On March 10 2024 21:40 Wintex wrote: TBH the protoss early game issue is more of an issue because zerg has a free early game due to Queens still existing, and terran actually has strong early game units in the reaper and clone that allow them to be bigger bullies than before. Destroying the omni-situational queen is still the way to fix it. Protoss is an issue because the other two races have better early games.
ofc I'm a boomer hater so take everything I say with a pinch of salt.
Protoss has an early game issue because of Warp Gate. It cant have the same kind of "normal" openings as the other races because any opening advantage you're able to get with early units can quickly snowball out of control with a Warp Gate timing because Warp Gate is able to mitigate all defender's advantages.
So Protoss early game has to be balanced around everything being turned into a Warp Gate all in.
Queens need to be balanced in such a way so they are able to be strong enough defensively to STOP Warp Gate all ins.
I think anyone with a brain in this community can agree that having Zerg's entire defensive identity wrapped around the Queen is bad game design, but we can't even get to a point where we can start to fix it while Warp Gate exists because the second we start nerfing the Queen's defensive capability is the second that PvZ becomes unplayable because Warp Gate all ins will start wiping Zergs out to say nothing of the impact such a change would have on TvZ and ZvZ also.
Effectively the warp gate issue can be solved by just pushing it down the tech tree, this is not an excuse. Currently, the matchup is botched because the Queen is a omni-situational existence. Capping the amount of queens or anything similar doesn't deal with the issue you present anyway. Also, a lot of the early game power creep happened exactly because the Queen was an answer to literally everything. Warp gate is fixable, this ain't.
On March 11 2024 06:33 Nasigil wrote: The root of the whole "Queens defend everything" problem dates back to the very beginning of SC2, when Blizzard decided to push Hydras later into Lair tech and made Roaches the early ranged unit for Zerg. Suddenly Zerg doesn't have any early game mobile anti air units other than Queens. You have to rely on Queens and Spores for all the potential Phoenix, Voidrays, Oracles, Banshees, Medivacs plays in early game. So they had to buff the Queens, until at some point Zerg found out that Queens were buffed to a point that mass Queens became the answer to almost all early aggressions.
You can't nerf Queens now because that's the only thing Zerg could rely on for early game defense.
Yet another example of SC2 design team's attempt at deviating from BW ended up backfiring...
Zergs will happily accept nerfs to Queens if you give them BW Hydras back.
You absolutely can solve the Queen problem by just adjusting the unit. It already has two separate attacks for ground and air, you can nerf the ground damage and keep its air damage the same, or you can increase the supply of Queens and buff its anti-air stats. You can put a unit cap on Queens (1 Queen per hatchery seems about right) and again buff it so that each queen is as strong as needed for anti-air purposes. This would require changing how creep spread works, but you could do it.
The thing is, Zerg's early game defense issues are not JUST related to anti-air. Anti-air is a big part of it but if it was the only real problem you could be creative enough to fix it so that Zerg's early game anti-air was covered. But Zerg needs Queens for ALL forms of early game aggression and in PvZ in particular with Warp Gates being such a clear and present danger Queens need to be strong enough to assist with that.
The point is that right now in the current state of the game Zerg DOES have early game defense worries, and Protoss DOES have early game Warp Gate. The need to address both is part of what gives us Queens as they are right now. We have to address all problems at the same time if we're going to address them properly.
Hi, I'm still catching up on reading the previous pages. What are your thoughts on changing the Cyclone from armoured to light, would this be a good change? The object is so that Phoenix and Oracles pwn them, making Star Gate openers viable. I think it's not a problem vs Ling/Bane, because that hellion+more comp should already get wrecked by Banes if they connect. And yes Adepts would own them, but they would also own Stalkers. I find Stalker vs Cyclone battles so dull, because it's basically Stalker vs Stalker.. I think Adept vs Cyclone/Hellion would be more interesting and then we let Cyclones pwn Stalkers. What are your thoughts?
