've complained about the whole surveillance bs, but preordered the console anyway, what do you think Microsoft would've done? Exactly, nothing.
LotV is a stand alone game for $40. I don't know where people are getting $60 from. Relative to the amount of content in Grey Goo, CoH2, DoW3 and Act of Aggression i think i'm making a great decision spending $40 for all the content in LotV.
LotV for $40 contains a fucktonne more content than any of these games. Likewise $140 for the 6 year trilogy of SC2 provided an order of magnitude more content than any other RTS released during the 2010 to 2015 time frame. Also, the multiplayer Betas were 1000X better than any other multiplayer beta for any other RTS game.
of course, if you've decided the whole entire genre sucks balls and everyone makes very bad RTS games then spending $0 on the genre will insure its death.
On May 10 2017 03:03 Espartaquen wrote: So... still no mention of the LOTV economy? is that train over?
I hope not, but how big are the chances of another big patch !? The lead balance designer left the game, LotV is the last expansion, Blizzard makes much more money with every other game in their line-up,... I would like to be more optimistic, but i fear there won't be any big meaningful changes anymore.
if the unit skins and the War Chest do great the chance of Blizzard committing more resources to multiplayer increases.
vote with your wallet. money speaks louder than words. and damn those new Hellions are so fucking cool! even the Marauder. i saw the unit skin and i didn't think i'd be that impressed. even the new Marauder is cool.
i can't wait for a new skin of the Tank.
i'll bet Blizzard makes more money off of Co-op microtransactions than they do from those unit skins.
Skins aren't cool in SC2, microtransactions aren't cool for a full price game, so yeah, voting with my wallet by buying stuff I neither want nor like to see... Brilliant. Next step is you have to unlock graphics settings by paying for them, or basic game functions like chat, to each his own, right?
i think having to pay for the "High", "Ultimate", "Extreme" graphics levels would've been a really cool idea. The game itself remains unchanged and if you're a big fan of all aspects of the game you can pay for more detailed graphical representations of the units. its too late now though. that ship has already sailed.
spending $0 on a game is the best way to instantly kill it. and you can also keep on posting about how horrible Blizzard, their employees and the game are because that costs $0 as well. sounds like the perfect solution.
On May 11 2017 21:30 c0sm0naut wrote: i have proudly not bought a single cosmetic or coop commander frm Blizz. never bought cosmetic in other games. its just not worth it like if they want to charge $60 for a videogame or howver much it's been at this point, they have to release all the content. if one of my students turned in a project that was 60% done and then continued to add to it during their presentation, they would get a failing grade. lets not hold blizzard to a lower standard
ya, Ensemble, EALA, and Westwood all make way better RTS games! and the prices of their games keeps on getting lower. i think RA2 is even F2P with no microtransactions!
I think paying for access to matchmaking would have been great. And for extra music tracks. Also I think Blizzard should keep releasing expansions every 2 years. That's exactly how you make a great RTS. If it makes more money its obviously better. Nothing in the world is worth more than making more money and paying for things. Spending the money you earn is the purpose of life. The more you earn and spend the better. If everybody did this we would enjoy more quality RTS. Just fcking spend as much money as possible on any RTS.
On May 12 2017 00:45 JimmyJRaynor wrote: LotV is a stand alone game for $40. I don't know where people are getting $60 from. Relative to the amount of content in Grey Goo, CoH2, DoW3 and Act of Aggression i think i'm making a great decision spending $40 for all the content in LotV.
LotV for $40 contains a fucktonne more content than any of these games. Likewise $140 for the 6 year trilogy of SC2 provided an order of magnitude more content than any other RTS released during the 2010 to 2015 time frame. Also, the multiplayer Betas were 1000X better than any other multiplayer beta for any other RTS game.
of course, if you've decided the whole entire genre sucks balls and everyone makes very bad RTS games then spending $0 on the genre will insure its death.
On May 10 2017 03:03 Espartaquen wrote: So... still no mention of the LOTV economy? is that train over?
I hope not, but how big are the chances of another big patch !? The lead balance designer left the game, LotV is the last expansion, Blizzard makes much more money with every other game in their line-up,... I would like to be more optimistic, but i fear there won't be any big meaningful changes anymore.
if the unit skins and the War Chest do great the chance of Blizzard committing more resources to multiplayer increases.
vote with your wallet. money speaks louder than words. and damn those new Hellions are so fucking cool! even the Marauder. i saw the unit skin and i didn't think i'd be that impressed. even the new Marauder is cool.
i can't wait for a new skin of the Tank.
i'll bet Blizzard makes more money off of Co-op microtransactions than they do from those unit skins.
Skins aren't cool in SC2, microtransactions aren't cool for a full price game, so yeah, voting with my wallet by buying stuff I neither want nor like to see... Brilliant. Next step is you have to unlock graphics settings by paying for them, or basic game functions like chat, to each his own, right?
i think having to pay for the "High", "Ultimate", "Extreme" graphics levels would've been a really cool idea. The game itself remains unchanged and if you're a big fan of all aspects of the game you can pay for more detailed graphical representations of the units. its too late now though. that ship has already sailed.
spending $0 on a game is the best way to instantly kill it. and you can also keep on posting about how horrible Blizzard, their employees and the game are because that costs $0 as well. sounds like the perfect solution.
On May 11 2017 21:30 c0sm0naut wrote: i have proudly not bought a single cosmetic or coop commander frm Blizz. never bought cosmetic in other games. its just not worth it like if they want to charge $60 for a videogame or howver much it's been at this point, they have to release all the content. if one of my students turned in a project that was 60% done and then continued to add to it during their presentation, they would get a failing grade. lets not hold blizzard to a lower standard
ya, Ensemble, EALA, and Westwood all make way better RTS games! and the prices of their games keeps on getting lower. i think RA2 is even F2P with no microtransactions!
No one spent $0 on SC2. Blizzard has made their buck with the game, if they decide to turn it into a microtransaction shitfest, they could at least in turn make the whole multiplayer f2p and give players an option to not have to see unit skins (see it as some kind of tournament mode so players can concentrate on the important stuff - like playing the game). That would give a greater influx to the playerbase with potential new customers as trying to further milk the loyal fanbase.
On May 12 2017 01:27 Creager wrote: if they decide to turn it into a microtransaction shitfest, they could at least in turn make the whole multiplayer f2p
they are making SC1 F2P... let's see how bad the smurfing is on the ladder. I like how Blizzard currently discourages smurfing in OW and SC2 via the box price.
competitive RTS is not like Hearthstone or LoL. you are not slowly building up your Deck/Heroes as an incentive to remain loyal to your account. its easier for those games to deter smurfing because of the natural incentive to keep building up your Deck/Heroes.
On May 12 2017 01:18 ProMeTheus112 wrote: Nothing in the world is worth more than making more money and paying for things. Spending the money you earn is the purpose of life
you might enjoy Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.. its a great book.
On May 10 2017 03:03 Espartaquen wrote: So... still no mention of the LOTV economy? is that train over?
I hope not, but how big are the chances of another big patch !? The lead balance designer left the game, LotV is the last expansion, Blizzard makes much more money with every other game in their line-up,... I would like to be more optimistic, but i fear there won't be any big meaningful changes anymore.
if the unit skins and the War Chest do great the chance of Blizzard committing more resources to multiplayer increases.
vote with your wallet. money speaks louder than words. and damn those new Hellions are so fucking cool! even the Marauder. i saw the unit skin and i didn't think i'd be that impressed. even the new Marauder is cool.
i can't wait for a new skin of the Tank.
i'll bet Blizzard makes more money off of Co-op microtransactions than they do from those unit skins.
Skins aren't cool in SC2, microtransactions aren't cool for a full price game, so yeah, voting with my wallet by buying stuff I neither want nor like to see... Brilliant. Next step is you have to unlock graphics settings by paying for them, or basic game functions like chat, to each his own, right?
but that's just like... your opinion.. man
also concluding that blizzard will become greedy, with starcraft, and turn it into a pay2win-game, just because they added cosmetics to it, is just lol.
"blizzard will become greedy"
Will. Nice one, first laugh of the day. Paying for skins in a full priced game is already somewhat of a scam. Everything coming out of blizzard is grossely overpriced. And there's a huge difference between paying for content and paying for cometics.
So personally, i did vote with my wallet and refused to buy anything from coop, skins or announcer packs because i'm not seeing any good faith/will to improve concerning multiplayer.
The sad thing is that Blizzard should be capable of releasing high quality RTS for a minimal cost every three years or so, but they don't because of the blockbuster effect where they have to invest in (imo unnecessary) production values to compete with other high profile releases and to create a certain cachet and exclusivity for the Blizzard brand. I think the industry changed so that this is no longer necessarily the best option though.
I think that at some point, every game developpement studio that becomes big enough starts to put profit ahead of quality/content. The dev team and DK saying they don't want to change LOTV too fast and "let meta settles" was and is a PR move to avoid saying that only 3 guys at blizzard work for multiplayer. With LOTV release, Blizz was aware that SC2 wasn't gonna get any bigger, and that to milk the cow before it dried out they needed some way to make people pay without getting into the multiplayer mess (because it required too much work that couldn't be sold). That's why LOTV has skins, announcers, bonus nova missions etc. The same is happening to bethesda actually. Fallout 4 had very little content covered by repeatable unending quests. Then, they released very expensive DLCs to give players more quests with storylines.
Big game studios go more and more for profit, for the best way to make lots of money for the smallest ressources investment possible. It's very rare to see big games that put quality ahead of profit. The STALKER team did, the witcher team still does.
no one except Blizzard and Sega are participating in evolving RTS multiplayer; you get far more content from Blizzard for your $40 LotV purchase. Just check out DoW3 if you want to see what a lack of content and a mediocre-multiplayer beta test looks like.
as if you couldnt speak with your wallet by NOT buying Guy Fieri stalker skins... stop being so condescending to people who have a different point of view man.
Thats a trend that seems to be in every business nowadays more or less. Thats the reality we have. Profit before quality. Profit before your health. In sweden we have schools that is ran be companies and there the companies sees the students as costumers. Profit before education. To attract coustomers they know the parents look at the grades overall at that school so therefore the company raises the grades meanwhile the knowledge of the actual students get smaller.
Its not entirely the companies faults either. They go by the system, the system encourage that sort of behavior.
Will take atleast many years before it turns around overall. Perhaps if we are lucky we get some big companie that turns around and then makes a good rts.
We "ordinary" people do have a say by the way. We can speak with our wallet. We can also get our voice out there. I will try to do it properly bit by bit.
On May 11 2017 06:18 Tyrhanius wrote: P and T shouldn't receive any buffs, particulary vs Z, and a fortiori they shouldn't get some lategame buff.
Just take a look on the last tournaments, Zerg isn't competitive.
P and T just repete their builds, and if they do it right, they end up being ahead, even if Zerg scout it, know it's coming, and have seen this buff 1000 times already, it keeps working.
Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs Zerg.
They now have an even economy than Zerg, and always more drone on early game. This is already insane.
But Protoss has now uncounterable harass. With oracle, WP pickup, adept shade, Protoss is able to kill drones without any loss, while they have already more probe than the zerg... There is nothing zerg can do if the P is able to control his units right, he will fall behind in economy.
After the Zerg need to make something, else the "macro game" is designed to make him lose, so he makes a random timing with some random composition, and pray.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. Zerg hasn't really played better when it works compared when he get crushed, it's just :
Has the protoss player been surprised or not, transition too fast, or too slow, hasn't look when baneling runbies/baneling drops come.
When it's ladder, or BO3, Zerg can take some games, but when it's BO5-BO7, Zerg hasn't won any premier tournaments for 8 months...
I mean, the current meta is zerg has to macro up and defend up to 70~ drones while protoss of terran has to do some damage with their good harrass, or else the zerg gets ahead.
and honestly it's the meta that blizzard has force with warp prism pickup range and medivac boost.
Is it bad? not exactly. Blizzard reduced the requirement for overlord drop to compensate yet zergs complain they have no tools either. We can't pretend that zerg doesn't have timings like banes, ling drops, or ravagers...
and honestly it's what kind of game do you want.
and I don't get how you can say that the Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs zerg when zerg has many compositions it can go vs. the standard protoss builds. is the toss going zealot archon? do you want to go roach/hydra/infestor? how about ling/bane/hydra? maybe harrass with spire to keep the toss back and do damage then transition to brood lords?
at least on ladder zerg has a lot of viable options. at top level it seems bane hydra is just the best, don't forget the small hydra health buff.
When I bought SC2, and the cheaper expansions I became entitled to:
1. Bug fixes. 2. BNet Servers for MP. 3. Fixes for blatantly obvious imbalances.
And nothing else. I do not get to demand that all future SC2 related produce is mine for free.
Now, I would not go so far as Jimmy and be happy to pay for everything, even higher resolutions, but I am happy to pay for enhancements to cosmetics, voice packs etc to make the game even more enjoyable.
Does anyone know if Blizzard is adding Warchests/loot chests ever or something like they did for Heroes? Just curious...
More on-topic...i think we should all start discussing the actual game again. I think there's a ton of things that are a problem with multi-player...that continue to be left un-addressed. A lot of the things i'm gonna list i hope people can discuss or agree are problems...because i've seen in a lot of places players have legitimately left/quit the game over the things i am going to list below. I won't offer my personal solutions because people will just flame me, but here are the things that are huge issues:
-mass ravagers (too strong, free ability, no armored tag, too 'easy' to play) -mass adepts (same as above, too strong, free ability with mobility, worker killing machine) -mass ravens (infinite scaling into late game, can 'beat everything' when you reach it) -mass swarmhosts (makes mech completely un-viable that this unit exists in the game in it's current state) -invulnerable nydus worm (untargettable, you can see it and still die, makes all-ins stronger for the attacker...) -mass carriers (a unit that essentially is the same as the raven aka get enough and you basically win with storm/archon) -air strength in general across all 3 races is way stronger than ground anti-air -mech anti-air does not exist (there's no auto-attacking aa unit from the factory, and future thor change just reverted) -too many recent arbitrary zerg buffs (baneling buff, hydra buff, infestor buffs...bit over the top) -warp prism strength (5 range pick-up + 200 minerals threatening to bomb your base the moment you leave) -mass BCS (same as mass carrier, mass raven, same as any mass air really...too strong "when u get there") -parasitic bomb (a zero skill, low counter play ability that can instantly win the game)
Those are just a list of many things across all 3 races that seem to be way over tuned whether in terms of balance or in terms of "these things are too easy to do compared to how hard they are to stop."
