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I agree so much with Yoshi. Here are my thoughts on most of the same points and a few others.
I think the Cyclone is a super frustrating unit, in how heavy a glass cannon unit it is. So I would prefer if the upgrade for it, just increased it's lock-on range by 2 instead of the +vs armoured.
For the Disruptor, I just think it's the wrong nerf straight up. It's such an awesome unit for spectating and have made PvP for me, the best matchup in the game. PvT is really fun these days as well. There are nerfs you can do though, like increasing its unit size. It looks really stupid, how heavily they clump up and it's also one of the reason, we often see a huge number of Disruptors dying to a single Disruptor nova.
Another nerf you could do is to remove its damage versus buildings. I think this makes it so, at least you can hide behind walls better and make the unit less well rounded. This will help Terran's Planetaries in TvP a lot.
You could also make it so that the Warp Prism cannot pick-up the Disruptor while the nova is out. It's kind of weird that the Disruptor cannot cancel its nova, but with a Prism nearby suddenly you can. It would be like if you could pick up sieged Siege Tanks with Medivacs and it would instant unsiege them.
With 150/150 Shield Batteries, I would accept the Overcharge nerf.
I wonder what peoples thoughts are on, if we redesigned the Nexus energy abilities to the following. Instead of having cooldowns, Recall and Overcharge costs are increased from 50->75.
The time it takes to gain 50 energy, is 64 seconds, the time it takes to gain 75 energy is 96 seconds.
Overcharge currently have 60 second cooldown and Recall currently have a 130 second cooldown.
So you see, the Overcharge cooldown is actually done before the Nexus has it's 50 energy again. So if you only had 1 Nexus, you would never feel the cooldown. The cooldown only comes into effect with multiple Nexus. Now having no cooldown of course means that you can spam 3 Overcharges in a row, but think of how much opportunity cost that is. It would be all about energy management instead of cooldown management, which means if the Terran keeps on being aggressive and forcing the Protoss to use Recalls/Overcharges, it would cut into his ability to Chrono. Another cool side effect would be that Toss could go bananas late game with many Recalls, when being aggressive all over the map. I'm sure this sounds totally imba, but I'm not sure it is, I just think it would be epic and actually encourage aggressive Protoss late game play.
For the Hydralisk, it's evident that the unit is currently balanced, so the buff is ridiculous as is. I think most agree, however that a faster Hydralisk would be more fun and it's also more flavourful.
You could frontload it's movespeed, the Hydralisk is pretty trash unupgraded. Remove the range upgrade and double the cost of the movement speed upgrade. Being way faster means, they can retreat more easily and not be so damn committed when doing pressure, it also means they'd do better vs splash when microed. But they wouldn't be godlike at catching drops and upset the balance of the core units, in general.
Now with the Hydralisk in mind, the mobility creep is through the roof on this patch. Hydra, Obs, HT, BL. It's insane.
How about we let BL, HT and the Obs be and instead we nerf the Ghost's movement speed. This unit became insanely fast in a patch long ago.
A slower Ghost coupled with the change to the EMP and the Ghost is fixed. I don't think the Snipe needs fixing, actually. Now in my own mod I made Snipe cancel on Burrow, but in that one the Lurker is way weaker with only 7 range. I think something nice for EMP would be if it emptied all the energy of the unit. It's lame that even if you hit your EMP you can still get stormed.
There have also been range creep over the years. For instance 11 range Thors, 10 range Feedback, EMP+Fungal being too big.
A healthy change would be to reduce Thor range and Feedback range by 1, Feedback damage could go from 50%->66/75%. Abduct nerf could be a real nerf, where it has 1 second cast time. Fungal AoE could be reduced to 2 and you could tweak the Tempest as well.
All this would put things in line a little better, this would also give Interference Matrix some spotligt, conversely, you could buff Interference Matrix range by 1, but buying into the range creep.
A few other thoughts: Spore to 6 second burrow sounds good. Stasis could be made invisible upon spawn, it's really a cool spell and it's not fair how it gets made significantly worse this patch. Sensor Tower could be made like half it's size, so I guess a range of 21. But then be given the Salvage, this would encourage tactical play. The Forge research times could get fully reverted, so Toss is not just worse, but they actually have an advantage through their macro mechanic. Costs could be increased on the armour/weapon upgrades from 150->175, 200->250 on lvl 2 and lvl 3.
