The mothership core is to be removed in the new update, along with radical changes to the economy, chrono boost, raven, mech, upgrades, nexus recall and much more! Read the whole patch notes below
Last year we released Patch 3.8 which, unlike smaller balance patches released throughout the year, was a larger set of changes aimed at improving multiplayer StarCraft II through various design changes. This year we are embarking on another design patch and are excited to share with you our initial list of changes! This time around our general focus is to address underused units and abilities while also trying to reduce sudden game ending moments.
As with last year, this design patch will require a large amount of testing, feedback and revision before it can go live for everyone to enjoy, so we wanted to get it into your hands for testing as fast as possible. The changes in this blog will be live soon on the Testing section of StarCraft II Multiplayer, and we would like to release the final changes after this year’s tournament season concludes in November. In the sections below we outline the proposed changes, and give some of our thoughts on each one to explain what we would like to accomplish.
Economy
In Legacy of the Void we changed the amount of resources in each base to promote expanding and discourage overly defensive playstyles. While this change did have the intended results, we think that there might be a way to make comebacks easier when players are denied a 3rd or 4th base. To do this, we’d like to increase the amount of minerals on Vespene gas geysers, as well as the large mineral nodes. This means that bases take longer to completely run out, but since it’s only the large mineral node being adjusted, players are still encouraged to take new bases to increase their mineral income rate. This should also decrease some of the pressure on new players to secure new bases right away.
Large mineral nodes at bases are increased from 1500 to 1800 per node Small mineral nodes remain at 900 per node Vespene Geyser value increased from 2000 to 2250 to maintain the mineral to gas ratio
Keep in mind that this is a first pass on the design update for November this year. Things may look very different as testing goes on with numbers changing, new changes being added or other areas being rolled back. We are very excited about the potential that these changes have for the StarCraft II multiplayer community, and the test matchmaking queue will be activated soon. Please let us know what you think in the comments below and have fun! For the rest of the changes due to being so huge we recommend you visit the StarCraft 2 website here; http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/20975163
Extremely disappointed by the changes. There seems to be zero purpose behind the, just making random changes for the sake of making changes because LoL does it.
Pls come back DK, Blizz is clueless without you
edit: sry I don't like change, those are not THAT bad now that I think about it.
On August 18 2017 02:17 Charoisaur wrote: Extremely disappointed by the changes. There seems to be zero purpose behind the, just making random changes for the sake of making changes because LoL does it.
Pls come back DK, Blizz is clueless without you
I'm curious how Riot patching every 2 weeks is even close to having major design changes once a year.
On August 18 2017 02:20 Makro wrote: the MULE is now the best unit of this game
I assume it'll actually be worse since its mineral mining is nerfed and bio is very mineral heavy. Though ofc might be different if mech turns out to be the next big thing.
It's nice to see that they are trying to address some of the scaling issues + also make some units/compositions slightly easier to control. Better late than never.
That said, not much sure what to take from that patch. Perhaps raven + mech synergi can make it viable (along with mule gas). It's also good that Lurkers are easier to build. Could perhaps be used vs bio now.
Guess I'll quit the game for good, I just don't want a fresh multiplayer experience every year, although some changes are going in the right direction. SC:R, here I come.
I just skimmed the changes, and they all seem very solid and appealing to me. I really like the changes to the MSC/Nexus, this will really give Protoss players the chance to be more active on the map in the early game while not being forced into a hero unit to defend potential all-ins. I also like that you now have to decide between Chrono Boost/Recall/Shield Restore, something that really adds more depth and strategic possibilities to the game. Only thing I'm worried about is that one will have to build photon cannons for mid/lategame defense now since recalling parts of your army doesnt seem like a viable option. At least you can then put Shield Restore on Autocast to make cannons a bit beefier. As a player that came in during LotV and has never played HotS, I cant say much about the eco changes, but the way they reasoned it seemed very good to me. No comments on Hydra/Bane being the only viable option in ZvP right now makes me a bit sad (and theres even a Lurker buff), but atleast we get the HT buff along with the long awaited stalker buff (although that ones not used in PvZ) to make up for this. Maybe the new disruptor can also come into the ZvP meta, but on the first look the changes look like a nerf (similar dps if shooting on CD, but now you cant maneuver the ball into the middle of the army but it will always explode on the edge). Better against pros with good micro, but worse against everyone else. Also, WIDOW MINE NERF HYPE!!! All in all, Im really glad about most of these changes, not too many, not too few, cant wait for November. <3
On August 18 2017 02:23 The_Red_Viper wrote: I think the lurker change will do nothing though :D In general the zerg changes are kinda meh, but we will see
Haha yeah I thought the same. Especially splitting the lurker den from the hydra den. You could already get muscular augments and lurker den at the same time if you went double hydra den, and nobody did that The changes are interesting for sure. Zerg anti-air seems like it's gonna be really bad until vipers. I also wish they had taken a look at oracles.
On August 18 2017 02:28 RaFox17 wrote: Was there anything that will help zerg against mass oracle funtimes that we have seen recently? Fungal is now not an option. Overall i´m interested.
you can always switch to protoss yourself. i heard some zergs are having success with it lately
Protoss, already struggling, has just been patched out of the game.
Aggressive options have been drastically improved while severely limiting protoss players' ability to respond to them. Not only will it make it much more difficult to play, games will be less fun and less rewarding.
These are incredibly disappointing changes and I would anticipate the number of protoss players on the ladder continuing to decrease in favour of ever larger representation of Terran and Zerg.
On August 18 2017 02:28 RaFox17 wrote: Was there anything that will help zerg against mass oracle funtimes that we have seen recently? Fungal is now not an option. Overall i´m interested.
you can always switch to protoss yourself. i heard some zergs are having success with it lately
Now this is interesting, though I fear for early game zvp... other than that zerg now HAS to make corruptors or hydras to deal with air which is fine I think, just not my style. (I liked my fungal + corrosive bile anti air)
My SC2 brethren, this is so exciting!! I was curious if we'd have more big shakeups after Kim left. We all were wondering what the state of updates & major patches would be. I think overall these changes are very positive and will lead to some exciting unit interactions. I can't wait to see the new Raven. New fresh changes are never a bad thing to keep the meta healthy. The major takeaway, of course, being that Blizz is still thinking about the longevity of the game and the balance team. Cool news! Definitely not a bad thing at all.
Take it with a grain of salt, people. They are going to heavily test & adjust these changes. I bet some of the changes don't even make it into the final patch. Relax. Have fun. Be happy that they still care about our favorite game.
fungal not affecting air is probably something that will have to be reverted... it just makes skytoss too good against zerg late game (unless viper buff manages to overcome that.)
Not very happy with a 4 second channel on recall, and stalkers are so slow without blink that I think that is still going to be an issue early game harrass, but it is certainly something that will be interesting to take a look at.
terran changes seem really reasonable. MASSIVE nerf to disruptors (will be just like stasis ward, pre-splitting/single unit sacrifice will make them basically useless, even more than now) but a corresponding nerf to widow mines as well. Probably fair tbh.
I like the changes overall, but wanna point out 2 things:
I wish Zerg had other options to engage mech than relying on nydus, SH, or waiting for full energy vipers.
ZvZ is cancer. Gotta be very careful to not make it worse. On one hand, faster lurker den and fungal changes can make mutas more viable, on other hand lurkers can turn ZvZ into TvT 2.0, and that's not what i chose Zerg for.
On August 18 2017 02:26 CynicalDeath wrote: ...just finished reading... really massive update, for so many changes some weeks (if not months) will be needed to assimilate it...
Yep.
Of course the main problem for SC2 is the fact that maps and map makers have far too little impact on the game. Blizzard still mandate mineral and gas amounts, army position still means next to nothing etc. etc. so we'll be back in the exact same boat by early 2018. Still, it will be a nice temporary bump for the game.
That mine change is going to cause all sorts of awful problems. If they want to treat them like banes, they're going to have to see a cost reduction, and they're going to have to touch the oracle.
Infested terran getting upgrades back puts fear into my heart for the future of the game. Don't repeat history please.
On August 18 2017 02:44 TheWinks wrote: That mine change is going to cause all sorts of awful problems. If they want to treat them like banes, they're going to have to see a cost reduction, and they're going to have to touch the oracle.
Infested terran getting upgrades back puts fear into my heart for the future of the game. Don't repeat history please.
I doubt it will be a problem as they are nerfing the fungal from bad to garbage.
On August 18 2017 02:42 Shellshock wrote: hopefully they drop the patch right after Group B in GSL so half the Ro16 and the rest of the tournament can be played on a different patch
The biggest problems seem to be the MULE nerf, the photon overcharge removal and the infestor change. Especially terran and protoss seem to be fucked now, terran can't keep up with economy anymore and how is protoss supposed to defend early attacks now? Infestor change just makes them useless.
I am now too old to assimilate somuch, I liked that sc2 always kep to some fundamentals rock solid, now its a lot of new stuff , like a new expansion lol
On August 18 2017 02:44 TheWinks wrote: That mine change is going to cause all sorts of awful problems. If they want to treat them like banes, they're going to have to see a cost reduction, and they're going to have to touch the oracle.
Infested terran getting upgrades back puts fear into my heart for the future of the game. Don't repeat history please.
I doubt it will be a problem as they are nerfing the fungal from bad to garbage.
The point of fungal isn't the damage, it's allowing other zerg units to connect onto terran units. It isn't as effective off creep, but will still accomplish its job fairly easily and on creep its radius is even bigger than before. Late game TvZ isn't an air army for the terran, and still won't be after these changes, so the impact on the matchup of the infestor changes is a net buff for zerg I think.
I cannot believe my eyes. Removing the MSC is amazing, and I've dreamed of it for so long as a Protoss player. And the Widow Mine change, and everything else, amazing.
I think I am going to be a Starcraft player again! David Kim going was exactly what this game needed.
these changes look very positive :O it seems to bring structure to the game that you can play with, I like it, and gets rid of quite a lot of bad stuff to turn them into smtg potentially quite good, less volatile etc I want to say when I played WoL, a major problem in the core design of P for me was the overlap between HT and colossus. It removed a lot of meaning in the choice of cita or robo, because colo and HT brought smtg too similar to the army power, so it seemed more straightforward to chose one or the other depending on the match up. The stalker change should make a lot of good difference, wish they would remove zealot charge because I still can't see how it doesn't make the unit less interesting to play than without a charge (and more speed to make up for it, or would it need anti-stun/movement impairment effects??^^). It's a fully engage and let go / fully don't engage and leave, binary, with little micro follow ups. But there are many changes to talk about in there, including to units I never played with. Most/all of these just sound good and well justified to me.
Half these changes are very good (economy, removal of MSCore, native cloack on ghost, upgrade for cyclone AA even if it seems a little weak)
Half these changes are completely and insanely stupid. 15-21 damage on the stalker is insane. 180 parasitic bomb is insane. "can't move but more vision" obvserver and overseers + autoattack on high templar is a F2-friendly bullshit.)
"i should be able to F2 amove my entire colossi HT stalker force without disrupting my observer placement and so that my high templars are never badly positionned !"
Also 100 energy recall on nexus? That means the more bases protoss gets, the more they'll be able to just run into your economy with entire armies before recalling. Such an insane ability must have a shared cooldown.
for now changes seem interesting but totally unbalanced. protoss effectively removed with no defence from early pressure(zerg t1 drops, no medivac stim pushes). PvP will become Phoenix x Phoenix again(PLZ NO). Nerf to protoss economy for more interesting boost? not sure if its good.
BUT I wellcome with open hands TO mothership recall( thank Aiur, i was praying for this almost as hard as for dark blink)
ghost change seems to be a straight nerf. When high templar/ultras are on the map and you start making ghosts in response you don't really care about the cloak; you just want as many snipes/emps as possible. having cloak available early is irrelevant because once you cloak with 50 energy you have 25 energy left and then you can't do anything with them. Don't see the purpose of this change.
About the economy change: I really hope they think about double harvester, i actually think giving players a reason to expand faster is better than forcing them. Especially now that harass is strong in the first place, turtling might not be a problem to begin with.
Zerg changes:
Infestor: On first glance a nerf but the increased radius might actually be decent and slowing units down might be enough already. Not hitting air is obviously bad though. The antiair role for infested terrans seems weird, i don't think that works very well tbh. (just don't fight there).
lurker: does absolutely nothing imo. Yes you can have them out a bit faster in theory but meh. faster movement speed and burrowing could be decent but i am not sure if that is actually the reason nobody uses them.
Viper: Not sure about that one, it still will be really good to spam the ability simply because the enemy cannot keep up with splitting. At the same time the dmg doesn't stack. Needs testing imo.
Overseer: insignificant
Swrmhost: I would rather see a complete redesign here. It's technically worse now but it's still just a badly designed unit imo. Give us something interesting instead.
No balance concerns - however in my view the mine nerf is not necessary.
Protoss
Mothership core I am a little bit worried about removing the mothership core and the early game against early zerg aggression. I see two scenarios: zerg ravager ling all ins. If toss doesnt make enought gates he just dies. On the other hand if zerg doesn't all in, toss will still be forced to make a lot of gates early, in order not to die to the same all in and thereby fall behind economically. Stalker buff doesn't help against this, because those units are light / unarmored.
Another problem I see is don't know how protoss will be able to safely take a third against an aggresive zerg and deal with drops from terran players.
I can only hope that the nexus shield recharging ability is enough to deal with all of the above, but I have my doubts. Disruptor If they decide to nerf the disruptor as they suggest, then I feel a significant gas reduction would be justified (maybe 150/100 or so).
Others Other changes are fine.
Zerg
Infestor In my view the reason why fungal is too strong against air, because of chain fungal. So I would much rather take away the damage and keep the root ability.
If fungal doesnt hit air, in zvz the ling/bane/muta player will dominate the roach/ravager/hydra/infestor player until hive. Unlike terran (marines) and protoss (blink stalkers and phoenixes) zerg doesn't have the mobility to chase the mutas, which I think may cause the match up to change to muta wars.
I am ok with slowing vs rooting the ground units off creep; this change is long overdue.
Vipers In air battles zerg will mostly suffer against heavy air (carriers etc), so the idea to increase the damage is fine, however I think if you want to increase the damage of vipers (thereby changing it to counter heavy air, not light air) you need to reduce the radius of parasitic bomb significantly, otherwise it will become way too strong.
Others Lurker, swarm host and overseer; no concerns. Although the building change for lurkers I think is not needed.
I think the shield spell for Nexus should be higher if it's gonna be deemed useful enough for the defense - like 4 or 5 per 1 energy at least. As it stands, it's useful, but not useful enough IMO, but of course there's a lot of testing to be done.
i wonder how effective the nexus shield battery will be at stalling against mineral line harass? it's going to be auto recharging the probes' shields as they are getting killed. (this is a good thing imo)
Didn't expect a Protoss redesign. Much less one where the MoCo gets removed and a shield restoration ability and Mass Recall are added to the Nexus instead. We even get a Stalker late game change (+2 from upgrades) and a fitting role adjustment for colossi (vs. light splash)!
Shield Battery Nexus isn't going to be enough to stop early game aggression vs Toss. Ghost rush is going to be a problem. 2 Ghosts can one-shot a worker, and if you don't have detection you'll just die. Mass Oracle will continue to be problematic in PvZ, and with the only real counter (Fungal) removed it will be even harder to stop. WoL recall returning could open up some serious shenanigans. The Mothership could recall the army to it, snipe off a base, and get recalled to a Nexus with no way to stop it. The change to Fungal will just reinforce Zerg's "Strong on creep, weak off creep" design philosophy, which will just make the unit useless unless Zerg is turtling. Some of the changes are good, like Infested Terrans getting upgrades and Disruptors no longer erasing half your army because you looked away for a second, but some just allow for F2+A-Move to be even more effective. Will be interesting to see how these play out, but I'm optimistic with David Kim gone that some of these changes don't make it into the game.
On August 18 2017 03:22 -NegativeZero- wrote: i wonder how effective the nexus shield battery will be at stalling against mineral line harass? it's going to be auto recharging the probes' shields as they are getting killed. (this is a good thing imo)
Very good point. Did they overlook that? We'll have to see what happens on the test servers I suppose.
On August 18 2017 03:28 Solar424 wrote: Shield Battery Nexus isn't going to be enough to stop early game aggression vs Toss. Ghost rush is going to be a problem. 2 Ghosts can one-shot a worker, and if you don't have detection you'll just die. Mass Oracle will continue to be problematic in PvZ, and with the only real counter (Fungal) removed it will be even harder to stop. WoL recall returning could open up some serious shenanigans. The Mothership could recall the army to it, snipe off a base, and get recalled to a Nexus with no way to stop it. The change to Fungal will just reinforce Zerg's "Strong on creep, weak off creep" design philosophy, which will just make the unit useless unless Zerg is turtling. Some of the changes are good, like Infested Terrans getting upgrades and Disruptors no longer erasing half your army because you looked away for a second, but some just allow for F2+A-Move to be even more effective. Will be interesting to see how these play out, but I'm optimistic with David Kim gone that some of these changes don't make it into the game.
Imagine dying to things when you don't have detection, what a horrible experience that would be.
I like most of these changes, except maybe for the HT auto-attack. One of the challenge of having HT in the army is not getting them killed because they are charging in front like idiots. Forced you to put them on a separate hotkey or micro them within your army. Now it's just promoting the 1A move more which is not a good thing. I kinda like the Stalker change, and love that we don't have a MSC anymore, although there is a slight concern for the early game and I fear that the shield recharge might not be enough.
Can't wait to see these changes, I would have liked to see less workers to start with, and maybe a way to promote small skirmishes more but overall it looks good!
On August 18 2017 03:22 -NegativeZero- wrote: i wonder how effective the nexus shield battery will be at stalling against mineral line harass? it's going to be auto recharging the probes' shields as they are getting killed. (this is a good thing imo)
Very good point. Did they overlook that? We'll have to see what happens on the test servers I suppose.
It's not a good thing, by the way.
i support anything that makes workers die slower (without simply buffing their hp and making them cost efficient meat shields).
Is this observer/overseer anti F2 button a joke? F2 should have a downside, don't meake it easier to use.
The rest looks pretty cool, apart from zerg anti air in the late game without fungal. That will be a problem. But if it leads to lots of other anti air buffs for zerg, okay.
Edit: Please look at the oracle, especially now with removing fungal against air and Photon Overcharge.
i don't play SC2 so I don't have a dog in the fight but I am amazed at how often drastic changes seem to be implemented in the game. completely removing units? what about all the people who enjoy the game in its current form? or is game play in such a poor state that it needs an overhaul this large? is it annoying having to re-learn the game so often?
Early game lib harass will be the norm against toss. The problem with the shield recharge mechanic is it has zero benefit against units which one shot workers.
On August 18 2017 03:23 mizenhauer wrote: I love all this "the sky is falling" talk when no one has even seen these changes in a single game...
I love how this kind of post always follows up. Perfectly fine to voice concerns for ideas you don't like when they throw out random "not-finalized" changes.
I was thinking the same, jaeboss. I remember that pro players often said that the game was difficult partly because patches were so frequent (though back in those days, they were definitely more frequent than once a year) and they had to spend a long time acclimating before they could innovate and refine strategies. A lot of these changes are very jarring and completely upend the status quo. On one hand, I understand that a lot of ground-level changes needed to happen, but on the other hand, I'd like some reassurance that this isn't patching for patching's sake and won't be the start of a pattern (similar to how MOBA patches work, where updates are designed to just shake up the meta).
On August 18 2017 03:28 Solar424 wrote: Shield Battery Nexus isn't going to be enough to stop early game aggression vs Toss. Ghost rush is going to be a problem. 2 Ghosts can one-shot a worker, and if you don't have detection you'll just die. Mass Oracle will continue to be problematic in PvZ, and with the only real counter (Fungal) removed it will be even harder to stop. WoL recall returning could open up some serious shenanigans. The Mothership could recall the army to it, snipe off a base, and get recalled to a Nexus with no way to stop it. The change to Fungal will just reinforce Zerg's "Strong on creep, weak off creep" design philosophy, which will just make the unit useless unless Zerg is turtling. Some of the changes are good, like Infested Terrans getting upgrades and Disruptors no longer erasing half your army because you looked away for a second, but some just allow for F2+A-Move to be even more effective. Will be interesting to see how these play out, but I'm optimistic with David Kim gone that some of these changes don't make it into the game.
Imagine dying to things when you don't have detection, what a horrible experience that would be.
The game already has enough "Gotcha, you lose" things in it, why add another one?
I don't really like the protoss changes surviving the first 5 minutes is going to be a struggle with no overcharge, nerfed chronoboost. TBH if they are getting rid of the mothership core they should completely redesign protoss early game maybe make warpgates a later game upgrade (twilight council?) and buff all the early gateway units.
Mine change only helps players who get completely blindsided by having no detection the mine still does massive damage nerfs the proxy mine drops a bit I guess. high templar/obs/overseer changes why are we helping people who press F2 and A move?
The mule mining gas seems very risky, im sure someone will come up with some insane rush with the amount of extra gas they can get.
I like the lurker changes hopefully we see more of them, infestor doesn't seem that strong and this is a nerf not sure what to think about the viper change.
On August 18 2017 03:28 Solar424 wrote: Shield Battery Nexus isn't going to be enough to stop early game aggression vs Toss. Ghost rush is going to be a problem. 2 Ghosts can one-shot a worker, and if you don't have detection you'll just die. Mass Oracle will continue to be problematic in PvZ, and with the only real counter (Fungal) removed it will be even harder to stop. WoL recall returning could open up some serious shenanigans. The Mothership could recall the army to it, snipe off a base, and get recalled to a Nexus with no way to stop it. The change to Fungal will just reinforce Zerg's "Strong on creep, weak off creep" design philosophy, which will just make the unit useless unless Zerg is turtling. Some of the changes are good, like Infested Terrans getting upgrades and Disruptors no longer erasing half your army because you looked away for a second, but some just allow for F2+A-Move to be even more effective. Will be interesting to see how these play out, but I'm optimistic with David Kim gone that some of these changes don't make it into the game.
Imagine dying to things when you don't have detection, what a horrible experience that would be.
The game already has enough "Gotcha, you lose" things in it, why add another one?
Ghost rushes already exist and in their current form they're probably stronger against no detection than they'll be after the patch since ghosts start with more energy to cloak.
On August 18 2017 03:43 Excalibur_Z wrote: I was thinking the same, jaeboss. I remember that pro players often said that the game was difficult partly because patches were so frequent (though back in those days, they were definitely more frequent than once a year) and they had to spend a long time acclimating before they could innovate and refine strategies. A lot of these changes are very jarring and completely upend the status quo. On one hand, I understand that a lot of ground-level changes needed to happen, but on the other hand, I'd like some reassurance that this isn't patching for patching's sake and won't be the start of a pattern (similar to how MOBA patches work, where updates are designed to just shake up the meta).
Exactly that's the problem I fear, as well, frequent patching destroys the steep learning curve, I also heavily dislike the introduction of even more MOBA'esque spells and mechanics like silence or armor reduction, when I want to hit up Heroes of the Storm, I go do that.
On August 18 2017 03:39 jaeboss wrote: i don't play SC2 so I don't have a dog in the fight but I am amazed at how often drastic changes seem to be implemented in the game. completely removing units? what about all the people who enjoy the game in its current form? or is game play in such a poor state that it needs an overhaul this large? is it annoying having to re-learn the game so often?
SC2 doesn't make much cash so prolly bonus money for the guys at the top of the team is low. as a result, we've had 4 guys making the final decisions on multiplayer... Pardo, Browder, Kim, and now, an unnamed mystery man.
On August 18 2017 03:23 mizenhauer wrote: I love all this "the sky is falling" talk when no one has even seen these changes in a single game...
the changes might not be that bad but I'd just like it MUCH more if they would do no changes/only small changes to fix clear issues and instead just let players figure things out like in BW. BW didn't have a balance patch since 2001 and it's still popular. Seems like they just see LoL having success with their patching approach and want to copy them.
On a more serious note though, I do like the changes for protoss. Even the new observer ability. Kicking the MSC is not a bad thing. After all, flying around with a meatball to ignite pylons never felt like a very cool design solution to me (although you can used to a lot).
Now, I'm wondering how much the disruptor shots can backfire if you send a kamikaze tanky unit into the deathball...
On August 18 2017 03:28 Solar424 wrote: Shield Battery Nexus isn't going to be enough to stop early game aggression vs Toss. Ghost rush is going to be a problem. 2 Ghosts can one-shot a worker, and if you don't have detection you'll just die. Mass Oracle will continue to be problematic in PvZ, and with the only real counter (Fungal) removed it will be even harder to stop. WoL recall returning could open up some serious shenanigans. The Mothership could recall the army to it, snipe off a base, and get recalled to a Nexus with no way to stop it. The change to Fungal will just reinforce Zerg's "Strong on creep, weak off creep" design philosophy, which will just make the unit useless unless Zerg is turtling. Some of the changes are good, like Infested Terrans getting upgrades and Disruptors no longer erasing half your army because you looked away for a second, but some just allow for F2+A-Move to be even more effective. Will be interesting to see how these play out, but I'm optimistic with David Kim gone that some of these changes don't make it into the game.
Imagine dying to things when you don't have detection, what a horrible experience that would be.
The game already has enough "Gotcha, you lose" things in it, why add another one?
Ghost rushes already exist and in their current form they're probably stronger against no detection than they'll be after the patch since ghosts start with more energy to cloak.
With build-in cloak Ghosts can get in base invisible 86 seconds faster, which leaves 86 less seconds to get an Overseer/Observer out.
On August 18 2017 03:28 Solar424 wrote: Shield Battery Nexus isn't going to be enough to stop early game aggression vs Toss. Ghost rush is going to be a problem. 2 Ghosts can one-shot a worker, and if you don't have detection you'll just die. Mass Oracle will continue to be problematic in PvZ, and with the only real counter (Fungal) removed it will be even harder to stop. WoL recall returning could open up some serious shenanigans. The Mothership could recall the army to it, snipe off a base, and get recalled to a Nexus with no way to stop it. The change to Fungal will just reinforce Zerg's "Strong on creep, weak off creep" design philosophy, which will just make the unit useless unless Zerg is turtling. Some of the changes are good, like Infested Terrans getting upgrades and Disruptors no longer erasing half your army because you looked away for a second, but some just allow for F2+A-Move to be even more effective. Will be interesting to see how these play out, but I'm optimistic with David Kim gone that some of these changes don't make it into the game.
Imagine dying to things when you don't have detection, what a horrible experience that would be.
The game already has enough "Gotcha, you lose" things in it, why add another one?
Ghost rushes already exist and in their current form they're probably stronger against no detection than they'll be after the patch since ghosts start with more energy to cloak.
With build-in cloak Ghosts can get in base invisible 86 seconds faster, which leaves 86 less seconds to get an Overseer/Observer out.
You forgot about ghost build time + time the ghost is walking to the base
Really, instead of acting like the world is ending, some of these changes are in the right direction. Like mothership core being removed is the right idea, but other things in the game need to be changed to make it work for protoss.
I think blizzard finally has an idea of what we want, but there is trouble getting there, some stuff is gonna be broken. It is way, way better than the last "big patch". It's also obvious that a lot of things won't make it into the game, like that ghost cloak change.
Also I just want to say all the people who say, "uhh templar get an attack F2 so easy!!!" that's very hypocritical if all you do on ladder is ling/bane/hydra a-move yourself. And to Terran players, no, setting up liberators isn't hard and doesn't require insane micro, neither is stutter stepping with marauders. If you complain about F2 not moving "surveillance mode" observers from where they are set up, I should be able to complain that tanks and liberators don't move with F2 selection also.
On August 18 2017 04:02 youngjiddle wrote: Really, instead of acting like the world is ending, some of these changes are in the right direction. Like mothership core being removed is the right idea, but other things in the game need to be changed to make it work for protoss.
I think blizzard finally has an idea of what we want, but there is trouble getting there, some stuff is gonna be broken. It is way, way better than the last "big patch". It's also obvious that a lot of things won't make it into the game, like that ghost cloak change.
Also I just want to say all the people who say, "uhh templar get an attack F2 so easy!!!" that's very hypocritical if all you do on ladder is ling/bane/hydra a-move yourself. And to Terran players, no, setting up liberators isn't hard and doesn't require insane micro, neither is stutter stepping with marauders. If you complain about F2 not moving "surveillance mode" observers from where they are set up, I should be able to complain that tanks and liberators don't move with F2 selection also.
if you amove ling bane hydra you will lose very quickly
On August 18 2017 03:22 -NegativeZero- wrote: i wonder how effective the nexus shield battery will be at stalling against mineral line harass? it's going to be auto recharging the probes' shields as they are getting killed. (this is a good thing imo)
Very good point. Did they overlook that? We'll have to see what happens on the test servers I suppose.
It's not a good thing, by the way.
i support anything that makes workers die slower (without simply buffing their hp and making them cost efficient meat shields).
My point is that if this was to happen, Protoss workers would have a huge advantage over Terrans and Zergs workers
On August 18 2017 03:23 mizenhauer wrote: I love all this "the sky is falling" talk when no one has even seen these changes in a single game...
the changes might not be that bad but I'd just like it MUCH more if they would do no changes/only small changes to fix clear issues and instead just let players figure things out like in BW. BW didn't have a balance patch since 2001 and it's still popular. Seems like they just see LoL having success with their patching approach and want to copy them.
That's because BW doesn't have a ridiculous amount of the fanbase complaining about balance/game design 24/7 like SC2 does. (i dont think anyway)
tbh I knew that everyone on here would be mad about the changes because yall always get mad about changes. But this is a very good direction for the game to go in. Ofc some units will have to be tweeked and some ideas added/removed. But I really like where they're going. specifically:
On August 18 2017 03:22 -NegativeZero- wrote: i wonder how effective the nexus shield battery will be at stalling against mineral line harass? it's going to be auto recharging the probes' shields as they are getting killed. (this is a good thing imo)
Very good point. Did they overlook that? We'll have to see what happens on the test servers I suppose.
It's not a good thing, by the way.
i support anything that makes workers die slower (without simply buffing their hp and making them cost efficient meat shields).
My point is that if this was to happen, Protoss workers would have a huge advantage over Terrans and Zergs workers
Well SCVs can repair each other and have higher health, drones can burrow too.
i'm very glad to see the over-all spirit of the economy changes made with LotV was retained and that Blizzard is just tweaking the economy. Tanks and Thors are nice and strong now and i'm glad to see Blizzard left them alone.
i don't know enough about the other races to comment.. but for this Terran scrub.. this is really nice stuff.
On August 18 2017 03:39 Musicus wrote: Is this observer/overseer anti F2 button a joke? F2 should have a downside, don't meake it easier to use.
The rest looks pretty cool, apart from zerg anti air in the late game without fungal. That will be a problem. But if it leads to lots of other anti air buffs for zerg, okay.
Edit: Please look at the oracle, especially now with removing fungal against air and Photon Overcharge.
Not sure them reverting a full race (Protoss) to HotS is good thinking. Starcraft is more than the sum of its parts ; it's a system where if you move one thing you need to adjust another one in response. Drastic changes will beget more imbalance and more patching. That's a huge cost. It also doesn't do anything for the credibility of the game, or its ability to bring new players to the front.
Between MSC removal and splash redesign they are admitting that they are still clueless about Protoss both early and lategame. You can say better late than never, or six years on, you can shake your head in disbelief.
Nice to see that Blizzard is willing to make big change to SC2.
As a terran player who don't play mech and who hate playing against it I can't say I am super happy with all the changes done to Terran even if some of them look interesting, the ravens changes for example are pretty cool. But playing bio vs mech will probably be super hard, especially against turtle mech, since the meching player will now have a good 15 suply more since mule can mine gas, and a lot of the new upgrade look super strong. I do fear a bit for tvz since Terran playing mech and zerg staying on creep seems like a bad mix, the lurker change do seem nice.
As for protoss, MSC removal is a big move but it could work, the new recal could lead to some interesting strategy.
Only change I truly oppose is giving high templar an attack, storm is already a super deadly spell (probably the strongest in the game), it should come with certain difficulty to use. If HT get an attack storm range should be reduce at least.
On August 18 2017 04:07 Fango wrote: That's because BW doesn't have a ridiculous amount of the fanbase complaining about balance/game design 24/7 like SC2 does. (i dont think anyway)
These changes don't look particularly balanced (in particular I think Protosses will have a lot of trouble in the early game without photon overcharge), but design-wise they're pretty cool.
-go 3 Base, make Mothership, stay at home with my army and be safe
-fly mothership to opponents main around the corner of the map, teleport whole army into his main, wreck his main while mothership flies over to his third
-teleport everything out of his main into his third when he comes to defend his main, wreck his third
- when he comes to defend third, i just teleport everything out again and lose basically nothing while killing 2 bases. right!?
Well, when I first saw the leaked change on the Chinese website Baidu tieba, I never take them seriously. Though that guy was proven to be correct before when he posted same thing about commander Fenix before official release, it is hardly to believe these change are true because some of them look wired and nonsense (such as MSC and fungal). I translated them here is only for sharing more information, and I did not expect they are indeed true and correct. This is really a surprise. However after reading the official blog, I have to agree at least they seem reasonable. We shall see what would happen in testing. A lot of them may be revert and never live long enough to the official patch.
It's really cool that they still want to change protoss big time.
Even if I agree with their assessments of the Disruptor (too 'all or nothing'), I'm not sure about the changes. Prism play should be encouraged, the added cooldown is weird. We'll have to see but the auto detonate 'feature' feels like it could be abused way to easily by the opposing player, especially if it detonates 'immediately'.
On August 18 2017 03:39 jaeboss wrote: i don't play SC2 so I don't have a dog in the fight but I am amazed at how often drastic changes seem to be implemented in the game. completely removing units? what about all the people who enjoy the game in its current form? or is game play in such a poor state that it needs an overhaul this large? is it annoying having to re-learn the game so often?
changes this drastic havent been made since tankivac removal, which was almost a year ago
edit: it just depends on your definition of what makes "drastic changes" "often". league makes drastic changes every 2 to 4 weeks (i fucking hate patches every 2 weeks), whereas dota makes changes maybe once every 6-8 months, and even then the changes are usually relatively minor in dota.
An early raven is going to be so good against protoss if/when these changes go through. 50 energy to disable a colossus' attack for 6 seconds? Gonna make some insane timings.
On August 18 2017 03:22 -NegativeZero- wrote: i wonder how effective the nexus shield battery will be at stalling against mineral line harass? it's going to be auto recharging the probes' shields as they are getting killed. (this is a good thing imo)
Very good point. Did they overlook that? We'll have to see what happens on the test servers I suppose.
It's not a good thing, by the way.
i support anything that makes workers die slower (without simply buffing their hp and making them cost efficient meat shields).
My point is that if this was to happen, Protoss workers would have a huge advantage over Terrans and Zergs workers
Well SCVs can repair each other and have higher health, drones can burrow too.
This shield thing will be able to be on autocast. So Protoss just sits there and has probes that are tougher to kill, whereas Zerg has to research a lair upgrade and Terrans have to react fast and micro to get the same effect? How is this good in anyway?
It would fit with Protoss though. Getting more and more handheld than it already is
a little disappointing that they're trying to make the game easier (almost all the protoss changes and the f2 thing) but overall it looks pretty good and very exciting
Some changes are quite interesting. But personally default cloaked ability for Ghost is a big No-No and just No. I already foresee the pain of Ghost rush as I experienced this build myself recently as a Z. I barely scouted it as he ran the Ghost in overlord vision so I built some spores immediately. If the cloaked ability is default, he probably had a bunch of cloaked ghosts showed up at my base and I just died.
Frankly, I feel this "potential" patch is another buff to Terran and only make TvZ is even more abusive. I don't play Protoss so not sure how they feel. I guess the "Terran rules" meme on DK's email is true after all.
On August 18 2017 02:11 eviltomahawk wrote: Interesting how the Chinese leak turned out to be completely correct on these.
Here was the leaking webpage in a famous Chinese StarCraft II community.
prnt.sc The original webpage url was tieba.baidu.com. Whose topic is translated as Multiplayers are coming to StarCraft II Multiplayers! This leaking occurs on 14:29 on Aug.14th CST a.k.a. 6:29 on Aug.14th GMT. It seems that the leaking topic has already been deleted up till now.
Here comes the contents.
prnt.sc #2: Firstly vespene geyser value increased and large mineral nodes at bases are increased #3: Terran #4: MULEs can now harvest vespene gas
prnt.sc #7: widow mines are now revealed while sentinel missile is on cooldown
prnt.sc #10: Raven removed all existing abilities First ability: target mechanical unit's weapons and abilities are disabled for a short time Second ability: deploys a timed life repair drone. The drone can target and repair mechanical units that enter the area Third ability: deploys a missile which activates after a short delay and pursues the target unit, dealing 30 damage on impact and reducing armor by 3 for a short duration
prnt.sc #14: Liberators no longer gains bonus vision when using defender mode Now gains vision of its target location in defender mode #15: Cyclones' first four shots of lock on fire more rapidly, missile deals extra damage when upgraded
prnt.sc #17: cloak is now available by default on ghosts Less energy start Starting energy can be upgraded with certain research #18: New upgrade: hellion, hellbat, thor and viking transformation times are reduced heavily, which can be researched on the factory techlab
prnt.sc #25: Protoss huge change: RE! MOVE! MO! THER! SHIP! CORE! Concentrating defensive power in the nexus itself, nexus gains energy bar and casters Redesign and add abilities: Chrono Boost, Mass Recall, Shield Restore Chrono Boost costs energy Mass Recall can recall units to the casting nexus instead of the main Shield Restore can be cast on units or structures
prnt.sc #28: Motherships now built directly from the nexus, no longer can cast photon overcharge, mass recall now works like the nexus version above
prnt.sc #30: Stalkers damage increased, weapon speed decreased, every weapon upgrade increase more damage #31: High templars are added an auto attack, which will keep the high templar further back during fights and avoid its charging heedlessly into danger
Zerg changes are kinda lame. Infestor is no longer AA caster (infested terrans are slow and not an option), viper's PB will do nothing to massive skytoss/skyterran army, so zerg won't have effective AA except fragile hydra-based and slow and clunky corruptor-based compositions. Also we will have to spend more time creepspreading, but larvae is left untoched unlike mules/boost for terran/toss. Also no reaper changes that they were announcing previously. And SH nerf makes it from somewhat effective harass-tool to complete trash-unit again. GG.
On August 18 2017 04:51 Muxtar wrote: Zerg changes are kinda lame. Infestor is no longer AA caster (infested terrans are slow and not an option), viper's PB will do nothing to massive skytoss/skyterran army, so zerg won't have effective AA except fragile hydra-based and slow and clunky corruptor-based compositions. Also we will have to spend more time creepspreading, but larvae is left untoched unlike mules/boost for terran/toss. Also no reaper changes that they were announcing previously. And SH nerf makes it from somewhat effective harass-tool to complete trash-unit again. GG.
Finally, terran aggression will be viable again now that the mothership core is gone. I think i may have to start playing sc2 again since it's seems we are moving away from boring ass turtle play.
i'm not sure that this stalker very small buff ( same dps as before juste fire rate and damage have been changed) and the new nexus shield battery (that will trade macro for defence) will be enough to live through zerg and terrans harass/ all-ins early game.
no mother core = more units need to be created = less macro potential use of shield battery on units = less chrono boost = even more less macro potential
On August 18 2017 04:51 Muxtar wrote: Zerg changes are kinda lame. Infestor is no longer AA caster (infested terrans are slow and not an option), viper's PB will do nothing to massive skytoss/skyterran army, so zerg won't have effective AA except fragile hydra-based and slow and clunky corruptor-based compositions. Also we will have to spend more time creepspreading, but larvae is left untoched unlike mules/boost for terran/toss. Also no reaper changes that they were announcing previously. And SH nerf makes it from somewhat effective harass-tool to complete trash-unit again. GG.
lol slow corruptors? when exactly was the last time you played a game?
On August 18 2017 05:10 ReachTheSky wrote: Finally, terran aggression will be viable again now that the mothership core is gone. I think i may have to start playing sc2 again since it's seems we are moving away from boring ass turtle play.
OMG wow so many changes, and finally the removal of the MSC holy shit i have been begging for this since hots ty ty ty and no PHOTON OVERCHARGE YEAYEAYEA might actually play the game again..
The Good The economy changes are a step in the right direction. Removing mothership core.
The meaningless The Swarm Host change is a step in the right direction but they will still be OP vs mech. The Carrier change is so small it will have no effect at all.
The absurd changes Blink Stalker will be completely broken vs mech. Just blink on top of the tanks and kill everything in one volley. Being able to teleport the Protoss army over the entire map every 15 seconds in late game (when you have 5-6 Nexus). Parasitic bomb doing 180 damage so that you can not use vikings vs Zerg.
The completely bonkers changes Actively trying to make F2 easier to use for Protoss and Zerg. Nerfing widow mines into the ground by making them visible until they have reloaded.
Overall this patch is really really bad. It would have been much better to just nerf Carriers and Swarm Hosts and leave the rest of the game as it is.
On August 18 2017 04:51 Muxtar wrote: Zerg changes are kinda lame. Infestor is no longer AA caster (infested terrans are slow and not an option), viper's PB will do nothing to massive skytoss/skyterran army, so zerg won't have effective AA except fragile hydra-based and slow and clunky corruptor-based compositions. Also we will have to spend more time creepspreading, but larvae is left untoched unlike mules/boost for terran/toss. Also no reaper changes that they were announcing previously. And SH nerf makes it from somewhat effective harass-tool to complete trash-unit again. GG.
I think you are underestimating how strongly infested terrans were just buffed, and how the effective the new PB will be. Each infested terran now has significantly more AA dps than a stalker, and PB is twice as strong, so it'll be a lot more effective against carriers and potentially voidrays, since it was very hard to get more than 2 PBs off before with how snipable vipers are.
I do think that the fungal AA could be a problem, but against ground it's really a huge buff. I agree we should get 3 larvae instead of 2 with injects tho, for both design and balance reasons (swarmy play)
SH change is a good thing IMO, it was a tad overpowered and this new change incentivizes not just creep spread but nydus/SH play, which is ideally how they should be used.
great changes probably some of the best iv seen ,overall for protoss and terran(except the mule) , mothership C terrible unit that denied any fun or timing plays by any race
but zerg? only nerfs?
swarm host , irrelevant change
infestors? infestors zerg was already out of options against airtoss, people in team games and pvz were airtoss like 80%+ of the games, i was expecting a buff to late game anti air.. early anti air wasnt a problem at all zerg had plenty of options, now zvz will be 100% muta vs muta again, and protoss alrdy had 100% control with air
the only way i see to fix this would be getting rid of the useless infested terrans and give it something against protoss shield at least for air units, there was no counter for carriers before, you could sometimes win 5% of your games with infestors if they really mess up, but with infestor nerf , how is zerg suppose to deal with carriers ? unless the new vipers MELT them, zerg will be forced to finish the game early or mid game now or lose 100%
Now I know there's a lot of really interesting discussion about the 5017 ways this patch is terrible, but I think it's important to take the time to admire the new Terran dance moves.
I just thought that new "mass recall" will work just like Town Portal in Heores of Might and Magic III XDDDD
And changing funghal growth will make ZvZ Muta Fiesta again. Zerg will also be vulnerable to protoss air- mass oracles, Phoenix will be pain in the ass, Voidrays too...Infested Terrans on't even catch anything without funghal. Not good change at all.
There is a huge issue - none of the proposed changes address carriers or swarmhosts, yet they hardcore nerf the scaling factor of Terran ravens.
Carriers still beat everything, the new ravens even are worse vs carriers. And swarmhosts now might be slower off creep but still do the exact same thing and have no equivalent of Terrans accumulating seekers late game or auto turrets.
I'm all for raven being changed or nerfed but not if the other two races scaling units are basically not touched at all. It puts Terran mech in a situation where you basically autolose if the guy makes 10 carriers, which is currently how the game is on live.
Same with swarmhosts, the situation is very bad even with all the new changes.
Mech needs more anti-air fire power to trade vs carriers and i think swarmhost should be light units should hellions can chase them down.
That's my feedback. All the other changes seem like they have potential, but carriers/SH still have no counter from a mech Terran. And ravens feel worse, while seeker is blatantly hardcore nerfed.
I'd like to see a combined cooldown on mass recall for all nexi, so we won't see whole 200 supply arming being shuffled all around the map in late game
Lore says when Zealots have worn down from battle that they are re-engineered into Stalkers. Add some ability to Toss to justify it early game. Geez, if so much is centered around this, why not fix it?
Raven changes sound nice. MSC might finally be removed after almost all complaints have died down. But certainly interesting to see how things change. Observer change is really nice and fit the animation nicely. I like it. Infestor changes sound questionable. But tying mechanism to creep is a nice move. Looks like they are trying to make Zerg using parasitic bomb for AA again... I really don't see how this is going to end very well. inb4 all the click ability to demolish enemy air complaints.
Really stoked about the MSC being removed and the economy changes which are big changes in the right direction.
But Fungal not being possible vs. air units? That must be some type of a bad joke, they are the only way to catch up in a ZvZ when someone takes the lead in numbers from the inevitable Mutalisk wars and they are a lynch pin of taking out mass air, which is still extremely powerful vs. Zerg and requires a very precise and well executed Ling/Bane/Hydra push to defeat, "before they get there".
If those changes go through I don't see how Hydralisks will not be due for a significant anti-air buff, something to the tune of +1 range vs air units or +2 dmg to aerial units only, or if the changes were applied to Queens perhaps? I don't know, Zerg anti-air already sucks and while I'm stoked about the Lurker changes, Zerg AA being even more beaten into the ground is just awful.
I don't see the point talking about Carrier or 3 bases plays as there is no way PvZ/T are going to past two bases play. Protoss will be back to Wing of Liberty's defensive capability - with a notably better stalker I'd agree - versus Ravager and Corrosive bile, ling baneling and speedoverlord drops, newer all hydra timings and apparently lurkers now, freaking liberator, doom drops, medivacs boost...
I mean... I'm all aboard on removing the Mothership core, but a better Stalker is not gonna compensate for it. Protoss would need a major re-design in itself, stuff like the role of warpgate, even just the pacing of economy in the game and so on...
I don't mind annual or every-half-year big changes like this. Looks interesting to say at least. Can't and won't comment on balances at this stage though I read through it.
On August 18 2017 06:15 CHEONSOYUN wrote: observers and overlords have siege mode now? to protect them from the player base?
hahaha this game is too funny
What's funny about it?
there's already a command for this called hold position. what's funny is that this is a change meant for sc2 players who just have to have everything on one or two hotkeys and have to continually box control group and attack command.
instead of players managing their unit selection there will be a button to protect the detectors from the players.
But after reading the changes completely im really excited for that patch. There are obviously some question marks but i really appreciate the initative for major changes like these. And overall, every change seems sound to me or at least reasonable to try out. Lets see what we'll have learned in a few months. Good job Blizzard!
On August 18 2017 06:15 CHEONSOYUN wrote: observers and overlords have siege mode now? to protect them from the player base?
hahaha this game is too funny
What's funny about it?
there's already a command for this called hold position. what's funny is that this is a change meant for sc2 players who just have to have everything on one or two hotkeys and have to continually box control group and attack command.
instead of players managing their unit selection there will be a button to protect the detectors from the players.
...lol!
Well I don't think hold position makes it unable to move or increases the vision range by 25%. There seem to be advantages/disadvantages to using it, so I don't get why it's funny.
Unless you're going for haha sc2 noob game in which case carry on I guess.
On August 18 2017 06:15 CHEONSOYUN wrote: observers and overlords have siege mode now? to protect them from the player base?
hahaha this game is too funny
God forbid we do a calculated minor change to make the game easier to play for beginners that doesn't affect higher level play AT ALL.
can you argue that automatic worker counter, all army button and other "quality of life" changes haven't affected top level play?
when sc2 was still WoL i would see players constantly counting their workers, and often the best players would be the ones who managed their economy the best. you could notice a difference between those that did and those that oversaturated their bases.
now i see some games and almost everyone manages their economy perfectly because blizzard implemented a tool to make it trivial.
things like this implicitly affect some higher level play because RTS and the real time element of the genre taxes all players. when there's less stress put on top level players it's very noticeable
also the biggest red flag to me here is the MULE change. this essentially gives terran the ability to balance out his resources regardless of what is occuring throughout the game
RTS a lot of games revolve around what compositions are chosen and how quickly you choose to take expansions and resources on the map.
more mineral heavy compositions feature faster games while gas heavy compositions feature players trying to expand more quickly while remaining defensive as they mass. how many games have you seen of mineral heavy players floating too much gas or gas heavy players desperate to balance their mineral to gas ratio?
this inheriently goes against what RTS should be about
Lol proxy ghost rush is rather strong now, just done it on the test ladder a couple times. Ghost's can only cloak for like 20 seconds or so but have it so quickly
Blizzard cutting back on a little of the 2-expansion bloat, good for them. I mean it's a start.
The changes as a whole are too much to pass judgement on without seeing it all in action. Blizzard's reasoning for reach change seems sound, though. I don't see any justification for the assumption that they're just trying to "shake up the meta" in a general, haphazard way. I see designers with specific goals for improving their game.
I think the current raven spells aren't very good however : - scrambler missile will only be helpful in 2 matchups out of 3, and seems either like an unfair "your colossi are useless" spell, either "8 range ? feedbacks all the way lolol" - healing drone is a mech medivac, not very inspired and may be OP. Needing SCVs and ressources to sustain your mech army is a very important anti turtle mechanic - shredder missile just seems gimmicky. Armor reduction in SC2? Does anyone remember the anti armor drone ghosts had in LOTV beta and how it failed miserably? Also, 125 energy for 30 damage and armor reduction? That hardly seems worth it. ALSO ALSO : thor AA splash was buffed, and with -3 armor missiles some stupid wombo combos could happen
And most importantly : the PDD is PIVOTAL for mech play to be viable in a lot of cases. Just remplacing it for a mech medivac seems really dumb. Why not have a 50 energy defensive matrix, a 100 energy PDD, and some 125 energy missile that deals low damage and diminishes attack speed/attack strength?
ALSO ALSO ALSO : scrambler missile effect could be included into the ghost's snipe. I've advocated for a while that the ghost's snipe would be more reliable if it had an effect on mech units to complement its anti bio use. Having one caster useful against bio and one caster useful against mech seems stupid.
Those changes look totally random to me, and I'm quite sad we'll throw away completely a state of the game that was far from perfect but at least reasonable. Let's see how this turns out.
Edit : my bad, after a thorough reading the changes seem quite well thought out. I'd have liked something about oracles but hey. This will need extensive testing but has real potential.
On August 18 2017 06:50 The_Templar wrote: If the mothership core is being removed, I might actually start playing again. Hated that unit. Overall, the changes look great to me.
This. As a Terran player I utterly hated that thing. Pretty much meant Protoss early game in TvP could play extremely greedy and rely on the Mothership Core for defense against any early aggression. Coupled with the game ending harass Protoss could throw at you in the form of Proxy Oracle or Warp Prism + Adept, it made the early game feel very one-sided with Protoss having all the aggressive options (each of which requires a different response) whilst being able to hide behind the MSC if it failed. It probably isn't that black and white but it sure as hell felt like it when a Proxy Oracle flies headfirst into a Widow Mine and you can't punish Protoss for it with a counter-attack because of Photon Overcharge and the threat of more Oracles. Protoss still has some of the best defensive options in the game with shields that regenerate, the power of warp-ins and having anti-air, anti-ground and detection rolled into one defensive building. And they get a shield booster now which feels like a much more fair defensive tools than Photon Overcharge destroying everything. It now supports rather than acting on its own.
The only change I find odd as a Terran is the Widow Mine now being visible after firing. Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of the unit? Wasn't it supposed to deny an area due to its (cloaked) presence? I never liked the unit (I miss the TvZ Marine / Siege Tank days) but now it feels like it literally is a one-time gimmick unit. Not to mention that by using Overlords or Hallucinations you can tank shots for free and now get a free kill on a Widow Mine. Other than the one to hold off an Oracle, I doubt I'd ever build one. Maybe reduce the supply to 1 to compensate for this?
On August 18 2017 06:50 The_Templar wrote: If the mothership core is being removed, I might actually start playing again. Hated that unit. Overall, the changes look great to me.
This. As a Terran player I utterly hated that thing. Pretty much meant Protoss early game in TvP could play extremely greedy and rely on the Mothership Core for defense against any early aggression. Coupled with the game ending harass Protoss could throw at you in the form of Proxy Oracle or Warp Prism + Adept, it made the early game feel very one-sided with Protoss having all the aggressive options (each of which requires a different response) whilst being able to hide behind the MSC if it failed. It probably isn't that black and white but it sure as hell felt like it when a Proxy Oracle flies headfirst into a Widow Mine and you can't punish Protoss for it with a counter-attack.
Funny thing is I'm protoss. I hated using it - completely felt like a gimmick and just really annoying to control between multiple bases.
On August 18 2017 06:50 The_Templar wrote: If the mothership core is being removed, I might actually start playing again. Hated that unit. Overall, the changes look great to me.
This. As a Terran player I utterly hated that thing. Pretty much meant Protoss early game in TvP could play extremely greedy and rely on the Mothership Core for defense against any early aggression. Coupled with the game ending harass Protoss could throw at you in the form of Proxy Oracle or Warp Prism + Adept, it made the early game feel very one-sided with Protoss having all the aggressive options (each of which requires a different response) whilst being able to hide behind the MSC if it failed. It probably isn't that black and white but it sure as hell felt like it when a Proxy Oracle flies headfirst into a Widow Mine and you can't punish Protoss for it with a counter-attack.
Funny thing is I'm protoss. I hated using it - completely felt like a gimmick and just really annoying to control between multiple bases.
I did always wonder why it was added in the first place. I can recall something being said about it making PvP less 4gate vs 4gate back in the day but it affected so much more in the end. I miss the WoL days where I could actually open Cloak Banshee and force Protoss on the defensive and laugh if they tried to 4gate me without any detection.
This. I don't know what to say. I am glad I never really quit Sc2! I have some reservations against a few of these changes, but I am willing to live with it for a month or too, before they are addressed, as long as we get all these changes, as stated in the update. Right now, SVP.
Unbelievable. I won't believe it until its live. Patch 3.8 started out equally promising.
lol nothing on adepts and oracle. HT gaining auto attack is a nerf imo because it now has same attack priority as other units. This is why Arbiters have a auto attack in BW.
Interesting changes. I like that they are willing to still make such large modifications to the game. The Protoss ones are the most interesting and problematic though.
As it stands, using full nexus energy on chrono alone will equate to the same build reduction as current chrono, but with more flexibility in saving up energy to power out certain things. However, with photon overcharge being removed, and the new shield recharge "defense mechanic" requiring nexus energy as well, protoss is receiving a nerf. I also forsee them having great trouble securing a third base against Zerg, considering photon overcharge is stronger than this new shield mechanic, and it requires the third base to be fully built and have energy to do anything defensive. I hope they can remedy this, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the MSC come back again after they are unsuccessful in doing so.
The disruptor change at first glance seems like a wash, but it's actually a large nerf to the unit. You can now block disruptor shots with a single cheap unit by putting it in the line of fire, causing it to blow up prematurely and deal little damage. Also, when using with zealots, you can no longer direct the shot past the front line to avoid friendly fire. The shots will explode ontop of the units the zealots are attacking, killing them as well. Lastly, the disruptor becomes extremely awkward in situations where units like zerglings or roaches etc get on top of them inside your own army. This will cause the shots to explode ontop of the disruptor and potentially wipe out a lot of your own units. Unit will be terrible after this change, so I don't forsee it going through.
The Nexus Recall ability will grow in power as the game progresses, and become extremely potent late game, where energy for shield recharge and chronoboost isn't needed. Unfortunately, what protoss really needs is an answer for early game defense, which this won't be that useful for.
I feel like it's going to be very hard to rebalance early mid game protoss without the MSC. I hope they can do it, but the real solution would have been stronger gateway units and no warpgate, and that will obviously never happen.
I hardly ever post here, but I wanted to express how much I like these changes. They are all well thought out, meaningful, and there isn't a single one I don't like.
The auto-attack on HTs and the ability to make Observers stationary are particular favorites of mine. They probably won't affect pro play that much (although some pros, for example Classic do tend to run HTs into their doom on occasion), but will reduce frustration for me personally SO DAMN MUCH.
And I'm gladly willing to give up Photon Overcharge in exchange for cool new Nexus abilities and revealed Widow Mines. The latter change might also bring back Templar openings in PvT.
Again, great job Blizzard. Put this patch out after the Brood War HD hype has died down a little, and SC2 might yet see a revival \o/
This is great, really shakes things up. Looking forward to seeing how this plays out. Plenty will be broken, but I only need it to be fun, they can fix things up.
Community: This game is awful, we fucking hate it. Blizzard proposes changes. ''Change? We don't need any changes, the game is perfect, let the meta settle down''.
On August 18 2017 09:09 Morbidius wrote: Community: This game is awful, we fucking hate it. Blizzard proposes changes. ''Change? We don't need any changes, the game is perfect, let the meta settle down''.
Maybe different people in the community have different opinions?
Well im kinda disappointed even though i wasn't expecting much. Most feels like changes for changes sake and adept doesnt even get touched. I admit MSC-removal might be good but otherwise just meh.
On August 18 2017 05:47 K_osss wrote: Not a fan of the protoss changes. I think the changes will probably make them less likely to move out on the map than more likely.
You can recall with no chance of getting stuck because you can't snipe the mothership core so they can't recall. 100% guaranteed recalls should help with moving out.
The 3 most dominant units of the game, marine, baneling, adept...untouched at least directly. The only good thing I see is the removal of the heroic unit, the MSC, that was the symbol of volatility that I would love to see removed of the game.
I'm skeptical about moving recall to the nexus. It basically sounds like the same ability as before but it doesn't require a specific unit to be present with the army and has multiple energy pools.
On August 18 2017 09:52 claybones wrote: I'm skeptical about moving recall to the nexus. It basically sounds like the same ability as before but it doesn't require a specific unit to be present with the army and has multiple energy pools.
On August 18 2017 09:52 claybones wrote: I'm skeptical about moving recall to the nexus. It basically sounds like the same ability as before but it doesn't require a specific unit to be present with the army and has multiple energy pools.
The MS is still there though, built at a nexus.
They only removed MSC, which is still ok imo.
Not sure what you meant in your response. I'm saying that I think recall might be a bit too strong if you can cast it from any nexus.
On August 18 2017 06:50 The_Templar wrote: If the mothership core is being removed, I might actually start playing again. Hated that unit. Overall, the changes look great to me.
The only change I find odd as a Terran is the Widow Mine now being visible after firing. Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of the unit? Wasn't it supposed to deny an area due to its (cloaked) presence? I never liked the unit (I miss the TvZ Marine / Siege Tank days) but now it feels like it literally is a one-time gimmick unit. Not to mention that by using Overlords or Hallucinations you can tank shots for free and now get a free kill on a Widow Mine. Other than the one to hold off an Oracle, I doubt I'd ever build one. Maybe reduce the supply to 1 to compensate for this?
I don't think it'll work much different than how it does now. In head on engagements, most players will have detection so mines being visible after firing isn't an issue anyway and tanking shots could be done with those units already and be cleaned up by an army with an overseer.
The mine is only cloaked while on cool down. I think it'll mainly affect widow mines as harass tools because you don't have to have your detection in place or a cannon to clean it up after it gets the damage in.
On August 18 2017 09:52 claybones wrote: I'm skeptical about moving recall to the nexus. It basically sounds like the same ability as before but it doesn't require a specific unit to be present with the army and has multiple energy pools.
They can balance it out with a higher energy requirement or a global cooldown.
On August 18 2017 09:52 claybones wrote: I'm skeptical about moving recall to the nexus. It basically sounds like the same ability as before but it doesn't require a specific unit to be present with the army and has multiple energy pools.
The MS is still there though, built at a nexus.
They only removed MSC, which is still ok imo.
Not sure what you meant in your response. I'm saying that I think recall might be a bit too strong if you can cast it from any nexus.
1. Without more experienced... experience regarding economy, I can't properly comment about those changes.
2. The MULE change can be radical, depending on if the gas bonus pays better than the mineral one after the loss, and the extent to which that flexibility will be useful. Potential possibilities (as an uncultured swine) may include power-macroing into upgrades/late-game tech to emergency gas for stuff. It's not necessarily mech-oriented; though bio-heavy armies are rarely gas-starved, there are many situations where players may need some emergent need for quick rebuilding of medivacs, among other circumstances. It could definitely make punishing Terrans harder through attrition.
