Balance Patch 5.0.11 PTR Patch Notes - Page 27

On December 10 2022 10:31 Ahli wrote:

Other notes (side effects / undocumented changes / potential bugs):

• the Broodling duration change affects Broodlings from structures as well. Should those really be changed as well?
  
• there are a lot of undocumented changes to unburrow/burrow random delays
  
• there is a potential change that makes unburrowing units appear visible without delay (stats duration changed. I am not sure if the duration really affects anything)
  
• Banshee's attack's rockets spawn ~100ms earlier (0.15 seconds earlier on normal game speed). The first rocket spawns without delay
  
• stasis change could break things now. I hope people check beam weapons properly stopping (Sentry). What happens when Adepts have a Shade and the Adept walks into a stasis trap? Does the Shade die? Does the Adept teleport and keep stasis? Does it teleport and have no more stasis?
  
• Why the spawn range increase from 2 to 3 Factory-specific and not raised to 3 for all producing structures (Barracks, Starport, CC, Hatchery, Nexus, Gateway, Robotics Facility, Stargate)?
  
• Lurker's Unburrow random starting delay was changed from [0, 0.5] to [0, 0]. This means Lurkers will be able to unburrow and move away up to half a second faster
  
• Lurker's Burrow random starting delay was changed from [0, 0.25] to [0, 0.125]. They burrow on average 1 game update = 0.625 game seconds = ~44ms faster than before allowing them to attack that time earlier as well or escape fire from flying units
  
• Interference Matrix adds a cooldown to Immortal Barrier after Interference Matrix expires. The duration was raised from 5.7 to 7.9 seconds (from 8 to 11 seconds on normal speed). Also, why is this added on expiring and not when IM hits? The bug fix is older, but it feels buggy to me. What happens when the cooldown expires while IM is active (or is it paused during IM)?
  
• Observer, Disruptor and Ultralisk model scaling potentially breaks with other model skins than default. Every unit skin has different model settings, so you need to change all of them or change the scale of the actors. Without testing, I would say that this breaks non-default skins. Can someone confirm this?
  
• Hydralisk -> Lurker Morph's random starting delay was changed from [0, 0.5] to [0, 0]. This could have been required for the morph's smart command cancel. Roach -> Ravager had no random delay as well (like Warp Prism and Liberator). Should this be done for other units as well (Viking, Thor, Widow Mine, Siege Tank, Hellion)?
  
• Does the Interceptor flying area increase significantly alter the DPS? The area was raised by 1 to inner 3 and outer 5. The weapon range is still 2.
  
• Interceptor attack firing and impact sounds are slightly louder than before
  
• Units affected by Anti-Armor-Missile are now tinted with another color. It is more yellow than orange.
  From to
  
• Structures receiving shields from the Shield Battery do not display an attached model in the fog of war anymore. This was a dimmed snapshot image of the model before, correct? Now you should only see the structure itself
  
• The Ghost unit types did not correctly receive the snipe command card button. I am not sure how the Nova Ghost skin is created, but there is a good chance that she won't have a snipe cancel button. There is a unit type for the female Ghost skin, but that does not even have the snipe ability and I guess people would have figured that bug out by now, if that one was actually used. Do female Ghost skins have snipe and a cancel button? Does the rare Nova spawn have snipe cancel button?
  
• Hatchery and Hive's subgroup priority swapped (Hatchery to 28, Hive to 32). When multiple structures are selected, this could be reordered now. This also affects observer UI priorities like production, structures, units lost UI panels. The hive is now selected first, correct?
  
• The Shield Battery stop command fix does not fix a human potentially replicating the commands necessary with macros. The implementation is slightly more complex than intended and it would be nice if Blizz at least cleaned it up (stack counts used to be bad for performance a decade ago, please do not add them to behavior that do not require them)
  
• Queen Transfusion on-creep text was broken due to a pointless behavior swap (they do exactly the same, just the Queen's one has text for this error case).
  
• Swarm Hosts can now spawn Locusts with a target point without loosing existing orders. The ability is now flagged as transient
  
  

I am trying to document/comment all data changes and make notes about things that could potentially break.
I am far from done, but the amount of undocumented changes is concerning.

Also, there are a few small bugs that could be fixed as well:

• Thor's default mode has no collision with Locusts. The 2nd mode has, like all other units as well
  
• Disruptor and Archon's minimap radius is too small. This should always match the actual unit radius. So, it is currently a tiny bit too small
  
• Burrowed Ravagers have the Corossive Bile ability. This could be used by hackers and should be removed from the unit. Remember warping in Immortals in WoL or computer players spawning Infested Terrans after the ability was supposed to be removed from the Infestor?
  

