|
This is a very good and needed post. It's not about zerg's winrates, the balance, and things like that. The problem is that if we take a look at highest level ZvT/P games, the actual starting point for each game is when zerg has already taken 4 bases. There is a huge variety of strategies against zerg, but most of them either don't do much, or simply don't work. So the only reasonable response to zerg's greed is trying to be as greedy. This is not normal and simply makes the game less fun.
|
On January 13 2020 05:15 BabelFish1 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 11 2020 09:47 Wombat_NI wrote:On January 11 2020 09:30 BabelFish1 wrote:On January 11 2020 07:58 tigon_ridge wrote: There's just too many bad ideas here to parse through. Give light to queen? Really? As if hellions don't already wreck zerg enough, you need zerg to be completely eviscerated unless they build a ridiculous early roach warren and roaches that would massively stagnate zerg economy? Stop it. Leave the work of changing any aspect of the game to people that actually understand the game at a deep level. Would much rather get some ideas from artosis or neeb about balance than some randos who think they understand the game. I don't think anyone is qualified to be making changes to sc2 currently... The balance team is messing up right now, that's not even debatable, they even had to revert one change because it was blatantly bad (Adept) while others are cropping up to be problematic (11 range HIP Thors vs nerfed Tempests and Broodlords comes to mind). That's why you have balance threads popping up, because they aren't taking action and when action is taken, it's usually against things which aren't balance issues, such as the Observer (they even called it frustration) and Charge being nerfed (yes it was a nerf, they lost 33% of their damage which means they have to tank more attacks since they kill things slower). Not that I'm insulting the balance team...but I don't understand how they went from making fantastic changes that everyone universally loved to nerfing stuff because of "frustration"...something doesn't add up. Observer change was bad, just because it seemed to be nerfing that wasn’t an issue at all. Rest are interesting and worth seeing how they play out. Adept change didn’t work as intended so they reverted it before it went live, which is fine by me. Charge change I like, it’s a nerf to A-moving Zealots yeah but they’re speedier and more effective at sharking around the map, retreating etc so they fill other holes for Protoss a bit better. Nobody has an unbiased view on balance, and even the best pros have completely ridiculous ideas, and some complete scrubs might have great ideas. My personal bias is wanting Protoss to be mechanically harder, but with a higher ceiling if you’re mechanically solid, been that way since WoL. Hence why I like the charge change as I think it opens some possibilities up to good players. I’d love chronoboost to be a bit better but more punishing if you’re sloppy, a bit like inject works. But as I said, biases. It’s pretty fun, though hard to micro all of Terrans microable units. There’s a certain satisfaction to nailing injecting and spreading your creep as a Zerg, Protoss just isn’t as fulfilling to play in a purely mechanical sense to me. Which is annoying as I much prefer them aesthetically, played them in Brood War etc The Observer nerf was a great example of why I am not hopeful about SC2's current trend. When you're nerfing things out of "frustration" then you better nerf all the frustrating things and not just the one Special whinged about after he didn't lead his scan and failed to kill an Observer with 3 stinking Marines. If you don't then that's blatant bias which imo makes sense, when it comes to the Terran and Zerg changes...most of them were good...but when it comes to Protoss, they consistently miss the mark. I don't think the balance team knows what to do with Protoss currently, it feels like that they'd just delete the race from the game if they were allowed. I mean Charge for example, was a massive nerf. A somewhat small speed buff doesn't justify a 33% damage nerf...because that damage nerf means zealots are more fragile indirectly as they can't kill as fast which means they have to tank more damage. The Adept change was just stupid, poorly thought through nonsense. Anyone could see that it wasn't going to be good in practice because it meant Shade has to complete and the value of the Adept is being able to cancel Shade. As a direct combat unit the Adept is freaking terrible.
LMFAO the fricken irony behind this post. Everyone agrees you should never change something out of frustration, which is why it was extremely retarded to buff observer speed just because some 5k protoss caster kept whining on stream when losing to mine drops. The result is gumiho eliminated by parting because he couldnt catch a ferrari observer. Now that the balance team came to their senses and reverted that change, protoss apologists are calling it a "nerf".
chargelots got 2 buffs (damage on impact and cost reduction). Now that one of the buffs got CHANGED (not even nerfed), protoss starts complaining its a nerf LOL. Meanwhile marines are still same as WOL.