3. They're really pushing for ravens to be support units rather than the more harass/damage units they currently are (PDDs don't seem to go off as often as turrets for harassment or seekers for those big army fights). While the new abilities seem nifty, I don't like how they're forcing massive changes to a unit that has found a decent niche that can be gently finagled with.
4. From the early days of HotS, I'd always been curious as to why they just didn't make widow mines... actual mines, like they did early in the beta. This is really what it amounts to, albeit with some nudging towards gimmicks of survivability. Yes, there are certainly plays of pros who may be able to hot-pickup their spent mines, especially with the mothership core gone for that speedy defense. For just about every other situation though, it'd be comparable to a one-shot mine, unless it's a mass of them that decimates an army (which would more be an error of the opponent army not being aware).
5. Cloak ghost openers weren't terribly well received, if I recall properly (although that is subject to subjectivity). At the highest level, it was typically easy to counter since the resources spent (namely time) provides Protoss enough time to either kill Terrans outright or have detection out, especially with the popularity of oracle openings. Lacking those things, Protoss GG'ed, no questions asked. I think now the lack of the cloak upgrade more than offsets the loss of energy. Time will tell whether that sort of opening is still too slow. Beyond that, I don't think it will positively affect mid- and late-games, where that energy loss severely hampers ghosts' most important tool, EMP.
6. Seems like a minor change for liberators. Ambivalent on it.
7. The changes to the cyclone makes it easier for it to pick off wounded fliers, that's for sure. I don't think the anti-armor effect is necessary when vikings can be more effective with their (albeit sluggish) mobility.
8. Smart servos will be an interesting upgrade in that it will shrink vulnerabilities in hellion-heavy compositions, as well as make vikings better at harassment. Thor's not terribly impressed, since the moment a player builds them they usually put 'em into the form they need, but it will make reinforcing thors appear more battle-ready. Sounds like a lot of hell for Zerg players, not sure if Protoss or Terrans should scoff.
9. It's about time the mothership core got removed. Although it was a good patch for Protoss' early game, it was also a real eyesore, since it alone could shut down harassment short of a small army knocking at the door; with even a smattering of units, small-scale harassment were easily rebuffed. That said, I'm not sure if the changes will suffice; giving every Nexus mass recall seems like a ridiculous ability in the mid- and late-game, when chrono boost isn't necessarily requisite (like MULEs vs. scans), an absurd degree of mobility. Either that, or it's damn near useless if one's army is picked apart in the animation. And I don't know if shield recharge will be a sufficient replacement for photon overcharge, as much gripe as that ability had. It'll definitely be annoying later when it's stalling buildings from being destroyed, provided it's in that mode.
10. The changes to the disruptor will be determined by whether the inability of landing the massive center shot is an acceptable loss to the less micro-intensity of shoving a big glowing ball of death into an opponent's face. If the DPS loss from that potential is too great, then the cooldown and damage adjustments are irrelevant.
11. Not terribly sure about the upgrade reduction for colossi, but it shouldn't be much in the long term, and the rest does make them much more niche to the anti-light role. They'll also die horribly to marauders, probably.
12. Well, if this ain't a sign that carriers are viable then nothing is. I think the increased cost is manageable with the slight increase in minerals per large node. Maybe.
13. I don't know if this is the most elegant solution to high templars being a little too forward-happy in fights. Frankly, I'm not sure if this change is necessary at all, since other non-attacking spellcasters suffer from the same drawback.
14. I don't think this changes the mothership too much; it was rarely used for defense, so that photon overcharge rarely applied. Still, this has been the weakest iteration to date.
15. Boy, when people regret putting all of their observers in passive mode when their opponents suddenly has cloaked units, and they start scrambling to toggle them a little too late when their one army observer dies. If they can find them.
16. 'Ey, the old infested terran is back! (Sort of.) The fungal nerf seems like a nerf to ultralisks, really, since now the faster units can actually try to get away. Not hitting air is going to make mutalisks and (to a minute extent) phoenixes a real pain to deal with.
17. The separation of the lurker den from the hydralisk den might actually be a boon for Zerg, since doubling up made the den a really critical failure point; losing the lurker den meant not being able to make hydralisks meant air units could rain down on lurkers and all the Zerg would be left with are queens (or a spire) to defend.
18. I mean... if one uses vipers the same way as Zerg are using them now, wouldn't that produce a similar effect? Am I missing something from this change?
19. Overseer change seems unnecessary. Without any defensive mechanism (barring its healthful body), a sitting overseer might as well be a dead one. Maybe someone can pull off high ground shenanigans?
20. This may provide counterplay against swarm hosts (which still have a host of design issues in their own right)... or it may incentivize even more passive play for swarmy players. Not that that's a benefit for them anyway, when fast harassment can easily slit their throats.
These actually sound like good changes, for the most part.
And I'm not surprised the Chinese leaked it. I was living in Hangzhou in early 2010 and got to play the sc2 beta (offline) because there are no copyright laws in China and the cracked software was freely floating around.
Raven is pretty dead. No way you make more than 3 of them in certain mech comps. The strength of the raven was that it could cause things to die. The shredder missile is going to be terribly weak if the current time to hit exists. I guess it makes your opponent think about walking backwards? Why not have a laser designator turret or something that dramatically reduces armor on a single target in range?
Disabling damage and abilities but not movement (i.e., crappy lockdown) will be pretty awful. You would have to cast it on the entirety of the enemies units and then hope he doesn't walk backwards. That is a lot of APM cast single target spells that don't do any damage.
Further, why aren't these the same abilities? Shock Missile: 100, disables attacks and abilities and reduces armor by 5. The raven doesn't need two debuff/dd spells.
the more I think about it the more I think Terran is just getting huge buffs (to mech most importantly) while zerg is getting worse, protoss is just sorta getting worse, but easier to play for noobs.
Not sure why big mineral nodes were buffed. I think it would be more meaningful if they change big/small node ratio. changing it to 5/3 or 6/2 would give more resources earlier. I think that would be more meaningful change and a nice compromise between LOTV and HOTS
WOW! Super interesting. Respect to the new design team for boldly go where no one has gone before -the realm of major unit reverts and major gameplay rethinking in the name of progress.
On August 18 2017 06:50 The_Templar wrote: If the mothership core is being removed, I might actually start playing again. Hated that unit. Overall, the changes look great to me.
This. As a Terran player I utterly hated that thing. Pretty much meant Protoss early game in TvP could play extremely greedy and rely on the Mothership Core for defense against any early aggression. Coupled with the game ending harass Protoss could throw at you in the form of Proxy Oracle or Warp Prism + Adept, it made the early game feel very one-sided with Protoss having all the aggressive options (each of which requires a different response) whilst being able to hide behind the MSC if it failed. It probably isn't that black and white but it sure as hell felt like it when a Proxy Oracle flies headfirst into a Widow Mine and you can't punish Protoss for it with a counter-attack.
Funny thing is I'm protoss. I hated using it - completely felt like a gimmick and just really annoying to control between multiple bases.
Yeah it is garbage, and it has been garbage since it was designed.
I'm reading through comments and can't stop facepalming. What are you guys talking about? good riddance, PO? Protoss is too strong in early game? Protoss shutdowns agressive play vs terran? What in hell is this? PO is the only tool that's keeping protoss population above 22% on ladder. Because protoss gate units LACK damage in small numbers. How did we defend vs terran bio pushes in WoL? Right, mass sentries. Was it balanced? NO. No kind of sheild battery will save protoss, cause it's not about DPS, where are we gonna get DPS to fend off agression?
And i fucking love this when blizzard just goes all the fucking way around a shield battery from BW that was removed from the initial game for the sake of making SC2 a bit more different from original title, and then after 7 years jumps out of the bush and like: OMG we got a solution for you! a shield recharge ability on .... NEXUS! and everyone is like "WOW its so innovative!" What is wrong with you people? And of course you didnt notice how disruptor is finally becoming a reaver, did you? This unit had undergone a HUGE amount of variations/testing but guess what. They failed to find any better design. But they will never accept that fact, no. Dev team is doing a great job, boo me. This is just disgusting to watch. Because that pretty much summs up their level of competence. I hate the sole fact i'm dependant on them because this game is a big part of my life, and the only thing i want them to do is get their hands off it, but no, i'm being too selfish. The only thing im regretting now is ditching BW years ago.
A lot of micro is being removed such as with the Obs change it seems. PvP will also turn out to be the good old Stalker rush fests with the new stronger Stalkers and no MSC.
On August 18 2017 15:48 Heartland wrote: A lot of micro is being removed such as with the Obs change it seems. PvP will also turn out to be the good old Stalker rush fests with the new stronger Stalkers and no MSC.
Not so sure about it, you'd need observers to gain high ground vision now, and with much stronger tanks, without blink I don't see it that strong.
Hmm pretty interesting stuff. I'm glad they are shaking things up. I agree with some of the people saying that the shield battery thing and slight stalker buff won't be enough to help hold off early bio timings and such. They will hopefully see that and make more changes accordingly.
I also think people might be underrating the raven ability lockdown thing a bit. Although of course you won't want more than a few ravens.
I wonder if ghosts starting with cloak is a bigger deal than people realize.
Even though it's one of the minor changes there was one implementation that really made me cringe:
When dropped from a Warp Prism the Disruptor’s Purification Nova will be set to a brief cooldown. As it felt a little too strong vs worker lines otherwise.
That is really unintuitive, they need to find a better way Not a fan of weird bandaid rules like that
I am really unsure about how no ms core will play out, on one hand I'm happy I've hated the bandaid nature of the unit and its ability to act as a catch all in the early game with no scouting information. But I just don't see how toss will hold early game rushes without it. Mabey with new recall Protoss can build early game hit squads to put pressure on than just recall back allowing them to expand? I'm hoping so because if this tactic does not work I don't see how Protoss will be able to deal with aggressive e Terran and Zerg builds that can hit before Protoss has more than 1 or 2 units to stop them. It was less needed in wol because Terran did not have widowmine drops and Zergs did not have ravager to kill forge fast expands. But I'm just worried that gateway units won't be out in time to take advantage of shield recharging and recall.
I love the ideas and intent of these changes, I'm just worried about how they will work if implemented. It took a long time and lots of timing adjustments to get the current early game ballance, I think we will be in for a long slog to get this change worked out.
Protoss indeed will be in trouble without MSCore especially in TvP. BIO is too strong since the beginning of sc2 and this is the source of most bandaids in the game.
Revert to WOL> Nerf BIO> Balance game around that> Slowly add units from HOTS and LoTv> problem solved.
the hell with all the changes, but the freaking shooting pylon is gone. It only took them what 4 (?) years to realize this is a bad game design? Such a relief.
I'm also concerned about how the mule change effects tvz. Bio in tvz is always on a knife edge of ballance right now it's just about right, sometimes Terran does enough dmg, zerg can't get enough t3 and Terran eventually wins other times Zerg can stop Terran. I'm worried the burden may be to high for bio with the reduction In mineral income from mules. Mabey Terran will find ways to use more gas units with bio or to land new weird timings with factory and star port units, but due to split upgrades on the factory and star port I'm worried this could be a nail in the coffin for bio viability at high levels of play. Bio terran already floats gas so it seems like a straight nerf to bio.
This coupled with the mine change might be enough to push bio over a cliff in tvz. Mabey I'm wrong, mabey the gas changes will make it so that Terran can do enough new pressure builds that they can still get to a decent spot with bio, but I'm rather sceptical. It feals like they want to force us to mech but with a nerfed raven And still no good ground to air in not sure mech will be competitive with late game sky Zerg
On August 18 2017 16:42 hiroshOne wrote: Protoss indeed will be in trouble without MSCore especially in TvP. BIO is too strong since the beginning of sc2 and this is the source of most bandaids in the game.
Revert to WOL> Nerf BIO> Balance game around that> Slowly add units from HOTS and LoTv> problem solved.
Problem with that is that Terran has no powerful lategame to transition into. Unless you go full Mech, there is no real transition out of Bio into some kind of powerful Tier 3 unit composition. Bio also doesn't shine until it has Stim, Medivacs, Combat Shield and a few Marauders to tank for it. Early game unupgraded Marines are terrible. Adepts can just volley them and Stalkers can kite them. (which will be a lot easier with the heavier, slower attack)
I'm not really sure why Protoss is so damned afraid of a Bio push early game without the MSC. Are we not allowed to pressure you in the early game? You can throw Warp Prism + Adept, Proxy Oracle, 7g Blink or DTs at us. All of which require a different response, the structures of which can be proxied anywhere on the map to avoid a scout and it will win you the game if not reacted to properly. As a Terran I have to take the sheer existence of such openings into account or I'm coinflipping every TvP I play. What if I don't take into account the possibility of Proxy Oracle? One unchallenged Oracle will win Protoss the game.
In contrast, what aggressive options does Terran really have right now in early game TvP that isn't smacked down easily with the aid of the MSC? I can't even think of a functional Terran cheese in TvP. Does it even exist? If it doesn't, then Protoss knows they have nothing to fear early game and can play however they want whereas Terran has to take a number of aggressive options into consideration before you even start the game.
In late-era WoL I didn't see any massive number of TvPs in the pro scene always getting easily steamrolled over in the early game. Yes we had the early stupid GomTvT era. The game was young and Korean-level microed Bio ruled the day, but that isn't the case anymore. In the late-era of WoL both sides had aggressive options, both sides had to scout, both sides had to build an actual number of units. Maybe this is turning into a bit of a rant but from my point of view, all Protoss has to do now is actually take aggressive options from Terran more into account and build some units. Yes, Terran could potentially attack you with Bio in the early game now. Pretty sure if you scout it and prepare you can hold it off.
The Prism change is an example of dumbing down the micro of Protoss, prisms with disruptors aren't a big deal. They just reward players who keep their eyes on the minimap and who can defend accurately. Observers being tagged with f2 is the same, if you don't want all the observers then you can click them away which a capable player is doing. A less capable one (ie, me) will have to live with having five obs with his army and losing sight of the minimap.
I'd also like to remind everyone that the MSC is not made to fight Zerg or Terran in the early game but to break 4-gate rushing. With stronger Stalkers and no MSC the good ol' gate rushing will come back. Maybe that's fine if two-gate double Stalker openers still work but PvP will turn into something more akin to WoL with this. That's not a good thing.
On August 18 2017 02:44 TheWinks wrote: That mine change is going to cause all sorts of awful problems. If they want to treat them like banes, they're going to have to see a cost reduction, and they're going to have to touch the oracle.
Infested terran getting upgrades back puts fear into my heart for the future of the game. Don't repeat history please.
You missed the part where their base damage was reduced by 2. So with +3 weapon upgrade they will only do +1 damage than what they are doing now. Not the terror they were..
From a zerg standpoint, it feels like a mild nerf for no reason. Infested terrans have been ass since after BLord infestor era. And no matter how bad they were, nobody was clamoring for changes cause everyone would just bring that up when infestors buffs came up, as if that strat was still a thing. Removing 2 damage and adding upgrade scaling to IT's isn't going to do anything except make them worse on average. You are already split between melee and ranged upgrades as zerg, why would you require zerg to be on +2 ranged for them to do the same as before? Sure they have better AA attacks, but when are infested terrans ever going to do anything about medivac's impunity? Even if they spawn instantly you need a slow ass infestor around, creep present, and you need to cast an ability to have timed units that move slow as molasses to hit air? Yeah no. Frankly infestors should start with the energy upgrade, nobody makes it anymore because its not worth, and without it an infestor cant even fungal out of the gate, which is absurd, fungal is nowhere near as impactful as say storm, and unlike ghosts (and now templar) infestors cant just attack normally. Now fungal + bile is effectively being removed as an effective strategy vs bio, and the solution is to split the energy use between fungal and infested terran? At least before it was an easy choice for fungal since IT's sucked, but now the opportunity cost is present where it wasn't before. Tvz will revert to pure ling bane vs bio unless terran goes mech, especially with the weakened mine. I also don't like that they are making zerg even weaker off creep, where it really doesn't need that, just going to encourage defending and turtling till tier 3.
Also lurker upgrade on hive? How does this make lurkers relevant when the game is at tier 3 units by the point you can even make this upgrade? Its 150/150 down the drain. You don't put something you intend to be relevant but minor on hive tech or you simply wont see it used when you can make all the other hive tech instead.
Viper change sounds like a buff at the end of the day. But fungal doesn't hit air so that's one source of damage less vs mass air. This will maul liberators though. Would trade this any day for early game AA though.
Swarm host is still complete trash at the competitive level, you occasionally see a meme victory or loss with them but its only purpose is to surprise people who don't respond properly to them or go for certain niche strats. And I don't know a single player of any race including zerg who actually likes this unit. It sounds like hyperbole to say replace/redesign this unit and blizzard often loves their own ideas too hard to remove them, but I can't think of anyone that isn't totally ok with this idea. There are still a lot of cool ideas for a zerg unit that could have its day in the sun if it was in place of swamhosts.
I generally like the terran changes, its cool mules can have a function for mech now, but the ghost change seems super risky, this is like giving terrans DT's, there were already a few TvT rushes a while back and this just helps that massively (especially with gas mules), game doesn't need more game ending openings that kill you if it gets scouted last on a 4 player map. Mine change is pretty fair even if it sounds drastic, those things only cost 75/25 at the end of the day, they often pay for themselves with a single shot anyway and can still end games and make positions super hard to break, the only thing that kept them balanced till now was that they produced slow. Having all your overseers killed in the push never felt like a great skill based reason to not be able to reclaim territory after a winning fight. I imagine that is true for protoss as well.
Have no idea what to think of the protoss changes, I like them from a design standpoint, but defending against oracles or liberators without overcharge is going to need some compensation. I forsee a lot of tweaks to protoss early game just to make this all work. Disruptor and stalker change will also have immense repercussions on pvp.
Infestor will be dead unit now. Mark my words. They were nerfed and nerfed during all those years and frankly this is the only viable caster for Zerg in midgame. Now it will be useless and funghal not hitting Air is an overkill. How Zerg will defend mass oracles, phoenixes or even voidrays? How Zerg will be able to protect Broodlords vs mass Terran Air? Vipers won't do. Not to mention ZvZ and mass mutas which will break this matchup now.
Additionally, nerfing funghal into oblivion this way Blizzard is killing very interesting and micro intensivetactics like corrosive bile/ funghal combo vs BIO as a defensive tool just as vs air. Must i remind u that bile/funghal was pretty good vs Carriers?
I liked the changes overall. However, if they want to do drastic changes, they should man up and do it properly. Just remove widow mine & swarm host completely, i honestly can't believe this stupid units survived for so many years. It is also sad to not see a nerf to the Oracle revelation since it is the most op ability in the game. High Templar cost less than Infestor & Ghost and it is WAY more powerful than both. How come they are still getting buffs? Can someone explain?
Medivak Boost was the oryginal issue that provoked Muta Speed buff and Phoenix speed buff because of that. To be hones if medivack boost was gone or cost energy- there will be no problems with MScore missing.
Medivack without speed boost will be managable for Protoss to defend, less game ending and more about positioning. Not boosting blindli on shift command all over the map. BIO is agile and mobile already without it
the servos upgrade looks like complete bullshit, transforming hellions into adepts the animation looks silly too
Would be much better to have the servos allow the units to transform while moving but with a massive deceleration
cyclone change feels like an uncessary gimmick with a pointless upgrade (150/150 for 46 more damage? Come on.), the main reason why the cyclone AA suck is because it's a spell with a cooldown that deals extremely little damage. Just increase the damage or make it a regular attack solves the problem, no need for "yeah 4 first shots go faster and then you have a 150/150 upgrade that adds 2 dmg versus armored per shots"
mine nerf is plain retarded, just making it unable to target workers would be much, much better and fairer
stalker change is stupid too, it actually makes the stalker worse as a frontal fighter while making it more abusive in cheesy situations
adept stays unchanged? WHY? Removal of the MSC seems like a perfect occasion to remove the shade and buff the adept's stats so it become the true frontline/backbone fighter it's supposed to be
the more i think about it the more terran mech will now be complete garbage against vipers (even more than before). 180 dmg parabomb that oneshots vikings, no more PDD or seeker to defend your army (healing drone doesn't save abducted units)
the more i think about it the more encouraging F2 with obs/overseer deployement is an insult to everything that SC2 stands for
At the end of the day i'd just wish they're do the eco change, remove the MSC and make the nexus a shield battery with chronoboost, and slightly buff the stalker's attack + remove the shade and buff the adept's frontal power to compensate for the overcharge That'd actually be a good starting point to THEN try out other changes
F2 itself was already an insult to everything that SC2 stands for...
At the end of the day i'd just wish they're do the eco change, remove the MSC and make the nexus a shield battery with chronoboost, and slightly buff the stalker's attack + remove the shade and buff the adept's frontal power to compensate for the overcharge That'd actually be a good starting point to THEN try out other changes
So true... First fix the core design problems, which - and it's irritating to observe- they are finally willing to acknowledge for the MSC but not for tor the economy... There was so many great threads here on TL, well documented, tested by pros it's baffling they went with what they chose and that they still stick to it. To your list I'd add a Warpgate re-design, either making it a late game upgrade, or just that portal transformed into warpgate can either produce as a portal at faster rate, or warp around pylône/warp prism but in a much longer time.
My perosnal design hopes: (everything is biased but the numbers) rescource changes for mapmakers: Starting locations: 2 gas geysirs expo locations: 1 high yield geysir
What compensation for transforming energy into increased gas mining (MULE harvesting gas), do Zerg and Protoss get? In a way repairdrone(Raven) already exists: MULEs can repair mech units and mechplayers usually have an excess of minerals (new MULE could help balancing the gas/mineral ratio here)
I assume a 3 OC soft economy cap 90gas per Mule until expiration * 3 = 270 gas (~250gas/minute) this allows for an additional 1 factory/starport producing a gas heavy unit Thor : ~280gas/min with constant production ST : ~234gas/min " Raven : ~280 gas/min " BC : ~280 gas/min " 3 MULES in Minerals allow for around 3 Raxx additional Production (cost for supplydepots is taken into calculation) It is kind of balanced out because gas is 2-3 times more valuable than minerals (scarcity of resources, ~2,5 times more minerals on any given map than there are gas resouces)
I play Terran since WoL, and I dislike the MULE change
Warping in units should make the cooldown for next warp-in longer than the duration of producing them out of Gateways. (defenders advantage wihtout removing warpgate mechanic, still allows for cool warpin at enemy base, proxy or straight offensive capabilities just add more Warpgates to balance out longer cooldowns; all this means more strategic CHOICES)
Sorry these are my opinions and it´s a rant :D
edit: clearing things up and writing out abbreviations
This is sooo many changes at once. The game will be in a state of chaos after this. For a long time. But maybe that's okay.
Looking at these suggested updates, I think Protoss will struggle a lot holding terran mech all ins and holding terran stim (+1) timings. There will be no fast 3rd in that matchup.
I like the static observer ability. And I like the infestor changes.
There are 2 main things to be said about this major redesign: 1. I do not like the approach of constant big changes to the game. It is far more better to have properly made game and then stop development (at least in game design department) and let the meta emerge and flow. However with that being said and taking into consideration taht even though the game settled in okeyish spot right now I do believe it is still far away from being "properly made" and ther still can be a lot done to improve sc2 gameplaywise. Which brings us to 2nd point:
2. Actual changes in abovementioned patch: these are in fact quite nice I must admit especially when compared to blink-dts and stormy-tempest from last year update. Finally there are some changes that community asked for a long time and most of them are either reasonable and/or interesting. Hopefully will push game into higher hights
I like the eco changes although would prefer "diminishing return after 1 worker on mineral patch design".
TERRAN
Mule change might be ok (less overwhelming bio spam, more helpful in tech/mech compositions) - will see.
Raven will not be spammed any longer which is good in itself. Don't know about the new abilites though - will see.
WM seem a bit unnecessary but tbf I always hated that unit so I am not gonna cry about that nerf Imho mines should be redesigned to be cheaper, 0-1 supply, one use, ground only unit.
Ghost change seems reasonable (and at least we get some upgrades for energy back).
Lib change - negligible I guess?
Cyclone - this change I actually do not like. It makes unit control and intereactions less recurrent and predictible. Inelegant change.
Smart Servos - insignificant
PROTOSS
MsC/Nexus - I can only say 1 thing: FINALLY. MsC was always a terribly designed unit. Glad to see it go finally. I just hope that devs will balance the game accordingly afterwards.
Chronoboost - good change. Adds tension between other abilities of Nexus.
Mass Recall - as long as the radius is smaller than on MsC it should work, although in late game might become OP.
Shield Recharge - much better in terms of design than PO but not sure if it will be enough of defense for Protoss.
Stalker - did not expect any changes to Stalker but this one seems promising. DPS stays the same but it will be now easier to snipe units (medivacs, mutas etc) + better scalling with upgrades into to the late game. dmg 10 14 15 21 per 1,03 1,03 1,54 1,54 dps 9,7 13,6 9,7 13,6
Disruptor - not sure about that change but at least the disruptor will be less about that 1 hit. TBF the closer we get to Reaver the better imho.
Colossus - less reliant on ext. thermal l. with range changes = works better "out-of-the-box" but less dominant leter into the game with 1 shorter max range. Good change
Carrier - doesn't matter, will not change much. Other changes needed.
High Templar - negligible from balance perspective but is it really needed (maybe for casuals idk)? I have mixed feelings.
Mothership - might be used more offensively - I like it. On the other hand I never liked that unit so maybe it is time to let it go? And maybe hopefully introduce Arbiter
Observer - same as for HT
ZERG
Infestor - this is controversial set of changes. I love that fungal no longer can hit air units - it was wrong that game was balanced around hitting chain-fungal to get rid of massive air armies. However, as with MsC removal, there need to be some other option for zerg to deal with mass air of other races. Not really like the influence of creep on ability - seems unnecessarily complicated. Infested terran: not sold on new Weapon: Acid Spores - again seems unnecessarily complicated. Other than that good.
Lurker - I do not think this changes will achieve what dev team is aiming for tbh. I'd personaly prefer Lurker to remain on lair tech but make it chaper and weaker.
Viper's PB - good that it doesn't stack anymore. DMG probably should be tweaked
Overseer - same as with obs
Swarm Host - just remove that unit and forget about it.
On August 18 2017 09:04 Snakestyle1 wrote: Interesting changes other than one part.
ZvZ will be absolute hell now. Stronger /more agile lurkers, fungal doesnt hit air...
Mass muta will be way too strong in zvz... Lurker spore turtle late game as well.
For these changes to be reasonable for zvz i would propose the following changes.
Buff spores anti bio back to hots values.
Give broodlords frenzy so they cant be abducted into spores/hydras. Making them a good answer to spore/lurker turtle.
Carrier change is too little to have any impact.
You forgot fucking 180 dmg parasitic bomb!
But it no longer stacks right?
While a single para bomb is better now, mass vipers vs mass air in the late game is worse.
Anyway , looking forward to playing this weekend!
True, it does do 180 now, so it's basically like 2 of the old ones...so that's a pretty solid .
So one thing I'm a little confused about: if the Lurker Den is its own building now, does it just require the Hydra den before being built? And if so, I'm assuming that lurkers still evolve from Hydras?
The thing that makes me sad about that change, is that it removes the clear evolve relationship from the game.
Hydra den --> Lurker den, just like Hydra --> lurker. Now it's just multiple buildings that aren't related. It dissociates the units, and makes it harder to be understood by someone who is new.
On August 18 2017 09:04 Snakestyle1 wrote: Interesting changes other than one part.
ZvZ will be absolute hell now. Stronger /more agile lurkers, fungal doesnt hit air...
Mass muta will be way too strong in zvz... Lurker spore turtle late game as well.
For these changes to be reasonable for zvz i would propose the following changes.
Buff spores anti bio back to hots values.
Give broodlords frenzy so they cant be abducted into spores/hydras. Making them a good answer to spore/lurker turtle.
Carrier change is too little to have any impact.
You forgot fucking 180 dmg parasitic bomb!
But it no longer stacks right?
While a single para bomb is better now, mass vipers vs mass air in the late game is worse.
Anyway , looking forward to playing this weekend!
True, it does do 180 now, so it's basically like 2 of the old ones...so that's a pretty solid .
So one thing I'm a little confused about: if the Lurker Den is its own building now, does it just require the Hydra den before being built? And if so, I'm assuming that lurkers still evolve from Hydras?
The thing that makes me sad about that change, is that it removes the clear evolve relationship from the game.
Hydra den --> Lurker den, just like Hydra --> lurker. Now it's just multiple buildings that aren't related. It dissociates the units, and makes it harder to be understood by someone who is new.
You need to build a baneling nest to morph lings into banes. Nobody has trouble understanding that so I don't see why building a seperate lurker den to morph hydralisks into lurkers would confuse anybody.
So I played a game against Viper on the test map where he went lurkers and had +2 ranged attack. And what happened was that the ranged upgrades stacked and a +2 attack hydra got morphed into a +4 attack lurker (28 damage, 42 vs armored). That can't possibly be intentional.
On August 18 2017 09:04 Snakestyle1 wrote: Interesting changes other than one part.
ZvZ will be absolute hell now. Stronger /more agile lurkers, fungal doesnt hit air...
Mass muta will be way too strong in zvz... Lurker spore turtle late game as well.
For these changes to be reasonable for zvz i would propose the following changes.
Buff spores anti bio back to hots values.
Give broodlords frenzy so they cant be abducted into spores/hydras. Making them a good answer to spore/lurker turtle.
Carrier change is too little to have any impact.
You forgot fucking 180 dmg parasitic bomb!
But it no longer stacks right?
While a single para bomb is better now, mass vipers vs mass air in the late game is worse.
Anyway , looking forward to playing this weekend!
True, it does do 180 now, so it's basically like 2 of the old ones...so that's a pretty solid .
So one thing I'm a little confused about: if the Lurker Den is its own building now, does it just require the Hydra den before being built? And if so, I'm assuming that lurkers still evolve from Hydras?
The thing that makes me sad about that change, is that it removes the clear evolve relationship from the game.
Hydra den --> Lurker den, just like Hydra --> lurker. Now it's just multiple buildings that aren't related. It dissociates the units, and makes it harder to be understood by someone who is new.
You need to build a baneling nest to morph lings into banes. Nobody has trouble understanding that so I don't see why building a seperate lurker den to morph hydralisks into lurkers would confuse anybody.
On August 18 2017 21:51 Elentos wrote: So I played a game against Viper on the test map where he went lurkers and had +2 ranged attack. And what happened was that the ranged upgrades stacked and a +2 attack hydra got morphed into a +4 attack lurker (28 damage, 42 vs armored). That can't possibly be intentional.
They need to bring Khaydarin Amulet back if ghosts have freaking upgrades that bring back more energy? What the hell is Protoss left with no tech like that? That's absolutely absurd.
Tried some games today. HIP mode on thor is still unreliable against golden' fleet even with new raven. But 15 mineral interceptor is reasonable enough to choose splash mode and it works great with repar drone spam.I smell a weird ass version of broodwar in the test map.
On August 18 2017 22:25 Jimmon wrote: They need to bring Khaydarin Amulet back if ghosts have freaking upgrades that bring back more energy? What the hell is Protoss left with no tech like that? That's absolutely absurd.
Please no. God no. Warp-in storms cannot make a comeback. I'd agree only if HT that warp-in get a cooldown on Psionic Storm.
Otherwise...imagine Terran being able to drop-pod Ghosts with 75 energy freely and the EMP doesn't only damage shields. It'd be like that. Which is bad.
Also Ghosts, started with 75 energy for years now. They would now need an upgrade as it was in WoL. Given that their AoE cannot kill and they can't warp in, 75 energy Ghosts are not a problem.
just realized that a parasitic bomb now 1 shots a warp prism, hmmmmmm
has any one tried early ling drops against protoss? seems like its much tougher for them to defend any harassment that relies on ignoring units and going straight for probes
Very bad changes. Making the game easier for P & Z : oh it's hard to control an obs and an oversear. Oh it's hard to know where a widow mine just shot.
Raven new Seeker Missile is the only good change I see (if it could be cast faster in counter part of no/less damage) so bio can fight ultras would be great.
On August 18 2017 22:25 Jimmon wrote: They need to bring Khaydarin Amulet back if ghosts have freaking upgrades that bring back more energy? What the hell is Protoss left with no tech like that? That's absolutely absurd.
Please no. God no. Warp-in storms cannot make a comeback. I'd agree only if HT that warp-in get a cooldown on Psionic Storm.
Otherwise...imagine Terran being able to drop-pod Ghosts with 75 energy freely and the EMP doesn't only damage shields. It'd be like that. Which is bad.
Also Ghosts, started with 75 energy for years now. They would now need an upgrade as it was in WoL. Given that their AoE cannot kill and they can't warp in, 75 energy Ghosts are not a problem.
Yeah, But Ghost's start with automatic Cloak? How is that fair. At ALL?
On August 18 2017 22:25 Jimmon wrote: They need to bring Khaydarin Amulet back if ghosts have freaking upgrades that bring back more energy? What the hell is Protoss left with no tech like that? That's absolutely absurd.
Please no. God no. Warp-in storms cannot make a comeback. I'd agree only if HT that warp-in get a cooldown on Psionic Storm.
Otherwise...imagine Terran being able to drop-pod Ghosts with 75 energy freely and the EMP doesn't only damage shields. It'd be like that. Which is bad.
Also Ghosts, started with 75 energy for years now. They would now need an upgrade as it was in WoL. Given that their AoE cannot kill and they can't warp in, 75 energy Ghosts are not a problem.
Yeah, But Ghost's start with automatic Cloak? How is that fair. At ALL?
Nobody want automatic Cloak, it isn't interesting unless you want to do some dirty tricks... Cloack when you have only 50 energy means less emp or snipe, and ghost are a lot used in "sharp" or "emergency" timing, they need their main cast, not the cloack.
With the removal of the Mothership Core we are also looking into Protoss’s other early game units. In particular we wanted to try sharpening the role of the Stalker, and make it more of a shoot and move unit with sniping capabilities. To do this we are slowing its attack rate but increasing its damage per shot.
Increased Stalker’s Particle Disruptor weapon from 10 (14 vs armored) to 15 (21 vs armored) Increased Particle Disruptor’s weapon period from 1.03 to 1.54 Particle Disruptor now gets +2 damage per weapon upgrade, up from +1
Um what? Does this not seem retardedly broken without even testing? Stalkers are already a shoot and move unit - see any early game fight between stalkers and non stim marines.
So we are going to increase their damage by 50%?? lolol hello blink all in era
On August 18 2017 09:04 Snakestyle1 wrote: Interesting changes other than one part.
ZvZ will be absolute hell now. Stronger /more agile lurkers, fungal doesnt hit air...
Mass muta will be way too strong in zvz... Lurker spore turtle late game as well.
For these changes to be reasonable for zvz i would propose the following changes.
Buff spores anti bio back to hots values.
Give broodlords frenzy so they cant be abducted into spores/hydras. Making them a good answer to spore/lurker turtle.
Carrier change is too little to have any impact.
You forgot fucking 180 dmg parasitic bomb!
But it no longer stacks right?
While a single para bomb is better now, mass vipers vs mass air in the late game is worse.
Anyway , looking forward to playing this weekend!
True, it does do 180 now, so it's basically like 2 of the old ones...so that's a pretty solid .
So one thing I'm a little confused about: if the Lurker Den is its own building now, does it just require the Hydra den before being built? And if so, I'm assuming that lurkers still evolve from Hydras?
The thing that makes me sad about that change, is that it removes the clear evolve relationship from the game.
Hydra den --> Lurker den, just like Hydra --> lurker. Now it's just multiple buildings that aren't related. It dissociates the units, and makes it harder to be understood by someone who is new.
It's a buff to hydras (or lurkers depending on how you look at it). It allows you to research hydra den upgrades while you build a lurker den. Before, you couldn't research muscular augments and get a lurker den at the same time. It either speeds up lurkers OR muscular augments, depending on which one a player would have gotten first.
On August 18 2017 22:25 Jimmon wrote: They need to bring Khaydarin Amulet back if ghosts have freaking upgrades that bring back more energy? What the hell is Protoss left with no tech like that? That's absolutely absurd.
Please no. God no. Warp-in storms cannot make a comeback. I'd agree only if HT that warp-in get a cooldown on Psionic Storm.
Otherwise...imagine Terran being able to drop-pod Ghosts with 75 energy freely and the EMP doesn't only damage shields. It'd be like that. Which is bad.
Also Ghosts, started with 75 energy for years now. They would now need an upgrade as it was in WoL. Given that their AoE cannot kill and they can't warp in, 75 energy Ghosts are not a problem.
Yeah, But Ghost's start with automatic Cloak? How is that fair. At ALL?
Nobody want automatic Cloak, it isn't interesting unless you want to do some dirty tricks... Cloack when you have only 50 energy means less emp or snipe, and ghost are a lot used in "sharp" or "emergency" timing, they need their main cast, not the cloack.
Very much agree - adding mobius back trading for autocloak just promotes more stupid gimmicks - please do not.
My concern with the disruptor changes are they severely nerf zealots in straight up fights. Because they are melee units, they will be stacked right up against the enemy. Now that the balls erupt on contact with the enemy, all those zealots will get hit with friendly fire. Before you could send the nova past the front lines to prevent this.
Same thing with lings. It will now be insanely difficult to get a nova past lines of lings. Say you have adapts/zealots/starkers buffering in front for your templar/sentries/etc. against lings. Now your nova will explode on the lings (and not the hydras behind them) AND will hit your own units - with +shields damage to boot.
Personally, I think that change will be reverted at some point. It'll be too punishing to use disruptors with melee units.
On August 19 2017 00:02 DomeGetta wrote: With the removal of the Mothership Core we are also looking into Protoss’s other early game units. In particular we wanted to try sharpening the role of the Stalker, and make it more of a shoot and move unit with sniping capabilities. To do this we are slowing its attack rate but increasing its damage per shot.
Increased Stalker’s Particle Disruptor weapon from 10 (14 vs armored) to 15 (21 vs armored) Increased Particle Disruptor’s weapon period from 1.03 to 1.54 Particle Disruptor now gets +2 damage per weapon upgrade, up from +1
Um what? Does this not seem retardedly broken without even testing? Stalkers are already a shoot and move unit - see any early game fight between stalkers and non stim marines.
So we are going to increase their damage by 50%?? lolol hello blink all in era
The weapon damage increases by 50%, but the weapon speed decreases by something like 33% (from 0.97 attacks per second to 0.65) to compensate. Overall it's a DPS increase from 9.71 to 9.74...
The weapon damage increase to 50% is awesome. With stalkers you never really stay in one place for constant attacks. It was always attack move attack move. The damage increase will help a lot, which I am very happy with.
It really upsets me that they call this & the last year proposal a "design update".... this is in no way anything more than a glorified balance patch. All the core mechanics & the foundation of the game are exactly the same... None of the fundamental design issues are being looked at whatsoever...
On August 19 2017 01:18 Spyridon wrote: It really upsets me that they call this & the last year proposal a "design update".... this is in no way anything more than a glorified balance patch. All the core mechanics & the foundation of the game are exactly the same... None of the fundamental design issues are being looked at whatsoever...
On August 19 2017 01:18 Spyridon wrote: It really upsets me that they call this & the last year proposal a "design update".... this is in no way anything more than a glorified balance patch. All the core mechanics & the foundation of the game are exactly the same... None of the fundamental design issues are being looked at whatsoever...
I'd say Protoss disagrees with you
I'm assuming u mean the removal of a unit as the reason you say that?
I fail to see how removing a unit turns this from a balance change to a design change... especially when some abilities are simply moved to other units.
Especially when they call it "major" design changes.
Balance changes implies changes to units , strengths, abilities, etc.
Design change implies the mechanics of how the game works as a whole.
"Major Design" changes implies the fundamentals of the game.
Protoss is not mechanically different. Just lost a unit & couple abilities, had a couple others moved & numbers tweaked to make up for it. How is that surpassing balance changes and going in to the realm of design?
Played a few games vs a low diamond on the test map today, things are really different, I was expanding way too quickly lol I'm so used to the bases mining out, I'm convinced that the economy changes alone would have been pretty damn good for the game.
Really hating on the High Templar attack though, I wasn't one of those people who claimed that the worker counting made the game easier but come on, this is crap, now not even pro level players won't have to separate them into a different control group? What now Protoss can just completely A move their end game armies without having to micro manage their caster?
Infestor = Huge unit model and slow as hell off creep which takes apm and skill to spread, they auto aggro and get popped by anything, requires extreme micro management as it should.
Templar = Now tags along, will almost never be caught out of position due to being made a move friendly? That unit is far too powerful to not be punishable for poor micro/positioning. This is a terrible change, plain and simple.
Also Fungal not hitting air is a joke, that change needs to be reverted immediately unless serious buffs to Zerg's anti-air capabilities are on the table. I confess I didn't take the games to super end game Skytoss against my partner, has anyone else? Has the ability to push out Hydra and Lurker combined with 15 mineral Interceptors made Carriers more manageable? Or do Hydralisks/Queens/anything that isn't Vipers and Corruptors still get obliterated?
The templar change might also be so that a couple lone marines/lings can't kill templars defending a base.
Fungals not htiting air won't make AS BIG a difference as people think. Does anyone seriously use fungal as their primary AA method in the first place? I'm not zerg so I can't confirm this, but from watching matches, fungal as AA is normally used to kill medivacs/suprise hit on mutas.
As a Zerg player who doesn't play actively anymore(for now) and has never played on a high level (I got diamond after ~2 months), I was watching some games from Nathanias and noticed some things I thought would be nice to share. My observations thus of course concern terran changes.
First of all I like the changes overall, It is obvious you made up your mind and the changes have some merit.
1. The new MULE gives terrans a high degree of flexibility (as already mentioned in this thread), which in general is not a bad thing, imo. However the high amount of gas the mule can collect, makes it such that the terran can decide very spontaneously which resource is more important to him in a certain situation. I would recommend the MULE to gather far less gas, such that it's impact is less imminent. Like that a terran would have to make up his mind and plan ahead, which kind of strategy he wants to chose. A slightly higher gas income (than in the current live patch) would then over a longer time enable new strategies. Add to this, that the current gas income is raised just way too much. If it's the case that the MULE can gather gas parallel to the other 3 workers (without disturbing their work), adding a single MULE to a geyser is basically like adding another geyser ontop of your current income, since the MULE can work parallely AND gather more gas than a usual worker. Imo the amount a MULE can gather should be even lower than the amount a normal worker carries.
2. The ravens ability to reduce armor by 3 is in my opinion too much, irrespective of how it turns out in terms of balance. An upgrade advantage of +1 is generally considered to be highly influential in a regular game. Removing 3 armor, equal to 3 armor upgrades in most cases, will have too much influence on a single fight. Imo the armor reduction should be lowered to 1 armor. This also makes sense in order for the raven to have a support role, rather than a game deciding role.
By now you might see what my recommendations have in common: they are merely number tweakings and chosen such that the changes only impact the game by nuances - which leads me to my third point.
3. The transformation speed upgrade from smart servos is a little too fast imo. Eventhough I like the flexibility this gives to a Terran, again, changing this by a nuance will probably put it in a better place.
On a side remark, eventhough it probably is very influential, I want to address the raven change again. The raven has a really important role in the current meta, as it is an essential part of terran's late game army in order to compete with carriers&brutelords. You can't change the raven without also addressing its counterparts in the other races.
Edit: Oh and one remark on the protoss changes. The shield recharge ability of the nexus looks quite strong, which is good since Protoss needs a reliable early game defense - I've witnessed probes being kind of immortal and I think it could help out a great deal defending early attacks, so I'm looking forward to see that being tested. However shield recharge and chronoboost both using the energy of the nexus, will probably do more harm than good to a protoss. I think chronoboost could be kept the way it is in the current live patch, while only shield recharge and mass teleport (which should require a high amount of energy, and be on global cooldown) require energy.
On August 19 2017 00:02 DomeGetta wrote: With the removal of the Mothership Core we are also looking into Protoss’s other early game units. In particular we wanted to try sharpening the role of the Stalker, and make it more of a shoot and move unit with sniping capabilities. To do this we are slowing its attack rate but increasing its damage per shot.
Increased Stalker’s Particle Disruptor weapon from 10 (14 vs armored) to 15 (21 vs armored) Increased Particle Disruptor’s weapon period from 1.03 to 1.54 Particle Disruptor now gets +2 damage per weapon upgrade, up from +1
Um what? Does this not seem retardedly broken without even testing? Stalkers are already a shoot and move unit - see any early game fight between stalkers and non stim marines.
So we are going to increase their damage by 50%?? lolol hello blink all in era
The weapon damage increases by 50%, but the weapon speed decreases by something like 33% (from 0.97 attacks per second to 0.65) to compensate. Overall it's a DPS increase from 9.71 to 9.74...
Yeah I totally understand that. The issue is that stalkers entire utility is based on kiting - where the delay is irrelevant. You don't see any Protoss a move stalkers at bio because it makes no sense - you're never going to win a DPS battle. Stalkers will be insane to deal with before you have stim if they up their damage that much - they can already basically kite forever rofl - I don't get it?
On August 19 2017 01:18 Spyridon wrote: It really upsets me that they call this & the last year proposal a "design update".... this is in no way anything more than a glorified balance patch. All the core mechanics & the foundation of the game are exactly the same... None of the fundamental design issues are being looked at whatsoever...
They are changing the way core macro mechanics and unit designs operate how is that the same as tweaking the cooldown on D8 charges?
On August 19 2017 01:18 Spyridon wrote: It really upsets me that they call this & the last year proposal a "design update".... this is in no way anything more than a glorified balance patch. All the core mechanics & the foundation of the game are exactly the same... None of the fundamental design issues are being looked at whatsoever...
They are changing the way core macro mechanics and unit designs operate how is that the same as tweaking the cooldown on D8 charges?
I don't see tweaking resource numbers as changing "Core macro mechanics". And if we're talking about how unit designs operate, what separates every single balance patch they have ever done from being a "design change"?
By that logic, all the times Thor was changed in balance patches to have different shooting mode would have been a "design change". The buff to Photon Overcharge would have been one as well. HotS's swarm host changes were more significant than the majority of changes in this patch so that would have to be included as well. Widow mines back when the shield damage was changed. The Void Ray changes, the Tempest changes - again were just as significant as this patch. And so on....
Moving or removing abilities and tweaking numbers... I know it's up to your interpretation, but I'm sorry but I can't see how those can be justified as "design changes". The only thing that's more significant than anything they have done in balance patches is that they actually removed a unit. Is that really all it takes to change the design of the game...? I do not agree with that.
I just think the term is used in this case to glorify that they are actually doing a balance patch, which has became all the more rare since LotV came out. Nowadays, when they actually do something to the balance of the game, they have to hype it up as a "major design change" when in reality, they only do a full balance patch around once a year.
True design changes would be looking at the core of the economy, not just tweaking numbers of the patches that appear on map. Adjusting core/global design issues, not just tweaking unit numbers.
After these changes, the economy will SCALE just as fast as now! Which is the true design issue that has been brought up since lotv release. But in no way will it reduce how strong fast expanding is now. This will only make it take longer to starve an enemy out, but they will still be at a significant disadvantage if being prevented from expanding (as the design of this claims it's intent is). It won't truly even achieve the design intent. Maybe it'll be a bit easier for casual players, but do you think pro players are going to have any significant difference when being at such a disadvantage of being down a base?
I'm not sure if you have familiarity with how game development teams operate, and what situations involve designers, or which involve balance teams. But just FYI, everything included in this patch is something that the balance team - not the design team - would typically have authority to do. Do you really think they had to call up the design team for this? "Major Balance Changes" would fit a lot more than "MAJOR DESIGN Changes". Relative to the history of the game, this is pretty underwhelming to call "major design change".
But I can see it's interpretation, so I guess it's not worth arguing over since it will come down to semantics anyway.
Please do something about TvT and the insane tank + marine battles, where it is very difficult to attack or break out, huge armies get obliterated in 5 seconds, and doom drops can instantly end the game.
The raven's defense drone would be better targeted for fixing this problem than in protecting mech units.
I'd say removing Photon Overcharge and replacing it with Shield Battery is a major design change since it's very impactful on how Protoss defend their bases throughout the game. They'll have to commit more units to defense now.
Considering how regular balance patches are usually just numbers tweaks anyways, changes like removing units or adding/removing/replacing abilities/functionalities feels like bigger design decisions in comparison.
I really like almost all of these changes and I cant wait to try them out. If you would have told me mules were going to be able to mine gas in like 2012 i would not have believed you.
On August 19 2017 01:18 Spyridon wrote: It really upsets me that they call this & the last year proposal a "design update".... this is in no way anything more than a glorified balance patch. All the core mechanics & the foundation of the game are exactly the same... None of the fundamental design issues are being looked at whatsoever...
I'd say Protoss disagrees with you
I'm assuming u mean the removal of a unit as the reason you say that?
No, I was referring to the redesign of the Protoss macro mechanic.
Wow, I might be able to switch back to Protoss if this goes properly. I've never liked using the MSC, and having a little more front-end damage on Stalkers seems nice. The HT change is a great QoL change for the majority of players. The amount of activated abilities can get overwhelming.
I'm surprised at the cost of chronoboost, since they are also increasing the size of mineral patches. I think they'll need to increase the efficacy or decrease the cost of it, or it'll feel pretty weak - the number of targets hasn't really changed much.
Edit: Agreed, this is a major design change for Protoss.
On August 19 2017 05:10 zyce wrote: The HT change is a great QoL change for the majority of players. The amount of activated abilities can get overwhelming.
It's less of a QoL change than just a straight-up buff, let's be honest.
On August 19 2017 03:59 paralleluniverse wrote: Please do something about TvT and the insane tank + marine battles, where it is very difficult to attack or break out, huge armies get obliterated in 5 seconds, and doom drops can instantly end the game.
Actually, a lot is changed about doom drops with these changes. Most directly with the removal of the boost upgrade. Second is the Raven: A single Raven now has the possibility to prevent the medivacs from unloading, while turrets will keep firing at them. The same kind of missle can also prevent tanks from firing. Only once or twice per missile I suppose but that is well enough to turn the tide of battle. The other type of missle reduces armor, which makes turrets more effective against Medicavs. Cyclones now take down medivacs faster, or just as fast with fewer cyclones. The new Mule allows Terran to go for much gas heavier compositions. So defensive units to prevent doom drops can become a thing. And, when I think about it, fast transforming Vikings can also be good vs. doom drops.
One the one hand, Marine Tank compositions/contains are also heavily influenced by the gas-mule option. On the other hand. Insane Marine Tank battles are actually kind of cool.
On August 19 2017 05:10 zyce wrote: The HT change is a great QoL change for the majority of players. The amount of activated abilities can get overwhelming.
It's less of a QoL change than just a straight-up buff, let's be honest.
Only a buff to players that F2 everywhere, which happens to be every Protoss
On August 19 2017 05:10 zyce wrote: The HT change is a great QoL change for the majority of players. The amount of activated abilities can get overwhelming.
It's less of a QoL change than just a straight-up buff, let's be honest.
I think the QoL part is more interesting, a five or six damage attack from a slow caster isn't particularly interesting to me as a player - I have no clue how the balance will pan out for the unit, but you're right it's a buff too.
On August 19 2017 05:10 zyce wrote: The HT change is a great QoL change for the majority of players. The amount of activated abilities can get overwhelming.
It's less of a QoL change than just a straight-up buff, let's be honest.
Only a buff to players that F2 everywhere, which happens to be every Protoss
/s
not even F2 it just means you don't need to make an additional control group for HTs. This is going to be significant at every level of play. I think it's an awful change, out of all the changes they proposed it's the worst one. The game doesn't need to be easier, the people that want to play an easy game aren't attracted to SC2 anyway.
edit: I'm curious what Nerchio's opinion is on making high templar easier to use.
On August 19 2017 05:10 zyce wrote: The HT change is a great QoL change for the majority of players. The amount of activated abilities can get overwhelming.
It's less of a QoL change than just a straight-up buff, let's be honest.
Only a buff to players that F2 everywhere, which happens to be every Protoss
/s
not even F2 it just means you don't need to make an additional control group for HTs. This is going to be significant at every level of play. I think it's an awful change, out of all the changes they proposed it's the worst one. The game doesn't need to be easier, the people that want to play an easy game aren't attracted to SC2 anyway.
edit: I'm curious what Nerchio's opinion is on making high templar easier to use.
On August 19 2017 05:10 zyce wrote: The HT change is a great QoL change for the majority of players. The amount of activated abilities can get overwhelming.
It's less of a QoL change than just a straight-up buff, let's be honest.
Only a buff to players that F2 everywhere, which happens to be every Protoss
/s
not even F2 it just means you don't need to make an additional control group for HTs. This is going to be significant at every level of play. I think it's an awful change, out of all the changes they proposed it's the worst one. The game doesn't need to be easier, the people that want to play an easy game aren't attracted to SC2 anyway.
edit: I'm curious what Nerchio's opinion is on making high templar easier to use.
I'm assuming you disliked all the changes anyway?
no I like the economy changes, the stalker, raven and the disruptor change as well as carrier/SH nerf and I don't mind the cyclone and lurker changes
Infestor/WM/Ghost/MSC/High Templar/Viper changes are awful and should be scrapped.
this was suggested on REDDIT and i'll restate it here. please consider having the F2 ( all army units ) button activate all army units not on hold position. as soon as i "hold position" a unit the F2 button shouldn't be able to activate that unit.
to get an idea of the super-duper high level play i partake in .. i have F2 mapped to "CAPS LOCK" "Caps Lock"+A+Left Click
On August 19 2017 05:10 zyce wrote: The HT change is a great QoL change for the majority of players. The amount of activated abilities can get overwhelming.
It's less of a QoL change than just a straight-up buff, let's be honest.
Only a buff to players that F2 everywhere, which happens to be every Protoss
/s
not even F2 it just means you don't need to make an additional control group for HTs. This is going to be significant at every level of play. I think it's an awful change, out of all the changes they proposed it's the worst one. The game doesn't need to be easier, the people that want to play an easy game aren't attracted to SC2 anyway.
edit: I'm curious what Nerchio's opinion is on making high templar easier to use.
I'm assuming you disliked all the changes anyway?
no I like the economy changes, the stalker, raven and the disruptor change as well as carrier/SH nerf and I don't mind the cyclone and lurker changes
Infestor/WM/Ghost/MSC/High Templar/Viper changes are awful and should be scrapped.
Infestor and viper im neutral on. Although I do find viper's to be too powerful against everything.
HT change makes not that much difference, more QoL than anything. MSC removal is very necessary, balancing the game around proper units and decision making is far better. And does the ghost change really effect that much? Beyond ghost rushes ofc
On August 19 2017 05:10 zyce wrote: The HT change is a great QoL change for the majority of players. The amount of activated abilities can get overwhelming.
It's less of a QoL change than just a straight-up buff, let's be honest.
Only a buff to players that F2 everywhere, which happens to be every Protoss
/s
not even F2 it just means you don't need to make an additional control group for HTs. This is going to be significant at every level of play. I think it's an awful change, out of all the changes they proposed it's the worst one. The game doesn't need to be easier, the people that want to play an easy game aren't attracted to SC2 anyway.
edit: I'm curious what Nerchio's opinion is on making high templar easier to use.
I'm assuming you disliked all the changes anyway?
no I like the economy changes, the stalker, raven and the disruptor change as well as carrier/SH nerf and I don't mind the cyclone and lurker changes
Infestor/WM/Ghost/MSC/High Templar/Viper changes are awful and should be scrapped.
Infestor and viper im neutral on. Although I do find viper's to be too powerful against everything.
HT change makes not that much difference, more QoL than anything. MSC removal is very necessary, balancing the game around proper units and decision making is far better. And does the ghost change really effect that much? Beyond ghost rushes ofc
I think the ghost change is a nerf
On August 18 2017 03:08 Charoisaur wrote: ghost change seems to be a straight nerf. When high templar/ultras are on the map and you start making ghosts in response you don't really care about the cloak; you just want as many snipes/emps as possible. having cloak available early is irrelevant because once you cloak with 50 energy you have 25 energy left and then you can't do anything with them. Don't see the purpose of this change.
Considering Ghosts are already pretty underused I don't think this is a good idea. They may become good for cheese but for straight up play that's a nerf.
Scrambler missile makes it complete BS in TvT early game, while the 8 range makes it meh against feedback and late game situations.
The MECHivac drone is uninspired and overall more general purposed than the PDD, while not filling the crucial role the PDD did. Also breaks the need for mech to have SCVs and ressources to repair your army, gaz mule + med drone will make having any scvs useless compared to 12 orbital commands.
The armor nerf missile is just bad. It'd be good if it was an early game spell that helped cyclone deal more damage and negate armor (a guardian shield counterplay for instance).
Overall they managed to make the raven suck at its job but more massable since 15 ravens landing 15 med drones makes a thor/tank army pretty much unkillable. And don't get me wrong i feel like the current raven toolkit is bullshit (especially the 16dmg turret and the upgraded seeker), but this new raven is just stupid. "I'm not even mad, this is amazing"
On August 19 2017 03:59 paralleluniverse wrote: Please do something about TvT and the insane tank + marine battles, where it is very difficult to attack or break out, huge armies get obliterated in 5 seconds, and doom drops can instantly end the game.
The raven's defense drone would be better targeted for fixing this problem than in protecting mech units.
I think it's a little bit odd that people continue to ask for the removal of siege tank chess in TvT, which has been a defining aspect of Starcraft all the way back to Brood War. I can understand about not liking doom drops, but the tense nature of tank vs tank has been around for ages and I quite like it.
Also I don't really feel like armies in TvT die any faster than armies in TvP or TvZ. Terran armies have always been glass cannons.
On August 19 2017 03:59 paralleluniverse wrote: Please do something about TvT and the insane tank + marine battles, where it is very difficult to attack or break out, huge armies get obliterated in 5 seconds, and doom drops can instantly end the game.
The raven's defense drone would be better targeted for fixing this problem than in protecting mech units.
I think it's a little bit odd that people continue to ask for the removal of siege tank chess in TvT, which has been a defining aspect of Starcraft all the way back to Brood War. I can understand about not liking doom drops, but the tense nature of tank vs tank has been around for ages and I quite like it.
Also I don't really feel like armies in TvT die any faster than armies in TvP or TvZ. Terran armies have always been glass cannons.
you can find somebody who hates literally anything in a balance thread... balance whining is the 5th fundamental force
New Disruptor is terrible and needs to not deal friendly fire damage and have an even lower cooldown if it's going to stay the way it is exploding the second it touches enemy units.
The shield recharge ability isn't anywhere close to being a proper substitute for photon overcharge. You are going from a MSC pylon dps abillity to an ability that requires a complete nexus with built up energy and units present. Photon overcharge gave the early game of protoss much needed DPS to handle early rushes. Protoss units are generally low dps. so making them tankier isn't nearly as useful. I don't see how they are going to make this work. My prediction is they will be forced to bring back the MSC.
On August 19 2017 13:43 Luongo wrote: New Disruptor is terrible and needs to not deal friendly fire damage and have an even lower cooldown if it's going to stay the way it is exploding the second it touches enemy units.
The shield recharge ability isn't anywhere close to being a proper substitute for photon overcharge. You are going from a MSC pylon dps abillity to an ability that requires a complete nexus with built up energy and units present. Photon overcharge gave the early game of protoss much needed DPS to handle early rushes. Protoss units are generally low dps. so making them tankier isn't nearly as useful. I don't see how they are going to make this work. My prediction is they will be forced to bring back the MSC.
This is all pretty much true, Disruptor should be removed from the game, it fills no role that the High Templar and Colossus can't fill and it's design is messy from the get go.
On August 19 2017 13:43 Luongo wrote: You are going from a MSC pylon dps abillity to an ability that requires a complete nexus with built up energy and units present.
Holy fuck! You actually need units to defend drops. Units! How can you be expected to have units in game of SC2?! Blatantly broken! Next thing, they tell us we need to make upgrades for these units. Outrageous!
(I am very well aware, that this post may receive moderator attention. Totally worth it.)
My few worries are about the WM change that effectively removes the need to have detection and the Viper that still seems to be way to good against everything. With the Raven no longer able to fight mass Zerg air, BL-Corruptor-Viper should be invincible against Terran.
Love the Raven redesign, the Protoss changes and the MULE mining gas to help mech and FG no longer able to hit air (i wanted this since WoL :p ). I'm still not seeing any improvement to mech anti air though, it actually got worse IMO vs Zerg. Maybe make the Thor a bit faster to get in position easier or more range, i don't know.
On August 19 2017 13:43 Luongo wrote: New Disruptor is terrible and needs to not deal friendly fire damage and have an even lower cooldown if it's going to stay the way it is exploding the second it touches enemy units.