On March 11 2024 07:28 ejozl wrote: Hi, I'm still catching up on reading the previous pages. What are your thoughts on changing the Cyclone from armoured to light, would this be a good change? The object is so that Phoenix and Oracles pwn them, making Star Gate openers viable. I think it's not a problem vs Ling/Bane, because that hellion+more comp should already get wrecked by Banes if they connect. And yes Adepts would own them, but they would also own Stalkers. I find Stalker vs Cyclone battles so dull, because it's basically Stalker vs Stalker.. I think Adept vs Cyclone/Hellion would be more interesting and then we let Cyclones pwn Stalkers. What are your thoughts?
No dice. If they are Light they don't take bonus damage from Siege Tanks and Marauders. They're already strong enough in the TvT match up that they are borderline oppressive.
Changing Cyclones to Light could easily be paired by decreasing the HP a bit to say 100-110. So that it's only a little stronger vs Stalker/Immortal (Mech's weakness early game), while much weaker vs Phoenix/Oracle/Adept but in enough numbers the Cyclones can still trade decently with micro (and you can easily add in Hellions or WMs to support them vs Stargate or Adepts).
That way it'd only take 1 more tank shot to kill them too. Marauders don't need to do bonus dmg vs them if Marines kill them faster, it could balance out.
Btw what has happened to the BC opening, either into Bio or into Mech? Even Gumiho hasnt done much of that lately, while it was looking quite promising a few years ago. I thought with the Cyclone change, they would give BC a much better protection against Corruptor.
On March 10 2024 21:40 Wintex wrote: TBH the protoss early game issue is more of an issue because zerg has a free early game due to Queens still existing, and terran actually has strong early game units in the reaper and clone that allow them to be bigger bullies than before. Destroying the omni-situational queen is still the way to fix it. Protoss is an issue because the other two races have better early games.
ofc I'm a boomer hater so take everything I say with a pinch of salt.
Protoss has an early game issue because of Warp Gate. It cant have the same kind of "normal" openings as the other races because any opening advantage you're able to get with early units can quickly snowball out of control with a Warp Gate timing because Warp Gate is able to mitigate all defender's advantages.
So Protoss early game has to be balanced around everything being turned into a Warp Gate all in.
Queens need to be balanced in such a way so they are able to be strong enough defensively to STOP Warp Gate all ins.
I think anyone with a brain in this community can agree that having Zerg's entire defensive identity wrapped around the Queen is bad game design, but we can't even get to a point where we can start to fix it while Warp Gate exists because the second we start nerfing the Queen's defensive capability is the second that PvZ becomes unplayable because Warp Gate all ins will start wiping Zergs out to say nothing of the impact such a change would have on TvZ and ZvZ also.
Effectively the warp gate issue can be solved by just pushing it down the tech tree, this is not an excuse. Currently, the matchup is botched because the Queen is a omni-situational existence. Capping the amount of queens or anything similar doesn't deal with the issue you present anyway. Also, a lot of the early game power creep happened exactly because the Queen was an answer to literally everything. Warp gate is fixable, this ain't.
On March 11 2024 06:33 Nasigil wrote: The root of the whole "Queens defend everything" problem dates back to the very beginning of SC2, when Blizzard decided to push Hydras later into Lair tech and made Roaches the early ranged unit for Zerg. Suddenly Zerg doesn't have any early game mobile anti air units other than Queens. You have to rely on Queens and Spores for all the potential Phoenix, Voidrays, Oracles, Banshees, Medivacs plays in early game. So they had to buff the Queens, until at some point Zerg found out that Queens were buffed to a point that mass Queens became the answer to almost all early aggressions.
You can't nerf Queens now because that's the only thing Zerg could rely on for early game defense.
Yet another example of SC2 design team's attempt at deviating from BW ended up backfiring...
Zergs will happily accept nerfs to Queens if you give them BW Hydras back.
