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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51458 Posts
Thanks everyone for trying out the changes and providing valuable feedback. We appreciate your thoughts and input!
Protoss
We like the early game strength of Restoration Field, but think that it might be too strong in the middle and late game. We want to identify an ability that is strong in the early game but becomes less effective as the game progressed. Additionally, there were some gameplay concerns regarding Restoration Field. The range on Restoration Field required Pylons to be placed at a certain distance from the Nexus. This felt a bit restrictive and we think it limited the choices or options for defensive positioning. We want to put Restoration Field on the shelf for now, and introduce the Shield Battery structure. Shield Batteries can be built by Probes and will regenerate shields of nearby friendly units. This should allow Protoss players more options for defensive gameplay. You can find more details about this structure on our blog post linked below. Lastly, the Mothership’s Mass Recall was changed to Forward Recall. Forward Recall will not have a cooldown and can be used in combination with the Nexus Mass Recall. The Mothership is a powerful, expensive late game unit and this change should open up more opportunities for the unit.
Zerg
There are some concerns with the Entangle ability. We like the gameplay of using Entangle to allow ground forces to engage enemy air units, but Entangle may be a bit too strong versus massive air units. Even with possible cost or duration changes, we are worried that a targeted stun in this manner doesn’t provide the kind of counterplay that we are looking for. Changing Entangle to be unable to target massive air units is an option, but that may make the anti-air option not viable enough for Zerg players. For the next test, we’d like to try removing Entangle and replacing it with the previously tested Infested Terran spell. The Infested Terrans will continue to spawn faster on creep and they will have their new anti-air weapon Acid Spores. Additionally, Fungal will now affect both ground and air targets and will slow the target’s movement speed by 75% instead of immobilizing them. In order to simplify this version of Fungal Growth, the previous interaction of creep causing immobility is being removed from the spell, but its radius will still be slightly increased compared to the live version. The reduced movement speed at 75% should provide the defending players more opportunities for counter play.
Please visit our blog (Click Here) to see the newly-updated list of changes we are running on the testing matchmaker, and feel free to provide any feedback or suggestions on these changes. Thank you!
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Pretty sure Fungal growth slow isn't gonna feel as good as you think it is. A 75% slow effect feels roughly as bad as being unmoveable and instead you just have more units being heavily slowed (due to radius buff).
It's the type of change that sounds good on paper but when you actually test it (as I have) you realize this isn't a good fix.
A better fix would be to make Fungal Growth set a maximum movement speed of enemy units at 2*1.38. In that case unit movemnet still feel okay'ish, but they can no longer kite zerg units too efficiently. And the ability won't be useful against units that already are slow.
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I like it when they say that necessity of placing pylons close to nexus feels restrictive, but completely ignored that fact when they "introduced" new warp-in and PO system in lotv. These guys definetely know what they are talking about and their argumentation is always on point.
p.s. OP, pls add this as well:
Shield Battery
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%.
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Is there any way to play the test map as custom...? I can't find games lol
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On September 14 2017 17:54 Wolf wrote:
Is there any way to play the test map as custom...? I can't find games lol
Yeah, select a map and "Create with Mod", then find the Balance Test mod in the menu.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51458 Posts
Think they just focusing on those two first it seems haha!
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Russian Federation1612 Posts
Glad that Entangle is gone...
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On September 14 2017 18:38 Jenia6109 wrote:
Glad that Entangle is gone...
It was an attempt to introduce Warcraft 3 type abilities to a game so fundamentally different from Warcraft 3. Damn right it's good to have it gone.
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On September 14 2017 18:01 DieuCure wrote:
So, terran is perfect ?
Focusing on 1-2 things is much easiler to refine than make many change.That only creats more chaos.
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Thank god that pylon field is gone. I quit after 1 game, while I played more of the nexus iteration before that than ladder this season. This is such a rollercoaster ride, you really get the impression a monkey on a typewriter comes up with these changes.
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I dont really think the shield battery is that useful in holding multi prong aggression early game because of its low area coverage. That being said, I've found that a combination of stalker + photon cannon deals with a lot of early game aggression.
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i'm glad to see Blizzard is willing to experiment with the Shield Battery. There are so many ways to adjust the strength and durability of the Shield Battery i'm confident they can tweak its stats to make it a balanced part of the game.
On September 14 2017 18:45 Vindicare605 wrote:It was an attempt to introduce Warcraft 3 type abilities to a game so fundamentally different from Warcraft 3. Damn right it's good to have it gone.
yep, entangle didn't work.
it is also good to give Blizzard the creative freedom to experiment and fail on certain initiatives. you can't make an ambitious game with amazing stuff and have zero failures along the way. the only way to never fail is to take zero risks.. and that's boring.
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forward recall is the arbiter recall? as in, i recall units towards the mothership?
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Could always make the Infested Terran Acid Spores do more damage against units that have Fungal Growth on them too to add a little flavor.
(Not trying to get crazy, just creative.)
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This shield battery gimmick won't ever work, for the same reason lurkers are useless in ZvT: Terran can ferry their entire army over all terrain, playing a positional/static defense based game is suicide.
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Maybe move overcharge to nexus again?
Also i'd like to know if the new infested terrans counter mass carriers or we'll still have that point where nothing does.
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I was hoping to see them change the Shield Regen ability on the Nexus to something you cast onto a unit to buff their shields/regen for a short time at a small energy cost, or anything reactive. I don't like the idea of more static, automatic defense stuff or more small structures to place all around. It feels a bit too much of something that I don't feel the game needs, and not enough of anything I feel would be fun, interactive, and feel positive for either player.
Static automatic things aren't fun for a lot of players to use or to play against, and it's why I always imagined Shield Batteries didn't make it into SC2 from the beginning or in LotV. Very curious how Protoss players feel about it on offense (running into it while attacking) and defense, and how T and Z feel about it compared to running into Mamacores and whatnot.
Something I also wanted to see that was a more... interesting... idea: keep Infested Terran the same but add an upgrade somewhere that makes them more grotesque and fearsome (think Infested Tychus's, or them exploding into mini-ground-Fungals when they die, so on). Just changing them the way they are feels strange and unimpressive to me, but I suppose that could change a lot if I force myself to start using the new ones?
I do like that they aren't swinging their changes all over the place for this one. It isn't a very tiny update, but it looks focused on a couple of very specific parts of the game, I really like these kinds of updates.
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As a Zerg player- Everything is better than shooting pylons. And somehow shield battery suits Protoss better than some gimicky solutioms they tried. Think about it as Medivack healing Marines, or Queens transfusing. Protoss had nothing of that sort till now. I'm not a Protoss fan obiously, but i think shield battery will allow agressive play vs Protoss again, and will demand from that race decision making- leave something at my base to defend? Or put more force into attack, and so on. As i said- still better solution than free defence from supply buildings...
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On September 14 2017 16:44 Hider wrote:
Pretty sure Fungal growth slow isn't gonna feel as good as you think it is. A 75% slow effect feels roughly as bad as being unmoveable and instead you just have more units being heavily slowed (due to radius buff).
It's the type of change that sounds good on paper but when you actually test it (as I have) you realize this isn't a good fix.
A better fix would be to make Fungal Growth set a maximum movement speed of enemy units at 2*1.38. In that case unit movemnet still feel okay'ish, but they can no longer kite zerg units too efficiently. And the ability won't be useful against units that already are slow.
While i basically agree with what you said i still think the biggest mistake in sc2 is how spellcasters and their usage are handled on a fundamental level. We had so many spells nerfed because people started massing spellcasters and the usage is extremely easy to pull off. One can say that the spells itself weren't well designed (like instantly hitting fungal), but at the same time i also think that spells should be really strong because it's fun to use when it's strong.
The problem arises when everybody can just build 10 spellcasters and spam the spell whenever he likes. That has to change one way or another, not the fact that certain spells might be a bit strong on their own. That's actually something which is good i think. I would much rather have that instead of goign the ravager route where the spell itself is incredibl bad but you build lots of ravagers and the cd is really low. That interaction is imo actually one of the worst interactions in the game from a fun perspective.
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One can say that the spells itself weren't well designed (like instantly hitting fungal), but at the same time i also think that spells should be really strong because it's fun to use when it's strong.
I don't think think we should think of abilities to be strong/weak per se. Rather they should feel rewarding to land a good ability, and it should have a proper counterplay.
I would much rather have that instead of goign the ravager route where the spell itself is incredibl bad but you build lots of ravagers and the cd is really low. That interaction is imo actually one of the worst interactions in the game from a fun perspective.
It reminds me of when TLO made his mod and reduced the damage of ravager skillshot - That change shows he had no idea what he was doing from a game-design perspective because the Ravager skillshot should - if anything - do more damage with increased CD.
I do agree that casting abilties shouldn't be the main micro you do. I think movement of units should be the main micro you make in every fight, and casting abilities should reward more movement (from the opponent). Most abilities should therefore be skillshots and I also like when you have indicators of where an ability will land.
Another change blizzard easily could make to make ability-spamming less with spellcasters is to set a lower maxmimum energy of each spellcaster while increasing its energy regeneration. This means an infestor can only cast 1 fungal per battle but will regenerate faster. When it comes to spamming infestors, you could increase its relative supply value (in relation to other units), hence make having 10 infestors a lot less attractive.
You could also make Fungal last over 5-7 seconds making spamming it less valueable (with first 4 seconds being root and the last 3 seconds being damage only)
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Shield battery hype I guess? Overall I like the changes. Not sure about balance but certainly it is adding more fun to the game in my opinion.
