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StarCraft II Balance Update -- November 28, 2017 - Page 11

Forum Index > SC2 General
226 CommentsPost a Reply
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Argonauta
Profile Joined July 2016
Spain4902 Posts
December 05 2017 10:33 GMT
#201
On December 05 2017 04:10 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2017 03:56 Charoisaur wrote:
On December 05 2017 03:47 washikie wrote:
Zergs whining about air toss. I will now bestow the knowledge you once bestowed on me when i was but a Terran player:

"Just kill them before they get their"

With this knowledge bomb clearly you will now understand how late game zvp is a completely fair and balanced situation where protoss is justified in having an easy to control amove army that runs you over for not stopping them from reaching that point. You should have just not allowed them to play very defensively while making an unbeatable army. Your loss is completely fair and just. You were out skilled by there ability to sit in there base and make air units. How could you ever compare to someone who knows how to deffend on four bases while massing a very easy to use amove deathball that crushes evreything in its path.

+ Show Spoiler +
It amuses me that a large number of zerg are complaining about skytoss when for years the answer to zerg late game for Terran has been "kill them before they get their". Why is it that the zerg community is convinced that they must have a superior late game in 100% of situations? Why not do as you have told terrans to do for ages and end the game before protoss get their?

No no you got it all wrong
Terran loses in TvZ lategame because they refuse to build high tier units and just want to rally marines across the map all game.
If they would adapt their playstyle like Zerg and Protoss do instead of stubbornly doing the same thing every game they'd have no problem at all in lategame /s


Good guy Blizzard helping terran out by nerfing bio into oblivion.



What Terran Bio nerf?
Rogue | Maru | Scarlett | Trap
TL+ Member
opisska
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Poland8852 Posts
December 05 2017 10:33 GMT
#202
JackONeill, I think your post is a good analysis of why the direction they took is so great: they have nerfed exactly the most obnoxious things about terran - mines that were much harder to deal with than to use and an answer to anything in the early game, bio that was able to take on anything without any high-tech units and the cancer that was massing ravens.

Maybe it has left terran a little weaker, but that could be balanced by some slight number changes - and balance also really affects only top players, so everyone else should be pretty happy with those changes.
"Jeez, that's far from ideal." - Serral, the king of mild trashtalk
TL+ Member
xongnox
Profile Joined November 2011
540 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-05 11:13:18
December 05 2017 10:36 GMT
#203
On December 05 2017 03:18 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2017 01:18 Jerom wrote:
On December 04 2017 10:25 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
On December 04 2017 09:48 Jerom wrote:
I feel like for diamond scrubs (and worse) the high templar change is the biggest problem in TvP. It's incredibly easy for protoss to have close to perfect micro right now. If they just attack move and storm with some high templars, the protoss is doing a really good job in a fight for diamond standards. At the moment I don't even know how I can deal with this because I'm nowhere near skilled enough to actually take a fight well enough in the lategame to compete with that.

It feels like at my level (im diamond 3 atm) TvP is basically unplayable in the lategame. I know the balance really matters at high level but this specific high templar change just targets the midtier levels with zero compensation for terran. Before this change, protoss players would have to group their high templars seperately and then lose a few maybe do to mispositioning or mismicro or being generally overwhelmed, while right now they're automatically nice and split between the army without the toss putting in any effort. This is a ridiculous state of the game for all (semi) casual terrans. Basically I have to all in right now or I will just lose in the lategame. I know theoretically I should just get good, but I'm not capable of playing that much and I don't seem to be very talented. It'd just be great if I could actually play lategame against protoss too.


Casual balance is a pretty difficult thing to quantify. Mostly Blizzard doesn't bother with it much since matchmaking will generally level out people's winrates. Prior to the patch (and assuming that the skill of the players of the different races is equal) Zerg was by far the strongest with the average Zerg being mid-plat, Terran was in the middle with the average Terran being mid-gold and Protoss was the weakest with the average Protoss being low-gold. Post-patch Protoss and Terran have basically swapped places at the level of the general populace. Not sure if the assumption that the skill of the players of different races is equal is reasonable post-patch though since newer players attracted by FTP usually choose terran.

