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On March 27 2024 23:51 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2024 23:28 WombaT wrote:On March 27 2024 23:05 Charoisaur wrote:On March 27 2024 22:58 shikadisoda wrote:
not exactly sure what changed with worker movement but it feels amazing. they glide and pivot so much better now. i think the efficacy of worker pulls as a last resort defense could seriously be affected by this
i also think the "quality of life" change on lurker target priority might be a bigger deal than it seems and make a noticeable difference in pvz ground fights
as for people complaining about "transparency" of balance changes in 2024 get a grip. we're lucky this game exists at all and has servers let alone balance updates. if you've been diamond for the past 15 years then the patch that makes you GM isn't coming the opinion of many is that balance updates aren't necessary, the game is in a pretty good state and broodwar showed that a game doesn't need constant balance changes to remain interesting. Honestly the idea of the developer outsourcing balance to pro players who's income depends on their race being strong seems a little insane to me, so far I don't think it has worked that bad, but it should be no surprise that the system receives some criticism Aye but Brood War historically at least had third party ladders that enabled more radical map balancing than we’ve ever seen in SC2, so I can sort of get the different approaches. And even now with a more locked down Blizz ladder the maps are still way, way more divergent. Output wise I’m honestly pretty happy with this current system, ideally would it be more transparent? Sure! But the old adage that there are only two things certain in this life, death and taxes is outdated and needs to include balance whining as another inevitability. Whoever puts their head above the parapet is just going to get absolutely slammed by the more rabid elements of the fan base. And anyone who claims otherwise is either unbelievably optimistic or deluded. I’m sure David Kim had a great time being chewed out constantly for years, and he was paid to do that. Why would volunteers put themselves in such a firing line? Yeah I don't expect anyone to take responsibility for making decisions but it honestly still seems a bit shady from the community perspective. I mean sure the Zerg Cabal thing is a meme but theoretically it could really be possible that balance gets run by a group of pro players wanting to strengthen their race and there's nothing the community could do about it, the other pro players have signed NDAs and wouldn't be able to talk about it... not sure if blizzard has any control mechanisms in place or if they have completely abandoned the game. That's why I'm more in the camp of no more balance changes (well, not really, I've always been in that camp tbh)
The first step would be, to require each member of the community to write two sentences worth of their thoughts about each change. Before they get implemented. So it is a proposal, instead of a justification.
Then the community at large can discuss these changes.
Away from a group of shadowy "community members", that supposedly know better than everyone else. Who have no oversight and questionable motives.
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On March 28 2024 00:27 shikadisoda wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2024 23:39 Creager wrote:On March 27 2024 23:14 shikadisoda wrote:On March 27 2024 23:05 Charoisaur wrote:On March 27 2024 22:58 shikadisoda wrote:
not exactly sure what changed with worker movement but it feels amazing. they glide and pivot so much better now. i think the efficacy of worker pulls as a last resort defense could seriously be affected by this
i also think the "quality of life" change on lurker target priority might be a bigger deal than it seems and make a noticeable difference in pvz ground fights
as for people complaining about "transparency" of balance changes in 2024 get a grip. we're lucky this game exists at all and has servers let alone balance updates. if you've been diamond for the past 15 years then the patch that makes you GM isn't coming the opinion of many is that balance updates aren't necessary, the game is in a pretty good state and broodwar showed that a game doesn't need constant balance changes to remain interesting. Honestly the idea of the developer outsourcing balance to pro players who's income depends on their race being strong seems a little insane to me, so far I don't think it has worked that bad, but it should be no surprise that the system receives some criticism criticizing and opining that the changes are unnecessary is just discussion, that's nornal and totally different from people calling for "transparency" as if this were a government embezzling public funds there's literally zero point in blasting the identities of the specific people being consulted on balance other than to give bored people an opportunity to send them verbal abuse. the phenomenon of gamers thinking they're entitled to a debate with game designers is incredibly silly (not just for starcraft) and like i said people need to get a grip Are these so-called 'game designers' who've been meticulously working on SC2's recent balance updates in a room with us right now? not really sure i'm following your point or what your joke has to do with what i was saying
Point is there's no game designers involved in the current balancing process, it's players, and in case of active pros that is potentially problematic, so can see why people have issues dealing with an almost complete blackbox when the thing is being labelled 'community council'. Kinda have to agree on the verbal abuse thing, though, it's just an unfortunate reality.