Adepts, and ravagers in particular i think warrant a lot of discussion here, and i think swarmhost/mech viability have been discussed to death and we all hope blizzard will make some adjustments at this point.
For all that people bitch and moan and whine and cry, the game is once again in a pretty good state. Winrates for all matchups in the past two weeks are all +/- 3% of perfectly balanced. GSL racial distribution will be a perfect 5/5/6 unless herO chokes epically against Major/Armani. PvT meta has begun shifting away from Adept/Phoenix, and PvZ has hydra/ling/bane. TvZ is a highly entertaining mix of either Bio/Tank vs Roach-Ravager or 4M vs LBM. The current test map has only relatively minor changes unlikely to upset this equilibrium.
Haters will hate, of course, but times are not bad at all.
On May 12 2017 05:54 avilo wrote: Does anyone know if Blizzard is adding Warchests/loot chests ever or something like they did for Heroes? Just curious...
More on-topic...i think we should all start discussing the actual game again. I think there's a ton of things that are a problem with multi-player...that continue to be left un-addressed. A lot of the things i'm gonna list i hope people can discuss or agree are problems...because i've seen in a lot of places players have legitimately left/quit the game over the things i am going to list below. I won't offer my personal solutions because people will just flame me, but here are the things that are huge issues:
-mass ravagers (too strong, free ability, no armored tag, too 'easy' to play) -mass adepts (same as above, too strong, free ability with mobility, worker killing machine) -mass ravens (infinite scaling into late game, can 'beat everything' when you reach it) -mass swarmhosts (makes mech completely un-viable that this unit exists in the game in it's current state) -invulnerable nydus worm (untargettable, you can see it and still die, makes all-ins stronger for the attacker...) -mass carriers (a unit that essentially is the same as the raven aka get enough and you basically win with storm/archon) -air strength in general across all 3 races is way stronger than ground anti-air -mech anti-air does not exist (there's no auto-attacking aa unit from the factory, and future thor change just reverted) -too many recent arbitrary zerg buffs (baneling buff, hydra buff, infestor buffs...bit over the top) -warp prism strength (5 range pick-up + 200 minerals threatening to bomb your base the moment you leave) -mass BCS (same as mass carrier, mass raven, same as any mass air really...too strong "when u get there") -parasitic bomb (a zero skill, low counter play ability that can instantly win the game)
Those are just a list of many things across all 3 races that seem to be way over tuned whether in terms of balance or in terms of "these things are too easy to do compared to how hard they are to stop."
Adepts, and ravagers in particular i think warrant a lot of discussion here, and i think swarmhost/mech viability have been discussed to death and we all hope blizzard will make some adjustments at this point.
Pretty sure we've discussed every thing of the above to death at this point.
Though in this list you forget the ridiculousness that is the oracle and it's ability to reveal your army all day long if you keep it alive. You also forgot how stupid it is that pylon overcharge can be used offensively (aka not near a nexus). It should be simple as hell to kill the frustration people feel when having to deal with that shit. Nydus invincible is imo also stupid. Just buff the health of the nydus worm if you want to increase it's surviveability.
General observations
In LOTV all in's are stupidly hard to hold because of units like the adept and the ravager and because they are a lot harder to scout compared to the slower ramping all-ins like the 1/1/1. All-ins like these lead to not even feeling like you were the better player when you win, because you just had to deal with a build that you happened to counter. For example the invincible nydus kills you most of the time unless you surround it with buildings or have a tank in position.
There is of course also a lot less of gradually getting ahead via skirmishes (For noobs). For noobs there's simply no point. If you lack multitasking (APM) there is really no incentive to try and APM your way to kill workers. Because in that time period you'll bank somewhere around 2500 minerals from your ridiculous economy. Your opponent has no real reason to care about losing some workers either since he has a comparable bank. If you were on less bases that story would be different.
What i'm saying is that LOTV's design lends itself to players of higher levels of play because of it's design.
A personal problem with multiplayer in my view is that 2v2 3v3 and 4v4 thanks to the overbloated economy of LOTV lost even more of their appeal as gamemodes. The game balance team has never really put their all in these modes. And of course they killed FFA as a gamemode too.
Also I'd like to point out the importance of the played ratio of races. Regardless of the races ''real strength'', ladder's population is quite skewed by zergs. This would either mean that zerg is fun, easy to play, and very strong. Or.. that the other races atleast to most people feel very weak and or are boring to play. Let me remind you by the way that zerg has to play against zergs. It takes one 1 minute of watching twitch chat to see how people feel about ZvZ. (They feel the same about PvP thanks to the disruptor and carrier now though so, there's that.
I always end up at the same conclusion anyway. Blizzard should just balance per matchup to make all matchups fun and yet balanced to play. It's far too hard to keep the game fun whilst also balanced if they want to keep the same stats on all units, in all matchups, and for all game modes. SC2 as it stands is balanced at the highest lvl of play in 1v1. (And I hope fun for those people) That's all it has really achieved.
On May 11 2017 06:18 Tyrhanius wrote: P and T shouldn't receive any buffs, particulary vs Z, and a fortiori they shouldn't get some lategame buff.
Just take a look on the last tournaments, Zerg isn't competitive.
P and T just repete their builds, and if they do it right, they end up being ahead, even if Zerg scout it, know it's coming, and have seen this buff 1000 times already, it keeps working.
Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs Zerg.
They now have an even economy than Zerg, and always more drone on early game. This is already insane.
But Protoss has now uncounterable harass. With oracle, WP pickup, adept shade, Protoss is able to kill drones without any loss, while they have already more probe than the zerg... There is nothing zerg can do if the P is able to control his units right, he will fall behind in economy.
After the Zerg need to make something, else the "macro game" is designed to make him lose, so he makes a random timing with some random composition, and pray.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. Zerg hasn't really played better when it works compared when he get crushed, it's just :
Has the protoss player been surprised or not, transition too fast, or too slow, hasn't look when baneling runbies/baneling drops come.
When it's ladder, or BO3, Zerg can take some games, but when it's BO5-BO7, Zerg hasn't won any premier tournaments for 8 months...
I mean, the current meta is zerg has to macro up and defend up to 70~ drones while protoss of terran has to do some damage with their good harrass, or else the zerg gets ahead.
and honestly it's the meta that blizzard has force with warp prism pickup range and medivac boost.
Is it bad? not exactly. Blizzard reduced the requirement for overlord drop to compensate yet zergs complain they have no tools either. We can't pretend that zerg doesn't have timings like banes, ling drops, or ravagers...
and honestly it's what kind of game do you want.
and I don't get how you can say that the Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs zerg when zerg has many compositions it can go vs. the standard protoss builds. is the toss going zealot archon? do you want to go roach/hydra/infestor? how about ling/bane/hydra? maybe harrass with spire to keep the toss back and do damage then transition to brood lords?
at least on ladder zerg has a lot of viable options. at top level it seems bane hydra is just the best, don't forget the small hydra health buff.
All things u wrote would be cool if not macro nerf that Zerg received in LOTV. The biggest nerf compared to other races. And how u can even compare overlord drops to harras options aviable for T or P? Its not even fair. The problem is that even if Zerg is droning like crazy he will be even in income with protoss and Terran (mules) and by droning he lacks of real army. In the same time LOTV harras has been buffed so much for Terran and Protoss that boosted medivacks are the least of the problem.
Revert larva nerf back to 4 and it will be fine. Zerg would have more chances to get lil bit ahead with eco into midgame.
P.S. Avilo...Ravagers feel strong versus Your Style of massing ststic defence or immobile defences like tanks. In other situation Corrosive Bile is not as easy to hit as you think. Much harder than shift+queue medivack drops or setting mass liberation zones.
On May 11 2017 06:18 Tyrhanius wrote: P and T shouldn't receive any buffs, particulary vs Z, and a fortiori they shouldn't get some lategame buff.
Just take a look on the last tournaments, Zerg isn't competitive.
P and T just repete their builds, and if they do it right, they end up being ahead, even if Zerg scout it, know it's coming, and have seen this buff 1000 times already, it keeps working.
Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs Zerg.
They now have an even economy than Zerg, and always more drone on early game. This is already insane.
But Protoss has now uncounterable harass. With oracle, WP pickup, adept shade, Protoss is able to kill drones without any loss, while they have already more probe than the zerg... There is nothing zerg can do if the P is able to control his units right, he will fall behind in economy.
After the Zerg need to make something, else the "macro game" is designed to make him lose, so he makes a random timing with some random composition, and pray.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. Zerg hasn't really played better when it works compared when he get crushed, it's just :
Has the protoss player been surprised or not, transition too fast, or too slow, hasn't look when baneling runbies/baneling drops come.
When it's ladder, or BO3, Zerg can take some games, but when it's BO5-BO7, Zerg hasn't won any premier tournaments for 8 months...
I mean, the current meta is zerg has to macro up and defend up to 70~ drones while protoss of terran has to do some damage with their good harrass, or else the zerg gets ahead.
and honestly it's the meta that blizzard has force with warp prism pickup range and medivac boost.
Is it bad? not exactly. Blizzard reduced the requirement for overlord drop to compensate yet zergs complain they have no tools either. We can't pretend that zerg doesn't have timings like banes, ling drops, or ravagers...
and honestly it's what kind of game do you want.
and I don't get how you can say that the Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs zerg when zerg has many compositions it can go vs. the standard protoss builds. is the toss going zealot archon? do you want to go roach/hydra/infestor? how about ling/bane/hydra? maybe harrass with spire to keep the toss back and do damage then transition to brood lords?
at least on ladder zerg has a lot of viable options. at top level it seems bane hydra is just the best, don't forget the small hydra health buff.
The problem is if you make a timing like you say, you cut drone.
If you make only drones, you still have less drone than P until 5:30, so if you cut drone, you fall so behind, and your timing must do dommage or you lose the game. So it's rather an all-in.
On the other side, P can harass with a few units and don't need to cut his probes : a warp, 2 oracles will kill drones, it's very unlikely for a good toss to lose them, and they have so much utility even if they don't do dommage.
So P can harass without being forced to put himself behind, and they have a better eco.
There is no real trick for Z do counter the P harass, they have no way not to lose worker.
On the other side, a zerg drop is slower than probes, and if P pull probe + photon overcharge, the drop will do no dmg and Zerg will lose more. So else Z doesn't commit a lot, the harass is very unlikely to do dmg, or he commits a lot, he has more potential, but he is totally all-in.
In the two case, he has to pray the Protoss will be surprised or don't deal with his attack very well, it's more a bet or a all-in, and can't be compared with Protoss who can harass while he takes no risk if he control his units well.
On May 11 2017 06:18 Tyrhanius wrote: P and T shouldn't receive any buffs, particulary vs Z, and a fortiori they shouldn't get some lategame buff.
Just take a look on the last tournaments, Zerg isn't competitive.
P and T just repete their builds, and if they do it right, they end up being ahead, even if Zerg scout it, know it's coming, and have seen this buff 1000 times already, it keeps working.
Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs Zerg.
They now have an even economy than Zerg, and always more drone on early game. This is already insane.
But Protoss has now uncounterable harass. With oracle, WP pickup, adept shade, Protoss is able to kill drones without any loss, while they have already more probe than the zerg... There is nothing zerg can do if the P is able to control his units right, he will fall behind in economy.
After the Zerg need to make something, else the "macro game" is designed to make him lose, so he makes a random timing with some random composition, and pray.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. Zerg hasn't really played better when it works compared when he get crushed, it's just :
Has the protoss player been surprised or not, transition too fast, or too slow, hasn't look when baneling runbies/baneling drops come.
When it's ladder, or BO3, Zerg can take some games, but when it's BO5-BO7, Zerg hasn't won any premier tournaments for 8 months...
I mean, the current meta is zerg has to macro up and defend up to 70~ drones while protoss of terran has to do some damage with their good harrass, or else the zerg gets ahead.
and honestly it's the meta that blizzard has force with warp prism pickup range and medivac boost.
Is it bad? not exactly. Blizzard reduced the requirement for overlord drop to compensate yet zergs complain they have no tools either. We can't pretend that zerg doesn't have timings like banes, ling drops, or ravagers...
and honestly it's what kind of game do you want.
and I don't get how you can say that the Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs zerg when zerg has many compositions it can go vs. the standard protoss builds. is the toss going zealot archon? do you want to go roach/hydra/infestor? how about ling/bane/hydra? maybe harrass with spire to keep the toss back and do damage then transition to brood lords?
at least on ladder zerg has a lot of viable options. at top level it seems bane hydra is just the best, don't forget the small hydra health buff.
All things u wrote would be cool if not macro nerf that Zerg received in LOTV. The biggest nerf compared to other races. And how u can even compare overlord drops to harras options aviable for T or P? Its not even fair. The problem is that even if Zerg is droning like crazy he will be even in income with protoss and Terran (mules) and by droning he lacks of real army. In the same time LOTV harras has been buffed so much for Terran and Protoss that boosted medivacks are the least of the problem.
Revert larva nerf back to 4 and it will be fine. Zerg would have more chances to get lil bit ahead with eco into midgame.
P.S. Avilo...Ravagers feel strong versus Your Style of massing ststic defence or immobile defences like tanks. In other situation Corrosive Bile is not as easy to hit as you think. Much harder than shift+queue medivack drops or setting mass liberation zones.
Watch Innovation vs. Soo from Basetrade yesterday (Thursday, May 11). Spoilers ahead, here's how the series goes.
In the first game, Innovation loses for 2 reasons. First, he doesn't know exactly what Soo plans to do with his army. His focus on attacking units only leaves him open to the harass. Second, Soo has a better economy the entire mid and late game. When the game ends, the resources lost is 4000 more for Soo. Imagine what this game would have looked like if Soo was making an extra drone or army unit every cycle.
In the second game, Innovation wins because Soo takes a bad engagement off creep and then some bad baneling hits.
In the third game, Innovation loses because of exactly the issues we've been talking about here. He tries to open with a harass build, Soo builds Roach/Ravager and walks right over him. Zerg has options. Soo beat Innovation with Muta/Ling/Bane and also with Roach Ravager. He beat him with harass and with brute force. Here we have 2 players who are pretty evenly matched, and it seems outside the realm of any sort of balance to imagine Soo with an extra worker or army unit every cycle.
