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Source
"Hey everyone,
Since our last update, we’ve been closely monitoring balance stats on the ladder as well as carefully observing the tournament scene. Today’s update will focus on what we’re hearing from the community, and we’ll also share our thoughts on the current match ups.
In terms of tournaments, a number of our balance patches—like the Raven changes, and the moving of Ventral Sacs to Lair tech—occurred after the qualifier phases or during later rounds of GSL. We feel that some of these changes haven’t seen quite enough high-level play to really judge their ramifications. The upcoming GSL group stages and WCS qualifier results will be valuable for gauging where the current meta is and what sort of further balance changes are necessary.
PvZ
In terms of this matchup, players seem to still be trying out new strategies. Stargate remains a popular opener but creating and refining new openers often takes some time, since many players don’t want to risk their tournament series on builds they consider untested. Each race trades off in power at different points of the game while still having access to strong aggressive options should players choose to invest in them.
TvZ
We feel this matchup is in a decent state. Both sides have access to several openers and mid-game strategies that reward good play, though we have been getting feedback about late game Ravens encouraging overly defensive play. While we don’t see this style of play all that frequently, we think that the Raven’s Anti-Armor Missile provides too much defensive power with its ability to trade energy for high burst damage. Win rates, overall, slightly favor Zerg in this matchup so we want to be cautious about changes here. We want to focus more on Terran’s mid-game power that scales into the late game. Increasing options for a race in the mid game can also improve their late game through having greater control over pacing of the game. Mid-game options can also encourage more counterplay, as options in the late game usually trend towards closing out the match rather than providing control over transitioning. Ongoing results from GSL and WCS will better inform our decisions, and we do have to be careful overall, as this matchup seems to be trending in a good direction.
PvT
While Maru has shown some strong victories recently, a single player’s performance isn’t always indicative of long term balance. The general issue here seems to be that Terran mid-game offensive options aren’t as threatening as they have been in the past. This, in turn, makes the Protoss late game stronger as they can spend more of their resources and time teching up or expanding early on instead of trading units. This isn’t to say that the matchup is unwinnable, but it’s what we’ve gleaned from current trends. Our thinking right now is that we should look into ways of improving Terrans’ offensive options to provide them with greater control over the mid game (such as Viking/Liberator buffs) rather than solely bolster their late-game power (such as Battlecruisers). In line with our reasoning on TvZ mid game detailed above, we currently observe that Terrans feel that their mid game is unreliable. This makes their late game weaker as well, since transitioning to it is difficult. We think that Terran could use more help in TvP rather than TvZ, and since PvZ is developing in a positive direction, we have to be careful with our changes.
Mirror Matchups
We are not seeing any immediately worrying trends in terms of how PvP and ZvZ matchups play overall. In TvT late game, Raven stalls have been noted, but we haven’t seen any at the GSL or WCS Premier level as of yet.
As always, thank you for you continued feedback and let us know what you think! We’re curious to know if you believe that the current matchups are playing out differently than what we noted here."
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ZigguratOfUr
Iraq16955 Posts
I sympathize with Blizzard's difficulty with finding a PvT change that doesn't screw up the other match-ups, but it really shouldn't have taken them this long to realize that there was a problem and that terrans have been forced into two base all-inning every game for the past two-three months.
And Blizzard's reluctance in nerfing the raven just because the match-up doesn't favour terran is nonsense. Balance arguments shouldn't prop up egregious design problems.
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On April 20 2018 03:32 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
I sympathize with Blizzard's difficulty with finding a PvT change that doesn't screw up the other match-ups, but it really shouldn't have taken them this long to realize that there was a problem and that terrans have been forced into two base all-inning every game for the past two-three months.
And Blizzard's reluctance in nerfing the raven just because the match-up doesn't favour terran is nonsense. Balance arguments shouldn't prop up egregious design problems.
The difficulty, of course, is always when you see one person do very well while the others from that same race don't perform as well.
If you buff the wrong thing, then suddenly that one player is winning everything, which puts a negative skew on perceived rather than actual balance.
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On April 20 2018 03:14 pvsnp wrote:
In TvT late game, Raven stalls have been noted, but we haven’t seen any at the GSL or WCS Premier level as of yet.