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Mexico2170 Posts
Its abundantly clear for me that the changes were made because they sound good in a vacuum, without any regards as for their effect on the balance and side effects with internactuons with other units.
"wouldnt it be nice if the hydra was more micreable? Wouldnt it be nice if ultras were smaller and less chunky? Wouldnt it be nice if BL were slightly faster? Wouldnt it be nice if the ghost didnt counter all zerg lategame units, wouldnt it be nice if the disruptor didnt kill 20 supply a hit? Wouldnt it be nice if carrier were easier yo deal with? "
Which yeah, would be nice. But why are You giving terrans to deal with the insta remax insta tech switch in zerg lategame? What are You giving protoss to compensate the carrier and disruptors nerfs? How are You nerfing zerg yo compensate it will be much stronger with the changes now?
This is literally the worst patch ive ever seen. Not even early wol parches were This bad
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On December 21 2022 02:36 [Phantom] wrote:
Its abundantly clear for me that the changes were made because they sound good in a vacuum, without any regards as for their effect on the balance and side effects with internactuons with other units.
"wouldnt it be nice if the hydra was more micreable? Wouldnt it be nice if ultras were smaller and less chunky? Wouldnt it be nice if BL were slightly faster? Wouldnt it be nice if the ghost didnt counter all zerg lategame units, wouldnt it be nice if the disruptor didnt kill 20 supply a hit? Wouldnt it be nice if carrier were easier yo deal with? "
Which yeah, would be nice. But why are You giving terrans to deal with the insta remax insta tech switch in zerg lategame? What are You giving protoss to compensate the carrier and disruptors nerfs? How are You nerfing zerg yo compensate it will be much stronger with the changes now?
This is literally the worst patch ive ever seen. Not even early wol parches were This bad
Wouldn't it be nice if you tried out the new patch first?
Especially, as there was not a single time where the game got a patch even remotely close to the full extent of what was proposed for the PTR.
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On December 21 2022 02:36 [Phantom] wrote:
Its abundantly clear for me that the changes were made because they sound good in a vacuum, without any regards as for their effect on the balance and side effects with internactuons with other units.
"wouldnt it be nice if the hydra was more micreable? Wouldnt it be nice if ultras were smaller and less chunky? Wouldnt it be nice if BL were slightly faster? Wouldnt it be nice if the ghost didnt counter all zerg lategame units, wouldnt it be nice if the disruptor didnt kill 20 supply a hit? Wouldnt it be nice if carrier were easier yo deal with? "
Which yeah, would be nice. But why are You giving terrans to deal with the insta remax insta tech switch in zerg lategame? What are You giving protoss to compensate the carrier and disruptors nerfs? How are You nerfing zerg yo compensate it will be much stronger with the changes now?
This is literally the worst patch ive ever seen. Not even early wol parches were This bad
Exactly. Looks to be an aggregate of each race's requests, with no real deep overview.
Ideally, a balance council/team should always think about "What is the current state of X, what X problem is Y supposed to solve and what are Y side-effects?" and base everything on GM ladder and tournament statistics.
Any opinion or suggestion that cannot be proven should be dismissed, as should any suggestion in which the overall negative consequences outweigh the positive.
That's like the basics of any update on something that really matters.
But maybe that's the whole point; deep down, they don't think it really matters.
On December 21 2022 03:33 watchlulu wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2022 02:36 [Phantom] wrote:
Its abundantly clear for me that the changes were made because they sound good in a vacuum, without any regards as for their effect on the balance and side effects with internactuons with other units.
"wouldnt it be nice if the hydra was more micreable? Wouldnt it be nice if ultras were smaller and less chunky? Wouldnt it be nice if BL were slightly faster? Wouldnt it be nice if the ghost didnt counter all zerg lategame units, wouldnt it be nice if the disruptor didnt kill 20 supply a hit? Wouldnt it be nice if carrier were easier yo deal with? "
Which yeah, would be nice. But why are You giving terrans to deal with the insta remax insta tech switch in zerg lategame? What are You giving protoss to compensate the carrier and disruptors nerfs? How are You nerfing zerg yo compensate it will be much stronger with the changes now?