On May 11 2017 06:18 Tyrhanius wrote: P and T shouldn't receive any buffs, particulary vs Z, and a fortiori they shouldn't get some lategame buff.
Just take a look on the last tournaments, Zerg isn't competitive.
P and T just repete their builds, and if they do it right, they end up being ahead, even if Zerg scout it, know it's coming, and have seen this buff 1000 times already, it keeps working.
Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs Zerg.
They now have an even economy than Zerg, and always more drone on early game. This is already insane.
But Protoss has now uncounterable harass. With oracle, WP pickup, adept shade, Protoss is able to kill drones without any loss, while they have already more probe than the zerg... There is nothing zerg can do if the P is able to control his units right, he will fall behind in economy.
After the Zerg need to make something, else the "macro game" is designed to make him lose, so he makes a random timing with some random composition, and pray.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. Zerg hasn't really played better when it works compared when he get crushed, it's just :
Has the protoss player been surprised or not, transition too fast, or too slow, hasn't look when baneling runbies/baneling drops come.
When it's ladder, or BO3, Zerg can take some games, but when it's BO5-BO7, Zerg hasn't won any premier tournaments for 8 months...
I mean, the current meta is zerg has to macro up and defend up to 70~ drones while protoss of terran has to do some damage with their good harrass, or else the zerg gets ahead.
and honestly it's the meta that blizzard has force with warp prism pickup range and medivac boost.
Is it bad? not exactly. Blizzard reduced the requirement for overlord drop to compensate yet zergs complain they have no tools either. We can't pretend that zerg doesn't have timings like banes, ling drops, or ravagers...
and honestly it's what kind of game do you want.
and I don't get how you can say that the Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs zerg when zerg has many compositions it can go vs. the standard protoss builds. is the toss going zealot archon? do you want to go roach/hydra/infestor? how about ling/bane/hydra? maybe harrass with spire to keep the toss back and do damage then transition to brood lords?
at least on ladder zerg has a lot of viable options. at top level it seems bane hydra is just the best, don't forget the small hydra health buff.
All things u wrote would be cool if not macro nerf that Zerg received in LOTV. The biggest nerf compared to other races. And how u can even compare overlord drops to harras options aviable for T or P? Its not even fair. The problem is that even if Zerg is droning like crazy he will be even in income with protoss and Terran (mules) and by droning he lacks of real army. In the same time LOTV harras has been buffed so much for Terran and Protoss that boosted medivacks are the least of the problem.
Revert larva nerf back to 4 and it will be fine. Zerg would have more chances to get lil bit ahead with eco into midgame.
P.S. Avilo...Ravagers feel strong versus Your Style of massing ststic defence or immobile defences like tanks. In other situation Corrosive Bile is not as easy to hit as you think. Much harder than shift+queue medivack drops or setting mass liberation zones.
Watch Innovation vs. Soo from Basetrade yesterday (Thursday, May 11). Spoilers ahead, here's how the series goes.
In the first game, Innovation loses for 2 reasons. First, he doesn't know exactly what Soo plans to do with his army. His focus on attacking units only leaves him open to the harass. Second, Soo has a better economy the entire mid and late game. When the game ends, the resources lost is 4000 more for Soo. Imagine what this game would have looked like if Soo was making an extra drone or army unit every cycle.
In the second game, Innovation wins because Soo takes a bad engagement off creep and then some bad baneling hits.
In the third game, Innovation loses because of exactly the issues we've been talking about here. He tries to open with a harass build, Soo builds Roach/Ravager and walks right over him. Zerg has options. Soo beat Innovation with Muta/Ling/Bane and also with Roach Ravager. He beat him with harass and with brute force. Here we have 2 players who are pretty evenly matched, and it seems outside the realm of any sort of balance to imagine Soo with an extra worker or army unit every cycle.
That's a rather small sample size you're working with. Review hundreds of games and maybe you'd have a case. Anything can happen over the course of three games. That doesn't make those events a trend or a dynamic in how a matchup is played.
To address these two players specifically, Inno has an overwhelming win rate against soO on ladder. If anything these three games were an aberration rather than a illustration of how ZvT is played.
On May 11 2017 06:18 Tyrhanius wrote: P and T shouldn't receive any buffs, particulary vs Z, and a fortiori they shouldn't get some lategame buff.
Just take a look on the last tournaments, Zerg isn't competitive.
P and T just repete their builds, and if they do it right, they end up being ahead, even if Zerg scout it, know it's coming, and have seen this buff 1000 times already, it keeps working.
Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs Zerg.
They now have an even economy than Zerg, and always more drone on early game. This is already insane.
But Protoss has now uncounterable harass. With oracle, WP pickup, adept shade, Protoss is able to kill drones without any loss, while they have already more probe than the zerg... There is nothing zerg can do if the P is able to control his units right, he will fall behind in economy.
After the Zerg need to make something, else the "macro game" is designed to make him lose, so he makes a random timing with some random composition, and pray.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. Zerg hasn't really played better when it works compared when he get crushed, it's just :
Has the protoss player been surprised or not, transition too fast, or too slow, hasn't look when baneling runbies/baneling drops come.
When it's ladder, or BO3, Zerg can take some games, but when it's BO5-BO7, Zerg hasn't won any premier tournaments for 8 months...
I mean, the current meta is zerg has to macro up and defend up to 70~ drones while protoss of terran has to do some damage with their good harrass, or else the zerg gets ahead.
and honestly it's the meta that blizzard has force with warp prism pickup range and medivac boost.
Is it bad? not exactly. Blizzard reduced the requirement for overlord drop to compensate yet zergs complain they have no tools either. We can't pretend that zerg doesn't have timings like banes, ling drops, or ravagers...
and honestly it's what kind of game do you want.
and I don't get how you can say that the Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs zerg when zerg has many compositions it can go vs. the standard protoss builds. is the toss going zealot archon? do you want to go roach/hydra/infestor? how about ling/bane/hydra? maybe harrass with spire to keep the toss back and do damage then transition to brood lords?
at least on ladder zerg has a lot of viable options. at top level it seems bane hydra is just the best, don't forget the small hydra health buff.
All things u wrote would be cool if not macro nerf that Zerg received in LOTV. The biggest nerf compared to other races. And how u can even compare overlord drops to harras options aviable for T or P? Its not even fair. The problem is that even if Zerg is droning like crazy he will be even in income with protoss and Terran (mules) and by droning he lacks of real army. In the same time LOTV harras has been buffed so much for Terran and Protoss that boosted medivacks are the least of the problem.
Revert larva nerf back to 4 and it will be fine. Zerg would have more chances to get lil bit ahead with eco into midgame.
P.S. Avilo...Ravagers feel strong versus Your Style of massing ststic defence or immobile defences like tanks. In other situation Corrosive Bile is not as easy to hit as you think. Much harder than shift+queue medivack drops or setting mass liberation zones.
Watch Innovation vs. Soo from Basetrade yesterday (Thursday, May 11). Spoilers ahead, here's how the series goes.
In the first game, Innovation loses for 2 reasons. First, he doesn't know exactly what Soo plans to do with his army. His focus on attacking units only leaves him open to the harass. Second, Soo has a better economy the entire mid and late game. When the game ends, the resources lost is 4000 more for Soo. Imagine what this game would have looked like if Soo was making an extra drone or army unit every cycle.
In the second game, Innovation wins because Soo takes a bad engagement off creep and then some bad baneling hits.
In the third game, Innovation loses because of exactly the issues we've been talking about here. He tries to open with a harass build, Soo builds Roach/Ravager and walks right over him. Zerg has options. Soo beat Innovation with Muta/Ling/Bane and also with Roach Ravager. He beat him with harass and with brute force. Here we have 2 players who are pretty evenly matched, and it seems outside the realm of any sort of balance to imagine Soo with an extra worker or army unit every cycle.
That's a rather small sample size you're working with. Review hundreds of games and maybe you'd have a case. Anything can happen over the course of three games. That doesn't make those events a trend or a dynamic in how a matchup is played.
To address these two players specifically, Inno has an overwhelming win rate against soO on ladder. If anything these three games were an aberration rather than a illustration of how ZvT is played.
How do you know his winrate vs him on ladder? Just curious.
On May 11 2017 06:18 Tyrhanius wrote: P and T shouldn't receive any buffs, particulary vs Z, and a fortiori they shouldn't get some lategame buff.
Just take a look on the last tournaments, Zerg isn't competitive.
P and T just repete their builds, and if they do it right, they end up being ahead, even if Zerg scout it, know it's coming, and have seen this buff 1000 times already, it keeps working.
Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs Zerg.
They now have an even economy than Zerg, and always more drone on early game. This is already insane.
But Protoss has now uncounterable harass. With oracle, WP pickup, adept shade, Protoss is able to kill drones without any loss, while they have already more probe than the zerg... There is nothing zerg can do if the P is able to control his units right, he will fall behind in economy.
After the Zerg need to make something, else the "macro game" is designed to make him lose, so he makes a random timing with some random composition, and pray.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. Zerg hasn't really played better when it works compared when he get crushed, it's just :
Has the protoss player been surprised or not, transition too fast, or too slow, hasn't look when baneling runbies/baneling drops come.
When it's ladder, or BO3, Zerg can take some games, but when it's BO5-BO7, Zerg hasn't won any premier tournaments for 8 months...
I mean, the current meta is zerg has to macro up and defend up to 70~ drones while protoss of terran has to do some damage with their good harrass, or else the zerg gets ahead.
and honestly it's the meta that blizzard has force with warp prism pickup range and medivac boost.
Is it bad? not exactly. Blizzard reduced the requirement for overlord drop to compensate yet zergs complain they have no tools either. We can't pretend that zerg doesn't have timings like banes, ling drops, or ravagers...
and honestly it's what kind of game do you want.
and I don't get how you can say that the Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs zerg when zerg has many compositions it can go vs. the standard protoss builds. is the toss going zealot archon? do you want to go roach/hydra/infestor? how about ling/bane/hydra? maybe harrass with spire to keep the toss back and do damage then transition to brood lords?
at least on ladder zerg has a lot of viable options. at top level it seems bane hydra is just the best, don't forget the small hydra health buff.
All things u wrote would be cool if not macro nerf that Zerg received in LOTV. The biggest nerf compared to other races. And how u can even compare overlord drops to harras options aviable for T or P? Its not even fair. The problem is that even if Zerg is droning like crazy he will be even in income with protoss and Terran (mules) and by droning he lacks of real army. In the same time LOTV harras has been buffed so much for Terran and Protoss that boosted medivacks are the least of the problem.
Revert larva nerf back to 4 and it will be fine. Zerg would have more chances to get lil bit ahead with eco into midgame.
P.S. Avilo...Ravagers feel strong versus Your Style of massing ststic defence or immobile defences like tanks. In other situation Corrosive Bile is not as easy to hit as you think. Much harder than shift+queue medivack drops or setting mass liberation zones.
Watch Innovation vs. Soo from Basetrade yesterday (Thursday, May 11). Spoilers ahead, here's how the series goes.
In the first game, Innovation loses for 2 reasons. First, he doesn't know exactly what Soo plans to do with his army. His focus on attacking units only leaves him open to the harass. Second, Soo has a better economy the entire mid and late game. When the game ends, the resources lost is 4000 more for Soo. Imagine what this game would have looked like if Soo was making an extra drone or army unit every cycle.
In the second game, Innovation wins because Soo takes a bad engagement off creep and then some bad baneling hits.
In the third game, Innovation loses because of exactly the issues we've been talking about here. He tries to open with a harass build, Soo builds Roach/Ravager and walks right over him. Zerg has options. Soo beat Innovation with Muta/Ling/Bane and also with Roach Ravager. He beat him with harass and with brute force. Here we have 2 players who are pretty evenly matched, and it seems outside the realm of any sort of balance to imagine Soo with an extra worker or army unit every cycle.
That's a rather small sample size you're working with. Review hundreds of games and maybe you'd have a case. Anything can happen over the course of three games. That doesn't make those events a trend or a dynamic in how a matchup is played.
To address these two players specifically, Inno has an overwhelming win rate against soO on ladder. If anything these three games were an aberration rather than a illustration of how ZvT is played.
How do you know his winrate vs him on ladder? Just curious.
I mod for soO. I've watched almost every streamed game soO has played since November. Of course I haven't seen the ones off stream, but it would be unreasonable to anticipate the result changes dramatically in those circumstances.
On May 11 2017 06:18 Tyrhanius wrote: P and T shouldn't receive any buffs, particulary vs Z, and a fortiori they shouldn't get some lategame buff.
Just take a look on the last tournaments, Zerg isn't competitive.
P and T just repete their builds, and if they do it right, they end up being ahead, even if Zerg scout it, know it's coming, and have seen this buff 1000 times already, it keeps working.
Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs Zerg.
They now have an even economy than Zerg, and always more drone on early game. This is already insane.
But Protoss has now uncounterable harass. With oracle, WP pickup, adept shade, Protoss is able to kill drones without any loss, while they have already more probe than the zerg... There is nothing zerg can do if the P is able to control his units right, he will fall behind in economy.
After the Zerg need to make something, else the "macro game" is designed to make him lose, so he makes a random timing with some random composition, and pray.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. Zerg hasn't really played better when it works compared when he get crushed, it's just :
Has the protoss player been surprised or not, transition too fast, or too slow, hasn't look when baneling runbies/baneling drops come.
When it's ladder, or BO3, Zerg can take some games, but when it's BO5-BO7, Zerg hasn't won any premier tournaments for 8 months...
I mean, the current meta is zerg has to macro up and defend up to 70~ drones while protoss of terran has to do some damage with their good harrass, or else the zerg gets ahead.
and honestly it's the meta that blizzard has force with warp prism pickup range and medivac boost.
Is it bad? not exactly. Blizzard reduced the requirement for overlord drop to compensate yet zergs complain they have no tools either. We can't pretend that zerg doesn't have timings like banes, ling drops, or ravagers...
and honestly it's what kind of game do you want.
and I don't get how you can say that the Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs zerg when zerg has many compositions it can go vs. the standard protoss builds. is the toss going zealot archon? do you want to go roach/hydra/infestor? how about ling/bane/hydra? maybe harrass with spire to keep the toss back and do damage then transition to brood lords?
at least on ladder zerg has a lot of viable options. at top level it seems bane hydra is just the best, don't forget the small hydra health buff.