The shield recharge ability isn't anywhere close to being a proper substitute for photon overcharge. You are going from a MSC pylon dps abillity to an ability that requires a complete nexus with built up energy and units present. Photon overcharge gave the early game of protoss much needed DPS to handle early rushes. Protoss units are generally low dps. so making them tankier isn't nearly as useful. I don't see how they are going to make this work. My prediction is they will be forced to bring back the MSC.
OMG...Are you seriously crying that you need UNITS to defend your base? ROFTL
On August 19 2017 14:44 Sapphire.lux wrote: Interesting.
My few worries are about the WM change that effectively removes the need to have detection and the Viper that still seems to be way to good against everything. With the Raven no longer able to fight mass Zerg air, BL-Corruptor-Viper should be invincible against Terran.
Love the Raven redesign, the Protoss changes and the MULE mining gas to help mech and FG no longer able to hit air (i wanted this since WoL :p ). I'm still not seeing any improvement to mech anti air though, it actually got worse IMO vs Zerg. Maybe make the Thor a bit faster to get in position easier or more range, i don't know.
Honestly late game should be involved around economic than one side straight up engagement.
On August 19 2017 13:43 Luongo wrote: New Disruptor is terrible and needs to not deal friendly fire damage and have an even lower cooldown if it's going to stay the way it is exploding the second it touches enemy units.
The shield recharge ability isn't anywhere close to being a proper substitute for photon overcharge. You are going from a MSC pylon dps abillity to an ability that requires a complete nexus with built up energy and units present. Photon overcharge gave the early game of protoss much needed DPS to handle early rushes. Protoss units are generally low dps. so making them tankier isn't nearly as useful. I don't see how they are going to make this work. My prediction is they will be forced to bring back the MSC.
OMG...Are you seriously crying that you need UNITS to defend your base? ROFTL
Great contribution. Clearly what I said went way over your tiny head. Before you'd defend a natural / third with units + overcharge, even if the nexus wasn't complete or fresh. Now you have to do that without overcharge, and if you don't have a complete nexus with energy, the shield recharge ability won't add anything defensively to compensate for that. This effectively nerfs protoss hard in the early game. The change is not going to work unless there are more compensations.
PvP is also going to be a nightmare with this change. With the ability to chrono oracles out way faster than ever before, and no photon overcharge to help defend them at home, they are going to run rampant. Oracles have never existed in an era where photon overcharge didn't exist, and where chrono could get them out as fast as it can now.
1. The Ghost thing is not a nerf. This is some simple ass thinking. This has to be a Terran worried about only TvZ, and ONLY late game.
Did you see Ryung blow people's minds with his Proxy cloaked Ghost rush vs Dear in I think GSL season 2? I can almost guarantee that game influenced the decision here, precisely because it was so fresh. It's like an earlier banshee harass, and easier to get to. Why are y'all so simple ? Like really?
2. MSC should have NEVER been in the game. It's funny cause I always wanted shield batteries, but those were in the campaign, meanwhile the MSC, a clear campaign type unit, is in the game.
I watched you guys whine reapers out the game, well the photon overcharge Rush is finally gone, it ruined so many early games PvT it's ridiculous...
3. Finally they put Lockdown in the game, it should have been in WOL, collosi wouldn't have been so OP..
4. They should just stop bullshitting and replace the cyclone with goliaths....
5. As long as Vikings are useless vs other ground units, it will always be a bad unit IMO. I don't care how fast it transforms, no Terran lands Vikings and then fights. Why not better a Valkyrie type unit?
6. The mech heal just underscores how dumb hell bats are. Remove em already, how can they be better than a tech lab Firebat? Give em the hellbat attack animation as an ability on cool down, give me the regular hellion attack animation as the standard attack, make em kinda quick so they can be micro able vs zealots and banes.
(And while I'm at it, how are hellions and widow mines a better unit than vultures with spider mines?)
7. Why am I not surprised like a month into a new meta the zergs are whining about mass oracle!!
This is after over a year of Hydra bane dominance. Hurricanes traditional, WOL-esque stalker sentrie colossi seemed to work pretty well in GSl. So Toss has another option, Jesus so what? You see a toss make three oracles man just make 35 roaches and throw them at his shit. Then either mass drone or double expo behind it. Like goddamn you PLAY ZERG, WTF??!!
Ghost thing IS a nerf, especially in TvP, where you want to have EMPs out as quickly as possible after scouting HTs, which is going to take a bit longer since you have to have Moebius Reactor researched.
It really just promotes gimmicky play like rushing nuke harass, but really doesn't add much to "late game viability".
I don't understand why the infestor needed a change... 50% off creep, rooted on creep, can't hit air, man Zerg in SC2 is such hot mess.
I'm glad I stopped playing it.
I just don't get it why making units more complex is the way to go? Why make stupid changes to okay units like Infestor/Viper, when instead you can do something like nerf Hydras and make them cost the same as BW. So if I want to make anti air, I can mass a ton of weaker hydras for cheap, fungal the air army and kill it like that.
On August 19 2017 13:43 Luongo wrote: You are going from a MSC pylon dps abillity to an ability that requires a complete nexus with built up energy and units present.
Holy fuck! You actually need units to defend drops. Units! How can you be expected to have units in game of SC2?! Blatantly broken! Next thing, they tell us we need to make upgrades for these units. Outrageous!
(I am very well aware, that this post may receive moderator attention. Totally worth it.)
who needs units when the shield recharge works on cannons too?
Units still clump up too much and die way too fast for my liking. Entire armies can get obliterated in an instant, large scale battles are much more exciting in BW.
I'm afraid the mule harvesting gas will make terran's build completely unreadable, the amount of variation in the timings it would allow might be too much for early games.
On August 19 2017 19:22 ihatevideogames wrote: Can Hellbats be healed by a Medivac and a Mechivac at the same time? Cause that'd be fucking hillarious to watch.
On August 19 2017 18:59 Vanadiel wrote: I'm afraid the mule harvesting gas will make terran's build completely unreadable, the amount of variation in the timings it would allow might be too much for early games.
Terran builds aren't dictated by ressources but by production buildings. I think openings and timings will be fine to read, but that army compositions might be very unsettling to play against.
For instance, cyclone/raven compositions would be a viable mech composition, using the MECHivac raven + the shredder missile. Which would make no sense without the gaz mule.
My main concern with it is how fast skyterran may be rushed out of fewer bases, and in turn, how weak it would need to be not to get overpowered.
On August 19 2017 18:59 Vanadiel wrote: I'm afraid the mule harvesting gas will make terran's build completely unreadable, the amount of variation in the timings it would allow might be too much for early games.
Terran builds aren't dictated by ressources but by production buildings. I think openings and timings will be fine to read, but that army compositions might be very unsettling to play against.
For instance, cyclone/raven compositions would be a viable mech composition, using the MECHivac raven + the shredder missile. Which would make no sense without the gaz mule.
My main concern with it is how fast skyterran may be rushed out of fewer bases, and in turn, how weak it would need to be not to get overpowered.
Skyterran vs what? BCs are now obsolette vs toss with the new Stalkers and Zerg never had any trouble with it ever since Liberator anti-air got deleted after a whopping 2 GSL matches of 'sample size'.
You are thinking in terms of the current meta, which is really off. Watch the Ryung game. He went proxy cloaked ghost and had to RESEARCH CLOAK.
My point being that it still worked, even with the research time of cloak.
Jesus man, the auto cloak means ghost are viable SOONER, meaning they can BANK energy. You should be able to open ghost and FORCE a robo, like toss opens dts and forces scans n whatnot. Think of how this changes 1-1-1 builds.
This is one of the reasons I hate knee jerk reactions. When I first saw reapers and medivacs paired together, I didn't think we would EVER see something like that. It was a fresh take on bio we hadn't seen. I see this as something similar, it should open up new bio builds. Don't be worrying about the current meta.
I remember YEARS ago watching, I think it was Destiny stream, a Terran opened hellion Ghost, into marine marauder, it was sick as fuck....
Don't think it will be exactly Countered by star gates, as you can and should spread your ghost to minimize revelation' (another take away from that game is that Ryung got two or three of his ghost caught with 1 revelation....) plus, you should be able to mass ghost easier than oracles, they come out of barracks.
On August 19 2017 20:49 SpaWnvERtiGO wrote: @craeger
You are thinking in terms of the current meta, which is really off. Watch the Ryung game. He went proxy cloaked ghost and had to RESEARCH CLOAK.
My point being that it still worked, even with the research time of cloak.
Jesus man, the auto cloak means ghost are viable SOONER, meaning they can BANK energy. You should be able to open ghost and FORCE a robo, like toss opens dts and forces scans n whatnot. Think of how this changes 1-1-1 builds.
This is one of the reasons I hate knee jerk reactions. When I first saw reapers and medivacs paired together, I didn't think we would EVER see something like that. It was a fresh take on bio we hadn't seen. I see this as something similar, it should open up new bio builds. Don't be worrying about the current meta.
I remember YEARS ago watching, I think it was Destiny stream, a Terran opened hellion Ghost, into marine marauder, it was sick as fuck....
Don't think it will be exactly Countered by star gates, as you can and should spread your ghost to minimize revelation' (another take away from that game is that Ryung got two or three of his ghost caught with 1 revelation....) plus, you should be able to mass ghost easier than oracles, they come out of barracks.
Gas shouldn't be a problem either as mules can now collect gas better than scv...
On August 19 2017 20:49 SpaWnvERtiGO wrote: @craeger
You are thinking in terms of the current meta, which is really off. Watch the Ryung game. He went proxy cloaked ghost and had to RESEARCH CLOAK.
My point being that it still worked, even with the research time of cloak.
Jesus man, the auto cloak means ghost are viable SOONER, meaning they can BANK energy. You should be able to open ghost and FORCE a robo, like toss opens dts and forces scans n whatnot. Think of how this changes 1-1-1 builds.
This is one of the reasons I hate knee jerk reactions. When I first saw reapers and medivacs paired together, I didn't think we would EVER see something like that. It was a fresh take on bio we hadn't seen. I see this as something similar, it should open up new bio builds. Don't be worrying about the current meta.
I remember YEARS ago watching, I think it was Destiny stream, a Terran opened hellion Ghost, into marine marauder, it was sick as fuck....
Don't think it will be exactly Countered by star gates, as you can and should spread your ghost to minimize revelation' (another take away from that game is that Ryung got two or three of his ghost caught with 1 revelation....) plus, you should be able to mass ghost easier than oracles, they come out of barracks.
You could EMP the Oracle. Now it can't do anything. Does cost cloak energy though, not sure. It would be a flexible opening now that I think of it. If Protoss opened with Proxy Oracle vs Ghosts, you could EMP defensively and deny it from melting any workers.
I did always wonder how effective it would be to incorporate early Ghosts into Bio in general. Could early EMPs be strong? Would cloak have value here? Or would the cost investment of Ghosts be too high?
Will be curious to find out. Keep in mind though that a Ghost opening is not going to be too hard to scout (gas and lack of other units) and one cannon on the ramp will completely deny it and put Protoss ahead. You could still keep the Ghosts and bank energy for EMPs later so it won't be a total loss. A straight up Gateway push with an Observer or Oracle might also spell trouble as Ghosts are a terrible DPS for cost unit.
if late game Terran Mech is too powerful i hope they weaken the Raven Heal Drone thingie. I don't want them weakening the invidivual Mech units unless there is no other possible fix.
The ghost thing will be patched. I would assume starting ghosts of with very little energy so they can't cloak for long enough to end the game at the start
On August 19 2017 18:59 Vanadiel wrote: I'm afraid the mule harvesting gas will make terran's build completely unreadable, the amount of variation in the timings it would allow might be too much for early games.
Terran builds aren't dictated by ressources but by production buildings. I think openings and timings will be fine to read, but that army compositions might be very unsettling to play against.
For instance, cyclone/raven compositions would be a viable mech composition, using the MECHivac raven + the shredder missile. Which would make no sense without the gaz mule.
My main concern with it is how fast skyterran may be rushed out of fewer bases, and in turn, how weak it would need to be not to get overpowered.
I Don't know, it's true that building are the main parameter for builds and timings, but harvesting gas from a mule could potentially lead to some crazy tech oriented timings.
The observation mode so noobs using F2 don't pull all their observers to their army is sooooo lazy... So is "burrowed widow mines are visible while recharging" but overall this seems like fine changes
Thought I'd post a little something after playing it a little yesterday and thinking about it more. And I'll just say it outright, there is no way protoss can survive in its current state without the MSC. Or to be more exact, there is no way protoss can survive without an oracle, you thought you were tired of protoss going SG everygame ? In this patch I honestly don't see any reason why any protoss would go for anything else, the oracle being a kind of poor man msc of sort in all match-ups.
To be clear, I think managing to balance protoss without an Msc would be an amazing feat and good for the game, but right now I have a really hard time seeing how it would be possible. Let's go for a boring Mu per mu quick study (this is gonna be mostly theorycrafting and probably gonna forget about a bunch of stuff)
PvP: Walling the ramp against adepts is now a must, and both player now go Stargate everygame, I don't even think a one base blink is supposed to do anything without an msc, the early combination of adepts going in the mineral with the 2 first oracles is just too hard to defend with a mothership core. Msc at it's core was here to prevent one base in PvP from doing too much, and we're going to back 5-6 years in time metagame wise, but worse, because the adept is just insanely powerful with a mothership core to defend it;
PvT: Something as silly as proxy 4 rax marine is now extremely hard to hold (I'm not gonna say impossible because I didn't test it, and maybe the new chronoboost can allow enough stalkers out in time, but god damn is it gonna be super hard) Also proxy cyclone, also 1 base terran in general. Also mine drop and libs are now much much more powerful. And I don't rly need to say it, but you're gonna see even more sg than you currently see.
PvZ: With the addition of the early dropoverlord mechanic, it is actually mathematically impossible to hold a zerg early all-ins without a stargate, I know this is getting redundant, just pointing it out. Now the nice thing is that I can actually see the shield mechanic being really useful vs Zerg all-ins compared to terrans (fights usually take a bit longer vs lings and roachs so the shield thing can have a lot of value), but still not as useful as photon overcharge ofc.
So yea, you can see a general theme here, protoss still lacks early defense and I don't believe the shield stuff does anything outside of being hilarious vs the early reaper. I do believe than the MSC biggest problem was how well it was scaling in the midgame, overcharge still being a massive defensive tool even when armies gets over an hundred supply. In that sense nexus overcharge was a bit better, since it didn't usually stops an army by itself (but then again it was taking so much aggro I guess it was kinda nice in a lot of situations, it was just not doing a lot of damage). I really feel like blizzard will have put the msc back into the game, but somehow make it much less powerful.
In closing, I'm kinda sad how much pylon overcharge gets, I feel like it was such a better design than nexus overcharge, pylon placement became a really huge deal and you were rewarded for intelligent pylon management. I would love to be proven wrong, but atm I really don't think removing the msc (or anything "1 clic defense-ish") is possible, but since most of the communities is ecstatic about it getting removed, Blizzard is never gonna backpedal on this, I just hope they discover some amazing ideas to balance it out.
On August 19 2017 19:22 ihatevideogames wrote: Can Hellbats be healed by a Medivac and a Mechivac at the same time? Cause that'd be fucking hillarious to watch.
I actually like the state of the game right now but i don´t mind if blizzard shake up the game especially because I like the changes overall.
good changes:
-raven: love this change, the raven is now an actual support unit and the end of massraven lategame in TvZ and TvT -MSC/Nexus/Mothership: the MSC and overcharge are one of the dummest things right now in SC2 so i love they are gone and the choice between an economy boost or better defense adds more depth to the game. -Liberator -Stalker -Carrier -Swarm Host -QOL: HT, overseer, observer
very experimental:
-Mule: 1 mule on gas is like having one extra Refinery with 3 SCVs. thats crazy, it will open up a lot of new havy tech builds for terran -Smart Servos: people forget about this upgrade but it makes hellion and vikings crazy agile. I realy want to see pros use it.
bad changes:
-Widow Mine: this will not stop minedrops but makes the unit simply bad in army figths especially in TvZ. - Infestor: this changes makes the unit too complicated, i like a more clear behavior of units and Burrowed Fungal is still in the game
the other changes are so-so and i don´t have a opinnion on them.
The Widow Mine change will help massively versus mine drops against Protoss. Especially when you don't have detection, or the Observer gets picked off by Marines in the dropship. Widow Mines can shut down mineral lines and end the game early in PvT. With this change, if you don't have detection you can sacrifice a Probe against one them kill them off. They won't sit endlessly in mineral lines.
There is a reason I face them nearly every game in PvT. They really aren't a huge investment (especially compared to Oracle harass) and while they aren't always cost effective, they are a lottery ticket. Every 1 in 8 or so games they might deal so much damage they win the game alone.
And without Photon Overcharge, Protoss would have no answer to them, so they Widow Mines have to change. And this change actually makes them a decently designed unit, as before the Widow Mine was one of the worst designs.
On August 20 2017 01:48 BronzeKnee wrote: The Widow Mine change will help massively versus mine drops against Protoss. Especially when you don't have detection, or the Observer gets picked off by Marines in the dropship. Widow Mines can shut down mineral lines and end the game early in PvT. With this change, if you don't have detection you can sacrifice a Probe against one them kill them off. They won't sit endlessly in mineral lines.
There is a reason I face them nearly every game in PvT. They really aren't a huge investment (especially compared to Oracle harass) and while they aren't always cost effective, they are a lottery ticket. Every 1 in 8 or so games they might deal so much damage they win the game alone.
And without Photon Overcharge, Protoss would have no answer to them, so they Widow Mines have to change. And this change actually makes them a decently designed unit, as before the Widow Mine was one of the worst designs.
you´re right, right now the widow mine is chancer vs worker, it´s good to change that but they should make it in a different way
On August 19 2017 20:54 SpaWnvERtiGO wrote: Case in point, I could be wrong, but you open ghost, adepts do jack shit vs a cloaked unit, no?
You need to consider things like,this. The game will look much different...
You also have to consider which amount of units you can build in contrast to your opponent. Ghosts don't kill stuff as fast as DTs, Ghosts have to trade cloaking time for snipe (to get rid of some units in quick fashion), gas isn't really the limiting factor for building Ghosts in normal games, actually, it's minerals, because you already are investing in an otherwise mineral-heavy army. You might be right that the game will change drastically, but all we can do is more or less theorycraft, because the sample size of played games on the test map is still rather small. So, in the end, we have to stick to what we know and that's the current meta. I also like the idea of EMPing Oracles, but teching into Ghosts early is a heavy investment, as you won't have much else to defend with. You'll have to wait for your opponent to trigger the pulsar beam, otherwise you have a hard time hitting a flying unit as fast as the Oracle consistently, you even risk EMPing your own OC, potentially losing the ability to scan or MULE.
come on ghosts have NOTHING to do with DTs. Energy running out, not able to be warped, can't oneshot workers, can't fight when detected, can't morph into archons to transition out, doesn't unlock twilight for transition upgrades
ghosts may be used for cheeses with this patch but they'll be very easy to figure out
On August 20 2017 01:48 BronzeKnee wrote: The Widow Mine change will help massively versus mine drops against Protoss. Especially when you don't have detection, or the Observer gets picked off by Marines in the dropship. Widow Mines can shut down mineral lines and end the game early in PvT. With this change, if you don't have detection you can sacrifice a Probe against one them kill them off. They won't sit endlessly in mineral lines.
There is a reason I face them nearly every game in PvT. They really aren't a huge investment (especially compared to Oracle harass) and while they aren't always cost effective, they are a lottery ticket. Every 1 in 8 or so games they might deal so much damage they win the game alone.
And without Photon Overcharge, Protoss would have no answer to them, so they Widow Mines have to change. And this change actually makes them a decently designed unit, as before the Widow Mine was one of the worst designs.
This, sorry to be that guy but any Terran's complaining about this change are just mad because they can't set and forget Widow Mines all around the map and win the game, forcing a massive APM and micro sink for their opponent while they expand with vision/surprise splash damage/impunity. This is a fantastic change, this game needs less, "omgf that rogue mine killed half the army by accident" and more of, "wow that Terran player is really on top of his mines, always saving them after they are shot, isn't Maru amazing?"
On August 19 2017 13:43 Luongo wrote: New Disruptor is terrible and needs to not deal friendly fire damage and have an even lower cooldown if it's going to stay the way it is exploding the second it touches enemy units.
The shield recharge ability isn't anywhere close to being a proper substitute for photon overcharge. You are going from a MSC pylon dps abillity to an ability that requires a complete nexus with built up energy and units present. Photon overcharge gave the early game of protoss much needed DPS to handle early rushes. Protoss units are generally low dps. so making them tankier isn't nearly as useful. I don't see how they are going to make this work. My prediction is they will be forced to bring back the MSC.
OMG...Are you seriously crying that you need UNITS to defend your base? ROFTL
This argument is exactly why Photon Overcharge shouldve died a long time ago. It's such a fucking crutch it's pathetic.
On August 19 2017 13:43 Luongo wrote: New Disruptor is terrible and needs to not deal friendly fire damage and have an even lower cooldown if it's going to stay the way it is exploding the second it touches enemy units.
The shield recharge ability isn't anywhere close to being a proper substitute for photon overcharge. You are going from a MSC pylon dps abillity to an ability that requires a complete nexus with built up energy and units present. Photon overcharge gave the early game of protoss much needed DPS to handle early rushes. Protoss units are generally low dps. so making them tankier isn't nearly as useful. I don't see how they are going to make this work. My prediction is they will be forced to bring back the MSC.
OMG...Are you seriously crying that you need UNITS to defend your base? ROFTL
This argument is exactly why Photon Overcharge shouldve died a long time ago. It's such a fucking crutch it's pathetic.
+1, I can personally attest with probably 10 ZvP's played at a low/mid diamond level with these changes that Photon Overcharge was indeed a huge crutch and currently Protoss feels pretty pathetic against Zerg without it.
I know it's beating a dead horse, but Gateway units could easily be buffed if Warp Gate did not exist, or only existed in the Warp Prism.
On August 19 2017 13:43 Luongo wrote: New Disruptor is terrible and needs to not deal friendly fire damage and have an even lower cooldown if it's going to stay the way it is exploding the second it touches enemy units.
The shield recharge ability isn't anywhere close to being a proper substitute for photon overcharge. You are going from a MSC pylon dps abillity to an ability that requires a complete nexus with built up energy and units present. Photon overcharge gave the early game of protoss much needed DPS to handle early rushes. Protoss units are generally low dps. so making them tankier isn't nearly as useful. I don't see how they are going to make this work. My prediction is they will be forced to bring back the MSC.
OMG...Are you seriously crying that you need UNITS to defend your base? ROFTL
This argument is exactly why Photon Overcharge shouldve died a long time ago. It's such a fucking crutch it's pathetic.
+1, I can personally attest with probably 10 ZvP's played at a low/mid diamond level with these changes that Photon Overcharge was indeed a huge crutch and currently Protoss feels pretty pathetic against Zerg without it.
I know it's beating a dead horse, but Gateway units could easily be buffed if Warp Gate did not exist, or only existed in the Warp Prism.
Yup. I actually don't mind photon overcharge, simply because gateway units are so trash. And stalkers shooting half as fast is only going to make it worse. Most protoss units already shoot really slowly and carry a punch. I personally feel they could use something that attacks a little faster (for a weaker hit). Kind of like the sentry, but not so pathetic.
Warpgate pretty much precludes you from having strong gateway units. And, I do believe, that that's largely a holdover from WoL/HoTS, back when there was no difference between warp in times. Back when it was 5 seconds, no matter what, it would have been ridiculous. I believe we're at a point where we might be able to consider actually buffing them a little bit.
I do think I would prefer gateway to be more of a lategame upgrade, like cracklings, or something. Something to give a gateway army some additional punch.
Basically tie it in with the warp prism, where it acts as a regular dropship at first, but then once you upgrade (whatever) it can actually warp in things.
On August 20 2017 05:33 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: Remove Adept, Liberator, Ultralisk armor upgrade = Kreygasm, SC2 saved.
The OBS suveillance mode is "fine" , but why add 25% vision. it should be the opposite. Reduce 25% vision for people who cant play without f2. So less skill, dump and forget obs gets promoted....
The list of changes are so silly, also making everything faster (EVERY FCKING THING) on crack isnt more fun to play, it makes it more frustrating.
On August 19 2017 13:43 Luongo wrote: New Disruptor is terrible and needs to not deal friendly fire damage and have an even lower cooldown if it's going to stay the way it is exploding the second it touches enemy units.
The shield recharge ability isn't anywhere close to being a proper substitute for photon overcharge. You are going from a MSC pylon dps abillity to an ability that requires a complete nexus with built up energy and units present. Photon overcharge gave the early game of protoss much needed DPS to handle early rushes. Protoss units are generally low dps. so making them tankier isn't nearly as useful. I don't see how they are going to make this work. My prediction is they will be forced to bring back the MSC.
OMG...Are you seriously crying that you need UNITS to defend your base? ROFTL
This argument is exactly why Photon Overcharge shouldve died a long time ago. It's such a fucking crutch it's pathetic.
+1, I can personally attest with probably 10 ZvP's played at a low/mid diamond level with these changes that Photon Overcharge was indeed a huge crutch and currently Protoss feels pretty pathetic against Zerg without it.
I know it's beating a dead horse, but Gateway units could easily be buffed if Warp Gate did not exist, or only existed in the Warp Prism.
Yup. I actually don't mind photon overcharge, simply because gateway units are so trash. And stalkers shooting half as fast is only going to make it worse. Most protoss units already shoot really slowly and carry a punch. I personally feel they could use something that attacks a little faster (for a weaker hit). Kind of like the sentry, but not so pathetic.
Warpgate pretty much precludes you from having strong gateway units. And, I do believe, that that's largely a holdover from WoL/HoTS, back when there was no difference between warp in times. Back when it was 5 seconds, no matter what, it would have been ridiculous. I believe we're at a point where we might be able to consider actually buffing them a little bit.
I do think I would prefer gateway to be more of a lategame upgrade, like cracklings, or something. Something to give a gateway army some additional punch.
Basically tie it in with the warp prism, where it acts as a regular dropship at first, but then once you upgrade (whatever) it can actually warp in things.
On August 20 2017 05:33 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: Remove Adept, Liberator, Ultralisk armor upgrade = Kreygasm, SC2 saved.
Lol. so your solution is, "let's play hots"?
I would also prefer Warp Gate to be a late game upgrade and then be able to lay some mild buffs onto GW units, but in essence it's still just a band aid. As long as they can instantly appear anywhere, they must be weaker, there is just no way around it. The balance team should have had some balls and removed it just to see exactly how bad Protoss would be without it, and then buff accordingly.
Do Stalkers even do anymore damage by the way? I know the damage was buffed but now they shoot slower? What the hell lol the Stalker sucks vs. Zerg in almost any situation (roaches trade decently while lings and Hydras annihilate them) and bio eats them just as quick as ever, they should have laid a straight up damage buff on them, not a damage change.
Thought I'd post a little something after playing it a little yesterday and thinking about it more. And I'll just say it outright, there is no way protoss can survive in its current state without the MSC. Or to be more exact, there is no way protoss can survive without an oracle, you thought you were tired of protoss going SG everygame ? In this patch I honestly don't see any reason why any protoss would go for anything else, the oracle being a kind of poor man msc of sort in all match-ups.
To be clear, I think managing to balance protoss without an Msc would be an amazing feat and good for the game, but right now I have a really hard time seeing how it would be possible. Let's go for a boring Mu per mu quick study (this is gonna be mostly theorycrafting and probably gonna forget about a bunch of stuff)
PvP: Walling the ramp against adepts is now a must, and both player now go Stargate everygame, I don't even think a one base blink is supposed to do anything without an msc, the early combination of adepts going in the mineral with the 2 first oracles is just too hard to defend with a mothership core. Msc at it's core was here to prevent one base in PvP from doing too much, and we're going to back 5-6 years in time metagame wise, but worse, because the adept is just insanely powerful with a mothership core to defend it;
PvT: Something as silly as proxy 4 rax marine is now extremely hard to hold (I'm not gonna say impossible because I didn't test it, and maybe the new chronoboost can allow enough stalkers out in time, but god damn is it gonna be super hard) Also proxy cyclone, also 1 base terran in general. Also mine drop and libs are now much much more powerful. And I don't rly need to say it, but you're gonna see even more sg than you currently see.
PvZ: With the addition of the early dropoverlord mechanic, it is actually mathematically impossible to hold a zerg early all-ins without a stargate, I know this is getting redundant, just pointing it out. Now the nice thing is that I can actually see the shield mechanic being really useful vs Zerg all-ins compared to terrans (fights usually take a bit longer vs lings and roachs so the shield thing can have a lot of value), but still not as useful as photon overcharge ofc.
So yea, you can see a general theme here, protoss still lacks early defense and I don't believe the shield stuff does anything outside of being hilarious vs the early reaper. I do believe than the MSC biggest problem was how well it was scaling in the midgame, overcharge still being a massive defensive tool even when armies gets over an hundred supply. In that sense nexus overcharge was a bit better, since it didn't usually stops an army by itself (but then again it was taking so much aggro I guess it was kinda nice in a lot of situations, it was just not doing a lot of damage). I really feel like blizzard will have put the msc back into the game, but somehow make it much less powerful.
In closing, I'm kinda sad how much pylon overcharge gets, I feel like it was such a better design than nexus overcharge, pylon placement became a really huge deal and you were rewarded for intelligent pylon management. I would love to be proven wrong, but atm I really don't think removing the msc (or anything "1 clic defense-ish") is possible, but since most of the communities is ecstatic about it getting removed, Blizzard is never gonna backpedal on this, I just hope they discover some amazing ideas to balance it out.
Thanks for the impressions, I mean, it was kinda a given that Protoss would be defenceless in the early game without the MSC and just a Stalker buff to compensate it, so not too surprising unfortunately. As said above, Gateway units should get a major re-design/buff, but that implies a major redesign of warpgate (and maybe forcefield too?) as it as been advocated for years.
I'm surprised they didn't saw it coming. I mean last year they made a big fuss about all the pros and caster they invited for the last major redesign, did they do it alone this year?
With the additional of adept and new stalker i dont think gateway units need anything.They reverted HOTS macro mechanic back and only exclusive for protoss so everything is faster for that race.It just takes time to figure out.
On August 20 2017 08:28 MrWayne wrote: I never played WoL. How managed Protoss in WoL to survive the early game, without any overcharge or MSC?
They built units. And didn't rely on a MSC button to hold stuff off. Bio isn't scary until Stim, Medivacs, Combat Shields and Marauders come into play. Proper scouting and responses is what allowed them to hold off Terran aggression, as it should be. If they spotted aggression, they'd start building more units. Sentries were also quite important.
I've had my attacks held off countless times in WoL because Protoss scouted it and reacted properly. And it put me behind because of the investment I made into the attack. Yes, there were cases where my Bio arrived to find a greedy Protoss who didn't scout me and got steamrolled as a result. That is how it's supposed to be.
Any Protoss complaining they have to build units now to stay alive are proving why Photon Overcharge has to go.
On August 20 2017 08:28 MrWayne wrote: I never played WoL. How managed Protoss in WoL to survive the early game, without any overcharge or MSC?
They built units. And didn't rely on a MSC button to hold stuff off. Bio isn't scary until Stim, Medivacs, Combat Shields and Marauders come into play. Proper scouting and responses is what allowed them to hold off Terran aggression, as it should be. If they spotted aggression, they'd start building more units. Sentries were also quite important.
I've had my attacks held off countless times in WoL because Protoss scouted it and reacted properly. And it put me behind because of the investment I made into the attack. Yes, there were cases where my Bio arrived to find a greedy Protoss who didn't scout me and got steamrolled as a result. That is how it's supposed to be.
Any Protoss complaining they have to build units now to stay alive are proving why Photon Overcharge has to go.
The options that were available to old school WOL Terran and Zerg were far weaker then they are today. The Ravager single handedly made the Forge Fast Expand obsolete and it used to be a standard.
Protoss currently feels very weak, granted I'm sure a player of superior skill would mop me as they currently do but against players of my own level I find them weaker then they currently are, I see no way to fix this other then perhaps some type of nerf to Warp Gate to make it an end game or mid game upgrade and give Gateway units simple but meaningful buffs.
On August 19 2017 13:43 Luongo wrote: New Disruptor is terrible and needs to not deal friendly fire damage and have an even lower cooldown if it's going to stay the way it is exploding the second it touches enemy units.
The shield recharge ability isn't anywhere close to being a proper substitute for photon overcharge. You are going from a MSC pylon dps abillity to an ability that requires a complete nexus with built up energy and units present. Photon overcharge gave the early game of protoss much needed DPS to handle early rushes. Protoss units are generally low dps. so making them tankier isn't nearly as useful. I don't see how they are going to make this work. My prediction is they will be forced to bring back the MSC.
OMG...Are you seriously crying that you need UNITS to defend your base? ROFTL
This argument is exactly why Photon Overcharge shouldve died a long time ago. It's such a fucking crutch it's pathetic.
+1, I can personally attest with probably 10 ZvP's played at a low/mid diamond level with these changes that Photon Overcharge was indeed a huge crutch and currently Protoss feels pretty pathetic against Zerg without it.
I know it's beating a dead horse, but Gateway units could easily be buffed if Warp Gate did not exist, or only existed in the Warp Prism.
Yup. I actually don't mind photon overcharge, simply because gateway units are so trash. And stalkers shooting half as fast is only going to make it worse. Most protoss units already shoot really slowly and carry a punch. I personally feel they could use something that attacks a little faster (for a weaker hit). Kind of like the sentry, but not so pathetic.
Warpgate pretty much precludes you from having strong gateway units. And, I do believe, that that's largely a holdover from WoL/HoTS, back when there was no difference between warp in times. Back when it was 5 seconds, no matter what, it would have been ridiculous. I believe we're at a point where we might be able to consider actually buffing them a little bit.
I do think I would prefer gateway to be more of a lategame upgrade, like cracklings, or something. Something to give a gateway army some additional punch.
Basically tie it in with the warp prism, where it acts as a regular dropship at first, but then once you upgrade (whatever) it can actually warp in things.
On August 20 2017 05:33 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: Remove Adept, Liberator, Ultralisk armor upgrade = Kreygasm, SC2 saved.
Lol. so your solution is, "let's play hots"?
I would also prefer Warp Gate to be a late game upgrade and then be able to lay some mild buffs onto GW units, but in essence it's still just a band aid. As long as they can instantly appear anywhere, they must be weaker, there is just no way around it. The balance team should have had some balls and removed it just to see exactly how bad Protoss would be without it, and then buff accordingly.
Do Stalkers even do anymore damage by the way? I know the damage was buffed but now they shoot slower? What the hell lol the Stalker sucks vs. Zerg in almost any situation (roaches trade decently while lings and Hydras annihilate them) and bio eats them just as quick as ever, they should have laid a straight up damage buff on them, not a damage change.
Yea, the stalkers will do 50% more damage, but shoot 50% slower. It basically sets it up so plus armor upgrades are less effective against it, but I feel like if it's spring less often, it'll just get eaten by units that swarm (lings, etc).
And I hear what your saying about GW units needing to be worse, because of warp gate, but I feel like you could just make the argument that they could be a little stronger if it's a late game upgrade.
T and Z would just have to invest more in defense, to hold until your units get there.
I don't know the math here, but wouldn't the Stalker changes actually increase their DPS? At least after attack upgrades.
Because if they're buffing the attack damage but proportionally slowing the attack speed to maintain the same DPS, Stalkers should be stronger after upgrades because they're gaining +2 now for each level of upgrade instead just +1.
This sounds like the best changes in a while. Sadly I think these changes are coming way too late and the economy still should be changed back to a 16 optimum 24 max saturation style.
On August 20 2017 09:12 20-Minute-Jackal wrote: I don't know the math here, but wouldn't the Stalker changes actually increase their DPS? At least after attack upgrades.
Because if they're buffing the attack damage but proportionally slowing the attack speed to maintain the same DPS, Stalkers should be stronger after upgrades because they're gaining +2 now for each level of upgrade instead just +1.
Yea, it goes up by one damage every 2 seconds, or something.
So it goes up by a tiny amount. But it also shoots slower, so multiple targets basically get an advantage against it (too much time in between targets makes it get overwhelmed)
1) mothership is OP 2) stalkers are probably OP vs Z late game (ultras/BL both armored) 3) PvP opening with oracle is by far best opening? if u go adepts u insta die with no defense, or have 2 stalkers, then are stuck behind defending ur base 4) stalkers DESTROY medivacs - probably need 5/6? in ur main and u can deny double drops... 5) colo stalker seems quite amazing again.. 6) chrono-ing units like 2 adepts out vs Z early game makes them want to do more HotSish builds 7) as above... chrono makes T want to play more HotSish as well due to no MSC > rax pressure = better and also cuz of blink timing being insane now...
pretty much my thoughts for now
I've been streaming it on and off if you wanna check out my stream, JP timezone tho rip
edit: decided ill probably make some YT videos on the changes also, so I guess I'll post those later as well.
It's good they're still actively involved in SC2 development and balancing, but at the same time this shows to me that SC2's meta isn't satisfactory. Ever since SC BW Remastered came out for pre-testers I've been feeling more traditionalist, but constant significant meta changes isn't necessarily good for a competitive RTS and BW did not have this problem so late into its development cycle.
On the buffing of gateway units, you know what I really want?
The sentrie shield recharge instead of a nexus shield battery. Or maybe both, I dunno. But def on the sentries. It would indirectly make ANY gateway based comp stronger, zealots adepts or stalkers. Question is how do balance it so it's not totally broken early game...upgrade or no ? Starting energy reduction on sentries? I got no idea......
Adepts shade basically made hallucination scout obsolete, do you remove the ability? I dunno....
But I would really like to see that one.... I mean, if they can put useless dark Templar blink in the game, ( I've literally seen it once, to cheese out Gumiho in GSl season 1, get rid of it!!!!) they can at least TRY it.
I might be crazy, but I would love to see dragoons in the game, but coming out of the ROOBOTICS FACILITY, lol. Kinda like immortals, like a toss version of mech, I think that would be cool....
^ I like the sentry idea, it would essentially make them both healers and assists though, so probably would need to remove something from them because otherwise they would be too good as spellcasters.
On August 20 2017 14:55 SpaWnvERtiGO wrote: On the buffing of gateway units, you know what I really want?
The sentrie shield recharge instead of a nexus shield battery. Or maybe both, I dunno. But def on the sentries. It would indirectly make ANY gateway based comp stronger, zealots adepts or stalkers. Question is how do balance it so it's not totally broken early game...upgrade or no ? Starting energy reduction on sentries? I got no idea......
Adepts shade basically made hallucination scout obsolete, do you remove the ability? I dunno....
But I would really like to see that one.... I mean, if they can put useless dark Templar blink in the game, ( I've literally seen it once, to cheese out Gumiho in GSl season 1, get rid of it!!!!) they can at least TRY it.
I might be crazy, but I would love to see dragoons in the game, but coming out of the ROOBOTICS FACILITY, lol. Kinda like immortals, like a toss version of mech, I think that would be cool....
On August 20 2017 14:55 SpaWnvERtiGO wrote: On the buffing of gateway units, you know what I really want?
The sentrie shield recharge instead of a nexus shield battery. Or maybe both, I dunno. But def on the sentries. It would indirectly make ANY gateway based comp stronger, zealots adepts or stalkers. Question is how do balance it so it's not totally broken early game...upgrade or no ? Starting energy reduction on sentries? I got no idea......
Adepts shade basically made hallucination scout obsolete, do you remove the ability? I dunno....
But I would really like to see that one.... I mean, if they can put useless dark Templar blink in the game, ( I've literally seen it once, to cheese out Gumiho in GSl season 1, get rid of it!!!!) they can at least TRY it.
I might be crazy, but I would love to see dragoons in the game, but coming out of the ROOBOTICS FACILITY, lol. Kinda like immortals, like a toss version of mech, I think that would be cool....
there is not a single true point here. you cant build a sentry so early and can be focused way to easy. with the shade you cannot scout, the vision is to small, you have to commit the adept. the new chrono gives new timings maybe, thats cool
On August 20 2017 13:12 -Kyo- wrote: so uh, my thoughts so far:
1) mothership is OP 2) stalkers are probably OP vs Z late game (ultras/BL both armored) 3) PvP opening with oracle is by far best opening? if u go adepts u insta die with no defense, or have 2 stalkers, then are stuck behind defending ur base 4) stalkers DESTROY medivacs - probably need 5/6? in ur main and u can deny double drops... 5) colo stalker seems quite amazing again.. 6) chrono-ing units like 2 adepts out vs Z early game makes them want to do more HotSish builds 7) as above... chrono makes T want to play more HotSish as well due to no MSC > rax pressure = better and also cuz of blink timing being insane now...
pretty much my thoughts for now
I've been streaming it on and off if you wanna check out my stream, JP timezone tho rip
edit: decided ill probably make some YT videos on the changes also, so I guess I'll post those later as well.
1. mothership is not op, you have to commit it, when it gets scouted and sniped you love big investment. 2. stalkers dmg is not increased, only the sniping ability, in big fights thats not that much against big units specially. 3. pvp will be crazy yes 4. you need to have the ability to destroy faster medivacs (point 2) because no overcharge and you need some units in defence 5. is that wrong? looks good as always vs terran. maybe we will see not 99 % adept pheonix in pvt. 6. yea t hats cool, less eco more early game pressue, but its more on the z side to defend. 7. yea terran have now way more options to pressure. because of that some stalkers needs better burst (its more about the first 1-2 shots, to snipe a medivac faster)
-------------------------
pvz is now way harder. no fast 3rd possible. when the nexus is builing you have no battery. and its not that good as overcharge. you cannot easily defend without overcharge in pvt. have to always be some units in position, with the ability to snipe a medivac fast.
shield recharge on nexus (rather than sentry) is good, it keeps protoss early game from being too powerful but bolsters their defense so they (in theory) dont die to everything. Also it does cool stuff like heal workers from harass if you need to or photon cannons which are nearby.
On August 20 2017 13:12 -Kyo- wrote: so uh, my thoughts so far:
1) mothership is OP 2) stalkers are probably OP vs Z late game (ultras/BL both armored) 3) PvP opening with oracle is by far best opening? if u go adepts u insta die with no defense, or have 2 stalkers, then are stuck behind defending ur base 4) stalkers DESTROY medivacs - probably need 5/6? in ur main and u can deny double drops... 5) colo stalker seems quite amazing again.. 6) chrono-ing units like 2 adepts out vs Z early game makes them want to do more HotSish builds 7) as above... chrono makes T want to play more HotSish as well due to no MSC > rax pressure = better and also cuz of blink timing being insane now...
pretty much my thoughts for now
I've been streaming it on and off if you wanna check out my stream, JP timezone tho rip
edit: decided ill probably make some YT videos on the changes also, so I guess I'll post those later as well.
1. mothership is not op, you have to commit it, when it gets scouted and sniped you love big investment. 2. stalkers dmg is not increased, only the sniping ability, in big fights thats not that much against big units specially. 4. you need to have the ability to destroy faster medivacs (point 2) because no overcharge and you need some units in defence
1. mothership is certainly too strong as it is right now. with chronoboost you can get it out incredibly fast and in addition the new ease of control and ability usage in tandem with nexus recall is too strong. you can attack at literally 0 risk anywhere on the map once it's out. This works fine in BW, but I cant really see the same applications for recall being okay in SC2 with how fast everything just evaporates.
2. stalker damage IS INCREASED. the sniping ability is the whole point. if u can kite/single target BL or BC or carrier or ultra or any large, heavy investment unit much faster then it is a significant buff. to say otherwise is to undervalue how much of a difference it makes to the unit that is pretty low cost or to simply not understand it. I will mention here though, that puck did make a point of mentioning that this isnt necessarily a bad thing in some cases. Protoss has a hard time fighting back against BC if they do not have mass, high tech air, while the parallel isn't necessarily there for T vs P air armies. In pretty much every other case though it feels like they're too strong.
4. uhhh... to just arbitrarily change unit numbers so drastically certainly is one approach.. but if it isnt questionable that if i keep/or warp in 5/6 stalkers in my main vs T past the opening of the game that I will basically never, ever take drop damage with observers it seems... questionable...
Last thing we need is a double boost on medivacs -_-;;
Yeah, PvT seems to be even more unplayable.. I have no clue why they caught the idea that Terran is the strongest race and the easiest one to play. I will tell ya a secret : TvT game is one big mess. You don't see single drop and they is the game ending thing. TvP is unplayable, nor will be with the collossus buff, just because mech won't work even with new Ravens against protoss and mech is unplayable against protoss in general. The cyclone changes... I have no idea what you wanted to do there, but the anti-air weapon still does not do anything to air units. And about the upgrade, cyclone is NOT a core unit, so there's no point of making it. I don't see that ever comming into play. There was no point about nerfing widow mines. I guess you wanted to make zerg's and protoss' life easier, but that's not gonna work. Playing as toss or zerg against widow mines requires game knowledge and good micro. Zerg can just make spores and micro his drones, that's fine. Smarter way of balancing wm drops in PvT would be allowing toss to get his detection easier, than having to make gate, cyber core, robo and obs erver or gate, cyber core stargate and oracle. If you're not planning on getting pretty early upgrades, cannons are not worth it. When you're on 2 bases, getting 2 cannons, one in each mineral line will cost you 450 minerals. (forge - 150, cannon 150, cannon - 150) That could have been twilight council + 2 more gates, if you don't calculate with gas. Allowing toss to get easier detection would also solve the PvP Dark Templar thing. That does not happen so often, but if my opponent goes for proxy DT or in general for Dark Templar and I don't have robotics facility, I just die, if my opponent is just a bit smart. You cannot afford early cannons in PvP and if you have Stargate, oracle is gonna detect only one DT, if my opponent plays well. So the best solution is in my opinion to just give protoss an easier detection, because nerfing widow mines just cuts off half of terran strategies, which you already cut off good 20% of them with the tankivac removal. This wm nerf WON'T make TvP more balanced, because like why would you play widow mines after this nerf at all ? In TvT widow mines don't have big affect, but every player will have the option to play more turtle, camp and get his economy up, because Ravens have no turrets anymore. Ravens were one of very few safe choices to harass your opponent in TvT early game. I'm not sure about the Raven, we will just have to see how it actually works in game, because the meta will get really different.. In TvZ, terran will have to use tanks, which is very weak against early zergling pressure and I don't see myself getting to third base, because I have to get at least 4-5 tanks before I can move out against a ling bane army. The only option will be to drop frequently to keep zerg busy and get my own economy up. Or play mech, which I don't see happening without camping too, because if zerg spots early mech, nydus timing will just kill me. If it doesn't, Swarmhosts will. Zerg will use the nydus from early game to move around the SH in the late game quickly. Also when playing mech, the ability to clear creep is not so big. Terran will have to turtle, sit in his bases and get up economy. After 40 minutes of that when both player will have late game armies, maybe something will start happening. The ghost change is cool, it makes ghost more comfortable to play in early TvP, but here we go again. The problem with protoss detection. The mech upgrade to transform fast is kind of a experiment. But I'm not really sure if that will be researched in the early game when it would be useful, and in late, there not a point of using it. Maybe when you need to run quickly before broodlords or locusts from SH arrive, but with hellions/hellbats/vikings, you could run away either way and the upgrade does not affect siege tanks, which is the main unit that has to be safe, so I don't see that coming into play either. Do I like any of these changes ? Not sure, maybe the ghost one, but here we go again. The problem with early protoss detection. Protoss will die to ghost rush if he does not open robo, which stargate is better to open at the moment, because of the huge harass potential that oracles have. Were any of these changes necessary in any way ? I don't think so. That's JUST MY OPINION, hope I didn't forget something. Peace
If Protoss has too much trouble to defend in the early game blizzard should increase the Shield Recharge to 4 or 5 shields per energy and let new Nexus start with 20 or 30 energy(right now they start with 0).
furthermore the new chrono boost is actually worse in the early game than the old one. the work rate increase/min is the same as the old one, 15%, and in some situations the new one is better (for example you can double chrono boost your robo the get faster colossi) but it require the same energy you need to defend. So for example you have to defend your natural. Right now you have one or two overcharge on the MSC and 2 Nexus to chrono boost your robo or gateways. In the new patch you have only one Nexus to chrono boost because the energy from your natural is needed for Shield Recharge. So buffing the chrono boost to something like 125% work rate increase over 10s (20% work rate increase/min) is fine i think.
On August 20 2017 07:38 JimmyJRaynor wrote: If Protoss is too weak early game without hte MSC then please buff the Zealot and Stalker. Buff basic//simple Protoss units with stat increases.
That's the idea, but then it can make gimmicky/all in extremely strong all-in, warp in from a prism could destroy base in second... and so on That's why, I think, warpgate must be severly nerfed in return.
Before theorycrafting, please play with the changes. I won with protoss even though I'm a zerg player, and it seems like twilight will be the early tech of choice for many players. SG is another one, as some protoss players open SG and get the MSC these days at the 5 minute mark. So I guess twilight on the ladder with some SG for pros.
I played Zerg, and mech seems quite strong now. On the usual ladder I don't find mech that powerful, but its quite powerful now. We'll see if it can be countered with the tools we have as zergs. Zerg was mainly nerfed (only lurkers were buffed, vipers changed a bit, SH nerfed, and infestors seems like nerfed but may be the infested terrans will make for the lack of AA).
For ZvP I can say that a problem that can arise for Protoss is the disruptor change. Disruptors now are very hard to use as long as the opposing army have melee units. So I guess the'll lose value as long as there are lings, ultras or chargelots in the mix.
For example I played a ZvP going for hydra lurker ling, and the protoss tried to counter it with Disruptors, which is supposed to be a good choice. But since I always had lings on top of his army his disruptors shoots didn't do much (may be they even blew part of his army). Therefore the disruptor change isn't that good I think, should be considered as reversing it or looking for some other change. Seems like disruptors will only be viable in PvT, as in PvZ the zerg adds lings to the mix and disruptors turn into quite useless, I guess a protoss player can add chargelots to make sure his archons doesn't blow on disruptor shoots, so disruptors will lose their only role in the PvP match up as well.
I'd consider changing it in a different way: Here is a suggestion, the moment the nova ball meets an enemy unit it doesn't blow up immediately, but instead is slowed as long as its in contact with an enemy unit. This way it won't hit center of the army, but it won't blow up automatically on the first melee units which usually are in contact with the protoss army anyway (the way it happens now). It will give the players some room to micro so that important units dodge the nova ball so that it doesn't do game ending damage (as the design teem wants to), but it will still do damage.
Dude, literally, when adepts came out, hallucinations stopped. Hell, any non adept opening stopped. ( okay maybe stargate..) The fact they changed the vision doesn't mean toss don't still make adepts and send em to poke across the map to find out what's going on, before it was forges and super defensive play....
Also, you notice, I said maybe recharge on the nexus too. Like come on now, lol. The sentry thing was a suggestion on buffing gateway. Cause it would basically make all the units stronger, instead of tweaking all the individual units. A suggestion, my man.
I just want some interesting, fun, unit comps. I dont care if they tried giving Toss the phase-Smith from the campaign. It would be less stupid than Archon Toilets were....
If the shield recharge ability of the nexus is supposed to help out defending the Protoss' wall, maps with a pocket expansion are not viable anymore, because in the main the nexus is usually too far away from the wall.
For this ability to be effective it would make sense to play around with the numbers of the nexus energy a bit, such that you can already use a fair amount of energy right after building it for shield energy, but not for chronoboost. From there you need to see how much shield is supposed to be regenerated per energy.
Interesting changes. I like that they are willing to still make such large modifications to the game. The Protoss ones are the most interesting and problematic though.
As it stands, using full nexus energy on chrono alone will equate to the same build reduction as current chrono, but with more flexibility in saving up energy to power out certain things. However, with photon overcharge being removed, and the new shield recharge "defense mechanic" requiring nexus energy as well, protoss is receiving a nerf. I also forsee them having great trouble securing a third base against Zerg, considering photon overcharge is stronger than this new shield mechanic, and it requires the third base to be fully built and have energy to do anything defensive. I hope they can remedy this, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the MSC come back again after they are unsuccessful in doing so.
The disruptor change at first glance seems like a wash, but it's actually a large nerf to the unit. You can now block disruptor shots with a single cheap unit by putting it in the line of fire, causing it to blow up prematurely and deal little damage. Also, when using with zealots, you can no longer direct the shot past the front line to avoid friendly fire. The shots will explode ontop of the units the zealots are attacking, killing them as well. Lastly, the disruptor becomes extremely awkward in situations where units like zerglings or roaches etc get on top of them inside your own army. This will cause the shots to explode ontop of the disruptor and potentially wipe out a lot of your own units. Unit will be terrible after this change, so I don't forsee it going through.
The Nexus Recall ability will grow in power as the game progresses, and become extremely potent late game, where energy for shield recharge and chronoboost isn't needed. Unfortunately, what protoss really needs is an answer for early game defense, which this won't be that useful for.
I feel like it's going to be very hard to rebalance early mid game protoss without the MSC. I hope they can do it, but the real solution would have been stronger gateway units and no warpgate, and that will obviously never happen.
I can't understand people who non-ironically defend 1click-defense by shooting pylons. Literally ANYTHING else is fine, they will figure it out, but the MSC absolutely HAD TO GO.
i really like the tweak to the gas and minerals. very quickly several mineral patches are gone and although you have a base producing some income .. its peak production levels don't last very long. i'm thinking they might want to decrease the gas slightly from what they have it in the PTR.
all they need to do now is call the mineral patches Tiberium and change their colour from blue to green.
On August 21 2017 00:44 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: How to make the game even better ?
Get rid of ravagers, adepts, liberators.
great! just re release hots!
Thats actually a good idea.
Or even better, re-release wings of liberty, fix the balance problems ---> Perfect RTS.
Et Voila.
No more stupid bandaids or bad designed units like adept shades, ravagers, liberators, BC blink, swarmhosts, reaper grenade, warpprism pickup range, queen range, cyclones, widow mines,......
On August 21 2017 00:44 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: How to make the game even better ?
Get rid of ravagers, adepts, liberators.
great! just re release hots!
Thats actually a good idea.
Or even better, re-release wings of liberty, fix the balance problems ---> Perfect RTS.
Et Voila.
No more stupid bandaids or bad designed units like adept shades, ravagers, liberators, BC blink, swarmhosts, reaper grenade, warpprism pickup range, queen range, cyclones, widow mines,......
etc.
Reaper grenades were actually in the alpha, although they were a bit closer to spider mines if i recall correctly. I'd prefer reapers to have spider mines that just do increased explosive damage and not send units flying around. At least for TvP that is. Mech would actually be viable in that match up.
On August 21 2017 00:44 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: How to make the game even better ?
Get rid of ravagers, adepts, liberators.
great! just re release hots!
Thats actually a good idea.
Or even better, re-release wings of liberty, fix the balance problems ---> Perfect RTS.
Et Voila.
No more stupid bandaids or bad designed units like adept shades, ravagers, liberators, BC blink, swarmhosts, reaper grenade, warpprism pickup range, queen range, cyclones, widow mines,......
On August 21 2017 00:44 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: How to make the game even better ?
Get rid of ravagers, adepts, liberators.
great! just re release hots!
Thats actually a good idea.
Or even better, re-release wings of liberty, fix the balance problems ---> Perfect RTS.
Et Voila.
No more stupid bandaids or bad designed units like adept shades, ravagers, liberators, BC blink, swarmhosts, reaper grenade, warpprism pickup range, queen range, cyclones, widow mines,......
etc.
Reaper grenades were actually in the alpha, although they were a bit closer to spider mines if i recall correctly. I'd prefer reapers to have spider mines that just do increased explosive damage and not send units flying around. At least for TvP that is. Mech would actually be viable in that match up.
1. Buff barracks unit without changing other already strong barracks units 2. leave factory units unchanged 3. ???? 4. Mech is viable
On August 21 2017 02:26 ihatevideogames wrote: I can't understand people who non-ironically defend 1click-defense by shooting pylons. Literally ANYTHING else is fine, they will figure it out, but the MSC absolutely HAD TO GO.
I never really understood the hate for the MSC, I actually quite enjoy using it, and I don't see how it could be considered overpowered - but clearly my opinion is partly biased by the fact that I play protoss, and partly by the fact that I'm low level.
Overall - it seems the hate for the MSC from Z and T is at such level that it will be hardly reintroduced, which I found kind of sad, since I don't read often many arguments against it (a part from "it absolutely HAD TO GO" which is not really an argument - and I'm not criticizing you specifically since you maybe had arguments in other posts, but it is often the case).
Perhaps without additional tool for early P defense (the shield battery nexus is quite a downgrade compared to photon-overcharge), the boost ability for the medivac could be removed.
Their reasoning basically says "we nerf bio, because mech is bad".
If you want to help mech out you could make armory cheaper or combine mech upgrades again. This could reduce the high investment of getting a mech production going.
Also the new mule could make mech unnecessary harder to balance, because of how much more random timings could be... but that are just my thoughts so far.
On August 21 2017 02:26 ihatevideogames wrote: I can't understand people who non-ironically defend 1click-defense by shooting pylons. Literally ANYTHING else is fine, they will figure it out, but the MSC absolutely HAD TO GO.
I never really understood the hate for the MSC, I actually quite enjoy using it, and I don't see how it could be considered overpowered - but clearly my opinion is partly biased by the fact that I play protoss, and partly by the fact that I'm low level.
Overall - it seems the hate for the MSC from Z and T is at such level that it will be hardly reintroduced, which I found kind of sad, since I don't read often many arguments against it (a part from "it absolutely HAD TO GO" which is not really an argument - and I'm not criticizing you specifically since you maybe had arguments in other posts, but it is often the case).
Perhaps without additional tool for early P defense (the shield battery nexus is quite a downgrade compared to photon-overcharge), the boost ability for the medivac could be removed.
I think it's pretty obvious why 1-click anti-everything defense is a bad thing for the game. It allows toss to do silly stuff such as going proxy stargate while taking a fast 3rd. Every time I saw a pro match where the toss just took a free 3rd when all he had was an Oracle and 2 Adepts I just facepalmed. Or when 2 Pylons defended against 2 full medivacs worth of units, while the toss player had 0 actual units in his base. It's just bad design that creates bad gameplay and it needs to go. Doesn't matter if toss suffers for a while because of it, find another solution, but design wise, it's bad for the game.
On August 21 2017 02:26 ihatevideogames wrote: I can't understand people who non-ironically defend 1click-defense by shooting pylons. Literally ANYTHING else is fine, they will figure it out, but the MSC absolutely HAD TO GO.
I never really understood the hate for the MSC, I actually quite enjoy using it, and I don't see how it could be considered overpowered - but clearly my opinion is partly biased by the fact that I play protoss, and partly by the fact that I'm low level.
Overall - it seems the hate for the MSC from Z and T is at such level that it will be hardly reintroduced, which I found kind of sad, since I don't read often many arguments against it (a part from "it absolutely HAD TO GO" which is not really an argument - and I'm not criticizing you specifically since you maybe had arguments in other posts, but it is often the case).
Perhaps without additional tool for early P defense (the shield battery nexus is quite a downgrade compared to photon-overcharge), the boost ability for the medivac could be removed.
I think it's pretty obvious why 1-click anti-everything defense is a bad thing for the game. It allows toss to do silly stuff such as going proxy stargate while taking a fast 3rd. Every time I saw a pro match where the toss just took a free 3rd when all he had was an Oracle and 2 Adepts I just facepalmed. Or when 2 Pylons defended against 2 full medivacs worth of units, while the toss player had 0 actual units in his base. It's just bad design that creates bad gameplay and it needs to go. Doesn't matter if toss suffers for a while because of it, find another solution, but design wise, it's bad for the game.
Clearly not "pretty obviously" otherwise I wouldn't have asked (But I guess it's just a dismissive tone you use)
I won't answer to the "bad design" claim because in all honesty I don't know what that means: it looks like something that is often used to replace "I don't like it" (Kind of like the word "gimmick")
However - I don't think it's a 1click defense: it requires proper pylon positioning (and investment, since often you go quite over supply to cover all the bases early) and proper MSc positioning and movement (it is as much as a turret is a 1click defense against oracles, which I don't think it is) - for sure it's not anti everything, you don't need really many units to avoid the pylon or just focus them down I also don't get why often terran on ladder (at my low level at least) don't try to bait it: you have very mobile medivacs..(maybe here I'm missing something since I don't play T, and I don't know the race well)
Overall, without it (in any form, even the nexus cannon), I always felt like the early game is 100% terran territory, unless the protoss goes for full cheese. Two medivacs can pin me down to my bases, and applying early pressure becomes really difficult. Since perhaps this is the feeling that *now* Terrans have (W/ overcharge in the game), an intermediate solution could be more interesting. I don't know what this could be, and surely testing the shield battery nexus will be interesting, but I don't like to enter this testing / patching phase with the assumption that the MSc *has to go* ..