I have no idea what they are talking about....sounds like a bunch of made up hocus pocus to me...monkasGIGA
User was warned for this post
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On April 20 2018 03:47 THERIDDLER wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2018 03:14 pvsnp wrote:
In TvT late game, Raven stalls have been noted, but we haven’t seen any at the GSL or WCS Premier level as of yet.
I have no idea what they are talking about....sounds like a bunch of made up hocus pocus to me...monkasGIGA
whistles innocently
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ZigguratOfUr
Iraq16955 Posts
On April 20 2018 03:46 FrkFrJss wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2018 03:32 ZigguratOfUr wrote:
I sympathize with Blizzard's difficulty with finding a PvT change that doesn't screw up the other match-ups, but it really shouldn't have taken them this long to realize that there was a problem and that terrans have been forced into two base all-inning every game for the past two-three months.
And Blizzard's reluctance in nerfing the raven just because the match-up doesn't favour terran is nonsense. Balance arguments shouldn't prop up egregious design problems. The difficulty, of course, is always when you see one person do very well while the others from that same race don't perform as well. If you buff the wrong thing, then suddenly that one player is winning everything, which puts a negative skew on perceived rather than actual balance.
Do you mean Maru? Maru isn't doing that amazing in PvT. He's doing decently in the match-up, and defeating Protoss through a lot of aggression and cheese, but even he can't fight "straight up" against three/four base Protoss.
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I feel like Blizzard employees doesn't watch their own game.
They want to buff Terran in TvZ midgame????Leaving their imba level strong lategame??? Is this a joke? Saying that this matchup is Zerg favored is just ridiculous. What Raven changes are they reffering to? They dropped Raven nerf just before releasing the patch...
U want to fix TvP and PvZ in the same time? JUST NERF PROTOSS ALREADY! Stoo pretending that everything is fine.
I feel like Zerg can win games only if they hit some perfect timing with allin. Especially in PvZ. Saying that Zerg has a lots of agressive options in this matchup is another lie. U just took the only agressive option from Zerg which were droperlords. It was the only way to keep Protoss in check in their early game ballshit. The only way that were not an allin with no come back.
I am very, very dissapointed with blindness of balance team.
User was temp banned for this post.
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Reverting the Marauder nerf might be a good start imo.
Please don't buff the liberator!
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On April 20 2018 03:57 hiroshOne wrote:
I feel like Blizzard employees doesn't watch their own game.
They want to buff Terran in TvZ midgame????Leaving their imba level strong lategame??? Is this a joke? Saying that this matchup is Zerg favored is just ridiculous. What Raven changes are they reffering to? They dropped Raven nerf just before releasing the patch...
U want to fix TvP and PvZ in the same time? JUST NERF PROTOSS ALREADY! Stoo pretending that everything is fine.
I feel like Zerg can win games only if they hit some perfect timing with allin. Especially in PvZ. Saying that Zerg has a lots of agressive options in this matchup is another lie. U just took the only agressive option from Zerg which were droperlords. It was the only way to keep Protoss in check in their early game ballshit. The only way that were not an allin with no come back.
I am very, very dissapointed with blindness of balance team.
Have you considered the possibility that maybe, just maybe, it is you who is blind?
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ATTENTION BLIZZARD:
Here are my thoughts on balance as well as a major suggestion for the greater good of the sc2 community.
First off, lets talk balance. SC2 is a game of hardcounters and In a game of hardcounters, defensive/passive/reactive gameplay is the most rewarding. Zerg is the best at playing defensively/passively/reactively. There are only a finite amount of builds that protoss/terran can execute and once zergs learn what they all are/how to scout them/how to combat them, zergs become favored. This is why I believe it's incredibly important to shake up balance with major changes such as new or rotating units for each race AND balance tweaks every 2 months. This type of approach to balance will keep things fresh and prevent the game from ever getting stale/boring. When you balance the game this way, players will always be engaged and this approach will also indirectly help grow the starcraft playerbase/brand longterm. My suggested balance approach is literally what Riot does and is one of the biggest reasons why LoL is a huge success. Hopefully blizzard can set aside their pride and take a page out of Riot's book.