This is literally the worst patch ive ever seen. Not even early wol parches were This bad
Wouldn't it be nice if you tried out the new patch first? Especially, as there was not a single time where the game got a patch even remotely close to the full extent of what was proposed for the PTR.
Less is more. I'm 100% convinced that this amount of unjustified changes is more due to a lack of a proper decision framework rather than a strong desire to keep the game fresh and balanced.
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On a positive note, I think the Cyclone change will end up being a buff vs Zerg. Queens, ravagers, hydras, and mutas are important targets that will die a lot more quickly now. Mutas are especially significant since surprise mutas often end up dumpstering battlemech openers.
So maybe we'll see a bit more mech?
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On December 21 2022 10:13 Athenau wrote:
On a positive note, I think the Cyclone change will end up being a buff vs Zerg. Queens, ravagers, hydras, and mutas are important targets that will die a lot more quickly now. Mutas are especially significant since surprise mutas often end up dumpstering battlemech openers.
So maybe we'll see a bit more mech?
I doubt it, last night Maru tried a Battle Mech build against Solar in Olimoleague Final, and everything was looking fine until the Cyclone was out of position and Solar hidden Muta build destroyed Maru base in an instant, while the Roach Ravager Bane simply couldnt be stop with Helion/Cyclone.
I think the only possible Mech composition that work is still BC + Tank/Thor + Helion, Cyclone are fun to use like Banshee but they are just too fragile and easy to get caught out of position by the more mobile Zerg army.
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On December 21 2022 10:49 tigera6 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2022 10:13 Athenau wrote:
On a positive note, I think the Cyclone change will end up being a buff vs Zerg. Queens, ravagers, hydras, and mutas are important targets that will die a lot more quickly now. Mutas are especially significant since surprise mutas often end up dumpstering battlemech openers.
So maybe we'll see a bit more mech? I doubt it, last night Maru tried a Battle Mech build against Solar in Olimoleague Final, and everything was looking fine until the Cyclone was out of position and Solar hidden Muta build destroyed Maru base in an instant, while the Roach Ravager Bane simply couldnt be stop with Helion/Cyclone. I think the only possible Mech composition that work is still BC + Tank/Thor + Helion, Cyclone are fun to use like Banshee but they are just too fragile and easy to get caught out of position by the more mobile Zerg army.
The problem is that while Cyclones are great in really small numbers (as in, maybe 3 tops) they start falling hard because its just humanly impossible to micro them correctly. They'll lock on a zergling, the front cyclone in the back will lock on to the units that farther away, etc.
You just can't take fights with Cyclones in a way you can with every other unit.
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On December 21 2022 10:49 tigera6 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2022 10:13 Athenau wrote:
On a positive note, I think the Cyclone change will end up being a buff vs Zerg. Queens, ravagers, hydras, and mutas are important targets that will die a lot more quickly now. Mutas are especially significant since surprise mutas often end up dumpstering battlemech openers.
So maybe we'll see a bit more mech? I doubt it, last night Maru tried a Battle Mech build against Solar in Olimoleague Final, and everything was looking fine until the Cyclone was out of position and Solar hidden Muta build destroyed Maru base in an instant, while the Roach Ravager Bane simply couldnt be stop with Helion/Cyclone. I think the only possible Mech composition that work is still BC + Tank/Thor + Helion, Cyclone are fun to use like Banshee but they are just too fragile and easy to get caught out of position by the more mobile Zerg army.
The Olimoleague final wasn't on the PTR though.
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On December 21 2022 11:41 Athenau wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2022 10:49 tigera6 wrote:On December 21 2022 10:13 Athenau wrote:
On a positive note, I think the Cyclone change will end up being a buff vs Zerg. Queens, ravagers, hydras, and mutas are important targets that will die a lot more quickly now. Mutas are especially significant since surprise mutas often end up dumpstering battlemech openers.