|
Northern Ireland20509 Posts
On January 14 2020 03:03 atira_sc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2020 05:15 BabelFish1 wrote:On January 11 2020 09:47 Wombat_NI wrote:On January 11 2020 09:30 BabelFish1 wrote:On January 11 2020 07:58 tigon_ridge wrote: There's just too many bad ideas here to parse through. Give light to queen? Really? As if hellions don't already wreck zerg enough, you need zerg to be completely eviscerated unless they build a ridiculous early roach warren and roaches that would massively stagnate zerg economy? Stop it. Leave the work of changing any aspect of the game to people that actually understand the game at a deep level. Would much rather get some ideas from artosis or neeb about balance than some randos who think they understand the game. I don't think anyone is qualified to be making changes to sc2 currently... The balance team is messing up right now, that's not even debatable, they even had to revert one change because it was blatantly bad (Adept) while others are cropping up to be problematic (11 range HIP Thors vs nerfed Tempests and Broodlords comes to mind). That's why you have balance threads popping up, because they aren't taking action and when action is taken, it's usually against things which aren't balance issues, such as the Observer (they even called it frustration) and Charge being nerfed (yes it was a nerf, they lost 33% of their damage which means they have to tank more attacks since they kill things slower). Not that I'm insulting the balance team...but I don't understand how they went from making fantastic changes that everyone universally loved to nerfing stuff because of "frustration"...something doesn't add up. Observer change was bad, just because it seemed to be nerfing that wasn’t an issue at all. Rest are interesting and worth seeing how they play out. Adept change didn’t work as intended so they reverted it before it went live, which is fine by me. Charge change I like, it’s a nerf to A-moving Zealots yeah but they’re speedier and more effective at sharking around the map, retreating etc so they fill other holes for Protoss a bit better. Nobody has an unbiased view on balance, and even the best pros have completely ridiculous ideas, and some complete scrubs might have great ideas. My personal bias is wanting Protoss to be mechanically harder, but with a higher ceiling if you’re mechanically solid, been that way since WoL. Hence why I like the charge change as I think it opens some possibilities up to good players. I’d love chronoboost to be a bit better but more punishing if you’re sloppy, a bit like inject works. But as I said, biases. It’s pretty fun, though hard to micro all of Terrans microable units. There’s a certain satisfaction to nailing injecting and spreading your creep as a Zerg, Protoss just isn’t as fulfilling to play in a purely mechanical sense to me. Which is annoying as I much prefer them aesthetically, played them in Brood War etc The Observer nerf was a great example of why I am not hopeful about SC2's current trend. When you're nerfing things out of "frustration" then you better nerf all the frustrating things and not just the one Special whinged about after he didn't lead his scan and failed to kill an Observer with 3 stinking Marines. If you don't then that's blatant bias which imo makes sense, when it comes to the Terran and Zerg changes...most of them were good...but when it comes to Protoss, they consistently miss the mark. I don't think the balance team knows what to do with Protoss currently, it feels like that they'd just delete the race from the game if they were allowed. I mean Charge for example, was a massive nerf. A somewhat small speed buff doesn't justify a 33% damage nerf...because that damage nerf means zealots are more fragile indirectly as they can't kill as fast which means they have to tank more damage. The Adept change was just stupid, poorly thought through nonsense. Anyone could see that it wasn't going to be good in practice because it meant Shade has to complete and the value of the Adept is being able to cancel Shade. As a direct combat unit the Adept is freaking terrible. LMFAO the fricken irony behind this post. Everyone agrees you should never change something out of frustration, which is why it was extremely retarded to buff observer speed just because some 5k protoss caster kept whining on stream when losing to mine drops. The result is gumiho eliminated by parting because he couldnt catch a ferrari observer. Now that the balance team came to their senses and reverted that change, protoss apologists are calling it a "nerf". chargelots got 2 buffs (damage on impact and cost reduction). Now that one of the buffs got CHANGED (not even nerfed), protoss starts complaining its a nerf LOL. Meanwhile marines are still same as WOL. How does observer speed affect these things? Defending drops is a matter of placing static observers and other spotters well, speed is basically irrelevant.
Faster observers only really pertain to you know, actually scouting across the map. Zerg have creep and now cheaper OLs, Terrans have scans.
Replacing lost observers costs Robo production time too, having speedier observers was fine.