All things u wrote would be cool if not macro nerf that Zerg received in LOTV. The biggest nerf compared to other races. And how u can even compare overlord drops to harras options aviable for T or P? Its not even fair. The problem is that even if Zerg is droning like crazy he will be even in income with protoss and Terran (mules) and by droning he lacks of real army. In the same time LOTV harras has been buffed so much for Terran and Protoss that boosted medivacks are the least of the problem.
Revert larva nerf back to 4 and it will be fine. Zerg would have more chances to get lil bit ahead with eco into midgame.
P.S. Avilo...Ravagers feel strong versus Your Style of massing ststic defence or immobile defences like tanks. In other situation Corrosive Bile is not as easy to hit as you think. Much harder than shift+queue medivack drops or setting mass liberation zones.
Watch Innovation vs. Soo from Basetrade yesterday (Thursday, May 11). Spoilers ahead, here's how the series goes.
In the first game, Innovation loses for 2 reasons. First, he doesn't know exactly what Soo plans to do with his army. His focus on attacking units only leaves him open to the harass. Second, Soo has a better economy the entire mid and late game. When the game ends, the resources lost is 4000 more for Soo. Imagine what this game would have looked like if Soo was making an extra drone or army unit every cycle.
In the second game, Innovation wins because Soo takes a bad engagement off creep and then some bad baneling hits.
In the third game, Innovation loses because of exactly the issues we've been talking about here. He tries to open with a harass build, Soo builds Roach/Ravager and walks right over him. Zerg has options. Soo beat Innovation with Muta/Ling/Bane and also with Roach Ravager. He beat him with harass and with brute force. Here we have 2 players who are pretty evenly matched, and it seems outside the realm of any sort of balance to imagine Soo with an extra worker or army unit every cycle.
That's a rather small sample size you're working with. Review hundreds of games and maybe you'd have a case. Anything can happen over the course of three games. That doesn't make those events a trend or a dynamic in how a matchup is played.
To address these two players specifically, Inno has an overwhelming win rate against soO on ladder. If anything these three games were an aberration rather than a illustration of how ZvT is played.
How do you know his winrate vs him on ladder? Just curious.
I mod for soO. I've watched almost every streamed game soO has played since November. Of course I haven't seen the ones off stream, but it would be unreasonable to anticipate the result changes dramatically in those circumstances.
Ladder games aside, INnoVation also has overwhelming record vs soO in tournament games.
On May 12 2017 07:29 Suchbalancemuchwow wrote: Also I'd like to point out the importance of the played ratio of races. Regardless of the races ''real strength'', ladder's population is quite skewed by zergs. This would either mean that zerg is fun, easy to play, and very strong. Or.. that the other races atleast to most people feel very weak and or are boring to play. Let me remind you by the way that zerg has to play against zergs. It takes one 1 minute of watching twitch chat to see how people feel about ZvZ. (They feel the same about PvP thanks to the disruptor and carrier now though so, there's that.
I always end up at the same conclusion anyway. Blizzard should just balance per matchup to make all matchups fun and yet balanced to play. It's far too hard to keep the game fun whilst also balanced if they want to keep the same stats on all units, in all matchups, and for all game modes. SC2 as it stands is balanced at the highest lvl of play in 1v1. (And I hope fun for those people) That's all it has really achieved.
A diverse 3-race RTS can only be balanced at 1 level. People below that level have to accept that fact. my best race is zerg but i play terran mainly.
i don't worry about the fact that i could've beaten a player with my Zerg game. i just consider playing Terran part of the challenge.
i can understand why a player who lives off of event prize money can be upset about imbalance. how many people in this thread live off of prize money?
its funny watching guys like SjoW and Avilo attempt other races thinking they'll easily steamroll their opponents only to discover its not that easy.
On May 13 2017 00:09 JimmyJRaynor wrote: its funny watching guys like SjoW and Avilo attempt other races thinking they'll easily steamroll their opponents only to discover its not that easy.
On May 13 2017 00:09 JimmyJRaynor wrote: its funny watching guys like SjoW and Avilo attempt other races thinking they'll easily steamroll their opponents only to discover its not that easy.
DRG played extremely greedily and didn't scout for a really simple (and generally considered bad) all in. He lost that game because he played terribly, not because she was playing Protoss.
On May 11 2017 06:18 Tyrhanius wrote: P and T shouldn't receive any buffs, particulary vs Z, and a fortiori they shouldn't get some lategame buff.
Just take a look on the last tournaments, Zerg isn't competitive.
P and T just repete their builds, and if they do it right, they end up being ahead, even if Zerg scout it, know it's coming, and have seen this buff 1000 times already, it keeps working.
Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs Zerg.
They now have an even economy than Zerg, and always more drone on early game. This is already insane.
But Protoss has now uncounterable harass. With oracle, WP pickup, adept shade, Protoss is able to kill drones without any loss, while they have already more probe than the zerg... There is nothing zerg can do if the P is able to control his units right, he will fall behind in economy.
After the Zerg need to make something, else the "macro game" is designed to make him lose, so he makes a random timing with some random composition, and pray.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. Zerg hasn't really played better when it works compared when he get crushed, it's just :
Has the protoss player been surprised or not, transition too fast, or too slow, hasn't look when baneling runbies/baneling drops come.
When it's ladder, or BO3, Zerg can take some games, but when it's BO5-BO7, Zerg hasn't won any premier tournaments for 8 months...
I mean, the current meta is zerg has to macro up and defend up to 70~ drones while protoss of terran has to do some damage with their good harrass, or else the zerg gets ahead.
and honestly it's the meta that blizzard has force with warp prism pickup range and medivac boost.
Is it bad? not exactly. Blizzard reduced the requirement for overlord drop to compensate yet zergs complain they have no tools either. We can't pretend that zerg doesn't have timings like banes, ling drops, or ravagers...
and honestly it's what kind of game do you want.
and I don't get how you can say that the Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs zerg when zerg has many compositions it can go vs. the standard protoss builds. is the toss going zealot archon? do you want to go roach/hydra/infestor? how about ling/bane/hydra? maybe harrass with spire to keep the toss back and do damage then transition to brood lords?
at least on ladder zerg has a lot of viable options. at top level it seems bane hydra is just the best, don't forget the small hydra health buff.
All things u wrote would be cool if not macro nerf that Zerg received in LOTV. The biggest nerf compared to other races. And how u can even compare overlord drops to harras options aviable for T or P? Its not even fair. The problem is that even if Zerg is droning like crazy he will be even in income with protoss and Terran (mules) and by droning he lacks of real army. In the same time LOTV harras has been buffed so much for Terran and Protoss that boosted medivacks are the least of the problem.
Revert larva nerf back to 4 and it will be fine. Zerg would have more chances to get lil bit ahead with eco into midgame.
P.S. Avilo...Ravagers feel strong versus Your Style of massing ststic defence or immobile defences like tanks. In other situation Corrosive Bile is not as easy to hit as you think. Much harder than shift+queue medivack drops or setting mass liberation zones.
Watch Innovation vs. Soo from Basetrade yesterday (Thursday, May 11). Spoilers ahead, here's how the series goes.
In the first game, Innovation loses for 2 reasons. First, he doesn't know exactly what Soo plans to do with his army. His focus on attacking units only leaves him open to the harass. Second, Soo has a better economy the entire mid and late game. When the game ends, the resources lost is 4000 more for Soo. Imagine what this game would have looked like if Soo was making an extra drone or army unit every cycle.
In the second game, Innovation wins because Soo takes a bad engagement off creep and then some bad baneling hits.
In the third game, Innovation loses because of exactly the issues we've been talking about here. He tries to open with a harass build, Soo builds Roach/Ravager and walks right over him. Zerg has options. Soo beat Innovation with Muta/Ling/Bane and also with Roach Ravager. He beat him with harass and with brute force. Here we have 2 players who are pretty evenly matched, and it seems outside the realm of any sort of balance to imagine Soo with an extra worker or army unit every cycle.
Terran macro booster didn't change much since HOTS. Zerg had 4 larva inject there and it was pretty much even in MLB vs bio with mines. And we're talking about expansion where Terran had no buffed tanks and Liberators. So....Yeah i can imagine soO with one drone more per cycle. Maybe than Zerg could compete with Protoss chronoboosting nexuses or Terran dropping mule hammer.
On May 11 2017 06:18 Tyrhanius wrote: P and T shouldn't receive any buffs, particulary vs Z, and a fortiori they shouldn't get some lategame buff.
Just take a look on the last tournaments, Zerg isn't competitive.
P and T just repete their builds, and if they do it right, they end up being ahead, even if Zerg scout it, know it's coming, and have seen this buff 1000 times already, it keeps working.
Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs Zerg.
They now have an even economy than Zerg, and always more drone on early game. This is already insane.
But Protoss has now uncounterable harass. With oracle, WP pickup, adept shade, Protoss is able to kill drones without any loss, while they have already more probe than the zerg... There is nothing zerg can do if the P is able to control his units right, he will fall behind in economy.
After the Zerg need to make something, else the "macro game" is designed to make him lose, so he makes a random timing with some random composition, and pray.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. Zerg hasn't really played better when it works compared when he get crushed, it's just :
Has the protoss player been surprised or not, transition too fast, or too slow, hasn't look when baneling runbies/baneling drops come.
When it's ladder, or BO3, Zerg can take some games, but when it's BO5-BO7, Zerg hasn't won any premier tournaments for 8 months...
I mean, the current meta is zerg has to macro up and defend up to 70~ drones while protoss of terran has to do some damage with their good harrass, or else the zerg gets ahead.
and honestly it's the meta that blizzard has force with warp prism pickup range and medivac boost.
Is it bad? not exactly. Blizzard reduced the requirement for overlord drop to compensate yet zergs complain they have no tools either. We can't pretend that zerg doesn't have timings like banes, ling drops, or ravagers...
and honestly it's what kind of game do you want.
and I don't get how you can say that the Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs zerg when zerg has many compositions it can go vs. the standard protoss builds. is the toss going zealot archon? do you want to go roach/hydra/infestor? how about ling/bane/hydra? maybe harrass with spire to keep the toss back and do damage then transition to brood lords?
at least on ladder zerg has a lot of viable options. at top level it seems bane hydra is just the best, don't forget the small hydra health buff.
All things u wrote would be cool if not macro nerf that Zerg received in LOTV. The biggest nerf compared to other races. And how u can even compare overlord drops to harras options aviable for T or P? Its not even fair. The problem is that even if Zerg is droning like crazy he will be even in income with protoss and Terran (mules) and by droning he lacks of real army. In the same time LOTV harras has been buffed so much for Terran and Protoss that boosted medivacks are the least of the problem.
Revert larva nerf back to 4 and it will be fine. Zerg would have more chances to get lil bit ahead with eco into midgame.
P.S. Avilo...Ravagers feel strong versus Your Style of massing ststic defence or immobile defences like tanks. In other situation Corrosive Bile is not as easy to hit as you think. Much harder than shift+queue medivack drops or setting mass liberation zones.
Watch Innovation vs. Soo from Basetrade yesterday (Thursday, May 11). Spoilers ahead, here's how the series goes.
In the first game, Innovation loses for 2 reasons. First, he doesn't know exactly what Soo plans to do with his army. His focus on attacking units only leaves him open to the harass. Second, Soo has a better economy the entire mid and late game. When the game ends, the resources lost is 4000 more for Soo. Imagine what this game would have looked like if Soo was making an extra drone or army unit every cycle.
In the second game, Innovation wins because Soo takes a bad engagement off creep and then some bad baneling hits.
In the third game, Innovation loses because of exactly the issues we've been talking about here. He tries to open with a harass build, Soo builds Roach/Ravager and walks right over him. Zerg has options. Soo beat Innovation with Muta/Ling/Bane and also with Roach Ravager. He beat him with harass and with brute force. Here we have 2 players who are pretty evenly matched, and it seems outside the realm of any sort of balance to imagine Soo with an extra worker or army unit every cycle.
In a GSL/IEM game Innovation washes the floor with soO every single time.
On May 13 2017 00:09 JimmyJRaynor wrote: its funny watching guys like SjoW and Avilo attempt other races thinking they'll easily steamroll their opponents only to discover its not that easy.
On May 12 2017 07:29 Suchbalancemuchwow wrote: Also I'd like to point out the importance of the played ratio of races. Regardless of the races ''real strength'', ladder's population is quite skewed by zergs. This would either mean that zerg is fun, easy to play, and very strong. Or.. that the other races atleast to most people feel very weak and or are boring to play. Let me remind you by the way that zerg has to play against zergs. It takes one 1 minute of watching twitch chat to see how people feel about ZvZ. (They feel the same about PvP thanks to the disruptor and carrier now though so, there's that.
I always end up at the same conclusion anyway. Blizzard should just balance per matchup to make all matchups fun and yet balanced to play. It's far too hard to keep the game fun whilst also balanced if they want to keep the same stats on all units, in all matchups, and for all game modes. SC2 as it stands is balanced at the highest lvl of play in 1v1. (And I hope fun for those people) That's all it has really achieved.
A diverse 3-race RTS can only be balanced at 1 level. People below that level have to accept that fact. my best race is zerg but i play terran mainly.
i don't worry about the fact that i could've beaten a player with my Zerg game. i just consider playing Terran part of the challenge.
i can understand why a player who lives off of event prize money can be upset about imbalance. how many people in this thread live off of prize money?
its funny watching guys like SjoW and Avilo attempt other races thinking they'll easily steamroll their opponents only to discover its not that easy.
You realize that people play to have fun and that for most people that is a mix between winning and playing a race that's fun to play. People worry about their self-image and all that crap on ladder. It's why there's such a thing as ladder anxiety and unranked. Not everyone is a masochist that wants to play with 1 hand behind their back.
For noobs it's obvious that A move zerg is currently the best way to win. All non z's below diamond opt for an all-in. And like I tried to prove, playing vs all-ins in LOTV is especially annoying.
Also ''a diverse 3-race RTS can only be balanced at 1 level'' Well I won't deny that it'll only be balanced at the top level. But the diverse-3 race thing is just because they refuse to balance races around singular matchups.
Like you could change TvP whilst keeping the current TvZ as it is. You could delete the adept/oracle revelation 60 seconds pylon overcharge and buff gateway units all that jazz. Without impacting the game for TvZ. You could remove speed medivacs in TvT and keep them in all other matchups (doomdrops always end TvT's) You could remove the disruptor in PvP and keep them in all other matchups (disruptor causes carriers)
And for teammodes you could just roll back the 12 worker start and move ravager's to lair for a start. If there's too little variety in a matchup (TvZ according to the mech crowd) you could just buff mech only in that matchup etc.