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On September 15 2017 00:05 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +One can say that the spells itself weren't well designed (like instantly hitting fungal), but at the same time i also think that spells should be really strong because it's fun to use when it's strong. I don't think think we should think of abilities to be strong/weak per se. Rather they should feel rewarding to land a good ability, and it should have a proper counterplay. Show nested quote +I would much rather have that instead of goign the ravager route where the spell itself is incredibl bad but you build lots of ravagers and the cd is really low. That interaction is imo actually one of the worst interactions in the game from a fun perspective. It reminds me of when TLO made his mod and reduced the damage of ravager skillshot - That change shows he had no idea what he was doing from a game-design perspective because the Ravager skillshot should - if anything - do more damage with increased CD. I do agree that casting abilties shouldn't be the main micro you do. I think movement of units should be the main micro you make in every fight, and casting abilities should reward more movement (from the opponent). Most abilities should therefore be skillshots and I also like when you have indicators of where an ability will land. Another change blizzard easily could make to make ability-spamming less with spellcasters is to set a lower maxmimum energy of each spellcaster while increasing its energy regeneration. This means an infestor can only cast 1 fungal per battle but will regenerate faster. When it comes to spamming infestors, you could increase its relative supply value (in relation to other units), hence making having 10 infestors a lot less attractive. You could also make Fungal last over 5-7 seconds making spamming it less valueable (with only seconds being root and the last 3 seconds being damage only)
Oh sure i just mentioned strength because usually something perceived as strong might feel more rewarding to use 
So if we nerf a spell so much that it's only really good when you have multiple casters which can spam it, i think there might be a problem with it.
About skillshots: While i see where you are coming from i am not 100% sure if i agree with that in the context of a macro oriented rts game tbh. This works fine in mobas where all your attention is on that one hero, in starcraft it's not as easily to assume that it gives the interactions which are most fun. Like i will be honest, fungal being a skillshot now didn't do much in that regard i think. Though i agree that there should be counterplay if possible.
I like your suggestions on how to tackle the spamming, at least on the first glance it looks like a decent solution to the problem. Though i am not sure if lower max energy would already be enough tbh. Like even if you only can cast one ability per battle per caster, if you get enough to cast X amount of time then it's no problem. You wanna change the supply to make it less attractive that way and that surely would help but it largely depends on the interactions and how valuable say 8 fungals per battle would be.
Personally i think a more fundamental mechanical solution would be better (so changing how smartcasting works). How exactly? I don't know. Especially because people really like how smartcasting operates now (at least they say so, i think people didn't really think about it / experience alternatives)
On September 15 2017 00:12 Yiome wrote:
Shield battery hype I guess? Overall I like the changes. Not sure about balance but certainly it is adding more fun to the game in my opinion.
It's pretty much useless in its current iteration. I actually think whatever blizzard comes up with here will always feel like a bandaid solution. I like that the msc is gone simply because in essence you couldn't seperate yourself with pylon canon defense and that was bad. But the new things will still feel out of place no matter what i think. Other parts of the game create this problem and these things would need to be changed (for example the oracle)
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Like i will be honest, fungal being a skillshot now didn't do much in that regard i think.
Fungal still isn't a proper skillshot in the sense you can't dodge it after seeing the projectile being casted. However, it still had a significant effect in the sense that you get more time to split up your units after you see the Infestor that is 10 range away. Previously that was like an "oh shit --> GG moment".
The difference between skillshots in MOBAs and RTS should be that the latter rewards splitting while the former rewards reaction/predicting. Thus, projectiles should be much slower in RTS + we need indicators. If there are no indicators for where the skillshot will land, the cast delay/projectile speed needs to be slower (ceteris paribus).
For the ravager, I would argue they went too far. I think you have too much time to dodge it - especially given how low the AOE + damage is. It needs to feel valuable and skillbased to dodge a skillshot rather than something you "just do".
Perhaps Blizzard think they need to make each skillshot have completely unique numbers, but I don't think you can do that. From having done many hours of testing in the editor, there is a strict relationship between the following variables that needs to be maintained:
(a) AOE radius
(b) delay/projectile speed
(c) Indicator
you can change one of the variables a bit, but then one of the other variables must be increased/reduced. E.g. if you reduce the AOE radius, projectile speed should probably be increased. If you have no indicator, then either AOE radius or projectile speed should be lower.
Without being true to this relationship, skillshots feel shitty and unfortunately that is true for the vast majority of the abilities in Sc2.
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Another topic, but I don't think Zerg should have two damage-based skillshots in Fungal and the Ravager, and I hate the whole "cast fungal to trap + Corrosive Bile on top of units". Synergy between different abilities belong in a moba - not in a game that wants movement based micro.
As I see it, you should make Corrosive Bile an actual skillshot that has a decent chance to land on units (plus being less spamable) without enemy units being immobilized by Fungal. Hence there is no synergy between Infestors and Ravagers.
And Fungal should then become something else (in my ideal game, you have a lot of reworks everywhere which opens up a specific unique role for fungal).
Generally speaking, each battle should contain as few different spellcasters as possible making spellcaster casting more of a supportive-thing rather than having players spend their time tabbing through control groups casting abilities.
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Personally i think a more fundamental mechanical solution would be better (so changing how smartcasting works). How exactly? I don't know. Especially because people really like how smartcasting operates now (at least they say so, i think people didn't really think about it / experience alternatives)
This reminds me - Why don't we have MOBA smart casting where you don't need to left click to cast an ability? It's in HOTS so shouldn't be hard to implement into SC2. That would just make ability-casting slightly simpler in Sc2.
I like that the msc is gone simply because in essence you couldn't seperate yourself with pylon canon defense and that was bad
Would photon overcharge on pylons be so bad now that you have an oportunity cost on the nexus? Surely some would be annoyed by it still, but it just seems pointless to spend so much time trying to look for an ideal solution when there probably isn't any.
Photon overcharge on python works well to defend early game aggression and allow protoss to take expansions and tech - It does its job!
If I was a game-designer my focus would be on unit-to-unit interactions and adding strategic diversity. Not on adding new shield battery buildings which probably are never gonna feel great anyway.
. Like even if you only can cast one ability per battle per caster, if you get enough to cast X amount of time then it's no problem.
And that's fine. Casting 2-3 abilities at the start of the battle --> Moving units around for 20-30 seconds --> Casting a few more abilties = Feels great.
What we see atm is more like: Cast 5-10 abilities at the start of the battle --> Do nothing for 1 minute --> Cast 5-10 abilities.
A higher regeneration + lower max energy gives a better rotation between unit movement and ability casting.
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On September 15 2017 00:05 Hider wrote:
It reminds me of when TLO made his mod and reduced the damage of ravager skillshot - That change shows he had no idea what he was doing from a game-design perspective because the Ravager skillshot should - if anything - do more damage with increased CD.
u need to provide more context to claim he has "no idea what he is doing from a game design perspective".
his change may have been a wrong move.. who knows.... but your claim is off base without more context.
does your claim imply everything TLO says about game design is meaningless?
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u need to provide more context to claim he has "no idea what he is doing from a game design perspective".
his change may have been a wrong move.. who knows.... but your claim is off base without more context.
Specifically when it comes to designing (damage) abilities, TLO has no idea what he is doing.
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Why doesn't the balance team just keep it ismple and bring back winfestors the other two races have gotten alot stronger since wol. You don't know if winfestors will be winfestors again?
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what bothers me (and is a nice thing to experiment with anyways) is that Blizzard tries to keep zerg antiair on the ground, helped by a caster.
i would like to have a zerg composition that performs fairly ok against an a-move mothership+carrier+archon+zealot army.
what i have on my mind is to have slowed units take +2 dmg, and have the corruptor's attack a slight slow effect (-10% speed, not more, same duration as the attack cooldown). so a few corruptors + hydra army would be able to effectively counter air.
i think the following changes would be neccessary/nice as well:
- reducing corruptor damage by 2 (maybe 3), so a pure corruptor army would not kill faster, but with the slight slow effect units like mass oracles would not be able to get away so easily.
- buffing ultra armor back to 8, marauder+concussive+marines would do +1 dmg to slowed ultras compared to the live version)
- ghosts attacks would also have a slight (10%) slow effect.
- remove infested marines
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On September 15 2017 01:18 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +Personally i think a more fundamental mechanical solution would be better (so changing how smartcasting works). How exactly? I don't know. Especially because people really like how smartcasting operates now (at least they say so, i think people didn't really think about it / experience alternatives) This reminds me - Why don't we have MOBA smart casting where you don't need to left click to cast an ability? It's in HOTS so shouldn't be hard to implement into SC2. That would just make ability-casting slightly simpler in Sc2. Show nested quote +I like that the msc is gone simply because in essence you couldn't seperate yourself with pylon canon defense and that was bad Would photon overcharge on pylons be so bad now that you have an oportunity cost on the nexus? Surely some would be annoyed by it still, but it just seems pointless to spend so much time trying to look for an ideal solution when there probably isn't any. Photon overcharge on python works well to defend early game aggression and allow protoss to take expansions and tech - It does its job! If I was a game-designer my focus would be on unit-to-unit interactions and adding strategic diversity. Not on adding new shield battery buildings which probably are never gonna feel great anyway. Show nested quote +. Like even if you only can cast one ability per battle per caster, if you get enough to cast X amount of time then it's no problem. And that's fine. Casting 2-3 abilities at the start of the battle --> Moving units around for 20-30 seconds --> Casting a few more abilties = Feels great. What we see atm is more like: Cast 5-10 abilities at the start of the battle --> Do nothing for 1 minute --> Cast 5-10 abilities. A higher regeneration + lower max energy gives a better rotation between unit movement and ability casting.
Well that's the thing though, photon overcharge doesn't create fun unit interactions. That's why i don't like it. If you simply have the pylon in place and your attention there you cast the spell and that's it. There is no difference between me doing that or Neeb doing it. I think that's a problem because it's sucha huge part of protoss gameplay. It works balance wise but it's not fun at all.