Gumiho fucked up killing that observer, he knows he did. Literally just look at his reactions in that actual game. Entirely the reaction of ‘oh god I screwed up’ not ‘speed of observers is so frigging imbalanced’
|
|
On January 14 2020 03:03 atira_sc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2020 05:15 BabelFish1 wrote:On January 11 2020 09:47 Wombat_NI wrote:On January 11 2020 09:30 BabelFish1 wrote:On January 11 2020 07:58 tigon_ridge wrote: There's just too many bad ideas here to parse through. Give light to queen? Really? As if hellions don't already wreck zerg enough, you need zerg to be completely eviscerated unless they build a ridiculous early roach warren and roaches that would massively stagnate zerg economy? Stop it. Leave the work of changing any aspect of the game to people that actually understand the game at a deep level. Would much rather get some ideas from artosis or neeb about balance than some randos who think they understand the game. I don't think anyone is qualified to be making changes to sc2 currently... The balance team is messing up right now, that's not even debatable, they even had to revert one change because it was blatantly bad (Adept) while others are cropping up to be problematic (11 range HIP Thors vs nerfed Tempests and Broodlords comes to mind). That's why you have balance threads popping up, because they aren't taking action and when action is taken, it's usually against things which aren't balance issues, such as the Observer (they even called it frustration) and Charge being nerfed (yes it was a nerf, they lost 33% of their damage which means they have to tank more attacks since they kill things slower). Not that I'm insulting the balance team...but I don't understand how they went from making fantastic changes that everyone universally loved to nerfing stuff because of "frustration"...something doesn't add up. Observer change was bad, just because it seemed to be nerfing that wasn’t an issue at all. Rest are interesting and worth seeing how they play out. Adept change didn’t work as intended so they reverted it before it went live, which is fine by me. Charge change I like, it’s a nerf to A-moving Zealots yeah but they’re speedier and more effective at sharking around the map, retreating etc so they fill other holes for Protoss a bit better. Nobody has an unbiased view on balance, and even the best pros have completely ridiculous ideas, and some complete scrubs might have great ideas. My personal bias is wanting Protoss to be mechanically harder, but with a higher ceiling if you’re mechanically solid, been that way since WoL. Hence why I like the charge change as I think it opens some possibilities up to good players. I’d love chronoboost to be a bit better but more punishing if you’re sloppy, a bit like inject works. But as I said, biases. It’s pretty fun, though hard to micro all of Terrans microable units. There’s a certain satisfaction to nailing injecting and spreading your creep as a Zerg, Protoss just isn’t as fulfilling to play in a purely mechanical sense to me. Which is annoying as I much prefer them aesthetically, played them in Brood War etc The Observer nerf was a great example of why I am not hopeful about SC2's current trend. When you're nerfing things out of "frustration" then you better nerf all the frustrating things and not just the one Special whinged about after he didn't lead his scan and failed to kill an Observer with 3 stinking Marines. If you don't then that's blatant bias which imo makes sense, when it comes to the Terran and Zerg changes...most of them were good...but when it comes to Protoss, they consistently miss the mark. I don't think the balance team knows what to do with Protoss currently, it feels like that they'd just delete the race from the game if they were allowed. I mean Charge for example, was a massive nerf. A somewhat small speed buff doesn't justify a 33% damage nerf...because that damage nerf means zealots are more fragile indirectly as they can't kill as fast which means they have to tank more damage. The Adept change was just stupid, poorly thought through nonsense. Anyone could see that it wasn't going to be good in practice because it meant Shade has to complete and the value of the Adept is being able to cancel Shade. As a direct combat unit the Adept is freaking terrible. LMFAO the fricken irony behind this post. Everyone agrees you should never change something out of frustration, which is why it was extremely retarded to buff observer speed just because some 5k protoss caster kept whining on stream when losing to mine drops. The result is gumiho eliminated by parting because he couldnt catch a ferrari observer. Now that the balance team came to their senses and reverted that change, protoss apologists are calling it a "nerf". chargelots got 2 buffs (damage on impact and cost reduction). Now that one of the buffs got CHANGED (not even nerfed), protoss starts complaining its a nerf LOL. Meanwhile marines are still same as WOL. To be fair, the damage buff came in 2015. It has been there for a long time.
|
With the new map contest we have to wait and see if some mapmakers try to do it without the overlord parking spot
|
On January 08 2020 23:12 Ciaus_Dronu wrote: We've had like 1 major tournament, immediately after the patch, in which major changes occurred (many of them substantial nerfs to Zerg).
How about we just... you know... actually watch and see how things play out before nerfing the linchpin of Zerg defense / map control?
