EPTTheir damage has to be tweaked from 11+2 to 10+5 maybe then slow his firerate roughly from 0.49 to 0.54.
Then cyclone dps against light is decreased from 22.2 to 18.5
DPs against armored increased from 26.5 to 27.8 (help against stalkers)
New SC2 Balance Test Mod (along with new map pool) - Page 6
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Vision_
857 Posts
Their damage has to be tweaked from 11+2 to 10+5 maybe then slow his firerate roughly from 0.49 to 0.54. Then cyclone dps against light is decreased from 22.2 to 18.5 DPs against armored increased from 26.5 to 27.8 (help against stalkers) | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10318 Posts
We don't need Cyclones to be that great in TvZ since you already have some decent openers like hellion banshee, BC, etc. Cyclone being good vs certain Protoss units in the early game would be really nice, like Stalkers and even Immortals in small numbers. Meanwhile, you can get Hellions and WMs to deal with Zealots. The Mechanical bonus would also ensure that it maintains close to its current effectiveness vs early Oracle/Phoenix/drop harass, while also being better at holding Void Ray/BC rushes. This is also consistent to them buffing the Viking by giving it bonus damage to Mechanical units - more use in TvT, and better as mech support vs Protoss. | ||
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Lyyna
France776 Posts
On August 25 2023 22:57 WombaT wrote: I believe there would be an interest in mech style play (which doesn't have to be all factory anyway - i recall a nice blog post from Artosis about that early LOTV, with the liberator opening new ways of playing more around defense for terran even with a bio core), az you said there is always interest in a more defensive minded style ... especially since ,for terran, a drop centric bio play has been shoved down our throat for years And as broodwar has amply shown, even defensive games can be giga entertaining. The issue about mech being turtle fest is not a consequence of it being strong : it is a result of its current weakness, and of the issues i listed in my post. It is just that on occasions, the mappool and the meta made it worth it to play mech. But when it happens, you are forced into a purely turtle position, because you can never afford to lose units before your maxed deathball, and you have no credible way to contest map control before it anyway besides a couple of harass openings that expose you hard to counters Mech being stronger involves it not being as vulnerable early, allowed for harassment that isn't a death sentence versus a competent opponent, and that means all of a sudden there are reasons to go on the map and to create interactions... like Broodwar The more i think about it (and read/watch), the more i dislike this patch from a mech perspective It's nothing but a repeat of the old school Blizzard "let's fix X" balance method, which consists of buffing/reworking something that doesn't address any issue, usually creating a monster unit that breaks the game and the intended X strat with the followup nerf hammer This is gonna be a repeat of the old cyclone, with the spam of a mobile bruiser unit with little downside being A-moved around the map ; this isn't "mech" as anyone wishes for it. This is bio without medivacs that can fire on the move. As i said in my post, this reeks of being something made by people who have little mech experience, simply said "hey would be cool if mech was viable in TvP", and went for the lowest hanging fruit You can almost hear how that discussion went "Hey, we should buff mech to make it viable in TvP, but we can't make it too strong because people will just turtle with it" "Ok, how are we going about it ?" "Well, i think we just need to tweak the units, but we can't buff tanks because i'm sure it would encourage turtle play. Thors are already buffed, hellions lmao, mines are a bio thing, and we can't buff air because sometimes it was deemed too strong in the past" "Ok, we need to buff the cyclone then ! And battlemech looks cool already and it's not turtle play, so people will find it cool ! And it will promote dynamic gameplay and harass and cool stuff on the map !" "You're right ! And the problem is that cyclones are too expensive and mobile, so we'll make it cheap and less mobile ! And add an uppgrade so it can scale and still be more relevant later in the game !" "You're right, we're geniuses. Game fixed, ggwpnore, mech is now viable" I know this has delved into ranting, but no apologies there... i'm quite sad. I've always been a believer in a correctly tuned mech (ie not forced into endless turtling by the inefficiency of its units) able to create very nice games, as Broodwar (and even some sc2 games) has shown, and it is once again a massive disappointment. Even defensive games can be immensely entertaining : tell me you've never watched a game where one player defended at home while the other tried to pick apart his wall, probing to weakness, each using all the tools available