On January 10 2023 09:08 Athenau wrote:

You can't seriously think that anyone actually believes in a Zerg conspiracy right? You realize that's a meme right? Right?

Want to know something else thats outrageous? Scarlett is the one implementing the changes. She is the one putting the changes into the PTR and the balance patch.

On January 21 2023 12:11 Charoisaur wrote:
Regardless of your opinion on the content of the patch, I guess we can all agree that it's just a shitshow that Katowice starts in a few weeks and nobody knows when or if the patch releases and with which changes. Someone is really fucking up hard currently.

Disruptors were already "barely" able to hold out if you were lucky or they didn't have vipers, now they just join the list of ground units that are countered by lurkers (all ground protoss units except immortal/archons and colossus are 1 shotted by 7 lurkers. Immortals and archons die in 2 shots)

Now here is another image this time of ultras. In the same area where you could previously only fit 11 ultras, you can now fit 13. If the change is only to make them easier to use, what is the balance council doing to reduce the increase in damage due to more ultras being able to hit the enemy at the same time?

Unfortunately I don't have a way to record how FAST BL are now. Remember that speed afects air unit more because they are not restricted by terrain, so any small speed increase translates into an exponentially big mobility increase. The biggest difference I've seen with this change is not the ability to retreat or defend, but to CHASE. You cannot escape from BL anymore. Not only BL block your mobility with the broodlings, but now BL are so fast they caan chase you because your ground units are restricted by terrain, and due to the way their atack works, they can "kind of" move while shooting. What are you giving the other races to compensate?

On January 21 2023 18:54 syndbg wrote:
Actual metal leaguer takes so far by Phantom.



My dude, if you actually understand the game a bit, you'll know that yes, archon and immortals are meant to be the ground counter. If your idea of SC2 is to mass stalkers and run over lurkers, yeah, that's probably not it.




Hilarious and impractical. there's no scenario in a pro game or any ladder game (that shouldn't be already super over), where 11-13 ultras surround a town hall and this decides the game, lol.




Again, you're missing points of the patch notes either due to severe emotional trauma by these patch notes or something, but yes, the broods are faster and their broodlings have a shorter lifespan.
Claiming broods can't be escaped is hilarious and out of touch with reality. Even more so after the latest balance mod speed adjustments. "Move while shooting" haha, bro. With 1.79 attack CD and new speed of 2.24, the potential 0.45speed stutter step is not gonna change anything. They're not marines, they're not hydras.

On January 22 2023 00:42 [Phantom] wrote:


I'm not making stalkers vs lurkers. I'm saying that no matter what ground army you do it gets deleted in 1 second. Go make an army of many archons with 3 range and immortals (tht suck vs hydras) and tell me how you do vs lurkers. And yeah obviously include zealots and stalkers. You'll still die. You need air, or disruptors to survive until you can transition to air.


2-You can't possibly think the Ultra photo was about me complaining about 13 ultras surrounding a hatchery...It's show an image that was the easiest way to show that reducing size= more effective damage in ALL situations (not just vs hatchery) due to more ultras being able to atack at the same time.

3.-Regarding the BL. Have you played the PTR? Have you played the balance mod? Because I've been playing it a lot. You're not going to stutter step with BL, but you can definitely chase units much better. Before you were able to retreat, now it's much harder. The BL are a much better unit now.

And I wouldn't be aagians't any of this, if the other races got something similar. Why aren't the other races, specially protoss receiving other buffs/reworks like tht. Why isn't the tempest of mothership being changed? O or the Reaper, BC and Adept? Or the colossus/vr/phoenix? Why is Zerg getting all these buffs and usability re-works without any regards to if the unit was balanced or not before (like the hydra).


Then there are some weird changes, like changin the interceptor and carrier priority, which should mostly affect lower leagues right? Aka, Master and Below. But I thought we were balancing about the top 0.1%? why not nerf the lurker then that is so opressive?

Again my issue is not only balance, but the blatant double standard of buffing zerg to make it more "fun and cool to use" without any regards for balance and not giving the other races the same treatment, and the conflic of interest shown in this patch (scarlett making changes to the mod and "whoops, by mistake I shadow buffed lurkers, oops").