About spells: Well sure if it works out like you say then it would be ideal. But let's look at HTS for example. Even in progames there will be the point where the toss has a lot of hts and he simply spams the storms durign the engagement.
You want to increase the supply so there would be less hts + make sure each ht can only cast one storm. I simply question if that would be enough. It certainly would help a ton but there is also the possibility that it would simply nerf the ht in a way where a low amount of casters would simply not be good at all.
I completely agree that spellcasting should be a supportive thing, i like how spellcasting is handled in bw tbh. But the whole game has a completely different pace so it's hard to compare.
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On September 14 2017 21:05 JimmyJRaynor wrote:i'm glad to see Blizzard is willing to experiment with the Shield Battery. There are so many ways to adjust the strength and durability of the Shield Battery i'm confident they can tweak its stats to make it a balanced part of the game. Show nested quote +On September 14 2017 18:45 Vindicare605 wrote:On September 14 2017 18:38 Jenia6109 wrote:
Glad that Entangle is gone... It was an attempt to introduce Warcraft 3 type abilities to a game so fundamentally different from Warcraft 3. Damn right it's good to have it gone. yep, entangle didn't work. it is also good to give Blizzard the creative freedom to experiment and fail on certain initiatives. you can't make an ambitious game with amazing stuff and have zero failures along the way. the only way to never fail is to take zero risks.. and that's boring.
The more Blizzard changes the game, the more original input they have, the more they have the creative freedom to experiment with bold changes, the more ambitious they are... the worse the game gets because it diverges from the Brood War template. The SC2 design team has been uninspiring for as long as I can remember, the best thing in general is for them to not touch the game.
This is so frustrating about reading your sort of apologetics: Blizzard fails, then you compliment them for trying. How about they just not fail? Why, as a player would you identify so strongly with the developers that you applaud them for trying and failing. It is kinda like being a class traitor, to be honest. And it is not just you, this is endemic in the community: people care so much about maintaining a happy, constructive working relationship with Blizzard, and being good consumers who won't question the (amazing, talented, hard-working etc.) developers and who are loyal to the Blizzard brand (oh, have to play Heroes instead of LoL because Blizzard made it). even if you are never listened to and even if every new Blizzard project is more generic and dumbed down than before.
The original Starcraft was created by a handful of people almost all of whom are no longer with the company, no longer involved in game design and so on. It is now a corporate entity called Blizzard, only nominally identifiable with them, which owns and controls the Starcraft franchise. That is how it works legally, fine, and it has certain advantages in terms of stability and production values, but as a gamer you can at least recognize this situation does not always benefit you. That doesn't mean you have to always be cynical and critical, but being a one-note corporate fanboy is certainly going too far in the other direction. You have to remain independent and conscious that Blizzard does not have a right to your loyalty.
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Well that's the thing though, photon overcharge doesn't create fun unit interactions. That's why i don't like it. If you simply have the pylon in place and your attention there you cast the spell and that's it.
It definitely doesn't but it creates early game stability which I weight higher.
Generally speaking I prefer 3+ bases vs 3+ bases rather than 1-2 base timings. When on 1-2 bases I think lower risk/lower reward harass aggression provides for a more sound gameplay than timing attacks. A pylon that costs energy to activate would be a more effective tool against an all in/timing than light harass.
Anyway, I am not saying there doesn't exist some type of solution that could be better, but I don't think the benefits to the overall gameplay would be that significant. And I definitely do not trust blizzard to figure out this perfect solution.
Even in progames there will be the point where the toss has a lot of hts and he simply spams the storms durign the engagement.
You want to increase the supply so there would be less hts + make sure each ht can only cast one storm.
I think HT gameplay is generally fun to play against and use so I would use that as an example of one of the more succesful abilities in the game.
One type of new type of unit interaction I imagine in my ideal version of Sc2 is anti-spellcasters which likely would address the issue you have. Imagine the following changes:
1. All ability casters receive a new armor type.
2. Each race gets one ability (too one of the existing spellcasters) that deal bonus damage/one shots other ability-casters. E.g. Fungal Growth does 0 damage to normal units but 150 damage over 6 seconds to ability-casters. This gives Fungal growth a completely unique role and Corrosive Bile can now be rebalanced to become a more reliable skill-shot.
This provides a a strategic counteroption to massing spellcasters. Thus suddenly having 10+ HTs is can be a big vulnerability where as 2-5 HTs is the more solid option. The same concept can be applied to Ravagers, Ghosts, Ravents etc.
(Remember to also think of this change along with a reduction in projectile speed adding for more countermicro)
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On September 15 2017 04:52 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2017 21:05 JimmyJRaynor wrote:i'm glad to see Blizzard is willing to experiment with the Shield Battery. There are so many ways to adjust the strength and durability of the Shield Battery i'm confident they can tweak its stats to make it a balanced part of the game. On September 14 2017 18:45 Vindicare605 wrote:On September 14 2017 18:38 Jenia6109 wrote:
Glad that Entangle is gone... It was an attempt to introduce Warcraft 3 type abilities to a game so fundamentally different from Warcraft 3. Damn right it's good to have it gone. yep, entangle didn't work. it is also good to give Blizzard the creative freedom to experiment and fail on certain initiatives. you can't make an ambitious game with amazing stuff and have zero failures along the way. the only way to never fail is to take zero risks.. and that's boring. The more Blizzard changes the game, the more original input they have, the more they have the creative freedom to experiment with bold changes, the more ambitious they are... the worse the game gets because it diverges from the Brood War template. The SC2 design team has been uninspiring for as long as I can remember, the best thing in general is for them to not touch the game. This is so frustrating about reading your sort of apologetics: Blizzard fails, then you compliment them for trying. How about they just not fail? Why, as a player would you identify so strongly with the developers that you applaud them for trying and failing. It is kinda like being a class traitor, to be honest. And it is not just you, this is endemic in the community: people care so much about maintaining a happy, constructive working relationship with Blizzard, and being good consumers who won't question the (amazing, talented, hard-working etc.) developers and who are loyal to the Blizzard brand (oh, have to play Heroes instead of LoL because Blizzard made it). even if you are never listened to and even if every new Blizzard project is more generic and dumbed down than before. The original Starcraft was created by a handful of people almost all of whom are no longer with the company, no longer involved in game design and so on. It is now a corporate entity called Blizzard, only nominally identifiable with them, which owns and controls the Starcraft franchise. That is how it works legally, fine, and it has certain advantages in terms of stability and production values, but as a gamer you can at least recognize this situation does not always benefit you. That doesn't mean you have to always be cynical and critical, but being a one-note corporate fanboy is certainly going too far in the other direction. You have to remain independent and conscious that Blizzard does not have a right to your loyalty.
It's 2017, the game is StarCraft 2, and nobody should have to listen to Brood War elitests or StarCraft 2 haters. This is a different game than StarCraft: Brood War, a different time, with different players, so if you want people to patch Brood War, then how about you go play Brood War and take your pessimism with you.
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On September 15 2017 05:02 Hider wrote:
One type of new type of unit interaction I imagine in my ideal version of Sc2 is anti-spellcasters which likely would address the issue you have. Imagine the following changes:
1. All ability casters receive a new armor type.
2. Each race gets one ability (too one of the existing spellcasters) that deal bonus damage/one shots other ability-casters. E.g. Fungal Growth does 0 damage to normal units but 150 damage over 6 seconds to ability-casters. This gives Fungal growth a completely unique role.
(Remember to also think of this change along with a reduction in projectile speed adding for more countermicro)
This provides a a strategic counteroption to massing spellcasters.
Thus suddenly having 10+ HTs is can be a big vulnerability where as 2-5 HTs is the more solid option. But a very skilled micro player (who can dodge fungals) can - too an extent - still get away with building a lot of HTs.
Spellcasters already have the Psionic unit type tag. + Show Spoiler +Ghost, Infestor, Viper, Queen, Sentry, Oracle, HT, DT, Archon, Warp Prism, Mothership.
Using the already existing tag more would be nice to see, as currently I believe the Ghost is only unit with an ability that cares about it, but adding in more anti-Psionic abilities could very quickly spiral out of control. Changing units to be dedicated anti-Psionic units would also throw off the balance they currently bring to the rest of the game. If you give each race a specific anti-Psionic unit that you are supposed to be making while your opponent also has one would end up feeling pointless when you both negate eachothers spellcasters, or would end up feeling very bad when a player doesn't negate the enemy spellcasters and their army gets wiped out.
Even if it's only one more anti-Psionic unit for one race, direct counters, to me, usually aren't ever fun or interesting. They don't make people think, and if you lose to them then you can assume that it wasn't because the other player was more skilled or had a better strategy, it was because "they made the HT Killers so I just lost". Or if you win then your opponent thinks "well I didn't make the HT Killers so I just lost." Neither of which are good spots to be in a game.
Checks and balances that are not direct counters, however, are very good. If they look at the Psionic tag again and do something like (just throwing out the first thing that comes to mind as an example) make all Melee units deal 125% damage to Psionic units, then you have a new number you can tweak very slightly that only affects a small number of units and brings in a new check or balance as opposed to a new counter.
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Spellcasters already have the Psionic unit type tag.
Include Raven, Ravager and perhaps Reaper as well in there as well and define it as units that have active abilities.
Changing units to be dedicated anti-Psionic units would also throw off the balance they currently bring to the rest of the game.
The game will be completely redesigned on multiple levels. Sc2 is fundamentally flawed when it comes to maximizing strategic diversity/unique roles/good interactions etc.