to either bolster or pierce the defenses, the clash of massive armies against a small, strong position.. It becomes boring specifically only when the defending player has no reason to EVER leave his base (rather than defending until a specific moment) and/or the attacking player has no reason/incentive to attack.. and that's largely due to the "everything is too damn fast in sc2" point i made in my other post : you can't afford to lose an army There was hope here that an approach distinct from the Blizzard one would bring nice results, not the odd previous approach involving buffing irrelevant units, overly focusing on "mobility" and "aggro play" Nope : it is utterly obvious the people behind it have little idea or incentive to think about how mech is played or what is desired, and are essentially creating a simpler, weaker, dumber version of bio play with factory units, hiding the core issue behind a strong unit that has little interaction beyond A moving and kiting away occasionally (so... bio gameplay) | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10318 Posts
On August 26 2023 04:24 Lyyna wrote: It becomes boring specifically only when the defending player has no reason to EVER leave his base (rather than defending until a specific moment) and/or the attacking player has no reason/incentive to attack.. and that's largely due to the "everything is too damn fast in sc2" point i made in my other post : you can't afford to lose an army Man... I wish more people understood this. I don't like calling them defensive units, because zoning units can be used both offensively and defensively in theory. But yes, making mech stronger doesn't result in more turtly or more boring games. In fact, the reason why mech often leads to boring turtle games, is because mech is too weak to move out and interact, AND because the opponent doesn't often feel the need to even try to pick them apart before mech gets to its deathball. When one player has a stronger lategame, it incentivizes the other opponent to interact and stop the turtling player. As long as one of the players is being forced to engage, there can be intense action and the game isn't boring. As long as there are ways to interact and slow them down or halt their progress from transitioning into their deathball, then it isn't imbalanced for one player to have a stronger lategame or endgame. And if you do let that player reach their deathball, it's totally fine if it means you lose the game because that was their win condition. When a Zerg or Protoss has just as strong of a lategame as the Mech player, they won't be afraid to take the game late and to mass expand across the map. And that's when we get games where nothing happens for a long time until both players reach their ideal deathball. It isn't problematic for one race or playstyle to have a stronger lategame than another, as long as the MU is balanced. One thing that's great about Mech games (in theory anyway), is that there is a clear attacker and a clear defender. In other MUs where both sides don't have a strong incentive to attack the other, there can be less tension as both feel comfortable taking many bases before engaging. | ||
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Slydie
1913 Posts
On August 26 2023 05:14 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Man... I wish more people understood this. I don't like calling them defensive units, because zoning units can be used both offensively and defensively in theory. But yes, making mech stronger doesn't result in more turtly or more boring games. In fact, the reason why mech often leads to boring turtle games, is because mech is too weak to move out and interact, AND because the opponent doesn't often feel the need to even try to pick them apart before mech gets to its deathball. When one player has a stronger lategame, it incentivizes the other opponent to interact and stop the turtling player. As long as one of the players is being forced to engage, there can be intense action and the game isn't boring. As long as there are ways to interact and slow them down or halt their progress from transitioning into their deathball, then it isn't imbalanced for one player to have a stronger lategame or endgame. And if you do let that player reach their deathball, it's totally fine if it means you lose the game because that was their win condition. When a Zerg or Protoss has just as strong of a lategame as the Mech player, they won't be afraid to take the game late and to mass expand across the map. And that's when we get games where nothing happens for a long time until both players reach their ideal deathball. It isn't problematic for one race or playstyle to have a stronger lategame than another, as long as the MU is balanced. One thing that's great about Mech games (in theory anyway), is that there is a clear attacker and a clear defender. In other MUs where both sides don't have a strong incentive to attack the other, there can be less tension as both feel comfortable taking many bases before engaging. This is where maps come in. Having a superior death ball might not matter if the opponent has 3x the money and production to throw several armies into it and also counterattack. I remember how the natural was often a point of contention in WOL, then the 3rd in HotS, but it is often the 4th or 5th base now. | ||