So maybe we'll see a bit more mech? I doubt it, last night Maru tried a Battle Mech build against Solar in Olimoleague Final, and everything was looking fine until the Cyclone was out of position and Solar hidden Muta build destroyed Maru base in an instant, while the Roach Ravager Bane simply couldnt be stop with Helion/Cyclone. I think the only possible Mech composition that work is still BC + Tank/Thor + Helion, Cyclone are fun to use like Banshee but they are just too fragile and easy to get caught out of position by the more mobile Zerg army. The Olimoleague final wasn't on the PTR though.
I know, but the "buff" on the Cyclone wasnt going to change what happened. Making Cyclone deal extra damage to every unit instead of armored aint going to make them become easier to use in Mech build in TvZ. Their limitation is way beyond the extra damage issue, and if the best Mech user in TvZ cant make them work, I doubt anyone can.
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Any news on if there will be a balance patch tournament or show matches or whatever? I think while alot of people have good theory crafting we will actually need a pretty good variety of match ups over a decent amount of time to see the full extent of these changes.
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On December 21 2022 13:05 Beelzebub1 wrote:
Any news on if there will be a balance patch tournament or show matches or whatever? I think while alot of people have good theory crafting we will actually need a pretty good variety of match ups over a decent amount of time to see the full extent of these changes.
Wardi is hosting a tournament with the new patch, its starting tomorrow.
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Who exactly are in the balance council? No transparency at all, and they call it a "community patch" lmao. Yet again, seems like a bunch of zergs like Scarlett running the show in this patch trying to remove the other 2 races.
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Katowice will not be play with this patch on rigth?
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On December 21 2022 03:33 watchlulu wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2022 02:36 [Phantom] wrote:
Its abundantly clear for me that the changes were made because they sound good in a vacuum, without any regards as for their effect on the balance and side effects with internactuons with other units.
"wouldnt it be nice if the hydra was more micreable? Wouldnt it be nice if ultras were smaller and less chunky? Wouldnt it be nice if BL were slightly faster? Wouldnt it be nice if the ghost didnt counter all zerg lategame units, wouldnt it be nice if the disruptor didnt kill 20 supply a hit? Wouldnt it be nice if carrier were easier yo deal with? "
Which yeah, would be nice. But why are You giving terrans to deal with the insta remax insta tech switch in zerg lategame? What are You giving protoss to compensate the carrier and disruptors nerfs? How are You nerfing zerg yo compensate it will be much stronger with the changes now?
This is literally the worst patch ive ever seen. Not even early wol parches were This bad Wouldn't it be nice if you tried out the new patch first? Especially, as there was not a single time where the game got a patch even remotely close to the full extent of what was proposed for the PTR.
People with decent knowledge of the meta don't need to play the PTR to see the consequences of this patch.
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On December 21 2022 16:45 Argonauta wrote:
Katowice will not be play with this patch on rigth?
We know nothing about that for certain, but from the look of it they want to apply it for IEM, along with a new map pool, after all the testing/adjustment are done. But if they got pushed back hard by players on this issue, they probably will change that plan.
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I can't imagine that anyone except exclusively the pro Zergs that are at Katowice would want this patch rolled out before the tournament. That is unless my conspiracy theory of ESL propping up Zerg is correct.
So sure, let's force Katowice to be played on the new patch. Let's add in some Zerg favored maps just for the tournament while we're at it. Let's make it even more obvious.
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So let me try and be objective and give the patch the benefit of the doubt.
I do think Zerg is the weakest race, in what is a very balanced game. This is due to being down 2% in ZvP. It should be said though that this is on the balance side, in tournaments they destroy Protoss and it's not close. On ladder Zerg is doing pretty bad, Toss is not winning btw, Terran is. Terran is the most represented race in GM across all servers.
ZvP:
We see a buff to aggressive Protoss play:
Cooldown increased from 11 to 13 seconds.
Sight range reduced from 11 to 10.
Ravager
Build time increased from 12 to 17 seconds.
We also see a nerf to defensive Protoss play:
Battery Overcharge recharge rate reduced from 200% to 150%.
Disruptor
Purifier Orb radius reduced from 1.5 to 1.35.
And of course we see Zerg buffed through the roof in late game.
So we're trying to make Protoss more allin or die trying, cool..
ZvT:
A very slight buff to Terran aggressive play, untill hydras are out.
And the utter decimation of Terran late game, due to Zerg buffs and Terran nerfs.