Checks and balances that are not direct counters, however, are very good. I
This completely depends on the situation. If it hard counters a unit in small numbers = generally bad. This is however a skillbased hardocunter to certain units in large numbers. That should also be pretty clear since I wrote that having 2-5 HTs is still a good option.
That's actually an extremely healthy way of designing the game because it heavily promotes diversity and micro-skill.
If you give each race a specific anti-Psionic unit that you are supposed to be making while your opponent also has one would end up feeling pointless when you both negate eachothers spellcasters, or would end up feeling very bad when a player doesn't negate the enemy spellcasters and their army gets wiped out.
You are not suposed to make anything. At (almost) any point in time a well-designed game gives you at least two options w/ disadvantages and advantages.
Also I honestly don't understand the second half your sentence. You feel bad if what? If the opponent reacts and adjust his composition to what you are doing and then outplays you in the battle by landing his skillshots and you don't dodge them and as a consequence lose the battle???
make all Melee units deal 125% damage to Psionic units, then you have a new number you can tweak very slightly that only affects a small number of units and brings in a new check or balance as opposed to a new counter.
I think its apparent you haven't figured out what this is about. This is about an anti-scaling skillbased counter + adding new unique roles. I suggest you reread the conversation between me and The Red Viper to see the context.
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On September 15 2017 03:54 bela.mervado wrote:
what bothers me (and is a nice thing to experiment with anyways) is that Blizzard tries to keep zerg antiair on the ground, helped by a caster.
i would like to have a zerg composition that performs fairly ok against an a-move mothership+carrier+archon+zealot army.
what i have on my mind is to have slowed units take +2 dmg, and have the corruptor's attack a slight slow effect (-10% speed, not more, same duration as the attack cooldown). so a few corruptors + hydra army would be able to effectively counter air.
i think the following changes would be neccessary/nice as well:
- reducing corruptor damage by 2 (maybe 3), so a pure corruptor army would not kill faster, but with the slight slow effect units like mass oracles would not be able to get away so easily.
- buffing ultra armor back to 8, marauder+concussive+marines would do +1 dmg to slowed ultras compared to the live version)
- ghosts attacks would also have a slight (10%) slow effect.
- remove infested marines
you have to remember that zerg anti air has to walk a fine line. If you remember the Bl infestor days you will understand why. Zerg anti air quickly becomes oppressive because of the incredible strength of massed broodlords vs ground, the only answer to brood lords from both terran and protoss is air, since brood lords crush ground anti air units. Zerg needs anti air strong enough that they can hold off massed air deathballs, but not so strong that they can just sit in there base and than ato win with a broodlord push.
also..... buffing ultras i guess some people enjoyed the meta where Terran had to kill zerg in 12 minutes or lose. but I did not. If you do that though i want
-reaper change reverted so we can 3 rax to win before 12 minutes
-queen change reverted so we can 16 marine drop to win before 12 minutes
-baneling buff reverted so we can marine mine push to win before 12 minutes
-hydra buff reverted so we can marine mine push to win before 12 minutes
-tanks reverted to drop tanks so we can use them to harass and help us win before 12 minutes
-burrow Infestors reverted so that they cant be used with with ravagers to stop Terran from winning before 12 minutes
-no mine invisibility nerfs so mines can be used to marine mine push to win before 12 minutes
or
- raven change reverted and no new raven changes so we can turtle and not have to win before 12 minutes
or
-liberator anti ait nerf reverted so we can play sky Terran and not have to win before 12 minutes
otherwise changing ultras would be like removing terran from the game.
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On September 15 2017 05:36 Hider wrote:Include Raven, Ravager and perhaps Reaper as well in there as well and define it as units that have active abilities. Show nested quote +Changing units to be dedicated anti-Psionic units would also throw off the balance they currently bring to the rest of the game. The game will be completely redesigned on multiple levels. Sc2 is fundamentally flawed when it comes to maximizing strategic diversity/unique roles/good interactions etc. This completely depends on the situation. If it hard counters a unit in small numbers = generally bad. This is however a skillbased hardocunter to certain units in large numbers. That should also be pretty clear since I wrote that having 2-5 HTs is still a good option. That's actually an extremely healthy way of designing the game because it heavily promotes diversity and micro-skill.
If you aren't designing your game from the ground up to do you're wanting to do, then I don't believe that spending resources for an unknown amount of time trying to re-design several big interactions in the game is viable.
Hard counters are either hard counters or not, and counters can make for poor gameplay experiences [insert tangent about Blue Counterspells in Magic: the Gathering here]. "Skill-based Counters" mean nothing to me as the player with better micro will already have an advantage over a player with poor micro and similar macro, so it seems completely unnecessary to rebuild the game's foundations to attempt to create whatever "skill-based counters" are.
Overall it doesn't seem like healthy game design whatsoever.
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If you aren't designing your game from the ground up to do you're wanting to do, then I don't believe that spending resources for an unknown amount of time trying to re-design several big interactions in the game is viable.
Ok we have different level of ambitions and priorities I guess. With a clear plan and structure this isn't as time consuming as you may think.
Hard counters are either hard counters or not, a
I am gonna try this for the last time:
1. You buff Marines to deal 50% damage against Stalkers --> Marines smashes them both in low and high numbers.
2. You buff Marines to deal +50% damage against Stalkers when 30 Stalkers are tightly togher --> You punish massing Stalkers.
This is an extrmeely simple and hyptothetical example to demonstrate the difference and they have huge (and different) effect on the gameplay. The effects it has must be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.
So no hard-counters are not just hard-counters!
mean nothing to me as the player with better micro will already have an advantage over a player with poor micro and similar macro,
This sentence also doesn't make sense. The advantage the better micro player will have entirely depends on how the micro interactions are designed.
At this point I think I have to stop responding to you.
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im just happy that pylon cannon is finished hahaha
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Shield batteries huh? I think I can think of some more suggestions 
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I like the new changes.
They should try out a lot of different things for protoss early game because it´s the only way to find out what feels best. I'm not a Protoss player so i don't have a real opinion wish one of the three suggestions was the best so far but it will be interesting to see how the shield battery will turn out.
previously they overdid it a little bit with the infestor and made him to complicated so i'm glad they turned this down but I still don't like the idea that the main antiair unit for zerg is the infested terran.( the anti air attack is so unintuitive, spitting in the air when they have a machine gun is really dumb)
I was against the Idea to introduce the socurge to SC2 in previous threads(SC2 and BW are very different games and if a unit worked in BW doesn't mean the same unit will work in SC2, i look at you Battlecruser and Lurker)
and a one-to-one implementation is still bad.
My idea is a much slower but massive scourge that deals splash damage and only hits air. faster air units like Vikings, Corruptor or Void Rays should be able to kite them but need to focus fire to kill them. they should be available at hive tech and should either cost 2 supply or come from the Swarm host (after an upgrade) so they can´t be spamed easy
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I just wish they could make protoss a competitive race without gimmicky crap...pylon overcharge and shield battery just encourage turtle styles and defensive play.
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The only issue I have with shield batteries is that someone will figure out how to use it for a rush. Then it defeats the purpose of making more defensive play for toss.
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On September 15 2017 05:48 washikie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2017 03:54 bela.mervado wrote:
.. what i have on my mind is to have slowed units take +2 dmg ..
- buffing ultra armor back to 8, marauder+concussive+marines would do +1 dmg to slowed ultras compared to the live version)
.. .. also..... buffing ultras i guess some people enjoyed the meta where Terran had to kill zerg in 12 minutes or lose. but I did not. If you do that though i want .. otherwise changing ultras would be like removing terran from the game.
a bio army with at least 1 marauders/ghost + a group of marines would kill ultra faster, but nvm.
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If the Shield Battery feels a bit too weak in its current form, they could try adding in Karax's upgrades from co-op.
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On September 15 2017 02:35 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +u need to provide more context to claim he has "no idea what he is doing from a game design perspective".
his change may have been a wrong move.. who knows.... but your claim is off base without more context.
Specifically when it comes to designing (damage) abilities, TLO has no idea what he is doing.
Seems a bit presumptive to make that claim, I never knew there were so many expert game designers on TL.
Did you think about the implications of increasing the damage, specifically the impact on Ravager rushes against Terran?
On the topic of the shield battery, what if it was redesigned to be able to move very slowly? I imagine a lumbering robotic turtle that can't fit through small gaps and requires power to move/regen shield.
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So hard to find streamers playing the test map
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Did you think about the implications of increasing the damage, specifically the impact on Ravager rushes against Terran?
I am talking about balancing the Ravager around lower delay + higher AOE and perhaps higher damage. This implies worse core stats. If early game rushes for whatever reason becomes too strong you could reduce CB damage against structures.
That's a potential balance issue and is a numbers issue. Doesn't have anything to do with game design.
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I am curious when they address how shitty bio, specially against zerg is on the test server. The widow mine is pretty much useless now and mules mine less minerals.
What I think, could be an interesting change is reducing the supply cost of mines to one. Bio compositions are not very supply efficient and with change the mines would be somewhat like banelings. Not necessarily cost effective in large numbers, but a decent number mixed in strengthens you army composition a lot.
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I liked this, no more weird things
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You could potentially give the nexus the ability to recharge shields, as an upgrade of course.
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On September 15 2017 21:10 Starchon wrote:
You could potentially give the nexus the ability to recharge shields, as an upgrade of course.
The issues they're trying to address are how they take early expo's and block early allins, if it's an upgrade its probably too late or potentially too costly to the early game.
With warp-in and you don't have a defenders advantage based on travel time, so again the units have to be a bit crappy to balance this offensively. (proxy rushes are an issue too obviously)
So you have to have some other solution to give defenders advantage. Cannons require (and have to require) a different opening early game. So you need something that's going to be good vs small rushes but get worse as the game goes on. But requiring more effort than clicking on a pylon...