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Vision_
857 Posts
I m always afraid to share this opinion in this forum, but the fact minerals fields are stack by 8 and aside your previous base means that there s roughly only one way to attack your opponent. IMO, the game will be far more strategic if you allow workers to cross over cliffs and harvest minerals fields with a long distance mining distributed evenly across the map (of course their travel will bring severals hundred mineral and workers will be buff). Finally, you have to take more risks for harvesting, which is the core of a RTS (harvesting all these minerals near a single base is against the philosophy of strategy) And, even if workers caracterictics are buff a little bit, then you can add to workers an ability (passive or not) which fits the design of the race, for example : Probe : speed boost SCV : armor gain Drone : queen clone an existing worker | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10318 Posts
On August 26 2023 17:33 Slydie wrote: This is where maps come in. Having a superior death ball might not matter if the opponent has 3x the money and production to throw several armies into it and also counterattack. I remember how the natural was often a point of contention in WOL, then the 3rd in HotS, but it is often the 4th or 5th base now. True, great point. I do love bigger macro maps because while it can take longer before engagements happen, it allows both players to throw armies at each other, and they're less afraid to do so because they can reproduce it without losing after one big fight. I really love having spread out action across the map too, which I think LotV did manage to move the game towards. But yes as a side effect, the maps and the economy change both shifted things so that it's often the 4th base being contested rather than the natural or 3rd. And with Mech, on most maps it's hard to take too many bases, and often by the time you're trying to get your 4th or 5th, the Zerg or Protoss can already have 6-7 bases and keep crashing armies into you. I really hope the new Cyclone can be strong enough to give some control and map control over the early game, similar to Hellion banshee in TvZ. In HotS, before the economy change, Mech actually was able to contain the Protoss a bit with just a combination of hellion banshee, or hellion and WMs. In the old economy, it took Protoss a while to get their Robo tech up and be able to move out and stabilize their 3rd. In this time it allowed the Mech player to get their 3rd, and if the Protoss wanted to attack, you had lots of time to complete a wall at the 3rd to be completely safe. This change also happened to TvZ, back in WoL and HotS, the Terran was easily containing the Zerg to 2-3 bases with Hellion Banshee, and it often felt like Zerg was the underdog having to struggle so much to gain 1 base over the Terran. Now in LotV, the Zerg explodes quite easily. Vs Bio it's probably fine, because it probably was a bit imba back then (or at the least boring design wise) to have the Terran just be able to easily contain Zerg like that without Zerg having many options for counter aggression. Now the Zerg can sneak lings out on the map before the Hellions come to contain. But vs Mech, Zerg having more map control than in WoL/HotS makes it harder for particularly Mech to get their 3rd and 4th up. Maybe the Cyclone can help in TvZ as well. On August 26 2023 18:04 Vision_ wrote: Usually in real life or true RTS, u have to travel to harvest ressources. I m always afraid to share this opinion in this forum, but the fact minerals fields are stack by 8 and aside your previous base means that there s roughly only one way to attack your opponent. IMO, the game will be far more strategic if you allow workers to cross over cliffs and harvest minerals fields with a long distance mining distributed evenly across the map (of course their travel will bring severals hundred mineral and workers will be buff). Finally, you have to take more risks for harvesting, which is the core of a RTS (harvesting all these minerals near a single base is against the philosophy of strategy) And, even if workers caracterictics are buff a little bit, then you can add to workers an ability (passive or not) which fits the design of the race, for example : Probe : speed boost SCV : armor gain Drone : queen clone an existing worker Now that you mention it, it could be interesting to have some of the mineral patches be even just a few spaces further. This would have been another way to replicate the economy of BW. You could saturate the closer mineral patches for efficient mining, and if you try to saturate the further mineral patches, you do gain more mining but at a slower rate. This would also have lessened the efficiency of AOE harass like WM being able to deal game ending damage so easily. | ||