Either way there's lots of stuff with all races that are easier to do than deal with, so I'd suggest to go for stuff like that such as ranged liberators.

Well, this change would be a change aimed at casual balance to begin with. It simply makes the game easier and its effects shouldn't be that large at high levels (although I've seen enough mediocre high templar micro even in top games so this might just be an overall buff). The thing is that in the lategame protoss players can now just group high templars with their entire army, attack move, place a few storms and then literally have perfect micro. The high templars will spread out nicely, making sniping them off or emping a bunch really hard, they wont move forward or move in late, they'll just be there positioned perfectly with just a simple attack move. This is a big deal at levels where the mechanics of a player have a severe inpact on the game.

The terran army, which is already generally pretty hard and has a very high skill cap, doesn't have anything this easy. Yes, there are things that are in some sense easier or harder to deal with and all races have some of these, but these high templars are something that happens in standard play. It's at the point where any mediocre player (and I'm not even talking about gold or something, but diamonds and probably even master players) will struggle badly to win a fight versus a maxed out protoss because the protoss will basically micro perfectly while the terran player will probably have some micro flaws. It's infuriating. I've personally always liked to aim for macro oriented playstyles, or when I get an advantage try to play it safe and get more ahead, but at this point if protoss ever gets a sizeable deathball it's becoming really hard to ever win a fight.

This is supposed to be a quality of life change, to make the game more enjoyable precisely for diamond players. I'd claim its doing the opposite, it will over time probably reduce the TvP match up into an all in fest because at this skill level the match up is just not playable in the late game.


Have you thought of the possibility that your experience might not be reflective of the general population.

Show nested quote +
On December 05 2017 01:35 xongnox wrote:
Yep, using aligulac stats to consider balance is well know to be stupid bullshit for years. People still does it. Statistics literacy is not a widespread skill...
So to be fast :

  • Expecting than a perfectly balance MU would lead to 50% ratio on aligulac typically assume two identical players distributions (skillwise), random picks from each, and a (really) huge numbers of games. Then by the law of large numbers we should get near 50%.

  • In reality each hypothesis is plain false. Players distribution between races are not identical at all. According to the era, we can have 4 top-world-zerg for 1 top-world T and 1 same Toss, and 2 top-tiers Zergs for 5 top-tier T and 3 top-tier toss, etc, etc. In this condition, even with a perfectly balanced game and randoms match picks, statistics of korean tournements will be flawed.

  • Games are not picked up randomly, but most of them are a result of some sort of qualification (even to play the second round of a qualifier, you have to win the first round, etc.), qualifications results relying on skill... and balance.
    In practice there is an effect a bit similar to MMR matching on ladder, witch balance things out (stats wise) even if one race is super favored.

  • In this setup, where similar MMR players are matched, 3 races is a nightmare to understand balance from statistics.
    Suppose a totally broken Z >>>>>> P but the others MU are perfectly balanced. Then, because Z >>>>>> P, Z players will be over-ranked (skill wise), so matched with superior T opponents. So we will get T >>> Z stats-wise even if we account MMR of players, but the match-up is perfectly balanced. On the other end, P will be under-ranked and so they will do fine in PvT vs similar MMR. So we get P >>> T stats wise. Then because P underranked, zergs will be matched with better P opponents, not enough to compensate the imbalance but like 1/2 enough. So ZvP will appear Z >>> P. So we get on appearance Z >>> P, T >>> Z, and P >>> T, and this is only caused by one flawed MU. (but there is no way to know witch one )



tl:dr : don't even watch aligulac stats (or ladder ones). Watch tournaments, how games play out. Watch every fucking competitive terran on earth not even trying to play bio. Watch Korean ladder. Even the PvT match counted on aligulac atm is mostly mech, not bio, and people come here to use that statistics to speak about the balance of bio TvP... LOL.