Throw in the (imho bad) initial design choice for all the base units to be slow but have a powerful mobility abilities. blink/charge makes everything naturally becomes very defend into timing oriented. (too slow to move out before that)
Maybe there's room for something like units firing faster or adding damage in the powerfield. That mirrors stim and creep move speed buffs to Z and T. Fits with the chrono lore to I guess. But again it'll be hard to balance against being too weak or so strong pylons get built all over the map for every attack.. Maybe shield batteries are the answer, they were at least part of protoss lore from back when their parents were actual snarling badasses ("we cannot hold"... really... Protoss Da F up Mr Shiny Armour.)
I don't envy them this task. I think they're trying good ideas though. The apparent change in philosophy of the balance team is very encouraging.
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I feel like Zerg will never get proper anti-air if this continues this way...
Infested Terrans... seriously?
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These are all excellent changes. Counterplay has returned with fungal growth!
This design team is excellent. I can't wait until this goes live.
We really need the Viper and FF to get adjusted now.
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On September 15 2017 00:05 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +One can say that the spells itself weren't well designed (like instantly hitting fungal), but at the same time i also think that spells should be really strong because it's fun to use when it's strong. I don't think think we should think of abilities to be strong/weak per se. Rather they should feel rewarding to land a good ability, and it should have a proper counterplay. Show nested quote +I would much rather have that instead of goign the ravager route where the spell itself is incredibl bad but you build lots of ravagers and the cd is really low. That interaction is imo actually one of the worst interactions in the game from a fun perspective. It reminds me of when TLO made his mod and reduced the damage of ravager skillshot - That change shows he had no idea what he was doing from a game-design perspective because the Ravager skillshot should - if anything - do more damage with increased CD. I do agree that casting abilties shouldn't be the main micro you do. I think movement of units should be the main micro you make in every fight, and casting abilities should reward more movement (from the opponent). Most abilities should therefore be skillshots and I also like when you have indicators of where an ability will land. Another change blizzard easily could make to make ability-spamming less with spellcasters is to set a lower maxmimum energy of each spellcaster while increasing its energy regeneration. This means an infestor can only cast 1 fungal per battle but will regenerate faster. When it comes to spamming infestors, you could increase its relative supply value (in relation to other units), hence make having 10 infestors a lot less attractive. You could also make Fungal last over 5-7 seconds making spamming it less valueable (with first 4 seconds being root and the last 3 seconds being damage only)
I long forgot the specifics, but I used to have a talking point about how energy is archaic design, a relic from BW, and no longer belongs to any sort of streamlined, tactical RTS. An obvious example are all the energy upgrades which Blizzard arbitrarily adds or removes to the game. If energy design would fit well into the overall game then you should not be able to randomly shuffle around virtually the only upgrades related to it.
I can't do a longer post on this on mobile, but basically, if you look at the history of ability resources in video games, it always tends towards reliability and availability. Spells are to be a reliable feature every battle, you should be able to cast a predictable amount at the start, and there should be no extreme variations on this. This prevents certain types of bad gameplay effects and it is less frustrating for players, but an argument can be made it is strategically more shallow (but that would be a confusing argument which is difficult to quantify or prove relevant, although it might be important).
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On September 16 2017 06:00 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2017 00:05 Hider wrote:One can say that the spells itself weren't well designed (like instantly hitting fungal), but at the same time i also think that spells should be really strong because it's fun to use when it's strong. I don't think think we should think of abilities to be strong/weak per se. Rather they should feel rewarding to land a good ability, and it should have a proper counterplay. I would much rather have that instead of goign the ravager route where the spell itself is incredibl bad but you build lots of ravagers and the cd is really low. That interaction is imo actually one of the worst interactions in the game from a fun perspective. It reminds me of when TLO made his mod and reduced the damage of ravager skillshot - That change shows he had no idea what he was doing from a game-design perspective because the Ravager skillshot should - if anything - do more damage with increased CD. I do agree that casting abilties shouldn't be the main micro you do. I think movement of units should be the main micro you make in every fight, and casting abilities should reward more movement (from the opponent). Most abilities should therefore be skillshots and I also like when you have indicators of where an ability will land. Another change blizzard easily could make to make ability-spamming less with spellcasters is to set a lower maxmimum energy of each spellcaster while increasing its energy regeneration. This means an infestor can only cast 1 fungal per battle but will regenerate faster. When it comes to spamming infestors, you could increase its relative supply value (in relation to other units), hence make having 10 infestors a lot less attractive. You could also make Fungal last over 5-7 seconds making spamming it less valueable (with first 4 seconds being root and the last 3 seconds being damage only) I long forgot the specifics, but I used to have a talking point about how energy is archaic design, a relic from BW, and no longer belongs to any sort of streamlined, tactical RTS. An obvious example are all the energy upgrades which Blizzard arbitrarily adds or removes to the game. If energy design would fit well into the overall game then you should not be able to randomly shuffle around virtually the only upgrades related to it. I can't do a longer post on this on mobile, but basically, if you look at the history of ability resources in video games, it always tends towards reliability and availability. Spells are to be a reliable feature every battle, you should be able to cast a predictable amount at the start, and there should be no extreme variations on this. This prevents certain types of bad gameplay effects and it is less frustrating for players, but an argument can be made it is strategically more shallow (but that would be a confusing argument which is difficult to quantify or prove relevant, although it might be important).
I disagree, Although you can make fun ability using units without energy like in red alert 3, energy does have an important function in sc2. Energy makes spell casters an investment, spell casters are a unit that gains power over time due to there energy mechanic. Further energy provides another lever that allows for balancing of these units, being able to adjust the starting energy of a unit allows the designers to increase or decrease the time it takes for you to effectively transition to these units. It also creates a period of weakness where the units are not as powerful allowing wich creates timing windows for an opponent to abuse before the units are at maximum effectiveness.
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On September 15 2017 01:11 Hider wrote:
Another topic, but I don't think Zerg should have two damage-based skillshots in Fungal and the Ravager, and I hate the whole "cast fungal to trap + Corrosive Bile on top of units". Synergy between different abilities belong in a moba - not in a game that wants movement based micro.
As I see it, you should make Corrosive Bile an actual skillshot that has a decent chance to land on units (plus being less spamable) without enemy units being immobilized by Fungal. Hence there is no synergy between Infestors and Ravagers.
And Fungal should then become something else (in my ideal game, you have a lot of reworks everywhere which opens up a specific unique role for fungal).
Generally speaking, each battle should contain as few different spellcasters as possible making spellcaster casting more of a supportive-thing rather than having players spend their time tabbing through control groups casting abilities.
I think synergy in general should be treated as a red flag, i.e. something which is not conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, but which tends to correlate with it nevertheless.
Here are some negative consequences of synergy I can come up with offhand: forced grouping, reduced self-reliance, slower-moving armies, unpredictable spikes in army strength based on missing or adding even one or two units, promotion of spellcasters and abilities, unclear counter relationships.
An example I like is marine & medic, often cited favorably as a positive case of synergy, which nevertheless frequently leaves you with defenseless groups of medics. The synergy was broken and you are left with units that are sort of silly. Even if the design here ends up working well, because it was dependent on synergy there were still obvious pitfalls, and for SC2 Blizzard decided to eliminate it. (A decision which afaik can be traced back to when Rob Pardo was still lead designer)
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On September 16 2017 06:06 washikie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2017 06:00 Grumbels wrote:On September 15 2017 00:05 Hider wrote:One can say that the spells itself weren't well designed (like instantly hitting fungal), but at the same time i also think that spells should be really strong because it's fun to use when it's strong. I don't think think we should think of abilities to be strong/weak per se. Rather they should feel rewarding to land a good ability, and it should have a proper counterplay. I would much rather have that instead of goign the ravager route where the spell itself is incredibl bad but you build lots of ravagers and the cd is really low. That interaction is imo actually one of the worst interactions in the game from a fun perspective. It reminds me of when TLO made his mod and reduced the damage of ravager skillshot - That change shows he had no idea what he was doing from a game-design perspective because the Ravager skillshot should - if anything - do more damage with increased CD. I do agree that casting abilties shouldn't be the main micro you do. I think movement of units should be the main micro you make in every fight, and casting abilities should reward more movement (from the opponent). Most abilities should therefore be skillshots and I also like when you have indicators of where an ability will land. Another change blizzard easily could make to make ability-spamming less with spellcasters is to set a lower maxmimum energy of each spellcaster while increasing its energy regeneration. This means an infestor can only cast 1 fungal per battle but will regenerate faster. When it comes to spamming infestors, you could increase its relative supply value (in relation to other units), hence make having 10 infestors a lot less attractive. You could also make Fungal last over 5-7 seconds making spamming it less valueable (with first 4 seconds being root and the last 3 seconds being damage only) I long forgot the specifics, but I used to have a talking point about how energy is archaic design, a relic from BW, and no longer belongs to any sort of streamlined, tactical RTS. An obvious example are all the energy upgrades which Blizzard arbitrarily adds or removes to the game. If energy design would fit well into the overall game then you should not be able to randomly shuffle around virtually the only upgrades related to it. I can't do a longer post on this on mobile, but basically, if you look at the history of ability resources in video games, it always tends towards reliability and availability. Spells are to be a reliable feature every battle, you should be able to cast a predictable amount at the start, and there should be no extreme variations on this. This prevents certain types of bad gameplay effects and it is less frustrating for players, but an argument can be made it is strategically more shallow (but that would be a confusing argument which is difficult to quantify or prove relevant, although it might be important). I disagree, Although you can make fun ability using units without energy like in red alert 3, energy does have an important function in sc2. Energy makes spell casters an investment, spell casters are a unit that gains power over time due to there energy mechanic. Further energy provides another lever that allows for balancing of these units, being able to adjust the starting energy of a unit allows the designers to increase or decrease the time it takes for you to effectively transition to these units. It also creates a period of weakness where the units are not as powerful allowing wich creates timing windows for an opponent to abuse before the units are at maximum effectiveness.