-Scrambler Missile: i see potencial in this ability, i kinda like it.
-Repair Drone: i dont like it, its a medic for mech and i don think it should exist. if you want to repair mech bring scvs or drop mules. it also last way too much.
-Shredder Missile: i really dont see a spell that reduce armor have a place in SC, let those spell on WC although i havent seen a fight with the -armor on the enemy army. i dont know if the reduction of armor is enough to compensate for the little damage it does
On August 21 2017 12:09 c0sm0naut wrote: as a masters random
why would i ever drop a mule on gas? when do i ever need mroe gas as terran? maybe with new raven, there will be a reason to harvest gas as this race
they are clearly trying to make T play mech more often, with the other buffs, so mule on gas makes sense actually.
however, at least in PvT, playing vs mech (sample of 4 games) has been super easy. almost BW-like. 4 base 12 gates and tons of chargelots w some stalker rams through a 150 sup tank/raven/othermech army (when u should max) and trades well. then T can't hold a third. T will need more mech buffs, to the actual ground army. and I haven't seen the repair drones hold up against a full-on frontal push.
I think a lot of people are getting their eyes big because of the shiny-ness factor of the changes being new.
Mech is not made better by the raven changes or other changes, because ravens are being severely nerfed.
A repair drone is un-necessary for mech and massively worse than PDD. The seeker missile is being flat out nerfed for zero reason. Why would i want -3 armor on a unit for 2-3 seconds for 30 dmg when i can just have the seeker missile we have now that will KILL EVERYTHING for 100 dmg + splash? It's pretty ludicrous people are claiming this new seeker is good when it's extremely bad.
And finally the scrambler missile...well this is massively better than auto-turrets, that's the only successful change to the raven. PDD and seeker missile should stay as they are until both carriers and swarmhosts are also nerfed more for the other two races.
The changes to mech AA are also basically non-existent. Cyclones are still meh and widow mines are being nerfed for no reason.
Why do mines need to be spotted after being used? Are DTS going to correspondingly be visible after they attack something? What about burrowed banes that can end the game in an instant? This change is really bad and unnecessary, not to mention it's actually a huge nerf to mech. A lot of mech players like me heavily use widow mines in TvZ when playing non-mass raven mech styles.
I also think carriers still are completely dominating mech and Zerg late game and interceptors should be expensive at 25 minerals as they used to be so that carriers are not massable late game or at least so they have a weakness as they used to. So if a Protoss makes carriers you can kill the interceptors to bankrupt them.
It's really depressing right now killing 100 interceptors and seeing the Protoss still clean up all your gas units, and then come back 30 seconds later with fully loaded interceptors because they cost absolutely nothing.
Swarmhosts i have another suggestion that will make them more manageable - MAKE SWARMHOSTS HAVE THE LIGHT TAG. This will allow hellions to be able to chase them down in TvZ. That change alone would have a huge impact without changing many other unit statistics or values on the unit. Despite the fact i think swarmhosts are absurd and should be nerf hammered even harder, at least a light tag can make them manageable for a meching Terran.
On August 21 2017 13:19 avilo wrote: I think a lot of people are getting their eyes big because of the shiny-ness factor of the changes being new.
Mech is not made better by the raven changes or other changes, because ravens are being severely nerfed.
A repair drone is un-necessary for mech and massively worse than PDD. The seeker missile is being flat out nerfed for zero reason. Why would i want -3 armor on a unit for 2-3 seconds for 30 dmg when i can just have the seeker missile we have now that will KILL EVERYTHING for 100 dmg + splash? It's pretty ludicrous people are claiming this new seeker is good when it's extremely bad.
And finally the scrambler missile...well this is massively better than auto-turrets, that's the only successful change to the raven. PDD and seeker missile should stay as they are until both carriers and swarmhosts are also nerfed more for the other two races.
The changes to mech AA are also basically non-existent. Cyclones are still meh and widow mines are being nerfed for no reason.
Why do mines need to be spotted after being used? Are DTS going to correspondingly be visible after they attack something? What about burrowed banes that can end the game in an instant? This change is really bad and unnecessary, not to mention it's actually a huge nerf to mech. A lot of mech players like me heavily use widow mines in TvZ when playing non-mass raven mech styles.
I also think carriers still are completely dominating mech and Zerg late game and interceptors should be expensive at 25 minerals as they used to be so that carriers are not massable late game or at least so they have a weakness as they used to. So if a Protoss makes carriers you can kill the interceptors to bankrupt them.
It's really depressing right now killing 100 interceptors and seeing the Protoss still clean up all your gas units, and then come back 30 seconds later with fully loaded interceptors because they cost absolutely nothing.
Swarmhosts i have another suggestion that will make them more manageable - MAKE SWARMHOSTS HAVE THE LIGHT TAG. This will allow hellions to be able to chase them down in TvZ. That change alone would have a huge impact without changing many other unit statistics or values on the unit. Despite the fact i think swarmhosts are absurd and should be nerf hammered even harder, at least a light tag can make them manageable for a meching Terran.
They should just revert them to HoTS carriers then.....
Honestly carriers feel like they're in their honey moon period at the moment. Everyone is all oogly eyed over them about how they're still 'OP' when in reality many of their counters have been buffed recently and honestly aren't as strong they were and it usually takes 6 months for the SC2 hivemind to catch up to the meta and understand of how to deal with them. If you're playing with a lead carriers are certainly good, but they are no longer the 'as long as I can get 10 of these no matter what I can win' as they once were.
On August 21 2017 12:09 c0sm0naut wrote: as a masters random
why would i ever drop a mule on gas? when do i ever need mroe gas as terran? maybe with new raven, there will be a reason to harvest gas as this race
they are clearly trying to make T play mech more often, with the other buffs, so mule on gas makes sense actually.
however, at least in PvT, playing vs mech (sample of 4 games) has been super easy. almost BW-like. 4 base 12 gates and tons of chargelots w some stalker rams through a 150 sup tank/raven/othermech army (when u should max) and trades well. then T can't hold a third. T will need more mech buffs, to the actual ground army. and I haven't seen the repair drones hold up against a full-on frontal push.
I don't think this will be very significant for mech play. When I play mech I never feel starved for gas as long as I build my refineries on time. The decreased mineral income however is a big nerf to mech since you need a ton of turrets and orbitals and also hellbats.
The whole point of creating repair drone because the ability to remax low tier unit of protoss and zerg.Like even you beat most of protoss's fleet with mech....they just warp in one billion stalkers and u are dead anyway....I don't understand why people complain about this spell.
On August 21 2017 16:42 MockHamill wrote: I think the main problem with Carriers is that they mess up your units targeting system so much.
If interceptors had the lowest possible target-priority I think you could leave the rest of the Carriers un-nerfed.
It is worth testing out, at least.
The reason carriers need to be stronger in sc2 because best AA options for other race are also air units so these is no terrain advantage for them to abuse. This unit's DPS in the sequel is just ridiculous so killing interceptor is definitely an option.And i found out that sc2 carriers will rip through good old goliaths easily...guarantee....so bring it back will fix nothing.
//Btw new unit tester is available:https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/6v094l/unit_tester_for_balance_update/ Thor with repair drone takes about 30 sec to kill with one carrier.this one and sramble egg are my farvorite change right now.Cyclone's upgrade is shit tho.But may be because i played it wrong.
On August 21 2017 02:26 ihatevideogames wrote: I can't understand people who non-ironically defend 1click-defense by shooting pylons. Literally ANYTHING else is fine, they will figure it out, but the MSC absolutely HAD TO GO.
I never really understood the hate for the MSC, I actually quite enjoy using it, and I don't see how it could be considered overpowered - but clearly my opinion is partly biased by the fact that I play protoss, and partly by the fact that I'm low level.
Overall - it seems the hate for the MSC from Z and T is at such level that it will be hardly reintroduced, which I found kind of sad, since I don't read often many arguments against it (a part from "it absolutely HAD TO GO" which is not really an argument - and I'm not criticizing you specifically since you maybe had arguments in other posts, but it is often the case).
Perhaps without additional tool for early P defense (the shield battery nexus is quite a downgrade compared to photon-overcharge), the boost ability for the medivac could be removed.
I think it's pretty obvious why 1-click anti-everything defense is a bad thing for the game. It allows toss to do silly stuff such as going proxy stargate while taking a fast 3rd. Every time I saw a pro match where the toss just took a free 3rd when all he had was an Oracle and 2 Adepts I just facepalmed. Or when 2 Pylons defended against 2 full medivacs worth of units, while the toss player had 0 actual units in his base. It's just bad design that creates bad gameplay and it needs to go. Doesn't matter if toss suffers for a while because of it, find another solution, but design wise, it's bad for the game.
I disagree. I'm Z and I like the idea of the msc. Of course, when I try to cheese and fail because of it, I rage, but still I don't see why toss could'nt have such unit. I think it fits well in the race idea. Though it is probably too strong, and not enough of a "tech choice". You have to build one so you can probe up and expand, and you don't even have to build so many units. I actually would like to see the same changes to early game that they are planing, but with the msc still in place with 2 buffs : - Cost (and build time ?) increase (+50% maybe) so that it is a huge investment - higher supply cost.
You would have to choose between units (and interacting with opponents) or msc and macroing.
//Btw new unit tester is available:https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/6v094l/unit_tester_for_balance_update/ Thor with repair drone takes about 30 sec to kill with one carrier.this one and sramble egg are my farvorite change right now.Cyclone's upgrade is shit tho.But may be because i played it wrong.
Problem with that scenario is the gas cost is 250 (Carrier) vs 400 (Thor+Raven). Each Raven you produce is almost a Carrier more he has, at least for gas cost which is the important factor late game.
But the real problem is mixed armies. Carrier/Immortals vs Tank/Hellbat/Thor means that the Thor can not engage the Carriers before the immortals are gone since they prevent the Thors from being able to focus down the Carriers. So Protoss gets damage output from both Carriers and Immortals while Terran only get damage output from tanks/hellbats for half the battle.
Which is why you are forced to go Vikings instead of Thor which means you auto-lose if Protoss has any splash at all.
Which is why you are forced to go BCs instead of Vikings since they are the only realistic counter to Carriers.
And that is the problem with the matchup. If Carriers had a working (not theoretical, working) counter besides BCs they matchup would be much healthier.
But the problem is that the 2 natural counters (Vikings and Thor) only works in theory, but not in practice.
Solution? Maybe remove 50 hitpoints from Carriers so that their counters actually work.
On August 21 2017 02:26 ihatevideogames wrote: I can't understand people who non-ironically defend 1click-defense by shooting pylons. Literally ANYTHING else is fine, they will figure it out, but the MSC absolutely HAD TO GO.
I never really understood the hate for the MSC, I actually quite enjoy using it, and I don't see how it could be considered overpowered - but clearly my opinion is partly biased by the fact that I play protoss, and partly by the fact that I'm low level.
Overall - it seems the hate for the MSC from Z and T is at such level that it will be hardly reintroduced, which I found kind of sad, since I don't read often many arguments against it (a part from "it absolutely HAD TO GO" which is not really an argument - and I'm not criticizing you specifically since you maybe had arguments in other posts, but it is often the case).
Perhaps without additional tool for early P defense (the shield battery nexus is quite a downgrade compared to photon-overcharge), the boost ability for the medivac could be removed.
I think it's pretty obvious why 1-click anti-everything defense is a bad thing for the game. It allows toss to do silly stuff such as going proxy stargate while taking a fast 3rd. Every time I saw a pro match where the toss just took a free 3rd when all he had was an Oracle and 2 Adepts I just facepalmed. Or when 2 Pylons defended against 2 full medivacs worth of units, while the toss player had 0 actual units in his base. It's just bad design that creates bad gameplay and it needs to go. Doesn't matter if toss suffers for a while because of it, find another solution, but design wise, it's bad for the game.
I disagree. I'm Z and I like the idea of the msc. Of course, when I try to cheese and fail because of it, I rage, but still I don't see why toss could'nt have such unit. I think it fits well in the race idea. Though it is probably too strong, and not enough of a "tech choice". You have to build one so you can probe up and expand, and you don't even have to build so many units. I actually would like to see the same changes to early game that they are planing, but with the msc still in place with 2 buffs : - Cost (and build time ?) increase (+50% maybe) so that it is a huge investment - higher supply cost.
You would have to choose between units (and interacting with opponents) or msc and macroing.
I'm P, and i find the MSC fit the race identity quite well too. As said earlier, i consider people who are saying it is "gimmicky" and "bad design" are only people talking about what they dislike, and is spread by a bunch of T & Z who thinks they are game designer. A problem still present to me is that there is maybe too much reliance upon the MSC.Like the mine & the disruptor , on lower levels it's a bit too much " all or nothing". Also i fear that the PvT become again a struggle to survive early on, like in the WoL era where T just felt overpowered because the match up was just completely struggling to see at which timing the MMM train is gonna be in your base.(A thing that just make me quit the game until mid HotS personnally) I'm ok with the removal, but now i fail to see how Protoss won't be again only a turtling race.
The mine nerf is directed toward this match up i think, but make it more useless in TvZ which is kinda sad. Also now medivac have the boost..
//Btw new unit tester is available:https://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/6v094l/unit_tester_for_balance_update/ Thor with repair drone takes about 30 sec to kill with one carrier.this one and sramble egg are my farvorite change right now.Cyclone's upgrade is shit tho.But may be because i played it wrong.
Problem with that scenario is the gas cost is 250 (Carrier) vs 400 (Thor+Raven). Each Raven you produce is almost a Carrier more he has, at least for gas cost which is the important factor late game.
But the real problem is mixed armies. Carrier/Immortals vs Tank/Hellbat/Thor means that the Thor can not engage the Carriers before the immortals are gone since they prevent the Thors from being able to focus down the Carriers. So Protoss gets damage output from both Carriers and Immortals while Terran only get damage output from tanks/hellbats for half the battle.
Which is why you are forced to go Vikings instead of Thor which means you auto-lose if Protoss has any splash at all.
Which is why you are forced to go BCs instead of Vikings since they are the only realistic counter to Carriers.
And that is the problem with the matchup. If Carriers had a working (not theoretical, working) counter besides BCs they matchup would be much healthier.
But the problem is that the 2 natural counters (Vikings and Thor) only works in theory, but not in practice.
Solution? Maybe remove 50 hitpoints from Carriers so that their counters actually work.
Don't get me wrong.Even with new ability i couldn't win shit against mass carriers with HIP mode.You could only effectively kill interceptors with splash and just like broodwar u trade gas for mineral until u kill protoss or getting starved resource to death. I think it's better that way because straight up beating air units is just blank and lack of counter play due to siege tank is back to it's old form.They are protoss after all of course they must trade more cost effective.The problem in the current game is unlike broodwar protoss can tech up to sky army really fast due to they have all kind of mobility tools to delay terran's ground mech push with little effort while teching air stuff.Hope the new mule will solve this problem somehow.
On August 21 2017 02:26 ihatevideogames wrote: I can't understand people who non-ironically defend 1click-defense by shooting pylons. Literally ANYTHING else is fine, they will figure it out, but the MSC absolutely HAD TO GO.
I never really understood the hate for the MSC, I actually quite enjoy using it, and I don't see how it could be considered overpowered - but clearly my opinion is partly biased by the fact that I play protoss, and partly by the fact that I'm low level.
Overall - it seems the hate for the MSC from Z and T is at such level that it will be hardly reintroduced, which I found kind of sad, since I don't read often many arguments against it (a part from "it absolutely HAD TO GO" which is not really an argument - and I'm not criticizing you specifically since you maybe had arguments in other posts, but it is often the case).
Perhaps without additional tool for early P defense (the shield battery nexus is quite a downgrade compared to photon-overcharge), the boost ability for the medivac could be removed.
I think it's pretty obvious why 1-click anti-everything defense is a bad thing for the game. It allows toss to do silly stuff such as going proxy stargate while taking a fast 3rd. Every time I saw a pro match where the toss just took a free 3rd when all he had was an Oracle and 2 Adepts I just facepalmed. Or when 2 Pylons defended against 2 full medivacs worth of units, while the toss player had 0 actual units in his base. It's just bad design that creates bad gameplay and it needs to go. Doesn't matter if toss suffers for a while because of it, find another solution, but design wise, it's bad for the game.
I disagree. I'm Z and I like the idea of the msc. Of course, when I try to cheese and fail because of it, I rage, but still I don't see why toss could'nt have such unit. I think it fits well in the race idea. Though it is probably too strong, and not enough of a "tech choice". You have to build one so you can probe up and expand, and you don't even have to build so many units. I actually would like to see the same changes to early game that they are planing, but with the msc still in place with 2 buffs : - Cost (and build time ?) increase (+50% maybe) so that it is a huge investment - higher supply cost.
You would have to choose between units (and interacting with opponents) or msc and macroing.
I'm P, and i find the MSC fit the race identity quite well too. As said earlier, i consider people who are saying it is "gimmicky" and "bad design" are only people talking about what they dislike, and is spread by a bunch of T & Z who thinks they are game designer. A problem still present to me is that there is maybe too much reliance upon the MSC.Like the mine & the disruptor , on lower levels it's a bit too much " all or nothing". Also i fear that the PvT become again a struggle to survive early on, like in the WoL era where T just felt overpowered because the match up was just completely struggling to see at which timing the MMM train is gonna be in your base.(A thing that just make me quit the game until mid HotS personnally) I'm ok with the removal, but now i fail to see how Protoss won't be again only a turtling race.
The mine nerf is directed toward this match up i think, but make it more useless in TvZ which is kinda sad. Also now medivac have the boost..
And iam no race and msc fits protoss. While super tanks with 16 range would fit terran. Doesnt mean it fits the multiplayer aspect - The interraction with msc is very poor. Thats the key reason its a bad unit for multiplayer. Singleplayer? Sure, its a very strong unit which was what protoss identity was in broodwar and to some extent sc2, but just because it fits the theme of the race doesnt mean its a good unit for multiplayer.
On August 21 2017 02:26 ihatevideogames wrote: I can't understand people who non-ironically defend 1click-defense by shooting pylons. Literally ANYTHING else is fine, they will figure it out, but the MSC absolutely HAD TO GO.
I never really understood the hate for the MSC, I actually quite enjoy using it, and I don't see how it could be considered overpowered - but clearly my opinion is partly biased by the fact that I play protoss, and partly by the fact that I'm low level.
Overall - it seems the hate for the MSC from Z and T is at such level that it will be hardly reintroduced, which I found kind of sad, since I don't read often many arguments against it (a part from "it absolutely HAD TO GO" which is not really an argument - and I'm not criticizing you specifically since you maybe had arguments in other posts, but it is often the case).
Perhaps without additional tool for early P defense (the shield battery nexus is quite a downgrade compared to photon-overcharge), the boost ability for the medivac could be removed.
I think it's pretty obvious why 1-click anti-everything defense is a bad thing for the game. It allows toss to do silly stuff such as going proxy stargate while taking a fast 3rd. Every time I saw a pro match where the toss just took a free 3rd when all he had was an Oracle and 2 Adepts I just facepalmed. Or when 2 Pylons defended against 2 full medivacs worth of units, while the toss player had 0 actual units in his base. It's just bad design that creates bad gameplay and it needs to go. Doesn't matter if toss suffers for a while because of it, find another solution, but design wise, it's bad for the game.
I disagree. I'm Z and I like the idea of the msc. Of course, when I try to cheese and fail because of it, I rage, but still I don't see why toss could'nt have such unit. I think it fits well in the race idea. Though it is probably too strong, and not enough of a "tech choice". You have to build one so you can probe up and expand, and you don't even have to build so many units. I actually would like to see the same changes to early game that they are planing, but with the msc still in place with 2 buffs : - Cost (and build time ?) increase (+50% maybe) so that it is a huge investment - higher supply cost.
You would have to choose between units (and interacting with opponents) or msc and macroing.
I'm P, and i find the MSC fit the race identity quite well too. As said earlier, i consider people who are saying it is "gimmicky" and "bad design" are only people talking about what they dislike, and is spread by a bunch of T & Z who thinks they are game designer. A problem still present to me is that there is maybe too much reliance upon the MSC.Like the mine & the disruptor , on lower levels it's a bit too much " all or nothing". Also i fear that the PvT become again a struggle to survive early on, like in the WoL era where T just felt overpowered because the match up was just completely struggling to see at which timing the MMM train is gonna be in your base.(A thing that just make me quit the game until mid HotS personnally) I'm ok with the removal, but now i fail to see how Protoss won't be again only a turtling race.
The mine nerf is directed toward this match up i think, but make it more useless in TvZ which is kinda sad. Also now medivac have the boost..
And iam no race and msc fits protoss. While super tanks with 16 range would fit terran. Doesnt mean it fits the multiplayer aspect - The interraction with msc is very poor. Thats the key reason its a bad unit for multiplayer. Singleplayer? Sure, its a very strong unit which was what protoss identity was in broodwar and to some extent sc2, but just because it fits the theme of the race doesnt mean its a good unit for multiplayer.
Yep, in fact the tank was not erased from the terran race, but it was introduced in a form that works for multiplayer game. Why not do the same for the MSC?
On August 21 2017 20:17 Kenny_mk wrote: I'm P, and i find the MSC fit the race identity quite well too. As said earlier, i consider people who are saying it is "gimmicky" and "bad design" are only people talking about what they dislike, and is spread by a bunch of T & Z who thinks they are game designer.
its even better when they connect someone liking the MSC to having poor self esteem and how well designed video games build higher self esteem. ROFLMAO.
i'd rather peopel stick to the details of the game rather than relating some tiny detail in the game to the writings of Skinner, Artistotle and Ayn Rand.
On August 21 2017 02:26 ihatevideogames wrote: I can't understand people who non-ironically defend 1click-defense by shooting pylons. Literally ANYTHING else is fine, they will figure it out, but the MSC absolutely HAD TO GO.
I never really understood the hate for the MSC, I actually quite enjoy using it, and I don't see how it could be considered overpowered - but clearly my opinion is partly biased by the fact that I play protoss, and partly by the fact that I'm low level.
Overall - it seems the hate for the MSC from Z and T is at such level that it will be hardly reintroduced, which I found kind of sad, since I don't read often many arguments against it (a part from "it absolutely HAD TO GO" which is not really an argument - and I'm not criticizing you specifically since you maybe had arguments in other posts, but it is often the case).
Perhaps without additional tool for early P defense (the shield battery nexus is quite a downgrade compared to photon-overcharge), the boost ability for the medivac could be removed.
I think it's pretty obvious why 1-click anti-everything defense is a bad thing for the game. It allows toss to do silly stuff such as going proxy stargate while taking a fast 3rd. Every time I saw a pro match where the toss just took a free 3rd when all he had was an Oracle and 2 Adepts I just facepalmed. Or when 2 Pylons defended against 2 full medivacs worth of units, while the toss player had 0 actual units in his base. It's just bad design that creates bad gameplay and it needs to go. Doesn't matter if toss suffers for a while because of it, find another solution, but design wise, it's bad for the game.
I disagree. I'm Z and I like the idea of the msc. Of course, when I try to cheese and fail because of it, I rage, but still I don't see why toss could'nt have such unit. I think it fits well in the race idea. Though it is probably too strong, and not enough of a "tech choice". You have to build one so you can probe up and expand, and you don't even have to build so many units. I actually would like to see the same changes to early game that they are planing, but with the msc still in place with 2 buffs : - Cost (and build time ?) increase (+50% maybe) so that it is a huge investment - higher supply cost.
You would have to choose between units (and interacting with opponents) or msc and macroing.
I'm P, and i find the MSC fit the race identity quite well too. As said earlier, i consider people who are saying it is "gimmicky" and "bad design" are only people talking about what they dislike, and is spread by a bunch of T & Z who thinks they are game designer. A problem still present to me is that there is maybe too much reliance upon the MSC.Like the mine & the disruptor , on lower levels it's a bit too much " all or nothing". Also i fear that the PvT become again a struggle to survive early on, like in the WoL era where T just felt overpowered because the match up was just completely struggling to see at which timing the MMM train is gonna be in your base.(A thing that just make me quit the game until mid HotS personnally) I'm ok with the removal, but now i fail to see how Protoss won't be again only a turtling race.
The mine nerf is directed toward this match up i think, but make it more useless in TvZ which is kinda sad. Also now medivac have the boost..
And iam no race and msc fits protoss. While super tanks with 16 range would fit terran. Doesnt mean it fits the multiplayer aspect - The interraction with msc is very poor. Thats the key reason its a bad unit for multiplayer. Singleplayer? Sure, its a very strong unit which was what protoss identity was in broodwar and to some extent sc2, but just because it fits the theme of the race doesnt mean its a good unit for multiplayer.
Yep, in fact the tank was not erased from the terran race, but it was introduced in a form that works for multiplayer game. Why not do the same for the MSC?
They are exactly doing that, they are removing the mscore and letting it be a msmothership instead purely. Its a one of a kind unit while very very powerful.
On August 21 2017 22:28 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i'd rather peopel stick to the details of the game rather than relating some tiny detail in the game to the writings of Skinner, Artistotle and Ayn Rand.
Makes me think about all those Waxangel and others' articles about SC1/SC2 with tons of forced "wise" words that nobody uses, like if they were writing them for their own pleasure and raising their self esteem.
Or thinking they are on a mission to bring gospel to the common folk
On August 21 2017 22:28 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i'd rather peopel stick to the details of the game rather than relating some tiny detail in the game to the writings of Skinner, Artistotle and Ayn Rand.
That amuses me.
You, by your own words started an "abstract discussion about self esteem building" and noted that Branden > Skinner in a thread about Photon Overcharge.
If you are trolling, well done sir, the terrible spelling mistakes should have made that clear to me long ago.
Regardless, the uneducated or willfully ignorant will always struggle to ground their viewpoints in logic that has been refined over centuries because they simply don't know, and as GI Joe tells us, knowing is half the battle. There is a reason so many people in poorly educated areas cling to religion ignorantly (ignorant in that they don't actually understand their chosen religion). In fact, you advocated a learning technique in that thread that was akin to teaching people stoves were hot and not to touch them, by having them touch hot stoves... even suggested the best lessons you learned in life were learned the hard way.
Excellent. You "common folk" amuse me. As an educated educator, I can say there are far better teaching techniques that don't result in sick burns. But some people don't know any better. And everyone thinks their life lessons have made them better.
if Mech is too powerful the first thing they need to do is change the MULE/Gas mechanic in some way. I don't want the Thor and/or Tank weakened because gas is easier to obtain. Keep the Tank and Thor strong.
On August 21 2017 22:28 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i'd rather peopel stick to the details of the game rather than relating some tiny detail in the game to the writings of Skinner, Artistotle and Ayn Rand.
That amuses me.
You, by your own words started an "abstract discussion about self esteem building" and noted that Branden > Skinner in a thread about Photon Overcharge.
If you are trolling, well done sir, the terrible spelling mistakes should have made that clear to me long ago.
Regardless, the uneducated or willfully ignorant will always struggle to ground their viewpoints in logic that has been refined over centuries because they simply don't know, and as GI Joe tells us, knowing is half the battle. There is a reason so many people in poorly educated areas cling to religion ignorantly (ignorant in that they don't actually understand their chosen religion). In fact, you advocated a learning technique in that thread that was akin to teaching people stoves were hot and not to touch them, by having them touch hot stoves... even suggested the best lessons you learned in life were learned the hard way.
Excellent. You "common folk" amuse me. As an educated educator, I can say there are far better teaching techniques that don't result in sick burns. But some people don't know any better. And everyone thinks their life lessons have made them better.
its only a response to your comment. u brought it up, not me. statistically speaking , i wonder how often the person calling "troll" is the actual troll.... "he who smelt it.. dealt it". and branden is still better than skinner in the area of self esteem building.
The test map is enjoyable. I need to hit strong players to see how difficult it has really become to handle early game aggression without a msc, but so far I find getting more units in the early game works just fine.
Recall is VERY abusive imo, especially lategame, on Nexi and or Mothership alike. The new stalker feels strong, monitoring blink timings again might become a necessity. I like the new overcharge, although making it 25 energy (like it was in HotS) would maybe make it more flexible.
Overall, promising. The interesting thing is that in the end, the game doesn't change much for people like me who already played blink colossi vT. So it's a "major" patch since the msc gets removed, but the overall feel of the game is preserved, this is good imo.
I was a big fan of the WOL early gameplay - where terran vs protoss was more alike a game of chess - which opening he went with - and what units you responded with. Against the 1/1/1, you went with something like immortals or even fast colossus, against bio pushes you had to be prepared with sentries / gateway units. Cloaked banshees were always a thing to watch against - you needed a robo and stalkers.
That kind of depth got cut with the MSC, it was - "oh hes beeing agressive, i guess my MSC control needs to be above shit".
On August 22 2017 07:01 [PkF] Wire wrote: The test map is enjoyable. I need to hit strong players to see how difficult it has really become to handle early game aggression without a msc, but so far I find getting more units in the early game works just fine.
Recall is VERY abusive imo, especially lategame, on Nexi and or Mothership alike. The new stalker feels strong, monitoring blink timings again might become a necessity. I like the new overcharge, although making it 25 energy (like it was in HotS) would maybe make it more flexible.
Overall, promising. The interesting thing is that in the end, the game doesn't change much for people like me who already played blink colossi vT. So it's a "major" patch since the msc gets removed, but the overall feel of the game is preserved, this is good imo.
How do you feel with the 4s delay associated with the recall ability? Does it feel too long, or sounds like a fair time?
On August 22 2017 07:01 [PkF] Wire wrote: The test map is enjoyable. I need to hit strong players to see how difficult it has really become to handle early game aggression without a msc, but so far I find getting more units in the early game works just fine.
Recall is VERY abusive imo, especially lategame, on Nexi and or Mothership alike. The new stalker feels strong, monitoring blink timings again might become a necessity. I like the new overcharge, although making it 25 energy (like it was in HotS) would maybe make it more flexible.
Overall, promising. The interesting thing is that in the end, the game doesn't change much for people like me who already played blink colossi vT. So it's a "major" patch since the msc gets removed, but the overall feel of the game is preserved, this is good imo.
How do you feel with the 4s delay associated with the recall ability? Does it feel too long, or sounds like a fair time?
As a defender, you can get some free kills but it's not very punishing for the P.
I think the radius and the low tech requirement are abusive. But I hope the ability itself stays. Having it to be researched could be interesting.
On August 22 2017 07:01 [PkF] Wire wrote: The test map is enjoyable. I need to hit strong players to see how difficult it has really become to handle early game aggression without a msc, but so far I find getting more units in the early game works just fine.
Recall is VERY abusive imo, especially lategame, on Nexi and or Mothership alike. The new stalker feels strong, monitoring blink timings again might become a necessity. I like the new overcharge, although making it 25 energy (like it was in HotS) would maybe make it more flexible.
Overall, promising. The interesting thing is that in the end, the game doesn't change much for people like me who already played blink colossi vT. So it's a "major" patch since the msc gets removed, but the overall feel of the game is preserved, this is good imo.
How do you feel with the 4s delay associated with the recall ability? Does it feel too long, or sounds like a fair time?
As a defender, you can get some free kills but it's not very punishing for the P.
I think the radius and the low tech requirement are abusive. But I hope the ability itself stays. Having it to be researched could be interesting.
I don't think it will be used early game since it competes with chronoboost for energy and you really need those chronoboosts in the earlygame.
On August 22 2017 07:01 [PkF] Wire wrote: The test map is enjoyable. I need to hit strong players to see how difficult it has really become to handle early game aggression without a msc, but so far I find getting more units in the early game works just fine.
Recall is VERY abusive imo, especially lategame, on Nexi and or Mothership alike. The new stalker feels strong, monitoring blink timings again might become a necessity. I like the new overcharge, although making it 25 energy (like it was in HotS) would maybe make it more flexible.
Overall, promising. The interesting thing is that in the end, the game doesn't change much for people like me who already played blink colossi vT. So it's a "major" patch since the msc gets removed, but the overall feel of the game is preserved, this is good imo.
How do you feel with the 4s delay associated with the recall ability? Does it feel too long, or sounds like a fair time?
As a defender, you can get some free kills but it's not very punishing for the P.
I think the radius and the low tech requirement are abusive. But I hope the ability itself stays. Having it to be researched could be interesting.
Thank you maybe it could be unlocked automatically after a certain building is built (I don't know at which step it would be more appropriate, I suspect cyber core requirement wouldn't make much difference?)
On August 22 2017 07:01 [PkF] Wire wrote: The test map is enjoyable. I need to hit strong players to see how difficult it has really become to handle early game aggression without a msc, but so far I find getting more units in the early game works just fine.
Recall is VERY abusive imo, especially lategame, on Nexi and or Mothership alike. The new stalker feels strong, monitoring blink timings again might become a necessity. I like the new overcharge, although making it 25 energy (like it was in HotS) would maybe make it more flexible.
Overall, promising. The interesting thing is that in the end, the game doesn't change much for people like me who already played blink colossi vT. So it's a "major" patch since the msc gets removed, but the overall feel of the game is preserved, this is good imo.
How do you feel with the 4s delay associated with the recall ability? Does it feel too long, or sounds like a fair time?
As a defender, you can get some free kills but it's not very punishing for the P.
I think the radius and the low tech requirement are abusive. But I hope the ability itself stays. Having it to be researched could be interesting.
Thank you maybe it could be unlocked automatically after a certain building is built (I don't know at which step it would be more appropriate, I suspect cyber core requirement wouldn't make much difference?)
The cyber core requierment was there for the MSC and didn't make much of a difference
On August 22 2017 07:01 [PkF] Wire wrote: The test map is enjoyable. I need to hit strong players to see how difficult it has really become to handle early game aggression without a msc, but so far I find getting more units in the early game works just fine.
Recall is VERY abusive imo, especially lategame, on Nexi and or Mothership alike. The new stalker feels strong, monitoring blink timings again might become a necessity. I like the new overcharge, although making it 25 energy (like it was in HotS) would maybe make it more flexible.
Overall, promising. The interesting thing is that in the end, the game doesn't change much for people like me who already played blink colossi vT. So it's a "major" patch since the msc gets removed, but the overall feel of the game is preserved, this is good imo.
I am a little concerned about the power of Blink Stalkers early and countering some of the harass techniques in the game as Protoss. The counters to Stalkers early are all armored units in PvP and PvT, and we made the Stalker better versus them. That could be problematic.
Oracles will also a lot stronger in PvP without Photon Overcharge. We really should try to get Blizzard to make the Oracle an armored unit again ( http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/505739-a-change-to-the-oracle ) to help against this. Also don't forget proxy Gate and Cannon rushes in PvP, they could be a lot stronger.
In non-mirrors there are a plethora of builds that Terran and Zerg will be able to do to punish Protoss without Photon Overcharge. For instance, currently with Photon Overcharge, Terran can macro pretty hard and still harass Protoss early. Without Photon Overcharge Terrans can play exactly the same but Protoss needs a lot more units early which will slow them down their economy and leave them increasingly vulnerable to mid game timings. Protoss needs the ability to threaten Terran early if that matchup is going to work. Blink Stalkers might mask the problem for a time, or even indefinitely if they are dominant (but then opening Blink will be the only play to play PvT, and that is bad design), so it should be addressed.
As time goes on, I think these issues will present themselves as Shield Regeneration isn't nearly as strong as Photon Overcharge.
I would probably like to see mini-recalls on a unit like the mscore. Should make it a weak defensive unit, with rather weakstats that can recall maybe 8~ units. Cut the mothership completely. Make ms-core none-hero type so player can build many of it.
Comes from stargate is the prefered techchoice. Cheap recall, 75 energy~ Cut recall from nexus.
Make the unit have slow acceleration, very slow but when moving in a straight line for x time, the speed can be quite fast.
On August 22 2017 07:01 [PkF] Wire wrote: The test map is enjoyable. I need to hit strong players to see how difficult it has really become to handle early game aggression without a msc, but so far I find getting more units in the early game works just fine.
Recall is VERY abusive imo, especially lategame, on Nexi and or Mothership alike. The new stalker feels strong, monitoring blink timings again might become a necessity. I like the new overcharge, although making it 25 energy (like it was in HotS) would maybe make it more flexible.
Overall, promising. The interesting thing is that in the end, the game doesn't change much for people like me who already played blink colossi vT. So it's a "major" patch since the msc gets removed, but the overall feel of the game is preserved, this is good imo.
[...]Terran can macro pretty hard and still harass Protoss early. Without Photon Overcharge Terrans can play exactly the same but Protoss needs a lot more units early which will slow them down their economy and leave them increasingly vulnerable to mid game timings. Protoss needs the ability to threaten Terran early if that matchup is going to work.[...]
With the MULE change, Terran timings will be different (later for bio), too. How the new timings play out needs to be tested.
What do people think about my idea of making swarmhosts have the LIGHT tag so that hellions can chase them down, thereby giving an actual vulnerability and counter play for mech Terrans.
On August 22 2017 16:15 avilo wrote: What do people think about my idea of making swarmhosts have the LIGHT tag so that hellions can chase them down, thereby giving an actual vulnerability and counter play for mech Terrans.
The speed nerf alone is not enough.
Whenever I see you play against swarm host you complain about them a lot but then win in the end anyway. Are you sure they are as bad as you make them out to be?
On August 22 2017 13:39 SHODAN wrote: make cyclones microable again
scrap the 1A ground weapon and bring back ground-to-ground lock-on
Yes. Also for protoss, make charge microable for the player.. with counter micro for enemy.. For stalker, make his blink with a much shorter cooldown, but lower range on it and some drawback to the ability. Immobile for 1sec after blink maybe.. Or something. Then increase stalker stats. Maybe 7range? Fits well with the slower attack.
On August 22 2017 16:15 avilo wrote: What do people think about my idea of making swarmhosts have the LIGHT tag so that hellions can chase them down, thereby giving an actual vulnerability and counter play for mech Terrans.
The speed nerf alone is not enough.
Could see this work. At the same time, i want the swarmhost to work more like a tactic weapon instead of strategic weapon. Less cost of, less mobility, less power. More vulnerabilites.
Should be a perfect weapon against a base which has no units there or has the wrong type of units there(siege tanks, storm, colossus, immortal). So its a good tool to draw the enemy somewhere. To keep him busy somewhere. While zerg attacks/do something else with his other units.. Or sometimes protect them. Forces the enemy to come to the swarmhosts.
Right now this doesnt happen if i know correct( dont follow lotv, but watched hots, cant see much of a difference).
And then increase micro of roach with its burrow. Would love to see some micro for hydra added.. But stalker should get the +1 range imo so stalker works more of hit and run type. Not sure what to make of hydra but something different than a kite unit.
First idea i get is that after it has fired, its acceleration gets increased for a short while.
On August 22 2017 17:15 Foxxan wrote: First idea i get is that after it has fired, its acceleration gets increased for a short while.
It's kind of nice to have a honest unit without any weird gimmicks.
Iam just brainstorming...........................
Of course but when was the last time you used hydras and found them lackluster?
It's not my point to shoot you down, but a unit being "clunky" (not sure a hydraulisk qualifies as clunky) gives them an inherent weakness that isn't just some arbitrary number like having bonus damage dealt to them by some unit. Hydras compared to roaches deal more damage with a longer range but they are also more brittle and they move slower so they're easier to catch.
Which in a way moves the "micro the hydra" over to microing the supporting units to protect them, like lings or roaches. We don't really need to change this by making hydras very microable on their own. We could instead argue that we make hydras longer ranged, but slower, in my opinion.
Right now this doesnt happen if i know correct( dont follow lotv, but watched hots, cant see much of a difference).
I'm sorry, but what are we talking about? Hots and Lotv are entirely different games.. Lotv itself changed a lot from release. I get that you want to brainstorm and discuss, but it's hard if you don't follow the game, no?
On August 22 2017 07:01 [PkF] Wire wrote: The test map is enjoyable. I need to hit strong players to see how difficult it has really become to handle early game aggression without a msc, but so far I find getting more units in the early game works just fine.
Recall is VERY abusive imo, especially lategame, on Nexi and or Mothership alike. The new stalker feels strong, monitoring blink timings again might become a necessity. I like the new overcharge, although making it 25 energy (like it was in HotS) would maybe make it more flexible.
Overall, promising. The interesting thing is that in the end, the game doesn't change much for people like me who already played blink colossi vT. So it's a "major" patch since the msc gets removed, but the overall feel of the game is preserved, this is good imo.
How do you feel with the 4s delay associated with the recall ability? Does it feel too long, or sounds like a fair time?
As a defender, you can get some free kills but it's not very punishing for the P.
I think the radius and the low tech requirement are abusive. But I hope the ability itself stays. Having it to be researched could be interesting.
I feel like the recall on nexus should have really small radius (something around strom or forcefiled radius) so could be used only on small tactical forces but the cost of recall should be decreased to 75 energy so it could be used vs chrono/shield as on 100energy I feel like it won't be used much (too restrictive).
On August 22 2017 07:01 [PkF] Wire wrote: The test map is enjoyable. I need to hit strong players to see how difficult it has really become to handle early game aggression without a msc, but so far I find getting more units in the early game works just fine.
Recall is VERY abusive imo, especially lategame, on Nexi and or Mothership alike. The new stalker feels strong, monitoring blink timings again might become a necessity. I like the new overcharge, although making it 25 energy (like it was in HotS) would maybe make it more flexible.
Overall, promising. The interesting thing is that in the end, the game doesn't change much for people like me who already played blink colossi vT. So it's a "major" patch since the msc gets removed, but the overall feel of the game is preserved, this is good imo.
How do you feel with the 4s delay associated with the recall ability? Does it feel too long, or sounds like a fair time?
As a defender, you can get some free kills but it's not very punishing for the P.
I think the radius and the low tech requirement are abusive. But I hope the ability itself stays. Having it to be researched could be interesting.
I feel like the recall on nexus should have really small radius (something around strom or forcefiled radius) so could be used only on small tactical forces but the cost of recall should be decreased to 75 energy so it could be used vs chrono/shield as on 100energy I feel like it won't be used much (too restrictive).
i agree with the smaller radius - this is how the arbiter works in bw, and is the only reason the spell isn't ridiculously op.
On August 22 2017 13:39 SHODAN wrote: make cyclones microable again
scrap the 1A ground weapon and bring back ground-to-ground lock-on
Yes. Also for protoss, make charge microable for the player.. with counter micro for enemy.. For stalker, make his blink with a much shorter cooldown, but lower range on it and some drawback to the ability. Immobile for 1sec after blink maybe.. Or something. Then increase stalker stats. Maybe 7range? Fits well with the slower attack.
Need more micro.
Well toss is already harder than ppl think to handle mid-late game, im all for a blink nerf & stats boosts, but i feel like if you nerf blink either way (range or cd) you will only use it to blink back, not jump in base, because this move is most of time either without much effect or game ending for one of the sides.
+ Toss already have a bit too much abilities, having to blink all the time would be pretty tedious.
Also i'm all for trying charge being a movespeed bonus (+ another stats if needed), this should be more micro able (ala zergling) this way, because i fail to see how you can effectively micro chargelot even with changes, i guess even on highest level selecting the zealots to make them charge is hard, i think at best they disable autocast when they want to retreat or wait before engage, but once you want to go in you generally have more important micro moves to do.
edit: unless you gave them some sort of stim.But it's another spell to cast.
On August 22 2017 19:10 Kenny_mk wrote: Also i'm all for trying charge being a movespeed bonus (+ another stats if needed)
Doesn't charge make Zealots as fast as Stalkers right now?
idk i don't play them too much (i should probably) But look at speedlings :p , there is room.
I don't think Blizz should ever make zealots any where close to as fast as Zerglings because Zealots have so much more health/shield and do so much more damage than zerglings.
On August 22 2017 13:39 SHODAN wrote: make cyclones microable again
scrap the 1A ground weapon and bring back ground-to-ground lock-on
Yes. Also for protoss, make charge microable for the player.. with counter micro for enemy.. For stalker, make his blink with a much shorter cooldown, but lower range on it and some drawback to the ability. Immobile for 1sec after blink maybe.. Or something. Then increase stalker stats. Maybe 7range? Fits well with the slower attack.
Need more micro.
Well toss is already harder than ppl think to handle mid-late game, im all for a blink nerf & stats boosts, but i feel like if you nerf blink either way (range or cd) you will only use it to blink back, not jump in base, because this move is most of time either without much effect or game ending for one of the sides.
+ Toss already have a bit too much abilities, having to blink all the time would be pretty tedious.
Also i'm all for trying charge being a movespeed bonus (+ another stats if needed), this should be more micro able (ala zergling) this way, because i fail to see how you can effectively micro chargelot even with changes, i guess even on highest level selecting the zealots to make them charge is hard, i think at best they disable autocast when they want to retreat or wait before engage, but once you want to go in you generally have more important micro moves to do.
edit: unless you gave them some sort of stim.But it's another spell to cast.
@stalker Your point is good, if blink has shorter cd, its one more spell that needs to be pressed regularly. Perhaps same cooldown with a drawback and then a stat increase. Or if protoss could look at other spells instead/or aswell, that would be sweet. But i think its quite unlikely.
@zealot If charge was manual click only, and on target point instead of target?
Right now this doesnt happen if i know correct( dont follow lotv, but watched hots, cant see much of a difference).
I'm sorry, but what are we talking about? Hots and Lotv are entirely different games.. Lotv itself changed a lot from release. I get that you want to brainstorm and discuss, but it's hard if you don't follow the game, no?
Iam talking about making the swarmhost a more attractive unit to play and play against. To add more fun drawbacks to the unit. I know you are a biased person, i know this from your past comments. But please, dont try and be negative.
I'm for sure biased, like everyone else, and I'm also not nearly as competent as to comment on SC2 design, but at least I play and follow the game. How can one comment on gameplay and balance changes on a game that he does not follow? Really Hots and Lotv are hugely different, the SH may be similar but the rest of the game changed so much that it does not make much sense in my eyes to try to talk about Lotv based on Hots experience..
On August 22 2017 07:01 [PkF] Wire wrote: The test map is enjoyable. I need to hit strong players to see how difficult it has really become to handle early game aggression without a msc, but so far I find getting more units in the early game works just fine.
Recall is VERY abusive imo, especially lategame, on Nexi and or Mothership alike. The new stalker feels strong, monitoring blink timings again might become a necessity. I like the new overcharge, although making it 25 energy (like it was in HotS) would maybe make it more flexible.
Overall, promising. The interesting thing is that in the end, the game doesn't change much for people like me who already played blink colossi vT. So it's a "major" patch since the msc gets removed, but the overall feel of the game is preserved, this is good imo.
How do you feel with the 4s delay associated with the recall ability? Does it feel too long, or sounds like a fair time?
As a defender, you can get some free kills but it's not very punishing for the P.
I think the radius and the low tech requirement are abusive. But I hope the ability itself stays. Having it to be researched could be interesting.
I feel like the recall on nexus should have really small radius (something around strom or forcefiled radius) so could be used only on small tactical forces but the cost of recall should be decreased to 75 energy so it could be used vs chrono/shield as on 100energy I feel like it won't be used much (too restrictive).
On August 22 2017 17:15 Foxxan wrote: First idea i get is that after it has fired, its acceleration gets increased for a short while.
It's kind of nice to have a honest unit without any weird gimmicks.
Iam just brainstorming...........................
Of course but when was the last time you used hydras and found them lackluster?
It's not my point to shoot you down, but a unit being "clunky" (not sure a hydraulisk qualifies as clunky) gives them an inherent weakness that isn't just some arbitrary number like having bonus damage dealt to them by some unit. Hydras compared to roaches deal more damage with a longer range but they are also more brittle and they move slower so they're easier to catch.
Which in a way moves the "micro the hydra" over to microing the supporting units to protect them, like lings or roaches. We don't really need to change this by making hydras very microable on their own. We could instead argue that we make hydras longer ranged, but slower, in my opinion.
I just want to feel more rewarded for controlling units in combat. I dont care if hydras are lackluster or not in this game, they arent microable which is a shame imo. How to make them more microable is the question, and not if they are strong enough for not warranting any change.
If they get a range increase, then my suggestion to make stalkers a range increase as well might not work. Or maybe it could.
A longer range with slower movement speed sounds interesting on paper. A unit that needs support and that you need better and great decision with. Since its so slow, and getting caught offguard means dead unit.
I cant really think of anything great to do with it other than making it another roach with longer range. Thats the treatment they usally get if we look at roach/stalker/marauder. Slow attackspeed so you can move inbetween shots.
On August 22 2017 20:46 VHbb wrote: I'm for sure biased, like everyone else, and I'm also not nearly as competent as to comment on SC2 design, but at least I play and follow the game. How can one comment on gameplay and balance changes on a game that he does not follow? Really Hots and Lotv are hugely different, the SH may be similar but the rest of the game changed so much that it does not make much sense in my eyes to try to talk about Lotv based on Hots experience..
I was talking about swarmhost, which is very similar. Balance iam not discussing. And units have stayed the same from hots to lotv so i dont see any problem with this whatsoever. You appaerantly do, did you know we are in the design thread over here and not in the balance thread?
Well design and balance should go together I think I'm not sure I get what you mean by biased, but it's possible I'm misunderstanding - I don't play zerg so I don't have strong bias pro/against SH anyway.
edit: "I feel like the recall on nexus should have really small radius (something around strom or forcefiled radius) so could be used only on small tactical forces but the cost of recall should be decreased to 75 energy so it could be used vs chrono/shield as on 100energy I feel like it won't be used much (too restrictive)."
This seems very nice, and it should also encourage using the recall to defend vs harassment rather than moving the whole army around - I like it, and having a smaller radius would also "feel" more micro-able
I am shocked how people write that they like this patch. Why even fixing what is not broken? Now we have nice diversity in all MA and balance aswell. New changes will absolutely ruin PvP (probably the worst) PvT and PvZ, and here is why
First of all PvP. As we all remember at the beggining of LotV we had serious issues with adept menta, and even though we have adepts nerfed it wont affect early game. One of the most disgusting things in the early LotV were endless trades with adepts, where both players try to kill as many probes as possible. Before we had pylon overcharged that was exlusively the most efficient play, stalkers dont kill adepts fast enough, nexus overcharge has insane cd (because of manacost ofc) and has not that high dps aswell. Now the only option will be either building wall or building adepts. Second point is that stargate play also become almost mandatory, since oracles will be extremely annoying and it is much easier build 1 oracle than keep 3 stalker in each mineral line. Morevoer meta will obviously swith towards 1 base play.
PvT. Here we have rly tough times against terran agresion and especially 2-4 medivac drops, even in current patch they can be dangerous to protoss. In WoL we dealt with that, but in wall there were no liberators and medivac boost. Speaking about terran agression it will be really hard to deal with early cyclones if you try expand fast. On the other hand because of chronoboost and widow mine changes protoss allins will become much stronger, all that obviously leads to rediculus gimmicy meta with 2\1 base allins.
PvZ. Even in current patchhydra/ling/bane is a pretty strong comb, which protoss often strugle against. Without PO and basically no changes to either of these units, or protoss gateway units (stalker basically have the same dps in straight up fight) it will be extremely hard to hold. On the other hand we have new colossi, but it is very specific unit, which becomes usless agains roaches, also by choosing this tech path you struggle against muta, which means there is no reliable compostiton, so you should guess even more than now. The other thing to take into account is extremly dangerous early ling drop agression and nidus worm, which is not that easy to hold, without PO they will become extremely powerful. So you either play 3gate nexus and suffer in macro, go for forge expand which is buy the way extremely vunurable to ling drops and delays your tech insanely or just hope that zerg will let you get away with standard current patch nexus.
On August 22 2017 16:15 avilo wrote: What do people think about my idea of making swarmhosts have the LIGHT tag so that hellions can chase them down, thereby giving an actual vulnerability and counter play for mech Terrans.
The speed nerf alone is not enough.
This is a good idea. Swarm Hosts need some kind of counter and this is a good solution since it encourages the mech player to be active with hellions on the map.
They made a drastic design change to the widow mine because it's too frustrating to deal with, but at the same time they dont touch oracles, burrow fungals, banelings, baneling mines, adept shades,... the list goes on.
Those are all extremely frustrating game mechanics, so i wonder why only the widow mine gets changed.
If your design direction really switched to "less frustrating game ending moments", then you should take a look on more mechanics than just widow mines.
In the current testmap protoss got an easier life because of changes like the widow mine or the changes to HT's and observers to make the race more A-move friendly. Meanwhile Zerg and terran still have to deal with the annoying frustrating stuff.
- Remove burrow fungal - Make droplords Tier2 again. - Nydus worm isn't invincible, but has increased health. - Maximum armor of ultralisks reduced to 6. - Move ravager to tier2 - Remove swarmhosts (seriously) - Reduce queen AA range by 1
- Remove liberator - Remove reaper grenade - Remove BC blink or atleast let it share cooldown with yamato - Remove banshee speed upgrade. - Sieged up tanks can't get abducted or lifted by phenix
- Increase interceptor cost to 25 - Remove adept - Nerf revelation / Redesign oracle into support unit
when is ask people why they quit lotv, they usually say things like "Too fast, too many hardcounters, too much harass"
On August 22 2017 16:15 avilo wrote: What do people think about my idea of making swarmhosts have the LIGHT tag so that hellions can chase them down, thereby giving an actual vulnerability and counter play for mech Terrans.
The speed nerf alone is not enough.
On August 22 2017 21:21 MockHamill wrote: This is a good idea. Swarm Hosts need some kind of counter and this is a good solution since it encourages the mech player to be active with hellions on the map.
Swarmhosts already are defenseless and slow if they are caught off guard. How fast do you think they should die to hellions really?
The widow mine is frustating because of its splash (40), two can kill a mineral mine. (even yesterday Maru vs Stats). I don't get it why it should be easier to kill them. A-move ftw.
On August 22 2017 21:46 StarscreamG1 wrote: The widow mine is frustating because of its splash (40), two can kill a mineral mine. (even yesterday Maru vs Stats). I don't get it why it should be easier to kill them. A-move ftw.
Because right now they can shoot twice before detection is done, or terran can simply lift them up. Tons of damage for no risk.
i must say the unit skins for Terran are fucking amazing. when i colour my team red ... its like the Brotherhood of Nod are taking down the godless aliens...
PEACE THRU POWER!
On August 22 2017 21:40 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: They made a drastic design change to the widow mine because it's too frustrating to deal with, but at the same time they dont touch oracles, burrow fungals, banelings, baneling mines, adept shades,... the list goes on.
Those are all extremely frustrating game mechanics, so i wonder why only the widow mine gets changed.
every RTS i've ever played has frustrating aspects and frustrating unit interactions when you are getting outplayed. this negative is fundamental to the nature of the genre and the input interface.
the flip side is ... do you jump up and down and yell at the screen when u pull ur marines back and your marauders take the baneling hits?
sure, banelings and zerglings are a PITA to deal with.. but corralling them and burning them to a crisp is fun.
if a game mechanic results in seething anger and frustration for the loser and the winner of the match who is similar in skill level finds what they had to do to win was boring then you might have an issue. maybe.
On August 22 2017 13:39 SHODAN wrote: make cyclones microable again
scrap the 1A ground weapon and bring back ground-to-ground lock-on
Yes. Also for protoss, make charge microable for the player.. with counter micro for enemy.. For stalker, make his blink with a much shorter cooldown, but lower range on it and some drawback to the ability. Immobile for 1sec after blink maybe.. Or something. Then increase stalker stats. Maybe 7range? Fits well with the slower attack.
Need more micro.
Well toss is already harder than ppl think to handle mid-late game, im all for a blink nerf & stats boosts, but i feel like if you nerf blink either way (range or cd) you will only use it to blink back, not jump in base, because this move is most of time either without much effect or game ending for one of the sides.
+ Toss already have a bit too much abilities, having to blink all the time would be pretty tedious.
Also i'm all for trying charge being a movespeed bonus (+ another stats if needed), this should be more micro able (ala zergling) this way, because i fail to see how you can effectively micro chargelot even with changes, i guess even on highest level selecting the zealots to make them charge is hard, i think at best they disable autocast when they want to retreat or wait before engage, but once you want to go in you generally have more important micro moves to do.
edit: unless you gave them some sort of stim.But it's another spell to cast.
@stalker Your point is good, if blink has shorter cd, its one more spell that needs to be pressed regularly. Perhaps same cooldown with a drawback and then a stat increase. Or if protoss could look at other spells instead/or aswell, that would be sweet. But i think its quite unlikely.
@zealot If charge was manual click only, and on target point instead of target?
We won't have all spell in one windows i think, too much work for blizzard (hotkey conflicts etc)
Also charging on point would'nt change much, if it's for "c click" with my zealot, i'd just rather have them on autocast when needed, unless you take away the auto-cast to force the micro, but that would'nt be casual friendly at all.
Of course they shouldn't be as fast as zergling, (oh i mean come on slightly less than speedlings just on test server :p for fun) but id rather have them pretty fast without charge, more micro-able i think, ala zergling.
i kinda like the Zealot as is. i don't want it nerfed and if they decide to buff the Zealot in some way i'd like a health buff to make it more like the SC1/BW Zealot.
On August 22 2017 23:13 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i kinda like the Zealot as is. i don't want it nerfed and if they decide to buff the Zealot in some way i'd like a health buff to make it more like the SC1/BW Zealot.
I would say, remove 10hp from adept and give them to zealot.
On August 22 2017 16:15 avilo wrote: What do people think about my idea of making swarmhosts have the LIGHT tag so that hellions can chase them down, thereby giving an actual vulnerability and counter play for mech Terrans.
The speed nerf alone is not enough.
Could see this work. At the same time, i want the swarmhost to work more like a tactic weapon instead of strategic weapon. Less cost of, less mobility, less power. More vulnerabilites.
Should be a perfect weapon against a base which has no units there or has the wrong type of units there(siege tanks, storm, colossus, immortal). So its a good tool to draw the enemy somewhere. To keep him busy somewhere. While zerg attacks/do something else with his other units.. Or sometimes protect them. Forces the enemy to come to the swarmhosts.
Right now this doesnt happen if i know correct( dont follow lotv, but watched hots, cant see much of a difference).
And then increase micro of roach with its burrow. Would love to see some micro for hydra added.. But stalker should get the +1 range imo so stalker works more of hit and run type. Not sure what to make of hydra but something different than a kite unit.
First idea i get is that after it has fired, its acceleration gets increased for a short while.
"Right now this doesnt happen if i know correct( dont follow lotv, but watched hots, cant see much of a difference). "
So you basically spewing out a load of crap from you mouth if i am reading this right
It seems to me that people don't understand why removing shooting pylons is so good for the game. It shows that the design team understands what went wrong with the direction of the game. It gives us hope that, with PO gone, things like medivac boost, widow mines, muta regen, etc etc have a chance of going as well.
It seems to me that people don't understand why removing shooting pylons is so good for the game. It shows that the design team understands what went wrong with the direction of the game. It gives us hope that, with PO gone, things like medivac boost, widow mines, muta regen, etc etc have a chance of going as well.
It's not that they don't understand it, it's that it is something that will be extremely hard to balance. Protoss depends so much on photon overcharge in the early-mid game that its removal throws the balance in all 3 matchups way out of whack, and will require some major, potentially game breaking changes to make up for it. The shield recharge is a cute idea, but it's not nearly a good enough solution. Going from a pylon and MSC requirement to a complete nexus, energy, and units to help defend is a massive difference, especially on a potential third base.
PvP suffers the most, as now adept suicide harass into Stargate will be the standard every single game without overcharge, and even PvZ will be heavily lean towards stargate every game.
It seems to me that people don't understand why removing shooting pylons is so good for the game. It shows that the design team understands what went wrong with the direction of the game. It gives us hope that, with PO gone, things like medivac boost, widow mines, muta regen, etc etc have a chance of going as well.
It's not that they don't understand it, it's that it is something that will be extremely hard to balance. Protoss depends so much on photon overcharge in the early-mid game that its removal throws the balance in all 3 matchups way out of whack, and will require some major, potentially game breaking changes to make up for it. The shield recharge is a cute idea, but it's not nearly a good enough solution. Going from a pylon and MSC requirement to a complete nexus, energy, and units to help defend is a massive difference, especially on a potential third base.
PvP suffers the most, as now adept suicide harass into Stargate will be the standard every single game without overcharge, and even PvZ will be heavily lean towards stargate every game.
