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Since the Heart of the Swarm and the addition of the 3 macro mechanics
Queen -> Larva Inject
Orbital Command -> Mule
Nexus -> Chrono Boost
Two of these are gated behind tech while the third one is not.
Queen obviously requires a spawning pool and a queen to be finished before the first inject can be triggered.
The Command Center can only transform into an orbital once a barracks has been placed also the Orbital transformation time.
Chrono boost can be used from game start.
All of mechanics have been changed heavily since these mechanics were introduced in the beginning, and Protoss has had a major shift after the removal of the mothership core.
Would the fact that Chrono availability so early be the underlining issue to why its hard to find a happy medium with the state of Protoss. Because for a while it has seemed that the race has either been too weak to hurt a fly all the way to over-representation and tournament upsets.
Blizzard usually sides with the more brutal of nerfs leaving players without any options, and returning back to the original problem in the first place.
Alternatively a more subtle approach might be needed.
Thoughts?
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Ok, first of all, those macro mechanics were not introduced with Heart of the Swarm, they were part of SC2 since the beginning.
Second, I would like to contest the idea that "... its hard to find a happy medium with the state of Protoss." If you look at this and the last season of GSL, it actually seems to be quite balanced. And looking at the games themselves, I do not get the feel of some kind of major imbalance. Of course, some games might seem unfair (e.g. when Maru and Inno get overrun by Patience gateway units), however, overall there do not seem to exist any problems.
Third, those mechanics are meant to be different to each other, so the argument that one of those is available earlier does not make that much sense. Suppose Chrono would only be available after having build a gateway or something like that. In that case, Protoss would at maximum be even in workers after the initial phase. But, then Zerg production / Terrans muling would kick in, meaning Protoss would be economically behind for the rest of the game.
Thus, in my opinion all three mechanics are fine as they are.
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I will admit my error as to the introduction to the mechanics. Additionally thank you for your input.
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Firstly, I would speculate that the notion that it has been hard to find a happy medium state is a reflection of selection bias. People tend to notice balance when a race is strong or weak, but will not write blog posts during periods where the balance is reasonable.
Secondly, I find it improbable that the explanation would be found in early game mechanics. If this was the case, it would stand to reason that P had a significant advantage early game, which I do not feel is the case, that compounded into the mid and late game.
My personal view is that the problem with protoss, from a design perspective rather than a balance perspective, is the warp gate. With warpgates you can warp in reinforcements across the map instantly, negating the need to wait for units that were built in your base to arrive. This leads to aggressive playstyles being favored, where Protoss players are forced to gamble more than the other two races.
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MULEs are overpowered for 9 years straight.
imbalancedMULE-deniers /prob blind Lizard fanboys or tearrun players/ say this is an unique game mechanic which helps tearrun to catch up in macro vs the protoss chronoboost or the zerg larvae mechanics.
But this goes much far beyond that ...
- if a mineral line is fully saturated then terran doesnt need to catch up anymore, still MULEs overlap with regular workers providing income boost
- mules does not have any restrictions, even if u got 200 energy on the OC, then you can spam all of them on a single mineral line while with chrono boost or larvae only 1 effects at a time
- MULES do not cost anything, no supply cost, only energy from a building that has no supply cost or gas cost. All races has a limit how much workers can they use because of supply, except tearrun who has the most effective units anyway
- orbital commands can fly. None of the addons can fly with the building, planetaries cant fly but oc-s can? This makes them extremely forgiving. Also they can collect energy while flying.
- tearrun is the only race where vespane gas not that important. its a mineral heavy race. Means MULES provide more than just income boost, terran is very fine with less bases vs zerg or protoss
Im tired to watch or play against this bs where tearrun has 20-30 less workers 1-3 less bases, losing armies after armies and still u cant beat because they still have income. They wont leave, they even attack/pressure u and if u make a single mistake u r dead.
Also proxy rax allins with mule powered scv pulls are just disgusting.
Fix this B_LizarD pls remove oc, add reactor/tech lab to the command center.
Or if u cant bcause of tearrun whiners then make MULEs fair.
FREE OVERPOWERED WORKERS DO NOT BELONG IN AN ESPORTS GAME!!!
User was temp banned for this post.