But this tournament had ZvZ final. AGAIN!
|
On January 15 2020 02:19 Elantris wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2020 23:12 Ciaus_Dronu wrote: We've had like 1 major tournament, immediately after the patch, in which major changes occurred (many of them substantial nerfs to Zerg).
How about we just... you know... actually watch and see how things play out before nerfing the linchpin of Zerg defense / map control? But this tournament had ZvZ final. AGAIN!
The December TvZ winrate was 51.46%. While the winrate for PvZ was 49.89%. http://aligulac.com/misc/balance/
Not enough evidence. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
|
On January 15 2020 02:38 Hunta15 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2020 02:19 Elantris wrote:On January 08 2020 23:12 Ciaus_Dronu wrote: We've had like 1 major tournament, immediately after the patch, in which major changes occurred (many of them substantial nerfs to Zerg).
How about we just... you know... actually watch and see how things play out before nerfing the linchpin of Zerg defense / map control? But this tournament had ZvZ final. AGAIN! The December TvZ winrate was 51.46%. While the winrate for PvZ was 49.89%. http://aligulac.com/misc/balance/Not enough evidence. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Aligulac takes results from weekly tournaments that occur far more frequently than premier events (iirc 0 in december), which contains data such as NA GMS (e.g. hunta) losing to a 211 from other NA GMs( e.g. bossterran). These results aren't exactly indicative of balance.
|
On January 15 2020 02:56 atira_sc2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2020 02:38 Hunta15 wrote:On January 15 2020 02:19 Elantris wrote:On January 08 2020 23:12 Ciaus_Dronu wrote: We've had like 1 major tournament, immediately after the patch, in which major changes occurred (many of them substantial nerfs to Zerg).
How about we just... you know... actually watch and see how things play out before nerfing the linchpin of Zerg defense / map control? But this tournament had ZvZ final. AGAIN! The December TvZ winrate was 51.46%. While the winrate for PvZ was 49.89%. http://aligulac.com/misc/balance/Not enough evidence. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Aligulac takes results from weekly tournaments that occur far more frequently than premier events (iirc 0 in december), which contains data such as NA GMS (e.g. hunta) losing to a 211 from other NA GMs( e.g. bossterran). These results aren't exactly indicative of balance.
BossTerran has never been GM nor has he ever beaten Hunta. You are fake news.
Riddler on the other hand can beat Hunta.
|
On January 14 2020 03:26 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2020 03:03 atira_sc2 wrote:On January 13 2020 05:15 BabelFish1 wrote:On January 11 2020 09:47 Wombat_NI wrote:On January 11 2020 09:30 BabelFish1 wrote:On January 11 2020 07:58 tigon_ridge wrote: There's just too many bad ideas here to parse through. Give light to queen? Really? As if hellions don't already wreck zerg enough, you need zerg to be completely eviscerated unless they build a ridiculous early roach warren and roaches that would massively stagnate zerg economy? Stop it. Leave the work of changing any aspect of the game to people that actually understand the game at a deep level. Would much rather get some ideas from artosis or neeb about balance than some randos who think they understand the game. I don't think anyone is qualified to be making changes to sc2 currently... The balance team is messing up right now, that's not even debatable, they even had to revert one change because it was blatantly bad (Adept) while others are cropping up to be problematic (11 range HIP Thors vs nerfed Tempests and Broodlords comes to mind). That's why you have balance threads popping up, because they aren't taking action and when action is taken, it's usually against things which aren't balance issues, such as the Observer (they even called it frustration) and Charge being nerfed (yes it was a nerf, they lost 33% of their damage which means they have to tank more attacks since they kill things slower). Not that I'm insulting the balance team...but I don't understand how they went from making fantastic changes that everyone universally loved to nerfing stuff because of "frustration"...something doesn't add up. Observer change was bad, just because it seemed to be nerfing that wasn’t an issue at all. Rest are interesting and worth seeing how they play out. Adept change didn’t work as intended so they reverted it before it went live, which is fine by me. Charge change I like, it’s a nerf to A-moving Zealots yeah but they’re speedier and more effective at sharking around the map, retreating etc so they fill other holes for Protoss a bit better. Nobody has an unbiased view on balance, and even the best pros have completely ridiculous ideas, and some complete scrubs might have great ideas. My personal bias is wanting Protoss to be mechanically harder, but with a higher ceiling if you’re mechanically solid, been that way since WoL. Hence why I like the charge change as I think it opens some possibilities up to good players. I’d love chronoboost to be a bit better but more punishing if