Patch isn't saying allin, but it's definitely saying, don't go late.
So Terran can allin or die trying, cool..
PvT:
Protoss defensive play nerfed:
Battery Overcharge recharge rate reduced from 200% to 150%.
Disruptor
Purifier Orb radius reduced from 1.5 to 1.35.
(This could be huge vs Tanks)
A Raven that is worse later, but hits way earlier.
A Ghost that starts with 1.75 radius, for no cost.
Late game Terran is gutted with the EMP upgrade removal. Disruptor change could be nice, but unless you win by snowballing from earlier, Terran will probably not win late game. Terran can now allin way harder, the 2 base push will destroy even more Protoss and the new timings allowed for with the Raven change and slighty harder hitting Ghosts will kill Protoss the rest of the time. And if the Terran doesn't kill the Protoss, they will roll over and die.
Allin or die trying, cool..
I'd wager that what Starcraft viewers would want to see is the opposite effect of this. Toss/Terran being able to hold their own in the late game vs Zerg. And fewer games where Protoss die to early Terran pushes, this together with a more broad capable Terran late game arsenal.
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Something else I want to say:
To win a tournament you need a high level of consistency. You need to win a big number of series' and of course you need to eventually win the big bo7.
We keep nerfing Carrier and other Protoss defensive tools that allows for more staple play. So what are we saying, just don't win tournaments? Ever since the Corruptor speed buff, Zerg has been dominating Protoss in the late game.
But we're nerfing these things because of the dreadful ladder experience, or?
Well how about the many Terrans that have already quit, because they played out an even game with Zerg, but then when Ultras popped, they run into a literal wall, where their apm just wouldn't suffice and the Zerg would pull ahead. This is made worse in this patch btw.
How about Terran 2 base pushes that dominate Protoss. Widow Mine drops that destroy lower league Protoss. I mean there are an unlimited amount of things that you could state and most could be just as justified a change as the: "I'm dying to skytoss a move." Funny thing is Zerg have SO many tools to deal with this.
It's not that skytoss isn't a problem, but it isn't at all the big problem. And it especially isn't on the fault on the Carrier. Imagine if the Void Ray ability was more similar to the Cyclone in this patch. So a lot of the +vs armoured was converted to a smaller vs all value. Then Corruptors could overcome Void Rays more easily and get on top of the Carriers that they are supposed to kill. The Carrier itself is decent at best and it needs to be a go to, or Protoss die as soon as Lurkers are out.
The same can be said for Terran btw, they need to be able to contest Zerg and Protoss late game, or they won't win many bo7's. What we actually want is Zerg to be able to lose late game, but upping the %win for Zerg minimally as well.
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In retrospect it's the broodlord change that infuriates me the most. The broodlord is the worst unit in the game, hands down. It removes control from the opposing player by body-blocking their stuff, can't operate on its own, and is more oppressive the more it's massed, which is a recipe for cancerous deathballs.
Yet somehow the luminaries behind this patch thought this horrible dumpster fire of a unit deserved to see more play, while not fixing any of its underlying problems. Meanwhile the carrier (which, to be fair, suffers from some of the same problems, but to a lesser degree) just takes an unconditional nerf, without any compensation elsewhere.
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On December 22 2022 08:09 Athenau wrote:
In retrospect it's the broodlord change that infuriates me the most. The broodlord is the worst unit in the game, hands down. It removes control from the opposing player by body-blocking their stuff, can't operate on its own, and is more oppressive the more it's massed, which is a recipe for cancerous deathballs.
Yet somehow the luminaries behind this patch thought this horrible dumpster fire of a unit deserved to see more play, while not fixing any of its underlying problems. Meanwhile the carrier (which, to be fair, suffers from some of the same problems, but to a lesser degree) just takes an unconditional nerf, without any compensation elsewhere.
Also not a fan of this change, I've never looked at Brood Lords and said, "This unit needs to be buffed clearly, it's so under utilized and weak" because it's neither of those things.
Not only is it neither of those things, but I'd go as far to say as the Capital ships in SC2 have been nothing but balance head aches from the get go. Brood lord deathballs, Carrier deathballs, early harass BC, I've never felt like any of the Capital ships in this game contributed to the meta in a positive way.
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