But why do you want to have units that gain power over time or which are initially defenseless? A marine does not become more powerful if it lazies around and rests for a couple of moments. I think it is a totally arbitrary choice which complicates the game both strategically (and has some negative effects like turtling and ability spam) and from a casual perspective(reliable unit control), and also doesn't fit with Blizzard's obvious longterm direction of trying to create (mindless) "high-octane" gameplay.
I have never seen anyone give a really solid argument (i.e. which is less vague than "creates timing windows and increases strategy") for why it should absolutely belong in the game. For instance, your argument that it makes balancing easier is really weak, because any alternative energy design could also have levers for balance. And Blizzard rarely messes with these values to begin with.
I don't dislike energy, mind you, I just think it is underdiscussed and taken for granted. I also think it worked better in BW without smartcasting and with slower paced gameplay.
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On September 15 2017 12:17 BigRedDog wrote:
The only issue I have with shield batteries is that someone will figure out how to use it for a rush. Then it defeats the purpose of making more defensive play for toss.
oh yeah, so stuff like proxy bunker shouldn't be in the game?
maybe we should remove proxy hatches -> spines then too, because spines shouldn't be a offensive tool by your reasoning. Lets just remove the spine then to solve the problem you think exists.
It's not like a shield battery nerf is going to be broken, I mean you have to wait for the pylon to finish building and a shield battery... but god forbid there be strategy and cheese in the game!
On September 15 2017 23:20 Majick wrote:
I feel like Zerg will never get proper anti-air if this continues this way...
Infested Terrans... seriously?
did you forget the huge viper buff? already
If they want to give zerg an ability that isn't a gimmick they could just remove Caustic Spray (dear lord please) and return it to it's past ability re-balanced to help kill massive ships like carriers. I mean god forbid zerg players will have to target fire instead of using 1a the whole game.
It's worrying reading really bad suggestions in these threads after reading that blizzard reads the forums too...
Anyways I think the current changes with the shield battery will fail and blizzard should look at changes to core gateway units and medivac boost instead of what they are trying. Or give us the mothership core back please.
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An example I like is marine & medic, often cited favorably as a positive case of synergy, which nevertheless frequently leaves you with defenseless groups of medics. The synergy was broken and you are left with units that are sort of silly. Even if the design here ends up working well, because it was dependent on synergy there were still obvious pitfalls, and for SC2 Blizzard decided to eliminate it. (A decision which afaik can be traced back to when Rob Pardo was still lead designer)
If I was building a completely new RTS i would also completely remove all healers and instead try to make it test out automatic "out of battle self health" mechanics.
Also healing in battle is generally a dumb idea because it can snowball out of control and only way to beat it is critical mass of damage. That's not something you can change in Sc2, but fundamentally speaking it is unsound gamedesign.
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On September 16 2017 18:16 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +An example I like is marine & medic, often cited favorably as a positive case of synergy, which nevertheless frequently leaves you with defenseless groups of medics. The synergy was broken and you are left with units that are sort of silly. Even if the design here ends up working well, because it was dependent on synergy there were still obvious pitfalls, and for SC2 Blizzard decided to eliminate it. (A decision which afaik can be traced back to when Rob Pardo was still lead designer) If I was building a completely new RTS i would also completely remove all healers and instead try to make it test out automatic "out of battle self health" mechanics. Also healing in battle is generally a dumb idea because it can snowball out of control and only way to beat it is critical mass of damage. That's not something you can change in Sc2, but fundamentally speaking it is unsound gamedesign.
Medics are literally an afterthought, only added in BW to make stimpack usable on marines. Healing is not quite fully integrated into the gameplay, instead it is offloaded on a unit created for this role. For something so vital as healing this could be seen as dubious, but for terran it's somewhat elegantly solved by coupling to to the ubiquitous medic/medivac and matching it with the SCV repair ability. If basic functionality is incarnated into units designed for that role, for instance queens and mothership core for macro functions, it can work out either way, so I don't think it is a negative per se. But healing is kind of dull and might be better off subsumed into overall unit design, like damage or movement. This would remove some complication from unit compositions. And that is a difference between units dedicated to economy vs army, the former is relatively simple Starcraft, while the latter is often overly busy. Requiring unit compositions that are too diverse puts a lot of stress on the player to juggle many unit types into finicky and clumsy groups of units.
Would you say that if all races had some form of out of combat shield regeneration it would be best? And everything which effects healing to be outright discontinued? (in an ideal scenario?)
With regards to in-combat healing, suppose one looks at the marginal effectiveness of adding healers. If you have, say, 12 damage points done for 10 points healed, then adding one healer literally halves the effective dps, adding another healer completely nullifies all damage. Sufficiently strong healing is very finicky like that, it will all of a sudden completely blow up in power and attain critical mass where your composition can't be killed. It reminds me a lot of "free units" where if you had to spend some time to kill locusts only to later on progress towards the swarm hosts, then if you added only a few more swarm hosts (or brood lords) you couldn't kill them at all before the cooldown would reset and they would spawn another wave. That's another scenario where the marginal effectiveness of a unit becomes very high.
If one views summons or spawns as some form of shielding, which is an alternative to healing and operates quite similarly, you can then say that all of these mechanics have this potentially fatal flaw of allowing you to reach critical mass and create immortal units.
(and actually, ranged units also have this same effect, where if you add just a few more all of a sudden enemy melee units are all killed before having a chance to reach them, which is why zerglings are awful in high numbers against marines even without medical support)
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I wanted to mention that range and unit collision (dps intensity) already work like that though. So i think it's kinda unfair to criticize healing for this when it's basically integral to rts games in general.
What is imo more important is the ability of the player to snipe healers effectively. Or in general the unit interactions as armies get bigger. That's one of the worst things in sc2 imo, unit interactions tend to be pretty good at lower supply but become pretty bad the closer it gets to 200/200
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On September 16 2017 22:30 The_Red_Viper wrote:
I wanted to mention that range and unit collision (dps intensity) already work like that though. So i think it's kinda unfair to criticize healing for this when it's basically integral to rts games in general.
What is imo more important is the ability of the player to snipe healers effectively. Or in general the unit interactions as armies get bigger. That's one of the worst things in sc2 imo, unit interactions tend to be pretty good at lower supply but become pretty bad the closer it gets to 200/200
This is one of the more important differences between BW and SC2 (not to derail the thread, sorry). In BW your marines are spread out, so even if they are ranged units, most of them can't fire at once. If range is finite, then for this effect to exist unit density has to be able to increase infinitely. And relatively speaking, that is not possible in BW, but it is in SC2.
Also note (I don't know how it works in LotV, my workable knowledge of SC2 ended in 2014) that you reach max supply way sooner in SC2 (HotS/WoL) versus BW, so it is actually more important than ever to ensure that unit interactions scale well. If you cap unit density then the range vs melee disparity isn't as bad. Pathfinding is one way to do this, which has been deemed impractical in SC2, but the threat of AoE damage hitting clumps of units (forcing spreading) is another one and might be a more suitable candidate here.
And just out of theoretical interest, overshooting by having slower projectiles and higher weapon cooldowns is another way. You waste fire on the first wave, so the second wave of melee units can come closer. Siege tanks work a bit like this, but afaik the effect should even be noticeable with, say, stalkers vs zerglings. But stalkers are so weak and expensive (and big) that you can't really mass them vs zerglings to benefit from these sort of critical mass effects anyway.
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On September 16 2017 18:16 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +An example I like is marine & medic, often cited favorably as a positive case of synergy, which nevertheless frequently leaves you with defenseless groups of medics. The synergy was broken and you are left with units that are sort of silly. Even if the design here ends up working well, because it was dependent on synergy there were still obvious pitfalls, and for SC2 Blizzard decided to eliminate it. (A decision which afaik can be traced back to when Rob Pardo was still lead designer) If I was building a completely new RTS i would also completely remove all healers and instead try to make it test out automatic "out of battle self health" mechanics. Also healing in battle is generally a dumb idea because it can snowball out of control and only way to beat it is critical mass of damage. That's not something you can change in Sc2, but fundamentally speaking it is unsound gamedesign.
Healing is not bad game design, it depends entirely on the type of healing being done and which units are being healed.
In BW, War3 or Dota, WoW, and SC2, healing is a very important mechanic that gives complexity and depth to the game, on top of health and armor, and gives more room for the developers when making new damage types and new challenging encounters. It gives smart and proactive or reactive players a way to deal with situations they might not be able to without it and a way to come back from a tough situation that, when done well, doesn't shut down (counter) their opponent outright or break down the complexity or interactivity of a situation/dungeon/etc.