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TaKeTV
Germany1198 Posts
On August 26 2023 18:04 Vision_ wrote: Usually in real life or true RTS, u have to travel to harvest ressources. I m always afraid to share this opinion in this forum, but the fact minerals fields are stack by 8 and aside your previous base means that there s roughly only one way to attack your opponent. IMO, the game will be far more strategic if you allow workers to cross over cliffs and harvest minerals fields with a long distance mining distributed evenly across the map (of course their travel will bring severals hundred mineral and workers will be buff). Finally, you have to take more risks for harvesting, which is the core of a RTS (harvesting all these minerals near a single base is against the philosophy of strategy) And, even if workers caracterictics are buff a little bit, then you can add to workers an ability (passive or not) which fits the design of the race, for example : Probe : speed boost SCV : armor gain Drone : queen clone an existing worker Starcraft and Warcraft (to a lesser extent) simply moved away the travel from the workers to the base itself. i.e the player will move or add more bases which would actually be very common behaviour in how humans actually gather ressources - at least in a modern world. WoL had the issue, that minerals didn't run out quickly enough so it promoted turtle-style way more. LotV has a very good pacing in terms of ressources and management I think. I do think SC2 general economic system isn't its strength cause in its core there really is little to no choice. More workers and economic focus is usually stronger than aggressive / cheesy gameplay - obviously with expections that can happen. It more or less boils down to "how much gas do I need" and/or do I want to end within a certain time and condition (cut worker, timing). Other than that its more about economic harassment rather than actually managing or deciding on economy. I am not sure if workers traveling to gather ressources makes this any more interesting. AoE 4 for example has nearly an economic simulation with the amount of ressources+workers and their travel. I personally dont find that appealing at all. I dont know what I want from an economy but I know what I dislike at certain games :D | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10318 Posts
What if we made it so that EMP drains only 100 Shields+Energy altogether? Ghost has tons of utility already. EMP drains both 100 Shields and 100 Energy simultaneously. With the proposed change, if you EMP a HT, it will lose its 40 Shields and only lose 60 Energy. This way you will more likely need to EMP a HT a 2nd time to drain them of all Storm energy, whereas currently 1 EMP will be enough unless the HT has more than 175 energy. It would give HTs a slightly bigger chance to still have some energy to Storm, and not shut down as hard without using a WP. This would make the EMP nerf targetted more at Bio players, since Storm isn't very strong vs Mech and you already have Tanks to zone out and snipe HTs if you really wanted to. This would also make EMP weaker vs Sentries (drains 40 Shield and 60 Energy, and more likely needing a 2nd EMP), making it fall off slightly less vs Bio after midgame. If this change is made, EMP could be kept at 1.5 base radius, but keep a 1.75 radius upgrade. This would further slightly weaken EMP's initial power spike vs Protoss for Bio players, while allowing it to scale a little stronger later in the game. And it would allow Mech players to maintain a similar power level vs Protoss with the EMP radius upgrade. | ||
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Vision_
857 Posts
On August 26 2023 20:03 TaKeTV wrote: .... I am not sure if workers traveling to gather ressources makes this any more interesting. AoE 4 for example has nearly an economic simulation with the amount of ressources+workers and their travel. I personally dont find that appealing at all. I dont know what I want from an economy but I know what I dislike at certain games :D I m very pleased that you comment my post but i can t agree when you say AoE 4 has a travel harvesting system, you just build a depot near ressources and workers can harvest. This idea comes from games like Red Alert Command and Conquer or Dune, so as i said in my previous post (but not well explained) ressources are located far from base, so your ressource convoy (truck load) can be intercepted. However It s really close from the AoE 4 economy Then i can hear there was a progress after WoL, and but like gas use are different from race it s hard to suggest an oriented gas harvesting system far from base and btw, the default simulation would be based on minerals. IMO, to resume turtling is a consequence of SC2 economy in which you can so easily conquer and gather minerals really close to your main base and i do think it s the root cause of turtling and so people can t complain about turtling without complaining about SC2 model economy. That s said, this kind of economy changes (long distance mining) can be paired with the decreasing of firerate units (less speed in fight) which is a recurring suggestion made by the community You can also watch Stormgate which decided to switch back to a Warcraft economic model (avoid bigger harass problem like in SC2). Maybe some mid solution can be found, like 3 large minerals field replacing the actual 8 , and which one can be harvested by 5 workers (3x5 = 15 instead of 16) and where they can hide for a longer time | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24523 Posts