I had the exact opposite experience to your prediction. Shield recharge makes Adepts basically useless for harass, it even outperforms an oracle. So all it nets you to open stargate is slowing your opponents tech because you cost him his nexus energy. Since you can set it to autocast, in later stages, especially for low league players, this means that games no longer end in a second for them. Now only Terran needs a good oracle answer.
I haven't had this much fun with sc2 since the short moment in Beta where they tested some really radical stuff for 1 week :D
It seems to me that people don't understand why removing shooting pylons is so good for the game. It shows that the design team understands what went wrong with the direction of the game. It gives us hope that, with PO gone, things like medivac boost, widow mines, muta regen, etc etc have a chance of going as well.
PvP suffers the most, as now adept suicide harass into Stargate will be the standard every single game without overcharge, and even PvZ will be heavily lean towards stargate every game.
Concerning that, i'd rather have a adept nerf toward their light damage, and keeping PO :p (even if adept damage is on par with a Marine drop, fact too many times forgotten)
I'd like to have a stalker egal to adept, which is'nt the case actually (since Stalker did'nt get buffed right? did'nt tried too much but from what i've read..) Stalker is present in armies mostly for air damage, for armored you rely mostly on immortals.
Not that i'm a huge fan of PO, but to me game ending shade are more a problems and leave me a bad taste in mouth (both played &viewed), like T harass to death strats which is prevented mostly by... PO, yes you have to think about both side, without another DPS ability or even more HUGE changes, P players even at pro levels will die to harass & early agressions.
It seems to me that people don't understand why removing shooting pylons is so good for the game. It shows that the design team understands what went wrong with the direction of the game. It gives us hope that, with PO gone, things like medivac boost, widow mines, muta regen, etc etc have a chance of going as well.
It's not that they don't understand it, it's that it is something that will be extremely hard to balance. Protoss depends so much on photon overcharge in the early-mid game that its removal throws the balance in all 3 matchups way out of whack, and will require some major, potentially game breaking changes to make up for it. The shield recharge is a cute idea, but it's not nearly a good enough solution. Going from a pylon and MSC requirement to a complete nexus, energy, and units to help defend is a massive difference, especially on a potential third base.
PvP suffers the most, as now adept suicide harass into Stargate will be the standard every single game without overcharge, and even PvZ will be heavily lean towards stargate every game.
So, you're somehow suggesting that the removal of PO might make Blizz take a look at nerfing Adepts. And this is a bad thing how?
On a more serious note, we can either keep the status quo, with all it's problems and just apply bandaids, or we can get our hands dirty trying to fix the game. I, for one, am very glad we finally have a design team with the balls to make actual changes.
Alot of people are acting like this is the end of Protoss, like if something is blatantly OP/UP won't be adressed.
Every unit should have 1 default passive ability and 1 researchable active ability. This is the optimal way to design the game.
1 action and 1 ability/morph per unit. Examples of extreme problems not quite right at present: -Zealot charge is autocast not manually cast. -Lurkers cannot remorph into 2 hydras.
_______________________________________
Also, what's hard about making a system where the interface figures out which group ability you would use first and offers them in the order you tend to use them, using VERY SIMPLE machine learning algorithm post-game, changing between games with a notification of changes in a change/cancel window?
For example, right now, I want and try to stim marines, then a-move my control group army, then call cloak and emp with ghosts, then seeker missile something, then boost my medivacs forward onto hold position.
But it's incredibly difficult to do this sequentially as I would like. I think, if I 10 times in a row chose to stim before seeker missile, the marine command card should show before the raven's, likewise etc. And the whole system of sequential orders could be automated like that using a partial order file (just a few kb). THAT ALONE would make the game 100X as FUN.
On August 23 2017 06:27 KR_4EVR wrote: To keep things simple:
Every unit should have 1 default passive ability and 1 researchable active ability. This is the optimal way to design the game.
1 action and 1 ability/morph per unit. Examples of extreme problems not quite right at present: -Zealot charge is autocast not manually cast. -Lurkers cannot remorph into 2 hydras.
_______________________________________
Also, what's hard about making a system where the interface figures out which group ability you would use first and offers them in the order you tend to use them, using VERY SIMPLE machine learning algorithm post-game, changing between games with a notification of changes in a change/cancel window?
For example, right now, I want and try to stim marines, then a-move my control group army, then call cloak and emp with ghosts, then seeker missile something, then boost my medivacs forward onto hold position.
But it's incredibly difficult to do this sequentially as I would like. I think, if I 10 times in a row chose to stim before seeker missile, the marine command card should show before the raven's, likewise etc. And the whole system of sequential orders could be automated like that using a partial order file (just a few kb). THAT ALONE would make the game 100X as FUN.
And in what way is having a passive AND active ability per unit in the game keeping things simple? Lurkers remorphing into 2 Hydras? You on crack or sth.?
Your problem mainly stems from laziness, try to have different control groups to circumvent the command card priority of units or become more proficient at using TAB. Having to learn how to manage your army properly shouldn't be something some algorithm more or less takes care of for you, it's a huge part of playing the game, after all.
Drastically nerfing widow mines because they are too annoying to deal with, while keeping stuff like adept shades or oracles in the game the way they are, is beyond me.
Don't get me wrong, i like the idea and the concept of getting rid of frustrating game mechanics, but just nerfing widow mines is pretty inconsequential in my opinion.
On August 22 2017 23:13 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i kinda like the Zealot as is. i don't want it nerfed and if they decide to buff the Zealot in some way i'd like a health buff to make it more like the SC1/BW Zealot.
I would say, remove 10hp from adept and give them to zealot.
hmmm interesting idea. i just love the relationship between the Zergling, Marine and Zealot in Brood War. i realize its prolly way too late to get things identical to that ideal relationship.. but the closer they can get... the better.
It seems to me that people don't understand why removing shooting pylons is so good for the game. It shows that the design team understands what went wrong with the direction of the game. It gives us hope that, with PO gone, things like medivac boost, widow mines, muta regen, etc etc have a chance of going as well.
It's not that they don't understand it, it's that it is something that will be extremely hard to balance. Protoss depends so much on photon overcharge in the early-mid game that its removal throws the balance in all 3 matchups way out of whack, and will require some major, potentially game breaking changes to make up for it. The shield recharge is a cute idea, but it's not nearly a good enough solution. Going from a pylon and MSC requirement to a complete nexus, energy, and units to help defend is a massive difference, especially on a potential third base.
PvP suffers the most, as now adept suicide harass into Stargate will be the standard every single game without overcharge, and even PvZ will be heavily lean towards stargate every game.
I had the exact opposite experience to your prediction. Shield recharge makes Adepts basically useless for harass, it even outperforms an oracle. So all it nets you to open stargate is slowing your opponents tech because you cost him his nexus energy. Since you can set it to autocast, in later stages, especially for low league players, this means that games no longer end in a second for them. Now only Terran needs a good oracle answer.
I haven't had this much fun with sc2 since the short moment in Beta where they tested some really radical stuff for 1 week :D
Well that is music to my ears, because I figured that harass was going to dominate PvP. Wall off your base, plus Proxy Stargate into multiple Oracles would win so many games without Photon Overcharge. Stalkers just can't kill them fast enough before the Probes go down.
On August 23 2017 05:25 JWD[9] wrote: Now only Terran needs a good oracle answer. I haven't had this much fun with sc2 since the short moment in Beta where they tested some really radical stuff for 1 week :D
Reactored Cyclones and a couple of marines in each mineral line. its better than the current LotV ladder patch; that said the current ladder patch is good.
your initial scouting SCV should be able to tell you if something is proxied.. then your 1st Reaper can usually find the Proxy if its anywhere near your base. If the proxy is far away Cyclones and Marines should be out by the time the Oracles arrive. if the proxy is close the Reaper attacking the pylon will force the Oracle to use energy unless the Protoss wants to surrender his pylon.
On August 23 2017 05:25 JWD[9] wrote: I had the exact opposite experience to your prediction. Shield recharge makes Adepts basically useless for harass, it even outperforms an oracle. So all it nets you to open stargate is slowing your opponents tech because you cost him his nexus energy. Since you can set it to autocast, in later stages, especially for low league players, this means that games no longer end in a second for them. Now only Terran needs a good oracle answer.
I haven't had this much fun with sc2 since the short moment in Beta where they tested some really radical stuff for 1 week :D
Not sure what you've been playing but 2 adepts 1 shot a probe, meaning it cannot be shield recharged. Sure if you're playing really bad players and the adepts are just shooting random stuff it helps, but if you let 2 adepts past you in PvP and they know how to focus fire..... it hurts real bad.
It seems to me that people don't understand why removing shooting pylons is so good for the game. It shows that the design team understands what went wrong with the direction of the game. It gives us hope that, with PO gone, things like medivac boost, widow mines, muta regen, etc etc have a chance of going as well.
It's not that they don't understand it, it's that it is something that will be extremely hard to balance. Protoss depends so much on photon overcharge in the early-mid game that its removal throws the balance in all 3 matchups way out of whack, and will require some major, potentially game breaking changes to make up for it. The shield recharge is a cute idea, but it's not nearly a good enough solution. Going from a pylon and MSC requirement to a complete nexus, energy, and units to help defend is a massive difference, especially on a potential third base.
PvP suffers the most, as now adept suicide harass into Stargate will be the standard every single game without overcharge, and even PvZ will be heavily lean towards stargate every game.
I had the exact opposite experience to your prediction. Shield recharge makes Adepts basically useless for harass, it even outperforms an oracle. So all it nets you to open stargate is slowing your opponents tech because you cost him his nexus energy. Since you can set it to autocast, in later stages, especially for low league players, this means that games no longer end in a second for them. Now only Terran needs a good oracle answer.
I haven't had this much fun with sc2 since the short moment in Beta where they tested some really radical stuff for 1 week :D
Well that is music to my ears, because I figured that harass was going to dominate PvP. Wall off your base, plus Proxy Stargate into multiple Oracles would win so many games without Photon Overcharge. Stalkers just can't kill them fast enough before the Probes go down.
Maybe I'm missing something but if you scout your opponent and you spot oracles, what is wrong with building a cannon to aid in defense? Won't you still be ahead of you hold it off with a cannon?
It seems to me that people don't understand why removing shooting pylons is so good for the game. It shows that the design team understands what went wrong with the direction of the game. It gives us hope that, with PO gone, things like medivac boost, widow mines, muta regen, etc etc have a chance of going as well.
It's not that they don't understand it, it's that it is something that will be extremely hard to balance. Protoss depends so much on photon overcharge in the early-mid game that its removal throws the balance in all 3 matchups way out of whack, and will require some major, potentially game breaking changes to make up for it. The shield recharge is a cute idea, but it's not nearly a good enough solution. Going from a pylon and MSC requirement to a complete nexus, energy, and units to help defend is a massive difference, especially on a potential third base.
PvP suffers the most, as now adept suicide harass into Stargate will be the standard every single game without overcharge, and even PvZ will be heavily lean towards stargate every game.
I had the exact opposite experience to your prediction. Shield recharge makes Adepts basically useless for harass, it even outperforms an oracle. So all it nets you to open stargate is slowing your opponents tech because you cost him his nexus energy. Since you can set it to autocast, in later stages, especially for low league players, this means that games no longer end in a second for them. Now only Terran needs a good oracle answer.
I haven't had this much fun with sc2 since the short moment in Beta where they tested some really radical stuff for 1 week :D
Well that is music to my ears, because I figured that harass was going to dominate PvP. Wall off your base, plus Proxy Stargate into multiple Oracles would win so many games without Photon Overcharge. Stalkers just can't kill them fast enough before the Probes go down.
Maybe I'm missing something but if you scout your opponent and you spot oracles, what is wrong with building a cannon to aid in defense? Won't you still be ahead of you hold it off with a cannon?
No , canon put you so much behind, its 300 minerals in early game , that you simply cant afford
On August 23 2017 05:25 JWD[9] wrote: Now only Terran needs a good oracle answer. I haven't had this much fun with sc2 since the short moment in Beta where they tested some really radical stuff for 1 week :D
Reactored Cyclones and a couple of marines in each mineral line. its better than the current LotV ladder patch; that said the current ladder patch is good.
your initial scouting SCV should be able to tell you if something is proxied.. then your 1st Reaper can usually find the Proxy if its anywhere near your base. If the proxy is far away Cyclones and Marines should be out by the time the Oracles arrive. if the proxy is close the Reaper attacking the pylon will force the Oracle to use energy unless the Protoss wants to surrender his pylon.
Haha, thank you so much! I don't play terran, just loving the protoss life and thought T could use some love too Maybe I start learning it as offrace, the new mech just seems soo cool.
i asked like half of the gm list in NA if anyone wanted to play and no1 wants to... so if ur like... at least Masters 2... and wanna play then add my real id: darkillerwolf11@yahoo.com
Gotta love now that they want buff the lurker, and now the lurker is again on map. Lol. Blizz needs to now better. What is broken and what is needed to leave to players hands.
On August 23 2017 05:25 JWD[9] wrote: Now only Terran needs a good oracle answer. I haven't had this much fun with sc2 since the short moment in Beta where they tested some really radical stuff for 1 week :D
Reactored Cyclones and a couple of marines in each mineral line. its better than the current LotV ladder patch; that said the current ladder patch is good. your initial scouting SCV should be able to tell you if something is proxied.. then your 1st Reaper can usually find the Proxy if its anywhere near your base. If the proxy is far away Cyclones and Marines should be out by the time the Oracles arrive. if the proxy is close the Reaper attacking the pylon will force the Oracle to use energy unless the Protoss wants to surrender his pylon.
Haha, thank you so much! I don't play terran, just loving the protoss life and thought T could use some love too Maybe I start learning it as offrace, the new mech just seems soo cool.
np,my default build is the "pig build". the defense i outlined in my post is usable with the Pig build. i'm a top 8 tier-1 diamond player. unless, i scout something bizarre i use the pig build. if i suspect Oracles i build my factory right beside my reactored Rax.. Then i swap if i need several Cyclones.
It seems to me that people don't understand why removing shooting pylons is so good for the game. It shows that the design team understands what went wrong with the direction of the game. It gives us hope that, with PO gone, things like medivac boost, widow mines, muta regen, etc etc have a chance of going as well.
It's not that they don't understand it, it's that it is something that will be extremely hard to balance. Protoss depends so much on photon overcharge in the early-mid game that its removal throws the balance in all 3 matchups way out of whack, and will require some major, potentially game breaking changes to make up for it. The shield recharge is a cute idea, but it's not nearly a good enough solution. Going from a pylon and MSC requirement to a complete nexus, energy, and units to help defend is a massive difference, especially on a potential third base.
PvP suffers the most, as now adept suicide harass into Stargate will be the standard every single game without overcharge, and even PvZ will be heavily lean towards stargate every game.
I had the exact opposite experience to your prediction. Shield recharge makes Adepts basically useless for harass, it even outperforms an oracle. So all it nets you to open stargate is slowing your opponents tech because you cost him his nexus energy. Since you can set it to autocast, in later stages, especially for low league players, this means that games no longer end in a second for them. Now only Terran needs a good oracle answer.
I haven't had this much fun with sc2 since the short moment in Beta where they tested some really radical stuff for 1 week :D
Well that is music to my ears, because I figured that harass was going to dominate PvP. Wall off your base, plus Proxy Stargate into multiple Oracles would win so many games without Photon Overcharge. Stalkers just can't kill them fast enough before the Probes go down.
Maybe I'm missing something but if you scout your opponent and you spot oracles, what is wrong with building a cannon to aid in defense? Won't you still be ahead of you hold it off with a cannon?
No , canon put you so much behind, its 300 minerals in early game , that you simply cant afford
You mean like Terran building engineering bay and turrets when scouting oracles or DT rush? Or maybe Zerg building spores in each mineral line by the same reason? U think that they can afford it more?
Or maybe when Zerg scouts hellbat rush where he needs to invest early roaches that sets him behind because of the investment? Or maybe u ment cannon rush which forces Zerg to make Ravagers on one bass which ofc sets him behind as hell too?
It seems to me that people don't understand why removing shooting pylons is so good for the game. It shows that the design team understands what went wrong with the direction of the game. It gives us hope that, with PO gone, things like medivac boost, widow mines, muta regen, etc etc have a chance of going as well.
It's not that they don't understand it, it's that it is something that will be extremely hard to balance. Protoss depends so much on photon overcharge in the early-mid game that its removal throws the balance in all 3 matchups way out of whack, and will require some major, potentially game breaking changes to make up for it. The shield recharge is a cute idea, but it's not nearly a good enough solution. Going from a pylon and MSC requirement to a complete nexus, energy, and units to help defend is a massive difference, especially on a potential third base.
PvP suffers the most, as now adept suicide harass into Stargate will be the standard every single game without overcharge, and even PvZ will be heavily lean towards stargate every game.
I had the exact opposite experience to your prediction. Shield recharge makes Adepts basically useless for harass, it even outperforms an oracle. So all it nets you to open stargate is slowing your opponents tech because you cost him his nexus energy. Since you can set it to autocast, in later stages, especially for low league players, this means that games no longer end in a second for them. Now only Terran needs a good oracle answer.
I haven't had this much fun with sc2 since the short moment in Beta where they tested some really radical stuff for 1 week :D
Well that is music to my ears, because I figured that harass was going to dominate PvP. Wall off your base, plus Proxy Stargate into multiple Oracles would win so many games without Photon Overcharge. Stalkers just can't kill them fast enough before the Probes go down.
Maybe I'm missing something but if you scout your opponent and you spot oracles, what is wrong with building a cannon to aid in defense? Won't you still be ahead of you hold it off with a cannon?
No , canon put you so much behind, its 300 minerals in early game , that you simply cant afford
You mean like Terran building engineering bay and turrets when scouting oracles or DT rush? Or maybe Zerg building spores in each mineral line by the same reason? U think that they can afford it more?
Turret Air Dps: 39 Spore Air Dps: 24.4 Cannon: 22.4
By every metric cannons are the most expensive but least effective defense against oracles(I know that it requires a drone for zerg and the scv to continuously build it for terran but it's the upfront costs for a shitter version is the problem)
Canons + forge also have the longest build time by far, so it's basically impossible to have a forge early enough to defend the oracle while also not falling behind on the ground units so you don't die to a poke at the front in PvP.
It seems to me that people don't understand why removing shooting pylons is so good for the game. It shows that the design team understands what went wrong with the direction of the game. It gives us hope that, with PO gone, things like medivac boost, widow mines, muta regen, etc etc have a chance of going as well.
It's not that they don't understand it, it's that it is something that will be extremely hard to balance. Protoss depends so much on photon overcharge in the early-mid game that its removal throws the balance in all 3 matchups way out of whack, and will require some major, potentially game breaking changes to make up for it. The shield recharge is a cute idea, but it's not nearly a good enough solution. Going from a pylon and MSC requirement to a complete nexus, energy, and units to help defend is a massive difference, especially on a potential third base.
PvP suffers the most, as now adept suicide harass into Stargate will be the standard every single game without overcharge, and even PvZ will be heavily lean towards stargate every game.
I had the exact opposite experience to your prediction. Shield recharge makes Adepts basically useless for harass, it even outperforms an oracle. So all it nets you to open stargate is slowing your opponents tech because you cost him his nexus energy. Since you can set it to autocast, in later stages, especially for low league players, this means that games no longer end in a second for them. Now only Terran needs a good oracle answer.
I haven't had this much fun with sc2 since the short moment in Beta where they tested some really radical stuff for 1 week :D
Well that is music to my ears, because I figured that harass was going to dominate PvP. Wall off your base, plus Proxy Stargate into multiple Oracles would win so many games without Photon Overcharge. Stalkers just can't kill them fast enough before the Probes go down.
Maybe I'm missing something but if you scout your opponent and you spot oracles, what is wrong with building a cannon to aid in defense? Won't you still be ahead of you hold it off with a cannon?
No , canon put you so much behind, its 300 minerals in early game , that you simply cant afford
You mean like Terran building engineering bay and turrets when scouting oracles or DT rush? Or maybe Zerg building spores in each mineral line by the same reason? U think that they can afford it more?
Or maybe when Zerg scouts hellbat rush where he needs to invest early roaches that sets him behind because of the investment? Or maybe u ment cannon rush which forces Zerg to make Ravagers on one bass which ofc sets him behind as hell too?
Stop being biased.
Bringing up PvT and PvZ in a discussion about PvP is irrelevant. He does have a point, cannoning up makes you lose map presence and allows the opponent to expand more safely. It might be better than the alternatives, but the stargate player will still most likely be even or ahead, barring any misplays on the stargate side.
It seems to me that people don't understand why removing shooting pylons is so good for the game. It shows that the design team understands what went wrong with the direction of the game. It gives us hope that, with PO gone, things like medivac boost, widow mines, muta regen, etc etc have a chance of going as well.
It's not that they don't understand it, it's that it is something that will be extremely hard to balance. Protoss depends so much on photon overcharge in the early-mid game that its removal throws the balance in all 3 matchups way out of whack, and will require some major, potentially game breaking changes to make up for it. The shield recharge is a cute idea, but it's not nearly a good enough solution. Going from a pylon and MSC requirement to a complete nexus, energy, and units to help defend is a massive difference, especially on a potential third base.
PvP suffers the most, as now adept suicide harass into Stargate will be the standard every single game without overcharge, and even PvZ will be heavily lean towards stargate every game.
I had the exact opposite experience to your prediction. Shield recharge makes Adepts basically useless for harass, it even outperforms an oracle. So all it nets you to open stargate is slowing your opponents tech because you cost him his nexus energy. Since you can set it to autocast, in later stages, especially for low league players, this means that games no longer end in a second for them. Now only Terran needs a good oracle answer.
I haven't had this much fun with sc2 since the short moment in Beta where they tested some really radical stuff for 1 week :D
Well that is music to my ears, because I figured that harass was going to dominate PvP. Wall off your base, plus Proxy Stargate into multiple Oracles would win so many games without Photon Overcharge. Stalkers just can't kill them fast enough before the Probes go down.
Maybe I'm missing something but if you scout your opponent and you spot oracles, what is wrong with building a cannon to aid in defense? Won't you still be ahead of you hold it off with a cannon?
No , canon put you so much behind, its 300 minerals in early game , that you simply cant afford
If the canon required cybercore instead of the forge, that'd be ok i guess. Cybercore-required photons could be a nice way for protoss to survive without overcharge
I still haven't bothered playing any more games on the test map because of these reasons:
a) no changes to tone down carriers, and mech AA is still just god awful = carriers every game b) swarmhost changes do absolutely nothing. Needs huge nerfs to allow mech to be playable. Ask any decent meching Terran you'll get the same answer - swarmhost are too easy to use and have zero drawbacks from GOOD zergs c) raven / widow mine are blatantly and severely nerfed while the other races lategames are kept the same or buffed.
Widow mines are frustrating? Yet an oracle being proxied and flying into your base if you don't have a turret is fine and fair? This type of bias is a turn off to a lot of people that play the game. It's always "nerf Terran" but if it's Z/P there are no corresponding changes made to the game.
The new raven doesn't impress me. It just gets flat out seeker missile nerfed, PDD is 1000x better than a healing drone, and sure scrambler is good, but it's only useful vs P/T whereas auto turrets are good vs all 3 races (tho auto turrets are imba imo just like swarmhosts).
Why does blizzard not suck it up and make thors do the flat damage with javelin missiles as has been proven previously to be able to demolish carriers and interceptors. Mech needs anti-air. We don't need gimmicks like fast transform that do nothing to solve the issue of "my opponent build 10 invincible carriers, i lose now."
I think too many people have the blinders on playing this test map. Mech is almost objectively worse due to the raven PDD removal/seeker ridiculous nerf, while swarmhost/carrier are left almost basically the same, and things like parasitic bomb, and infestors are getting massive buffs.
Oh, and a core mech unit like the widow mine CANNOT be nerfed.
The new update is just another wolf in sheeps clothing for any and all mech Terrans - straight up mech nerfs disguised as "mech viability" just like a year ago when tanks were buffed while also buffing swarmhosts to the insane level that they currently are at now.
I'm all for raven nerfs - but only if swarmhost/carrier are correspondingly fixed and nerfed. And it seems this isn't going to happen.
On August 24 2017 20:06 avilo wrote: I still haven't bothered playing any more games on the test map....
meanwhile there are people here that are higher ranked than you, have played tons of games and continue to do so, and continue to learn new things about the new unit interactions.
as always, your input on this side of things is useless.
On August 24 2017 20:06 avilo wrote: I still haven't bothered playing any more games on the test map because of these reasons:
a) no changes to tone down carriers, and mech AA is still just god awful = carriers every game b) swarmhost changes do absolutely nothing. Needs huge nerfs to allow mech to be playable. Ask any decent meching Terran you'll get the same answer - swarmhost are too easy to use and have zero drawbacks from GOOD zergs c) raven / widow mine are blatantly and severely nerfed while the other races lategames are kept the same or buffed.
Widow mines are frustrating? Yet an oracle being proxied and flying into your base if you don't have a turret is fine and fair? This type of bias is a turn off to a lot of people that play the game. It's always "nerf Terran" but if it's Z/P there are no corresponding changes made to the game.
The new raven doesn't impress me. It just gets flat out seeker missile nerfed, PDD is 1000x better than a healing drone, and sure scrambler is good, but it's only useful vs P/T whereas auto turrets are good vs all 3 races (tho auto turrets are imba imo just like swarmhosts).
Why does blizzard not suck it up and make thors do the flat damage with javelin missiles as has been proven previously to be able to demolish carriers and interceptors. Mech needs anti-air. We don't need gimmicks like fast transform that do nothing to solve the issue of "my opponent build 10 invincible carriers, i lose now."
I think too many people have the blinders on playing this test map. Mech is almost objectively worse due to the raven PDD removal/seeker ridiculous nerf, while swarmhost/carrier are left almost basically the same, and things like parasitic bomb, and infestors are getting massive buffs.
Oh, and a core mech unit like the widow mine CANNOT be nerfed.
The new update is just another wolf in sheeps clothing for any and all mech Terrans - straight up mech nerfs disguised as "mech viability" just like a year ago when tanks were buffed while also buffing swarmhosts to the insane level that they currently are at now.
I'm all for raven nerfs - but only if swarmhost/carrier are correspondingly fixed and nerfed. And it seems this isn't going to happen.
Yes that is my impression as well after having played on the test map. Mech is actually weaker compared to the live version.
Nerfing the Raven and giving it new weaker abilities to avoid mass Ravens was a good move.
But Swarm Hosts should have light tag so the counterplay against Swarm Hosts becomes stronger. Swarm Hosts should be a unit that you build a few of to harass bases or snipe a few tanks, not something that you can mass 20+ of just to hardcounter mech.
Carriers could lose 50 or so hitpoints so that Vikings and Thors actually could counter them.
To compensate BC could either get less hitpoints, less damage from yamoto or have a shared cooldown for yamoto/tactical jump.
On August 24 2017 20:06 avilo wrote: Widow mines are frustrating? Yet an oracle being proxied and flying into your base if you don't have a turret is fine and fair? This type of bias is a turn off to a lot of people that play the game. It's always "nerf Terran" but if it's Z/P there are no corresponding changes made to the game.
please see my basic guide for dealing with proxied Oracles earlier in this thread. its not exactly a work of genius. if u can't deal with proxied Oracles you're doing something wrong.
as evidenced in your comments you've been whining about Terran for years and at the top level of play Terrans just keep on winning. at my level of play Zerg is prolly a bit easier, however, the game is "balanced enough" .. My Zerg. Protoss and Terran rankings are all within 2 tiers of each other and have been since they introduced separate MMR per race. I'm in Diamond with all 3 races.
it's silly to expect Blizz to have the game perfectly balanced at 50 different levels of play.
Blizzard is doing a great job with this game and your non-stop slander of Kim and Browder are a small contributing factor in Blizzard's decision to hide the name of the person in charge of Multiplayer.
It seems to me that people don't understand why removing shooting pylons is so good for the game. It shows that the design team understands what went wrong with the direction of the game. It gives us hope that, with PO gone, things like medivac boost, widow mines, muta regen, etc etc have a chance of going as well.
It's not that they don't understand it, it's that it is something that will be extremely hard to balance. Protoss depends so much on photon overcharge in the early-mid game that its removal throws the balance in all 3 matchups way out of whack, and will require some major, potentially game breaking changes to make up for it. The shield recharge is a cute idea, but it's not nearly a good enough solution. Going from a pylon and MSC requirement to a complete nexus, energy, and units to help defend is a massive difference, especially on a potential third base.
PvP suffers the most, as now adept suicide harass into Stargate will be the standard every single game without overcharge, and even PvZ will be heavily lean towards stargate every game.
I had the exact opposite experience to your prediction. Shield recharge makes Adepts basically useless for harass, it even outperforms an oracle. So all it nets you to open stargate is slowing your opponents tech because you cost him his nexus energy. Since you can set it to autocast, in later stages, especially for low league players, this means that games no longer end in a second for them. Now only Terran needs a good oracle answer.
I haven't had this much fun with sc2 since the short moment in Beta where they tested some really radical stuff for 1 week :D
Well that is music to my ears, because I figured that harass was going to dominate PvP. Wall off your base, plus Proxy Stargate into multiple Oracles would win so many games without Photon Overcharge. Stalkers just can't kill them fast enough before the Probes go down.
Maybe I'm missing something but if you scout your opponent and you spot oracles, what is wrong with building a cannon to aid in defense? Won't you still be ahead of you hold it off with a cannon?
No , canon put you so much behind, its 300 minerals in early game , that you simply cant afford
You mean like Terran building engineering bay and turrets when scouting oracles or DT rush? Or maybe Zerg building spores in each mineral line by the same reason? U think that they can afford it more?
Turret Air Dps: 39 Spore Air Dps: 24.4 Cannon: 22.4
By every metric cannons are the most expensive but least effective defense against oracles(I know that it requires a drone for zerg and the scv to continuously build it for terran but it's the upfront costs for a shitter version is the problem)
Canons + forge also have the longest build time by far, so it's basically impossible to have a forge early enough to defend the oracle while also not falling behind on the ground units so you don't die to a poke at the front in PvP.
U seem to forget that Spore and Turret only hit air. Cannon hits everything. I would say that's the reason.
Played a bit on the test server as Protoss. Altogether I am very happy with most changes. Few specific points:
1) I don't think the shield battery is enough for early defense. It is strong but costs a lot of energy, which is mainly a problem with early to midgame allins or just prolonged aggression at the beginning. I think it is necessary to boost early defense for Protoss, either lowering the energy cost, or perhaps just adding it to a separate building like in BW, lowering cost of Photon Cannon, or something else.
2) Wouldn't mind the changes being even more drastic, i.e even removing Adept and Tempest, of which addition a few years back has not improved the game and just tweaking their numbers will not fix them completely. The other gateway and air units seem to be enough design wise, of course, could be tweaked for rebalancing, but Adept does seem to overlap with Zealot/Stalker and Tempest with others too much. Virtually never watched or played a game in which Adepts and Tempest would play a fun role for the players nor spectators. As a Protoss player, I'd like to see them being removed even more than MSC. If it'd result in too low # of units for w/e reason, perhaps can Blizz come up with a new unit, for example Purifier sounds fun http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Canceled_StarCraft_II_Protoss_units
3) Revelation could still see a nerf. I remember that TY in an interview once said that it'd be good if Adept's shade cooldown was nerfed hard, but would return the shade's full vision. If Adept is to stay, perhaps it'd be best if Revelation was nerfed/removed and Adept was used for vision (being slightly more demanding and counterable)
4) More changes towards i) easier control (such as high templars with attack, observer's anchor, if just to contrast to bw) and ii) nerfing moments which can very quickly turn the game due to minor oversight (mines) are welcomed. i.e even as a Protoss it sucks if a solid tense game is ended just because an Oracle is sent to enemy's worker line, who is just a second late to respond. These moments should be minimised, and in fact I think that BW having less of them is reason why I don't have any ladder anxiety playing it. As mine drops were nerfed, Oracles could be, too.
To combine i) and ii) from Protoss perspective, I'd very much like to see a tool to defend entrance against Zerg. It is clunky to have a Zealot or Adept blocking an entrance and it ruins many games when it is not on hold or wrongly positioned, allowing Zergling spilling in. This creates a huge difference in balance between intermediate and pro players; as the latter is able to block it right away with Sentry or is just better with holding it with a zealot. But even on pro level, I've seen numerous toe to toe games which ended up in a moment by zerglings running in just because of Zealot being wrongly positioned or the Protoss being just a second late with force field.
The punishment is disproportionally larger to the mistake that is too easy to make, which is the similar case of Oracle, mines, etc., it's frustrating of everyone and should be changed. Something similar to Supply Depot lowering or at least sensor tower type of warning would be great.
5) With more resources per base, Carriers are probably not nerfed enough. Perhaps they will not be seen on pro level, but on intermediate skill level it'll still be well possible to stay on 3 bases and mass carriers and cause inbalance and feeling of unfairness for the opponent.
There are people still playing this game even though remastered has come out. This game is a disaster and blizzards management of its growth has been so poor. How do they expect to develop a player base when they change the game entirely once a year
Honestly the game is in a pretty ok state as is, a few things like carriers, swarmhosts, and hydrabane's dominance in pvz need adjusting but I don't think these changes are called for. I get that blizzard might be doing this just to shake things up, but these changes are very drastic and will have very negative effects on the game. Also it seems stupid to nerf both Terran and Protoss while leaving zerg pretty much the same and expecting that the fairly balanced game play of today will remain.
On August 25 2017 01:05 seopthi wrote: Played a bit on the test server as Protoss. Altogether I am very happy with most changes. Few specific points:
1) I don't think the shield battery is enough for early defense. It is strong but costs a lot of energy, which is mainly a problem with early to midgame allins or just prolonged aggression at the beginning. I think it is necessary to boost early defense for Protoss, either lowering the energy cost, or perhaps just adding it to a separate building like in BW, lowering cost of Photon Cannon, or something else.
2) Wouldn't mind the changes being even more drastic, i.e even removing Adept and Tempest, of which addition a few years back has not improved the game and just tweaking their numbers will not fix them completely. The other gateway and air units seem to be enough design wise, of course, could be tweaked for rebalancing, but Adept does seem to overlap with Zealot/Stalker and Tempest with others too much. Virtually never watched or played a game in which Adepts and Tempest would play a fun role for the players nor spectators. As a Protoss player, I'd like to see them being removed even more than MSC. If it'd result in too low # of units for w/e reason, perhaps can Blizz come up with a new unit, for example Purifier sounds fun http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Canceled_StarCraft_II_Protoss_units
3) Revelation could still see a nerf. I remember that TY in an interview once said that it'd be good if Adept's shade cooldown was nerfed hard, but would return the shade's full vision. If Adept is to stay, perhaps it'd be best if Revelation was nerfed/removed and Adept was used for vision (being slightly more demanding and counterable)
4) More changes towards i) easier control (such as high templars with attack, observer's anchor, if just to contrast to bw) and ii) nerfing moments which can very quickly turn the game due to minor oversight (mines) are welcomed. i.e even as a Protoss it sucks if a solid tense game is ended just because an Oracle is sent to enemy's worker line, who is just a second late to respond. These moments should be minimised, and in fact I think that BW having less of them is reason why I don't have any ladder anxiety playing it. As mine drops were nerfed, Oracles could be, too.
To combine i) and ii) from Protoss perspective, I'd very much like to see a tool to defend entrance against Zerg. It is clunky to have a Zealot or Adept blocking an entrance and it ruins many games when it is not on hold or wrongly positioned, allowing Zergling spilling in. This creates a huge difference in balance between intermediate and pro players; as the latter is able to block it right away with Sentry or is just better with holding it with a zealot. But even on pro level, I've seen numerous toe to toe games which ended up in a moment by zerglings running in just because of Zealot being wrongly positioned or the Protoss being just a second late with force field.
The punishment is disproportionally larger to the mistake that is too easy to make, which is the similar case of Oracle, mines, etc., it's frustrating of everyone and should be changed. Something similar to Supply Depot lowering or at least sensor tower type of warning would be great.
5) With more resources per base, Carriers are probably not nerfed enough. Perhaps they will not be seen on pro level, but on intermediate skill level it'll still be well possible to stay on 3 bases and mass carriers and cause inbalance and feeling of unfairness for the opponent.
Really good post, I agree with most of it.
I do maybe disagree with removing tempests, I think it's good for the game to have a siegebreaker. I think it would be interesting to make them more glass cannon-y, though. Maybe increase the damage ever so slightly but reduce their hp by a moderate amount, so you have to be super careful with them. Would make for a more tense back and forth.
On August 25 2017 01:05 seopthi wrote: Played a bit on the test server as Protoss. Altogether I am very happy with most changes. Few specific points:
1) I don't think the shield battery is enough for early defense. It is strong but costs a lot of energy, which is mainly a problem with early to midgame allins or just prolonged aggression at the beginning. I think it is necessary to boost early defense for Protoss, either lowering the energy cost, or perhaps just adding it to a separate building like in BW, lowering cost of Photon Cannon, or something else.
2) Wouldn't mind the changes being even more drastic, i.e even removing Adept and Tempest, of which addition a few years back has not improved the game and just tweaking their numbers will not fix them completely. The other gateway and air units seem to be enough design wise, of course, could be tweaked for rebalancing, but Adept does seem to overlap with Zealot/Stalker and Tempest with others too much. Virtually never watched or played a game in which Adepts and Tempest would play a fun role for the players nor spectators. As a Protoss player, I'd like to see them being removed even more than MSC. If it'd result in too low # of units for w/e reason, perhaps can Blizz come up with a new unit, for example Purifier sounds fun http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Canceled_StarCraft_II_Protoss_units
3) Revelation could still see a nerf. I remember that TY in an interview once said that it'd be good if Adept's shade cooldown was nerfed hard, but would return the shade's full vision. If Adept is to stay, perhaps it'd be best if Revelation was nerfed/removed and Adept was used for vision (being slightly more demanding and counterable)
4) More changes towards i) easier control (such as high templars with attack, observer's anchor, if just to contrast to bw) and ii) nerfing moments which can very quickly turn the game due to minor oversight (mines) are welcomed. i.e even as a Protoss it sucks if a solid tense game is ended just because an Oracle is sent to enemy's worker line, who is just a second late to respond. These moments should be minimised, and in fact I think that BW having less of them is reason why I don't have any ladder anxiety playing it. As mine drops were nerfed, Oracles could be, too.
To combine i) and ii) from Protoss perspective, I'd very much like to see a tool to defend entrance against Zerg. It is clunky to have a Zealot or Adept blocking an entrance and it ruins many games when it is not on hold or wrongly positioned, allowing Zergling spilling in. This creates a huge difference in balance between intermediate and pro players; as the latter is able to block it right away with Sentry or is just better with holding it with a zealot. But even on pro level, I've seen numerous toe to toe games which ended up in a moment by zerglings running in just because of Zealot being wrongly positioned or the Protoss being just a second late with force field.
The punishment is disproportionally larger to the mistake that is too easy to make, which is the similar case of Oracle, mines, etc., it's frustrating of everyone and should be changed. Something similar to Supply Depot lowering or at least sensor tower type of warning would be great.
5) With more resources per base, Carriers are probably not nerfed enough. Perhaps they will not be seen on pro level, but on intermediate skill level it'll still be well possible to stay on 3 bases and mass carriers and cause inbalance and feeling of unfairness for the opponent.
Really good post, I agree with most of it.
I do maybe disagree with removing tempests, I think it's good for the game to have a siegebreaker. I think it would be interesting to make them more glass cannon-y, though. Maybe increase the damage ever so slightly but reduce their hp by a moderate amount, so you have to be super careful with them. Would make for a more tense back and forth.
The "siege breaking" mechanics in HOTS and LOTV have ALWAYS resulted in deathballs and unbeatable armies. In HOTS, tempest/HT was the best composition in the game. Vipers have always forced mech players into even more turtle behind turrets not to get their shit abducted.
"Siege breaking" shouldnt mean "being able to pick off enemy units with superior range without them being able to do something about it". Siege breaking should be about making a position inconfortable to hold for the enemy.
If the tempest was a 100/100 3 pop airship with decent movespeed that had 13 flat range but only 10 damage per shot, it would be a "siege breaker", in the sense that revelated units would be attacked, and that the opponent wouldn't be able to hold the position, without progressively loosing ressources.
If the tempest was a 100/100 3 pop airship with decent movespeed that had 13 flat range but only 10 damage per shot, it would be a "siege breaker", in the sense that revelated units would be attacked, and that the opponent wouldn't be able to hold the position, without progressively loosing ressources.
Capital air ships should be weaker for the good of the game.
Ground units are much more interesting than capital ships since you need to care about terrain. Capital ships should be something that you add to your regular army but they should not be mono-battle units.
Both Carriers and BCs needs to be weaker somehow. Carriers more than BCs though since it is easier to get mass Carriers compared to mass BCs.
Also I know that Blizzard primary focus is 1v1 but mass Carriers have really destroyed the enjoyment of team games. Team games have become extremly repetivite due to mass Carriers. Carriers need either lower hitpoints, less DPS or a supply increase.
Nerfing Carriers may have a small impact on pro level but it will have a huge impact on the enjoyment of both 1v1 and team games for the large mass or normal players.
Also there is nothing interesting about Carriers. There is no micro or positioning skills involved so you can't really tell the difference between a good or a mediocre Carrier user.
So the new shield battery gets casted from a nexus to a pylon and THEN from the pylon to your units? Seems overly complicated. Also disappointed they haven't removed the high templar attack yet. Could as well add an auto-split button when they're moving in this direction.
On August 25 2017 01:05 seopthi wrote: Played a bit on the test server as Protoss. Altogether I am very happy with most changes. Few specific points:
1) I don't think the shield battery is enough for early defense. It is strong but costs a lot of energy, which is mainly a problem with early to midgame allins or just prolonged aggression at the beginning. I think it is necessary to boost early defense for Protoss, either lowering the energy cost, or perhaps just adding it to a separate building like in BW, lowering cost of Photon Cannon, or something else.
2) Wouldn't mind the changes being even more drastic, i.e even removing Adept and Tempest, of which addition a few years back has not improved the game and just tweaking their numbers will not fix them completely. The other gateway and air units seem to be enough design wise, of course, could be tweaked for rebalancing, but Adept does seem to overlap with Zealot/Stalker and Tempest with others too much. Virtually never watched or played a game in which Adepts and Tempest would play a fun role for the players nor spectators. As a Protoss player, I'd like to see them being removed even more than MSC. If it'd result in too low # of units for w/e reason, perhaps can Blizz come up with a new unit, for example Purifier sounds fun http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Canceled_StarCraft_II_Protoss_units
3) Revelation could still see a nerf. I remember that TY in an interview once said that it'd be good if Adept's shade cooldown was nerfed hard, but would return the shade's full vision. If Adept is to stay, perhaps it'd be best if Revelation was nerfed/removed and Adept was used for vision (being slightly more demanding and counterable)
4) More changes towards i) easier control (such as high templars with attack, observer's anchor, if just to contrast to bw) and ii) nerfing moments which can very quickly turn the game due to minor oversight (mines) are welcomed. i.e even as a Protoss it sucks if a solid tense game is ended just because an Oracle is sent to enemy's worker line, who is just a second late to respond. These moments should be minimised, and in fact I think that BW having less of them is reason why I don't have any ladder anxiety playing it. As mine drops were nerfed, Oracles could be, too.
To combine i) and ii) from Protoss perspective, I'd very much like to see a tool to defend entrance against Zerg. It is clunky to have a Zealot or Adept blocking an entrance and it ruins many games when it is not on hold or wrongly positioned, allowing Zergling spilling in. This creates a huge difference in balance between intermediate and pro players; as the latter is able to block it right away with Sentry or is just better with holding it with a zealot. But even on pro level, I've seen numerous toe to toe games which ended up in a moment by zerglings running in just because of Zealot being wrongly positioned or the Protoss being just a second late with force field.
The punishment is disproportionally larger to the mistake that is too easy to make, which is the similar case of Oracle, mines, etc., it's frustrating of everyone and should be changed. Something similar to Supply Depot lowering or at least sensor tower type of warning would be great.
5) With more resources per base, Carriers are probably not nerfed enough. Perhaps they will not be seen on pro level, but on intermediate skill level it'll still be well possible to stay on 3 bases and mass carriers and cause inbalance and feeling of unfairness for the opponent.
Really good post, I agree with most of it.
I do maybe disagree with removing tempests, I think it's good for the game to have a siegebreaker. I think it would be interesting to make them more glass cannon-y, though. Maybe increase the damage ever so slightly but reduce their hp by a moderate amount, so you have to be super careful with them. Would make for a more tense back and forth.
The "siege breaking" mechanics in HOTS and LOTV have ALWAYS resulted in deathballs and unbeatable armies. In HOTS, tempest/HT was the best composition in the game. Vipers have always forced mech players into even more turtle behind turrets not to get their shit abducted.
"Siege breaking" shouldnt mean "being able to pick off enemy units with superior range without them being able to do something about it". Siege breaking should be about making a position inconfortable to hold for the enemy.
If the tempest was a 100/100 3 pop airship with decent movespeed that had 13 flat range but only 10 damage per shot, it would be a "siege breaker", in the sense that revelated units would be attacked, and that the opponent wouldn't be able to hold the position, without progressively loosing ressources.
I don't see why "siege breaking" should even have to be a thing in the design of the game. If anything, MAYBE in late T3 after some upgrades have some units a slight bit stronger vs siege.
But ideally, shouldn't siege vs siege have their own metagame at play where they can break each other through skilled tactics?
Units dedicated to breaking siege seems to upset the balance of a battle so much that it will drastically change the weight for such small investment. I think it's better to avoid that type of unit.
On August 26 2017 03:14 Charoisaur wrote: So the new shield battery gets casted from a nexus to a pylon and THEN from the pylon to your units? Seems overly complicated. Also disappointed they haven't removed the high templar attack yet. Could as well add an auto-split button when they're moving in this direction.
Wasn't the old Nexus shield battery a single-target auto-cast spell? I haven't had a chance to test that one yet.
The new Pylon shield battery seems to be an aura, which could be more powerful for greater numbers of units under it.
On August 25 2017 01:05 seopthi wrote: Played a bit on the test server as Protoss. Altogether I am very happy with most changes. Few specific points:
1) I don't think the shield battery is enough for early defense. It is strong but costs a lot of energy, which is mainly a problem with early to midgame allins or just prolonged aggression at the beginning. I think it is necessary to boost early defense for Protoss, either lowering the energy cost, or perhaps just adding it to a separate building like in BW, lowering cost of Photon Cannon, or something else.
2) Wouldn't mind the changes being even more drastic, i.e even removing Adept and Tempest, of which addition a few years back has not improved the game and just tweaking their numbers will not fix them completely. The other gateway and air units seem to be enough design wise, of course, could be tweaked for rebalancing, but Adept does seem to overlap with Zealot/Stalker and Tempest with others too much. Virtually never watched or played a game in which Adepts and Tempest would play a fun role for the players nor spectators. As a Protoss player, I'd like to see them being removed even more than MSC. If it'd result in too low # of units for w/e reason, perhaps can Blizz come up with a new unit, for example Purifier sounds fun http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Canceled_StarCraft_II_Protoss_units
3) Revelation could still see a nerf. I remember that TY in an interview once said that it'd be good if Adept's shade cooldown was nerfed hard, but would return the shade's full vision. If Adept is to stay, perhaps it'd be best if Revelation was nerfed/removed and Adept was used for vision (being slightly more demanding and counterable)
4) More changes towards i) easier control (such as high templars with attack, observer's anchor, if just to contrast to bw) and ii) nerfing moments which can very quickly turn the game due to minor oversight (mines) are welcomed. i.e even as a Protoss it sucks if a solid tense game is ended just because an Oracle is sent to enemy's worker line, who is just a second late to respond. These moments should be minimised, and in fact I think that BW having less of them is reason why I don't have any ladder anxiety playing it. As mine drops were nerfed, Oracles could be, too.
To combine i) and ii) from Protoss perspective, I'd very much like to see a tool to defend entrance against Zerg. It is clunky to have a Zealot or Adept blocking an entrance and it ruins many games when it is not on hold or wrongly positioned, allowing Zergling spilling in. This creates a huge difference in balance between intermediate and pro players; as the latter is able to block it right away with Sentry or is just better with holding it with a zealot. But even on pro level, I've seen numerous toe to toe games which ended up in a moment by zerglings running in just because of Zealot being wrongly positioned or the Protoss being just a second late with force field.
The punishment is disproportionally larger to the mistake that is too easy to make, which is the similar case of Oracle, mines, etc., it's frustrating of everyone and should be changed. Something similar to Supply Depot lowering or at least sensor tower type of warning would be great.
5) With more resources per base, Carriers are probably not nerfed enough. Perhaps they will not be seen on pro level, but on intermediate skill level it'll still be well possible to stay on 3 bases and mass carriers and cause inbalance and feeling of unfairness for the opponent.
Really good post, I agree with most of it.
I do maybe disagree with removing tempests, I think it's good for the game to have a siegebreaker. I think it would be interesting to make them more glass cannon-y, though. Maybe increase the damage ever so slightly but reduce their hp by a moderate amount, so you have to be super careful with them. Would make for a more tense back and forth.
The "siege breaking" mechanics in HOTS and LOTV have ALWAYS resulted in deathballs and unbeatable armies. In HOTS, tempest/HT was the best composition in the game. Vipers have always forced mech players into even more turtle behind turrets not to get their shit abducted.
"Siege breaking" shouldnt mean "being able to pick off enemy units with superior range without them being able to do something about it". Siege breaking should be about making a position inconfortable to hold for the enemy.
If the tempest was a 100/100 3 pop airship with decent movespeed that had 13 flat range but only 10 damage per shot, it would be a "siege breaker", in the sense that revelated units would be attacked, and that the opponent wouldn't be able to hold the position, without progressively loosing ressources.
If you want to remove/nerf siege breaker units, then you should consider removing/nerfing sieged units. Which is, basically, just siege tank since no one use Lurkers outside of ZvZ. ^^
Given the wall of text I've written on last page, I think the idea behind new Pylon change sounds great. It involves more decisionmaking (incl. Pylon positioning) and it sounds that it'll help defending for a longer time. Also, if Zerglings spill into a mineral line or there's a Marine drop, it sounds that it'd protect Probes before units get in.
Generally, I'd like to see the abilities (like Chronoboost) to cost less mana but be less powerful. i.e half the speedboost for half the mana. 50 for the boost or the energy save is a lot and is quite a commitment.
New AoE shield restore around a pylon is way way stronger than the original one, especially as your army gets bigger, but still suffers from some fatal flaws. Making it another 50 energy ability that competes with chronoboost effectively nerfs Protoss Macro from its current state if you plan on using it..... but more importantly, it scales from weak to overpowered later in the game, just like the new recall, and does nothing to address the defense of a third base in PvZ. Unless the Zerg waits for the third base nexus to be complete and gain 50 energy, this ability isn't going to do squat to help hold it.
Now I'm imagining situations where you try to have a pylon at 13 range from the natural.... placed inbetween the natural and third base.... that you will try to run to in order to shield recharge while holding the third...... so clunky, vulnerable to surround, and map dependent.
Also, new disruptor still sucks. Even without friendly fire, it will still be bad. Would have to probably make it no friendly fire and like a 14 sec cooldown to be considered.
My idea for the widowmine is that it gets revealed after it fires, but if it unburrows and burrows again, then it is invisible again. This means that it isn't a "set and forget" unit anymore, but it also isn't a brutal nerf.
Jesus more overly complicated bullshit. How hard is it to transform a nexus into a shield battery.
Just what protoss needed, more "it's in range of the nexus or it isn't".
I'm loosing hope that they'll realise at some point that protoss already has the best defense mechanism on paper (being able to produce anywhere in their bases) and that the fucking units are the problem. But hey, it's much better to have a main building casting spells that rely on gimmicks amiright
On August 26 2017 06:31 StarscreamG1 wrote: This is becoming chaotic. We're losing race characteristics.
Race characteristics got thrown out the window a long time ago. Each expansion made each race more and more homogeneous, which is ironic given that Starcraft was the first game to make unique factions a thing in RTS games. They just kept adding more gimmicky harass options and AoE spells to each race until it became all the game was about.
We Warcraft 3 now. Are they admitting their incompetence or what? They can't come up with a way to make Zerg AA viable, so they have to literally rip off an ability from another game?
Nothing addressing SH/Carrier in this iteration. Pretty disappointing. Maybe next go thru they'll have something? Also, that widow mine nerf is huge and should never make it through.
Protoss has Shield Restore changed into an aoe Restoration Field that restores unit shields in an area around a nearby Pylon.
Zerg Infestors may get an anti-air stun that roots air units to the ground, though it's still not ready to be tested
Terran Hellbat/Hellion transformation time with the transformation time upgrade is nerfed from 1 second to 2 seconds.
so infestors are becoming wc3 crypt fiends, interesting
aha yeah, glad someone else caught that. Idk if it makes as much sense in sc2, i mean an ability that immediately takes a giant spaceship to the ground (without the spaceship exploding/taking damage) and then when its duration is over the ship immediately returns to the sky? then again I guess there's a lot of things like that in the game.
Just throwing it out there, but what about keeping the MotherShip Core in the game, but remove the photon Canon spell, remove its status of hero (maybe it takes more supply?) unit but still built by , and give it the battery shield spell? Not something very strong so it would not scale too well in the late game, (something that would recharge shield during a certain amount of time, but that you can't stack on units) but something that would help for early/mid game.
I'm afraid that new "shield battery" AOE spell will be OP with that kind of range (pylon power grid). My god, Protoss Army will be undestructable if Protoss will stack some energy. Maybe tweaking shield regen numbers will fix it lil bit.
If anything the new ability will be worse. You'll have to rely on pylons defending you again, and this time they don't actually do damage. People can run in, snipe the pylon and be done with your army. The old ability was much, much better and more interesting.
Don't like this pylon idea at all, especially if, as another poster said - I have yet to test it myself - the ability scales far too well into the lategame.
Plus having the energy cost so high makes chrono usage far more dangerous. I liked the low energy cost of the other ability ; it was very flexible, you could always get some defensive value out of it even if you just used a chrono.
Overall a strange decision - the infestor ability puzzles me too, and I wonder how strange grounded void rays or bcs will look - but there is still plenty of time to make that iteration great.
I think Entangle is cool. Fungal vs air does create exciting moments when things get locked in place, and it's not like WoL again where things just got chain fungal'd and died.
Almost forgot the Blizzard update shuffle, it is one step forward two steps back.
Why not fix shield recharge if it took more energy than expected instead of adding that clunky pylon thingy? Infested terrans just got interresting again and they are cool, entangle feels like they split fungal growth between air and ground.
Restoration Field should be an AoE with less energy cost (and be proportionally less effective). Something like:
Restoration Field Ability can be cast within 13 range of the casting Nexus.
Units within the area of effect of Restoration Field instantly regain 100 hp shields.
25 energy.
Notes
100 hp is just a suggested value. Don't know if it's too much or too little.
With 25 energy you can use this reasonably fast. I'd say it's ok if the ability is not available right away though.
A potential follow-up change might be to allow shield overload:
Shield restoration hit points exceeding the units shield capacity are temporarily added. Cannot be stacked.
This basically makes the ability more safe to use because you cannot waste energy on units with full or nearly full shields and probably makes commiting against sieges easier.
Gotta say that I love that they can sorta test fun abilities in co-op and that it has opened up a more creative path to fixing multiplayer issues. I've long thought about removing the Queen anti air attack and instead giving it a very short range single target Entangle ability. The question is if this would be flexible enough to defend vs long range early air attacks like Liberator harass.
I'm not sure Protoss is really weak in the current test map, but I prefer Pylon Overshield, because of what was stated in the notes. It's easier to calculate how much energy you spend this way.
Now that parasitic bomb is no longer like irradiate, why don't remove the raven and add the SC2 Science Vessel? Come on guys, keep it simple (the co-op science vessel even has defensive matrix, that would help a lot mech!) Science vessel (StarCraft II)
First, we would like to thank everyone for playtesting the new changes! Your feedback has been very helpful and there were a lot of constructive discussions. With so many changes, we do think it’s difficult to predict all the outcomes, but with your help and feedback, we believe we can continue to head in the right direction.
Protoss Currently, we like the direction of Shield Restore, but the ability may not provide enough defensive power for Protoss so we are looking to try a different iteration called Restoration Field. The new ability should provide more defense power for Protoss and there should be more gameplay options for players. Also Shield Restore would sometimes use more energy than what was expected or desired. The energy consumption on the new ability Restoration Field should be more predictable and easier to gauge. Additionally, we are removing the delay on Purification Nova when a Disruptor is unloaded from a transport. There was concern that Purification Nova would deal too much burst damage or game ending damage in harass situations. The delay was added to minimize game ending damage but it may not be necessary at this time. Last, the High Templar’s weapon size was reduced to better match the weapon’s current damage value.
Zerg We hear feedback that Zerg is lacking anti air or early harass options and we are looking into possible solutions to address these concerns. We have been experimenting with a new anit-air ability on the Infestor called Entangle. The ability would replace the Infested Terran ability and provide an anti-air option for Zerg ground compositions. The new Entangle ability would capture enemy air units, and allow friendly ground units to engage them. As for early game harassment options, we want to be careful in our changes here as the effectiveness of the Protoss and Terran defense options have been reduced a bit and that should open up more offensive opportunities for Zerg, that weren’t previously possible in the past.
Terran We are excited to hear the feedback for the Terran changes. There was an area of concern that Smart Servos may make Hellion/Hellbat transform a bit too fast. We are planning to make a change so that after researching the Smart Servos upgrade, Hellions/Hellbats would take 2 seconds instead of 1 second to transform. This would provide the defensive player more time to react when trying to defend against Hellion/Hellbat harass with the Smart Servos upgrade.
List of changes:
Nexus
New ability Restoration Field: * Replaces Shield Recharge. * Ability can be cast on Pylons within 13 range from the casting Nexus. Restores shields of friendly units within the Pylon’s power field range. * 50 energy cost / 14 second duration. * Shield regeneration rate 15 shields per second. * Shield recharge will affect everything except the Pylon emitting the field. * Can only target Pylons without Restoration Field.[/li][/ul]
Disruptor * Removed delay on Purification Nova when Disruptors are unloaded from transports.
High Templar * Psi Blast model scale reduced from 1 to 0.65. The impact model scale was reduced from 1 to 0.75.
Hellion/Hellbat Smart Servos upgrade: * After researching Smart Servos, the Hellion/Hellbat morph times will be reduced to 2 seconds instead of 1 second.
Raven * Repair Drones will now be shot from the casting Raven instead of entering from the air above. Will allow both the offensive and defensive player to see which Raven used the energy to cast the ability.
Again, thanks for trying out the new changes and please continue to provide any feedback!
PLEASE BLIZZARD FOR THE SAKE OF THIS GAME FIX THE SWARMHOST/MECH INTERACTION, IT ALREADY RUINED EARLY HOTS, HISTORY DOESN'T NEED TO REPEAT ITSELF !!!!!
I like this direction. I am not a huge fan of the Entangle ability only because infested terrans are very nice to have lore-wise, and they remind me of BW
On August 27 2017 22:57 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: PLEASE BLIZZARD FOR THE SAKE OF THIS GAME FIX THE SWARMHOST/MECH INTERACTION, IT ALREADY RUINED EARLY HOTS, HISTORY DOESN'T NEED TO REPEAT ITSELF !!!!!
PLEASE !
Please do not post in all caps. The only reason I'm not warning you is because I already warned you earlier and I don't want you to be turned off by the harsh moderation of TL. But don't post in all caps because that's another thing we warn for.
the F2/All-Army button should activate every army unit.. except army units in Hold Position. This avoids all these special abilities associated with holding observers in place.
please, make this happen Blizzard. Low Leaguers will love it... and forgetful Diamond players will like it too! That is 95%+ of the player base!
On August 27 2017 23:46 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i'd like to restate an idea i've heard on reddit.
the F2/All-Army button should activate every army unit.. except army units in Hold Position. This avoids all these special abilities associated with holding observers in place.
please, make this happen Blizzard. Low Leaguers will love it... and forgetful Diamond players will like it too! That is 95%+ of the player base!
On August 27 2017 23:46 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i'd like to restate an idea i've heard on reddit.
the F2/All-Army button should activate every army unit.. except army units in Hold Position. This avoids all these special abilities associated with holding observers in place.
please, make this happen Blizzard. Low Leaguers will love it... and forgetful Diamond players will like it too! That is 95%+ of the player base!
not sure that would be a good change. That will make it much more tempting for players to develop an F2 habit - which is still very bad to have when doing or defending vs multiprong attacks
Entangle replaces Infested Terrans? Seems like Blizzard doesn't really know what to do and where to put Infested Terrans either.