You absolutely can solve the Queen problem by just adjusting the unit. It already has two separate attacks for ground and air, you can nerf the ground damage and keep its air damage the same, or you can increase the supply of Queens and buff its anti-air stats. You can put a unit cap on Queens (1 Queen per hatchery seems about right) and again buff it so that each queen is as strong as needed for anti-air purposes. This would require changing how creep spread works, but you could do it.
The thing is, Zerg's early game defense issues are not JUST related to anti-air. Anti-air is a big part of it but if it was the only real problem you could be creative enough to fix it so that Zerg's early game anti-air was covered. But Zerg needs Queens for ALL forms of early game aggression and in PvZ in particular with Warp Gates being such a clear and present danger Queens need to be strong enough to assist with that.
The point is that right now in the current state of the game Zerg DOES have early game defense worries, and Protoss DOES have early game Warp Gate. The need to address both is part of what gives us Queens as they are right now. We have to address all problems at the same time if we're going to address them properly.
I think the double response kinda bled his argument into mine which wasn't as necessary. Unit caps kinda suck, in this situation, and I would assume you agree there.
I'd say it all depends on the motivation of the developers. What changing the unit will cause is that if it's weak enough, Zerg early game functionally changes from a mineral-capped situation to a significantly more larva-capped situation depending on how much you hamstring the unit, and it makes the opportunity cost of larva match the designed intent (if we believe larval flexibility is the actual intent of Zerg). This greatly weakens Zerg, since Queens and Drones have been the name of the game for so long. Needless to say, the offensive power of some of the other races' units would be necessary, but the solutions that the developer teams over the last 12 years have created are in part due to fundamentally changing this tenet of Zerg and significantly simplifying them in the process. You are right tho, when you say we can imagine and see all the problems that will unfold from pushing away from the current philosophy. If Zerg sucks for a few months, is it worth the effort?
Overwatch just went through the same issue even after 5v5 was implemented, and the new patch with changes to every hero and more, and the game is significantly better for it.
On March 10 2024 21:40 Wintex wrote: TBH the protoss early game issue is more of an issue because zerg has a free early game due to Queens still existing, and terran actually has strong early game units in the reaper and clone that allow them to be bigger bullies than before. Destroying the omni-situational queen is still the way to fix it. Protoss is an issue because the other two races have better early games.
ofc I'm a boomer hater so take everything I say with a pinch of salt.
Protoss has an early game issue because of Warp Gate. It cant have the same kind of "normal" openings as the other races because any opening advantage you're able to get with early units can quickly snowball out of control with a Warp Gate timing because Warp Gate is able to mitigate all defender's advantages.
So Protoss early game has to be balanced around everything being turned into a Warp Gate all in.
Queens need to be balanced in such a way so they are able to be strong enough defensively to STOP Warp Gate all ins.
I think anyone with a brain in this community can agree that having Zerg's entire defensive identity wrapped around the Queen is bad game design, but we can't even get to a point where we can start to fix it while Warp Gate exists because the second we start nerfing the Queen's defensive capability is the second that PvZ becomes unplayable because Warp Gate all ins will start wiping Zergs out to say nothing of the impact such a change would have on TvZ and ZvZ also.
Effectively the warp gate issue can be solved by just pushing it down the tech tree, this is not an excuse. Currently, the matchup is botched because the Queen is a omni-situational existence. Capping the amount of queens or anything similar doesn't deal with the issue you present anyway. Also, a lot of the early game power creep happened exactly because the Queen was an answer to literally everything. Warp gate is fixable, this ain't.
On March 11 2024 06:33 Nasigil wrote: The root of the whole "Queens defend everything" problem dates back to the very beginning of SC2, when Blizzard decided to push Hydras later into Lair tech and made Roaches the early ranged unit for Zerg. Suddenly Zerg doesn't have any early game mobile anti air units other than Queens. You have to rely on Queens and Spores for all the potential Phoenix, Voidrays, Oracles, Banshees, Medivacs plays in early game. So they had to buff the Queens, until at some point Zerg found out that Queens were buffed to a point that mass Queens became the answer to almost all early aggressions.