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new innovation in terms of balance whine. always welcome. 
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Balance seems pretty good at the moment. And overall the game is in a very healthy state with many viable playstyles and fairly good diversity overall. The only thing that is a concern atm is TvP design and terrans forced reliance on cheese allins and timing pushes.
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Hum, I don't see the tech thing being a problem, you only have I would say 2 (?) chrono before the zerg or the terrans get their queens/orbitals in place.
It basically mean P is gonna have a small workers advantage early game or a faster first unit, but I don't think it's the 2-3 probes more at 4 minutes of the adepts or the zealots getting to your base 10 second faster that pose problem in the matchup.
Making chrono behind gateway tech would only mean having your first chrono around a minute in a half into the game so you would be on 19-20 workers when your gate finish instead of 21ish, it's not that big of a deal I think. (Well it is a big change but not match up defining)
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On May 05 2019 19:22 Spirit_HUN wrote:
MULEs are overpowered for 9 years straight.
- if a mineral line is fully saturated then terran doesnt need to catch up anymore, still MULEs overlap with regular workers providing income boost
- mules does not have any restrictions, even if u got 200 energy on the OC, then you can spam all of them on a single mineral line while with chrono boost or larvae only 1 effects at a time
You nailed it. The ability to get three-base income from a single mineral line at the cost of zero supply at any time is so overpowered that we should invent a new word for it. Not only overpowered but also favoring the most obnoxiuos playstyle of a locust-turtle-terran travelling from mineral line to mineral line, inexorably mining out the map until the opponent runs out of money.
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On May 06 2019 05:24 Haukinger wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2019 19:22 Spirit_HUN wrote:
MULEs are overpowered for 9 years straight.
- if a mineral line is fully saturated then terran doesnt need to catch up anymore, still MULEs overlap with regular workers providing income boost
- mules does not have any restrictions, even if u got 200 energy on the OC, then you can spam all of them on a single mineral line while with chrono boost or larvae only 1 effects at a time
You nailed it. The ability to get three-base income from a single mineral line at the cost of zero supply at any time is so overpowered that we should invent a new word for it. Not only overpowered but also favoring the most obnoxiuos playstyle of a locust-turtle-terran travelling from mineral line to mineral line, inexorably mining out the map until the opponent runs out of money.
You get mules every game, so unless Terran has been op since 9 years, I don't see how mules can in anyway shape of form be op, it make no sense...
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1. 'Discover' racial imbalance
2. Race switch or roll random
3. Get destroyed
4. Gain valuable insight
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The game is more or less balanced. Tinkering with macro mechancis could lead to unforseen cascade effects.
Better to do smaller changes like decreasing distruptor range by 1 in order to help mech in TvP.
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I don't know Kev
The biggest threat is WP + Immortal.
Maybe make WP 200 mins and 50 gas? or something along those lines. Immortals 275 min and 125 gas?
Everything else involves too much balancing around IMO
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I like that the macro mechanics are different. In a fantasy world I would like the races more different.
I am okay if a macro mechanic seems, or actually is OP, as long as the game overall is balanced. If different races reward different skills, those races provide a meaningful choice.
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Bisutopia16954 Posts
On May 06 2019 22:23 Harris1st wrote:
I don't know Kev
The biggest threat is WP + Immortal.
Maybe make WP 200 mins and 50 gas? or something along those lines. Immortals 275 min and 125 gas?
Everything else involves too much balancing around IMO
I'm all for a defensive mechanic to give Zerg that allows them an opportunity to snipe the WP. And by defensive I mean something that requires creep or a structure to be operational. Introducing scourge as others have suggested would enable WP sniping, but greatly affects all matchups. Upgrading spore to like a spore cannon so that it has increased range might be a thing. Or a queen injecting a spore could temporary buff its range would be plausible too.