Instead here we are debating over whether giving combat shields to the baneling and the hydra didn't fuck up the matchup it wasn't intended to screw over (like banelings vs protoss). It's quite simple really, there are too many units with too many spells and there's too many matchups. So simply remove the amount of variables you need to account for by splitting them up. Aka balancing per matchup and gamemode. Balancing in this manner allows for a lot more freedom and that means easier access to making a fun game. To me it's so damn elementary that I wonder why it hasn't happened yet, so I expect to be called delusional or something along those lines in a reply.
At the very least i'd like to see them differentiate between the stats and availability of 1v1 units and teammode units.
I hope I made myself clear now? Really, hope I did.
For noobs it's obvious that A move zerg is currently the best way to win. All non z's below diamond opt for an all-in. And like I tried to prove, playing vs all-ins in LOTV is especially annoying.
For noobs it's obvious that A move zerg is currently the best way to win. All non z's below diamond opt for an all-in. And like I tried to prove, playing vs all-ins in LOTV is especially annoying.
Dear God what a scrub you are lol
haha I was going to post this exact response
if you're losing to an all-in and not Code S, then the game balance is not your problem and changing the game to accommodate you would eliminate depth and alienate higher level players on the ladder due to the simplification
For noobs it's obvious that A move zerg is currently the best way to win. All non z's below diamond opt for an all-in. And like I tried to prove, playing vs all-ins in LOTV is especially annoying.
Dear God what a scrub you are lol
haha I was going to post this exact response
if you're losing to an all-in and not Code S, then the game balance is not your problem and changing the game to accommodate you would eliminate depth and alienate higher level players on the ladder due to the simplification
For noobs it's obvious that A move zerg is currently the best way to win. All non z's below diamond opt for an all-in. And like I tried to prove, playing vs all-ins in LOTV is especially annoying.
Dear God what a scrub you are lol
haha I was going to post this exact response
if you're losing to an all-in and not Code S, then the game balance is not your problem and changing the game to accommodate you would eliminate depth and alienate higher level players on the ladder due to the simplification
For noobs it's obvious that A move zerg is currently the best way to win. All non z's below diamond opt for an all-in. And like I tried to prove, playing vs all-ins in LOTV is especially annoying.
Dear God what a scrub you are lol
haha I was going to post this exact response
if you're losing to an all-in and not Code S, then the game balance is not your problem and changing the game to accommodate you would eliminate depth and alienate higher level players on the ladder due to the simplification
So unless your code S, the game balance is not your problem, even though the game balancing also dictates how games are played for casual players? So if you get the worst possible gameplay as a noob it's not a problem, because it's balanced at the code S level? Yea okay, seems legit. Who cares about the majority of the players of starcraft 2 right.
I'm apparently also a scrub for stating an opinion about lower level gameplay in general, okay. So if anyone says something about lower level leagues they are instantly a scrub. Truly I am learning a lot here.
What I meant to say about all-in strategies in LOTV is that they hit faster and are a lot harder to scout than in earlier iterations of sc2. They also deal damage more quickly because of the sheer number of units. Not to mention that the adept/invincible nydus and the ravager are all exceptionally nasty to deal with when your not a scrub. Which is atleast around diamond or masters league.
Oh well, your free to love the game as it is, I'm just saying that it's not casual friendly that's all. Ironically nor are you guys.
Guess I'll just be rational and make this my last post, clearly scrubs aren't wanted.
For noobs it's obvious that A move zerg is currently the best way to win. All non z's below diamond opt for an all-in. And like I tried to prove, playing vs all-ins in LOTV is especially annoying.
Dear God what a scrub you are lol
haha I was going to post this exact response
if you're losing to an all-in and not Code S, then the game balance is not your problem and changing the game to accommodate you would eliminate depth and alienate higher level players on the ladder due to the simplification
On May 11 2017 06:18 Tyrhanius wrote: P and T shouldn't receive any buffs, particulary vs Z, and a fortiori they shouldn't get some lategame buff.
Just take a look on the last tournaments, Zerg isn't competitive.
P and T just repete their builds, and if they do it right, they end up being ahead, even if Zerg scout it, know it's coming, and have seen this buff 1000 times already, it keeps working.
Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs Zerg.
They now have an even economy than Zerg, and always more drone on early game. This is already insane.
But Protoss has now uncounterable harass. With oracle, WP pickup, adept shade, Protoss is able to kill drones without any loss, while they have already more probe than the zerg... There is nothing zerg can do if the P is able to control his units right, he will fall behind in economy.
After the Zerg need to make something, else the "macro game" is designed to make him lose, so he makes a random timing with some random composition, and pray.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. Zerg hasn't really played better when it works compared when he get crushed, it's just :
Has the protoss player been surprised or not, transition too fast, or too slow, hasn't look when baneling runbies/baneling drops come.
When it's ladder, or BO3, Zerg can take some games, but when it's BO5-BO7, Zerg hasn't won any premier tournaments for 8 months...
I mean, the current meta is zerg has to macro up and defend up to 70~ drones while protoss of terran has to do some damage with their good harrass, or else the zerg gets ahead.
and honestly it's the meta that blizzard has force with warp prism pickup range and medivac boost.
Is it bad? not exactly. Blizzard reduced the requirement for overlord drop to compensate yet zergs complain they have no tools either. We can't pretend that zerg doesn't have timings like banes, ling drops, or ravagers...
and honestly it's what kind of game do you want.
and I don't get how you can say that the Protoss kit is the most insane thing vs zerg when zerg has many compositions it can go vs. the standard protoss builds. is the toss going zealot archon? do you want to go roach/hydra/infestor? how about ling/bane/hydra? maybe harrass with spire to keep the toss back and do damage then transition to brood lords?
at least on ladder zerg has a lot of viable options. at top level it seems bane hydra is just the best, don't forget the small hydra health buff.
All things u wrote would be cool if not macro nerf that Zerg received in LOTV. The biggest nerf compared to other races. And how u can even compare overlord drops to harras options aviable for T or P? Its not even fair. The problem is that even if Zerg is droning like crazy he will be even in income with protoss and Terran (mules) and by droning he lacks of real army. In the same time LOTV harras has been buffed so much for Terran and Protoss that boosted medivacks are the least of the problem.
Revert larva nerf back to 4 and it will be fine. Zerg would have more chances to get lil bit ahead with eco into midgame.
P.S. Avilo...Ravagers feel strong versus Your Style of massing ststic defence or immobile defences like tanks. In other situation Corrosive Bile is not as easy to hit as you think. Much harder than shift+queue medivack drops or setting mass liberation zones.
Watch Innovation vs. Soo from Basetrade yesterday (Thursday, May 11). Spoilers ahead, here's how the series goes.
In the first game, Innovation loses for 2 reasons. First, he doesn't know exactly what Soo plans to do with his army. His focus on attacking units only leaves him open to the harass. Second, Soo has a better economy the entire mid and late game. When the game ends, the resources lost is 4000 more for Soo. Imagine what this game would have looked like if Soo was making an extra drone or army unit every cycle.
In the second game, Innovation wins because Soo takes a bad engagement off creep and then some bad baneling hits.
In the third game, Innovation loses because of exactly the issues we've been talking about here. He tries to open with a harass build, Soo builds Roach/Ravager and walks right over him. Zerg has options. Soo beat Innovation with Muta/Ling/Bane and also with Roach Ravager. He beat him with harass and with brute force. Here we have 2 players who are pretty evenly matched, and it seems outside the realm of any sort of balance to imagine Soo with an extra worker or army unit every cycle.
Yeah, Inno vs soO is a really bad example to use, even if your point about 4 larva is completely correct. Inno wins 2/3rds of their tournament games and most of those aren't even close. I remember commenting on their matchups in GSLTV and most of Inno vs soO can basically be summarized as: "Inno punches soO in the face a few times and soO falls over dead."
Regardless, 4 larva is an utterly ridiculous suggestion and would totally break the current balance (which has been ~50% ever since 3.8 and even before that). LotV is not HotS, but LotV TvZ is still well-balanced just like HotS TvZ. Throw in the fact that the current meta is extremely entertaining to watch and anyone who suggests messing with it must be crazy-biased or just pure crazy. And this applies just as much to the mech whiners as the Zerg whiners.
We don't need turtle mech, and we don't need 4 larva. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
On May 13 2017 06:43 pvsnp wrote: Throw in the fact that the current meta is extremely entertaining to watch
Yeah right MMMMlibs and MMMtanks every single game is so much fun. I get so thrilled when I see the tech lab or the reactor finally displayed in the production tab. Is it gonna be tanks? Is it gonna be mines? OH MY GOD HE'S BUILDING 3 TANKS THEN GOING FOR MINES?!
Also : using the word "fact" when talking about the subjective appreciation of a meta.
makes a mod to allow massable vikings from factories
claims it's not an issue because they are air-to-air
fails to mention that they have some of the highest air-to-air range in the game for their cost and deal bonus to armored
fails to mention that it doesn't matter if vikings are only air-to-air when he already has a mass of tanks which are impenetrable by anything other than an air unit or uh, that unit he hates, the swarm host. Oh and even if vikings don't directly counter mutas, he can just spam missile turrets and they shred them.
-----
look, i don't mind if mech has more air options, in fact i'd prefer if the goliath was brought back, just have to be careful because units clump so easily, it makes tanks better and they were just buffed. SC2 is kind of in this weird place where it can't go back on a lot of it's design choices, may just be best for the mech players to go play SC:BW:HD, SC2 was fun while it lasted.
On May 13 2017 06:43 pvsnp wrote: Throw in the fact that the current meta is extremely entertaining to watch
Yeah right MMMMlibs and MMMtanks every single game is so much fun. I get so thrilled when I see the tech lab or the reactor finally displayed in the production tab. Is it gonna be tanks? Is it gonna be mines? OH MY GOD HE'S BUILDING 3 TANKS THEN GOING FOR MINES?!
Also : using the word "fact" when talking about the subjective appreciation of a meta.
The continual back-and-forth, the fantastic micro, and the multitasking are what is entertaining. Not the surprise. Between surprising and boring vs predictable and entertaining, I know which one I'd choose.
4M vs LBM compared to hour-long turtle mech. If you like the latter that's your business but I for one am glad it's gone.
As far as the usage of "fact" goes, I should rephrase it as such: "It's a fact that turtle mech has far less battles/harass than equivalent bio TvZ." The leap of logic from "more fighting" to "more entertaining" seems to be a trivially obvious one, but I guess not in your case. If you can argue with a straight face that sitting on your ass is more thrilling to the audience than drops and parade pushes, I stand impressed.
On May 13 2017 06:43 pvsnp wrote: Throw in the fact that the current meta is extremely entertaining to watch
Yeah right MMMMlibs and MMMtanks every single game is so much fun. I get so thrilled when I see the tech lab or the reactor finally displayed in the production tab. Is it gonna be tanks? Is it gonna be mines? OH MY GOD HE'S BUILDING 3 TANKS THEN GOING FOR MINES?!
Also : using the word "fact" when talking about the subjective appreciation of a meta.
The continual back-and-forth, the fantastic micro, and the multitasking are what is entertaining. Not the surprise. Between surprising and boring vs predictable and entertaining, I know which one I'd choose.
4M vs LBM compared to hour-long turtle mech. If you like the latter that's your business but I for one am glad it's gone.
As far as the usage of "fact" goes, I should rephrase it as such: "It's a fact that turtle mech has far less battles/harass than equivalent bio TvZ." The leap of logic from "more fighting" to "more entertaining" seems to be a trivially obvious one, but I guess not in your case. If you can argue with a straight face that sitting on your ass is more thrilling to the audience than drops and parade pushes, I stand impressed.
I mean you simply use the worst (boring turtle mech where nothing happens) to prove that only having bio at the top lvl is better. Well that's kinda absurd. There could be mech games which actually have a fair amount of action and at that point it means that there will be more diversity. Also if something becomes too predictable it actually becomes boring. That's a basic "fact" seen in lots and lots of different entertainment scenarios. "Surprise" is an integral part of entertainment. That doesn't necessarily mean that only having bio is "too predictable" but at the end of the day this is actually subjective. For people like you (and me) the mechanical part of the game makes it entertainign enough, because it actually introduces uncertainty at the execution lvl. For other people the strategy part is higher on the priority list. So you are pretty off with this post tbh.
On May 13 2017 06:43 pvsnp wrote: Throw in the fact that the current meta is extremely entertaining to watch
Yeah right MMMMlibs and MMMtanks every single game is so much fun. I get so thrilled when I see the tech lab or the reactor finally displayed in the production tab. Is it gonna be tanks? Is it gonna be mines? OH MY GOD HE'S BUILDING 3 TANKS THEN GOING FOR MINES?!
Also : using the word "fact" when talking about the subjective appreciation of a meta.
The continual back-and-forth, the fantastic micro, and the multitasking are what is entertaining. Not the surprise. Between surprising and boring vs predictable and entertaining, I know which one I'd choose.
4M vs LBM compared to hour-long turtle mech. If you like the latter that's your business but I for one am glad it's gone.
As far as the usage of "fact" goes, I should rephrase it as such: "It's a fact that turtle mech has far less battles/harass than equivalent bio TvZ." The leap of logic from "more fighting" to "more entertaining" seems to be a trivially obvious one, but I guess not in your case. If you can argue with a straight face that sitting on your ass is more thrilling to the audience than drops and parade pushes, I stand impressed.
I mean you simply use the worst (boring turtle mech where nothing happens) to prove that only having bio at the top lvl is better. Well that's kinda absurd. There could be mech games which actually have a fair amount of action and at that point it means that there will be more diversity. Also if something becomes too predictable it actually becomes boring. That's a basic "fact" seen in lots and lots of different entertainment scenarios. "Surprise" is an integral part of entertainment. That doesn't necessarily mean that only having bio is "too predictable" but at the end of the day this is actually subjective. For people like you (and me) the mechanical part of the game makes it entertainign enough, because it actually introduces uncertainty at the execution lvl. For other people the strategy part is higher on the priority list. So you are pretty off with this post tbh.
@pvsnp : very good answer to your fallacies.