Put Maru, Hero and Serral/dark in a room and let those 3 come up with the new patch, not whoever is in charge of this mess.

On January 22 2023 04:56 absinthfee wrote:
1) They also get deleted if they walk into 25 tanks. It is about positioning and that a t3 with two upgrades against pure ground is strong against pure ground isn't really surprising. WIth lurkers you can never chase into an army, so players have to move into lurkers for them to be good.

On January 22 2023 04:56 absinthfee wrote:
2) That is also not true. It is only a buff if more ultras fit into a space where they previously couldn't. If the space is big enough for 1 ultra now, it is not automatically big enough to fit two now. It is a buff to ultras, but that is mostly not about protoss, because in those games it mostly does not change anything as the ultras are only used in super late games and are the last units standing most of the time anyways.

On January 22 2023 04:56 absinthfee wrote:
3) They are a different unit now and hopefully not as boring as previously, where for example dark was camping and shooting his own broodlings to deal damage to a mech army.

On January 22 2023 04:56 absinthfee wrote:
You also neglect the zerg nerfs such as creep and the ravager nerf, which is a unit that is actually used all the time in ZvP and this severely nerfs all ins in ZvT.

On January 22 2023 04:56 absinthfee wrote:
Protoss got the QoL change for the archon which is huge against mutas as they can easily defend mineral lines from them.

On January 22 2023 04:56 absinthfee wrote:
This is also huge against Zergling runbys as they can now position between mineral patches.

On January 22 2023 04:56 absinthfee wrote:
Terran also got reworks with the raven for example.

On January 22 2023 10:25 QOGQOG wrote:

Lurkers chase retreating armies all the time. They are far more suited to aggressive moves than Siege tanks since:
1. Siege tanks take four seconds to siege up. Upgraded Lurkers take 1.07 seconds to burrow.
2. Lurkers are faster.
3. Lurkers have more health.
4. Lurkers are invisible while sieged.
5. Lurkers do damage over a much larger area.
6. Lurkers are way less vulnerable when getting in close, as they don't have a minimum range and don't do friendly fire.

You do understand that no one is arguing that twice an many Ultras fit in the same area, right? The changes mean each Ultra gets in the way of other Ultras (and other units) less. It's like Ling speed: it doesn't technically increase damage output, but since more of the units can attack sooner, in effect it does.

They are a different, much stronger unit now. Which is still going to be boring to watch, just boring in a "oh, Brood Lords, Zerg wins" kind of way.

Creep nerf makes literally no difference. The vision things is a minor QoL change, even Zerg pros has acknowledged the changes don't impact creep spread at all. Yes, Ravagers did get a very minor nerf. Great.

How?

Do you think that mineral patches are buildings? Unless I've missed it in the sea of undocumented changes, only Archon building collisions have been changed.

Yes, Terran got reworks, while Zerg got buffs. You are making the exact point you are trying to argue against.

On January 22 2023 16:46 absinthfee wrote:


They also have less range, come out significantly later, need two upgrades, do less damage and suck against all lategame units (disruptor/carrier and ghosts/thors/siege tanks)

Your initial statement states that it is essentially a 20% damage increase, which is just not true. Yes its a significant buff to make this unit hopefully viable for ZvT and make hydra ultras viable in ZvP, instead of corruptor broodlord infestor snoozefest.


We haven't seen a single game where this was the case.



And that is why creep got nerfed again. I am not sure how much difference it makes now. Vipers got also nerfed and ravens got buffed for ZvT, due to lower cost.



Because Archons can now move from base to base and behind mineral lines and defend from mutas. They are amazing at it. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoU6EdLIDh4&t=1451s for example.

Archons can now move between mineral patches and you do not wanna know how many zerglings it takes to kill an archon that is between mineral patches, similar to adepts at the beginning of the game.

Zerg got their core units nerfed and their units which have not seen a lot of usage buffed. The classic ling/bling/ravager composition into vipers is now slightly weaker, but the ultra hydra infestor is now significantly stronger. However, only dark played that composition before with mixed results. For ZvT ling/bling muta is slightly worse and ling/bling/hydra is stronger now. However, all ins got a significant nerf, which allows Terrans to be more greedy.

On January 22 2023 00:42 [Phantom] wrote:


Then there are some weird changes, like changin the interceptor and carrier priority, which should mostly affect lower leagues right? Aka, Master and Below. But I thought we were balancing about the top 0.1%? why not nerf the lurker then that is so opressive?