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as someone's said, it would have been interesting to see protoss in sc2 without warpgate tech.
that makes them similar on ground to terran, but with a stronger spellcaster.
warpgate tech is pretty much guaranteed to be used for protoss while the T and Z equivalent (in concept) incurs opportunity cost, one being that Terran chooses to build an orbital or a planetary instead of workers. another, being zerg giving up energy that could have been more situational defense or more map control.
if all protoss build and use warpgate tech then either the tech and the research itself is mostly redundant (save for dying before the tech is complete), or it's there in exclusivity for remote warpins.
i think it's completely the latter.
i'm a protoss fan myself but i thought this mechanic was out of place in the pace, speed and with the ease of macro mechanics in a game like this.
another person also mentioned scourge. without a doubt that would be overpowered too because finding and grouping your scourge or even producing them on demand is extremely easy relative to their use and impact.
they would deter strategies completely and bring spire and zergling play to the forefront of all matchups, even more than in starcraft 1.
more than macro mechanics like the three available to the main structures, i think it's about the ability to make units and group them together for use. this is already core to the game so in order to make the rest of the game, including tech choices and branching paths fluid, we needed things to slow the game down and to make players think about their decisions.
rocks were some of the first answers, along with watch towers which controlled vision and the ability to move out entirely with your army. and then much larger maps appeared that didn't need to be 4 player maps.
and eventually we had air space specifically crafted for the matchups, the most recent of which are designs to allow liberators barely enough range to cover a mineral patch.
all of these things slow the game down somewhat and make it more about decisions and scouting.
players take detours or precautions that they would normally just shortcut because in an odds game, only an extremely abusive player could take advantage of their laziness.
and i think that's what a game like this should be about. a game where you're at threat at losing ground and eventually losing the game, because you are stretched in every regard that you would also have control over if you had made the correct replies.
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Perhaps alter the lengths of warp ins depending on the tier of the unit? so certain units have their own warp in timings that are independent of each other so say it takes 4 seconds to warp in a sentry but 7 to warp in a zealot. Obviously, this would be a rather drastic change but it could make for some interesting plays. And of course those numbers quoted are not for real there would have to be significant balance testing. But it does make sense that a higher value unit would take more time to warp in.
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Bisutopia16954 Posts
On May 07 2019 03:02 Z3nith wrote:
Perhaps alter the lengths of warp ins depending on the tier of the unit? so certain units have their own warp in timings that are independent of each other so say it takes 4 seconds to warp in a sentry but 7 to warp in a zealot. Obviously, this would be a rather drastic change but it could make for some interesting plays. And of course those numbers quoted are not for real there would have to be significant balance testing. But it does make sense that a higher value unit would take more time to warp in.
How about making the warp prism just a shuttle to start with and the warping portion is upgraded.That way you have to invest in time researched.
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On May 05 2019 15:50 DreamlnCode wrote:
Since the Heart of the Swarm and the addition of the 3 macro mechanics
Queen -> Larva Inject
Orbital Command -> Mule
Nexus -> Chrono Boost
Two of these are gated behind tech while the third one is not.
Queen obviously requires a spawning pool and a queen to be finished before the first inject can be triggered.
The Command Center can only transform into an orbital once a barracks has been placed also the Orbital transformation time.
Chrono boost can be used from game start.
All of mechanics have been changed heavily since these mechanics were introduced in the beginning, and Protoss has had a major shift after the removal of the mothership core.
Would the fact that Chrono availability so early be the underlining issue to why its hard to find a happy medium with the state of Protoss. Because for a while it has seemed that the race has either been too weak to hurt a fly all the way to over-representation and tournament upsets.
Blizzard usually sides with the more brutal of nerfs leaving players without any options, and returning back to the original problem in the first place.
Alternatively a more subtle approach might be needed.
Thoughts?
I don't think this is the reason at all. Like, WHY would it be?
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On May 07 2019 04:21 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2019 03:02 Z3nith wrote:
Perhaps alter the lengths of warp ins depending on the tier of the unit? so certain units have their own warp in timings that are independent of each other so say it takes 4 seconds to warp in a sentry but 7 to warp in a zealot. Obviously, this would be a rather drastic change but it could make for some interesting plays. And of course those numbers quoted are not for real there would have to be significant balance testing. But it does make sense that a higher value unit would take more time to warp in. How about making the warp prism just a shuttle to start with and the warping portion is upgraded.That way you have to invest in time researched.
That's a decent idea. That way you'd reduce the threat of Protoss during at least the early midgame and it would give terrans more time to prepare for any possible timing attack and maybe allow them to secure a 3rd before any true aggression.
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