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On March 28 2024 01:19 Creager wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2024 00:27 shikadisoda wrote:On March 27 2024 23:39 Creager wrote:On March 27 2024 23:14 shikadisoda wrote:On March 27 2024 23:05 Charoisaur wrote:On March 27 2024 22:58 shikadisoda wrote:
not exactly sure what changed with worker movement but it feels amazing. they glide and pivot so much better now. i think the efficacy of worker pulls as a last resort defense could seriously be affected by this
i also think the "quality of life" change on lurker target priority might be a bigger deal than it seems and make a noticeable difference in pvz ground fights
as for people complaining about "transparency" of balance changes in 2024 get a grip. we're lucky this game exists at all and has servers let alone balance updates. if you've been diamond for the past 15 years then the patch that makes you GM isn't coming the opinion of many is that balance updates aren't necessary, the game is in a pretty good state and broodwar showed that a game doesn't need constant balance changes to remain interesting. Honestly the idea of the developer outsourcing balance to pro players who's income depends on their race being strong seems a little insane to me, so far I don't think it has worked that bad, but it should be no surprise that the system receives some criticism criticizing and opining that the changes are unnecessary is just discussion, that's nornal and totally different from people calling for "transparency" as if this were a government embezzling public funds there's literally zero point in blasting the identities of the specific people being consulted on balance other than to give bored people an opportunity to send them verbal abuse. the phenomenon of gamers thinking they're entitled to a debate with game designers is incredibly silly (not just for starcraft) and like i said people need to get a grip Are these so-called 'game designers' who've been meticulously working on SC2's recent balance updates in a room with us right now? not really sure i'm following your point or what your joke has to do with what i was saying Point is there's no game designers involved in the current balancing process, it's players, and in case of active pros that is potentially problematic, so can see why people have issues dealing with an almost complete blackbox when the thing is being labelled 'community council'. Kinda have to agree on the verbal abuse thing, though, it's just an unfortunate reality. the game designers are the people designing the game. i get that you're saying in this case the designers are not experienced industry professionals, which may be true but it still doesn't mean they need to be "transparent"
the product is either good or it's not. who's hired and who's included on a dev team are internal issues, and my point is none of us really has any business or purpose talking about it unless labor laws are being broken. reminds me of when M:TG players learned about the term "FIRE design" and started using it as scapegoat for any time a card was printed and they didn't like it. the player's role is to express that they either like or don't like the end user product, not to scrutinize internal policy (again, unless labor laws are involved, people are being exploited/harassed, etc)
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On March 28 2024 01:32 shikadisoda wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2024 01:19 Creager wrote:On March 28 2024 00:27 shikadisoda wrote:On March 27 2024 23:39 Creager wrote:On March 27 2024 23:14 shikadisoda wrote:On March 27 2024 23:05 Charoisaur wrote:On March 27 2024 22:58 shikadisoda wrote:
not exactly sure what changed with worker movement but it feels amazing. they glide and pivot so much better now. i think the efficacy of worker pulls as a last resort defense could seriously be affected by this
i also think the "quality of life" change on lurker target priority might be a bigger deal than it seems and make a noticeable difference in pvz ground fights
as for people complaining about "transparency" of balance changes in 2024 get a grip. we're lucky this game exists at all and has servers let alone balance updates. if you've been diamond for the past 15 years then the patch that makes you GM isn't coming the opinion of many is that balance updates aren't necessary, the game is in a pretty good state and broodwar showed that a game doesn't need constant balance changes to remain interesting. Honestly the idea of the developer outsourcing balance to pro players who's income depends on their race being strong seems a little insane to me, so far I don't think it has worked that bad, but it should be no surprise that the system receives some criticism criticizing and opining that the changes are unnecessary is just discussion, that's nornal and totally different from people calling for "transparency" as if this were a government embezzling public funds there's literally zero point in blasting the identities of the specific people being consulted on balance other than to give bored people an opportunity to send them verbal abuse. the phenomenon of gamers thinking they're entitled to a debate with game designers is incredibly silly (not just for starcraft) and like i said people need to get a grip Are these so-called 'game designers' who've been meticulously working on SC2's recent balance updates in a room with us right now? not really sure i'm following your point or what your joke has to do with what i was saying Point is there's no game designers involved in the current balancing process, it's players, and in case of active pros that is potentially problematic, so can see why people have issues dealing with an almost complete blackbox when the thing is being labelled 'community council'. Kinda have to agree on the verbal abuse thing, though, it's just an unfortunate reality. the game designers are the people designing the game. i get that you're saying in this case the designers are not experienced industry professionals, which may be true but it still doesn't mean they need to be "transparent" the product is either good or it's not. who's hired and who's included on a dev team are internal issues, and my point is none of us really has any business or purpose talking about it unless labor laws are being broken. reminds me of when M:TG players learned about the term "FIRE design" and started using it as scapegoat for any time a card was printed and they didn't like it. the player's role is to express that they either like or don't like the end user product, not to scrutinize internal policy (again, unless labor laws are involved, people are being exploited/harassed, etc)
Labor laws? For those to apply, people need to be interviewed, hired and paid.
Balance council members aren't paid. They have no business relationship with blizzard. Its voluntary self-exploitation for the benefit of a multi-billion corporation.
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I don't know how you can call the Cyclone changes anything but a nerf. The tradeoff is 18% less DPS for 18% more HP, and a 2.8 second lock-on cooldown vs no cooldown. This is a unit meant for harassment and contesting map control. It isn't a tanking unit. There's absolutely no reason to "tank" with 125/50 cyclones when you have 100 mineral hellbats available.
As such it is unambiguously worse. It does less damage and kites less effectively before.