You know what I think? Temporary summoned units are a b*tch to balance. In my recent mod-endeavors I removed Infested Terrans too. I know infestating terrans is sort of a Zerg staple, but if you can't find a way to have it balanced in the game, why bother. Good riddance even!
It has been stated many times before in this thread but i'll say it again: Blizzard is the epitome of incompetence and they don't have the faintest clue of what they're doing to their game. I finally played the test map, good god its worse than 3.8, and that patch ruined the game in many ways.
On August 27 2017 23:46 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i'd like to restate an idea i've heard on reddit.
the F2/All-Army button should activate every army unit.. except army units in Hold Position. This avoids all these special abilities associated with holding observers in place.
please, make this happen Blizzard. Low Leaguers will love it... and forgetful Diamond players will like it too! That is 95%+ of the player base!
Yeah let's dumb down the game as much as possible for lower leagues player.
Why stop there? While we're at it let's remove control group, they're hard to manage, let's have every hatchery automatically be binded to a key. Let's have every terran prod building binded to another. Let's have every caster binded to another.
Let's have a key to spit marines automatically too, lower league players can't really do it. Let's have storm auto aim the center mass of enemy troops too, storms are hard to use for lower league players !
The obs/overseer "deploy" idiocy is already embarassing enough, please don't advocate to dumb down the game even further. F2 key SHOULD be punishing to use.
On August 30 2017 02:03 Morbidius wrote: It has been stated many times before in this thread but i'll say it again: Blizzard is the epitome of incompetence and they don't have the faintest clue of what they're doing to their game. I finally played the test map, good god its worse than 3.8, and that patch ruined the game in many ways.
First, I don't even know where Blizzard is... Netherlands?? Secondly, maybe the team really doesn't know what's going on.
True story: one well-known pro streamer (who shall remain nameless) tells a story about a conversation he had with D. Kim during the Broodlord Infestor era during a lunch. Conversation ensues between two said people, long story short, Kim didn't know people were combo-ing Broodlord&Infestor, he didn't even know there was a "BroodLord-Infestor" era.
We're the ones investing so much time in the game.
They should keep fixing the frustrating things in the game, such as the radius at which a pylon can be a fast warp in pylon.
It makes no sense that a pylon like 4 spaces away from my nexus right in my natural is a slow pylon, if the reason for it being slow is because of proxy pylons needing to be slow, wh is a pylon in my base slow? Starcraft doesn't need so many weird rules. Shit like this is why there are no protoss players.
Just make the fast warp-in radius huge around the nexus and get rid of the fast warpins connected to warpgates.
On August 27 2017 23:46 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i'd like to restate an idea i've heard on reddit.
the F2/All-Army button should activate every army unit.. except army units in Hold Position. This avoids all these special abilities associated with holding observers in place.
please, make this happen Blizzard. Low Leaguers will love it... and forgetful Diamond players will like it too! That is 95%+ of the player base!
Yeah let's dumb down the game as much as possible for lower leagues player.
Why stop there? While we're at it let's remove control group, they're hard to manage, let's have every hatchery automatically be binded to a key. Let's have every terran prod building binded to another. Let's have every caster binded to another.
Let's have a key to spit marines automatically too, lower league players can't really do it. Let's have storm auto aim the center mass of enemy troops too, storms are hard to use for lower league players !
The obs/overseer "deploy" idiocy is already embarassing enough, please don't advocate to dumb down the game even further. F2 key SHOULD be punishing to use.
Lower level players don't give a damn about your elitist slippery slope argument. What you're saying adds nothing to the discussion and acts as a turnoff to anyone trying to discuss alternatives/solutions because you'll never be convinced of anything besides what you believe in. These balance change threads have turned from constructive criticism to mindless shitposting and it really offputting. Just because you are disgusted by any sort of change, even the most minor, doesn't mean Blizzard cant at least attempt to lower the barrier of entry to multiplayer even slightly.
On August 27 2017 23:46 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i'd like to restate an idea i've heard on reddit.
the F2/All-Army button should activate every army unit.. except army units in Hold Position. This avoids all these special abilities associated with holding observers in place.
please, make this happen Blizzard. Low Leaguers will love it... and forgetful Diamond players will like it too! That is 95%+ of the player base!
Yeah let's dumb down the game as much as possible for lower leagues player.
Why stop there? While we're at it let's remove control group, they're hard to manage, let's have every hatchery automatically be binded to a key. Let's have every terran prod building binded to another. Let's have every caster binded to another.
Let's have a key to spit marines automatically too, lower league players can't really do it. Let's have storm auto aim the center mass of enemy troops too, storms are hard to use for lower league players !
The obs/overseer "deploy" idiocy is already embarassing enough, please don't advocate to dumb down the game even further. F2 key SHOULD be punishing to use.
Lower level players don't give a damn about your elitist slippery slope argument. What you're saying adds nothing to the discussion and acts as a turnoff to anyone trying to discuss alternatives/solutions because you'll never be convinced of anything besides what you believe in. These balance change threads have turned from constructive criticism to mindless shitposting and it really offputting. Just because you are disgusted by any sort of change, even the most minor, doesn't mean Blizzard cant at least attempt to lower the barrier of entry to multiplayer even slightly.
The notion that dumbing down sc2 will bring a new wave of casual players is delusional and idiotic. The only thing that brought new people (or brought back some old players who quit) was coop. Making army control groups useless with a "smart" F2 key won't allow players with superior mechanics to distinguish themselves by controlling complicated armies better. Which is bad for the game.
And saying "your argumented point adds nothing to the discussion but me trying to shut it down does !" is both ridiculous and adorable.
On August 27 2017 23:46 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i'd like to restate an idea i've heard on reddit.
the F2/All-Army button should activate every army unit.. except army units in Hold Position. This avoids all these special abilities associated with holding observers in place.
please, make this happen Blizzard. Low Leaguers will love it... and forgetful Diamond players will like it too! That is 95%+ of the player base!
Yeah let's dumb down the game as much as possible for lower leagues player.
Why stop there? While we're at it let's remove control group, they're hard to manage, let's have every hatchery automatically be binded to a key. Let's have every terran prod building binded to another. Let's have every caster binded to another.
Let's have a key to spit marines automatically too, lower league players can't really do it. Let's have storm auto aim the center mass of enemy troops too, storms are hard to use for lower league players !
The obs/overseer "deploy" idiocy is already embarassing enough, please don't advocate to dumb down the game even further. F2 key SHOULD be punishing to use.
Lower level players don't give a damn about your elitist slippery slope argument. What you're saying adds nothing to the discussion and acts as a turnoff to anyone trying to discuss alternatives/solutions because you'll never be convinced of anything besides what you believe in. These balance change threads have turned from constructive criticism to mindless shitposting and it really offputting. Just because you are disgusted by any sort of change, even the most minor, doesn't mean Blizzard cant at least attempt to lower the barrier of entry to multiplayer even slightly.
The notion that dumbing down sc2 will bring a new wave of casual players is delusional and idiotic. The only thing that brought new people (or brought back some old players who quit) was coop. Making army control groups useless with a "smart" F2 key won't allow players with superior mechanics to distinguish themselves by controlling complicated armies better. Which is bad for the game.
And saying "your argumented point adds nothing to the discussion but me trying to shut it down does !" is both ridiculous and adorable.
from slippery slopes to ad hominums. logical fallacies are your strong suit, ay buddy boy?
On August 27 2017 23:46 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i'd like to restate an idea i've heard on reddit.
the F2/All-Army button should activate every army unit.. except army units in Hold Position. This avoids all these special abilities associated with holding observers in place.
please, make this happen Blizzard. Low Leaguers will love it... and forgetful Diamond players will like it too! That is 95%+ of the player base!
Yeah let's dumb down the game as much as possible for lower leagues player.
Why stop there? While we're at it let's remove control group, they're hard to manage, let's have every hatchery automatically be binded to a key. Let's have every terran prod building binded to another. Let's have every caster binded to another.
Let's have a key to spit marines automatically too, lower league players can't really do it. Let's have storm auto aim the center mass of enemy troops too, storms are hard to use for lower league players !
The obs/overseer "deploy" idiocy is already embarassing enough, please don't advocate to dumb down the game even further. F2 key SHOULD be punishing to use.
Lower level players don't give a damn about your elitist slippery slope argument. What you're saying adds nothing to the discussion and acts as a turnoff to anyone trying to discuss alternatives/solutions because you'll never be convinced of anything besides what you believe in. These balance change threads have turned from constructive criticism to mindless shitposting and it really offputting. Just because you are disgusted by any sort of change, even the most minor, doesn't mean Blizzard cant at least attempt to lower the barrier of entry to multiplayer even slightly.
The notion that dumbing down sc2 will bring a new wave of casual players is delusional and idiotic. The only thing that brought new people (or brought back some old players who quit) was coop. Making army control groups useless with a "smart" F2 key won't allow players with superior mechanics to distinguish themselves by controlling complicated armies better. Which is bad for the game.
And saying "your argumented point adds nothing to the discussion but me trying to shut it down does !" is both ridiculous and adorable.
from slippery slopes to ad hominums. logical fallacies are your strong suit, ay buddy boy?
Pointing out how stupid it is to pretend you rebuted a point by saying it's not adding anything to discussing while not adding any counter argument isn't an ad hominem.
But if you want one, i can provide : "8000 posts to be that bad at arguing on the internet? I'm you're a silver player with 10 000 games."
So did you thought you learned a word on the internet you think you can use to get out of every situation where you're getting owned ? (and it's ad hominem, not hominum btw) Try again, "buddy boy"
On August 27 2017 23:46 JimmyJRaynor wrote: i'd like to restate an idea i've heard on reddit.
the F2/All-Army button should activate every army unit.. except army units in Hold Position. This avoids all these special abilities associated with holding observers in place.
please, make this happen Blizzard. Low Leaguers will love it... and forgetful Diamond players will like it too! That is 95%+ of the player base!
Yeah let's dumb down the game as much as possible for lower leagues player.
Why stop there? While we're at it let's remove control group, they're hard to manage, let's have every hatchery automatically be binded to a key. Let's have every terran prod building binded to another. Let's have every caster binded to another.
Let's have a key to spit marines automatically too, lower league players can't really do it. Let's have storm auto aim the center mass of enemy troops too, storms are hard to use for lower league players !
The obs/overseer "deploy" idiocy is already embarassing enough, please don't advocate to dumb down the game even further. F2 key SHOULD be punishing to use.
Lower level players don't give a damn about your elitist slippery slope argument. What you're saying adds nothing to the discussion and acts as a turnoff to anyone trying to discuss alternatives/solutions because you'll never be convinced of anything besides what you believe in. These balance change threads have turned from constructive criticism to mindless shitposting and it really offputting. Just because you are disgusted by any sort of change, even the most minor, doesn't mean Blizzard cant at least attempt to lower the barrier of entry to multiplayer even slightly.
just because you disagree with him doesn't mean he's shitposting. He does have a point. SC2 is not meant to be an easy game, people who want to play an easy game should play something else. The mechanics in SC2 are already really easy compared to BW so there's no need to make it even easier. And it's naive to think this will only affect lower level players; it will affect every level of skill including pros.
pretty sure blizzard is going to make zerg the 3 bases free win vs protoss and terran, like always, buff hydralisk to 100 health and 20 dmg please, they need it
I think Warp gate would work better as a late game upgrade. Trying to balance the game around an early upgrade that makes production faster means you can't make the early units as powerful because you can get more of them. Also, being able to warp anywhere means you have to make the units less powerful because you can get them when and where you need them.
If warp gates came out later, you could balance protoss for early game, and let warping in units be an option that opens up in the mid-late game. The increased production rate wouldn't create as much imbalance, because as the game goes on you have a lot of gateways anyway. And getting rid of early game warp ins would get rid of a lot of cheese.
I'd like to a protoss with good basic units, that can hold their own in a fight and don't rely on gimmicks.
On August 30 2017 13:28 Quineotio wrote: I think Warp gate would work better as a late game upgrade. Trying to balance the game around an early upgrade that makes production faster means you can't make the early units as powerful because you can get more of them. Also, being able to warp anywhere means you have to make the units less powerful because you can get them when and where you need them.
If warp gates came out later, you could balance protoss for early game, and let warping in units be an option that opens up in the mid-late game. The increased production rate wouldn't create as much imbalance, because as the game goes on you have a lot of gateways anyway. And getting rid of early game warp ins would get rid of a lot of cheese.
I'd like to a protoss with good basic units, that can hold their own in a fight and don't rely on gimmicks.
This +1, SC2 is dying and Protoss is the least popular race, they need to take chances and do something big like push WG to be an end game upgrade.
On August 30 2017 13:28 Quineotio wrote: I think Warp gate would work better as a late game upgrade. Trying to balance the game around an early upgrade that makes production faster means you can't make the early units as powerful because you can get more of them. Also, being able to warp anywhere means you have to make the units less powerful because you can get them when and where you need them.
If warp gates came out later, you could balance protoss for early game, and let warping in units be an option that opens up in the mid-late game. The increased production rate wouldn't create as much imbalance, because as the game goes on you have a lot of gateways anyway. And getting rid of early game warp ins would get rid of a lot of cheese.
I'd like to a protoss with good basic units, that can hold their own in a fight and don't rely on gimmicks.
This +1, SC2 is dying and Protoss is the least popular race, they need to take chances and do something big like push WG to be an end game upgrade.
It's actually a good point. Why did they insist on having WG so early in the tech tree? Seems like a random and bad choice day one.
On August 30 2017 13:28 Quineotio wrote: I think Warp gate would work better as a late game upgrade. Trying to balance the game around an early upgrade that makes production faster means you can't make the early units as powerful because you can get more of them. Also, being able to warp anywhere means you have to make the units less powerful because you can get them when and where you need them.
If warp gates came out later, you could balance protoss for early game, and let warping in units be an option that opens up in the mid-late game. The increased production rate wouldn't create as much imbalance, because as the game goes on you have a lot of gateways anyway. And getting rid of early game warp ins would get rid of a lot of cheese.
I'd like to a protoss with good basic units, that can hold their own in a fight and don't rely on gimmicks.
This +1, SC2 is dying and Protoss is the least popular race, they need to take chances and do something big like push WG to be an end game upgrade.
It's actually a good point. Why did they insist on having WG so early in the tech tree? Seems like a random and bad choice day one.
It fits the theme of protoss. It makes the race unique. It goes against everything we understand about the Desing of RTS games. It is the reason why Protoss needs this defense bandage. If you either move it too late game, or just make it a tradeoff, as in it produces slower than normal gates, you could buff Gateway units and Protoss would'nt need a defensive gimmick. I hope this is something they look into aswell.
Maybe make warp gate a building. You could select it to warp-in units, or select your gateways to produce normally. Make warp gate increase production of gateway units, so there's still a reason to use your gateways. Could put upgrades on the building if you wanted, like faster warp-in cooldown, or even warping robo units.
You're not going to get Protoss players back to playing the race by screwing with it even more. Slow warpins and pylon overcharge nonsense was already too much.
Protoss doesn't need a defensive gimmick because of warpgate. It was just fine in WoL without overcharge. But with added units and changes in HotS and LotV, that wouldn't have sufficed.
Warpin is an integral part of SCII Protoss. It isn't going to be removed or altered drastically and that's a good thing.
On August 30 2017 20:58 Olli wrote: Protoss doesn't need a defensive gimmick because of warpgate. It was just fine in WoL without overcharge. But with added units and changes in HotS and LotV, that wouldn't have sufficed.
It wasn't fine in WoL though. 4-Gate was really strong, and warp gates have had multiple changes. It's always been a problem.
On August 30 2017 20:58 Olli wrote: You're not going to get Protoss players back to playing the race by screwing with it even more. Slow warpins and pylon overcharge nonsense was already too much.
If the changes end up making protoss, and the game, more fun, why wouldn't people come back? Forcefield, MSC, overcharge and arguably adepts are all unpopular and all band-aid solutions to the same problem, which is warp gates.
On August 30 2017 20:58 Olli wrote: You're not going to get Protoss players back to playing the race by screwing with it even more. Slow warpins and pylon overcharge nonsense was already too much.
Protoss doesn't need a defensive gimmick because of warpgate. It was just fine in WoL without overcharge. But with added units and changes in HotS and LotV, that wouldn't have sufficed. Warpin is an integral part of SCII Protoss. It isn't going to be removed or altered drastically and that's a good thing.
Actually depending on who you ask it might be the single biggest design flaw of the entire race and all its matchups.
On August 30 2017 20:58 Olli wrote: You're not going to get Protoss players back to playing the race by screwing with it even more. Slow warpins and pylon overcharge nonsense was already too much.
Protoss doesn't need a defensive gimmick because of warpgate. It was just fine in WoL without overcharge. But with added units and changes in HotS and LotV, that wouldn't have sufficed. Warpin is an integral part of SCII Protoss. It isn't going to be removed or altered drastically and that's a good thing.
Actually depending on who you ask it might be the single biggest design flaw of the entire race and all its matchups.
He is right though, it will never get changed anyway
On August 30 2017 20:58 Olli wrote: Protoss doesn't need a defensive gimmick because of warpgate. It was just fine in WoL without overcharge. But with added units and changes in HotS and LotV, that wouldn't have sufficed.
It wasn't fine in WoL though. 4-Gate was really strong, and warp gates have had multiple changes. It's always been a problem.
On August 30 2017 20:58 Olli wrote: You're not going to get Protoss players back to playing the race by screwing with it even more. Slow warpins and pylon overcharge nonsense was already too much.
If the changes end up making protoss, and the game, more fun, why wouldn't people come back? Forcefield, MSC, overcharge and arguably adepts are all unpopular and all band-aid solutions to the same problem, which is warp gates.
The 4gate was a problem until 2011, and then it wasn't — because the problem wasn't warpgate itself, but that its chronoboosted research time was far too low. They adjusted it and then it wasn't a problem anymore.
As for "making Protoss fun", your definition of that doesn't matter. Fact is more people used to play Protoss, and now they don't. Changing the race further away from the one they used to play in WoL and HotS gives them no incentive to come back, on the contrary. It will drive away the few that still play the race, because they spent years learning a race only to have its very core fundamentals completely changed. Old chronoboost— that's a huge step in the right direction. New one was a horrible idea and I couldn't be happier to see it patched out.
The examples you mentioned are poor as well. Adepts had nothing to do with Protoss needing a bandaid solution. In fact, Adepts are an entirely unnecessary unit. They were added for reasons nobody understands. Overcharge didn't exist in WoL and Protoss didn't need it, even though warpgate existed and was even better than it is now (offensive warpins). Overcharge was added to cope with what Blizzard wanted to be a more split up game, where minimal amounts of units would run around and do things (medivac boost, muta buff, etc.). The game around Protoss changed, and Blizzard decided to go with overcharge as the counterbalancing mechanic. It could've been anything else as well, something like shield recharge being tested right now. This whole argument that overcharge is a bandaid to solve warpgate is so stupid. It's just what Blizzard decided to go with. And seriously, who still complains about forcefields? Terran has speed medivacs, Zerg has ravagers. Forcefields aren't an issue anymore, and forcefield-heavy playstyles generally suck.
On August 30 2017 22:14 Olli wrote: The 4gate was a problem until 2011, and then it wasn't — because the problem wasn't warpgate itself, but that its chronoboosted research time was far too low. They adjusted it and then it wasn't a problem anymore.
As for "making Protoss fun", your definition of that doesn't matter. Fact is more people used to play Protoss, and now they don't. Changing the race further away from the one they used to play in WoL and HotS gives them no incentive to come back, on the contrary. It will drive away the few that still play the race, because they spent years learning a race only to have its very core fundamentals completely changed.
But hey, old chronoboost will go a long way. New one was a horrible idea and I couldn't be happier to see it patched out.
Making the warpgate come out later made it better. I'm just saying they should push it back further, because it's still a problem due to how it compromises protoss early game design.
I don't understand how keeping protoss the same will bring people back. Wouldn't those people still be playing if they liked the current design?
I take the point on changes turning people away. It sucks to have skills you've honed become redundant. The dev team are between a rock and a hard place, because there are major problems, but major changes bring major disruption. But I think it's worth going through some disruptive periods if that ends up in a better game. The dev team are moving in the right direction in this patch, and I like to think there will be a major patch every year until the game is closer to perfect.
But after we see how the removal of the MSC works out, I think another thing worth looking at is warp gates.
A lot of Protoss players left with LotV, because chronoboost is stupid (for now!) and the most important thing in the game is where you put your pylons. That and no aggressive warpin build now works without a robo, which a lot of people did.
I agree that this patch is a great step in the right direction for Protoss. But I hope they don't touch warpgate—and if they do, they should turn it back to how it was.
On August 30 2017 22:14 Olli wrote: The examples you mentioned are poor as well. Adepts had nothing to do with Protoss needing a bandaid solution. In fact, Adepts are an entirely unnecessary unit. They were added for reasons nobody understands. Overcharge didn't exist in WoL and Protoss didn't need it, even though warpgate existed and was even better than it is now (offensive warpins). Overcharge was added to cope with what Blizzard wanted to be a more split up game, where minimal amounts of units would run around and do things (medivac boost, muta buff, etc.). The game around Protoss changed, and Blizzard decided to go with overcharge as the counterbalancing mechanic. It could've been anything else as well, something like shield recharge being tested right now. This whole argument that overcharge is a bandaid to solve warpgate is so stupid. It's just what Blizzard decided to go with. And seriously, who still complains about forcefields? Terran has speed medivacs, Zerg has ravagers. Forcefields aren't an issue anymore, and forcefield-heavy playstyles generally suck.
Forcefields were put in to give protoss a strong defensive option in lieu of strong units in the early game. I'm not complaining about them in the current game (although I still hate them), I only brought them up to illustrate an example of flawed design caused by warpgates. If you remember in WoL the most common strat was to build lots of sentries to defend early.
Overcharge and MSC are in the same boat, in that they give protoss stronger defense in the early game to make up for their weaker units.
With adepts I said "arguably", but they are a very strong early game unit. I have other issues with adepts...
So in every version of the game, protoss has a powerful defensive options in the early game to make up for weak early game units. And these options (forcefields, overcharge, MSC, arguably adepts) are among the most complained about things in SC2. Which is why I think they're band-aid solutions to the problem of warp gate having too large of an effect on the early game.
On August 30 2017 22:42 Olli wrote: A lot of Protoss players left with LotV, because chronoboost is stupid (for now!) and the most important thing in the game is where you put your pylons. That and no aggressive warpin build now works without a robo, which a lot of people did.
I don't like the macro mechanics...
It's interesting how they keep pushing warp gate back in the tech tree. I think if protoss had better units early, they wouldn't need warp gates to be aggressive.
On August 30 2017 22:14 Olli wrote: The examples you mentioned are poor as well. Adepts had nothing to do with Protoss needing a bandaid solution. In fact, Adepts are an entirely unnecessary unit. They were added for reasons nobody understands. Overcharge didn't exist in WoL and Protoss didn't need it, even though warpgate existed and was even better than it is now (offensive warpins). Overcharge was added to cope with what Blizzard wanted to be a more split up game, where minimal amounts of units would run around and do things (medivac boost, muta buff, etc.). The game around Protoss changed, and Blizzard decided to go with overcharge as the counterbalancing mechanic. It could've been anything else as well, something like shield recharge being tested right now. This whole argument that overcharge is a bandaid to solve warpgate is so stupid. It's just what Blizzard decided to go with. And seriously, who still complains about forcefields? Terran has speed medivacs, Zerg has ravagers. Forcefields aren't an issue anymore, and forcefield-heavy playstyles generally suck.
Forcefields were put in to give protoss a strong defensive option in lieu of strong units in the early game. I'm not complaining about them in the current game (although I still hate them), I only brought them up to illustrate an example of flawed design caused by warpgates. If you remember in WoL the most common strat was to build lots of sentries to defend early.
Overcharge and MSC are in the same boat, in that they give protoss stronger defense in the early game to make up for their weaker units.
With adepts I said "arguably", but they are a very strong early game unit. I have other issues with adepts...
So in every version of the game, protoss has a powerful defensive options in the early game to make up for weak early game units. And these options (forcefields, overcharge, MSC, arguably adepts) are among the most complained about things in SC2. Which is why I think they're band-aid solutions to the problem of warp gate having too large of an effect on the early game.
The problem with that is that people have always complained about everything except the strengths of their own race. When Protoss made sentries people complained about forcefields. When the MSC was introduced they complained that Protoss no longer made sentries.
This entire theory is based on the foregone conclusion that warpgate is a problem. It isn't, though. Warpgate is an integral part of how Protoss is designed in SCII, and it's an awesome mechanic that you won't find in any other RTS. So what if that means Protoss needs extra protection early on? These aren't 'bandaid solutions', because warpgate isn't a problem. They're not the most elegant, I agree with that, but they're what Blizzard decided on. I'm glad that they're trying something new for early protection now, but I disagree entirely with the idea that warpgate is an issue.
Can we really say why protoss players left the game? (or play other races, or whatever) I don't think we can^^
With that being said it seems clear to me that warpgate is a big problem as a design choice. It is directly attacking the concept of defenders advantage. Especially with the warpprism we saw this time and time again where toss can snowball this advantage. At the same time it most likely made warpgate units worse because you have to balance around this warpin threat. It's basically in the game because it's unique and "cool". Would protoss be more or less fun to play if we remove it? That has to be the question tbh.
On August 30 2017 22:42 Olli wrote: A lot of Protoss players left with LotV, because chronoboost is stupid (for now!) and the most important thing in the game is where you put your pylons. That and no aggressive warpin build now works without a robo, which a lot of people did.
I don't like the macro mechanics...
It's interesting how they keep pushing warp gate back in the tech tree. I think if protoss had better units early, they wouldn't need warp gates to be aggressive.
Yeah that's what we've been saying since the very beginning, but Blizzard as always are set in their ways and too stubborn to admit they might have ever made a mistake. Either that or "you don't really want that; trust us you think you do but you don't".
And of course if they don't completely nail the razor's edge balance, you end up in situations where Protoss is either completely fucked and can't hold all-ins, or their warp-gate based all-ins are way too strong (see also: 4gate, 6gate/7gate/8gate blink allin, all those adept rushes in early LotV etc.)
This entire theory is based on the foregone conclusion that warpgate is a problem. It isn't, though. Warpgate is an integral part of how Protoss is designed in SCII, and it's an awesome mechanic that you won't find in any other RTS. So what if that means Protoss needs extra protection early on? These aren't 'bandaid solutions', because warpgate isn't a problem. They're not the most elegant, I agree with that, but they're what Blizzard decided on. I'm glad that they're trying something new for early protection now, but I disagree entirely with the idea that warpgate is an issue.
Your entire point is predicated on the notion that just because warpgate is a fundamental design mechanic, it cannot be flawed. Which is objectively wrong, it can be flawed. There are many games whose core principles and mechanics have glaring flaws in them, it's not unheard of in the slightest. Whether it actually is flawed or not is harder to prove, but there are numerous posts bordering on dissertation-length which have been written trying to show that it might be, or at the very least it clashes with other fundamental design decisions. Granted many of them were written before you joined in 2012 so you may be excused for not knowing.
I'll set aside your long history of irrational Protoss fanboyism and just address the fact that you're parading your personal opinion as objective truth here. Please take some time to read and understand.
This entire theory is based on the foregone conclusion that warpgate is a problem. It isn't, though. Warpgate is an integral part of how Protoss is designed in SCII, and it's an awesome mechanic that you won't find in any other RTS. So what if that means Protoss needs extra protection early on? These aren't 'bandaid solutions', because warpgate isn't a problem. They're not the most elegant, I agree with that, but they're what Blizzard decided on. I'm glad that they're trying something new for early protection now, but I disagree entirely with the idea that warpgate is an issue.
Your entire point is predicated on the notion that just because warpgate is a fundamental design mechanic, it cannot be flawed. Which is objectively wrong, it can be flawed. There are many games whose core principles and mechanics have glaring flaws in them, it's not unheard of in the slightest. Whether it actually is flawed or not is harder to prove, but there are numerous posts bordering on dissertation-length which have been written trying to show that it might be, or at the very least it clashes with other fundamental design decisions. Granted many of them were written before you joined in 2012 so you may be excused for not knowing.
I'll set aside your long history of irrational Protoss fanboyism and just address the fact that you're parading your personal opinion as objective truth here. Please take some time to read and understand.
but I disagree entirely with the idea that warpgate is an issue
Which part of this strikes you as me passing this off as objective facts?
First of all, I've read these articles you speak of, second I disagree with all of them. Because there is no "correct" design, there will be flaws in everything you can come up with. Protoss is played this way, the only thing that matters is whether or not people enjoy it. And the thousands of people that played the race did. That's what matters. Nothing else.
This entire theory is based on the foregone conclusion that warpgate is a problem. It isn't, though. Warpgate is an integral part of how Protoss is designed in SCII, and it's an awesome mechanic that you won't find in any other RTS. So what if that means Protoss needs extra protection early on? These aren't 'bandaid solutions', because warpgate isn't a problem. They're not the most elegant, I agree with that, but they're what Blizzard decided on. I'm glad that they're trying something new for early protection now, but I disagree entirely with the idea that warpgate is an issue.
Your entire point is predicated on the notion that just because warpgate is a fundamental design mechanic, it cannot be flawed. Which is objectively wrong, it can be flawed. There are many games whose core principles and mechanics have glaring flaws in them, it's not unheard of in the slightest. Whether it actually is flawed or not is harder to prove, but there are numerous posts bordering on dissertation-length which have been written trying to show that it might be, or at the very least it clashes with other fundamental design decisions. Granted many of them were written before you joined in 2012 so you may be excused for not knowing.
I'll set aside your long history of irrational Protoss fanboyism and just address the fact that you're parading your personal opinion as objective truth here. Please take some time to read and understand.
but I disagree entirely with the idea that warpgate is an issue
Which part of this strikes you as me passing this off as objective facts?
"This entire theory is based on the foregone conclusion that warpgate is a problem. It isn't, though. Warpgate is an integral part of how Protoss is designed in SCII, and it's an awesome mechanic that you won't find in any other RTS."
This part. The way you phrase it makes it sound like you say "warpgate is not a problem, it's awesome and you should love it".
Yeah it's unique, it was very ambitious when they first announced it, even allowing you to replace photon cannons and whatnot. But it's one of those things that is better in theory than it is in practice.
Feel free to dislike it. It won't be removed from its current role, though. And that's a good thing in my eyes. If I want all my units to be rallied out one at a time, I'll play literally any other RTS out there.
Anyone who's played Wings as Protoss at a decent level and especially those of us turbonerds who watched a ton of progames too know how slim the margin for error when balancing this race is *because* of warp gate. Not to mention how important it was to map design (before every map was huge and had 3 safe bases at minimum).
Warpgate means that gateway units need to be shit. If they're too shit then Protoss can't hold off other races' aggression (hence the need for MSC and Pylon overcharge in the expansions). If they're not shit enough, 1base and 2base allins from Protoss are way too powerful (which is what we saw for almost the entirety of Wings, that is Protoss only being able to win with all-ins pretty much and getting crushed in most macro games). Or if you played Terran in Heart of the Swarm, you would know how fearsome a blink all-in can be...
On August 30 2017 23:08 Olli wrote: Feel free to dislike it. It won't be removed from its current role, though. And that's a good thing in my eyes. If I want all my units to be rallied out one at a time, I'll play literally any other RTS out there.
So we play starcraft because of warpgates? Cmon you know that is not true, we play it because the unit interactions are a thousand times more fun than in any other rts game + having three fairly unique races. Yes warpgate is part of this "uniqueness" but ultimately i think the units are the important part, not if i warp them in or rally them. (from a fun perspective)
Do you actually disagree that warpgates attack the concept of defenders advantage?
On August 30 2017 23:08 Olli wrote: Feel free to dislike it. It won't be removed from its current role, though. And that's a good thing in my eyes. If I want all my units to be rallied out one at a time, I'll play literally any other RTS out there.
I think this is just you falling prey to "this concept appeals to me therefore it is impossible for it to be bad no matter how you look at it". Admittedly the same is true for most of the people who engage in gaming discussion online, but it's important I think to recognize it and frame your arguments accordingly.
I must admit I've never heard of someone who loves the game solely because of the warp gate mechanic (and believe you me I've had tons of friends who played SC2 at some point many of whom mained Protoss), but hey nothing wrong with that.
That said, other RTS though more traditional, are definitely better designed than SC2 in this regard, even if they don't appeal to you personally quite as much.
I still wonder if we can have our cake and eat it, if warpgates simply would slow down production instead of speeding it up. So you balance around the defenders advantage you take from your opponent by intentionally weakening your production capabilities, which on the other hand would mean the solution to protoss Defense would become gateways.
Anything but making pylons do weird things pls blizz
You're just rehashing arguments that have been made a million times before. And the exact same arguments could be made about the other races, too. Where you get the idea from that 1-2 base all-ins were too strong I don't know, because they weren't. They were strong. They were also perfectly capable of being shit if you scouted and reacted properly. There was one all-in that I would categorize as too strong, and that was immortal/sentry. But that's due to the synergy of sentries and immortals against Zerg at that particular timing, and not due to warpgate.
Warpgate and sentries dictated map design, yes. But the same applies to a lot of units or mechanics of the other two races. Medivacs limited airspace, so did liberators, Zerg's ability to produce much faster than other races limited how open maps could be, the way Zerg and Terran benefited from gold bases for a long time saw them go essentially extinct, zergling speed impacted the size of natural ramps (and the fact that every natural needs one wallable entrance as you expand), and. so. on.
You're cherry-picking one thing that annoys you. There's a million things that impact map design and the way the game is played, but you've chosen warpgate as the one and only problem that's to blame for everything Protoss. Warpgate has not been a balance problem since early WoL. If you think it's a design problem, you're free to have that opinion. But there is no such thing as correct design, so this really all boils down to you not enjoying it. I do. Shall we leave it at that?
So we play starcraft because of warpgates? Cmon you know that is not true, we play it because the unit interactions are a thousand times more fun than in any other rts game + having three fairly unique races. Yes warpgate is part of this "uniqueness" but ultimately i think the units are the important part, not if i warp them in or rally them. (from a fun perspective)
Do you actually disagree that warpgates attack the concept of defenders advantage?
I don't care one bit about it "attacking the concept of defender's advantage". It probably does. So what?
There isn't "correct design" but you can have certain goals and then decide which design decisions would be the best to reach these goals. You can always do better and worse ofc, but i don't agree with the notion of "there is no correct decision" therefore everything is subjective anyway?
On August 30 2017 23:25 Olli wrote:
I don't care one bit about it "attacking the concept of defender's advantage". It probably does. So what?
This is about the "goals" i am talking about. We surely agree that defenders advantage is an important concept in gamedesign. It gives stability and allows different kind of strategies other than "build as many units as possible". Ofc this is also a spectrum and we could argue if we want more defenders advantage or not, etc. So let's say defenders advantage is one of x design goals we have in mind for the game, we want to reach every goal through means which hopefully don't interfere with each other. So if "uniqueness" is one design goal it still should interfere as little as possible with e.g. defenders advantage. (and the other design goals obviously) Ofc you can sort these goals by priority and maybe it simply doesn't matter as much that it kinda attacks some other goals when they are lower on the list. I would argue that defenders advantage should be one of the most important aspects though tbh.
So yeah depending on how we want our game to be (priorities, design goals, etc) it might be an actual problem. Uniqueness is really the only thing in favor of it imo and that can be achieved in a million different ways and as i said before comes more from unit design anyway
On August 30 2017 23:25 Olli wrote: I don't care one bit about it "attacking the concept of defender's advantage". It probably does. So what?
Yes your posts have made it abundantly clear that you don't care about anything but your own opinion.
And before I bow out of this conversation, the reason I say that Protoss all-ins were too strong is because at the highest level of play there were times in the meta when I've seen top Terrans and top Zergs fall to simple all-ins where they literally could not have done anything to hold it except completely tailor their build to blind-counter it from the outset on the offchance the Protoss would try to do it (and of course if he didn't then they would be way behind and lose anyway). But of course I'm just cherry-picking and blah blah blah (which is ironic because the only arguments you've ever put forth have been cherry-picking).
Not sure why I expected any better given your post history, no good deed goes unpunished and same is true for optimism I guess.
On August 30 2017 23:30 The_Red_Viper wrote: There isn't "correct design" but you can have certain goals and then decide which design decisions would be the best to reach these goals. You can always do better and worse ofc, but i don't agree with the notion of "there is no correct decision" therefore everything is subjective anyway?
But that's exactly what it is. Enjoyment of the game is a subjective thing. And thousands of people have played SCII and never complained about warpgate, or how Protoss is designed. A lot of people I assume (mostly Protoss players) actually enjoy the mechanic. And that's all that matters.
On August 30 2017 23:25 Olli wrote: I don't care one bit about it "attacking the concept of defender's advantage". It probably does. So what?
Yes your posts have made it abundantly clear that you don't care about anything but your own opinion.
And before I bow out of this conversation, the reason I say that Protoss all-ins were too strong is because at the highest level of play there were times in the meta when I've seen top Terrans and top Zergs fall to simple all-ins where they literally could not have done anything to hold it except completely tailor their build to blind-counter it from the outset on the offchance the Protoss would try to do it (and of course if he didn't then they would be way behind and lose anyway). But of course I'm just cherry-picking and blah blah blah (which is ironic because the only arguments you've ever put forth have been cherry-picking).
Anyway, have a good day everyone in this thread.
Ah, yes. The good old "they couldn't have done anything better!". They could have, and should have. Besides, warpgate all-ins weren't the only thing you could be prepared for and still die. May I remind you of roach maxes, the 1-1-1, 2rax vs Zerg, speedling or roach all-ins on certain maps with open naturals, and everyone's favorite BL/infestor?
Lots of things at some point were so strong they ended the game despite the defender being prepared. How you can reduce that to warpgate is beyond me. Then again you round it off with petty insults as you run out of arguments, so there goes any interest I had in finding it out.
On August 30 2017 23:08 Olli wrote: Feel free to dislike it. It won't be removed from its current role, though. And that's a good thing in my eyes. If I want all my units to be rallied out one at a time, I'll play literally any other RTS out there.
And there is a good reason why no other game, nor other race in the game tried to mimic the warpgate mechanics, for many people it just does not fit well in the game. In the end they kind of balance everything around it so it kinda work, but many things disliked in SC2 are coming from this design choice.
I fear you are right though, they probably won't touch it.
On August 30 2017 23:11 207aicila wrote: who watched a ton of progames too know how slim the margin for error when balancing this race is *because* of warp gate. Not to mention how important it was to map design (before every map was huge and had 3 safe bases at minimum).
ConquerCup admin here. Warpgate was fine. Sure Naniwa could 4-gate you off of 1 base into oblivion. However, SjoW could 1-base 1-1-1 you into oblivion as well. And Zergs could bury you in 87-bazillion lings and blings. Transition to a 2nd base and get Mutas..gg.
WoL was about as difficult to balance as most diverse-race, 3-race RTS games. Diverse race, 3-race games are extremely hard to balance with a very slim margin for error at many different points. And, if they are easy to balance then the racial diversity is low.
Warpgate is good. Someone suggested adding 10 HP to the Zealot and removing 10 HP from the Adept. I'm all for that. I got no problems with the Adept being used only 10% as much as its used now.
In general, i'm in favour of weakening the Warpgate mechanic in some way IF this permits the strengthening of the Stalker and Zealot. I long for the old bad ass Brood War Zealot. what a beast. we used to call 10+ Zealots walking across the map the "million man march"... ah the memories.
On August 30 2017 23:30 The_Red_Viper wrote: There isn't "correct design" but you can have certain goals and then decide which design decisions would be the best to reach these goals. You can always do better and worse ofc, but i don't agree with the notion of "there is no correct decision" therefore everything is subjective anyway?
But that's exactly what it is. Enjoyment of the game is a subjective thing. And thousands of people have played SCII and never complained about warpgate, or how Protoss is designed. A lot of people I assume (mostly Protoss players) actually enjoy the mechanic. And that's all that matters.
I agree that "fun" is subjective, my argument basically is that this "fun" can be achieved no matter if there are warpgates or not though. At that point it seems better to design it in a way as explained before. Have design goals like defenders advantage, micro potential, action all over the map, unique races, etc and then find design solutions for these goals. Preferably design decisions which don't interfere with any of the goals. I think warpgates interfere with defenders advantage and to some extent it also interferes with other things (gateway units have to be worse than they could be which has negative impact here and there). So we either think the uniqueness of warpgates is such a huge deal that this is ok or we do not. Personally i would say that protoss would still feel unique and fun withotu warpgate because the unit design itself is what matters a lot more. (which is actually impacted by warpgates being in the game)
There surely is. I just want people to think more along the lines of why they think something is fun, what the pros and cons are of a specific design decision, etc. Who cares about balance, you can always make that reasonable enough (ofc it's also hard, but we can get to numbers which work). Let's talk more about design, if said design is fun and if said design maybe interferes with other goals we might have. Game design surely is creative work and there are multiple things which therefore can work. But why not talk about that instead of the 1000th "balance whine".
Obviously warpgates will never be changed and thus it might not have a real impact on the game to discuss these things, but we still can come to our own conclusions, learn, discuss, etc. I think that alone is worth it.
What i also kinda dislike about warpgates is that it's not even a consistent design approach. Only gateway units can be warped in, everything else still functions the old way. That's imo a flaw in the concept, if you cannot make it work for the whole production then maybe that alone shows that the concept is flawed
I am talking about the general idea of warpin in units. Ofc the actual upgrade and implementation is clear enough, but you have to think "why only gates". It's not like terran or zerg have these inconsistencies in their production. Protoss has. Arguably because it was already a huge pain in the ass to balance around warpgates, now imagine if you could warpin every other unit as well.
On August 31 2017 02:30 The_Red_Viper wrote: I am talking about the general idea of warpin in units. Ofc the actual upgrade and implementation is clear enough, but you have to think "why only gates". It's not like terran or zerg have these inconsistencies in their production. Protoss has. Arguably because it was already a huge pain in the ass to balance around warpgates, now imagine if you could warpin every other unit as well.
The internal versions of the game allowed you to warp in Immortals too for sure, but it wouldn't be a stretch to think that it once applied to everything else too. The balancing phase was probably what introduced the restriction to Gateway units in the first place.
Sure that's kinda my point though. If you notice that it's not really doable to make it happen for all units and even with only warpgates it's tough, mabe the design decision is not that great.
On August 31 2017 02:30 The_Red_Viper wrote: I am talking about the general idea of warpin in units. Ofc the actual upgrade and implementation is clear enough, but you have to think "why only gates". It's not like terran or zerg have these inconsistencies in their production. Protoss has. Arguably because it was already a huge pain in the ass to balance around warpgates, now imagine if you could warpin every other unit as well.
part of racial diversity is having 1 race with production inconsistencies... the enigmatic, technologically advanced Protoss
Usually the same people that complain about the MSC and overcharge complain about warp-ins. Let's say we get rid of both... how is then Protoss supposed to defend expansions? It is a much harder design problem than the other (supposed) one you would be fixing. Protoss does not have the DPS of Terran or the mobility/vision of Zerg to help on defense. You cannot make existing gateway units way stronger because they would be OP at the offense.
I have played Protoss until LotV where I play all races. The race just became less funny for mid-level players when the easier offensive warp-ins where removed, and defensively it is very easy to mess up your pilon or MSC positioning. I am all for removing PO, but shield recharge from the nexus is too weak (and late) to be effective. Making units stronger is not a solution, so the only alternative I see is improving defensive warp-ins: make them faster and/or remove taking damage while warping in when done near a nexus, including those still not finished.
I like sc2 a lot, and I don't have big complaints - I am overall a very happy P player. I truly really hope blizzard will never listen to all these wanna be game designers who advocate to remove warpgate (and somehow all play t or z). All races have peculiar production mechanics: larvae are hard to balance as well, why not all play terran and produce our stuff from barracks? (Sorry I know this is an exaggeration, but these discussions on "design" are really ridiculous..)
I play p because I like the style, sometimes I want to enjoy macroing with Terrans (which is super fun, managing barracks production cycles and such) and I just switch for a few games.
If the fundamental game design of a race is too much for you, play an other race out of the 3 available, and if playing against it is also unbearable for your delicate gamedesign taste, there are many RTS out there without protoss in it.
All races have peculiar production mechanics: larvae are hard to balance as well
In what way? All larva really does is creating the need of ramps and walls in the early game. That could be considered a negative but it's not a real major concern such as interfering with defenders advantage. Larva itself only limits the unit design for zerg itself, you simply cannot have high impact units like the oracle or banshee or something similar because zerg could produce a lot at once.
Other than that you don't really add anything topic related, just trying to argue that the discussion itself is "ridiculous". Well no it is not which is why it comes up again and again and again.
I also think warpgates being inconsistent within protoss itself is a decent point. Terran uses the same production design for everything, zerg uses the same production design for everything. Protoss does not. That alone is just inelegant, the assumed reason for that is the interesting part though. The thing is that any time people discuss this other people feel the need to simply name it "wanna be game designer" or similar things. Why not just attack the arguments? If you aren't able to do that you don't add anything of value. This "hey people at blizzard are real gamedesigners and thus they know better than you" is just a bad argument. Things like dota and counterstrike were made by forum users (basically), all that matters are the actual arguments for specific design decisions. But ofc we can call eachother stupid, that's basically what you did with this post..
All races have peculiar production mechanics: larvae are hard to balance as well
In what way?
Larvae are hard to balance because Zerg can tech switch very quickly, which means you have to be careful how strong you make zerg units. This isn't necessarily a problem, as you can design around weak Zerg units by giving them higher production, and by allowing Zerg to more easily get higher income than the other races (e.g. take expansions more easily). So the Zerg playstyle could be to be aggressive, using waves of cheap units to harass and trade and generally keep the opponent on the defensive while they take additional bases.
I think they screw this up in sc2 in a couple of ways. Firstly, the power of harassment means that zerg needs to keep their units at home a lot of the time, reducing their ability to use their army offensively. And secondly, protoss and terran have such strong defensive options, and the bases are so close together, that attacking with zerg is difficult. So the "overwhelm and out expand" aspect of zerg, while still present in sc2, is on a similar razors edge to warp gate design, where the units can't be too powerful or tech switches and burst production will be too strong. And the units can't be too weak because they need to fight somewhat evenly with the other races.
They screw it up when they nerfed larvae inject from 4 to 3. Zerg has no longer economic advantage as it's slowing down early game eco a lot and snowballs into midgame, as we often see Protoss has more probes with chrono than Zerg, not mention Terran Mules. Additionally as you said, either Terran or Protoss harras is much stronger than previous iterations of sc2 in LOTV, so potentially Zerg looses more eco than before and it's harder to replace it.
Zerg is specific compared to T and P as he cannot produce army in the same time when producing drones. So every tech switch or agression means, that u don't grow economically. Protoss for example pushes you with warprism and his army, producing probes in the same time and not needing army in his base to defend because of photon overcharge.
If there is one thing to make Zerg more Zerg, it's bringing back 4 larva again, just as they are reverting changes to chronoboost.
On August 31 2017 13:46 hiroshOne wrote: If there is one thing to make Zerg more Zerg, it's bringing back 4 larva again, just as they are reverting changes to chronoboost.
Larvae inject exacerbates the problem of balancing zerg production/tech switches with the power of their units (described above). Making larvae inject better would make that problem worse. Higher production means you have more units, which means the units need to be worse individually, which is a problem when you hit max and you can no longer leverage your production. Hence the strategy of trading your army and remaxing on mutas, or building 10 ultras or whatever to leverage zerg's other strength - tech switching.
I also don't really like the design of having to inject hatcheries all the time.
On August 31 2017 13:46 hiroshOne wrote: If there is one thing to make Zerg more Zerg, it's bringing back 4 larva again, just as they are reverting changes to chronoboost.
Larvae inject exacerbates the problem of balancing zerg production/tech switches with the power of their units (described above). Making larvae inject better would make that problem worse. Higher production means you have more units, which means the units need to be worse individually, which is a problem when you hit max and you can no longer leverage your production. Hence the strategy of trading your army and remaxing on mutas, or building 10 ultras or whatever to leverage zerg's other strength - tech switching.
I also don't really like the design of having to inject hatcheries all the time.
Zerg units are already the weakest in the game. There is no comparison to BIO strengh or Protoss units like Oracles, Immortals not to mention air. The production value was the only strengh of Zerg, including powerful timing attacks or fast economy growth. One larva less is 25% nerf to economy in early game. The snowball effect is too much. That's why in scenario where Protoss is for example allining Zerg, and Zerg is ready- cutting his drone production, and making units instead- even if Zerg defends it- he's dead already as he is behind. In the same time allining protoss doesn't need to cut probe production, doesn't need to even keep his army in the base, as photon overcharge is handling the potential counter attack. To be honest i don't even understand why not to allin as protoss in sc2 nowadays, as there is no such thing as protoss allin. Or Terran allin. The only race that have such thing as allin is Zerg as he truly sacrifices something to attack. With protoss and Terran it's just less risky.
On August 31 2017 07:25 Xamo wrote: Usually the same people that complain about the MSC and overcharge complain about warp-ins. Let's say we get rid of both... how is then Protoss supposed to defend expansions? It is a much harder design problem than the other (supposed) one you would be fixing. Protoss does not have the DPS of Terran or the mobility/vision of Zerg to help on defense. You cannot make existing gateway units way stronger because they would be OP at the offense.
That's kind of the point though, people -like me- who want to move the warpgate mechanic to late game, or modify the mechanic, wants this so all gateway units can be buffed. Right now we are in a situation where gateway units are too weak to defend early-mid game aggression without the support of the MotherShip Core. So, either we push further the defensive tools such as the battery shield, or gateway units should be buffed. However, if you buff gateway units, you have to nerf warpgate, otherwise all-in are going impossible to defend, and even just pressure attack will snowball very fast.
It's probably too late in the games' life now but they really should have just had a hard look at the damage output for all units.
Game speed and flow is fine, but every unit just feels like a meat-grinder. Really need to take a closer look at all units overall DPS and adjust health values as necessary. It doesn't feel good to be on the giving or receiving end of an army instantly melting to Terran bio or Protoss aoe, and just makes the game feel frustrating to play as well as watch.
Since its release, Sc2 has been plagued by the fact that the overwhelming majority of games played end instantly in less than 10 seconds from any given fight or economic harass.
As fun as a long line for a ride at amusement park is, you can expect people to get bored with the idea of enduring a long wait for a small climax, that might not even be in their favor.
On August 31 2017 16:27 Agh wrote: It's probably too late in the games' life now but they really should have just had a hard look at the damage output for all units.
Game speed and flow is fine, but every unit just feels like a meat-grinder.
I watched some of the Vanguard games in the Vanguard tournament on incontrol's youtube. The units are a lot tougher and take a lot longer to die. It's interesting to watch. I think there is a good balance between sc2 and vanguard, because I agree that in sc2 things die too quick, but in vanguard I think units are a bit too tough.
I've pondered how much the game would change if it was played on a slower speed. There's so much going on that I don't think you'd run out of things to do, and it'd give you more time to micro in the big battles and react to harass.
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/sc2/topic/20758827030 Each lock on's missle deals 8 dmg so new upgrade gives cyclones one click instant 96 pure dmg. Seems fucking good!Considering it's low cooldown. At +2 weapon 2 cyclones could blow a voidray in a heartbeat.
Entangle makes Liberators and Skytoss basically useless in the lategame. No more need for Corruptors or Vipers, Ultra/Infestor here we go.
Oh, and Fungal can't hit air units anymore......except guess what ability brings air units down to the ground? BL/Infestor: Rebirth, coming soon to games near you.
All races have peculiar production mechanics: larvae are hard to balance as well
In what way? All larva really does is creating the need of ramps and walls in the early game. That could be considered a negative but it's not a real major concern such as interfering with defenders advantage. Larva itself only limits the unit design for zerg itself, you simply cannot have high impact units like the oracle or banshee or something similar because zerg could produce a lot at once.
Other than that you don't really add anything topic related, just trying to argue that the discussion itself is "ridiculous". Well no it is not which is why it comes up again and again and again.
I also think warpgates being inconsistent within protoss itself is a decent point. Terran uses the same production design for everything, zerg uses the same production design for everything. Protoss does not. That alone is just inelegant, the assumed reason for that is the interesting part though. The thing is that any time people discuss this other people feel the need to simply name it "wanna be game designer" or similar things. Why not just attack the arguments? If you aren't able to do that you don't add anything of value. This "hey people at blizzard are real gamedesigners and thus they know better than you" is just a bad argument. Things like dota and counterstrike were made by forum users (basically), all that matters are the actual arguments for specific design decisions. But ofc we can call eachother stupid, that's basically what you did with this post..
I like the idea of protoss being able to warp in all units since I agree. I also like switching to a different "style" once in a while, otherwise the races feel to similar.
BUT: you are not correct on zerg using same product design for everything. Queens are produced like terran units. Also upgrades work similar. Would be cool if each race were even more distinct.
New Updates: Raven -Repair drone now deploys directly from the Raven rather than from the sky, making it easier to identify which Raven cast the ability.
Cyclone -Removed "Armor Piercing Rockets" -Added "Rapid Fire Launchers", First 12 shots fire quickly at the rate of .21. The remaining 8 shots will fire at the period of .84.
Hellion/Hellbat: Smart Servos -The Hellion/Hellbat morph times are reduced less heavily (from 2.86 to 1.43)
Nexus: -Nexust (their typo not mine) starting energy increased from 0 to 50. -Mass Recall: Reduced from 100 to 50 energy. -Added 129 second global cooldown for Mass Recalls across all Nexus structures. -Shield Regen moved from Nexus to Pylon
Disruptor -Removed the delay on Purification Nova when Disruptors drop from transports.
High Templar -Psi Blast model and impact model size reduced to more accurately reflect the effect of the weapon.
Oracle -Revelation duration reduced from 43 to 30 seconds.
Infestor -Removed Infested Terran Ability -New ability added: "Entangle" Cost: 50 energy Duration: 7.14 seconds Range: 8 Brings a target enemy air unit to the ground, allowing units to attack it as if it were a ground unit. Temporarily disables the target's attack and cloak.
Viper -Added one second delay before Parasitic Bomb begins damaging effects
All races have peculiar production mechanics: larvae are hard to balance as well
In what way? All larva really does is creating the need of ramps and walls in the early game. That could be considered a negative but it's not a real major concern such as interfering with defenders advantage. Larva itself only limits the unit design for zerg itself, you simply cannot have high impact units like the oracle or banshee or something similar because zerg could produce a lot at once.
Other than that you don't really add anything topic related, just trying to argue that the discussion itself is "ridiculous". Well no it is not which is why it comes up again and again and again.
I also think warpgates being inconsistent within protoss itself is a decent point. Terran uses the same production design for everything, zerg uses the same production design for everything. Protoss does not. That alone is just inelegant, the assumed reason for that is the interesting part though. The thing is that any time people discuss this other people feel the need to simply name it "wanna be game designer" or similar things. Why not just attack the arguments? If you aren't able to do that you don't add anything of value. This "hey people at blizzard are real gamedesigners and thus they know better than you" is just a bad argument. Things like dota and counterstrike were made by forum users (basically), all that matters are the actual arguments for specific design decisions. But ofc we can call eachother stupid, that's basically what you did with this post..
Oh is that all, it only forces all bases to be designed in specific ways and limits Zerg unit design... Yeah you're not making a very good case, those are huge implications. It's not inelegant, it 's just a difference between warpgate units and robo/stargate.
They're both unique mechanics though and make the game what it is, there's no use trying to discuss it for the millionth time, you're not bringing anything new to the discussion either.
All races have peculiar production mechanics: larvae are hard to balance as well
In what way? All larva really does is creating the need of ramps and walls in the early game. That could be considered a negative but it's not a real major concern such as interfering with defenders advantage. Larva itself only limits the unit design for zerg itself, you simply cannot have high impact units like the oracle or banshee or something similar because zerg could produce a lot at once.
Other than that you don't really add anything topic related, just trying to argue that the discussion itself is "ridiculous". Well no it is not which is why it comes up again and again and again.
I also think warpgates being inconsistent within protoss itself is a decent point. Terran uses the same production design for everything, zerg uses the same production design for everything. Protoss does not. That alone is just inelegant, the assumed reason for that is the interesting part though. The thing is that any time people discuss this other people feel the need to simply name it "wanna be game designer" or similar things. Why not just attack the arguments? If you aren't able to do that you don't add anything of value. This "hey people at blizzard are real gamedesigners and thus they know better than you" is just a bad argument. Things like dota and counterstrike were made by forum users (basically), all that matters are the actual arguments for specific design decisions. But ofc we can call eachother stupid, that's basically what you did with this post..
Oh is that all, it only forces all bases to be designed in specific ways and limits Zerg unit design... Yeah you're not making a very good case, those are huge implications. It's not inelegant, it 's just a difference between warpgate units and robo/stargate.
They're both unique mechanics though and make the game what it is, there's no use trying to discuss it for the millionth time, you're not bringing anything new to the discussion either.
Well every single design decision has an impact obviously, in the case of zerg it is ramps. But that's how the game is and it doesn't really create real problems. Warpgate creates problems all the time because it attacks defenders advantage, something integral to rts gameplay. It's a big difference. You are obviously right that i don't bring anything new, that wasn't my intent either though. Everything has been said already, there are good articles about this, etc. Is it worth it to keep it in people's minds? I think so.
All races have peculiar production mechanics: larvae are hard to balance as well
In what way? All larva really does is creating the need of ramps and walls in the early game. That could be considered a negative but it's not a real major concern such as interfering with defenders advantage. Larva itself only limits the unit design for zerg itself, you simply cannot have high impact units like the oracle or banshee or something similar because zerg could produce a lot at once.
Other than that you don't really add anything topic related, just trying to argue that the discussion itself is "ridiculous". Well no it is not which is why it comes up again and again and again.
I also think warpgates being inconsistent within protoss itself is a decent point. Terran uses the same production design for everything, zerg uses the same production design for everything. Protoss does not. That alone is just inelegant, the assumed reason for that is the interesting part though. The thing is that any time people discuss this other people feel the need to simply name it "wanna be game designer" or similar things. Why not just attack the arguments? If you aren't able to do that you don't add anything of value. This "hey people at blizzard are real gamedesigners and thus they know better than you" is just a bad argument. Things like dota and counterstrike were made by forum users (basically), all that matters are the actual arguments for specific design decisions. But ofc we can call eachother stupid, that's basically what you did with this post..
I like the idea of protoss being able to warp in all units since I agree. I also like switching to a different "style" once in a while, otherwise the races feel to similar.
BUT: you are not correct on zerg using same product design for everything. Queens are produced like terran units. Also upgrades work similar. Would be cool if each race were even more distinct.
You are right, forgot about the queen. I would argue that it could easily be produced from larva without real problems though. But sure it's also slightly inconsistent.
On September 01 2017 08:17 pvsnp wrote: Entangle makes Liberators and Skytoss basically useless in the lategame. No more need for Corruptors or Vipers, Ultra/Infestor here we go.
Oh, and Fungal can't hit air units anymore......except guess what ability brings air units down to the ground? BL/Infestor: Rebirth, coming soon to games near you.
Entangle cannot stay like that, though i like the general idea tbh In general i would still like to see a general change to how spellcasters work. Be it smartcast or something else. Spellcasters are too easy to use and that forces spells to be kinda bad. Each time spells get nerfed when the real problem is how easy spammable it is.
On September 01 2017 08:22 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: New Updates:
Nexus: -Nexust (their typo not mine) starting energy increased from 0 to 50.
Anyone knows whether it includes at the start of the game?
Protoss The Nexus’ starting energy felt a bit restrictive at 0, especially when faced with early aggression. We want to try increasing the Nexus’ starting energy from 0 to 50 to allow players more opportunities to use abilities without feeling constrained. Also, Mass Recall’s energy cost might be too high with Chrono Boost and Restoration Field as other options. We want to open up more chances to use Mass Recall in the early and mid-game, but keep it from becoming too strong in the late game when players have multiple Nexus structures. To keep Mass Recall viable but not overly powerful in the late game, there will be a 129 second duration global cooldown for Mass Recalls across all Nexus structures. Additionally, the Oracle’s strength may need some adjustment. Revelation is very useful but the ability may deter player interaction for a bit too long. We want to try and decrease Revelation’s duration from 43 to 30 seconds.
I agree with the problem but not the solution. The other abilities should be cheaper but weaker (i.e half the cost and effectiveness of Chrono and Restoration). This global cooldown prevents doing cool stuff and supports uniform strategies (attacking whenever the Recall is available, but not when it's not)
Broadly speaking, they made air too strong, so now they make counters to air even stronger, while the more sensible solution would be just making air weaker.