Aligulac statistics have weaknesses that have to be kept in mind while considering them, but at least they have some objectivity to them unlike anything else. People like to point out the flaws of the statistical methods when they don't agree with the results of the statistics. And I find it ironic that you think that watching a few games here or there through human lenses would give you a more statistically sound view of TvP. Your objections are mostly bullshit (which is surprising since there are a quite a number of legit criticism of aligulac):

  • You have to assume identical player distributions. Maybe in a magic world where you have a perfect measure of empirical skill you can say that 'twelve of the top sixteen most skilled players are terran' and as such it is perfectly reasonable to let every tournament be dominated by them, but without such magic no one would call that balanced or be satisfied by it. So you should balance things as if the player pools are the top are basically even, even if they really aren't.

  • Qualifications hardly matter since qualifiers are usually included in aligulac, and additionally the qualifiers that aren't, aren't usually so high level as to filter out anyone who's actually good enough at the game that we'd care about the balance.

  • Your example doesn't work in practice. If Z >>>>> P and the other match-ups are equal yes it does mean that PvT in later rounds of the tournament will probably be skewed towards the protoss, but also accordingly the number of PvTs will be larger in the earlier rounds of the tournament due to Protoss getting eliminated quickly. And there are many many tournaments the lower rounds of which heavily influence the balance due to the number of games, and it would be very apparent that ZvP is the problematic match-up.





  • To balance supposing players pools at the top are basically even suppose as least as much magic to hold good results than to have a perfect mesure of empirical skill. (i was not suggesting that, btw). So you are just suggesting we should do with this false hypothesis because it's still our best one. And then, after acknowledging it's a false hypothesis ruining results, you say this critique is bullshit ? Because we can't do better ? I just say it's bad stats, not that we can do better...
    Btw, we now have a bit of history of the competitive scene in SC2. And yeah, players distribution at the top can be way different from time to time and locally... (from the terran army in early KR to the Protoss Armada post Kespa switch to the ForeignLand utterly zerg-dominated).

  • Sorry, maybe i should have used another word, like selection. Selection matters a lot (from a final of GSL to the 3rd round of a qualifier), players are not put at each other randomly at all. You even talk yourself about selection balance-wise in the first rounds, so i guess you understand the concept.

  • typo : will be lower. Depends on the format of the tournament and players pools selection. My illustrative story hold true in a ladder/round robin (with pre selection of near MMR) settings. It's still important because people and Blizzard sometimes talks about win ratio on the ladder.
    In a tournament setting, like a big binary Tree with no selection to entry, you are almost right. Well, since we don't know players pools distributions you are not true, but, supposing players pools staying identical between two patch and two tournaments with identical settings, we should observe modification of the balance equilibrium in PvT by your ways.
    Btw even in a random bracket your argument of a strongly skewed first rounds seems over-stated to me. In the firsts rounds of a random bracket, skill gap is often way superior to possible balance gap, weakening your argument.


Conclusion : Maybe instead of arguing about why statistics are not that good to describe balance, we should watch history. Worst periods of SC2 had OK-statistics for a while. Blizzard used statistics to kill SC2 by not acting during BL/infestors (yeah some terran won games by bunker rushing or 3 base pro-gglords all-ins, still got ZvZ finals.. )... the win/ratio was not that bad they said... they even used ladder stats at the time.. it's fine ! 46% for Terrans....we can wait !

I don't argue watching 3 games will get you a better statistical sense of balance. I argue the statistical sense of balance is a bad measure, and an expert human knowledge do better than blind watching some (bad) stats. For all the flaw we already talked, an awful lot of information is lost in statistics (like : design-wise and fun wise, the two most important thing in a game). BL/infestors or mass SH style should have been nerfed to the ground first and foremost because they were ugly and stupid (to play, to watch, to play versus). To wait for very bad stats is what nearly killed the game twice.

We should bring back bio to the game because it's fun and the DNA of Terran. Maybe Mech/rush is balanced vs Toss ( i don't think so but..) so the MU can be balanced (stats wise and reality wise), still, we should bring back bio.

Btw, know legit criticism of aligulac stats (like mostly game from 3-rd tier players, and if we account only the top we have way to few games, etc. ) is true but weaker then my arguments criticizing statistics methods in SC2 in geneal (so, ladder too, top competition too, etc. ). It seemed to me too obvious to even talk about that.

