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On November 15 2018 01:13 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 14 2018 12:52 Scarlett` wrote:On November 14 2018 11:01 avilo wrote:On November 14 2018 06:47 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote:
Swarmhosts/Ravager.... im glad they brought this beautiful composition "back from the past". Or what about disruptors annihilating everything in a matter of seconds.
So much fun gameplay in lotv.
... wall of text without swarmhosts its too hard to play against people who just camp to 2/1 mech and push with no interaction all game I agree that mech could potentially become too strong vs zerg, if you would only remove swarmhosts and be done with it. But swarmhosts on the other hand are too strong as well and shut down mech too efficient. My point is that swarmhosts are a terrible unit from a design perspective. If you look at how swarmhosts work, its just not fun, not interesting. I know someone may feel different, but thats just my subjective opinion. In my opinion it would be the best to either remove or redesign the unit so that both players have more options to actually interact with it in a way that feels fair. If zerg players then struggle vs mech, you could still adjust numbers. You can always tweak things. Balance is a numbers game. I'm convinced that there is no need to have such a weird ridiculous unit in the game. If zerg struggles without or with a changed swarmhosts, then give zerg compensation in other areas.
Zerg is completely fine without using swarmhosts versus mech. I played Zerg for 3 months, was able to beat Terran grandmasters without even using vipers in half of my games, and purposely played without swarmhosts.
Although...to be fair, i have thousands of Terran mech games from the Terran perspective...maybe that's why i found it extremely easy and favorable to play versus mech Terrans? I actually liked when Terrans went mech instead of bio, the game was 10x easier for me as Zerg.
It's easily do-able, it's just more difficult than making 20 swarmhosts, swarmhosts are basically a crutch unit because they're overtuned.
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Bringing back old compositions? Would be nice to see mech being viable especially in tvp like they promised would happen for hots and lotv beta phases and then forgot about it, i guess the big reason there is the majority of people who don't play mech themselves hate mech, and most of the people who used to play it have since moved on, so there's no one left to ask for it.
"K: We look into how fun it is for the player using it, we also look at how fun it is for the player playing against it"
Mech needs changes that make people not hate playing against it if it's ever gonna become a thing.
Then again, apparently people have tons of fun playing against things like carriers,disruptors, storm,tempests or swarm hosts and vipers. I know I had fun using mass raven for 8 years before seeker was removed.
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On November 15 2018 12:13 Assaulter wrote:
Bringing back old compositions? Would be nice to see mech being viable especially in tvp like they promised would happen for hots and lotv beta phases and then forgot about it, i guess the big reason there is the majority of people who don't play mech themselves hate mech, and most of the people who used to play it have since moved on, so there's no one left to ask for it.
"K: We look into how fun it is for the player using it, we also look at how fun it is for the player playing against it"
Mech needs changes that make people not hate playing against it if it's ever gonna become a thing.
Then again, apparently people have tons of fun playing against things like carriers,disruptors, storm,tempests or swarm hosts and vipers. I know I had fun using mass raven for 8 years before seeker was removed.
the fact is as long as there are ways to use mobile units to harass mech and poke weak points, according to a shocking percentage of mech players this is "imbalance." because of their game philosophy mech-only players think it's normal and fair that if you set up enough tanks, turrets and planetaries at the proper timings you should essentially just be invulnerable and the game should "skip cutscene" to mass lategame sky armies, because that literally is the type of game they prefer to play.
i'm not even being sarcastic or suggesting that mech players are dumb or wrong - just that they're trying to play a slower-paced and less stressful version of SC2, whereas many of the rest of us prefer for things to actually occur in the game. that's fine for them, and everyone is entitled to enjoy different things about games. we're already aware that certain prominent mech advocates think their specific way of playing should somehow naturally result in them winning WCS. but giving mech enthusiasts what they want changes the shape of the game in a way that i frankly think sucks dick, and i'm definitely not the only one.