On September 01 2017 08:22 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: New Updates: Raven -Repair drone now deploys directly from the Raven rather than from the sky, making it easier to identify which Raven cast the ability.
Cyclone -Removed "Armor Piercing Rockets" -Added "Rapid Fire Launchers", First 12 shots fire quickly at the rate of .21. The remaining 8 shots will fire at the period of .84.
Hellion/Hellbat: Smart Servos -The Hellion/Hellbat morph times are reduced less heavily (from 2.86 to 1.43)
Nexus: -Nexust (their typo not mine) starting energy increased from 0 to 50. -Mass Recall: Reduced from 100 to 50 energy. -Added 129 second global cooldown for Mass Recalls across all Nexus structures. -Shield Regen moved from Nexus to Pylon
Disruptor -Removed the delay on Purification Nova when Disruptors drop from transports.
High Templar -Psi Blast model and impact model size reduced to more accurately reflect the effect of the weapon.
Oracle -Revelation duration reduced from 43 to 30 seconds.
Infestor -Removed Infested Terran Ability -New ability added: "Entangle" Cost: 50 energy Duration: 7.14 seconds Range: 8 Brings a target enemy air unit to the ground, allowing units to attack it as if it were a ground unit. Temporarily disables the target's attack and cloak.
Viper -Added one second delay before Parasitic Bomb begins damaging effects
I really like this update. Everything is moving in the right direction.
Cyclone anti-air and it's respective upgrade are soooo crappy with all it's special rules on how many shots are fired rapidly, give it a flat-out easy-to-digest damage buff already.
Smart Servos is just about tweaking numbers, ok, but the animation looks wonky, so I'm actually not that fond of this upgrade, although it's certainly helpful.
F2-friendly changes are beyond stupid and should absolutely not make it into the game. If people are too lazy or stupid to learn they have to put their casters into a different hotkey group, then they should MAYBE go play another game which is easier, not be pampered like this, it's just ridiculous...
That kinda reminds me when they told us they were thinking about unit building automation in on of those PR-bullshit community updates during Legacy beta...
Legacy of the Void... I begin to see the pattern here, and where the void is to be found.
On September 01 2017 17:35 Creager wrote: Cyclone anti-air and it's respective upgrade are soooo crappy with all it's special rules on how many shots are fired rapidly, give it a flat-out easy-to-digest damage buff already.
Smart Servos is just about tweaking numbers, ok, but the animation looks wonky, so I'm actually not that fond of this upgrade, although it's certainly helpful.
F2-friendly changes are beyond stupid and should absolutely not make it into the game. If people are too lazy or stupid to learn they have to put their casters into a different hotkey group, then they should MAYBE go play another game which is easier, not be pampered like this, it's just ridiculous...
That kinda reminds me when they told us they were thinking about unit building automation in on of those PR-bullshit community updates during Legacy beta...
Legacy of the Void... I begin to see the pattern here, and where the void is to be found.
it's not "laziness," it's that almost nobody below GM-pro level is actually any good at keeping casters alive. seriously, pretty much nobody. even pros have problems keeping units like templar, vipers, infestors, etc. alive because you still have to manage your army and macro. i know starcraft players obsess over this concept of being able to boast that they play the "hardest game" but there's an argument for "not every single thing in the game needs to be that hard." it's why worker mining is automated now and why selection was increased: they're things that simply DO NOT NEED TO BE HARD (despite the insane BW devotees who insist that playing video games shouldn't be fun). there are a lot of things about the game that are hard already
the game should be hard up to the point where it's no longer enjoyable to play. i'll always disagree with the equivocation of annoyance and frustration to raising the skill ceiling
On September 01 2017 17:35 Creager wrote: Cyclone anti-air and it's respective upgrade are soooo crappy with all it's special rules on how many shots are fired rapidly, give it a flat-out easy-to-digest damage buff already.
Smart Servos is just about tweaking numbers, ok, but the animation looks wonky, so I'm actually not that fond of this upgrade, although it's certainly helpful.
F2-friendly changes are beyond stupid and should absolutely not make it into the game. If people are too lazy or stupid to learn they have to put their casters into a different hotkey group, then they should MAYBE go play another game which is easier, not be pampered like this, it's just ridiculous...
That kinda reminds me when they told us they were thinking about unit building automation in on of those PR-bullshit community updates during Legacy beta...
Legacy of the Void... I begin to see the pattern here, and where the void is to be found.
it's not "laziness," it's that almost nobody below GM-pro level is actually any good at keeping casters alive. seriously, pretty much nobody. even pros have problems keeping units like templar, vipers, infestors, etc. alive because you still have to manage your army and macro. i know starcraft players obsess over this concept of being able to boast that they play the "hardest game" but there's an argument for "not every single thing in the game needs to be hard." it's why worker mining is automated now: it's not something that NEEDS TO BE HARD. there are a lot of things about the game that are hard already
But managing your control groups and different units IS a core part of the game you have to at least get better at. It is a game about information and making less mistakes than your opponent, playing perfectly is impossible, but further dumbing down things people refuse to improve on is taking away from the game's identity.
On September 01 2017 17:35 Creager wrote: Cyclone anti-air and it's respective upgrade are soooo crappy with all it's special rules on how many shots are fired rapidly, give it a flat-out easy-to-digest damage buff already.
Smart Servos is just about tweaking numbers, ok, but the animation looks wonky, so I'm actually not that fond of this upgrade, although it's certainly helpful.
F2-friendly changes are beyond stupid and should absolutely not make it into the game. If people are too lazy or stupid to learn they have to put their casters into a different hotkey group, then they should MAYBE go play another game which is easier, not be pampered like this, it's just ridiculous...
That kinda reminds me when they told us they were thinking about unit building automation in on of those PR-bullshit community updates during Legacy beta...
Legacy of the Void... I begin to see the pattern here, and where the void is to be found.
it's not "laziness," it's that almost nobody below GM-pro level is actually any good at keeping casters alive. seriously, pretty much nobody. even pros have problems keeping units like templar, vipers, infestors, etc. alive because you still have to manage your army and macro. i know starcraft players obsess over this concept of being able to boast that they play the "hardest game" but there's an argument for "not every single thing in the game needs to be hard." it's why worker mining is automated now: it's not something that NEEDS TO BE HARD. there are a lot of things about the game that are hard already
But managing your control groups and different units IS a core part of the game you have to at least get better at. It is a game about information and making less mistakes than your opponent, playing perfectly is impossible, but further dumbing down things people refuse to improve on is taking away from the game's identity.
same old argument from brood war. people still think selecting more than 12 units and not having to tell your first workers to mine removed the game's identity. agree to disagree, but i think games should be fun and i think basic harassment, basic engagements, basic macro etc. are all an exciting and high-level challenge
On September 01 2017 17:35 Creager wrote: Cyclone anti-air and it's respective upgrade are soooo crappy with all it's special rules on how many shots are fired rapidly, give it a flat-out easy-to-digest damage buff already.
Smart Servos is just about tweaking numbers, ok, but the animation looks wonky, so I'm actually not that fond of this upgrade, although it's certainly helpful.
F2-friendly changes are beyond stupid and should absolutely not make it into the game. If people are too lazy or stupid to learn they have to put their casters into a different hotkey group, then they should MAYBE go play another game which is easier, not be pampered like this, it's just ridiculous...
That kinda reminds me when they told us they were thinking about unit building automation in on of those PR-bullshit community updates during Legacy beta...
Legacy of the Void... I begin to see the pattern here, and where the void is to be found.
it's not "laziness," it's that almost nobody below GM-pro level is actually any good at keeping casters alive. seriously, pretty much nobody. even pros have problems keeping units like templar, vipers, infestors, etc. alive because you still have to manage your army and macro. i know starcraft players obsess over this concept of being able to boast that they play the "hardest game" but there's an argument for "not every single thing in the game needs to be hard." it's why worker mining is automated now: it's not something that NEEDS TO BE HARD. there are a lot of things about the game that are hard already
But managing your control groups and different units IS a core part of the game you have to at least get better at. It is a game about information and making less mistakes than your opponent, playing perfectly is impossible, but further dumbing down things people refuse to improve on is taking away from the game's identity.
same old argument from brood war. people still think selecting more than 12 units and not having to tell your first workers to mine removed the game's identity. agree to disagree, but i think games should be fun and i think basic harassment, basic engagements, basic macro etc. are all an exciting and high-level challenge
How does basic go together with high-level? And when do you stop making those "quality of life" changes? When buildings build units of their own? If you wanna play something like Desert Strike, you can do that, it's right in the arcade.
I find hard games fun to play, I have fun when realizing mistakes and improving on them, I don't want games to hold my hand and please me with redundant achievements to imply success.
On September 01 2017 17:50 Creager wrote: And when do you stop making those "quality of life" changes? When buildings build units of their own? If you wanna play something like Desert Strike, you can do that, it's right in the arcade.
Ideally they stop making changes when the game is the best it can be. I don't mind if they disrupt things if it results in a better game. They've already majorly disrupted the meta twice with the expansions, so I think people are used to it.
The thing is, it's not difficult to balance the game by slowly tweaking numbers, because you can just buff or nerf the most obvious problems for that particular design. But making things balanced doesn't in itself make the game fun. I feel like the focus has been skewed too far towards balance before some core problems were addressed. The LotV beta was a great chance to try some disruptive changes, but they screwed it up. I think the game needs one more rework before it'll be done. I'm glad they're going for it
On September 01 2017 17:50 Creager wrote: And when do you stop making those "quality of life" changes? When buildings build units of their own? If you wanna play something like Desert Strike, you can do that, it's right in the arcade.
Ideally they stop making changes when the game is the best it can be. I don't mind if they disrupt things if it results in a better game. They've already majorly disrupted the meta twice with the expansions, so I think people are used to it.
The thing is, it's not difficult to balance the game by slowly tweaking numbers, because you can just buff or nerf the most obvious problems for that particular design. But making things balanced doesn't in itself make the game fun. I feel like the focus has been skewed too far towards balance before some core problems were addressed. The LotV beta was a great chance to try some disruptive changes, but they screwed it up. I think the game needs one more rework before it'll be done. I'm glad they're going for it
They're somehow going for some kind of WC3'ish approach now with all that ability nonsense, which I personally do not like, at all. My overall fear is the reworks won't end, though, because they artificially want to keep the game "fresh" and "interesting" and further milk their fanbase with microtransactions, simply a neverending story. Sadly, I personally feel the game's quality isn't improving, but deteriorating.
I'm very impressed by the Starcraft 2 multiplayer team. I will say though that it's weird how Infested Terran and Entangle anti combo together. Infested deal more vs Air and now you can earthbind units, which lessens the power of the Infested Terrans attack. Some interaction here have to go away.
Also I don't like the Repair Drone, it's too close to Medivac Healing. Bio should feel different to play than Mech. Too many beams look stupid and 2 different beams hitting the same unit (Hellbat/SCV) is ridiculous.
I'm a bit sad there had to be put a global cooldown for the Recall on the Nexus, but at least you can get to queue Recalls when you get the Mothership.
50 Energy Nexus and 50 Energy Recall means that you can now proxy a Nexus in the opponents base and instant Recall, which is interesting. I love the new Nexus and I love Protoss so much on the test map compared to on the live version. I think we should consider removing the building damage on Corrosive Bile to enable Forge Expanding, just because it enables more options for ways players can play Protoss. When both options are viable we get to see FFE players and Gateway Expand players and it becomes easier to tell players apart which is always a welcome sight.
Another thing is that a lot of the focus on this patch has been to reduce annoying bullshit that makes people rage and quit the game. Well the Oracle is one of the biggest offenders of this. I would say it should get the Adept treatment, reduce vs Light damage on the beam so it 3 shots Marines/SCV's so less Terrans outright lose the game, maybe it can also slightly reduce the power level and the abuse of going mass Oracles vs Zergs.
I'm very impressed by the Starcraft 2 multiplayer team. I will say though that it's weird how Infested Terran and Entangle anti combo together. Infested deal more vs Air and now you can earthbind units, which lessens the power of the Infested Terrans attack. Some interaction here have to go away.
Entangles also remove attack from the unit caught : rooted + no attack = STUN basically for 7sec.
I'm very impressed by the Starcraft 2 multiplayer team. I will say though that it's weird how Infested Terran and Entangle anti combo together. Infested deal more vs Air and now you can earthbind units, which lessens the power of the Infested Terrans attack. Some interaction here have to go away.
Entangles also remove attack from the unit caught : rooted + no attack = STUN basically for 7sec.
This kind of ability as no place in sc2 imo
You do realize that the ability "Graviton beam" is there since Wings of Liberty, right? I'm not a fan of Entangle either, but your argument doesnt really seem valid.
I'm very impressed by the Starcraft 2 multiplayer team. I will say though that it's weird how Infested Terran and Entangle anti combo together. Infested deal more vs Air and now you can earthbind units, which lessens the power of the Infested Terrans attack. Some interaction here have to go away.
Entangles also remove attack from the unit caught : rooted + no attack = STUN basically for 7sec.
This kind of ability as no place in sc2 imo
You do realize that the ability "Graviton beam" is there since Wings of Liberty, right? I'm not a fan of Entangle either, but your argument doesnt really seem valid.
1 phoenix disable 1 not big unit and himself 1 infestor disable 4 carriers and run away under ground seems totally valid
On September 01 2017 19:42 Creager wrote: They're somehow going for some kind of WC3'ish approach now with all that ability nonsense, which I personally do not like, at all. My overall fear is the reworks won't end, though, because they artificially want to keep the game "fresh" and "interesting" and further milk their fanbase with microtransactions, simply a neverending story. Sadly, I personally feel the game's quality isn't improving, but deteriorating.
I don't like all the abilities either. It's too hard to control a big army with so many casters, especially as the casters are so strong. It feels like spellcasters dominate engagements to such an extent that you can't really begin fighting with the main armies until you've done the spellcaster dance.
I have faith that they'll eventually stop patching. They have lots of experience with BW, which hasn't changed in a long time. It makes sense to go for the same thing with sc2.
The thing I'm liking about the changes they're making is that they seem to be targeting fundamental problems. In the past they've taken more of a minimalist approach - making the best of the flawed design. I'm looking forward to a balanced and FUN sc2, which will probably take a couple more years, judging by the changes they're making.
On September 01 2017 20:08 Liquid`Snute wrote: wtf is this entangle stuff? broodlord infestor hello ??
Yeah. As long as the only working counters to BL are air units (vikings) then we can't have that.
Though i would like to see a big buff to thors instead of a nerf to entangle.
The air in sc2 has always been a bit off to me. I think it's because the air units stack so it just becomes a blob of shit. And they cover up the ground battle. And they ignore terrain. I like mutas, but I feel sorry for protoss when zerg build a lot of them.
On September 01 2017 20:30 Quineotio wrote: They have lots of experience with BW, which hasn't changed in a long time. It makes sense to go for the same thing with sc2.
The people that were in charge of SC2 had 0 experience with BW. In fact, i suspect they tried more to make their mark on the new game rather then creating an improvement, change for the sake of change sort of thing.
On September 01 2017 20:30 Quineotio wrote: They have lots of experience with BW, which hasn't changed in a long time. It makes sense to go for the same thing with sc2.
The people that were in charge of SC2 had 0 experience with BW. In fact, i suspect they tried more to make their mark on the new game rather then creating an improvement, change for the sake of change sort of thing.
What I mean is, Blizzard are well aware of what an rts looks like when it doesn't get changed and players find their own balance. Like, they're aware that the previous game in the series hasn't been updated and yet is the oldest esport. I'm sure they'd LOVE to have sc2 in a state where they don't need to patch it any more.
I'm very impressed by the Starcraft 2 multiplayer team. I will say though that it's weird how Infested Terran and Entangle anti combo together. Infested deal more vs Air and now you can earthbind units, which lessens the power of the Infested Terrans attack. Some interaction here have to go away.
Entangles also remove attack from the unit caught : rooted + no attack = STUN basically for 7sec.
This kind of ability as no place in sc2 imo
You do realize that the ability "Graviton beam" is there since Wings of Liberty, right? I'm not a fan of Entangle either, but your argument doesnt really seem valid.
1 phoenix disable 1 not big unit and himself 1 infestor disable 4 carriers and run away under ground seems totally valid
I know, I know. I was just referring to the "a 7 second stun has no place in sc2" part.
Unlike ghosts i don't see any chance that a skill requires many casts in order to be effective and has 8 range could do anything against 9 ranges feedback.Zerg players will never have a upper hand in click fest in the middle of the fight.Me rather delete air toss with new 180 dmg nuclear bomb from vipers....
Actually the Infestor lost the Infested Terran ability, I did not know this. This is what happens when we have a unit with 4 abilities like the Viper grrrr...
On September 01 2017 22:30 ejozl wrote: Actually the Infestor lost the Infested Terran ability, I did not know this. This is what happens when we have a unit with 4 abilities like the Viper grrrr...
Yea...I feel the main issue here is that there are just SO MANY abilities. Every single unit is getting its own (especially on the protoss side of things), and there are so many just pure spellcasters (viper, infestor, high templar).
On September 01 2017 22:30 ejozl wrote: Actually the Infestor lost the Infested Terran ability, I did not know this. This is what happens when we have a unit with 4 abilities like the Viper grrrr...
Yea...I feel the main issue here is that there are just SO MANY abilities. Every single unit is getting its own (especially on the protoss side of things), and there are so many just pure spellcasters (viper, infestor, high templar).
Spellcasters are a way they've tried to balance the races. Maybe if they can get the other unit interactions in a better state they can scale back on the casters.
On September 01 2017 20:30 Quineotio wrote: They have lots of experience with BW, which hasn't changed in a long time. It makes sense to go for the same thing with sc2.
i also saw David Kim running from the grassy knoll.
The people that were in charge of SC2 had 0 experience with BW. In fact, i suspect they tried more to make their mark on the new game rather then creating an improvement, change for the sake of change sort of thing.
i saw David Kim running from the grassy knoll carrying an automatic weapon.
Rob Pardo eliminated the 12 limit on groups. Pardo was behind the protoss warp-in mechanic. so um, ya. During his giant 6 hour interview i posted when he left Blizz he mentions both of these mechanics in SC2 and his role in making them a reality. Pardo was lead designer of SC2. Then Pardo was the boss of the lead designer of SC2 for years.
i will say this... Pardo > Browder and Pardo > Kim. But, Blizz had much bigger fish to fry. Considering the miniscule amount of money RTS brings in for every company we're pretty damn lucky guys as good as Browder and Kim were willing to work on an RTS game. I'm sure they've both got better things to do and bigger money projects to pursue and i wish them well.
On September 01 2017 20:30 Quineotio wrote: They have lots of experience with BW, which hasn't changed in a long time. It makes sense to go for the same thing with sc2.
i also saw David Kim running from the grassy knoll.
The people that were in charge of SC2 had 0 experience with BW. In fact, i suspect they tried more to make their mark on the new game rather then creating an improvement, change for the sake of change sort of thing.
i saw David Kim running from the grassy knoll carrying an automatic weapon.
Rob Pardo eliminated the 12 limit on groups. Pardo was behind the protoss warp-in mechanic. so um, ya. During his giant 6 hour interview i posted when he left Blizz he mentions both of these mechanics in SC2 and his role in making them a reality. Pardo was lead designer of SC2. Then Pardo was the boss of the lead designer of SC2 for years.
i will say this... Pardo > Browder and Pardo > Kim. But, Blizz had much bigger fish to fry. Considering the miniscule amount of money RTS brings in for every company we're pretty damn lucky guys as good as Browder and Kim were willing to work on an RTS game. I'm sure they've both got better things to do and bigger money projects to pursue and i wish them well.
SC2 i one of the best selling games on PC plus whatever the expansion sold (if we could find the expansion + dlc sales it would be even higher on the list). This line of we should be tankful they made a rts at all is ridiculous really. From what i can find only the original Starcraft sold more, from the golden era of RTS as some say.
With all due respect, Dustin Browder was under very heavy criticism for many of his decisions with WOL, the direction of the game, and with HOTS, so i would expect nothing from a legend such as Pardo but to deflect some of the attention. We're getting off topic though.
Pardo did not "deflect criticism". Pardo gave a giant 6 hour interview AFTER LEAVING Blizzard in 2014. He did not deflect criticism as it was happening. He was the original designer of SC2 and he factually explained how game mechanics were put into the game by him. Pardo was the lead designer of Brood War and SC2.
compared to the other money Blizz makes on everything else RTS makes tiny amounts of cash. From 2010 to 2016, through a full game release and 2 expansions RTS represented ~1% of ATVI's revenue.
We're on our 4th multiplayer lead due to the fact that RTS doesn't bring in enough cash; Pardo, Browder, and Kim all moved on to bigger things. Its ironic how people scream for Browder's and Kim's firing and, in fact, they're firing us.
with SC2 on its 4th multiplayer leader... i will say its lead to a rather schizophrenic development journey the past 7 years. The game has always been fun to play though.
I'm really concerned about what entangle will do to bio TVZ balance. If you consider how bio Terran currently hold the first wave of ultras from zerg usually they rely on 4-6 liberators in a choke while they transition to an army able to fight ultras in the open. Entangle on those liberators willl be absolutely devastating and might lead us back to the old better kill them before they reach ultras meta that existed before the armor nerf and after the liberator nerf. mabey the raven anti armor spell can compensate but I'm not convinced. remember this is compounded on top of less mineral income for bio players, and worse mines for bio players.
further entangle will make infestors much better against drops than they currently are as it stands sometimes you can escape a fungle with a medivac, there is no way to escape entangle if you are over land.
Most concerning of all i'm not sure how Terran is expected to play late game mech tvz at all. lets just think about the changes in totality.
-raven no longer massable: the balance of late game mech tvz so far has revolved around terrans ability to transition into mass air with ravens. This was perhaps to strong and created very long turtle games however without ravens how in the world does Terran mech combat a late game zerg army?
-viper parasitic bomb change: overall this is a buff to the viper, parasitic bombs rarely stacked heavily to begin with, essentially all this change does is make an already efficient unit even more efficient and better at trading.
-entangle, ontop of all the other changes to the air vs air balance zerg now gains a way to neutralize several air units immediately and prevent any damage contribution form them, In many ways this ability seems even stronger than fungal on air which with proper splitting could be mitigated.
-terran receives a a small buff to cyclone anti air: honestly I dont think the change has significance in the late game.
-Brood lords exist: the reason Terran must go air at some point in mech tvz is how terrible an all ground mech army is vs broolords. if you want to make mech air unplayable at least give mech players some alternative way to handle a broodlord army. Terran mech is not bio, its not acceptable to say that the counter is killing the zerg before they get there, terran mech in its current state is not really strong enough to push into a zerg before they get brood lords and the units to protect them. Maybe the added gas income can fix this dynamic, and allow mech players to actualy push out on the map, but im not to hopeful about this. even so I dont think its a great mechanic for the slow turtle composition to be 100% about doing one big pre broodlord timing attack that decides the game outright. does any one remember wol tvp with fondness? that would be the dynamic this creates, Terran turtles and uses new gas mining mule to make a really big deathball---> terran does one really big push with said deathball that instantly decides the game. I'm not thrilled about that being the future of one of sc2s traditionally best matchups. And it will be if bio proves to week with all the nerfs.
I wpuld prefer old funghal growth to remain. Above all about entaglement thos stops mass mutas bs mass mitas cancer in every ZvZ. Just make infested terrans benefit from uogrades, leave funghal growth as ot is and leave the poor Infestors alone.
On September 02 2017 03:24 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Pardo did not "deflect criticism". Pardo gave a giant 6 hour interview AFTER LEAVING Blizzard in 2014. He did not deflect criticism as it was happening. He was the original designer of SC2 and he factually explained how game mechanics were put into the game by him. Pardo was the lead designer of Brood War and SC2.
compared to the other money Blizz makes on everything else RTS makes tiny amounts of cash. From 2010 to 2016, through a full game release and 2 expansions RTS represented ~1% of ATVI's revenue.
Your comments about Pardo being lead designer of BW and SC2 are EXTREMELY misleading (I suspect you know this already...).
Pardo was the lead of the BW EXPANSION, but NOT the lead designer who made the original StarCraft mechanics. BW was mostly just a campaign expansion, the mechanics were already integrated in to the game, and aside from that it just added a couple new units for each race. Biggest innovations being units and map design.
He was NOT responsible for the mechanics of SC1 at all.
Regarding your second paragraph.... again you are being misleading (likely intentionally regarding your tone of this post, and general tone you usually have on the forums). By those terms, EVERY SINGLE BLIZZARD GAME (minus Overwatch and WoW subs) generated ~1% revenue.
Lets throw down some actual facts:
SC2 series made Blizzard SUBSTANTIALLY MORE revenue than SC1 + BW. SC2 made more revenue than WC1-2-3 + expansions combined. SC2 made nearly as much as revenue D3 + expansions. SC2 made approximately double as much revenue that Diablo 2 earned them. SC2 made almost as much revenue as Hearthstone. SC2 made more than 4x as much revenue as Heroes of the Storm.
The only two Blizzard titles that have performed better are Overwatch (which is around 1 bil revenue, approaching double SC2's) because of the Console release, and WoW subscriptions, because they have been adding up for over 10 years.
For years you have kept spewing misleading information with claims that "RTS do not make money", when StarCraft is easily one of Blizzards top performing IP's ever. And yes, even if you only count SC2 & it's expansions.
As time goes by, your credibility decreases. From your ridiculous claims that "No companies will fund an RTS anymore", meanwhile Blizzard has explicitly stated they would, and Age of Empires 4 is confirmed.
It would be greatly appreciated if you stopped spreading misinformation & claims based on presumption rather than fact.
On September 02 2017 03:24 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Pardo did not "deflect criticism". Pardo gave a giant 6 hour interview AFTER LEAVING Blizzard in 2014. He did not deflect criticism as it was happening. He was the original designer of SC2 and he factually explained how game mechanics were put into the game by him. Pardo was the lead designer of Brood War and SC2.
compared to the other money Blizz makes on everything else RTS makes tiny amounts of cash. From 2010 to 2016, through a full game release and 2 expansions RTS represented ~1% of ATVI's revenue.
Your comments about Pardo being lead designer of BW and SC2 are EXTREMELY misleading (I suspect you know this already...).
Pardo was the lead of the BW EXPANSION, but NOT the lead designer who made the original StarCraft mechanics. BW was mostly just a campaign expansion, the mechanics were already integrated in to the game, and aside from that it just added a couple new units for each race. Biggest innovations being units and map design.
He was NOT responsible for the mechanics of SC1 at all.
Regarding your second paragraph.... again you are being misleading (likely intentionally regarding your tone of this post, and general tone you usually have on the forums). By those terms, EVERY SINGLE BLIZZARD GAME (minus Overwatch and WoW subs) generated ~1% revenue.
Lets throw down some actual facts:
SC2 series made Blizzard SUBSTANTIALLY MORE revenue than SC1 + BW. SC2 made more revenue than WC1-2-3 + expansions combined. SC2 made nearly as much as revenue D3 + expansions. SC2 made approximately double as much revenue that Diablo 2 earned them. SC2 made almost as much revenue as Hearthstone. SC2 made more than 4x as much revenue as Heroes of the Storm.
The only two Blizzard titles that have performed better are Overwatch (which is around 1 bil revenue, approaching double SC2's) because of the Console release, and WoW subscriptions, because they have been adding up for over 10 years.
For years you have kept spewing misleading information with claims that "RTS do not make money", when StarCraft is easily one of Blizzards top performing IP's ever. And yes, even if you only count SC2 & it's expansions.
As time goes by, your credibility decreases. From your ridiculous claims that "No companies will fund an RTS anymore", meanwhile Blizzard has explicitly stated they would, and Age of Empires 4 is confirmed.
It would be greatly appreciated if you stopped spreading misinformation & claims based on presumption rather than fact.
LOLs .. thanks for the laughs.
SC2:WoL sold 6 million copies by 2013 with at least 1 million discounted.. prolly more than a million but i'll just say they were all $60 USD. HotS : 1 million. $40 USD LotV : 1 million. $40 USD.
However, i'll say everything is full price... just cuz i'm being very very generous. 6 million X $60 = 0.36 billion...1 million X $40 = 0.04 billion ... 1 million X $40 = 0.04 billion.
So, SC2 generated 0.45 billion in revenue between 2010 and 2016. ATVI generates ~ 4.5 billion per year and rising. so over 7 years ATVI has generated 30 billion and SC2 has generated 0.45 Billion .... approximately 1%.. but let's be precise its 1.5%
AoE4 will be a low budget affair made by a low budget studio that FUBAR-red DOW3. They did a nice job with CoH2 though... another low budget affair though.
On September 02 2017 06:34 Spyridon wrote: Pardo was the lead of the BW EXPANSION, but NOT the lead designer who made the original StarCraft mechanics. BW was mostly just a campaign expansion, the mechanics were already integrated in to the game, and aside from that it just added a couple new units for each race. Biggest innovations being units and map design.
He was NOT responsible for the mechanics of SC1 at all.
context drop. i provided a rebuttal to a post stating that no one working on BW worked on SC2. Pardo worked on both. I'm glad you've contradicted the previous poster's incorrect claim so that i do not have to do so.
On September 02 2017 03:24 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Pardo did not "deflect criticism". Pardo gave a giant 6 hour interview AFTER LEAVING Blizzard in 2014. He did not deflect criticism as it was happening. He was the original designer of SC2 and he factually explained how game mechanics were put into the game by him. Pardo was the lead designer of Brood War and SC2.
compared to the other money Blizz makes on everything else RTS makes tiny amounts of cash. From 2010 to 2016, through a full game release and 2 expansions RTS represented ~1% of ATVI's revenue.
Your comments about Pardo being lead designer of BW and SC2 are EXTREMELY misleading (I suspect you know this already...).
Pardo was the lead of the BW EXPANSION, but NOT the lead designer who made the original StarCraft mechanics. BW was mostly just a campaign expansion, the mechanics were already integrated in to the game, and aside from that it just added a couple new units for each race. Biggest innovations being units and map design.
He was NOT responsible for the mechanics of SC1 at all.
Regarding your second paragraph.... again you are being misleading (likely intentionally regarding your tone of this post, and general tone you usually have on the forums). By those terms, EVERY SINGLE BLIZZARD GAME (minus Overwatch and WoW subs) generated ~1% revenue.
Lets throw down some actual facts:
SC2 series made Blizzard SUBSTANTIALLY MORE revenue than SC1 + BW. SC2 made more revenue than WC1-2-3 + expansions combined. SC2 made nearly as much as revenue D3 + expansions. SC2 made approximately double as much revenue that Diablo 2 earned them. SC2 made almost as much revenue as Hearthstone. SC2 made more than 4x as much revenue as Heroes of the Storm.
The only two Blizzard titles that have performed better are Overwatch (which is around 1 bil revenue, approaching double SC2's) because of the Console release, and WoW subscriptions, because they have been adding up for over 10 years.
For years you have kept spewing misleading information with claims that "RTS do not make money", when StarCraft is easily one of Blizzards top performing IP's ever. And yes, even if you only count SC2 & it's expansions.
As time goes by, your credibility decreases. From your ridiculous claims that "No companies will fund an RTS anymore", meanwhile Blizzard has explicitly stated they would, and Age of Empires 4 is confirmed.
It would be greatly appreciated if you stopped spreading misinformation & claims based on presumption rather than fact.
LOLs .. thanks for the laughs.
SC2:WoL sold 6 million copies by 2013 with at least 1 million discounted.. prolly more than a million but i'll just say they were all $60 USD. HotS : 1 million. $40 USD LotV : 1 million. $40 USD.
However, i'll say everything is full price... just cuz. 6 million X $60 = 0.36 billion 1 million X $40 = 0.04 billion 1 million X $40 = 0.04 billion.
So, SC2 generated 0.45 billion in revenue between 2010 and 2016. ATVI generates ~ 4.5 billion per year and rising. so over 7 years ATVI has generated 30 billion and SC2 has generated 0.45 Billion .... approximately 1%.. but let's be precise its 1.5%
AoE4 will be a low budget affair made by a low budget studio that FUBAR-red DOW3. They did a nice job with CoH2 though... another low budget affair though.
On September 02 2017 06:34 Spyridon wrote: SC2 made nearly as much as revenue D3 + expansions. SC2 made approximately double as much revenue that Diablo 2 earned them.
comparing D2 revenue #s to a game made more than 10 years later ..... LOL.
D3 has sold 30 million copies... .D3 has made BILLIONS.. SC2 made Millions. SC2 has not even hit 10 million copies sold yet despite being 2 years older than D3... last check it was at 8 million copies..
ATVI owns 8 billion dollar franchises... SC2 is small potatoes and its ~8 million units sold over 7 years is very small potatoes.
my sources on al this are straight from ATVI and Blizzard. its hilarious you yap about credibility and i should stop promulgating BS when i have no clue where ur #s are coming from... did u just make them up and u r trolling?
On September 02 2017 06:34 Spyridon wrote: SC2 made nearly as much as revenue D3 + expansions. SC2 made approximately double as much revenue that Diablo 2 earned them.
D3 has sold 30 million copies... .D3 has made BILLIONS.. SC2 made Millions. SC2 has not even hit 10 million copies sold yet despite being 2 years older than D3... last check it was at 8 million copies..
ATVI owns 8 billion dollar franchises... SC2 is small potatoes and its ~8 million units sold over 7 years is very small potatoes.
Number of copies sold does not equal revenue. I'm sure you know this. You can't argue with solid numbers, so you use ony half the equation and make arguments based on amount of copies sold... rather than REVENUE.
What was it that we were discussing? REVENUE! Not copies sold. That's what you been spewing for YEARS now (since at least Heart of the Swarm days). "Profitability" and "Revenue".
You can take how many millions of copies were sold of the older game were sold, but how many of those were in battle chests for $20? Yet you are acting like people paid full price??
You are also not including the fact that SC2 had more releases than other games.
Oh, and it's funny how you claim AoE4 is going to be low-budget.... Once again, more hearsay based on absolutely nothing factual.
Then you go on by throwing some random numbers out there, trying to prove that the money the game makes is negligible compared to how much activision makes??? That's disregarding everything Blizzard has done as a company. And SC2 is one of the top 20 selling PC games ever, which has NOTHING TO DO with revenue (which actually has INCREASED in the time since the data I linked was taken, which has funded their continued coop development).
For ANY game to make as much as ANY title Blizzard has released in the last 20 years, is a huge achievement. And SC as a series, as well as SC2, is at the top of those achievements. How much money Activision makes does not make those achievements any less impressive.
And did you seriously say D3 has made billions....? Wow... Talk about talking out your ass. And you say your info is from Blizzard directly? How bout providing a source then, because I already shared mine, and there's other sources with a quick google to confirm what I said.
Actually, I already know what you did without even having to look it up. Your presuming the "billion in revenue" based on Blizzards press release of revenue for the ENTIRE YEAR. Go ahead and show your source, to confirm what I just said, please.
No matter how you slice it, SC2 was/is one of the most profitable game series ever. Everything you claim about RTS profitability is BS.
Since you like to talk about "1%"... are you trying to say SC2 isn't in the top 1% of game releases for revenue....? Because it is.
Anyway, you proved how unreliable your own comments are, by simply switching up from "revenue" to "copies sold". Thanks for proving that you know damn well that your original comments were BS, so you have to switch to something that might be more factual.
Can't stand on the leg you have been trying to stand on for years, so let's find another leg to stand on, eh?
At this point, I'm not going to bother responding unless you have any factual evidence. Because I'm not really down to be trolled by hearsay and presumptions, especially from someone whos presumptions have repeatedly proved themselves wrong over the years.
Entangle is nice, but while it help Zergs in late game ZvP it can break TvZ. I'm a zerg player, so I'm not whining here.
There are two reasons for why entangle is crucial with the removal of fungals on air. The first and the more important one is mass oracles. Without fungles on the oracles the only way of fighting mass oracles is turtling on queens and spores (or if a spire can be hiddnen make a muta switch, but it doesn't last long as the protoss are on 3 stargates and can make 12 phoenix quickly).
I suggest nerf the oracle to some extent. For example, make it slower, at least to the movement speed of the corruptor, so that spores and queens will have a chance of sniping oracles, and later corruptor will be able to chase them. With such a change massing oracles is no longer such a safe way to play. Late game ZvP was improved with the buff to the PB and the change to the infested terran (which should be reverted for the entagle to disappear), even though it will be hard taking a golden armada with these spells, it will help vs void rays in the mix which will turn it into a corruptors vs carriers and tempests (and infestors will help in their way of neuraling and infested terrans). The infested terrans added first helped a ton with the golden armada, so no need for entagle. Make the infested terrans as they were before this change, and nerf the oracle to some extent (lowering the movement speed as I suggested is one option)..
For TvZ, I saw posts whining about the mule mineral nerf. I think the new mule will do a good job, from some point on terrans barely use mules unless some SCVs were killed, and the new mule will allow terrans switching to a late game composition quickly.
The way I see it they tried forcing bio players to switch into late game compositions for the entirety of LOTV. Starting with splitting the marauder attack into 2 shoots, increasing the ultra armor, making the ghosts more appealing. etc.
The problem bio players have today is that they are focused on killing the zerg before the late game and don't have an easy time transitioning into the late game. With the new mule switching to ghost production will be way easier even if the terran is only on 5 refineries. With the new eco there will still be minerals in the main by the time of the transition (on the high nodes) and the lack of gas will be compensated with gas muling. Ghosts, libs and ravens will be way easier to reach, and we'll see which one of those units contributes most to the terran late game.
From the games I saw ranged libs with ghosts nullify the ultra compositions of zerg and force brood lords (which a zerg committed to ultras infestors and speed banes can't afford without taking a risk) or taking worse trades. Without entangle libs without range will be helpful enough, and with ghost support it will do the job. Getting there easier will make such games more of a common thing. I remember TY vs Nerchio from blizzcon, 3rd map, it was a nice one to watch. TY turtled there so it dragged for quite a while, but if either of the players can't close the game in the mid game (either bio tank push or hydra ling bane/muta ling bane) then I'm ok with such games as well (they won't be that common, but we don't see such games at all now).
ATVI made $0.45 Billion on SC2 while making $30 billion from 2010 to 2016. battlechest makes fuck all guy.... this is getting ridiculous. ATVI counts its revenues in Billions not Millions. re ductio ad absurdum topic closed.
On September 02 2017 08:19 JimmyJRaynor wrote: ATVI made $0.45 Billion on SC2 while making $30 billion from 2010 to 2016. battlechest makes fuck all guy.... this is getting ridiculous. re ductio ad absurdum topic closed.
Battlechest makes fuck all is exactly my point! YOU are the one talking about "higher number of sales". We were on the topic of revenue, YOU changed the topic to number of sales. I point out how number of sales don't mean shit because of battlechests, and now you are trolling that saying it means fuck all?
I'm glad you agree with my point. Your argument about numbers of sales means "fuck all".
As I said in my post, show this source? Because I guarantee you are taking Blizzards yearly revenue as a whole, and claiming it's revenue "on the game".
On September 02 2017 08:19 JimmyJRaynor wrote: ATVI made $0.45 Billion on SC2 while making $30 billion from 2010 to 2016. battlechest makes fuck all guy.... this is getting ridiculous. re ductio ad absurdum topic closed.
As I said in my post, show this source? Because I guarantee you are taking Blizzards yearly revenue as a whole, and claiming it's revenue "on the game".
ATVI annual revenue is ~$4.5 Billion and rising. SC2 franchise has not even hit 10 million units sold in its 7 years. D3 is over 30 million units sold. 8 million units total with 6 million at full price and 2 million at $40 is being pretty generous...... we know some of those units were sold at a discount. so we come to $0.44 Billion generated in 7 years.
On September 02 2017 08:19 JimmyJRaynor wrote: ATVI made $0.45 Billion on SC2 while making $30 billion from 2010 to 2016. battlechest makes fuck all guy.... this is getting ridiculous. re ductio ad absurdum topic closed.
As I said in my post, show this source? Because I guarantee you are taking Blizzards yearly revenue as a whole, and claiming it's revenue "on the game".
ATVI annual revenue is ~$4.5 Billion and rising. SC2 franchise has not even hit 10 million units sold in its 7 years. D3 is over 30 million units sold.
On September 02 2017 08:19 JimmyJRaynor wrote: ATVI made $0.45 Billion on SC2 while making $30 billion from 2010 to 2016. battlechest makes fuck all guy.... this is getting ridiculous. re ductio ad absurdum topic closed.
As I said in my post, show this source? Because I guarantee you are taking Blizzards yearly revenue as a whole, and claiming it's revenue "on the game".
ATVI annual revenue is ~$4.5 Billion and rising. SC2 franchise has not even hit 10 million units sold in its 7 years. D3 is over 30 million units sold.
On September 02 2017 08:19 JimmyJRaynor wrote: ATVI made $0.45 Billion on SC2 while making $30 billion from 2010 to 2016. battlechest makes fuck all guy.... this is getting ridiculous. re ductio ad absurdum topic closed.
As I said in my post, show this source? Because I guarantee you are taking Blizzards yearly revenue as a whole, and claiming it's revenue "on the game".
ATVI annual revenue is ~$4.5 Billion and rising. SC2 franchise has not even hit 10 million units sold in its 7 years. D3 is over 30 million units sold.
On September 02 2017 08:23 Spyridon wrote: SC2 made nearly as much as revenue D3 + expansions.
no clue how SC2 makes nearly as much as D3.. but hey man... enjoy your fantasy world.
lol... I'm in a fantasy world? When I am basing my argument off actual research data, and yours is 100% presumption based on annual reports and disregarding which IP or where the revenue came from....?
And can you really not figure out how SC2 makes as much? D3 - a game that plummeted harder than any Blizzard title in history after release, and had to take years of extended development & investment in order to become profitable? Which only had a single expansion, no established esports scene, and no long-term plan to generate income over the years?
On September 02 2017 06:34 Spyridon wrote: SC2 made nearly as much as revenue D3 + expansions. SC2 made approximately double as much revenue that Diablo 2 earned them.
D3 has sold 30 million copies... .D3 has made BILLIONS.. SC2 made Millions. SC2 has not even hit 10 million copies sold yet despite being 2 years older than D3... last check it was at 8 million copies..
ATVI owns 8 billion dollar franchises... SC2 is small potatoes and its ~8 million units sold over 7 years is very small potatoes.
Number of copies sold does not equal revenue. I'm sure you know this. You can't argue with solid numbers, so you use ony half the equation and make arguments based on amount of copies sold... rather than REVENUE.
What was it that we were discussing? REVENUE! Not copies sold. That's what you been spewing for YEARS now (since at least Heart of the Swarm days). "Profitability" and "Revenue".
You can take how many millions of copies were sold of the older game were sold, but how many of those were in battle chests for $20? Yet you are acting like people paid full price??
You are also not including the fact that SC2 had more releases than other games.
Oh, and it's funny how you claim AoE4 is going to be low-budget.... Once again, more hearsay based on absolutely nothing factual.
Then you go on by throwing some random numbers out there, trying to prove that the money the game makes is negligible compared to how much activision makes??? That's disregarding everything Blizzard has done as a company. And SC2 is one of the top 20 selling PC games ever, which has NOTHING TO DO with revenue (which actually has INCREASED in the time since the data I linked was taken, which has funded their continued coop development).
For ANY game to make as much as ANY title Blizzard has released in the last 20 years, is a huge achievement. And SC as a series, as well as SC2, is at the top of those achievements. How much money Activision makes does not make those achievements any less impressive.
And did you seriously say D3 has made billions....? Wow... Talk about talking out your ass. And you say your info is from Blizzard directly? How bout providing a source then, because I already shared mine, and there's other sources with a quick google to confirm what I said.
Actually, I already know what you did without even having to look it up. Your presuming the "billion in revenue" based on Blizzards press release of revenue for the ENTIRE YEAR. Go ahead and show your source, to confirm what I just said, please.
No matter how you slice it, SC2 was/is one of the most profitable game series ever. Everything you claim about RTS profitability is BS.
Since you like to talk about "1%"... are you trying to say SC2 isn't in the top 1% of game releases for revenue....? Because it is.
Anyway, you proved how unreliable your own comments are, by simply switching up from "revenue" to "copies sold". Thanks for proving that you know damn well that your original comments were BS, so you have to switch to something that might be more factual.
Can't stand on the leg you have been trying to stand on for years, so let's find another leg to stand on, eh?
At this point, I'm not going to bother responding unless you have any factual evidence. Because I'm not really down to be trolled by hearsay and presumptions, especially from someone whos presumptions have repeatedly proved themselves wrong over the years.
Seriously doubt AoE4 is going to be small budget. Microsoft have a few spare coins to throw at devs. Kind of helps that Bill Gates himself is a fan of the series.
The newest patch makes protoss feel very fluid, fun, and possibly OP? I can't tell cuz ive just played a few games so far today vs some not so great players, but I feel like with good macro mechanics and multi tasking, u can attack, come home, and the new pylon shield recharge is actually pretty good. i enjoy this patch quite a bit.
i also support the cyclone damage increase vs air, i think it's good to defend oracles. without it, u can just ignore the thing in the current live patch... it's better imo so terrans dont just insta like 10 workers even while having an AA unit.
The changes in this blog are live on the Testing section of StarCraft II Multiplayer, and we would like to release the final changes after this year’s tournament season concludes in November.
Wow, big things were happening while I was away. Is it known what is Blizzard's motivation here? Pure passion or is there a wayfor them to make money off this?
On September 03 2017 04:26 opisska wrote: Wow, big things were happening while I was away. Is it known what is Blizzard's motivation here? Pure passion or is there a wayfor them to make money off this?
Making changes = people checking them out.
More people in the client = more people to buy announcers/skins/whatever
On September 03 2017 04:26 opisska wrote: Wow, big things were happening while I was away. Is it known what is Blizzard's motivation here? Pure passion or is there a wayfor them to make money off this?
Making changes = people checking them out.
More people in the client = more people to buy announcers/skins/whatever
Fair enough, even though I still don't understand why people are willing to pay actual money for that stuff. In amy case I like fresh things in the game!
Tested new infestor ability quite a bit; in my view it is not that good vs carrier based army, because the range of the spell is quite short.
In large fights; if you have a ground based army; such as ultra hydra or ling hydra where usage of the ensnare would seem usefull; i usually experience one of the following.
- Infestors move to the front to cast their spell; they get sniped by the carriers / HT. - Infestors get stuck behind your army. They cant cast the spell.
Because of the high dps of carrier based armies; both situations cause pretty much lose the fight/game instantly, because your hydras will just die.
I admit that some of the above can be fixed by better control; but my feeling is that the ability needs some work (maybe range extension or longer duration if it hits or small area of effect?) or remove infestor collision radius.
On September 03 2017 09:29 Ulargg wrote: Tested new infestor ability quite a bit; in my view it is not that good vs carrier based army, because the range of the spell is quite short.
In large fights; if you have a ground based army; such as ultra hydra or ling hydra where usage of the ensnare would seem usefull; i usually experience one of the following.
- Infestors move to the front to cast their spell; they get sniped by the carriers / HT. - Infestors get stuck behind your army. They cant cast the spell.
Because of the high dps of carrier based armies; both situations cause pretty much lose the fight/game instantly, because your hydras will just die.
I admit that some of the above can be fixed by better control; but my feeling is that the ability needs some work (maybe range extension or longer duration if it hits or small area of effect?) or remove infestor collision radius.
Yup.Just like my opinion.
Also unlike srambled egg missle you can't run once your units get hit.This ability has no counterplay.
On September 03 2017 09:29 Ulargg wrote: Tested new infestor ability quite a bit; in my view it is not that good vs carrier based army, because the range of the spell is quite short.
In large fights; if you have a ground based army; such as ultra hydra or ling hydra where usage of the ensnare would seem usefull; i usually experience one of the following.
- Infestors move to the front to cast their spell; they get sniped by the carriers / HT. - Infestors get stuck behind your army. They cant cast the spell.
Because of the high dps of carrier based armies; both situations cause pretty much lose the fight/game instantly, because your hydras will just die.
I admit that some of the above can be fixed by better control; but my feeling is that the ability needs some work (maybe range extension or longer duration if it hits or small area of effect?) or remove infestor collision radius.
dude you literally just need to burrow your infestors and all those issues you mentioned cease to exist
On September 03 2017 09:29 Ulargg wrote: Tested new infestor ability quite a bit; in my view it is not that good vs carrier based army, because the range of the spell is quite short.
In large fights; if you have a ground based army; such as ultra hydra or ling hydra where usage of the ensnare would seem usefull; i usually experience one of the following.
- Infestors move to the front to cast their spell; they get sniped by the carriers / HT. - Infestors get stuck behind your army. They cant cast the spell.
Because of the high dps of carrier based armies; both situations cause pretty much lose the fight/game instantly, because your hydras will just die.
I admit that some of the above can be fixed by better control; but my feeling is that the ability needs some work (maybe range extension or longer duration if it hits or small area of effect?) or remove infestor collision radius.
dude you literally just need to burrow your infestors and all those issues you mentioned cease to exist
I wish you were right, but burrowed infestors have a collision radius, unlike burrowed roaches. This was changed a while ago when they allowed fungal to be used whole the infestor is burrowed.
On September 04 2017 01:43 xTJx wrote: Just remove Parasitic Bomb, rework the corruptor or put scourge in the game. 7 years of bandaid anti-air for zerg is enough.
How is losing all your shit to PB any different from losing all your shit to scourge?
On September 04 2017 01:43 xTJx wrote: Just remove Parasitic Bomb, rework the corruptor or put scourge in the game. 7 years of bandaid anti-air for zerg is enough.
How is losing all your shit to PB any different from losing all your shit to scourge?
I like most of the new Testmap changes. The old cyclon upgrade was simly garbage, the new one make the cyclon a fairly good AA unit and as much I love the "Smart Servos" upgrade it was probably to good for Hellions/Hellbats. Mules mining gas is still strange ( the animation is really bad imo.)
I quite playing the test map. Not because of the changes themselves but because it's hard to even know whats going on. Now I'll just wait until the changes are finalized before I spend anymore energy figuring things out.
I don't even think the meta from 3.8 was completely settled 9 momths after it came out. And yet they want to evaluate this patch every week?
Disruptor changes will never work. Novas which explode on contact will eliminate them from main combat. I said that 20 pages ago and it's still true. The disruptor nerf is just as large as the mine nerf yet no one seems to care.
Is it possible to see what the current status of the changes is somewhere? The list linked in the OP seems to be different from both what people discussed right afterwards and from what people discuss now. These things are always terribly confusing unless you follow them all the time.
On September 04 2017 05:57 opisska wrote: Is it possible to see what the current status of the changes is somewhere? The list linked in the OP seems to be different from both what people discussed right afterwards and from what people discuss now. These things are always terribly confusing unless you follow them all the time.
I think the original link has the new changes colored red.
Can they please add something for zerg? Honestly there was nothing interesting added for them. Gas mules and a new early game sounds like a big deal but then with zerg its just tumbleweeds and a few random nerfs. Feel shafted.
On September 04 2017 11:17 Uberduder wrote: Can they please add something for zerg? Honestly there was nothing interesting added for them. Gas mules and a new early game sounds like a big deal but then with zerg its just tumbleweeds and a few random nerfs. Feel shafted.
Blizzard have made it very clear Zerg is the "no fun allowed" race. The entire early game is defending until you have an army that won't get crushed, and even then it's a pain because you have to constantly be teching up to Hive, all the while trying to not die before you need those Hive units. Every expansion Protoss and Terran get new harass tools and Zerg gets nothing to deal with them. It doesn't help that 75% of the good foreigners play Zerg so that people think that it's OP and needs to be nerfed.
Every time Blizzard makes changes, the strategies of the pro players adjust. Once the strategies adjust, the balance shifts and Blizzard understands better the full effects of their changes. Blizzard then make more changes. The cycle continues. Will the changes ever stop or will the changes continue to occur for the next decade? I'm not saying that this is bad or good. It goes both ways.
Once the OpenAI or Deepmind bots come along, it's going to throw Blizzard into a frenzy of changes.
On September 04 2017 05:57 opisska wrote: Is it possible to see what the current status of the changes is somewhere? The list linked in the OP seems to be different from both what people discussed right afterwards and from what people discuss now. These things are always terribly confusing unless you follow them all the time.
I think the original link has the new changes colored red.
Yeah, that might be it, I thought these are just the most important ones, but the choice seemed weird
On September 04 2017 01:43 xTJx wrote: Just remove Parasitic Bomb, rework the corruptor or put scourge in the game. 7 years of bandaid anti-air for zerg is enough.
How is losing all your shit to PB any different from losing all your shit to scourge?
PB doesn't counter carriers and it is only available late game, midgame zerg antiair is still useless.
On September 04 2017 11:17 Uberduder wrote: Can they please add something for zerg? Honestly there was nothing interesting added for them. Gas mules and a new early game sounds like a big deal but then with zerg its just tumbleweeds and a few random nerfs. Feel shafted.
Blizzard have made it very clear Zerg is the "no fun allowed" race. The entire early game is defending until you have an army that won't get crushed, and even then it's a pain because you have to constantly be teching up to Hive, all the while trying to not die before you need those Hive units. Every expansion Protoss and Terran get new harass tools and Zerg gets nothing to deal with them. It doesn't help that 75% of the good foreigners play Zerg so that people think that it's OP and needs to be nerfed.
Zerg isn't 100% defend in the early game. I see many pro games that apply early aggression with 6-12 lings. Mind you, it's not a commitment, but to buy time to get to the mid/late game.
There are 2 ways to get into the late game. The first is to set up a defense and hope you survive early harass/pokes. The second is to apply pressure with your own harass/pokes to scare your opponent to commit to an attack.
But these 2 options are on a spectrum, and I don't think Zerg is forced to play on one end.
On September 04 2017 01:43 xTJx wrote: Just remove Parasitic Bomb, rework the corruptor or put scourge in the game. 7 years of bandaid anti-air for zerg is enough.
How is losing all your shit to PB any different from losing all your shit to scourge?
Not sure how this would work out in sc2 but at least in bw you have to come from good angles because scourge die fast, you have to make sure it doesn't overkill, you actually have to invest larva for it, etc. It's more interesting than spamming the ability button a lot.
On September 05 2017 01:19 Jett.Jack.Alvir wrote: Zerg isn't 100% defend in the early game. I see many pro games that apply early aggression with 6-12 lings. Mind you, it's not a commitment, but to buy time to get to the mid/late game.
There are 2 ways to get into the late game. The first is to set up a defense and hope you survive early harass/pokes. The second is to apply pressure with your own harass/pokes to scare your opponent to commit to an attack.
But these 2 options are on a spectrum, and I don't think Zerg is forced to play on one end.
I wouldn't exactly call poking with lings aggression, its more like checking for gaps in their build. Sometimes people get so used to zerg being forced to sit at home for 6-10 minutes that they do foolish things like throw down a greedy third nexus or CC and if we don't check and punish it we'll get outmacro'd, funny as that sounds.
On September 04 2017 11:17 Uberduder wrote: Can they please add something for zerg? Honestly there was nothing interesting added for them. Gas mules and a new early game sounds like a big deal but then with zerg its just tumbleweeds and a few random nerfs. Feel shafted.
Blizzard have made it very clear Zerg is the "no fun allowed" race. The entire early game is defending until you have an army that won't get crushed, and even then it's a pain because you have to constantly be teching up to Hive, all the while trying to not die before you need those Hive units. Every expansion Protoss and Terran get new harass tools and Zerg gets nothing to deal with them. It doesn't help that 75% of the good foreigners play Zerg so that people think that it's OP and needs to be nerfed.
Bullshit, if anything the larva nerf and the mineral reductions has made macro Zerg weaker, and things like improved Ultralisks, Vipers, Lurkers, Overlord drops, and Ravagers are all brilliant offensive options that see regular play at higher levels.
The mineral buff alone is going to be very beneficial to greedy Zerg's that want to play and defend on 3 bases while they spread creep/posture for a 4th, that's a much different scenario then racing for a 4th and any economy damage at all along with your bases being mined out is auto gg. Now with more minerals again, macro styles will be stronger because there will be more recovery room from harass.
New Entangle ability seems promising but I've heard the range on it is kind of bad and they get annihilated by High Templar, what's the scoop on that?
On September 04 2017 11:17 Uberduder wrote: Can they please add something for zerg? Honestly there was nothing interesting added for them. Gas mules and a new early game sounds like a big deal but then with zerg its just tumbleweeds and a few random nerfs. Feel shafted.
Blizzard have made it very clear Zerg is the "no fun allowed" race. The entire early game is defending until you have an army that won't get crushed, and even then it's a pain because you have to constantly be teching up to Hive, all the while trying to not die before you need those Hive units. Every expansion Protoss and Terran get new harass tools and Zerg gets nothing to deal with them. It doesn't help that 75% of the good foreigners play Zerg so that people think that it's OP and needs to be nerfed.
I think you re miss reading the problem. Zerg is now boring cause the economy has changed. The Queen is coming too late and the production of drones is decreased from 13 workkers to 11 workers... So their start is not SO bad but it s slower... Nobody is askking to reduce the number of worker but some progamers would like to get back to this economy models - like Byun.. What i see now is just a rush to the late game with some classical attacks..
A few weeks ago i made a post about how mass oracles have been a thing in masters league since the beta. As usual people here that play at a much lower level than me said it was nonsense. I'd like you to take a look at games 1,2 and 3 from the last SSL series (Dark vs Dear):
Protoss can open 1 or 2 oracles, make a phoenix to kill scouting overlords, then make more oracles. Each oracle takes roughly 30 seconds to be created (with chronoboost). 4 is the magic number that can snipe queens and spores, and protoss can have them before you even realise. If zerg manages to defend without taking damage, they still can't move out before having a big hydra force or chain fungals available, leaving protoss with map control and free to expand and tech.
Now with the fungal nerf and chronoboost buff, i belive mass oracle is something that needs to be adressed.
On September 04 2017 11:17 Uberduder wrote: Can they please add something for zerg? Honestly there was nothing interesting added for them. Gas mules and a new early game sounds like a big deal but then with zerg its just tumbleweeds and a few random nerfs. Feel shafted.
Blizzard have made it very clear Zerg is the "no fun allowed" race. The entire early game is defending until you have an army that won't get crushed, and even then it's a pain because you have to constantly be teching up to Hive, all the while trying to not die before you need those Hive units. Every expansion Protoss and Terran get new harass tools and Zerg gets nothing to deal with them. It doesn't help that 75% of the good foreigners play Zerg so that people think that it's OP and needs to be nerfed.
This SSL season, zerg have a winrate of 57% vs Protoss Zerg have a winrate of 48% vs Terrans
Keep in mind that this SSL number takes into consideration Byul's record of 1 win and 7 losses (he hasnt been practicing and is losing to one attack from other players, its apparent he doesnt belong in this league this season)
even with byuls 29% winrate for maps (7-17, 1-7 for series), zerg still has a huge winrate advantage over protoss and is equal to terrans at 48%.
you dont "get something" just because everyone else is "getting something." the reality is that zergs are overperforming in every facet of this game outside of the top two premier leagues of Korea, and even there, zergs are breaking even with terrans and winning 60% versus protoss. your level of delusion got some chuckles out of me. you missed the ZERG UP circlejerk by about 7 years bud
On September 06 2017 00:01 xTJx wrote: A few weeks ago i made a post about how mass oracles have been a thing in masters league since the beta. As usual people here that play at a much lower level than me said it was nonsense. I'd like you to take a look at games 1,2 and 3 from the last SSL series (Dark vs Dear):
Protoss can open 1 or 2 oracles, make a phoenix to kill scouting overlords, then make more oracles. Each oracle takes roughly 30 seconds to be created (with chronoboost). 4 is the magic number that can snipe queens and spores, and protoss can have them before you even realise. If zerg manages to defend without taking damage, they still can't move out before having a big hydra force or chain fungals available, leaving protoss with map control and free to expand and tech.
Now with the fungal nerf and chronoboost buff, i belive mass oracle is something that needs to be adressed.
if only there was some non-evolution-chamber-requiring building or strong early game antiair unit that, when produced en masse, could deflect air units from protoss for a fraction of the cost
being in master in NA is not a qualification to speak on balance, especially if you can only achieve it with one race. if protoss is winning 40% at the professional level, taking full advantage of oracle builds (they are), then there really is not a problem. protoss are weak to zerg in this matchup and we have about years of data from LOTV to support that claim whereas the oracle whine is ultimately anecdotal and solvable by playstyle choice. asking for a patch for this is laughable
On September 06 2017 00:01 xTJx wrote: A few weeks ago i made a post about how mass oracles have been a thing in masters league since the beta. As usual people here that play at a much lower level than me said it was nonsense. I'd like you to take a look at games 1,2 and 3 from the last SSL series (Dark vs Dear):
Protoss can open 1 or 2 oracles, make a phoenix to kill scouting overlords, then make more oracles. Each oracle takes roughly 30 seconds to be created (with chronoboost). 4 is the magic number that can snipe queens and spores, and protoss can have them before you even realise. If zerg manages to defend without taking damage, they still can't move out before having a big hydra force or chain fungals available, leaving protoss with map control and free to expand and tech.