Last but not least, please don't assume people's intention. I always argued stats are bad to assert balance, since the beginning of SC2, no matter the context. Because there are bad and don't even factor the most important things (the design, the fun, the boring, etc.). History of SC2 balance & stats seems very clear to me.



Argonauta
Profile Joined July 2016
Spain4902 Posts
December 05 2017 10:36 GMT
#204
Revert marauder to HOTS stats and nerf chrono, that's the only thing imho.
Rogue | Maru | Scarlett | Trap
TL+ Member
xongnox
Profile Joined November 2011
540 Posts
December 05 2017 11:14 GMT
#205
Yes, that's an obvious first step.
JackONeill
Profile Joined September 2013
861 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-05 12:44:24
December 05 2017 12:43 GMT
#206
On December 05 2017 19:33 opisska wrote:
JackONeill, I think your post is a good analysis of why the direction they took is so great: they have nerfed exactly the most obnoxious things about terran - mines that were much harder to deal with than to use and an answer to anything in the early game, bio that was able to take on anything without any high-tech units and the cancer that was massing ravens.

Maybe it has left terran a little weaker, but that could be balanced by some slight number changes - and balance also really affects only top players, so everyone else should be pretty happy with those changes.


Yes, and i've always found the mine to be both abusive, random, annoying, and unfair. I'm also glad that the direction they took was to state that "massing 15 raven isnt the only way to play mech !"

However i think you're sugarcoating it when you're saying it left terran "a little weaker". Such uncompensated nerfs will need to see other units get buffed, and heavily. I wasnt proposing that viking health went from 125 to 150 lightly : that quite a massive buff.
The thing is that nerfing core units for both bio and mech so heavily and not proposing compensation from the start is kinda dangerous and will only lead to frustration. For instance, the cyclone's AA was buffed a little, surely to compensate for the mine not being that good anymore, and for ravens now being unable to spawn turrets to help kill flying stuff. However the cyclone's AA is nowhere near where it's supposed to be so that it can fill such a massive void.

Therefore i think that not only will number buffs be needed, but design changes will be needed too. The ghost getting its energy back when the snipe is cancelled is already a MASSIVE help, and a step in the right direction, but i fear that blizzard won't move fast enough to prevent people (especially F2P newcomers) not playing the game out of frustration.
opisska
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Poland8852 Posts
December 05 2017 13:07 GMT
#207
On December 05 2017 21:43 JackONeill wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2017 19:33 opisska wrote:
JackONeill, I think your post is a good analysis of why the direction they took is so great: they have nerfed exactly the most obnoxious things about terran - mines that were much harder to deal with than to use and an answer to anything in the early game, bio that was able to take on anything without any high-tech units and the cancer that was massing ravens.

Maybe it has left terran a little weaker, but that could be balanced by some slight number changes - and balance also really affects only top players, so everyone else should be pretty happy with those changes.


Yes, and i've always found the mine to be both abusive, random, annoying, and unfair. I'm also glad that the direction they took was to state that "massing 15 raven isnt the only way to play mech !"

However i think you're sugarcoating it when you're saying it left terran "a little weaker". Such uncompensated nerfs will need to see other units get buffed, and heavily. I wasnt proposing that viking health went from 125 to 150 lightly : that quite a massive buff.
The thing is that nerfing core units for both bio and mech so heavily and not proposing compensation from the start is kinda dangerous and will only lead to frustration. For instance, the cyclone's AA was buffed a little, surely to compensate for the mine not being that good anymore, and for ravens now being unable to spawn turrets to help kill flying stuff. However the cyclone's AA is nowhere near where it's supposed to be so that it can fill such a massive void.

Therefore i think that not only will number buffs be needed, but design changes will be needed too. The ghost getting its energy back when the snipe is cancelled is already a MASSIVE help, and a step in the right direction, but i fear that blizzard won't move fast enough to prevent people (especially F2P newcomers) not playing the game out of frustration.