you can go DTs or 2 base adepts or baneling bust or mass muta or burrow roach and win games that way, but none of those things are overwhelmingly standard and all of them have counterplay that shuts them down. for the life of me i don't understand why mech-only players think mech has to be anything more than that: a pocket strategy that can work but isn't high-percentage in all cases. mech isn't a race, so its matchup winrates mean nothing. you can simply choose to play properly instead of playing mech. it's like if printf spent 8 years coming to TL and posting novels about how the game doesn't work right because he can't beat high level players with cannon rushes every single game. just do something else!
imagine if zergs simply demanded that infestor ling midgames be viable in all matchups or if protoss players insisted on playing immortal/void ray every game and having a 50% WR with it. suddenly you have to balance not just 3 matchups per race but an infinite combination of playstyles just to make everyone feel special for their preference. pretty soon balance falls apart and we just have another mediocre RTS.
and no, "the siege tank is an iconic unit" isn't a real argument, and "factory units should be used together" is also not a real argument
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On November 15 2018 12:47 brickrd wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2018 12:13 Assaulter wrote:
Bringing back old compositions? Would be nice to see mech being viable especially in tvp like they promised would happen for hots and lotv beta phases and then forgot about it, i guess the big reason there is the majority of people who don't play mech themselves hate mech, and most of the people who used to play it have since moved on, so there's no one left to ask for it.
"K: We look into how fun it is for the player using it, we also look at how fun it is for the player playing against it"
Mech needs changes that make people not hate playing against it if it's ever gonna become a thing.
Then again, apparently people have tons of fun playing against things like carriers,disruptors, storm,tempests or swarm hosts and vipers. I know I had fun using mass raven for 8 years before seeker was removed. the fact is as long as there are ways to use mobile units to harass mech and poke weak points, according to a shocking percentage of mech players this is "imbalance." because of their game philosophy mech-only players think it's normal and fair that if you set up enough tanks, turrets and planetaries at the proper timings you should essentially just be invulnerable and the game should "skip cutscene" to mass lategame sky armies, because that literally is the type of game they prefer to play. i'm not even being sarcastic or suggesting that mech players are dumb or wrong - just that they're trying to play a slower-paced and less stressful version of SC2, whereas many of the rest of us prefer for things to actually occur in the game. that's fine for them, and everyone is entitled to enjoy different things about games. we're already aware that certain prominent mech advocates think their specific way of playing should somehow naturally result in them winning WCS. but giving mech enthusiasts what they want changes the shape of the game in a way that i frankly think sucks dick, and i'm definitely not the only one. you can go DTs or 2 base adepts or baneling bust or mass muta or burrow roach and win games that way, but none of those things are overwhelmingly standard and all of them have counterplay that shuts them down. for the life of me i don't understand why mech-only players think mech has to be anything more than that: a pocket strategy that can work but isn't high-percentage in all cases. mech isn't a race, so its matchup winrates mean nothing. you can simply choose to play properly instead of playing mech. it's like if printf spent 8 years coming to TL and posting novels about how the game doesn't work right because he can't beat high level players with cannon rushes every single game. just do something else! imagine if zergs simply demanded that infestor ling midgames be viable in all matchups or if protoss players insisted on playing immortal/void ray every game and having a 50% WR with it. suddenly you have to balance not just 3 matchups per race but an infinite combination of playstyles just to make everyone feel special for their preference. pretty soon balance falls apart and we just have another mediocre RTS. and no, "the siege tank is an iconic unit" isn't a real argument, and "factory units should be used together" is also not a real argument
"the fact is as long as there are ways to use mobile units to harass mech and poke weak points, according to a shocking percentage of mech players this is "imbalance."
I don't think so, using mobile units to harass mech and poke weak points? yeah, GREAT that's exactly what literally everyone WANTS to happen when u play mech! And it even used to happen in WoL tvz with mutas harass, runby etc and tvt against bio with medivac drops and bio being more mobile in general. Now instead u don't have any of that and u just have the other race turtling too and beating you that way anyways, even though it's supposed to be what mech is strong at. I.e building swarmhosts and carriers to beat mech, u dont need to do any harass with other units at all. I have no clue how you could miss this without being disingenuous. Oh wait, did you mean to say swarmhosts are "mobile units that harass openings"? I honestly didn't realise at first. I guess you got me there, i think it's imbalance.