On September 16 2017 06:41 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2017 06:06 washikie wrote:On September 16 2017 06:00 Grumbels wrote:On September 15 2017 00:05 Hider wrote:One can say that the spells itself weren't well designed (like instantly hitting fungal), but at the same time i also think that spells should be really strong because it's fun to use when it's strong. I don't think think we should think of abilities to be strong/weak per se. Rather they should feel rewarding to land a good ability, and it should have a proper counterplay. I would much rather have that instead of goign the ravager route where the spell itself is incredibl bad but you build lots of ravagers and the cd is really low. That interaction is imo actually one of the worst interactions in the game from a fun perspective. It reminds me of when TLO made his mod and reduced the damage of ravager skillshot - That change shows he had no idea what he was doing from a game-design perspective because the Ravager skillshot should - if anything - do more damage with increased CD. I do agree that casting abilties shouldn't be the main micro you do. I think movement of units should be the main micro you make in every fight, and casting abilities should reward more movement (from the opponent). Most abilities should therefore be skillshots and I also like when you have indicators of where an ability will land. Another change blizzard easily could make to make ability-spamming less with spellcasters is to set a lower maxmimum energy of each spellcaster while increasing its energy regeneration. This means an infestor can only cast 1 fungal per battle but will regenerate faster. When it comes to spamming infestors, you could increase its relative supply value (in relation to other units), hence make having 10 infestors a lot less attractive. You could also make Fungal last over 5-7 seconds making spamming it less valueable (with first 4 seconds being root and the last 3 seconds being damage only) I long forgot the specifics, but I used to have a talking point about how energy is archaic design, a relic from BW, and no longer belongs to any sort of streamlined, tactical RTS. An obvious example are all the energy upgrades which Blizzard arbitrarily adds or removes to the game. If energy design would fit well into the overall game then you should not be able to randomly shuffle around virtually the only upgrades related to it. I can't do a longer post on this on mobile, but basically, if you look at the history of ability resources in video games, it always tends towards reliability and availability. Spells are to be a reliable feature every battle, you should be able to cast a predictable amount at the start, and there should be no extreme variations on this. This prevents certain types of bad gameplay effects and it is less frustrating for players, but an argument can be made it is strategically more shallow (but that would be a confusing argument which is difficult to quantify or prove relevant, although it might be important). I disagree, Although you can make fun ability using units without energy like in red alert 3, energy does have an important function in sc2. Energy makes spell casters an investment, spell casters are a unit that gains power over time due to there energy mechanic. Further energy provides another lever that allows for balancing of these units, being able to adjust the starting energy of a unit allows the designers to increase or decrease the time it takes for you to effectively transition to these units. It also creates a period of weakness where the units are not as powerful allowing wich creates timing windows for an opponent to abuse before the units are at maximum effectiveness. But why do you want to have units that gain power over time or which are initially defenseless? A marine does not become more powerful if it lazies around and rests for a couple of moments. I think it is a totally arbitrary choice which complicates the game both strategically (and has some negative effects like turtling and ability spam) and from a casual perspective(reliable unit control), and also doesn't fit with Blizzard's obvious longterm direction of trying to create (mindless) "high-octane" gameplay. I have never seen anyone give a really solid argument (i.e. which is less vague than "creates timing windows and increases strategy") for why it should absolutely belong in the game. For instance, your argument that it makes balancing easier is really weak, because any alternative energy design could also have levers for balance. And Blizzard rarely messes with these values to begin with. I don't dislike energy, mind you, I just think it is underdiscussed and taken for granted. I also think it worked better in BW without smartcasting and with slower paced gameplay.
Most spellcasting units in StarCraft (and War3) are made to have enough energy to cast a potentially impactful spell as soon as they are made, or several much less impactful spells, and be capable of casting multiple devastating spells or one potentially devastating spell later in the game at the cost of investing resources and time into the unit, sometimes investing in additional upgrades for that unit. If Terran could just pop out a Ghost and drop down a Nuke that lands after a second it would break down a lot of the strategic decisions players are supposed to be making, but if they have to build seven Ghosts and have them on the map for four minutes doing nothing until they can all launch a Nuke together then it removes other strategic decisions and isn't fun. Giving most units an ability to use right away makes them fairly reliable, impactful if used well, and also fun because they can do things no other units can do.
Having to invest in things is a massive part of traditional RTS games as well. Do you rush or try to play a longer macro game? Do you go for a timing attack/defense with this number of army units, or is it more wise to get fewer army units and invest into something a little more technical/magical?
Energy/Mana are very easily understandable mechanics and most gamers today will immediately understand what it is and how it works just by looking at the unit's HP/MP bars, which is extremely beneficial when making games. If there's something already there that everyone understands, then use it. It's also why health/life and damage and armor are used as opposed to completely alien terminology or mechanics. Armor protects you, damage is self explanatory, and so is health.
Energy is also consistent across many units between BW and SC2. Abilities that are on cooldown are very different mechanically and are designed from a slightly different perspective just like how Warrior spells in WoW that require Rage (starts at empty and is generated through melee attacks, taking damage, and being engaged in combat) are designed a bit differently from other spells that require the traditional Mana (slowly regenerates over time to full).
Consistent, understandable, gives complexity to the game, adds strategic depth, and is fun. All of those are things you usually want in a game, as a player or a designer. But, sometimes a little inconsistency or smidgen of randomness can be good too. You might whiff your Fungal Growth or your opponent might dodge it. You might use your Force Field too early and not have enough energy for when the Zerglings really come pouring into your base. You might use energy boosting your Medivac across the map for a drop but not have energy to quickly retrea-
oh wait no Boost is still bad nevermind that last one. 
For an RTS in which players are supposed to be commanding such large numbers of units, adding more types of unit resources on top of energy and cooldown abilities could demand too much from players, especially in a game like StarCraft which already demands a great deal from its players, at any skill level.
Hopefully that answers your question.
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I hate the new direction, it's always more mech, stronger mech, while it's boring to play vs mech.
Tanks are way too strong, a turtling Terran is unbreakable, we have all seen innovation beating dark : he made 20 tanks and pushed, it breaks every ground army if zerg doesn't have vipers/broodlords.
TvZ used to constant midgame interaction, now it's just defend and rush T3 for Zerg : never attack, Terran can't be attacked before hive.
People whine about photon overcharge, but tanks are alike, outrange everything, the more you have the best it is., it prevent any attack and force long/boring game or invincible deathball.
The best will be to remove the unit and remplace it by something else not designed to turtle, or at least make mass tanks bad, and mech something else than 20 sieged tanks at home, then push, siege and destroy every ground army.
If they really want TvZ to be 100% mech, at least make it as fun as playing vs bio, currently it's still a lame playstyle.
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On September 16 2017 23:07 blunderfulguy wrote:Show nested quote +Energy/Mana are very easily understandable mechanics and most gamers today will immediately understand what it is and how it works just by looking at the unit's HP/MP bars, which is extremely beneficial when making games. If there's something already there that everyone understands, then use it. It's also why health/life and damage and armor are used as opposed to completely alien terminology or mechanics. Armor protects you, damage is self explanatory, and so is health.
I would say this is besides the point and concerns optics and interface design rather than energy in the classical sense of having a pool of energy which slowly regenerates. In my view, if you include some methods of instant regeneration, abilities that don't cost too much energy and add cooldowns to everything you have already abandoned the most purely classical paradigm. In these cases the optics are still very similar, but functionally speaking it is different.
There exists armor as a mechanic in all sorts of games, but what is unique to Starcraft is that it reduces damage by a fixed amount instead of by a percentage. This drastically changes the functionality, just because it all fits under the idea of armor doesn't mean that it's the same.
As an example related to SC2, suppose that max energy is only 150, but regeneration is a bit higher, this would already be much different from how it is now. Blizzard could literally make this change tomorrow without technically breaking the game, all casters would still work. It is still energy, but it is a different alternative. And we don't really have a way of discussing whether that would be better or not.
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On September 17 2017 00:20 Tyrhanius wrote:
Tanks are way too strong, a turtling Terran is unbreakable, we have all seen innovation beating dark : he made 20 tanks and pushed, it breaks every ground army if zerg doesn't have vipers/broodlords.
....
If they really want TvZ to be 100% mech, at least make it as fun as playing vs bio, currently it's still a lame playstyle.
are you talking about on the PTR or in a GSL/SSL game using hte current patch?
in the GSL series Innovation used "mass tanks" only 1 time in 7 games against Dark.
i see GSL Terrans using a variety of bio, bio-mech, and mech strats and the mech they use is very aggressive.
when i play and my game goes longer than 12 minutes i always have at least 3 Factories because my APM and multitasking are not good enough for double pronged bio drops combined with proper macro... i think most Terran players running at ~125 APM with crappy multitasking are wise to include a lot of Vehicles and/or Air in their armies after 12 minutes. in general slow, lousy, Terran players are best served going Mech. i think armies with lots of Mech in them require less APM. but that's a guess on my part.. i'm no expert. Its easy to spend all your cash .. just queue up 3+ Thors.
In conclusion, i like what they've done with Mech the past year. Its been interesting to see more varieed strats from GSL Terrans and lousy players like me can hang in better late game because its easier to spend all your money with giant Mech armies. Send some Hellbats and Thors in .. A-Move.. and forget. 
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Would you say that if all races had some form of out of combat shield regeneration it would be best? And everything which effects healing to be outright discontinued? (in an ideal scenario?)
I don't know if you need shields on top of normal HP. But I imagine that the out-of-combat healing would work similar to shield-regeneration for protoss. This gives players a reward to micro to save injured units during battles.
And generally speaking, all in-combat healers should be removed (or not added to the game in the first place - since this isn't Sc2 I am talking about). There might be exceptions if they add some type of cool interaction in w/e way - can't really think of any example.
I wanted to mention that range and unit collision (dps intensity) already work like that though. So i think it's kinda unfair to criticize healing for this when it's basically integral to rts games in general.
In combat healing isn't critical to anything. It's an unnecasary snowball-mechanic that doesn't reward movement-based micro. In many cases it disrewards movement as the healer needs to stand still to heal.
When you build a new RTS from the ground up you should start with the absolute most simple design and only add new elements if they add good micro interactions + strategic depth.
@ blunderfulguy
You are just making stuff up that makes no sense, like what does healing have anything to do with damage types. Your whole response is so generic and vague - it contained no specific examples nor no analysis whether that could be accomplished in different ways.
And generally you seem imcapable of understanding my point. It's like you see the headline in an article without reading all of the analysis below and then just make random responses while having no clue what the article was about.