The only reason for frustration of newcomers if when they read endless complaining posts online. Unless you are high Masters, you are unlikely to perceive any imbalance while playit, because if you race is harde, the matchmaker will just give you easier oponents. You are gonna win half of your games regardless of racial balance. Surely the game should be balanced but the importance of balance for non-top players is constantly overstated. I find it quite annoying after 7 years of living with the matchmaker.

This is the key reason why we should be looking into individual things that make the experience unfun, such as builds or units that dominate a matchup or a phase of the game instead of some statistics. Gameplay is much more important than balance. Yet most of the posts here are fixated on how "fair" some changes are to their race, yours included.
"Jeez, that's far from ideal." - Serral, the king of mild trashtalk
TL+ Member
xTJx
Profile Joined May 2014
Brazil419 Posts
December 05 2017 13:13 GMT
#208
On December 05 2017 03:47 washikie wrote:
Zergs whining about air toss. I will now bestow the knowledge you once bestowed on me when i was but a Terran player:

"Just kill them before they get their"

With this knowledge bomb clearly you will now understand how late game zvp is a completely fair and balanced situation where protoss is justified in having an easy to control amove army that runs you over for not stopping them from reaching that point. You should have just not allowed them to play very defensively while making an unbeatable army. Your loss is completely fair and just. You were out skilled by there ability to sit in there base and make air units. How could you ever compare to someone who knows how to deffend on four bases while massing a very easy to use amove deathball that crushes evreything in its path.

+ Show Spoiler +
It amuses me that a large number of zerg are complaining about skytoss when for years the answer to zerg late game for Terran has been "kill them before they get their". Why is it that the zerg community is convinced that they must have a superior late game in 100% of situations? Why not do as you have told terrans to do for ages and end the game before protoss get their?


So we shouldn't adress mass carriers because terrans insist on fighting ultras with marines? Terran arguments are evolving i see.

Another great example of why we need to separate balance threads by league.
No prejudices, i hate everyone equally.
xTJx
Profile Joined May 2014
Brazil419 Posts
December 05 2017 13:41 GMT
#209
Seeing how people overeact with every single change and how terrans wouldn't stop saying that the race is completely broken no matter what, even when the patch is still fresh, i'm convinced Blizzard should stop listening to this community .
No prejudices, i hate everyone equally.
slit
Profile Joined March 2013
Spain212 Posts
December 05 2017 14:53 GMT
#210
On December 05 2017 22:41 xTJx wrote:
Seeing how people overeact with every single change and how terrans wouldn't stop saying that the race is completely broken no matter what, even when the patch is still fresh, i'm convinced Blizzard should stop listening to this community .


Totally understandable, moreso when after every patch players needed to adapt and figure out things (which is one of the enticing things about watching any competitive game imho), but there's something off with the balance when INno and GuMiho for example (god-tier players) are losing nay to whatever the match pool is.
FanaticCZ
Profile Joined December 2011
Czech Republic287 Posts
December 05 2017 15:26 GMT
#211
On December 05 2017 19:33 opisska wrote:
...and balance also really affects only top players, so everyone else should be pretty happy with those changes.


This could not be more wrong. Of course it affects lower levels as well. There are players who will never achieve the same skill as the top players due to different reasons. Playing a race that is weaker than the others will influence their MMR and experience as well.

You can't just throw it off the table because "n00bs should learn to macro".
INnoVation is the GOAT!
opisska
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Poland8852 Posts
December 05 2017 15:28 GMT
#212
On December 06 2017 00:26 FanaticCZ wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2017 19:33 opisska wrote:
...and balance also really affects only top players, so everyone else should be pretty happy with those changes.


This could not be more wrong. Of course it affects lower levels as well. There are players who will never achieve the same skill as the top players due to different reasons. Playing a race that is weaker than the others will influence their MMR and experience as well.

You can't just throw it off the table because "n00bs should learn to macro".