You saying you don't like mech is exactly why i made the point that it needs to be changed to be made more fun to play against so we don't have people like you saying "but giving mech enthusiasts what they want changes the shape of the game in a way that i frankly think sucks dick, and i'm definitely not the only one."
Mech doesn't HAVE to be a "boring turtle" type of playstyle, but it HAS been because it's too hard to move out if u also don't want to throw away your late game. This needs to get changed so people aren't forced to turtle as much and there's actual interaction happening in-game between players and there's more opportunites for BOTH players to actually do something.
Your other paragraphs where you liken playing mech to cannon rushing and various other cheese builds and don't see why it's distinctly different... Dunno what I can say to that, besides that it just shows you probably haven't been a starcraft fan for very long. Won't argue those.
"you can simply choose to play properly instead of playing mech" Lol that's exactly why we are making these posts, so that playing mech can become a part of "playing properly".
"and no, "the siege tank is an iconic unit" isn't a real argument"
Literally the only reason blizzard gave everyone for when they brought back the Carrier after saying it was going to get removed and people complained because it was an "iconic unit" So it sure does seem to work. But that's not my argument or what I necessarily believe. And in this very interview we are discussing, they are admitting they are working to bring back muta/ling/bling because the community wants this iconic playstyle/ unit composition back, which is the only reason i ever brought up mech in the first place.
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when we will get a swarmhosts buff? swarmhosts cooldown is so bad, horrible unit!
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Please make mech viable TvP!!!
The recent balance patches seem they will REALLY help in that aspect though with the huge AA buffs and carrier rework/nerf, etc.
Excited if this is a goal of theirs! Idc about "viable in pro level", I was very happy with mech tvp in HotS, it worked totally fine for me on ladder. Only got a bit tough lategame when toss could have tempest + strong ground comp like immortal/HT which forced me to also split my army into ground and air, which means mech is weak on the ground cus splash isn't as relevant.
Got sad that when i tried to get back into lotv in the last year or so, mech tvp feels soo hard due to having very little stuff when trying to get a third base. Adept attacks and WP harass feels so difficult to defend against as mech. And then there were the carriers that felt too powerful, but they are addressed now. Curious how things will play out from here!
Also WOW monk is with blizz now? Is he the lead sc2 balancer like david kim?
Also, if he only joined recently, who was the lead balancer before monk? After david left, wasn't there like 2-3 years in LotV? Was there a singular lead balancer or just a team? Thanks i'm super curious
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Edit: Just skimmed some other comments in this thread. I am NOT advocating for turtle mech that auto wins with decent macro. I always mech. I LOVE the games where the opponent urgently try to rush me down, and I am struggling to position everything right and stay in the game. It's very intense and dynamic. It's very different from the feel of something more mobile like bio.
With bio, positioning isn't as important; you can make a much higher number of smaller interactions, harass, pokes, etc.
But with mech, positioning is very important, and it feels more like chess in ways; you make a smaller number of plays, but the plays you make have a lot of weight. Such as counter attacking at a crucial time or out-manuevering your opponent and being able to deny a base. I enjoy that these plays are more committal than bio, because mech is slow and expensive and you better be confident you're making the right move. It's just a very different feel and I love it! Positioning is much more important and that can mean that the mech player being out of position is much more painful than if you were bio, but at the same time, your positional wins mean more as with mech than with bio. Bio is more mobile and is more about the micro. Very different styles and reasons they are fun in different ways.
I think if mech is done right, then like someone previously said, the opponent will not just turtle to SHs/carriers and win without making any interactions. The mech player shouldn't be the one trying to do a quick timing push... they aren't Protoss. I think it's most entertaining and fun for both sides if the mech player is the one constantly under pressure and attack. Not saying it has to ALWAYS be like that, but from my experience it seems preferred for the opponent to simply turtle and beat the mech player late game. I'm not sure if this is more true now than back in HotS. Perhaps the Raven nerfs were a primary reason why people don't try to kill the mech player before lategame now? Or other stuff like SHs/Carriers too?