You can't nerf Queens now because that's the only thing Zerg could rely on for early game defense.
Yet another example of SC2 design team's attempt at deviating from BW ended up backfiring...
Zergs will happily accept nerfs to Queens if you give them BW Hydras back.
You absolutely can solve the Queen problem by just adjusting the unit. It already has two separate attacks for ground and air, you can nerf the ground damage and keep its air damage the same, or you can increase the supply of Queens and buff its anti-air stats. You can put a unit cap on Queens (1 Queen per hatchery seems about right) and again buff it so that each queen is as strong as needed for anti-air purposes. This would require changing how creep spread works, but you could do it.
The thing is, Zerg's early game defense issues are not JUST related to anti-air. Anti-air is a big part of it but if it was the only real problem you could be creative enough to fix it so that Zerg's early game anti-air was covered. But Zerg needs Queens for ALL forms of early game aggression and in PvZ in particular with Warp Gates being such a clear and present danger Queens need to be strong enough to assist with that.
The point is that right now in the current state of the game Zerg DOES have early game defense worries, and Protoss DOES have early game Warp Gate. The need to address both is part of what gives us Queens as they are right now. We have to address all problems at the same time if we're going to address them properly.
I think the double response kinda bled his argument into mine which wasn't as necessary. Unit caps kinda suck, in this situation, and I would assume you agree there.
I'd say it all depends on the motivation of the developers. What changing the unit will cause is that if it's weak enough, Zerg early game functionally changes from a mineral-capped situation to a significantly more larva-capped situation depending on how much you hamstring the unit, and it makes the opportunity cost of larva match the designed intent (if we believe larval flexibility is the actual intent of Zerg). This greatly weakens Zerg, since Queens and Drones have been the name of the game for so long. Needless to say, the offensive power of some of the other races' units would be necessary, but the solutions that the developer teams over the last 12 years have created are in part due to fundamentally changing this tenet of Zerg and significantly simplifying them in the process. You are right tho, when you say we can imagine and see all the problems that will unfold from pushing away from the current philosophy. If Zerg sucks for a few months, is it worth the effort?
Overwatch just went through the same issue even after 5v5 was implemented, and the new patch with changes to every hero and more, and the game is significantly better for it.
The problem I see is that if you say for example nerf the Queen because of balance concerns with Protoss it doesn't just impact PvZ, it also impacts TvZ. This is the big argument I've been making since Page 1 about why I hate the Widow Mine nerfs in this patch, it doesn't just impact PvT, in fact it has a much larger impact on TvZ.
Making Zerg suck, wouldn't just be Zerg sucking for a few months it would also make Terran start dominating (because even with balance help, Protoss still doesn't have the elite level players that Terran does) which would in turn create a massive outcry of whining that Terran needs to be nerfed, when in fact the real situation is that Zerg was weak because of changes we made to help the design element.
We get so thrown off track then trying to bring Terran balance back into line, that by the time we get back to actually rebalancing Zerg around the new Queen, we have a completely new set of balance issues because we fucked up Terran because of its temporary OP status from the interim period.
Do I think it's worthwhile to address key gameplay design problems? Of course I do. Protoss being handcuffed by Warp Gate balance is the biggest design issue that race has and I would like nothing more than to see it addressed so the race could be rebalanced without it. But the reason I think it's a good time to go after them instead of going after Queens is because Protoss right now ISNT in a good place, and balance wise Zerg is mostly in a good place. It's safer for the integrity of the meta if we make major changes to the race that is struggling the most since the worst that can happen is that we tune them too far and then have to tune them back. Adjusting the strong race in a fundamental way has much bigger ripple effects that destabilize the meta that I think makes it a much messier issue addressing.
So. IMO, If we're going to go after big design problems like Warp Gates and Queens we have to do it either very carefully 1 at a time, or by blowing up the meta altogether by addressing them all at once. Right now is a really good opportunity to address Protoss. It's not the best opportunity to go after Queens.
I always like SC2. However, I play off and on throughout the year and play a maximum of 10 hours per week. Most people on here are way more serious about the game than I am.