Of course it influences your MMR. But how do you know if you have 3.9k MMR because your race is weak or because you are bad? You simply don't. The matchmaker makes the experience exactly the same. The only effect is that the number and icon can be a little different, but you still have no way of knowing if it is the case or not.
"Jeez, that's far from ideal." - Serral, the king of mild trashtalk
TL+ Member
JackONeill
Profile Joined September 2013
861 Posts
December 05 2017 17:09 GMT
#213
On December 05 2017 22:07 opisska wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 05 2017 21:43 JackONeill wrote:
On December 05 2017 19:33 opisska wrote:
JackONeill, I think your post is a good analysis of why the direction they took is so great: they have nerfed exactly the most obnoxious things about terran - mines that were much harder to deal with than to use and an answer to anything in the early game, bio that was able to take on anything without any high-tech units and the cancer that was massing ravens.

Maybe it has left terran a little weaker, but that could be balanced by some slight number changes - and balance also really affects only top players, so everyone else should be pretty happy with those changes.


Yes, and i've always found the mine to be both abusive, random, annoying, and unfair. I'm also glad that the direction they took was to state that "massing 15 raven isnt the only way to play mech !"

However i think you're sugarcoating it when you're saying it left terran "a little weaker". Such uncompensated nerfs will need to see other units get buffed, and heavily. I wasnt proposing that viking health went from 125 to 150 lightly : that quite a massive buff.
The thing is that nerfing core units for both bio and mech so heavily and not proposing compensation from the start is kinda dangerous and will only lead to frustration. For instance, the cyclone's AA was buffed a little, surely to compensate for the mine not being that good anymore, and for ravens now being unable to spawn turrets to help kill flying stuff. However the cyclone's AA is nowhere near where it's supposed to be so that it can fill such a massive void.

Therefore i think that not only will number buffs be needed, but design changes will be needed too. The ghost getting its energy back when the snipe is cancelled is already a MASSIVE help, and a step in the right direction, but i fear that blizzard won't move fast enough to prevent people (especially F2P newcomers) not playing the game out of frustration.


The only reason for frustration of newcomers if when they read endless complaining posts online. Unless you are high Masters, you are unlikely to perceive any imbalance while playit, because if you race is harde, the matchmaker will just give you easier oponents. You are gonna win half of your games regardless of racial balance. Surely the game should be balanced but the importance of balance for non-top players is constantly overstated. I find it quite annoying after 7 years of living with the matchmaker.

This is the key reason why we should be looking into individual things that make the experience unfun, such as builds or units that dominate a matchup or a phase of the game instead of some statistics. Gameplay is much more important than balance. Yet most of the posts here are fixated on how "fair" some changes are to their race, yours included.


You're denying reality here.
Stating that frustration doesn't come from the game but the forum is absolutely ridiculous.
Also people experience "legitimate" balance issues far deeper than high masters league.
And no one has been talking about statistics here. Moreover, if you think that "fun" in a game doesn't depend on balance, you're sorely mistaken (especially when we're talking about new F2P-brought players).

I won't bother to go deeply into how and why you're wrong (it's a useless discussion and i wrote like an entire page worth of something much more interesting to me), but it's kinda amazing how you managed how you managed to write a post that's entirely and solely composed of erroneous or dishonnest statements.
opisska
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Poland8852 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-05 17:25:27
December 05 2017 17:19 GMT
#214
The two reactions here are a classic example of what ingrained opinions do to people. None of you have provided any reall rebuttals besides me just being "wrong" - I guess because there really aren't any to be provided in the first place. However your conviction that balance must be super-important to everyone is so strong that you feel compelled to just repeat vague notions in absence of any arguments, because your minds cannot come to terms with the possibility of things not being the way you feel.

So once again: the matchmaker gives you opponents that you have a 50% chance of beating. Players of all kinds of skill are available on ladder. If you are not at either extreme of the distribution, then even if the game is objectively imbalanced against your race, there are players available that will provide you a balanced game and you will be matched with such players. If your race is underpowered, you will be getting players who are somewhat worse than you as a compensation. However because you cannot determine your real skill level (MMR/league where you should be) independently of your race, you have no way of telling that this happens. Seriously, the only players somewhat affected by imbalance on non-top level are randoms, because they have a single MMR for all races; even people who just switch races are now fine with per-race MMR system.