Now, I'm not asking for them to do all this just for mech, and make it perfect in every MU. Just sharing my thoughts of what it should ideally be like. There are players who will just out turtle and out lategame the mech player instead of attacking, that's fine. Mech doesn't always have to be the one defending, they can push too. And I'm sure there will still be players that love to pick apart the Mech player in early and mid game instead of turtling. Variety is good.
I don't know how good mech is considered in the pro level anymore. My understanding is it's still viable TvZ but not stronger than Bio like people realized in later HotS. Viable, but a a bit weaker overall than bio. In TvT, I don't think I've seen pros go mech anymore? Then again, maybe it's just because the pro scene has fewer players now. In TvP, I think mech is way worse than in HotS, where it actually worked. I think the main issues from my limited experience are:
1) Adept timing attacks and/or WP harass strategies hit when the Terran should be taking a 3rd base, and as a mech player you just do not have enough units to defend all of this without a big struggle. Splash means almost nothing due to the spread out Protoss units. Cyclones are useful for zoning/taking down WPs and are OK vs Adepts, but really you need to have ~15-20 hellions/hellbats to deal with the ~20 initial adepts that attack. Tanks and splash do not really matter. However, it is hard to have such a high number of hellions and hellbats at this point, unless perhaps you pinpoint their build early on. Maybe I just don't know what to scout for, I'm not sure if it's possible to scout early enough or not.
2) Protoss transition into carriers is way too easy vs mech. Even if the mech player scouts when the protoss only has 2 carriers out, the mech player is in a very dangerous position already. Even if you manage to get like 10 vikings vs 4 carriers, it is still a very dangerous position because carriers can snowball so quickly. I am glad the carriers are getting reworked, as the burst damage just made for too volatile gameplay IMO. They made engagements too committal and stressful. I'd rather them be more like BW where you build up mileage with the carriers over time with good positional pokes and harass (which I think is what the new patch is trying to do). Now the mech player can use Cyclones and Thors more in their composition to deal with air transitions. I think this is great. Carriers will still beat out Cyclones/Thors in higher numbers I'm sure, especially since air units stack dps, which is totally fine. I am not saying ground mech should straight up beat Protoss air, just that I think the patch will help make things less volatile now. It's not like Terran can make 2-4 BCs and suddenly beat the protoss if they do not scout it super early. For mech it is an issue because you have to be really on point with your composition and balance the right number of tanks and AA.
I'm not sure, but the new Cyclones might help deal with the Adept/WP strategies. Since they are mobile and could possibly help zone out WPs early on. Or at least when defending, they can target down WPs faster, and kite adepts. I think mech tvp might actually be in a good spot after this patch and I am excited!
I do worry though that the BC will need to be nerfed more. Honestly, I think they have been overall buffed, haha, due to being able to shoot while moving! Though perhaps if mech players have the threat of BCs lategame, it will encourage the other races to interact and pick apart the mech player.
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On November 14 2018 19:17 digmouse wrote:
So monk is now the new David Kim?
Monk is the lead co-op designer, for 1v1 we have Michael Scipione as the face of the balance team now.
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Canada11418 Posts
D: Lastly, do you have any closing comments?
K: Please cheer for me. I promise to show good games!
Well, monk. I hadn't played SC2 for a very long time, but this summer I was grinding out games in co-op with a friend- a very enjoyable. So well done. monk fighting!
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They should add in zerg simulant as a commander. The leader will be a simulant adjundent. Powers could be really cool.
User was temp banned for this post.
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I unironically would love to see those Swarmhosts capable of forcing 3 hour maps.
Players are soooooo good nowadays that I doubt the games would look like that.
"Wield your hatred and crush me! I wellcome it!"
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EPT