Also, why do marauder's require concussive shell upgrades again? Wasn't that something implemented in WOL beta? IIRC, it was because protosses couldn't deal with it back then. I don't believe that's the case anymore as shield batteries are a thing now. Giving marauders free C.Shell will open up room for player creativity and provide more early game excitement from a spectator perspective.
Lastly and MOST IMPORTANT The only other change I can suggest is for blizzard to not allow tournament organizers to host invitationals anymore. When you have a party, You don't announce it to the world and then only invite a select few. Why? Because that's a rude thing to do. No one announces a party, says you aren't invited and then invites you to watch from outside the gates(pretty screwed up). Invitationals are an indirect insult to ever player not invite. "Hey you aren't invited to play, but can you stand on the outside looking in so that way we can make money off you through twitch views?, While you are at it, please donate as much as you can" "We don't even think you are good enough to even play with us, but give us your money" This is the most anti-community and screwed up business model i've ever seen.
Invitationals are pretty much rude and disrespectful to the rest of the community. Invitational tournaments serve no purpose other than as a short term money fix for tournament organizers(that also hurts long term growth, this is why we rarely see new blood) and exclude/alienate the rest of the hardworking playerbase(another reason why the playerbase is dwindling). Invitationals should be completely forbidden. I hope blizzard takes action sooner before it's too late.
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Canada8991 Posts
It might be a terrible idea, but why not come back to the old widow mine to fix TvP? It would make mine drop a lot more viable and would make terran early-mid game stronger by forcing P to have detection. And beeing able to build 10 mine a minute isn't that good for terran since you don't want that many mines anyway and your factory isn't that usefull for anything else in the early game.
TvZ would not be to broken by it I think since Ling-Bane-Hydra usually is the kind of army who clean anything up or get destroyed it dosen't dance arround like Ling-Bane-Muta. And tanks are better against it anyway.
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ZigguratOfUr
Iraq16955 Posts
On April 20 2018 04:18 Nakajin wrote:
It might be a terrible idea, but why not come back to the old widow mine to fix TvP? It would make mine drop a lot more viable and would make terran early-mid game stronger by forcing P to have detection. And beeing able to build 10 mine a minute isn't that good for terran since you don't want that many mines anyway and your factory isn't that usefull for anything else in the early game.
TvZ would not be to broken by it I think since Ling-Bane-Hydra usually is the kind of army who clean anything up or get destroyed it dosen't dance arround like Ling-Bane-Muta. And tanks are better against it anyway.
Old PvT openings were basically a game of two game-ending units the oracle and the widow mine forcing players to open a certain way and occasionally keel over and die outright. With the oracle nerfed I don't think bringing back the old widow mine would be wise--it would be awful gameplay-wise even if it ended up balanced.
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Canada8991 Posts
On April 20 2018 03:57 hiroshOne wrote:
I feel like Blizzard employees doesn't watch their own game.
They want to buff Terran in TvZ midgame????Leaving their imba level strong lategame??? Is this a joke? Saying that this matchup is Zerg favored is just ridiculous. What Raven changes are they reffering to? They dropped Raven nerf just before releasing the patch...
U want to fix TvP and PvZ in the same time? JUST NERF PROTOSS ALREADY! Stoo pretending that everything is fine.
I feel like Zerg can win games only if they hit some perfect timing with allin. Especially in PvZ. Saying that Zerg has a lots of agressive options in this matchup is another lie. U just took the only agressive option from Zerg which were droperlords. It was the only way to keep Protoss in check in their early game ballshit. The only way that were not an allin with no come back.
I am very, very dissapointed with blindness of balance team.
They have the ladder matchup numbers and apparently zerg win ZvT most of the time, so it's "overall" a zerg favored matchup, it's not ridiculous at all.
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On April 20 2018 04:18 Nakajin wrote:
It might be a terrible idea, but why not come back to the old widow mine to fix TvP? It would make mine drop a lot more viable and would make terran early-mid game stronger by forcing P to have detection. And beeing able to build 10 mine a minute isn't that good for terran since you don't want that many mines anyway and your factory isn't that usefull for anything else in the early game.
TvZ would not be to broken by it I think since Ling-Bane-Hydra usually is the kind of army who clean anything up or get destroyed it dosen't dance arround like Ling-Bane-Muta. And tanks are better against it anyway.