Now about the subjective aspect of enjoyement, there is three topics we have to consider : - execution (mechanics/micro) - strategy (everything you can plan, gameplans, mind games) - diversity (how many compositions and builds are performable)
Some people like execution better, some people like strategy better. Even if sometimes execution can be part of a strategy (for instance Bomber and his insane production, playing with a very srtaightforward style because his execution allows him to). But near everyone loves diversity. Near everyone gets excited when innovation landed 2 factories with reactors versus Dark (at GSL i think?) and started pumping hellions and cyclones, when mech was considered complete trash. Near everyone gets excited when Solar starts building hydras and lurkers in TvZ, when hydras were pretty much terrible vs bio since HOTS. And (and that's maybe the most important thing) : diversity is very fun to play. Everyone likes to play with and versus different builds and compositions, and not the same shit everytime. I think it's fun for everyone when you play and face different strategies and not feel like two monkeys copying the same meta build.
Personally i think LOTV overemphazised execution heavily, at the cost of strategy. Tankivac TvT was symptomatic of that : games were totally devoid of any strategy. It was execution, and execution only : "perform your build then shove with tankivacs/marines and try to outmanoeuver your opponent". Pvsnp mentionned parade pushes : there's nothing more strategically poor than a parade parade push. It's litterally about getting 3 bases going, and then rallying your entire production into the zerg's fourth and outmanoeuvering ("out-executing") him. Personally I get way more excited when i see players like gumiho do completely insane builds or strats. I get way more excited when i see Major dropping 3 starports and starting to research banshee speed : and this isn't about execution. I don't care if he gets destroyed by a korean zerg that has a much better micro and macro than him, i'm interested in the thinking behind the build/comp.
As I said this is all subjective, however i think everyone likes diversity. I think everyone would be much more interested to see and play TvZ being bio tank, bio mines liberators, an allin, agressive mech, standard mech, and other stuff.
On May 13 2017 06:43 pvsnp wrote: Throw in the fact that the current meta is extremely entertaining to watch
Yeah right MMMMlibs and MMMtanks every single game is so much fun. I get so thrilled when I see the tech lab or the reactor finally displayed in the production tab. Is it gonna be tanks? Is it gonna be mines? OH MY GOD HE'S BUILDING 3 TANKS THEN GOING FOR MINES?!
Also : using the word "fact" when talking about the subjective appreciation of a meta.
The continual back-and-forth, the fantastic micro, and the multitasking are what is entertaining. Not the surprise. Between surprising and boring vs predictable and entertaining, I know which one I'd choose.
4M vs LBM compared to hour-long turtle mech. If you like the latter that's your business but I for one am glad it's gone.
As far as the usage of "fact" goes, I should rephrase it as such: "It's a fact that turtle mech has far less battles/harass than equivalent bio TvZ." The leap of logic from "more fighting" to "more entertaining" seems to be a trivially obvious one, but I guess not in your case. If you can argue with a straight face that sitting on your ass is more thrilling to the audience than drops and parade pushes, I stand impressed.
I mean you simply use the worst (boring turtle mech where nothing happens) to prove that only having bio at the top lvl is better. Well that's kinda absurd. There could be mech games which actually have a fair amount of action and at that point it means that there will be more diversity. Also if something becomes too predictable it actually becomes boring. That's a basic "fact" seen in lots and lots of different entertainment scenarios. "Surprise" is an integral part of entertainment. That doesn't necessarily mean that only having bio is "too predictable" but at the end of the day this is actually subjective. For people like you (and me) the mechanical part of the game makes it entertainign enough, because it actually introduces uncertainty at the execution lvl. For other people the strategy part is higher on the priority list. So you are pretty off with this post tbh.
@pvsnp : very good answer to your fallacies.
Now about the subjective aspect of enjoyement, there is three topics we have to consider : - execution (mechanics/micro) - strategy (everything you can plan, gameplans, mind games) - diversity (how many compositions and builds are performable)
Some people like execution better, some people like strategy better. Even if sometimes execution can be part of a strategy (for instance Bomber and his insane production, playing with a very srtaightforward style because his execution allows him to). But near everyone loves diversity. Near everyone gets excited when innovation landed 2 factories with reactors versus Dark (at GSL i think?) and started pumping hellions and cyclones, when mech was considered complete trash. Near everyone gets excited when Solar starts building hydras and lurkers in TvZ, when hydras were pretty much terrible vs bio since HOTS. And (and that's maybe the most important thing) : diversity is very fun to play. Everyone likes to play with and versus different builds and compositions, and not the same shit everytime. I think it's fun for everyone when you play and face different strategies and not feel like two monkeys copying the same meta build.
Personally i think LOTV overemphazised execution heavily, at the cost of strategy. Tankivac TvT was symptomatic of that : games were totally devoid of any strategy. It was execution, and execution only : "perform your build then shove with tankivacs/marines and try to outmanoeuver your opponent". Pvsnp mentionned parade pushes : there's nothing more strategically poor than a parade parade push. It's litterally about getting 3 bases going, and then rallying your entire production into the zerg's fourth and outmanoeuvering ("out-executing") him. Personally I get way more excited when i see players like gumiho do completely insane builds or strats. I get way more excited when i see Major dropping 3 starports and starting to research banshee speed : and this isn't about execution. I don't care if he gets destroyed by a korean zerg that has a much better micro and macro than him, i'm interested in the thinking behind the build/comp.
As I said this is all subjective, however i think everyone likes diversity. I think everyone would be much more interested to see and play TvZ being bio tank, bio mines liberators, an allin, agressive mech, standard mech, and other stuff.
What about tactics? Mindgames doesnt have to be a strategy either, it can be a tactic.
You say subjective, but i feel that word is a bad word because it can be used anytime and we all know we are humans and every opinion is already set. One opinion might be that ONE STRATEGY AND ONE UNIT COMPOSITION IS FUN AND GOOD. If the game have variation or you have more depth in the tactics THATS BAD:
You see how silly it really is. Yes it is subjective, but opinions value matters alot. I would bet that person above with that opinion has his mental mind blocked in some way. The brain likes to use all its brain pretty much. This is a fact. Its not consructive or fun to look into the wall for several minutes straight BUT SOMEONE WITH THE SUBJECTIVE OPINION WILL SAY that he enjoys it and its fun.
We also have the lack of knowledge and imagination department. People who dont think to much about design or/and what a rts game should look like, they might think of sc2 as a really great game and that game sets the standard.
Having a set unit composition and when they do fight each other its over really fast. Is a bad standard. But lets go a bit deeper.
So we have all these units and in combat, they pretty much do one part and one part only in general. This is the standard in sc2.
I would like a game which has more open tactics and executions. One game i might decide that my zealots will attack the hydras behind the roaches every single time. While another game i might decide to simple attack the roaches, or another game i might decide to flank every game.
We dont see this in sc2. Key word here is concistent and general approach. I dont care if we see once in a while. I want a game where you as a player can decide how you want to approach fights without them ending in a matter of seconds so therefore makes more moves possible for all players involved in the fight.
This whole rock paper scissor is another standard set. Its garbage in my "subjective" opinion. When one side can micro alot while the other cant its also something i dont want in a standard rts game.
Look at any sport irl or any martial art, you do interract with your opinion and there are little to no hardcounters. Right? What is the point if we look from the brains perspective if you have little to no interraction with your opponent? Why do that thing in the first place if thats the case?
Skill comes from interraction, and fun comes from interraction. When you talk to someone you dont talk 100%, right? You go back and forth. Even new born babies do that ffs.
So this subjective opinion is bullshit in the grand scheme of things. A game where you open marine/marauder vs gateway pressure opening: Terran fears zealots/sentries, play passive dont go out on the map. Just defend. When stim is done, and the numbers increase protoss will fear you and decide to go home and defend.
Sc2 has set the stnadard very low and its hard for people to understand that, i dont blame them either but following those opinions isnt wise.
On May 13 2017 20:29 Foxxan wrote: What about tactics? Mindgames doesnt have to be a strategy either, it can be a tactic.
English isn't my native langage, but "tactic" and "strategy" are synonyms I think, the definition of tactic being : "An action or strategy carefully planned to achieve a specific end."
On May 13 2017 20:29 Foxxan wrote:
You say subjective, but i feel that word is a bad word because it can be used anytime and we all know we are humans and every opinion is already set. One opinion might be that ONE STRATEGY AND ONE UNIT COMPOSITION IS FUN AND GOOD. If the game have variation or you have more depth in the tactics THATS BAD:
You see how silly it really is. Yes it is subjective, but opinions value matters alot. I would bet that person above with that opinion has his mental mind blocked in some way. The brain likes to use all its brain pretty much. This is a fact. Its not consructive or fun to look into the wall for several minutes straight BUT SOMEONE WITH THE SUBJECTIVE OPINION WILL SAY that he enjoys it and its fun.
We also have the lack of knowledge and imagination department. People who dont think to much about design or/and what a rts game should look like, they might think of sc2 as a really great game and that game sets the standard.
Yes, saying everything is subjective is pointing out the obvious. What I meant was that diversity of plays was the most generally enjoyed thing, transcending personal subjectivities. Near everyone likes diversity.
On May 13 2017 20:29 Foxxan wrote:
Having a set unit composition and when they do fight each other its over really fast. Is a bad standard. But lets go a bit deeper.
So we have all these units and in combat, they pretty much do one part and one part only in general. This is the standard in sc2.
I would like a game which has more open tactics and executions. One game i might decide that my zealots will attack the hydras behind the roaches every single time. While another game i might decide to simple attack the roaches, or another game i might decide to flank every game.
We dont see this in sc2. Key word here is concistent and general approach. I dont care if we see once in a while. I want a game where you as a player can decide how you want to approach fights without them ending in a matter of seconds so therefore makes more moves possible for all players involved in the fight.
This whole rock paper scissor is another standard set. Its garbage in my "subjective" opinion. When one side can micro alot while the other cant its also something i dont want in a standard rts game.
Look at any sport irl or any martial art, you do interract with your opinion and there are little to no hardcounters. Right? What is the point if we look from the brains perspective if you have little to no interraction with your opponent? Why do that thing in the first place if thats the case?
Skill comes from interraction, and fun comes from interraction. When you talk to someone you dont talk 100%, right? You go back and forth. Even new born babies do that ffs.
So this subjective opinion is bullshit in the grand scheme of things. A game where you open marine/marauder vs gateway pressure opening: Terran fears zealots/sentries, play passive dont go out on the map. Just defend. When stim is done, and the numbers increase protoss will fear you and decide to go home and defend.
Sc2 has set the stnadard very low and its hard for people to understand that, i dont blame them either but following those opinions isnt wise.
I think I get what you're meaning. If I sum up, it'd be "monolithic unit usage is boring". And I do agree.
First, this has a lot to do with the "active ability" problem in SC2. You see, active abilities often mean there is one very monolithic "best way" to use an ability. You'll always want to use EMPs on HTs if you can. You'll always want to hit siege tanks if you can with ravager biles. But second, the true issue is that varied units interaction comes mainly from varied unit compositions. If you have 30 marines 4 medivacs 2 siege tanks versus 40 lings 10 banes 6 mutas all the time at a certain point in TvZ, you'll always have the same "ideal" unit interaction, because there'll be only one ideal way to micro your units.
Varied unit interactions comes from the viability of varied compositions. And that's what I like with mech, you can build a lot of different compositions that work very differently : if you go for mine heavy comps in TvP against chargelots, the interactions are very different compared to going hellbat heavy.
The general issue with SC2 on this matter is that active abilities and hard counters are impacting very negatively diversity, I think. I don't think the issue is with how fast battles happen, most of the time.
The general issue with SC2 on this matter is that active abilities and hard counters are impacting very negatively diversity, I think. Which in turn doesn't allow a lot of different units interactions, because there's not a lot of units to play with. I don't think the issue is with how fast battles happen, most of the time.
Not only does it impact diversity, it also impacts tactics and most likely strategies by a big margin. What it also do is makes the interractions in the game unit vs unit wise bad.
Now i do believe active abilities can have a big depth if done different and with a more specific goal, in sc2 it does neither. You mentioned emp vs hightemplar, this is a very lame one. I dont know if i know it 100% why, but one big reason is most likely because there isnt many moves involved and its not very dynamic either.
The spells also have such a huge effect towards each other(emp, feedback) that its a break or hit.
But even so, sc2 doesnt have GOOD unit interractions. If they had, i would probably play the game even with a bad diversity. Thats the core problem of a rts game in my mind by far, the unit interractions are the key to the game.
Battles happening fast is a issue because if it ends really fast, it means players cant do many moves and therefore the whole interraction becomes close to none-existent. But yes, its a differnence between battles ending fast and units dying fast. You can have many units for both players that die fast as long as the battle doesnt end.
Marines vs hightemplars for example, marines die fast here and storm kills many marines. So it kills the battle. Another aspect with this whole rock-paper-scissor is aoe initself. Its not a good mechanic since it kills the interraction initself. But oh well, perhaps it can be a good mechanic, havent thought to much about it actually.
This whole rts-genre needs to be done very different even so, and with a very different goal aswell. Like, who the hell want to play a game with a 10-15min uptime without much happening one bit? You are in your base camping. People that enjoy and think this is a good mechanic doesnt have much imagination.. Or they simple doesnt imaginate.
Not only does it impact diversity, it also impacts tactics and most likely strategies by a big margin. What it also do is makes the interractions in the game unit vs unit wise bad.
This is the truth, I'm not trying to start a flame way by this next statement for the love of God but I don't really have another example...
Sigh...
Broodwar units were better designed and had better interactions with eachother because the units didn't really on active abilities to be powerful, thereby making them easier to balance and easier to understand.
Look at Void Prisms? The unit completely sucks but then it activates it's ability and BAM, strong as hell for zero extra skill or creativity.Then when it's activated, the Corruptors move away, then when the ability goes away, the Corruptors move back in. It's a very binary, predicatable response that doesn't really give off the impression of "skill" or micro. (i.e. their ability prevents them from being buffed outside of a ground up overhaul)
Stalkers are a great example, because they are a weak unit with a strong ability. Blink is powerful, no getting around it, we've had entire Protoss metagames centered around it with all ins, macro, cheese, you name it. After the Stalkers Zerg counters have been heavily buffed (Hydras, Lurkers, even Ravagers can fight them straight up fairly well) the Stalker never got buffed because with Blink on it, it would be very powerful if they were also straight up front line fighters (i.e. Stalkers can never truly be buffed with Blink in the game)
Stalkers shouldn't even need blink in the first place, they are already fast with very little delay in their acceleration, this makes them quick and easy (more like responsive) to micro. Would people rather have a weak Stalker whos power skyrockets in the mid game because of Blink but then falls off immediately or is never used because the counters are too strong? Or would people rather have a Stalker that can actually not get mowed down by med game bio/Hydralisk armies whos entire balance isn't held back by having *gasp* an activated ability. (i.e. Adepts can never truly be buffed with Transfer in the game)
It's just like the Adept. It doesnt even need Shade, thats just one more gimmicky ability that prevents good balance and design decisions because if the Adept is too good at everything, having Shade on top just makes it OP. If Adepts were say, just faster and easier to micro like Stalkers and Transfer was removed, they could be powerful mid range fighters whos job was to support firepower for Zealots while buffering for Stalkers.