So please stop responding to my comments. Thanks in advance.
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On September 17 2017 00:54 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2017 23:07 blunderfulguy wrote:Energy/Mana are very easily understandable mechanics and most gamers today will immediately understand what it is and how it works just by looking at the unit's HP/MP bars, which is extremely beneficial when making games. If there's something already there that everyone understands, then use it. It's also why health/life and damage and armor are used as opposed to completely alien terminology or mechanics. Armor protects you, damage is self explanatory, and so is health. I would say this is besides the point and concerns optics and interface design rather than energy in the classical sense of having a pool of energy which slowly regenerates. In my view, if you include some methods of instant regeneration, abilities that don't cost too much energy and add cooldowns to everything you have already abandoned the most purely classical paradigm. In these cases the optics are still very similar, but functionally speaking it is different. There exists armor as a mechanic in all sorts of games, but what is unique to Starcraft is that it reduces damage by a fixed amount instead of by a percentage. This drastically changes the functionality, just because it all fits under the idea of armor doesn't mean that it's the same. As an example related to SC2, suppose that max energy is only 150, but regeneration is a bit higher, this would already be much different from how it is now. Blizzard could literally make this change tomorrow without technically breaking the game, all casters would still work. It is still energy, but it is a different alternative. And we don't really have a way of discussing whether that would be better or not.
That was meant to be taken as part of the whole explanation, not meant to be of utmost importance on its own.
Note: Spells do not traditionally have a cooldown in StarCraft, their "cooldown period" is simply the time it takes for the unit to regenerate enough energy to cast the spell again. Abilities in StarCraft 2, however, do have cooldowns but do not require a resource like spells do, and are different from a design perspective.
Now, if you increase energy regeneration for spellcasters and don't change their energy pool or energy cost for their spells, then, obviously, spellcasters will be able to cast all of their spells more often and still be able to cast the same amount of any spell at max energy, and will be able to cast again sooner and more often than compared to normal regen.
If you increase energy regen and decrease the pool but don't change the cost, then you make it so they can cast fewer of any spell at max energy but be able to cast again sooner and more often.
If you decrease the energy costs but nothing else, then they can cast more spells from max energy, cast again sooner, and cast more over time.
If you increase the energy pool, then they can cast fewer spells from max, but cast again just as soon and cast just as many spells over time.
So on and so forth. Removing 1/4th of spellcasters' energy pool then you would have to rebalance all of the energy costs of every spell so that the units stay just as useful for their investment, or increase their energy regeneration to make up for them being able to cast less spells from max energy, so on. All of the spellcasters' mineral, gas, and supply costs would very likely have to be looked at again as well since how impactful they are right away, how impactful they are after you have waited until they have max/"enough" energy, and how impactful they are over time during an engagement will be potentially drastically changed.
Technically it might not break the game, but there's more going on then just one spellcaster for one race. I've favored this sort of change for a very long time for Sentries, reducing their energy pool and possibly slightly increasing their regeneration, but if one unit regenerates faster than all of the other spellcasters so then could very possibly be confusing or frustrating for a large number of players and have unforeseen consequences such as players not making Sentries or not making other spellcasters because of how they do or do not understand them. At that point it could be better in one way to call it something other than "energy", but if it isn't called energy then it can be confusing in another way.
So, again, there is a lot more that has to be considered than just "well it wouldn't break the game" or "well I don't like the way it works" etc. etc. like many people think.
And keeping things consistent is of extreme importance to casual players in RTS games, something I didn't really emphasize before so I'll just toss it in here at the end. In fighting games or action rpgs or Warcraft 3 or Dota 2, players typically control a small number of units, or a single unit for most of these examples, and there is a lot less to focus and demand from the players. When you play with one unit then you can expect players to learn what makes that unit special and what is different about it from every other unit since players are expected to spend a long time player with that one unit and only that one unit. For StarCraft there are many more units and a lot more going on and players are expected to use any given unit in any given match on any given map, so with that already high demand you have to have consistency elsewhere. Like energy functionality, armor, and types of health/shield regeneration, for example.
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I wanted to respond to more of your post, but actually I didn't have time. To be honest, since I don't follow the game anymore, I noticed that whenever I still respond here I tend to just repeat posts I made a few years ago. Here are two previous posts I've written on this topic, which are probably better than what I would be able to come up with now.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/498835-community-feedback-update-november-20?page=5#99
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/499295-lotv-post-dh-reactions?page=17#325
Maybe to add to this, in Day[9]'s RTS game you had spells on global hotkeys even if you didn't have the units selected. That was possible because of the restricted unit choice and unit design, but I think it still points the way to the future. Modern game designers tend to consider players to be sheep that must be prevented from experiencing any sort of real human emotions lest they realize their condition as cattle and become frustrated and try different games. It's sort of a caricature, but from a certain point of view designers really don't want players to have to deal with implementation details like specific energy levels at all. That's actually why in some RTS games they would hide damage outputs or hit points, because it's not information players ought to be bothered by (as opposed to reality, where people are actually interested in it). So in Diablo III if you want to know what a spell does you have to change the settings to show additional information, or show a modifier key and so on. It's only a harmless example, but it's symptomatic.
If Blizzard has an RTS game, they probably don't like the fact that energy is naturally unreliable and is dependent on somewhat hidden or confusing aspects like specific energy levels of units. And for spells to become more reliable the best method is to have a higher number of units, which reduces variance. But this doesn't scale well across units numbers, it creates different usage regimes depending on supply count and so on. It's not really a universal system from the perspective of the player. I just very strongly suspect that given full reign (e.g. in a new RTS game) Blizzard would eliminate energy and replace it with some sort of universal access to spells or with ability cooldowns or with hero units.
In rpg/moba games hero units also have energy, but their spells have cooldowns and they tend to have access to out of combat regeneration tools. I mean, in Warcraft 3 casters weren't that widely used outside of heroes (which had moon wells or clarity potions) and when they were used, as for the human race, they for the most part had cheap, automated abilities like heal or slow, frequently coupled with the archmage that gave casters an infinite mana aura.
If you look at the progress from WCII, to BW, to WCIII, to SC2, then SC2 is clearly a retreat. They obviously didn't consider redesigning energy at all in the early design of SC2, so we still have it. And actually it is sometimes to the game's detriment, because part of the problem with the infestor or the raven can be blamed on a very high maximum energy. This is a game with smartcast, so it is much easier to use casters efficiently.
Now personally I like the hypothetical strategic aspects to energy, and I fear that any new system would probably be laser-focused on creating reliable casters that have a set number of spells available at the start of every battle, while decoupling it from any sort of notion of investment and the idea of nurturing casters. But if energy is this completely malleable system, which easily accommodates models that are functionally very different, and if in SC2 nobody cares to analyze what actual, literal strategical decision making it creates, and if there is no good way to talk about why max energy should be 200 instead of 100 or 250, or why energy regeneration should be so low, then it feels underdiscussed and susceptible to replacement or subversion by an inferior modern system created by overly-clever game designers.
Now maybe all of this is a bit vague, but then I'm not some sort of expert on SC2 anyway. :o
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On September 15 2017 16:30 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +Did you think about the implications of increasing the damage, specifically the impact on Ravager rushes against Terran? I am talking about balancing the Ravager around lower delay + higher AOE and perhaps higher damage. This implies worse core stats. If early game rushes for whatever reason becomes too strong you could reduce CB damage against structures. That's a potential balance issue and is a numbers issue. Doesn't have anything to do with game design.
Exactly my point, he most likely changed it for balance purposes not design purposes, so you judging his ability to design based on that is stupid.
Now I see that you're calling healing during battle a dumb idea and unsound game design, never mind, you just don't have a clue what you're on about, I'll just leave you to it.
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Exactly my point, he most likely changed it for balance purposes not design purposes, so you judging his ability to design based on that is stupid.
No he wasn't. When you buff one metric and nerf another it's per definition a design change so you have no point or argumentation. You are just defending him blindly!
And If I had said any other TL user didn't understand game-deisgn you wouldn't have blinked an eye - impressive ignorance from your side + appeal to authority fallacy from your side.
Now I see that you're calling healing during battle a dumb idea and unsound game design, never mind, you just don't have a clue what you're on about, I'll just leave you to it.
"Didn't know TL users had such strong knowledge of game-design so they shouldn't be allowed to say other TL users don't know what they are talking about - Only TLO and I are allowed to share opinions - anyone else opinions should be dismissed without any analysis of them"
Impresisve double standard. Could you possibly be a more irrational fanboy?
Anyway, I should do my best to ignore irrational boys like you so have a nice life but please don't respond to my comments in the future. Have a nice life.
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On September 18 2017 15:53 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +
Exactly my point, he most likely changed it for balance purposes not design purposes, so you judging his ability to design based on that is stupid.
No he wasn't. When you buff one metric and nerf another it's per definition a design change so you have no point or argumentation. You are just defending him blindly! And If I had said any other TL user didn't understand game-deisgn you wouldn't have blinked an eye - impressive ignorance from your side + appeal to authority fallacy from your side. Show nested quote +Now I see that you're calling healing during battle a dumb idea and unsound game design, never mind, you just don't have a clue what you're on about, I'll just leave you to it. "Didn't know TL users had such strong knowledge of game-design so they shouldn't be allowed to say other TL users don't know what they are talking about - Only TLO and I are allowed to share opinions - anyone else opinions should be dismissed without any analysis of them" Impresisve double standard. Could you possibly be a more irrational fanboy? Anyway, I should do my best to ignore irrational boys like you so have a nice life but please don't respond to my comments in the future. Have a nice life.
Are you trying to gaslight other users? Because it seems like that's what you're doing.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CM809rKWoAAiV0C.jpg)