On August 26 2023 21:56 Vision_ wrote: I m very pleased that you comment my post but i can t agree when you say AoE 4 has a travel harvesting system, you just build a depot near ressources and workers can harvest. This idea comes from games like Red Alert Command and Conquer or Dune, so as i said in my previous post (but not well explained) ressources are located far from base, so your ressource convoy (truck load) can be intercepted. Then i can hear there was a progress after WoL, and but like gas use are different from race it s hard to suggest an oriented gas harvesting system far from base and btw, the default simulation would be based on minerals. IMO, to resume turtling is a consequence of SC2 economy in which you can so easily conquer and gather minerals really close to your main base and i do think it s the root cause of turtling and so people can t complain about turtling without complaining about SC2 model economy. That s said, this kind of economy changes (long distance mining) can be paired with the decreasing of firerate units (less speed in fight) which is a recurring suggestion made by the community You can also watch Stormgate which decided to switch back to a Warcraft economic model (avoid bigger harass problem like in SC2). Maybe some mid solution can be found, like 3 large minerals field replacing the actual 8 , and which one can be harvested by 5 workers (3x5 = 15 instead of 16) and where they can hide for a longer time There’s something in simplicity sometimes Workers in proximity gives you a consistent, predictable rate of income, which lets you make tighter builds and get into your desired gameplan and makes strategic decisions that little more predictable, in a good sense. Worker convoys coming in all over the place just adds micromanagement and volatility to the equation. | ||
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Vision_
857 Posts
On August 26 2023 22:24 WombaT wrote: There’s something in simplicity sometimes Workers in proximity gives you a consistent, predictable rate of income, which lets you make tighter builds and get into your desired gameplan and makes strategic decisions that little more predictable, in a good sense. Worker convoys coming in all over the place just adds micromanagement and volatility to the equation. Yes you right mate, Just thinking, adding mines ala Warcraft will help mapmakers in showing more diversity just because 3 large minerals fields are less hard to place than 8 other (plus a protection against harassement). In other terms, less harassement could be a possible way to mix and add variety to the map pool (without this recurrency shape of platforms place in the edge of the map) | ||
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Slydie
1913 Posts
Changing that would make a completely different game. | ||
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PartingFan
17 Posts
I manage a remote team myself and this balance patch is the exact thing I would expect a dysfunctional remote team would produce. | ||
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Vision_
857 Posts
On August 27 2023 01:32 PartingFan wrote: I really don't understand how the balance council works. Bunch of players, each of them saying they only know a little bit of the whole picture. How the hell are you going to design a balance patch without knowing each and every change? I manage a remote team myself and this balance patch is the exact thing I would expect a dysfunctional remote team would produce. Yeah my feelings is they are afraid of community rancor. From your point of view i m really appreciating the China community patch which adress a tweak to BC, Carrier, ... etc On August 26 2023 22:55 Slydie wrote: I actually like that workerlines are the soft underbellies of your setup in SC2. How they are defended and attacked is how player skills are determined, and usually how games are decided. Changing that would make a completely different game. I do not agree with your point of view because I believe that it is only a way of reducing the harassement factor. The core of the game still works out, and if you are harassing workers and already killed them you can also destroy buildings. Plus, workers which are already loaded of minerals can t hide in the mine, so automatically you will get a window to shoot them but slowly. I m in favor of this kind of changes because i m thinking it doesn t bother pros so much and it will please the community, what is complicated to do : tweaks which helps casual gaming and hard core gamers but allow pros to be competitive | ||