Until you provide concrete arguments why this is not true, you are just shouting into the wind.

edit: to be even more clear, I am not denying that frustration can come from the experience in game. On the contrary, it does and I can tell you a lot about it But it has nothing to do with racial balance, things can frustrate you independently of whether your race is under- or over-powered. That is the whole point, that the things that matter to the bulk of players are on the "microscale" in game and they are highly individual and dependent on personal styles and abilities, while the actual racial balance has no effect outside top level competition.
"Jeez, that's far from ideal." - Serral, the king of mild trashtalk
TL+ Member
xongnox
Profile Joined November 2011
540 Posts
December 05 2017 17:25 GMT
#215
Yep, even on ladder with matchmaking, huge imbalance or stupid design cause a lot of frustration (ask zergs about 5rax reapers or Terrans about BL/infestors). In this situation you sometimes feels like in a match-up you loose vs a way worse player than you only because some imba shit.
It is very frustrating... to the point some people stop to play. (cf. bl.infestors)

We should also see pro-scene as an inspiration for casual players. Today i can't even grab some good TvP bio builds from korean Terrans, because no one plays bio and win reasonably vs similar level opponents. (well, maybe uthermal and Major are better inspirations atm... )
opisska
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Poland8852 Posts
December 05 2017 17:39 GMT
#216
I agree that things that are obviously broken need to be patched. But ironically, such things may exists for races that are otherwise underpowered.

I was mostly addressing his remark that this will "frustrate newcomers" though and so talk about pro-scene and builds is rather tangential. Again, I agree that if we want to have a pro-scene, balance is essential.
"Jeez, that's far from ideal." - Serral, the king of mild trashtalk
TL+ Member
SCHWARZENEGGER
Profile Joined July 2016
206 Posts
December 05 2017 18:05 GMT
#217
On December 06 2017 02:25 xongnox wrote:
Yep, even on ladder with matchmaking, huge imbalance or stupid design cause a lot of frustration (ask zergs about 5rax reapers or Terrans about BL/infestors). In this situation you sometimes feels like in a match-up you loose vs a way worse player than you only because some imba shit.
It is very frustrating... to the point some people stop to play. (cf. bl.infestors)

We should also see pro-scene as an inspiration for casual players. Today i can't even grab some good TvP bio builds from korean Terrans, because no one plays bio and win reasonably vs similar level opponents. (well, maybe uthermal and Major are better inspirations atm... )


innovation gave up on mech in tvp cuz it's worse than bio and he loses to aLive's protoss, but it's ridiculous to see how heromarine beating 6.3mmr protosses with only bio vs colossi and storm, their mmr doesn't reflect their skill.
Charoisaur
Profile Joined August 2014
Germany15878 Posts
December 05 2017 18:05 GMT
#218
On December 06 2017 02:19 opisska wrote:

So once again: the matchmaker gives you opponents that you have a 50% chance of beating. Players of all kinds of skill are available on ladder. If you are not at either extreme of the distribution, then even if the game is objectively imbalanced against your race, there are players available that will provide you a balanced game and you will be matched with such players. If your race is underpowered, you will be getting players who are somewhat worse than you as a compensation. However because you cannot determine your real skill level (MMR/league where you should be) independently of your race, you have no way of telling that this happens. Seriously, the only players somewhat affected by imbalance on non-top level are randoms, because they have a single MMR for all races; even people who just switch races are now fine with per-race MMR system.


but there's no matchup-based MMR, so if one matchup is heavily imbalanced you won't have a 50% winrate in that matchup because the other 2 matchups are still keeping your MMR relatively high.
Many of the coolest moments in sc2 happen due to worker harassment
jpg06051992
Profile Joined July 2015
United States580 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-05 20:08:57
December 05 2017 20:08 GMT
#219
On December 05 2017 19:36 Argonauta wrote:
Revert marauder to HOTS stats and nerf chrono, that's the only thing imho.


And make Carrier build time longer or some other nerf, with the multitude of Infestor nerfs that were brought about specifically to counter Protoss mass air once again the Golden Armada is a rofl stomp 100 APM army that requires Zerg to utilize Queens, Vipers, and Infestors with excellent micro to even have a chance of defeating.