Now with the fungal nerf and chronoboost buff, i belive mass oracle is something that needs to be adressed.
if only there was some non-evolution-chamber-requiring building or strong early game antiair unit that, when produced en masse, could deflect air units from protoss for a fraction of the cost
being in master in NA is not a qualification to speak on balance, especially if you can only achieve it with one race. if protoss is winning 40% at the professional level, taking full advantage of oracle builds (they are), then there really is not a problem. protoss are weak to zerg in this matchup and we have about years of data from LOTV to support that claim whereas the oracle whine is ultimately anecdotal and solvable by playstyle choice. asking for a patch for this is laughable
Sure dude, because game quality doesn't matter, let protoss mass their 1 unit because the winrate is not at 50%.
As we know players are all the same and what that matters are statistics, so by your own logic Terran is op vs Zerg right now because there's a 54% winrate, even when 3 zergs in GSL were foreigners.
Jeff Kaplan talked about how balanced stats represented 1 of 3 pillars they base their balance decisions on. 1 other pillar was.. does the balance change result in fun game play. I'm not sure what the other pillar was.
so i don't think u'll ever see Blizzard declare a game to be in an optimum state just based on game results statistics.
On September 06 2017 10:39 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Jeff Kaplan talked about how balanced stats represented 1 of 3 pillars they base their balance decisions on. 1 other pillar was.. does the balance change result in fun game play. I'm not sure what the other pillar was.
so i don't think u'll ever see Blizzard declare a game to be in an optimum state just based on game results statistics.
The third pillar has to be something which denies the second pillar because some of the things in sc2 are not all that fun unit interaction wise.
Thor anti-ground gun is like a boulder smasher, however it's not really practical on the battlefield. Any thoughts on what type of rapid fire machine gun would best fit on the Thor arms as a buff?
Some of these cahnges seem good, others seem suspect. I feel like Oracles, Warpprism and Banelings could use some changes. Also I doubt being able to burrow faster will help Lurkers very much when Immortals can just walk over burrowed Lurkers. The most confusing change though is wanting to buff Zerg ground to air by making fungle not hit air and buffing parasitic bomb?! Also not sure why Protoss need to be able to a-move HTs, they were already the only thing they had to control in a mass air + HT composition. If they manage to balance the early-midgame so that Zerg doesnt overrun Protoss without overcharge I can imagine even more ugly looking lategame PvZ since the new infestor ability also doesnt really seem to help against that.
Overall the Zerg changes seem underwhelming, just nerfs and a Lurker "rework" that still leaves the unit useless in most situations.
Sure dude, because game quality doesn't matter, let protoss mass their 1 unit because the winrate is not at 50%.
As we know players are all the same and what that matters are statistics, so by your own logic Terran is op vs Zerg right now because there's a 54% winrate, even when 3 zergs in GSL were foreigners.
If protoss are being forced to mass one unit and still aren't coming close to a fair winrate, then the solution is to buff other protoss units, not to nerf the one they're using.
I had an idea for a possible buff to protoss early game, let them build cannons if they have a gateway. one reason you don't see early canons right now is that they are not good enough to justify the investment in a forge (unless your cannon rushing) due to the threat of units that deal well with them like ravagers. If you move the tech requirement to the gateway protoss can decide to get cannons at any point along their natural build path. This combined with the shield regen would help them hold off allins but unlike the ms core it would require proper scouting and investment to stop attacks, meaning that players who have not scouted wont have defenses up. I dont think its to wild of a change, if you think about it zerg get spores at the spawning pool, and terran get bunkers at the barracks. As for cheeses I dont think it would be to much of a difference, maybe protoss could bring 1-2 zealots with their cannon rush but I'm sure it would still be holdable with proper execution, it would also probably be healthy for the game if protoss could threaten zerg with early game cheese to some extent again. the more things the zerg has to account for the less greedy they can be, so having more cheeses will help to slow down the big allins in the midgame that will be much harder to stop with the removal of msc.
as a plus this would be a nerf to mine harass so maybe, the change to the mine would be unnecessary, since protoss could have access to building based detection at the gateway, but once again they would either need to blindly sink 300 minerals to stop it or scout correctly. Also it would help address the fears protoss players have that stargate will be dominant in pvp, being able to throw down a cannon as soon as you scout the stargate could help players go robo or twilight instead.
On September 07 2017 02:44 washikie wrote: I had an idea for a possible buff to protoss early game, let them build cannons if they have a gateway. one reason you don't see early canons right now is that they are not good enough to justify the investment in a forge (unless your cannon rushing) due to the threat of units that deal well with them like ravagers. If you move the tech requirement to the gateway protoss can decide to get cannons at any point along their natural build path. This combined with the shield regen would help them hold of allins but unlike the ms core it would require proper scouting and investment to stop attacks, meaning that players who have not scouted wont have defenses up. I dont think its to wild of a change, if you think about it zerg get spores at the spawning pool, and terran get bunkers at the barracks. As for cheeses I dont think it would be to much of a difference, maybe protoss could bring 1-2 zealots with their cannon rush but I'm sure it would still be holdable with proper execution, it would also probably be healthy for the game if protoss could threaten zerg with early game cheese to some extent again. the more things the zerg has to account for the less greedy they can be, so having more cheeses will help to slow down the big allins in the midgame that will be much harder to stop with the removal of msc.
as a plus this would be a nerf to mine harass so maybe, the change to the mine would be unnecessary, since protoss could have access to building based detection at the gateway, but once again they would either need to blindly sink 300 minerals to stop it or scout correctly.
Cannons at the gateway just make it way to easy to transition out of the cannon rush if it fails to do game-ending damage. If you are fine with cannon-rush openings being as common as reaper openings its OK I guess, but otherwise I'd prefer to have the cannon at the cybercore - which is a nerf to the infamous cannon rush and a buff to general protoss early game at the same time.
If Cannons' requirement was a Gateway instead of a Forge, what about making canons unable to attack buildings? I think it'd be nice if they were weakened, but also cheaper.
On September 07 2017 02:44 washikie wrote: I had an idea for a possible buff to protoss early game, let them build cannons if they have a gateway. one reason you don't see early canons right now is that they are not good enough to justify the investment in a forge (unless your cannon rushing) due to the threat of units that deal well with them like ravagers. If you move the tech requirement to the gateway protoss can decide to get cannons at any point along their natural build path. This combined with the shield regen would help them hold of allins but unlike the ms core it would require proper scouting and investment to stop attacks, meaning that players who have not scouted wont have defenses up. I dont think its to wild of a change, if you think about it zerg get spores at the spawning pool, and terran get bunkers at the barracks. As for cheeses I dont think it would be to much of a difference, maybe protoss could bring 1-2 zealots with their cannon rush but I'm sure it would still be holdable with proper execution, it would also probably be healthy for the game if protoss could threaten zerg with early game cheese to some extent again. the more things the zerg has to account for the less greedy they can be, so having more cheeses will help to slow down the big allins in the midgame that will be much harder to stop with the removal of msc.
as a plus this would be a nerf to mine harass so maybe, the change to the mine would be unnecessary, since protoss could have access to building based detection at the gateway, but once again they would either need to blindly sink 300 minerals to stop it or scout correctly.
Cannons at the gateway just make it way to easy to transition out of the cannon rush if it fails to do game-ending damage. If you are fine with cannon-rush openings being as common as reaper openings its OK I guess, but otherwise I'd prefer to have the cannon at the cybercore - which is a nerf to the infamous cannon rush and a buff to general protoss early game at the same time.
that would also be reasonable, although personally I would see no problem with protoss cannoning you than trying to transition, its not like canon rushes are cheep, it can sometimes cost 500+minerals to do and afterwards they have to still worry about counter allins with units that out range the cannons or melt them. given that pros (excluding Has) don't use the strategy at all I don't think a small buff would change to much. I mean i've lost to it a few times in masters I admit but that's just because I made execution mistakes that higher level players just don't make.
On September 07 2017 03:28 seopthi wrote: If Cannons' requirement was a Gateway instead of a Forge, what about making canons unable to attack buildings? I think it'd be nice if they were weakened, but also cheaper.
that sounds like a cool idea to screw around with and see how well it works
Sure dude, because game quality doesn't matter, let protoss mass their 1 unit because the winrate is not at 50%.
As we know players are all the same and what that matters are statistics, so by your own logic Terran is op vs Zerg right now because there's a 54% winrate, even when 3 zergs in GSL were foreigners.
If protoss are being forced to mass one unit and still aren't coming close to a fair winrate, then the solution is to buff other protoss units, not to nerf the one they're using.
I feel like arguing with 10 year old kids. Protoss is not being forced into mass oracle, and protoss is not underperforming. All i'm saying is that mass oracle is as dumb as mass adept used to be.
On September 07 2017 10:04 xTJx wrote: I feel like arguing with 10 year old kids.
Probably just a sign that you're slow on the uptake. The discussion was in the context of Protoss underperforming heavily in PvZ, and how that should affect the changes Blizzard's looking at. There'll always be idiots yelling "An Oracle killed me! Nerf! Nerf!", but that kind of kneejerk reaction has no relevance to actual balance.
The point is that we know there are other areas of Protoss tech likely to require buffs - the whole point of removing MSC was so that gateway units could be improved to compensate, after all - and it makes sense to look at how compositions will change if those buffs are implemented.
On September 07 2017 10:04 xTJx wrote: I feel like arguing with 10 year old kids.
Probably just a sign that you're slow on the uptake. The discussion was in the context of Protoss underperforming heavily in PvZ, and how that should affect the changes Blizzard's looking at. There'll always be idiots yelling "An Oracle killed me! Nerf! Nerf!", but that kind of kneejerk reaction has no relevance to actual balance.
The point is that we know there are other areas of Protoss tech likely to require buffs - the whole point of removing MSC was so that gateway units could be improved to compensate, after all - and it makes sense to look at how compositions will change if those buffs are implemented.
No, it's just you people that translate "mass oracle is a dumb strategy and bad for the game" to "i lose to mass oracle."
I'm not talking about race balance, i'm not talking about winrates, i'm not talking about the other changes, i'm talking about mass oracle and zerg's tools to deal with it, but you guys can't think outside the balance whine, same thing when people pointed that mass reapers were dumb, mass adepts were dumb, etc.
Hey everyone, We wanted to check in to let you know that the testing is on-going and that we greatly appreciate your feedback and discussions. In the meantime, a member from the multiplayer balance team will provide an update at WCS Montreal before the grand finals. We are excited about WCS Montreal and look forward to the matches!
The most important change that Blizzard should make is to replay the game on 6 collectors. I can understand that a lot of players / pro players do not understand this idea, because after all we are there to play with the rules we were given, not to try to transgress them. But the main argument of Blizzard for the 12 collectors was that it would energize the game, and make it more alive for the viewers. Since we have lost more than 60% of our viewers, most people do not raise the game again, the pro players games are no better than before. We have not won anything with this change, and now that everybody plays on 12, the community will always be divided to go back to 6, because many players give their opinion without ever taking the time to replay on 6 collectors, until recover the sensations of play, to judge the difference between the 2. The best argument being: The game is too slow on 6 collectors. Which is wrong. Another argument is: The game is easier on 6 collectors, which is false, the game requires more mechanics but less precisions. On 6 collectors, a depot that must be placed at 21, can only be placed at 21, if you put it to 20, you'll have 2 less marines, if you put it at 23 you will be supply bock at 27. So the game is no easier in 6 collectors, it is deeper, more precise, and low cost units are more important at the beginning. I do not understand how the team that manages the balancing can not see it, the 12 collectors is a mistake, of course that going back to 6 will create a conflict with some players, but how many will come back? how many will understand over time that 6 collectors is much better than 12? It's sad, sad to see that the people who created the game do not question themselves. Blizzard will make all the changes of the world, if we stay in 12 collectors, no player will return on the game, no caster will make a tutorial, it shows, nobody plays on the server test, because the problem of the game is in its dynamics more than in its balancing.
On September 09 2017 06:25 TrainingDay wrote: The most important change that Blizzard should make is to replay the game on 6 collectors. I can understand that a lot of players / pro players do not understand this idea, because after all we are there to play with the rules we were given, not to try to transgress them. But the main argument of Blizzard for the 12 collectors was that it would energize the game, and make it more alive for the viewers. Since we have lost more than 60% of our viewers, most people do not raise the game again, the pro players games are no better than before. We have not won anything with this change, and now that everybody plays on 12, the community will always be divided to go back to 6, because many players give their opinion without ever taking the time to replay on 6 collectors, until recover the sensations of play, to judge the difference between the 2. The best argument being: The game is too slow on 6 collectors. Which is wrong. Another argument is: The game is easier on 6 collectors, which is false, the game requires more mechanics but less precisions. On 6 collectors, a depot that must be placed at 21, can only be placed at 21, if you put it to 20, you'll have 2 less marines, if you put it at 23 you will be supply bock at 27. So the game is no easier in 6 collectors, it is deeper, more precise, and low cost units are more important at the beginning. I do not understand how the team that manages the balancing can not see it, the 12 collectors is a mistake, of course that going back to 6 will create a conflict with some players, but how many will come back? how many will understand over time that 6 collectors is much better than 12? It's sad, sad to see that the people who created the game do not question themselves. Blizzard will make all the changes of the world, if we stay in 12 collectors, no player will return on the game, no caster will make a tutorial, it shows, nobody plays on the server test, because the problem of the game is in its dynamics more than in its balancing.
I agree the game would be more deep with 6 workers, it would also add back mineral stacking to the game - which allows you to mine from the closer mineral patches to get ~50 extra minerals.
In addition, it would open up some cheese play, like proxy 2 gates.
On September 09 2017 06:25 TrainingDay wrote: The most important change that Blizzard should make is to replay the game on 6 collectors. I can understand that a lot of players / pro players do not understand this idea, because after all we are there to play with the rules we were given, not to try to transgress them. But the main argument of Blizzard for the 12 collectors was that it would energize the game, and make it more alive for the viewers. Since we have lost more than 60% of our viewers, most people do not raise the game again, the pro players games are no better than before. We have not won anything with this change, and now that everybody plays on 12, the community will always be divided to go back to 6, because many players give their opinion without ever taking the time to replay on 6 collectors, until recover the sensations of play, to judge the difference between the 2. The best argument being: The game is too slow on 6 collectors. Which is wrong. Another argument is: The game is easier on 6 collectors, which is false, the game requires more mechanics but less precisions. On 6 collectors, a depot that must be placed at 21, can only be placed at 21, if you put it to 20, you'll have 2 less marines, if you put it at 23 you will be supply bock at 27. So the game is no easier in 6 collectors, it is deeper, more precise, and low cost units are more important at the beginning. I do not understand how the team that manages the balancing can not see it, the 12 collectors is a mistake, of course that going back to 6 will create a conflict with some players, but how many will come back? how many will understand over time that 6 collectors is much better than 12? It's sad, sad to see that the people who created the game do not question themselves. Blizzard will make all the changes of the world, if we stay in 12 collectors, no player will return on the game, no caster will make a tutorial, it shows, nobody plays on the server test, because the problem of the game is in its dynamics more than in its balancing.
100% agree.... I probably made thousands of posts about this topic, but you always hear the same nonsense like "too slow, boring, etc..."
On September 09 2017 10:35 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: Blizz should take this major patch as opportunity to rework/change abusive units and unit interactions.
Some things on your List are worthy to discus (btw Blizz allready changed some things like Interceptors) but overall this list is to insane,i don't think we have a basis for a proper discussion.
On September 09 2017 10:35 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: Blizz should take this major patch as opportunity to rework/change abusive units and unit interactions.
Some things on your List are worthy to discus (btw Blizz allready changed some things like Interceptors) but overall this list is to insane,i don't think we have a basis for a proper discussion.
I agree with a lot of the things on the list. I think burrowed fungal is fine, especially as they're changing fungal. Drop overlords and ravagers at tier 1 is perhaps too early, but not game breaking. The rest I agree are not fun.
On September 09 2017 10:35 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: Blizz should take this major patch as opportunity to rework/change abusive units and unit interactions.
If you have problems dealing with certain units it does not mean that they are "abusive", it simply means you may want to adjust your builds / play style to deal with them better... I don't enjoy playing vs mech - I don't ask for any nerf to it, I know it's mostly my own problem... does it feel abusive? yes, sure, I don't know how to play well against it so the opponent can abuse mech strong points against me - it does *not* mean that Blizzard should nerf it..
you != nobody
These avilo-like posts are so bad for any discussion.. a bunch of entitled whiners
On September 09 2017 16:41 hiroshOne wrote: Removing Swarmhostwould mean that Blizzard would be forced to buff other Zerg units to prevent autowin situation in Mech vs Zerg. Nice try whiner.
On September 09 2017 16:41 hiroshOne wrote: Removing Swarmhostwould mean that Blizzard would be forced to buff other Zerg units to prevent autowin situation in Mech vs Zerg. Nice try whiner.
And that would be ... bad?
And they wpuld buff what? Roaches? Ravagers? Maybe hydra once again? That would create so many balance problems in other matchups like PvZ for instance. Think about that.
On September 09 2017 10:35 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: Blizz should take this major patch as opportunity to rework/change abusive units and unit interactions.
i see, no one enjoys playing against zerg and protoss stuff xD but playing against mech is very enjoyable :D and against terran drops. all the time the same from you.
On September 09 2017 15:34 VHbb wrote: If you have problems dealing with certain units it does not mean that they are "abusive", it simply means you may want to adjust your builds / play style to deal with them better... I don't enjoy playing vs mech - I don't ask for any nerf to it, I know it's mostly my own problem... does it feel abusive? yes, sure, I don't know how to play well against it so the opponent can abuse mech strong points against me - it does *not* mean that Blizzard should nerf it..
you != nobody
These avilo-like posts are so bad for any discussion.. a bunch of entitled whiners
You are correct that having problems dealing with a unit doesn't make it abusive, and yes, sometimes you just have to get better. But there are some things that just aren't fun. Players will always gravitate towards the most successful strategies, so making sure the most successful strategies are also fun means that people will have fun while being successful.
To use your example, if mech didn't feel as abusive for you to play against, you'd be having more fun playing the game, because you wouldn't feel like you're being abused. This doesn't mean mech needs to be nerfed. It's about designing unit interactions so that units are fun to play with, and against.
On September 09 2017 17:13 hiroshOne wrote: And they wpuld buff what? Roaches? Ravagers? Maybe hydra once again? That would create so many balance problems in other matchups like PvZ for instance. Think about that.
The types of changes that people are recommending are often coming from a different perspective. For example, you can take the position that the game is pretty much fine as it is, and therefore major changes should be avoided because they will cause imbalances elsewhere. Another perspective, which is the one I hold, is that there are fundamental aspects of the game that aren't fun, and that disruptive changes should be made to fix the core issues. This would involve a re-balancing period where old playstyles are made redundant and everything changes.
Blizzard seem to be going with the more aggressive approach to sc2 design, which I am happy about. I'm looking forward to see how the game plays out next year.
Warped in via Probes. Requires Gateway. 75 mineral cost. 18 second warp in duration. 200 Shields / 200 Health / 200 Energy. Starts with 50 energy. Restores shields of a single friendly unit within 4 range. Autocast will target units and Photon Cannons. Manual cast can be used on buildings. Recharges 3 shields per 1 energy. Rate of shield recharge is 51 shields per 1 second.
Mothership
Mothership Mass recall changed to Forward Recall. Forward Recall does not have a cooldown and does not share a global cooldown with Nexus Mass Recall. Forward Recall has same effects as Mass Recall.
Infestor
Remove Entangle. Add Infested Terran.
Fungal Growth Can now hit both air and ground units. Radius remains changed from 2.0 to 2.5 (Fungal Growth radius is 2.0 on live). Slows the target’s movement speed by 75%.
So they made it even easier for cyclones to one-shot stalkers and adepts while removing Protoss' strongest defense against cyclone rushes (mothership core). Meanwhile they nerfed Terran's main defense against skytoss while simultaneously removing one of Protoss' main non-Phoenix defenses against drops (mothership core again). Oh, and there's now no strong early game defense available against mass gateways or mass phoenix in PvP. The main reason Protoss is the least popular race is because Phoenix are the most micro intensive unit in the game, and the current meta expects you to build a ton of them and babysit them all game long against Terran. They've just made it harder to play non-Phoenix in PvT, and harder to play non-Phoenix in PvP. If that wasn't bad enough, they nerfed one of Zerg's main late game transitions against skytoss (fungal). I hope you like skytoss because it looks like Protoss is going to be forced to use it in every game.
I think they should mess with building hitpoints (increase) and make some units worse against buildings. For instance zerglings, roaches, marines should not be very good against buildings. It would add a new dynamic to the game!
What about making the Shield Battery a unit which would move slowly within the power field?
The casting range of its ability being short would be lesser of a problem if they could be repositioned. Also, it could be used to block the entrance with instead of a Zealot (similarly as Supply Depot).
So thinking about it a bit, I think putting Restoration Field back on the Nexus but making it a fairly large range (and making sure it's powerful enough to make the difference it needs to) is good - probably much better than shield battery.
It is difficult to use offensively that way (unlike shield battery), and that allows you to put a larger range on it which is huge: it helps with all the things protoss can struggle with (multi-pronged drops, especially in the main, zerglings getting in, early cheeses (now that overcharge is gone), etc.)
Also making it on the nexus prevents you from building a billion shield batteries, which is what Blizz was concerned about in the post (they wanted something that defends in the early game but isn't too strong in the mid/late game).
On September 15 2017 02:21 FlyingBeer wrote: So they made it even easier for cyclones to one-shot stalkers and adepts while removing Protoss' strongest defense against cyclone rushes (mothership core). Meanwhile they nerfed Terran's main defense against skytoss while simultaneously removing one of Protoss' main non-Phoenix defenses against drops (mothership core again). Oh, and there's now no strong early game defense available against mass gateways or mass phoenix in PvP. The main reason Protoss is the least popular race is because Phoenix are the most micro intensive unit in the game, and the current meta expects you to build a ton of them and babysit them all game long against Terran. They've just made it harder to play non-Phoenix in PvT, and harder to play non-Phoenix in PvP. If that wasn't bad enough, they nerfed one of Zerg's main late game transitions against skytoss (fungal). I hope you like skytoss because it looks like Protoss is going to be forced to use it in every game.
I don't agree, Muta is most micro intensive. You don't watch them and they die to anything fast. Phoenix at least are not high on auto target list if there are other enemies around so they don't die immediately like muta do.
And they don't wander off to attack any unit in range like Muta do.
On September 09 2017 10:35 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: Blizz should take this major patch as opportunity to rework/change abusive units and unit interactions.
Without going into detailed argumentation I can agree with most things on the list. Personally I lack experience with 7 armor ultras, dropperlords, ravagers and swamrhosts.
He is talking about reworking those units/interactions not removing everything... To name an example: It would make sense if burrowed fungals required a casting time, similar to that of the ghosts nuke and snipe. Since it is an invisible units and can't be even spotted when it's not moving.
What I am saying is, these are indeed some of the most annoying things encountered by playing and surely there are ways to make these interactions more fun.
Personally, I would love if they buffed factory units versus Protoss, because I hate being unable to brainlessly spam hellion/siege tank/thor/viking only versus Zerg and Terran.
On September 21 2017 19:57 Ej_ wrote: Personally, I would love if they buffed factory units versus Protoss, because I hate being unable to brainlessly spam hellion/siege tank/thor/viking only versus Zerg and Terran.
Mech will never be viable against protoss because the race itself is a counter to it. Airtoss is too strong, warp prism can instantly outposition you as their army appear where they want, immortals can shower under mech units fire.
Airtoss became pretty much standard vs Zerg, and still no news on any zerg antiair buff to compensate the fungal nerf. Infested marines are the worst, are we to expect protoss to sit on top of timed life units? And how is a light unit expected to counter oracles and carriers?
On September 18 2017 15:00 Fatam wrote: So thinking about it a bit, I think putting Restoration Field back on the Nexus but making it a fairly large range (and making sure it's powerful enough to make the difference it needs to) is good - probably much better than shield battery.
It is difficult to use offensively that way (unlike shield battery), and that allows you to put a larger range on it which is huge: it helps with all the things protoss can struggle with (multi-pronged drops, especially in the main, zerglings getting in, early cheeses (now that overcharge is gone), etc.)
Also making it on the nexus prevents you from building a billion shield batteries, which is what Blizz was concerned about in the post (they wanted something that defends in the early game but isn't too strong in the mid/late game).
Because balancing nexus energy when it powers both the protoss defense and the protoss economy is extremely hard. The closest example would be the zerg larva mechanic. And people have complained about the absolute need to harass zerg opponents to prevent their economy from snowballing. Do we really want a second race to be that way as well?
On September 21 2017 19:57 Ej_ wrote: Personally, I would love if they buffed factory units versus Protoss, because I hate being unable to brainlessly spam hellion/siege tank/thor/viking only versus Zerg and Terran.
Am I the only one who thinks ghosts would be more useful without the default cloak but being able to EMP straight away? The cloak isn't why you get them, the EMP is (or snipe if against zerg). It's annoying to try to rush out ghosts against toss with templar, only for them to be useless for a short while
On September 22 2017 01:57 Fango wrote: Am I the only one who thinks ghosts would be more useful without the default cloak but being able to EMP straight away? The cloak isn't why you get them, the EMP is (or snipe if against zerg). It's annoying to try to rush out ghosts against toss with templar, only for them to be useless for a short while
Yes, I've argued that already since the change was proposed. I think it's definitely a nerf. Especially considering cloak without the energy upgrade is pretty useless because they start with 50 energy and once they cloak have 25.
I really like this update, definitely seems to be heading in a sane direction and eliminating a couple more obvious flaws.
A couple of things that might need to be addressed 1. Scrambler Missile range being increased to 9, so it would be the same as Feedback. Otherwise HTs will shut down Ravens pretty hard. 2. The locked observation mode for Observers/Overseers just seems like a stupid F2 crutch. Same with HT attack. 3. Fungal's increased radius might cause problems when paired with banes/ultras, since neither really cares about locked vs severely slowed. 4. Disruptor basically trash now. 5. Shield Battery rushes? Maybe have a cyber core requirement. 6. Terran basically has no significant changes. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing.
But on the whole, the 2017 version of 3.8 seems like a big net positive.
On September 22 2017 01:57 Fango wrote: Am I the only one who thinks ghosts would be more useful without the default cloak but being able to EMP straight away? The cloak isn't why you get them, the EMP is (or snipe if against zerg). It's annoying to try to rush out ghosts against toss with templar, only for them to be useless for a short while
Yes, I've argued that already since the change was proposed. I think it's definitely a nerf. Especially considering cloak without the energy upgrade is pretty useless because they start with 50 energy and once they cloak have 25.
Exactly. People think that having the auto cloak research that it's a buff. Except the cloak isn't what makes them a useful unit.
On September 22 2017 01:57 Fango wrote: Am I the only one who thinks ghosts would be more useful without the default cloak but being able to EMP straight away? The cloak isn't why you get them, the EMP is (or snipe if against zerg). It's annoying to try to rush out ghosts against toss with templar, only for them to be useless for a short while
Yes, I've argued that already since the change was proposed. I think it's definitely a nerf. Especially considering cloak without the energy upgrade is pretty useless because they start with 50 energy and once they cloak have 25.
Exactly. People think that having the auto cloak research that it's a buff. Except the cloak isn't what makes them a useful unit.
Having a native cloack means you can use ghost builds as openings, which is awesome.
Making the snipe more reliable (not loosing energy when the shot is cancelled or isn't fired), having native cloack and rebalancing the ghost's cost to 75/150 would make it a usefull late game caster, but also a fun way to open games.
Maybe it's not the good thread to ask it but, whywhy has the Hydra Bane meta arrived ( or popularized by Solar on frost if i remember well ) so late in TvZ??
On September 22 2017 04:28 pvsnp wrote: I really like this update, definitely seems to be heading in a sane direction and eliminating a couple more obvious flaws.
A couple of things that might need to be addressed 1. Scrambler Missile range being increased to 9, so it would be the same as Feedback. Otherwise HTs will shut down Ravens pretty hard. 2. The locked observation mode for Observers/Overseers just seems like a stupid F2 crutch. Same with HT attack. 3. Fungal's increased radius might cause problems when paired with banes/ultras, since neither really cares about locked vs severely slowed. 4. Disruptor basically trash now. 5. Shield Battery rushes? Maybe have a cyber core requirement. 6. Terran basically has no significant changes. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing.
But on the whole, the 2017 version of 3.8 seems like a big net positive.
I would not consider the raven being gutted with no late game compensation for meching Terran in TvZ an insignificant change.
On September 22 2017 04:28 pvsnp wrote: I really like this update, definitely seems to be heading in a sane direction and eliminating a couple more obvious flaws.
A couple of things that might need to be addressed 1. Scrambler Missile range being increased to 9, so it would be the same as Feedback. Otherwise HTs will shut down Ravens pretty hard. 2. The locked observation mode for Observers/Overseers just seems like a stupid F2 crutch. Same with HT attack. 3. Fungal's increased radius might cause problems when paired with banes/ultras, since neither really cares about locked vs severely slowed. 4. Disruptor basically trash now. 5. Shield Battery rushes? Maybe have a cyber core requirement. 6. Terran basically has no significant changes. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing.
But on the whole, the 2017 version of 3.8 seems like a big net positive.
I would not consider the raven being gutted with no late game compensation for meching Terran in TvZ an insignificant change.
The main issues with the raven change are that 1) mass raven was the only reliable late game comp for terran mech in TvZ (sadly) 2) PDD was the only thing preventing tempests from singlehandedly countering the entirety of mech styles just like in HOTS
I'm all for making the game less about OP casters, but the viper needs a nerf against mech if the raven is nerfed too. There was an uneasy balance between abducts and parabomb versus PDD and seeker missile, inducing a stupid meta where terran couldn't move out of turret cover while zerg could see his entire army blow up in seconds of inattention. However i fear that vipers will now reign free since adbucts and parabomb won't be met with equally broken spells.
Also terran mech will need answers to tempest strategies. The healing drone won't help against the burst damage of the tempest, scrambler missile won't help since it's 8 range against 15, the cyclone AA is 7 range against 10, and thors are generally terrible against tempests because tempests can stack but thors can't.
If the viper was nerfed (abduct unable to target ground massive for exemple) and the cyclone given 9-10 lock on range with the upgrad to be able to lock onto tempests without running to their deaths, things could work in the late game for terran mech. But such a massive raven late-game power nerf without compensation will make things pretty much impossible for terran mech.
They should just make the Raven like the medivac but for mech. And also add an upgrade that allows mech units to trade a portion of their hp for an increase in attack and movement speed. And make cyclones shoot air the same way they shoot ground...
Mech is in a good place right now. Mech in TvZ and TvT. I see very stable games of mech versus Zerg. TvP is very different. The marine is stronger in TvP than any other matchup, and I don't think that will ever change just because of the fundemental nature of the units.
I hate the Raven and Ghost changes. Starting with cloak is not a good trade-off for putting at 50 starting energy over 75 starting energy, especially if they want to support Ghosts as a rare but reasonable opener for Terran. Right now you could actually rush a Ghost out and EMP Oracle play if you wanted to, like old old WoL ghost-stim timings and just punish stargate Protoss. Raven also has good use as a first unit from Starport in TvT, Autoturret and PDD are very synergistic with early TvT armies, and they retain just enough use into middle and late game that if you keep them alive they are worth it.
I would rather they just remove the widow mine than make this change. I can't even fathom how they got to the idea to make this change. I might actually win more games with it removed as I'm prevented from accidentally making the unit. Yes, I avoid widow mine use even against Oracle, which is such a slopped together response of balancing the Oracle by hoping Protoss will fly over a mine anyway.
The locked observation mode for Observers and Overseers is the silliest change. Making the game easier for F2 players? HT attack? I don't even.
The only changes I'm really in support of is the Protoss Stalker change, the swarm host speed nerf that's massively overdue, and the attempt at removed the Protoss hero unit. Otherwise all of their changes seem to be in the wrong place, trying for the wrong things.
The locked observation mode for Observers and Overseers is the silliest change. Making the game easier for F2 players? HT attack? I don't even.
Its just stupid, rewarding f2 players. the locked mode/siege mode is "okay" for lower league players etc but ADDING 25% extra vision is just double the reward for playing with F2. locked mode should reduce 25% vision and it will be acceptable.
The locked observation mode for Observers and Overseers is the silliest change. Making the game easier for F2 players? HT attack? I don't even.
Its just stupid, rewarding f2 players. the locked mode/siege mode is "okay" for lower league players etc but ADDING 25% extra vision is just double the reward for playing with F2. locked mode should reduce 25% vision and it will be acceptable.
Rewarding F2 use is idiotic. High templar auto attack is a disgrace, just like observer/overseer "surveilliance mode".
At some point blizzard needs to look back and consider that some armies ARE MEANT to be hard to use. If bio/ghost/vikings was easy to use to the point where you could F2 Amove into the opponent's army, the balance of every matchup against terrran would be broken.
High Templars are still 100X better to use by micro-ing them rather than A-moving them. Their meagre auto attack isn't much of a reward. it does make the game a bit more fun for lower level people who use F2 and does not punish much higher ranked players who never use F2.
The locked observation mode for Observers and Overseers is the silliest change. Making the game easier for F2 players? HT attack? I don't even.
Its just stupid, rewarding f2 players. the locked mode/siege mode is "okay" for lower league players etc but ADDING 25% extra vision is just double the reward for playing with F2. locked mode should reduce 25% vision and it will be acceptable.
At first, I had your same line of thought, that this change was ridiculous. But then I started playing and the 25% extra vision is REALLY nice. It makes it so that you need 1 less observer for a full wall of vision on most maps - which is pretty massive considering robo build time is usually a scarcity.
Maybe have observer have 25% more vision in normal mode, and then decrease to 25% when in static mode (so as it currently is).
Making it easy to f2 makes no change at pro level and immense convenience for noobs. The onpy reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
On October 07 2017 04:15 opisska wrote: Making it easy to f2 makes no change at pro level and immense convenience for noobs. The onpy reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
Units autoqueueing in production makes no change at the pro level and an immense convenience for noobs. The only reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
You can invert your argument in a hundred ways.
Units attack-moving from a rally instead of move-commanding makes no change at the pro level an an immense convenience for noobs. The only reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
Viper Parasitic Bomb’s damage felt a bit too high to properly counter. The Parasitic Bomb damage will be reduced from 180 to 120 to open up opportunities to recover for the defending player.
zerg is FINISHED. all you have to do is turtle to mass air and you auto win.
On October 07 2017 04:15 opisska wrote: Making it easy to f2 makes no change at pro level and immense convenience for noobs. The onpy reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
Overseer and Obs changes don't affect pro level sure. But the HT change will make an impact at every level of play, even at pro level I sometimes see HTs walking to their death without doing anything. I hate this change because the HT is one of those units that is hard to use but can be extremely strong in the hands of a good player. Significantly lowering the skill-cap of this unit makes the unit much less interesting imo. The change is kinda similar to an auto-split button for marines imo. Also a unit that is hard to control but becomes significantly stronger in the hands of a good player.
On October 07 2017 04:15 opisska wrote: Making it easy to f2 makes no change at pro level and immense convenience for noobs. The onpy reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
Overseer and Obs changes don't affect pro level sure. But the HT change will make an impact at every level of play, even at pro level I sometimes see HTs walking to their death without doing anything. I hate this change because the HT is one of those units that is hard to use but can be extremely strong in the hands of a good player. Significantly lowering the skill-cap of this unit makes the unit much less interesting imo. The change is kinda similar to an auto-split button for marines imo. Also a unit that is hard to control but becomes significantly stronger in the hands of a good player.
I've seen F2 observers at pro level. F2 overseers probably happen too.
Hotkeying units also affects every player, why do people think that making army management easier makes the game easier? Starcraft is supposed to be hard. I want to beat my opponents with macro, micro and mutltasking. Not in a maxing out contest that ends with F2+A
Making it easy to f2 makes no change at pro level and immense convenience for noobs. The onpy reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
Units autoqueueing in production makes no change at the pro level and an immense convenience for noobs. The only reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
Units attack-moving from a rally instead of move-commanding makes no change at the pro level an an immense convenience for noobs. The only reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
All those should be in the game. It would make the game better overall and more fun. The only skill required to play the game should be the one that can not be automated away.
Making it easy to f2 makes no change at pro level and immense convenience for noobs. The onpy reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
Units autoqueueing in production makes no change at the pro level and an immense convenience for noobs. The only reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
Units attack-moving from a rally instead of move-commanding makes no change at the pro level an an immense convenience for noobs. The only reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
All those should be in the game. It would make the game better overall and more fun. The only skill required to play the game should be the one that can not be automated away.
But overall StarCraft consists of all those small tasks and things you have to memorize, if you can't enjoy that and don't want to improve, maybe you should play something else. There's even a plethora of other game modes available, like campaign or co-op, all catering towards the more casual audience.
I love to find out little things and use them to gain a small edge over my opponent, additionally having some uncertain factors also can lead to an exciting playing experience. If you don't remember, there was a time when you didn't see your worker count on your main building but had to box/count them to see if there's 16 of them at each expansion. Or scan having no borders, so sometimes you did not know 100% if he scouted your crucial tech building you were trying to hide or not. All that kind of stuff enables players to differentiate themselves from others, if you remove it, you're not only rewarding inexperienced players but also making the game boring.
Day9 brilliantly explained the concept of StarCraft in one of his new show's early episodes:
It's a game of constant crisis management, as soon as you're in the game there's going stuff wrong all the time for everyone.
HT auto attack and stationary Observers/Overseers with increased vision radius are changes noone asked for, I don't like pampering new/bad players, as I said, there are enough more casual game modes available, if people are willing to improve at the game, they can certainly improve their unit control, as well.
On October 07 2017 04:15 opisska wrote: Making it easy to f2 makes no change at pro level and immense convenience for noobs. The onpy reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
Overseer and Obs changes don't affect pro level sure. But the HT change will make an impact at every level of play, even at pro level I sometimes see HTs walking to their death without doing anything. I hate this change because the HT is one of those units that is hard to use but can be extremely strong in the hands of a good player. Significantly lowering the skill-cap of this unit makes the unit much less interesting imo. The change is kinda similar to an auto-split button for marines imo. Also a unit that is hard to control but becomes significantly stronger in the hands of a good player.
I've seen F2 observers at pro level. F2 overseers probably happen too.
Hotkeying units also affects every player, why do people think that making army management easier makes the game easier? Starcraft is supposed to be hard. I want to beat my opponents with macro, micro and mutltasking. Not in a maxing out contest that ends with F2+A
Sure, There are situations where Obs and ovi changes will have an impact at pro level. But no pro player uses F2 as the main way to move their army anyway so the impact will be very negligible if at all. Except for Bly I guess.
I dislike the +25% vision range for static mode. The sight increase is a design thing, but it changes the actual gameplay in a way I think is bad. The detectors not only stay in place, it also reduce the number of detectors needed. Fewer detectors dying from moving when not wanted along with fewer detectors produced makes it so that apm and gas can be saved for something else.
Err..... that 25% vision increase is huge if you asked me.We already saw many clutch moments where just a tiny vision would spot out enemies's movement..
On October 07 2017 06:53 Zulu23 wrote: What I would wish to see is the barracks requirement for the factory beeing removed from the tech tree. Thus enabling Terran factory first openings
what a great idea, remove the same for robo and stargate and hydraden.
Making it easy to f2 makes no change at pro level and immense convenience for noobs. The onpy reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
Units autoqueueing in production makes no change at the pro level and an immense convenience for noobs. The only reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
Units attack-moving from a rally instead of move-commanding makes no change at the pro level an an immense convenience for noobs. The only reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
All those should be in the game. It would make the game better overall and more fun. The only skill required to play the game should be the one that can not be automated away.
But overall StarCraft consists of all those small tasks and things you have to memorize, if you can't enjoy that and don't want to improve, maybe you should play something else. There's even a plethora of other game modes available, like campaign or co-op, all catering towards the more casual audience.
You get me wrong, I haven't played a single game in years. And just WOL, anway. I'm not talking about "fun for me to play", I'm talking about "fun to watch".
On October 07 2017 17:34 Creager wrote:Day9 brilliantly explained the concept of StarCraft in one of his new show's early episodes:
It's a game of constant crisis management, as soon as you're in the game there's going stuff wrong all the time for everyone
But try to explain that to the viewer. If I watch a game of starcraft, I constantly ask myself "why the hell didn't he kill that mine?" "that baneling just rolled past a group of marines, why didn't it explode?" and so on. To the viewer, the players look like totally incompetent. Like slalom skiers straddling each single gate...
On October 07 2017 06:53 Zulu23 wrote: What I would wish to see is the barracks requirement for the factory beeing removed from the tech tree. Thus enabling Terran factory first openings
what a great idea, remove the same for robo and stargate and hydraden.
I think you should be able to build ultra den before pool.
Making it easy to f2 makes no change at pro level and immense convenience for noobs. The onpy reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
Units autoqueueing in production makes no change at the pro level and an immense convenience for noobs. The only reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
Units attack-moving from a rally instead of move-commanding makes no change at the pro level an an immense convenience for noobs. The only reason anyone is complaining about it is that they derive their ego from beating bad players at videogames. Please take a moment to reconsider if that is a good motivation.
All those should be in the game. It would make the game better overall and more fun. The only skill required to play the game should be the one that can not be automated away.
But overall StarCraft consists of all those small tasks and things you have to memorize, if you can't enjoy that and don't want to improve, maybe you should play something else. There's even a plethora of other game modes available, like campaign or co-op, all catering towards the more casual audience.
You get me wrong, I haven't played a single game in years. And just WOL, anway. I'm not talking about "fun for me to play", I'm talking about "fun to watch".
On October 07 2017 17:34 Creager wrote:Day9 brilliantly explained the concept of StarCraft in one of his new show's early episodes:
It's a game of constant crisis management, as soon as you're in the game there's going stuff wrong all the time for everyone
But try to explain that to the viewer. If I watch a game of starcraft, I constantly ask myself "why the hell didn't he kill that mine?" "that baneling just rolled past a group of marines, why didn't it explode?" and so on. To the viewer, the players look like totally incompetent. Like slalom skiers straddling each single gate...
Well, what SC2 got totally wrong in the first place is exactly this. It's designed to be an esport which sort of makes the viewing experience relevant, but that's a pretty stupid approach, if you ask me. First and foremost the game should satisfy its players, because if noone plays the game, noone can watch, either.
Also by playing the game you naturally improve on understanding and therefore appreciating good plays, which aren't always obvious like shiny blink micro or marine splits.
What comes to high templars, maybe people should think why Blizzard is doing this.
According to this, average protoss player is roughly around mid-high gold, average terran player is roughly between gold and plat, and average zerg player is firmly in platinum. This despite the fact that protoss is by far the least played race, so it would be expected that protoss players would benefit from playing more against t and z then t and z players play against protoss.
Considering almost every protoss fighting unit now has some sort of active ability that has very big effect on their strenght, I think the ht change may very well be Blizzard's attempt to make protoss more accessible to casual players. In my opinion it's a wrong way to approach this, and instead protoss would need a staple damage unit like marine or hydra that would be otherwise toned down so it wouldn't break balance in other areas.
On October 07 2017 21:42 Creager wrote:Well, what SC2 got totally wrong in the first place is exactly this. It's designed to be an esport which sort of makes the viewing experience relevant, but that's a pretty stupid approach, if you ask me. First and foremost the game should satisfy its players, because if noone plays the game, noone can watch, either.
Also by playing the game you naturally improve on understanding and therefore appreciating good plays, which aren't always obvious like shiny blink micro or marine splits.
I think starcraft caters the (korean pro-) players above all else. If they were serious about being an esport and growing a viewerbase instead of continuously shrinking it, they'd make the game fun to watch for people who have no idea how to play it. And that can only happen by removing the invisible-but-game-deciding stuff. "Tanks unsieged -> Lings destroy everything", "Attack with Marines into Colossi, Marines get fried" - that's the level the viewer understands.
For the players it would be at least as demanding as it is now... missed one colossus when scouting, built 3 Marines and 1 Marauder instead of 2 Marines and 2 Marauders, game lost. Same amount of action going on, same stress level for the player, but only things directly and immediately visible to the viewer matter for the outcome of the game.
On October 07 2017 21:42 Creager wrote:Well, what SC2 got totally wrong in the first place is exactly this. It's designed to be an esport which sort of makes the viewing experience relevant, but that's a pretty stupid approach, if you ask me. First and foremost the game should satisfy its players, because if noone plays the game, noone can watch, either.
Also by playing the game you naturally improve on understanding and therefore appreciating good plays, which aren't always obvious like shiny blink micro or marine splits.
If they were serious about being an esport and growing a viewerbase instead of continuously shrinking it, they'd make the game fun to watch for people who have no idea how to play it.
No! Just no, this is completely wrong. In LoL and Dota it's much harder to understand what's going on for a noob and their esports scenes are doing quite well. The important thing is how fun the game is to play. The idea that the focus should be on making the game fun to watch for creating an esports game is garbage bullshit.
SC2 at it's peak had a much viewer viewer per player ratio than LoL or Dota ever had, so it was a problem of simply not having enough players. To enjoy a game you need to at leat have played it some. I think there is a balance yet to be achieved. Sc2 is much more fun to watch than lol or dota, much more clear and exciting, however its stressful to play.
If a game was designed from the ground up to be fun to watch, like sc2 was, but that it wasn't as stressful as it was, that would be the top esport. I don't think lol/dota/overwatch have achieved that yet.
Honestly, did SC2 ever eclipse SC:BW in either game design or popularity? Peak viewership of SC2 during Blizzcon in its first year or two was what, 100k? I remember the packed BW stadiums in SK, I don't think SC2 ever reached those heights. The game design was questionable from the beginning.
On October 08 2017 05:43 Descent wrote: Honestly, did SC2 ever eclipse SC:BW in either game design or popularity? Peak viewership of SC2 during Blizzcon in its first year or two was what, 100k? I remember the packed BW stadiums in SK, I don't think SC2 ever reached those heights. The game design was questionable from the beginning.
Yeah, but SC:BW was limited to SK, SC2 far eclipsed SC:BW not necessarily in total viewership, but in terms of global reach. It was more popular from what I'm aware in pretty much every country except SK.
On October 08 2017 05:43 Descent wrote: Honestly, did SC2 ever eclipse SC:BW in either game design or popularity? Peak viewership of SC2 during Blizzcon in its first year or two was what, 100k? I remember the packed BW stadiums in SK, I don't think SC2 ever reached those heights. The game design was questionable from the beginning.
BW is a game favors mechanic over strats and SC2 is a game favors starts over mechanic.I'm not supprised if foreigners still favor sc2 more than SC:R despite the hype. But still...fucking bio tho...no foreigners could play bios like koreans...
Most of you guys that are slanted towards SC2 probably weren't around during BW's era based on join dates, in which case it's natural to be biased towards what you know better. Not trying to start a flame war, just make an observation. As to SC2's international reach, it's pretty piddling to be honest when no foreigner in all of these years has really competed evenly with the Koreans except for Neeb recently--look at GSL vs. the World results, for example. The only reason it has more foreign competitive success than BW is because of basically affirmative action by creating separate WCS regionals, and the awesome HSC by Take (major props to him).
To keep on-topic though, just look at pure game design from a RTS perspective. The fact that there are still major balance changes (e.g. MSC in, MSC out) shows that Blizzard feels the meta is still not right after all these years. BW did not have this problem. It's good that they're still putting resources into the game to make it better, it's not good that they didn't get it right earlier and have to make these changes.
On October 09 2017 02:27 Descent wrote: Most of you guys that are slanted towards SC2 probably weren't around during BW's era based on join dates, in which case it's natural to be biased towards what you know better. Not trying to start a flame war, just make an observation. As to SC2's international reach, it's pretty piddling to be honest when no foreigner in all of these years has really competed evenly with the Koreans except for Neeb recently--look at GSL vs. the World results, for example. The only reason it has more foreign competitive success than BW is because of basically affirmative action by creating separate WCS regionals, and the awesome HSC by Take (major props to him).
To keep on-topic though, just look at pure game design from a RTS perspective. The fact that there are still major balance changes (e.g. MSC in, MSC out) shows that Blizzard feels the meta is still not right after all these years. BW did not have this problem. It's good that they're still putting resources into the game to make it better, it's not good that they didn't get it right earlier and have to make these changes.
BW didn't have this problem because Blizzard decided to not patch it any further. For SC2 they have another approach.
On October 09 2017 02:27 Descent wrote:To keep on-topic though, just look at pure game design from a RTS perspective. The fact that there are still major balance changes (e.g. MSC in, MSC out) shows that Blizzard feels the meta is still not right after all these years. BW did not have this problem. It's good that they're still putting resources into the game to make it better, it's not good that they didn't get it right earlier and have to make these changes.
I'm not part of the BW community by any means. But from what I can see, people still whine about balance and ask for changes. Blizzard just doesn't do it as to not anger the fanbase
BW was incredibly balanced, which was fortunate because it then did not need balance/meta patches and also because patches were not so easily deployed compared to today. It had player-driven meta changes, from BoxeR's micro Terran to iloveoov's macro Terran through to sAviOr's dominance as Zerg followed by Bisu's Revolution and ending with the fantastic rivalry between Flash and JaeDong.
SC2 has Blizzard-driven meta, where constant patching changes which strategies work and which don't based on their perception of how the previous meta worked. David Kim's balancing used to be a joke for good reason. Tournament results shift depending on the latest balance patch implemented--I would argue there would be a reasonably strong correlation between current dominant player/race and patch history, if anyone does the analysis. In SC2, who are the bonjwas? It's difficult to be a bonjwa when, regardless of how good you are, Blizzard decides your strat is OP and it's better to patch the meta than let another player figure out the counter.
On October 09 2017 05:27 Descent wrote: BW was incredibly balanced, which was fortunate because it then did not need balance/meta patches and also because patches were not so easily deployed compared to today. It had player-driven meta changes, from BoxeR's micro Terran to iloveoov's macro Terran through to sAviOr's dominance as Zerg followed by Bisu's Revolution and ending with the fantastic rivalry between Flash and JaeDong.
SC2 has Blizzard-driven meta, where constant patching changes which strategies work and which don't based on their perception of how the previous meta worked. David Kim's balancing used to be a joke for good reason. Tournament results shift depending on the latest balance patch implemented--I would argue there would be a reasonably strong correlation between current dominant player/race and patch history, if anyone does the analysis. In SC2, who are the bonjwas? It's difficult to be a bonjwa when, regardless of how good you are, Blizzard decides your strat is OP and it's better to patch the meta than let another player figure out the counter.
Couldn't agree more. I like SC2 much more than BW but I wish they'd stop patching the game. Letting players figure things out is a much better approach than constantly patching the game.
On October 09 2017 02:27 Descent wrote: To keep on-topic though, just look at pure game design from a RTS perspective. The fact that there are still major balance changes (e.g. MSC in, MSC out) shows that Blizzard feels the meta is still not right after all these years. BW did not have this problem. It's good that they're still putting resources into the game to make it better, it's not good that they didn't get it right earlier and have to make these changes.
The fact that they are still tweaking the economy system, including the macro mechanics, which is the backbone of every RTS 7 years after the game has been released, is pretty telling. The unit design dont give them the games they want, so they still tweak at sc2s core, hoping it will solve the problems. On top of that map designers cant make maps that make it on ladder, where they try stuff like "mineral onlys" or less/more mineral patches which makes looking for community solutions impossible.
Blizzard creates these artificial metas and everytime something comes up that they dont like, they patch it out. There are only 2 explainations for constant balance/design patching. 1) Either the game is imbalanced or the game is badly designed.
2) for many people it was their first RTS and to be fair, despite its flaws, sc2 is a good game, so they may not understand criticism from high horse BW snobs, coming in and ranting about mbs and unlimited unit selection and how they feel its a degenerate game. Generally speaking people who have played BW or alot of other classic RTS games generally want to push sc2 into that certain direction, because its the "right" one.
On top of that the game had so many different iterations and everyone has a different opinion about what they liked and what they didnt like. Tankivacs for example was a case where the community was very split.
What i am trying to say is, the second explaination why Blizzard is constantly patching because they have cornered themselves where old school players will never be happy and "relatively new" players will never be happy and both sides call for constant patching/fixing of the game for different motives.
Or they just make constant changes because they think shaking things up is cool and keeps things fresh. (unfortunately a significant part of the community agrees with this)
When BW was designed, it was never intended to be a vehicle for e-sports. That said, the design revolved around what made the game fun, rather than "fun to watch". The players with their brilliancy made the game fun to watch.
Think of all the things that got patched in and out of SC2 over the years, a lot of those are done because Blizzard wanted to generate hype when certain strategies are used, only to get patched out because "fun to watch" isn't the same as "fun to play".
Blizzard needs to decide whether they should entertain viewers with their designs or give players the tools to entertain viewers.
On October 09 2017 05:27 Descent wrote: BW was incredibly balanced, which was fortunate because it then did not need balance/meta patches and also because patches were not so easily deployed compared to today. It had player-driven meta changes, from BoxeR's micro Terran to iloveoov's macro Terran through to sAviOr's dominance as Zerg followed by Bisu's Revolution and ending with the fantastic rivalry between Flash and JaeDong.
SC2 has Blizzard-driven meta, where constant patching changes which strategies work and which don't based on their perception of how the previous meta worked. David Kim's balancing used to be a joke for good reason. Tournament results shift depending on the latest balance patch implemented--I would argue there would be a reasonably strong correlation between current dominant player/race and patch history, if anyone does the analysis. In SC2, who are the bonjwas? It's difficult to be a bonjwa when, regardless of how good you are, Blizzard decides your strat is OP and it's better to patch the meta than let another player figure out the counter.
unfortunately this game just isn't as balanced as broodwar and therefore the patching is sometimes necessary, although im sure there are patches that any given player is salty about (cough queen range, cough) some changes, like the fix to brood lord infestor I'm sure most players can agree were healthy for the game in the long run.
On October 09 2017 02:27 Descent wrote: To keep on-topic though, just look at pure game design from a RTS perspective. The fact that there are still major balance changes (e.g. MSC in, MSC out) shows that Blizzard feels the meta is still not right after all these years. BW did not have this problem. It's good that they're still putting resources into the game to make it better, it's not good that they didn't get it right earlier and have to make these changes.
The fact that they are still tweaking the economy system, including the macro mechanics, which is the backbone of every RTS 7 years after the game has been released, is pretty telling. The unit design dont give them the games they want, so they still tweak at sc2s core, hoping it will solve the problems. On top of that map designers cant make maps that make it on ladder, where they try stuff like "mineral onlys" or less/more mineral patches which makes looking for community solutions impossible.
Blizzard creates these artificial metas and everytime something comes up that they dont like, they patch it out. There are only 2 explainations for constant balance/design patching. 1) Either the game is imbalanced or the game is badly designed.
2) for many people it was their first RTS and to be fair, despite its flaws, sc2 is a good game, so they may not understand criticism from high horse BW snobs, coming in and ranting about mbs and unlimited unit selection and how they feel its a degenerate game. Generally speaking people who have played BW or alot of other classic RTS games generally want to push sc2 into that certain direction, because its the "right" one.
On top of that the game had so many different iterations and everyone has a different opinion about what they liked and what they didnt like. Tankivacs for example was a case where the community was very split.
What i am trying to say is, the second explaination why Blizzard is constantly patching because they have cornered themselves where old school players will never be happy and "relatively new" players will never be happy and both sides call for constant patching/fixing of the game for different motives.
They didn't patch much in WoL (in terms of impact) when things were going very well. They've been patching a lot in LotV because the game is struggling and they're trying to find a solution.
And anyway, of all the reasons of why SC2 hasn't lived up, frequent patching is may be the least plausible.
Yes, I'm sure you, TL posters, know the market better than Blizzard, and know what actions are beneficial and which ones pull SC2 down, I'm really sure.
AndAgain, I agree, the fact that Blizzard keeps changing SC2's meta with the frequent balance patches is a bit of a problem, but it's actually more of a symptom than a core problem.
DieuCure, it's not really ridiculous. We have a saying, "the customer is always right." While that may not always be true, is it wrong for a game reviewer to critique a game and give it a lower score that does not match the developer's advertising? No, of course not. There is no need to put Blizzard on a pedestal, we are just talking about game mechanics, as we have every right to do as gamers, fans, and customers.
On October 09 2017 13:34 DieuCure wrote: It becomes ridiculous ...
Yes, I'm sure you, TL posters, know the market better than Blizzard, and know what actions are beneficial and which ones pull SC2 down, I'm really sure.
Well, some may be experts, others aren't, but at the end of the day there are quite a few people around who've been playing video games for 1-2 decades now, with a certain taste for RTS.
Additionally, I don't think being a huge company means being immune to mistakes, as you can see with that recent re-branding attempt of battle.net.
On October 09 2017 02:27 Descent wrote: Most of you guys that are slanted towards SC2 probably weren't around during BW's era based on join dates, in which case it's natural to be biased towards what you know better. Not trying to start a flame war, just make an observation. As to SC2's international reach, it's pretty piddling to be honest when no foreigner in all of these years has really competed evenly with the Koreans except for Neeb recently--look at GSL vs. the World results, for example. The only reason it has more foreign competitive success than BW is because of basically affirmative action by creating separate WCS regionals, and the awesome HSC by Take (major props to him).
To keep on-topic though, just look at pure game design from a RTS perspective. The fact that there are still major balance changes (e.g. MSC in, MSC out) shows that Blizzard feels the meta is still not right after all these years. BW did not have this problem. It's good that they're still putting resources into the game to make it better, it's not good that they didn't get it right earlier and have to make these changes.
BW didn't get balance patches because blizzard didn't care, that's it. Not because "they got it right". This myth that bw is perfectly balanced is a complete lie, in reality the balance in bw is way worse than the balance in sc2. People simply had to deal with it and find ways to make the matchups playable, we still have T>Z>P>T going on.
Should a game be patched often or not? There is no right answer to this tbh, yes people can figure out things on their own. But sometimes somethign is simply oppressive for the game and a slight nerf makes the game better because it opens up possibilities. In general people enjoy variety, if every game looks the same then it will get boring for most players and viewers. Patching the game to shake things up is a good way to engage this problem. People who are more competitive don't want any changes ever, they simply wanna perfect their gameplay. You cannot please everybody
I disagree with this notion that BW was not balanced at all or that Blizzard didn't care. Rob Pardo was the key factor in making Brood War multiplayer when it came to balance. Because there wasn't a way to look at spreadsheets or understand the different unit vs. unit outcomes Rob basically developed a "feel" for balance.
I'm not just spouting this out of my ass either. He talked about this process in great length in an interview that he did. I'll try to find it and post the source.
It's also important to consider he was one of the core people that pushed for MBS and unlimited unit selection in SC2. I believe he said, "I didn't understand why it was such a big deal" when talking about why some people at Blizzard didn't want such things.
In hindsight I wonder if he would consider those design changes a mistake given that MBS and unlimited unit selection kind of took away some of the uniqueness between the races. For example, most races can be hot keyed in identical fashion.
The main complaint that I have about SC2 (and other blizzard games) is that Blizzard doesn't rely on having a "feel" for balance anymore. They use spreadsheets, community feedback and win percentage mostly. The races no longer feel that unique, and I'd argue Protoss suffers the most from this. Blizzard no longer develops races (or classes in WoW for example) on the basis of making each have huge strengths and weakness. Granted, strengths and weakness exist to a certain extent, but still they are no where near as glaring as previously designed games. The principles they use now seem to be based around every race/class being capable of the same things. Essentially they aim for equality which I think is a mistake.
Just my two cents.
Edit: Here is the source for the Rob Pardo interview. I recommend listening to all of them.
On October 07 2017 06:53 Zulu23 wrote: What I would wish to see is the barracks requirement for the factory beeing removed from the tech tree. Thus enabling Terran factory first openings
what a great idea, remove the same for robo and stargate and hydraden.
Hell Yeah, why not. I mean not necessarily the Stargate, but the Cybercore and the Robo, and not the Hydra Den but the Lair and the Roach Warren.
EPT
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