Instead, active ability here to ruin the day once again, the Adept can only be ever so slightly nerfed or tweaked because with Transfer being in the game, one wrong balance patch and the unit is either uselessly weak or overpowered. Moral of the post? I completely agree with you guys, active abilities are ruining the game and Protoss in particular. The current balance team would be wise to spend this entire year toning them down. After that, in 2018 we may be in a position to have a new major patch and by that time, we can phase out all but the best designed of active abilities.
On May 13 2017 04:22 Suchbalancemuchwow wrote: For noobs it's obvious that A move zerg is currently the best way to win. All non z's below diamond opt for an all-in. And like I tried to prove, playing vs all-ins in LOTV is especially annoying.
the people i know in Silver through Platinum don't all-in every game and they don't face all-ins by their opponents every game.
On May 13 2017 06:30 Suchbalancemuchwow wrote: Oh well, your free to love the game as it is, I'm just saying that it's not casual friendly that's all. Ironically nor are you guys. Guess I'll just be rational and make this my last post, clearly scrubs aren't wanted.
the SC2 game pace more closely resembles C&C than it did from 2010 to 2014. lots of scrubs and noobs and casuals enjoy C&C's game pace and the fact that you are fighting for your life 90 seconds into the game. SC2 is still slower paced than RA3 and Kane's Wrath.
On May 14 2017 01:00 jpg06051992 wrote: The new balance team would be wise to spend this entire year toning them down. After that, in 2018 we may be in a position to have a new major patch and by that time, we can phase out all but the best designed of active abilities.
when was a new balance team announced?
On May 14 2017 01:00 jpg06051992 wrote: Stalkers are a great example, because they are a weak unit with a strong ability. Blink is powerful,
the Stalker and Blink have been around since 2007. If you don't like the Stalker with the Blink ability you probably don't like Blizzard's approach to SC2 in general. With so many ex-C&Cers on the RTS team SC2 has moved more and more towards a C&C style of RTS and further away from the Brood War style.
Sigh, okay Jimmy, I'll edit it to the CURRENT balance team because I know not a singular post about the balance team escapes your notice, thank you for pointing that out.
the Stalker and Blink have been around since 2007. If you don't like the Stalker with the Blink ability you probably don't like Blizzard's approach to SC2 in general.
I'm going to politely ask you to stop putting words in my mouth because tbh you're one of the only posters on here who legitimately pisses me off. Not once did I say that I didn't like the unit or the ability just because I said the unit is weak and the ability is strong. I said that the Stalker is a good example of a unit that is held back from good balance by having a strong activated ability instead of just good raw stats. Saying that, it's probably one of the best designed in the game, just like stim. Theres definitely well designed abilities (stim, blink) and theres bad ones (Transfer, Revelation, Neural Parasite)
Note that i do believe abilities can work great, make for great interractions but the way blizzard do it is not the way to go. So abilites initself isnt wrong or bad, its the implementation that matters here. But yes.
Thing is, we do have some potential "cool" abilities in terran with the transform but blizzard decides to ignore that. Just wanted to point that out.
Not once did I say that I didn't like the unit or the ability just because I said the unit is weak and the ability is strong. I said that the Stalker is a good example of a unit that is held back from good balance by having a strong activated ability instead of just good raw stats. Saying that, it's probably one of the best designed in the game, just like stim. Theres definitely well designed abilities (stim, blink) and theres bad ones (Transfer, Revelation, Neural Parasite)
You dont find blink binary to an extent? The micro blink provides is pretty much one-sided, but thats a problem with sc2 on the whole actually.
On May 14 2017 05:40 Foxxan wrote: Note that i do believe abilities can work great, make for great interractions but the way blizzard do it is not the way to go. So abilites initself isnt wrong or bad, its the implementation that matters here. But yes.
Thing is, we do have some potential "cool" abilities in terran with the transform but blizzard decides to ignore that. Just wanted to point that out.
Not once did I say that I didn't like the unit or the ability just because I said the unit is weak and the ability is strong. I said that the Stalker is a good example of a unit that is held back from good balance by having a strong activated ability instead of just good raw stats. Saying that, it's probably one of the best designed in the game, just like stim. Theres definitely well designed abilities (stim, blink) and theres bad ones (Transfer, Revelation, Neural Parasite)
You dont find blink binary to an extent? The micro blink provides is pretty much one-sided, but thats a problem with sc2 on the whole actually.
I consider Blink to be a bit more multi faceted then say...Zealot Charge or Phoenix insta Muta counter upgrade because Blink allows you to attack, re position for defense, chase down fleeing opponents, micro them back to make wounded Stalkers last longer (also all of this really allows superior Protoss players to show off their skills) while Charge just makes Zealots....charge lol the unit micro manages itself, just like the Phoenix upgrade doesn't really let Phoenix do anything besides kill Mutalisks better.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by binary, if so apologies lol I just consider abilities that allow you to
- attack - Defend - Micro for increased survival
Things like, stim, burrow movement, Blink, DT blink, even Psionic Transfer is a well designed ability, it's just so strong on a unit that is already a powerful front line fighter so naturally balance problems arose.
Abilities like Prismatic Alignment, Corrosive Bile, Zealot Charge, not so much, I consider inferior.
The problem with the Thor armour increase is that it does not really improve Thors where it is needed.
Thors are currently useless in TvT and TvP but balanced in TvZ. Increasing Thor armour by 1 make them better vs zerglings but they will still not do their job vs air units in TvT and TvP.
It would be better to give Thors High Impact Payload mode bonus damage vs mechanical. That way Thors becomes useful against Air in TvT and TvP without making them stronger in TvZ since they already are balanced in that matchup.
On May 15 2017 00:10 MockHamill wrote: The problem with the Thor armour increase is that it does not really improve Thors where it is needed.
Thors are currently useless in TvT and TvP but balanced in TvZ. Increasing Thor armour by 1 make them better vs zerglings but they will still not do their job vs air units in TvT and TvP.
It would be better to give Thors High Impact Payload mode bonus damage vs mechanical. That way Thors becomes useful against Air in TvT and TvP without making them stronger in TvZ since they already are balanced in that matchup.
Well, your not far off, but the problem in TvP for the thor is it's range against air before it's actual damage. And vs air in TvT they can't really deal with battlecruisers, but ravens> battlecruisers anyway. And even if you buffed the thor's damage x2 against ravens they'd still trade against thors np. I wouldn't say that thors need a buff against liberators vikings and banshee's which that mechanical extra damage would do.
I guess you could make it work if you make it an upgrade on the factory tech lab that increases their range and also their damage vs mechanical that unlocks after building the fusion core. That way you could upgrade your thors to deal with the lategame air stuff P and T throws at mech armies.
Or you could give cyclones a comparable lategame upgrade so they can actually deal with air in lategame. That would actually give people a reason to build cyclones in the lategame too.
On May 14 2017 07:05 Foxxan wrote: So do you considder blink a good ability overall or good if we compare it to other abilties in sc2? Just curious.
it's exactly like this in my mind, blink is one of the better abilities in SC2 but it's actually not a good ability for the reasons you mentioned, that's why I don't play SC2. If the stalker didn't have blink it would be a much more interesting unit involving much more micro, tactics and ultimately strategy.
On May 14 2017 04:52 jpg06051992 wrote: tbh you're one of the only posters on here who legitimately pisses me off.
its not my job to anticipate what your emotional responses may or may not be to my posts.
On May 14 2017 04:52 jpg06051992 wrote: I said that the Stalker is a good example of a unit that is held back from good balance by having a strong activated ability instead of just good raw stats.
you're splitting hairs. its had that ability since 2007 and they've decided to balance it with that strong activated ability since 2007. that unit has been through Pardo, Browder, Kim and not the new Lead Multiplayer Designer "The Masked Superstar". i don't see it changing.
if they remove Blink and buff the Stalker's stats it becomes a Dragoon with a new skin.
On May 15 2017 00:10 MockHamill wrote: Thors are currently useless in TvT and TvP but balanced in TvZ. Increasing Thor armour by 1 make them better vs zerglings but they will still not do their job vs air units in TvT and TvP.
it'll help the Thor against Marines and it'll shave 2 damage off of Zealots because they use 2 psi blade strikes of 8 damage each. so the buff helps the Thor against all 3 races "most primitive" units.
I'm too lazy to search where did the discussion towards blink started (from a feedback update) but i'll give my 2 cents anyhow.
Blink as an ability is ojectively immensely overpowered, but it all depends on the unit. The stalker has objectively trash stats, to compensate for this. It has good range and a good health pool for the very early game, but because LOTV forces mid game to happen after 2 minutes it's kinda irrelevant. Appart from that, stalkers are worthless stats-wise.
I had issues with blink in the past, but not because of the ability in itself. Mainly because there wasn't enough answers to stalkers. When tanks dealt only 50 dmg to stalkers, you could litterally shut down mech play with only blink stalkers. Seriously. In HOTS, players like Lilbow mastered the style where you simply need +2 stalkers and few sentries to win the matchup. The problem with blink was that there wasn't a lot of units that could prevent protoss from massing only stalkers.
Now, in LOTV, stalkers and blink stalkers are in a fine state. And it's not a bad design in itself to have a unit that's weak stats-wise but with an overpowered ability. The HUGE misstake of the dev team was to introduce another unit that worked the same way (adept). And because of that protoss is very hard to balance without relying on gimmicks. If the adept was stronger in a frontal fight but saw his shade hugely nerfed, this issue would be solved.
On May 15 2017 08:24 JackONeill wrote: And because of that protoss is very hard to balance without relying on gimmicks. If the adept was stronger in a frontal fight but saw his shade hugely nerfed, this issue would be solved.
however they nerf the Adept or buff teh Zealot... i'd just like to see Blizzard adjust the unit(s) so that we see more Zealots than Adepts.
On May 15 2017 08:24 JackONeill wrote: And because of that protoss is very hard to balance without relying on gimmicks. If the adept was stronger in a frontal fight but saw his shade hugely nerfed, this issue would be solved.
however they nerf the Adept or buff teh Zealot... i'd just like to see Blizzard adjust the unit(s) so that we see more Zealots than Adepts.
I don't mind adepts being the standard gate unit against bio (since it's designed to murder marines). But if mech was reasonably viable against toss, we'd see zealots all the time.
On May 14 2017 07:05 Foxxan wrote: So do you considder blink a good ability overall or good if we compare it to other abilties in sc2? Just curious.
it's exactly like this in my mind, blink is one of the better abilities in SC2 but it's actually not a good ability for the reasons you mentioned, that's why I don't play SC2. If the stalker didn't have blink it would be a much more interesting unit involving much more micro, tactics and ultimately strategy.
Do you really think it could be that much more interesting as just a slightly buffed mover and shooter without any other abilities?
On May 14 2017 04:52 jpg06051992 wrote: I said that the Stalker is a good example of a unit that is held back from good balance by having a strong activated ability instead of just good raw stats.
you're splitting hairs. its had that ability since 2007 and they've decided to balance it with that strong activated ability since 2007. that unit has been through Pardo, Browder, Kim and not the new Lead Multiplayer Designer "The Masked Superstar". i don't see it changing.
if they remove Blink and buff the Stalker's stats it becomes a Dragoon with a new skin.
On May 15 2017 00:10 MockHamill wrote: Thors are currently useless in TvT and TvP but balanced in TvZ. Increasing Thor armour by 1 make them better vs zerglings but they will still not do their job vs air units in TvT and TvP.
it'll help the Thor against Marines and it'll shave 2 damage off of Zealots because they use 2 psi blade strikes of 8 damage each. so the buff helps the Thor against all 3 races "most primitive" units.
Okay fair enough, I'll just say it outright, I think Stalkers have been phased out of the meta pretty substantially and now with the super Hydralisk I generally look at Stalker compositions as easy wins, I feel like if they did maybe a tad bit more damage to light units they could fight bio and hydras a little better, and of course defend a bit more reliably vs the Mutalisk.
On May 14 2017 04:52 jpg06051992 wrote: tbh you're one of the only posters on here who legitimately pisses me off.
its not my job to anticipate what your emotional responses may or may not be to my posts.
On May 14 2017 04:52 jpg06051992 wrote: I said that the Stalker is a good example of a unit that is held back from good balance by having a strong activated ability instead of just good raw stats.
you're splitting hairs. its had that ability since 2007 and they've decided to balance it with that strong activated ability since 2007. that unit has been through Pardo, Browder, Kim and not the new Lead Multiplayer Designer "The Masked Superstar". i don't see it changing.
if they remove Blink and buff the Stalker's stats it becomes a Dragoon with a new skin.
On May 15 2017 00:10 MockHamill wrote: Thors are currently useless in TvT and TvP but balanced in TvZ. Increasing Thor armour by 1 make them better vs zerglings but they will still not do their job vs air units in TvT and TvP.
it'll help the Thor against Marines and it'll shave 2 damage off of Zealots because they use 2 psi blade strikes of 8 damage each. so the buff helps the Thor against all 3 races "most primitive" units.
Okay fair enough, I'll just say it outright, I think Stalkers have been phased out of the meta pretty substantially and now with the super Hydralisk I generally look at Stalker compositions as easy wins, I feel like if they did maybe a tad bit more damage to light units they could fight bio and hydras a little better, and of course defend a bit more reliably vs the Mutalisk.
it's not hydras taking stalkers out of the meta lol, there's no reason to waste money on them when you can make adepts.
On May 14 2017 04:52 jpg06051992 wrote: tbh you're one of the only posters on here who legitimately pisses me off.
its not my job to anticipate what your emotional responses may or may not be to my posts.
