New SC2 Balance Test Mod (along with new map pool) - Page 9

On August 30 2023 06:06 Lyyna wrote:

To each their own - i barely consider this as "mech", the only real commonality is that it comes out from a factory.
It is bio without the drops and more emphasis on the kiting/poking instead
Although i do agree that it was an interesting alternative to bio play (and not least because of its commonality with bio, which would appeal to most terran players with the emphasis on aggression constantly) and it was a shame Blizzard never developped - but there was a reason for that, as well, and it is that this kind of style is absurdly hard to balance, when it is based about a unit that should (and can) never get hit while doing high damage


And why is that an issue ?
The unit is seen in a large number of games, in every matchup, just like the reaper, which can be used both as an universal scout, and is also part of several relevant early strategies. Not every game is destined to be spammed at every stage of the game, and that's particularly true for terran, that comes with a lot of specialist units.
It has several robusts roles as an early game defender/map controller, can be used in several drop builds that are semi-common, and battlemech did pop its head quite regularly until the recent evolution of the TvZ bio into lategame mech style


That's largely hypothetical, and as the previous reactored cyclone era has shown, not necessarily true - the nature of the unit (high mobility, high damage, decent durability) means that if it's good, it's often too good - it kills stuff fast while staying safe, and exponentially becomes strong as it gets massed.
Hellions in particular are a generally bad unit, and it doesn't take much for cyclones to be better than them, even at killing light units - their main usage is as a mineral dump/meatshield to keep the cyclones alive... which isn't as much of a big deal when the cyclone is cheap, fast to build, tanky, and good at fighting almost everything in the game
The mine is largely a dream for mech, as it interfaces badly with other units - you aim to grow a highly efficient army that can kill the enemy from range with high efficiency, and that goes badly with the short ranged mine.
There is a reason why even more modern versions of battlemech don't use it - competent opponents are simply going to avoid it entirely, you run a high risk of killing your own expensive units, and it limits your mobility without the huge power of the siege tank.
In addition, it isn't as good against traditional mech counters, compared to the massacre it does against banelings, or removing the tankiness of zealots versus retreating bio.
That would go double if we get the new Flash-grade cyclone - not only would it get slowed by the mines to get to the enemy, but it would very easily run away from them... or, if strong enough to just stand and fight without kiting, why are you even making mines?


It becomes a factor when the change is supposed to affect a strategy that essentially doesn't exist in proplay, but is playable at lesser levels, since they're the only people actually affected by the change.


This is a strawman argument that doesn't have much relevance, despite having been thrown it since day 1 of sc2 - there has been plenty of times where broodwar style mech (centered around tanks, and overall around positional, defensive or maxed timing based, slower play) has been present - it was a reasonable proportion of games, even at the pro level, in WoL (oh IMMVP mech games, i miss you), it was meta for several times during HotS (with the unfortunate pairing with the Swarm Host), and some attempts were made in LotV, although the nature of the games there usually smashed it fast, with occasional success, especially since the Thor buffs.
In addition, plenty of players, at decent level, if not top world, have been playing these kind of styles for years across expansions, metas, and mappools, in high level ladder or online cups

Even bio play often relies heavily in tanks, since the start of sc2, and even more in modern meta - wether it is tank pushes to deny third in TvP or in recent years lategame tank additions, about anything in TvT, and bio/tank was almost always a thing in any year you look at in TvZ.
And on quite a few occasions (especially in WoL, and a few years ago in LotV) quite a few of these ended up playing nearly like "BW mech but with marines instead of vultures"....

And even without the tank, defensive, highly positional playstyles have been a thing several times - in particular, the liberator/mine/turret transition out of bio in TvZ that was very common a few years ago, or early LotV mass liberator transition - Artosis did write a pretty good blog post back then about the matter of defensive, BW-style "mech" play with bio as a core.


Changing for the sake of change, without a good idea of what is supposed to be accomplished, with a bunch of obvious negative repercussions, in a way similar to what was previously tried and completely failed to accomplish its objective, instead devolving into mono-unit spam, is not experimental, it's just making stupid changes for the sake of saying something was changed

It's not like they're changing a forgotten unit that isn't considered viable or meme-tier or even weak - it is a cornerstone of many openings in every matchup, is used as the core of a strategy that isn't popular but still sees occasional use, and has several niche roles to feel, and a similar change was already tried before, and it ended poorly, with the unit ending in a much healthier state after being changed again after that

And the unit being busted means that
- It won't change any of the core issue of the strat, instead simply masking it behind a busted unit, which is terrible design
- It will make PvT even worse than it currently is (i can't believe i'm on the protoss' side there), particularly since the redesigned mech/cyclone has to compete with a bio play that is already advantageous versus protoss, if pros are to use it... and if it's not that good after balancing, then it simply won't be used at pro level, and as you said, who cares about anyone below top tier? all the while eliminating the current uses of the cyclone, which has several robust niches
- It will probably bring a nerf to the unit that swings the other way, meaning that all the stuff the unit accomplished pre-changed would be lost for nothing in that case as well, while also making the intended strategy weaker.
- And all of that even assumes that the balance council reacts swiftly and in a way that makes sense to anything derailing the game - they don't exactly have that kind of track record yet. In fact they're already looking an awful lot like the old school Blizzard balance way - yearly patch that includes a lot of not-particulary-useful-or-desired-or-relevant stuff without much in the way of explainations...

On August 30 2023 11:03 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:


Yeah it was! Which is why the changes are slightly confusing.

I think they're trying to make the Mothership cheaper (and rebalance the stats and spells around that), so that it's less of a committment, and you can get it a little easier earlier than before - as early as the midgame.

Because the perceived problem before was that the Mothership was expensive for what it did, and often just dies immediately in fights (cough Abduct).

Instead of making it stronger and not die at the start of every fight, they decided to make it cheaper and a little more mobile so that you can manuever it easier and if you lose it it isn't as big of a loss. That's what it seems to me anyway. But by doing so, ofc they are losing some of the identity and fantasy behind the Mothership. I wish they would have just buffed it instead. Making it 300/300 instead of 400/400 was also possible, since it's a unit you can only get 1 of anyways.

Also i never understood why they couldn't make it so that Abduct doesn't work on Heroic, or only pulls Heroic half the distance, or pulls Massive+Heroic units half the distance, and rebalance Viper around that.