On top of it being imbalanced (I mean, they are clearly never going to buff Corruptors or Hydralisks vs. air at this point, can't help but feel that ship has sailed) it's incredibly not fun. This game has long been plagued with, "Achieve the ultimate air army because every races AA kind of sucks" and that needs to be the opposite direction moving forward to make aerial play much more limited.

Oh and Chrono is way too good in it's current format, I understand giving Protoss some love because they received the most changes so I figured a bit of imba and OP would pop up here and there, the game definitely feels better to play. But Terran feels weak, Protoss feels strong, and Zerg feels like they still cannot do a thing against mass Protoss air play.

- Revert rauders so bio can have more of a chance against Ultralisks/late game viability

- Nerf Chrono because it's too flexible, it allows Protoss to power upgrades, or power units, or power a Nexus, MULES and Inject don't possess near that level of flexibility. MULES gives income boost, Inject gives Larvae, Chrono gives.....anything the Protoss wants?

- Nerf Carriers but give buffs elsewhere, like ground units, the balance team should make a, "by the end of the year, mass air strategies will suck" game plan, because it is seriously lame.

Broodlord/Infestor? Unstoppable air army

Pre nerfed Liberators/Ravens? Terran rushed for turtle mode unstoppable air army

Mass Carrier with Mothership? Unstoppable air army

I just don't understand why mass Broodlord/Infestor and mass Skyterran are both considered cancer and get nerfed substantially, but Sky Protoss is not? What is the actual rationale behind this? At least with Broodlord/Infestor you had to micro manage your units because they were slow and vulnerable (Broods) or possessed weird activated abilities and needed a good spread to not get reamed by Infestors and Corruptors (Skyterran), what vulnerabilities does mass Carrier possess besides surrendering map control?
"SO MANY BANELINGS!"
FanaticCZ
Profile Joined December 2011
Czech Republic287 Posts
December 05 2017 21:50 GMT
#220
On December 06 2017 02:19 opisska wrote:
The two reactions here are a classic example of what ingrained opinions do to people. None of you have provided any reall rebuttals besides me just being "wrong" - I guess because there really aren't any to be provided in the first place. However your conviction that balance must be super-important to everyone is so strong that you feel compelled to just repeat vague notions in absence of any arguments, because your minds cannot come to terms with the possibility of things not being the way you feel.

So once again: the matchmaker gives you opponents that you have a 50% chance of beating. Players of all kinds of skill are available on ladder. If you are not at either extreme of the distribution, then even if the game is objectively imbalanced against your race, there are players available that will provide you a balanced game and you will be matched with such players. If your race is underpowered, you will be getting players who are somewhat worse than you as a compensation. However because you cannot determine your real skill level (MMR/league where you should be) independently of your race, you have no way of telling that this happens. Seriously, the only players somewhat affected by imbalance on non-top level are randoms, because they have a single MMR for all races; even people who just switch races are now fine with per-race MMR system.

Until you provide concrete arguments why this is not true, you are just shouting into the wind.

edit: to be even more clear, I am not denying that frustration can come from the experience in game. On the contrary, it does and I can tell you a lot about it But it has nothing to do with racial balance, things can frustrate you independently of whether your race is under- or over-powered. That is the whole point, that the things that matter to the bulk of players are on the "microscale" in game and they are highly individual and dependent on personal styles and abilities, while the actual racial balance has no effect outside top level competition.


The fact that a person has been playing on a certain MMR/league level that could be considered his best where he achieved a long term 50% winratio (for 3+ years) and suddenly post-patch his MMR drops significantly without any real mechanical skill decline tells me that there is some sort of an imbalance in the game that made his previously equal opponents (protoss and zerg in this instance) a lot better.

Obviously there are multiple other reasons that contribute but you cant just throw this out of the window and say that it only affects the highest level.

Why did I increase my MMR/got promoted when Hellbats were a thing at the start of HotS and plummeted right back down where i was for a long time before (and stayed there from that point) the moment they patched them? Was it because i somehow started playing better for that same amount of time the hellbats were OP or was it because i was abusing their power which increased my MMR because my equal opponents were unable to deal with that?
INnoVation is the GOAT!
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