On May 14 2017 04:52 jpg06051992 wrote: I said that the Stalker is a good example of a unit that is held back from good balance by having a strong activated ability instead of just good raw stats.
you're splitting hairs. its had that ability since 2007 and they've decided to balance it with that strong activated ability since 2007. that unit has been through Pardo, Browder, Kim and not the new Lead Multiplayer Designer "The Masked Superstar". i don't see it changing.
if they remove Blink and buff the Stalker's stats it becomes a Dragoon with a new skin.
On May 15 2017 00:10 MockHamill wrote: Thors are currently useless in TvT and TvP but balanced in TvZ. Increasing Thor armour by 1 make them better vs zerglings but they will still not do their job vs air units in TvT and TvP.
it'll help the Thor against Marines and it'll shave 2 damage off of Zealots because they use 2 psi blade strikes of 8 damage each. so the buff helps the Thor against all 3 races "most primitive" units.
Okay fair enough, I'll just say it outright, I think Stalkers have been phased out of the meta pretty substantially and now with the super Hydralisk I generally look at Stalker compositions as easy wins, I feel like if they did maybe a tad bit more damage to light units they could fight bio and hydras a little better, and of course defend a bit more reliably vs the Mutalisk.
yep good point. i'd just prefer to see basic straightforward units used more. Stalkers, Zealots, Marines, Marauders, Zerglings, Hydralisks.
if they buff the Stalker i'm all for nerfing some Protoss air units.
at the start of LotV there was far too much air play for my taste. at this point, i think air play is only a slight bit too frequent. the 1 reason i am tolerant of air play from Protoss is that its supposed to be the most technogically advanced race; a high powered air force is congruent with my fantasy of what "most technologically advanced" is.
i get this perspective from playing my Diamond 1v1 games on NA Ladder and watching the GSL.
On May 14 2017 07:05 Foxxan wrote: So do you considder blink a good ability overall or good if we compare it to other abilties in sc2? Just curious.
it's exactly like this in my mind, blink is one of the better abilities in SC2 but it's actually not a good ability for the reasons you mentioned, that's why I don't play SC2. If the stalker didn't have blink it would be a much more interesting unit involving much more micro, tactics and ultimately strategy.
Do you really think it could be that much more interesting as just a slightly buffed mover and shooter without any other abilities?
if the other units didn't have very strong abilities too, yes. If you play bw, I think you know. It depends on every other thing in the game, but the blink stalker ultimately makes a lot converge into using the blink and making a timing on the blink tech, rest of time not so much micro. And using blink is often binary. I know in WoL, the best micro was the very early game, for example in PvT, the best micro was when marauders didn't have concussive shells yet and the stalkers didn't have blink yet, then there were nice micro moves. After that it was more ability spam or binary moves. I know its a little more complicated than that, but in few words..
let's say the context was different, I think a unit like the blink stalker could be interesting, if the base unit was a bit stronger on the field and blink on something of a longer cooldown, or something like that. But in the game now I think it's rly meh, bw dragoon is a much much more interesting unit imo (and zealot too compared to sc2 zealot for a similar reason), it is almost a whole dimension better :/
On May 14 2017 04:52 jpg06051992 wrote: tbh you're one of the only posters on here who legitimately pisses me off.
its not my job to anticipate what your emotional responses may or may not be to my posts.
On May 14 2017 04:52 jpg06051992 wrote: I said that the Stalker is a good example of a unit that is held back from good balance by having a strong activated ability instead of just good raw stats.
you're splitting hairs. its had that ability since 2007 and they've decided to balance it with that strong activated ability since 2007. that unit has been through Pardo, Browder, Kim and not the new Lead Multiplayer Designer "The Masked Superstar". i don't see it changing.
if they remove Blink and buff the Stalker's stats it becomes a Dragoon with a new skin.
On May 15 2017 00:10 MockHamill wrote: Thors are currently useless in TvT and TvP but balanced in TvZ. Increasing Thor armour by 1 make them better vs zerglings but they will still not do their job vs air units in TvT and TvP.
it'll help the Thor against Marines and it'll shave 2 damage off of Zealots because they use 2 psi blade strikes of 8 damage each. so the buff helps the Thor against all 3 races "most primitive" units.
Okay fair enough, I'll just say it outright, I think Stalkers have been phased out of the meta pretty substantially and now with the super Hydralisk I generally look at Stalker compositions as easy wins, I feel like if they did maybe a tad bit more damage to light units they could fight bio and hydras a little better, and of course defend a bit more reliably vs the Mutalisk.
it's not hydras taking stalkers out of the meta lol, there's no reason to waste money on them when you can make adepts.
Ordinarily I would agree with this, but I think it's more like, why waste money on them when you can build anything else?
New Hydralisks absolutely murders Stalkers and bio still mows them down as hard as ever, buffing the Stalker would have been overwhelming back in the day but I see no real reason that the Stalker shouldn't get say, +2 dmg to light units baseline.
If they did just little more damage they it might open up the doorway for a further Adept nerf as well, Gateway units have a big power disparity problem, and by that I mean Zealots and Stalkers both suck without their upgrades and Adepts are awesome right out of the gate.
Agree with prometheus, the stalkers ability feels "binary" to decsribe it fast. The stalker vs marauder in wol was cool and fun in the start of the game. I was looking forward to hots because i thought blizzard would "fix" the openings, making them more interesting like that.
The gameplay is supposed to start early, not after 10min ~ Same with lotv, i thought that hey, perhaps they want micro vs micro now. So they add cyclone and iam using my positive brain. Okay, so this unit feels very strong versus protoss. It also blocks oracle opening with a tempo.
Thought they might make blink/charge earlier, and also redesign them. Then we would have a micro dynamic of those units vs the cyclone and it would start early aswell.
Instead nothing happened about that. Cyclone was a unit that shouldnt come to the game actually. It didnt add much.
Also in hots, they added mscore. So they blocked some openings such as marauders... Instead of making the early game interesting and dynamic they went the opposite pretty much.
When they released the game its a complete disaster for terran players who dont want to play only bio competitive and also for the other two races who have to play against mass liberators in everey game against terran.
Terran gameplay is designed around Bio. You have to build marines and medivacs in everey matchup if you want to play competitive. In broodwar terran had the option to go mech in everey matchup. Now its not possible to play it in any matchup. I know there are terrans who like to play bio. Thats absolutly ok but there has to be room for other playstyles for terrans in competitive gaming.
And for the last time. Nobody wants to have turtle mech. We had an agressive style with cyclone hellion in the beta of Lotv. But Blizzard nerved it into the ground. Give us an opportunity to play mech competitive.
Everey other race has different playstyles here a the examples:
Protoss: Many different Gateway styles, Robo centric styles, Skytoss
Terran: 90% Bio + X. This is a big problem its not fun to play and to watch in everey game where terran is involved to see the same bio style again and again and again!
Protoss in general
Protoss should get a complete redesign. Look at the protoss from broodwar there were so much fun interacting with the other races and micro involved. Now in most games the protoss defends and trys to get his deathball ready for the final blow, unfun to play and to watch (mass Adepts in everey game or lategame bullshit air armies)!
Terran has no lategame and many useless units
As Terran you have to win against Zerg or Protoss in midgame. Its nearly impossible for terran to win in lategame.
I know that protoss and zerg have a hard mid game (which is also a problem). But its not ok that terran has absolutly no really options in lategame.
Thor: Garbage (is only really viable against mutas and a boring unit)
The swarm host problem
Blizzard said they want to make mech viable with the big patch after last Blizzcon. With the swarmhost they killed mech against zerg entirely. This unit needs a complete redesign. Zerg has enough options against mech like vipers Ultras and a very mobile playstyle in general.
Game is to much designed around air units
There are air units which are ok. These are the light units like banshee viking, Mutas and Phoenix.
Units like Liberators, Raven, Tempest, Carrier are too good. This leeds to mass air battles which are not fun to play and to watch. The focus should be on ground units for all races (ground battles are more strategical and more fun to watch). Zerg Tier 3 air Units are also a problem because you cant counter them with ground units if zerg Plays smart (at least as terran...) air units should be more niche!
Why did the Raven get a buff? Its a support unit and should not be massable in lategame!
The game needs really strong ground to air units fo rall 3 races to counter mass Tier 3 air units which are cancer for the game!
Blizzard to something and patch your game more often and try constant changes!
All the changes from the community feedback updates and the testing matchmaker are going live next week.
There is a discrepancy with their Thor numbers though. In the Call to Action post, it's: -Thor morph times reduced from 3.5 to 2.5. Thor morph random delay durations reduced from 0.5 to 0.25.
In the final update, it's: -Thor morph times reduced from 2.5 to 1.79. Thor morph random delay durations reduced from 0.36 to 0.18.
Balance Update Thanks to everyone who provided feedback on the proposed changes. We really appreciated all of the thoughtful discussion! After reading over the feedback, we are preparing to implement the balance changes that have been on the testing matchmaking queue.
Terran
Thor Thor armor was increased from 1 to 2. Thor morph times reduced from 2.5 to 1.79. Thor morph random delay durations reduced from 0.36 to 0.18.
Raven Auto-Turret damage reduced from 24 to 18. Auto-Turret duration increased from 7.14 to 10.
Protoss
Tempest Kinetic Overload damage increased from 30 (+14 massive) to 30 (+22 massive).
Void Ray Prismatic Alignment slows the Void Ray by 40% while active.
Zealot Charge upgrade cost lowered from 200/200 to 100/100.
Zerg
Roach & Infestor Undetected burrow move visual effects should be more visible.
Currently, we are planning for these changes to go live next week in the upcoming 3.14 patch. As always, we welcome your thoughts and feedback!
Glad to see Blizzard making Zealots make more sense by lowering the cost of a Zealot upgrade. I like Zealots. I don't like Adepts. Glad to see a Terran ground unit getting buffed and a Terran air unit with magic spells getting nerfed. I don't care either way about the Tempest Buff and i like the change to the Void Ray.
all-in-all a nice balance patch and i felt like my tiny voice, that covers a small subsection of the player base, was heard.
i will voice my approval by giving Blizzard/SC2 more money in the next few months.
The good: All the changes are a step in the right direction. The bad: Thors will still have no role in TvT and TvP. They are not good enough vs air to be useful and they still get hard countered by liberators, BCs, void rays, immortals etc.
TvZ Mech will still only be viable if the Zerg player forgets to build Swarm Hosts.
On May 15 2017 18:58 AlphaAeffchen wrote: In broodwar terran had the option to go mech in everey matchup.
In BW you must go mech in every matchup but vs Z, where there are some bio builds availabe. In SC2 you can mech vs Z, you need to bio in anything else.
To stay on the positive side for a bit: Void prism slowing down after ability use, i think this is a good sign in the "new" direction of the design team after david kim left. Thor change: Atleast they went a direction now, more armor+faster transform time=encouraged to use in direct combat(?)
On May 16 2017 07:18 Foxxan wrote: To stay on the positive side for a bit: Void prism slowing down after ability use, i think this is a good sign in the "new" direction of the design team after david kim left. Thor change: Atleast they went a direction now, more armor+faster transform time=encouraged to use in direct combat(?)
Might I inquire what the thought process was behind the void ray slowing down? I missed that. They'll be worse against vikings, is that the idea of it? So that the various protoss early game attacks vs terran are slightly weaker? Also what ''new direction''?
New direction as in more counterplay. I believe they wanted the slow on voidprism to enocurage more micro vs micro with voidrays. Before there were little to none vs them
Thor morph random delay durations reduced from 0.36 to 0.18.
A random element in a game of SC2, weow that's so "awesome". Spin the RNG wheel to see what you get.
Whats next? Stim doesnt work for 1% of the time due jammed gun. Hydralisk doesnt fire , needs to clear its throat and takes a Strepsil. Zealot charge failed, needs to tidy his shoe laces... Maybe we should add (hearthstone) cards as well, so exciting!
On May 16 2017 08:52 PinoKotsBeer wrote: Thor morph random delay durations reduced from 0.36 to 0.18.
A random element in a game of SC2, weow that's so "awesome". Spin the RNG wheel to see what you get.
Whats next? Stim doesnt work for 1% of the time due jammed gun. Hydralisk doesnt fire , needs to clear its throat and takes a Strepsil. Zealot charge failed, needs to tidy his shoe laces... Maybe we should add (hearthstone) cards as well, so exciting!
Brood war has a random miss-if-you-shoot-uphill (almost 50%).
Randomness isn't always bad. And the time frame if .2 is nothing.
Edit: also had a Miss chance if you were goodies troops in doodads
On May 16 2017 08:52 PinoKotsBeer wrote: Thor morph random delay durations reduced from 0.36 to 0.18.
A random element in a game of SC2, weow that's so "awesome". Spin the RNG wheel to see what you get.
Whats next? Stim doesnt work for 1% of the time due jammed gun. Hydralisk doesnt fire , needs to clear its throat and takes a Strepsil. Zealot charge failed, needs to tidy his shoe laces... Maybe we should add (hearthstone) cards as well, so exciting!
Theres random numbers for almost anything, that why marines shooting desync after a few seconds for example.
On May 05 2017 05:27 wiNgiAN wrote: why people talking about "buff" for tempest, do you read the changers or what? its says REDUCE DAMAGE FROM +25 TO 22, sigh.
On May 05 2017 05:27 wiNgiAN wrote: why people talking about "buff" for tempest, do you read the changers or what? its says REDUCE DAMAGE FROM +25 TO 22, sigh.
Guys with all due respect, are you stupid?
Current tempest deal +14 so going from +14 to +22 IS A BUFF, its not reducing the current bonus tempest deal, they are just reducing how much they are planing on buffing.
On May 16 2017 07:18 Foxxan wrote: i think this is a good sign in the "new" direction of the design team after david kim left. Thor change: Atleast they went a direction now, more armor+faster transform time=encouraged to use in direct combat(?)
i think you're reaching. its very likely this change was already being run partially thru Blizzard's "process" before putting it into the PTR while DK was still running the show.
i think this is a good patch and i've seen other good patches during DK's tenure. "The Team" has to move in small steps because their are competitive leagues going on; its going to take a while before we can judge if SC2 is improving due to new leadership guiding the multiplayer team.
i don't think we're headed for a big balance reset after BlizzCon 2017 as occurred after BlizzCon 2016. I think Blizzard is adding the final touches of balance to SC2. That might make an interesting pole question.
EPT![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CM809rKWoAAiV0C.jpg)