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Xamo
Spain877 Posts
This would make phoenixes not insta-kill other phoenixes, making the "Phoenix war" situation more stable and in fact helping to ease the transition out of it. I don't think it'd affect any other unit interaction, but perhaps my memory is not complete... | ||
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Slydie
1913 Posts
On August 26 2023 22:55 Slydie wrote: I actually like that workerlines are the soft underbellies of your setup in SC2. How they are defended and attacked is how player skills are determined, and usually how games are decided. Changing that would make a completely different game. I do not agree with your point of view because I believe that it is only a way of reducing the harassement factor. The core of the game still works out, and if you are harassing workers and already killed them you can also destroy buildings. What do oracles, reapers, helions, banshees and mutalisks have in common? They are mainly designed as harassment units. If you are aiming to kill armies, you better make something else. Harassment of workerlines is a core feature of sc2. I don't think "reducing the harassment factor" is really worth discussing. | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10318 Posts
On August 27 2023 03:01 Xamo wrote: I have another small suggestion to improve PvP: Remove light tag from phoenixes This would make phoenixes not insta-kill other phoenixes, making the "Phoenix war" situation more stable and in fact helping to ease the transition out of it. I don't think it'd affect any other unit interaction, but perhaps my memory is not complete... Hmm, i can't think of anything either... this sounds like a nice change. If you are behind in Phoenixes, the power gap would not be as big, especially if you have Canon/Stalker support, it gives more time for your ground support to deal damage. | ||
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moonsjde
48 Posts
On August 27 2023 03:28 Slydie wrote: What do oracles, reapers, helions, banshees and mutalisks have in common? They are mainly designed as harassment units. If you are aiming to kill armies, you better make something else. Harassment of workerlines is a core feature of sc2. I don't think "reducing the harassment factor" is really worth discussing. reducing the harassment doesn't mean making the units irrelevant, it means changing the vector of when the damage hits and how devastating it is. widow mines and banelings are the worst offender and they're the units that people tend to find the most annoying when they're complaining about harassment. ideally harassment units should be weak and/or fragile individually or in small numbers and they should do devastating damage only when you achieve some combination of hiding the tech, microing aggressively, or committing to extra units in order to overwhelm whatever defense is set up. heavy harassment shouldn't be something so powerful that you can take complete control of the pace of the game without doing damage just by forcing a specific defense. even fully scouted, widow mine drops are so threatening that terrans are incentivized to follow workers halfway to the next base and commit to absurd burrow/unburrow gimmicks to delay mining just because of the massive potential of ending the game with an insane hit. it's not unbalanced but it's hokey, stupid design. a similar problem with harassment dictating the game too much also comes up with muta switch into ravager/baneling in ZvP which the casters have highlighted many times in recent years of GSL harassment doesn't have to be broken to be stupid and annoying, and it doesn't have to be removed completely to be tuned down or modified. one way of doing this is by making a unit simultaneously weaker and cheaper, or faster but more fragile | ||
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Vision_
857 Posts
On August 27 2023 03:28 Slydie wrote: What do oracles, reapers, helions, banshees and mutalisks have in common? They are mainly designed as harassment units. If you are aiming to kill armies, you better make something else. Harassment of workerlines is a core feature of sc2. I don't think "reducing the harassment factor" is really worth discussing. So tell me, when you read forums, are there comments blaming violent harassement which kills a whole worker mineral line ? I mean, it s always the case when it comes to troll or argue against a race..., Even at pro level a drop of mines or banelings can end the game, and be considered as an overpowered strategy. Then it s like you said, all about what you want, if u want the game is only decided by harassement or not. | ||
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