you’re sloppy, a bit like inject works. But as I said, biases. It’s pretty fun, though hard to micro all of Terrans microable units. There’s a certain satisfaction to nailing injecting and spreading your creep as a Zerg, Protoss just isn’t as fulfilling to play in a purely mechanical sense to me. Which is annoying as I much prefer them aesthetically, played them in Brood War etc The Observer nerf was a great example of why I am not hopeful about SC2's current trend. When you're nerfing things out of "frustration" then you better nerf all the frustrating things and not just the one Special whinged about after he didn't lead his scan and failed to kill an Observer with 3 stinking Marines. If you don't then that's blatant bias which imo makes sense, when it comes to the Terran and Zerg changes...most of them were good...but when it comes to Protoss, they consistently miss the mark. I don't think the balance team knows what to do with Protoss currently, it feels like that they'd just delete the race from the game if they were allowed. I mean Charge for example, was a massive nerf. A somewhat small speed buff doesn't justify a 33% damage nerf...because that damage nerf means zealots are more fragile indirectly as they can't kill as fast which means they have to tank more damage. The Adept change was just stupid, poorly thought through nonsense. Anyone could see that it wasn't going to be good in practice because it meant Shade has to complete and the value of the Adept is being able to cancel Shade. As a direct combat unit the Adept is freaking terrible. LMFAO the fricken irony behind this post. Everyone agrees you should never change something out of frustration, which is why it was extremely retarded to buff observer speed just because some 5k protoss caster kept whining on stream when losing to mine drops. The result is gumiho eliminated by parting because he couldnt catch a ferrari observer. Now that the balance team came to their senses and reverted that change, protoss apologists are calling it a "nerf". chargelots got 2 buffs (damage on impact and cost reduction). Now that one of the buffs got CHANGED (not even nerfed), protoss starts complaining its a nerf LOL. Meanwhile marines are still same as WOL. How does observer speed affect these things? Defending drops is a matter of placing static observers and other spotters well, speed is basically irrelevant. Faster observers only really pertain to you know, actually scouting across the map. Zerg have creep and now cheaper OLs, Terrans have scans. Replacing lost observers costs Robo production time too, having speedier observers was fine. Gumiho fucked up killing that observer, he knows he did. Literally just look at his reactions in that actual game. Entirely the reaction of ‘oh god I screwed up’ not ‘speed of observers is so frigging imbalanced’
Nailed it. The Observer nerf was...weird. By the balance team's own admission, it wasn't a balance change...it was a "frustration" change.
Well, maybe try leading your scans and committing more than 3 Marines to killing the Observer? Then they're not so frustrating.
And to me, if the balance team is in "nerf frustrating things" territory then that philosophy needs to be applied across the board. Widow Mine drops are "frustrating" where's the widow mine drop nerf? Swarm Host Nydus is frustrating. Where's the nerf?
This is why you don't nerf things out of frustration, because unless you nerf all the frustrating things, it's bias. And the balance team is not supposed to be biased...and the way the initial balance patch was written...yikes...it read like someone scribbled down ideas with coworkers at a bar on a cocktail napkin as everyone passed around ideas fueled by being absolutely sloshed. Those two things combined make me concerned with the balance team's direction. I hope they don't do this kind of weird stuff again, historically, outside of not dealing with imbalanced Infestor BL and Nydus allins earlier, they've been pretty solid. This EOY patch was uncharacteristically bad of them...and even then not all of it was bad...I'd argue only the Protoss changes could be considered bad. Maybe MS too, that ability was under cooked in the concept department.
|
Since this has become somewhat of a general balance thread:
For a while now you have to walk careful on TL cause the floor is a bit slippery from Protoss tears. Most arguments are Protoss NEEDS to allin to win. So how about we do something with the lategame to motivate Protoss players to go for a macro game? Since most people are against mass air play in general, I would refrain from changing any air unit, even if carriers may need some love again. Disruptors and Templar are very powerful already and one or two good balls/ storms can change a fight. No buffing allowed That leaves us with the *drumroll* Colossus! Colossus haven't been changed in forever and since every lurker and their mother has now 10 range, 9 ranged Colossus have become somewhat of a joke. So how about we introduce another lategame upgrade? Be it another range upgrade (2nd tier thermal lance to 10/11 range), an offensive ability ( activate to have more range for short period? lock-on? ) defensive (immortal has that, I don't like it) or a flat buff to numbers
|
|
|
|