The whole point of the November design patch was to move away from units such as the old widow mine. Personally I feel that to address the current imbalance reversing the Marauder nerf and possibly buffing the Viking might be the options to go for. But please don't buff the liberator, It doesn't encourage entertaining gameplay for either the player or an audience watching.
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ZvZ makes me want to blow my brains out, and you say it's fine? lol
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Can someone explain to me why everyone is so eager to bringing back the HotS Marauder? Wouldn't this just change the Marauders attack from 2x 5(+5 vs armored) to 1x 10(+10 vs armored), that's only +1 dmg per attack against Stalker, Colossi and Immortals, a 5% increase doesn't sound that great and it would also nerf the synergie with the AAM.
On the flip side this change would probably kick the Ultra out of TvZ.
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On April 20 2018 04:15 ReachTheSky wrote:Lastly, The only other change I can suggest is for blizzard to not allow tournament organizers to host invitationals anymore. When you have a party, You don't announce it to the world and then only invite a select few. Why? Because that's a rude thing to do. No one announces a party, says you aren't invited and then invites you to watch from outside the gates(pretty screwed up). Invitationals are an indirect insult to ever player not invite. "Hey you aren't invited to play, but can you stand on the outside looking in so that way can make money off you through twitch views?, While you are at it, please donate as much as you can" This is the most anti-community and f**ked up business model i've ever seen.
Invitationals are pretty much rude and disrespectful to the rest of the community. Invitational tournaments serve no purpose other than as a short term money fix for tournament organizers(that also hurts long term growth, this is why we rarely see new blood) and exclude/alienate the rest of the hardworking playerbase(another reason why the playerbase is dwindling). Invitationals should be completely forbidden. I hope blizzard takes action sooner before it's too late.
You want them to completely forbid anyone from hosting an invitational? Does that not strike you as rather draconian? How would they even enforce that unless they start having Twitch take down streams. I can already envision the outrage when Blizzard shuts off streamers because they are hosting an invitational event.
I don't see how you can say invitationals are anti-community when as you say, the community itself is funding and supporting invitational tournaments. Nobody is forced to watch at all. The vast majority of tournaments small and large have competitive qualifiers, and those that don't are a relatively small portion of the total prize pool. I don't see the big issue in having some invitational events.
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On April 20 2018 04:52 Kalera wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2018 04:15 ReachTheSky wrote:Lastly, The only other change I can suggest is for blizzard to not allow tournament organizers to host invitationals anymore. When you have a party, You don't announce it to the world and then only invite a select few. Why? Because that's a rude thing to do. No one announces a party, says you aren't invited and then invites you to watch from outside the gates(pretty screwed up). Invitationals are an indirect insult to ever player not invite. "Hey you aren't invited to play, but can you stand on the outside looking in so that way can make money off you through twitch views?, While you are at it, please donate as much as you can" This is the most anti-community and f**ked up business model i've ever seen.
Invitationals are pretty much rude and disrespectful to the rest of the community. Invitational tournaments serve no purpose other than as a short term money fix for tournament organizers(that also hurts long term growth, this is why we rarely see new blood) and exclude/alienate the rest of the hardworking playerbase(another reason why the playerbase is dwindling). Invitationals should be completely forbidden. I hope blizzard takes action sooner before it's too late. You want them to completely forbid anyone from hosting an invitational? Does that not strike you as rather draconian? How would they even enforce that unless they start having Twitch take down streams. I can already envision the outrage when Blizzard shuts off streamers because they are hosting an invitational event. I don't see how you can say invitationals are anti-community when as you say, the community itself is funding and supporting invitational tournaments. Nobody is forced to watch at all. The vast majority of tournaments small and large have competitive qualifiers, and those that don't are a relatively small portion of the total prize pool. I don't see the big issue in having some invitational events.
I explained it very clearly, I think maybe you didn't read it. In the event you did not, here is why they are bad.
When you have a party, You don't announce it to the world and then only invite a select few. Why? Because that's a rude thing to do. No one announces a party, says you aren't invited and then invites you to watch from outside the gates(pretty screwed up). Invitationals are an indirect insult to ever player not invite. "Hey you aren't invited to play, but can you stand on the outside looking in so that way can make money off you through twitch views?, While you are at it, please donate as much as you can"
It really resembles an abusive relationship. "We don't think you are even good enough to even participate, but you really need to keep giving us money to fund this or we won't get a paycheck".