On March 12 2024 01:23 tigera6 wrote: Btw what has happened to the BC opening, either into Bio or into Mech? Even Gumiho hasnt done much of that lately, while it was looking quite promising a few years ago. I thought with the Cyclone change, they would give BC a much better protection against Corruptor.
Why would the Cyclone change help, they are much worse against Corruptors now?
On March 12 2024 01:23 tigera6 wrote: Btw what has happened to the BC opening, either into Bio or into Mech? Even Gumiho hasnt done much of that lately, while it was looking quite promising a few years ago. I thought with the Cyclone change, they would give BC a much better protection against Corruptor.
i believe a fast (straight to) bc opener dies to a comitted roach ravager push/allin.
still, creep speed is probably the most important unchanged thing that should be removed or nerfed and see how that works out. zerg is undeniable dominant since years and in current state, and so is protoss too weak. This is not because of serral/reynor just better.
It s not a problem to balance Queen in ZvT and ZvP because it exist a bonus against shield.
Which mean, with only one type of attack : damage = 2 x ( 4 + 1 against shield), range = 7, Mineral cost from 150 to 125
Morph to sister Queen for 25 minerals
Queen : Armored, Spells : Transfuse, Inject Larva mana cost = 25, Inject tumors mana cost = 50
Sister Queen : Light, HP decrease from 175 to 140, get an additionnal +1 bonus against light (against phoenix) Spells : Transfuse, Inject Larva spawn only two larvas, Inject tumor mana cost decreased from 50 to 25
The idea of course is to suggest a strategy between extend creep or spawn larva, A really careful tweak,
On March 12 2024 01:23 tigera6 wrote: Btw what has happened to the BC opening, either into Bio or into Mech? Even Gumiho hasnt done much of that lately, while it was looking quite promising a few years ago. I thought with the Cyclone change, they would give BC a much better protection against Corruptor.
I’m curious why it’s not at least a pocket build that you occasionally see. It’s been ages since I can recall one, which in itself strengthens such builds. When they’re common in the meta people have a lot more practice in exploiting their weaknesses and shutting them down.
It feels to me, I haven’t seen a huge amount of Battlemech in general so I may be wrong but the cyclone change in general seems to have done 2 things:
1. It’s easier/cheaper to get out safety cyclones that make Terran safer against a few things, they kind of fill that role that a Banshee can in 3CC, so you do see more of them defensively. 2. They are kind of worse units in smaller groups, but more massable. I think this makes them a very snowbally unit and very tempo-based to an even more extreme level than before.
Basically any game I’ve seen them work they’ve been made early, massed up and either combined with a death push or poking and transitioning to tanks etc. Most games I’ve seen the count reset early without doing much damage, I tend to see the Terran struggle because they can’t get back to critical mass, because a few replacement cyclones are not as potent as the old one.
It could be that the BC investment is just too steep for the Terrans to get up the cyclone number high enough to seize the tempo and they don’t dovetail as well together, or some kind of timing issue?
Honestly unsure, perhaps someone like Yoshi who resolutely tries to mech will have more insight here.
This patch seems pretty good, it does kind of seem like there is alot more of a TvP issue then a ZvP issue so it makes sense to approach it this way.
The Sentry shield thing is a good mirror match change I really like that one. Wish ground toss maybe got a tiiiiny bit more love but still, good patch,
On March 12 2024 01:23 tigera6 wrote: Btw what has happened to the BC opening, either into Bio or into Mech? Even Gumiho hasnt done much of that lately, while it was looking quite promising a few years ago. I thought with the Cyclone change, they would give BC a much better protection against Corruptor.
Why would the Cyclone change help, they are much worse against Corruptors now?
I believe you only need 2-3 Reactor Factory to make Cyclone against Corruptor, coupled with Turret, that should give BC enough protection imo. I saw a couple of Mech opening with Banshee speed upgrade, and thought BC could do better than Banshee against Zerg.
EPT