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TvZ might be boring to watch and likely terrible to play, but it is the pinnacle of design in a world of asymmetrical balance.
Early game is fairly neutral though possibly Zerg favored due to the wider variety and effectiveness of super aggro strategies.
Mid game is fairly neutral though possibly Zerg favored because of the strength of Hydra Bane. Both players are obligated to play both aggressively and defensively because securing and denying bases is absolutely vital going into the late game. I'd argue that barring huge mistakes in army control, the game is won and lost based almost entirely on this.
The early late game is very Zerg favored because of the strength of Hive tech, Zerg production, creep, and because Terran tech swaps are super slow and difficult.
The very late game is fairly Terran favored because Ghosts and Ravens provide the burst damage necessary to handle the Zerg swarms while not being completely immobile and vulnerable like Siege Tanks and Liberators are. The Terran army is also super expensive, fragile, and difficult to use.
The ungodly late game is fairly Terran favored because Marines are an amazing transition when gas starts to not exist, but that's ONLY if the Terran player managed to split the map. If the Zerg player managed to steal a base, the edge swings his way because 3/3 Adrenal Glands Zerglings are freaking amazing.
The biggest problem is Zerg players haven't figured out how to use their early late game advantage. I blame that on years of the idea of "get to hive = auto win" against Terran, so they haven't figured out how to attack, so they just keep defending or take terrible fights like Elazer's attack in ByuN's siege in game 3 in their GSL group.
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Canada8991 Posts
On April 20 2018 05:06 ReachTheSky wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2018 04:52 Kalera wrote:On April 20 2018 04:15 ReachTheSky wrote:Lastly, The only other change I can suggest is for blizzard to not allow tournament organizers to host invitationals anymore. When you have a party, You don't announce it to the world and then only invite a select few. Why? Because that's a rude thing to do. No one announces a party, says you aren't invited and then invites you to watch from outside the gates(pretty screwed up). Invitationals are an indirect insult to ever player not invite. "Hey you aren't invited to play, but can you stand on the outside looking in so that way can make money off you through twitch views?, While you are at it, please donate as much as you can" This is the most anti-community and f**ked up business model i've ever seen.
Invitationals are pretty much rude and disrespectful to the rest of the community. Invitational tournaments serve no purpose other than as a short term money fix for tournament organizers(that also hurts long term growth, this is why we rarely see new blood) and exclude/alienate the rest of the hardworking playerbase(another reason why the playerbase is dwindling). Invitationals should be completely forbidden. I hope blizzard takes action sooner before it's too late. You want them to completely forbid anyone from hosting an invitational? Does that not strike you as rather draconian? How would they even enforce that unless they start having Twitch take down streams. I can already envision the outrage when Blizzard shuts off streamers because they are hosting an invitational event. I don't see how you can say invitationals are anti-community when as you say, the community itself is funding and supporting invitational tournaments. Nobody is forced to watch at all. The vast majority of tournaments small and large have competitive qualifiers, and those that don't are a relatively small portion of the total prize pool. I don't see the big issue in having some invitational events. I explained it very clearly, I think maybe you didn't read it. In the event you did not, here is why they are bad. When you have a party, You don't announce it to the world and then only invite a select few. Why? Because that's a rude thing to do. No one announces a party, says you aren't invited and then invites you to watch from outside the gates(pretty screwed up). Invitationals are an indirect insult to ever player not invite. "Hey you aren't invited to play, but can you stand on the outside looking in so that way can make money off you through twitch views?, While you are at it, please donate as much as you can" It really resembles an abusive relationship. "You aren't good enough to even participate, but you really need to gives us your money to fund this or we won't get a paycheck" It's very sad.
Ya but they don't make tournament to have fun, they make it to make money, also it would be the kind of party where you only have a limited number of place, so maybe your best friend wouldn't be able to come since someone else took their place (also in this case your best friend also come with money while the other guy dosen't). Anyway the party analogy dosen't make sense.
And I'm pretty sure invitational don't make their money with the view of the 40-50 players who could have try the qualifier.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CM809rKWoAAiV0C.jpg)