Edit: Heromarine is trying out the new cyclones and, surprise, they suck.
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
On March 28 2024 01:19 Creager wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2024 00:27 shikadisoda wrote:On March 27 2024 23:39 Creager wrote:On March 27 2024 23:14 shikadisoda wrote:On March 27 2024 23:05 Charoisaur wrote:On March 27 2024 22:58 shikadisoda wrote:
not exactly sure what changed with worker movement but it feels amazing. they glide and pivot so much better now. i think the efficacy of worker pulls as a last resort defense could seriously be affected by this
i also think the "quality of life" change on lurker target priority might be a bigger deal than it seems and make a noticeable difference in pvz ground fights
as for people complaining about "transparency" of balance changes in 2024 get a grip. we're lucky this game exists at all and has servers let alone balance updates. if you've been diamond for the past 15 years then the patch that makes you GM isn't coming the opinion of many is that balance updates aren't necessary, the game is in a pretty good state and broodwar showed that a game doesn't need constant balance changes to remain interesting. Honestly the idea of the developer outsourcing balance to pro players who's income depends on their race being strong seems a little insane to me, so far I don't think it has worked that bad, but it should be no surprise that the system receives some criticism criticizing and opining that the changes are unnecessary is just discussion, that's nornal and totally different from people calling for "transparency" as if this were a government embezzling public funds there's literally zero point in blasting the identities of the specific people being consulted on balance other than to give bored people an opportunity to send them verbal abuse. the phenomenon of gamers thinking they're entitled to a debate with game designers is incredibly silly (not just for starcraft) and like i said people need to get a grip Are these so-called 'game designers' who've been meticulously working on SC2's recent balance updates in a room with us right now? not really sure i'm following your point or what your joke has to do with what i was saying Point is there's no game designers involved in the current balancing process, it's players, and in case of active pros that is potentially problematic, so can see why people have issues dealing with an almost complete blackbox when the thing is being labelled 'community council'. Kinda have to agree on the verbal abuse thing, though, it's just an unfortunate reality.
As countless others have said by now, the council does not represent me. They weren't elected or approved, nor were 99.99% of people given the opportunity to have ANY involvement in the process whatsoever. We know nothing about the capabilities, biases or records of anybody involved, even in an anonymised format. We have no information on if the council is 2 people or 20. There is no veto or approve power by the community for changes that are put forth. There is no structured path for ideas, propositions or feedback to be fairly considered.
For all of those reasons and more it's ridiculously disingenuous to call it a community council.
With no mandate i don't see why anybody in the community actually stands behind their patches. If you're gonna agree to the crazy forced arbitration and digital rights clauses to keep playing SC2 legally beyond March 2024 then it's easy to make a mod which bypasses the tyranny, even to run all tournaments from said mod.
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On March 28 2024 03:20 Athenau wrote:
I don't know how you can call the Cyclone changes anything but a nerf. The tradeoff is 18% less DPS for 18% more HP, and a 2.8 second lock-on cooldown vs no cooldown. This is a unit meant for harassment and contesting map control. It isn't a tanking unit. There's absolutely no reason to "tank" with 125/50 cyclones when you have 100 mineral hellbats available.
As such it is unambiguously worse. It does less damage and kites less effectively before.
Edit: Heromarine is trying out the new cyclones and, surprise, they suck.
Good points. Thinking about it now, they were reducing the base speed / upgrade speed because the no cooldown lock on was so good. Now that the lock on has a cooldown, why not give it a little more range, or buff the speed upgrade to give more speed than it does now?
If the problem is early game cyclones, and bio players using cyclones (since the goal was to strengthen Mech and make it more viable, Bio was fine), then sure nerf it early on and gate more of its power behind the upgrade that Bio players would have to go out of their way to get.
The idea of giving it better damage scaling with upgrades into the lategame was good, now it's gone and it's totally just a nerf. They could have given it +1 damage (+1 vs Mechanical) per upgrade.
They could have even given it +1 base damage to make up for it now not being able to do as much damage due to the worse kiting.
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will look forward to it when they have to do additional patch to adjust for TvP because this patch didn't do enough just because they listened to whining reddit balance whiners about stuff like widow mines that would affect TvZ way more than TvP just for sake for 1 build (mine drop) that affects lower level Protoss on ladder. Overall patch has been zerg buff more than anything when Protoss was the one lacking.
It's strange how best performing race gets compensatory patches when historically, stuff like Raven (maru) and reaper (Byun) has been nerfed due to a single player performance-but zerg has been dominating premier tournaments while protoss having nearly no presence. I get they need to be careful because Protoss is a very strong ladder race, but shouldn't the game be balanced around toppest levels?
Stuff like buffing infestor range +1 is something I don't get when majority of winners of tournaments have been Zerg. Just nerf terran/zerg accordingly and bring up Protoss. Ladder might be more protoss dominanted, but when hasn't it been? It's just how Protoss is with it being stronger at lower non-pro levels. It's just T and Z at SC2 tourneys now.
Like it would make absolutely no sense to buff Terran in BW and TY brought up comparison witih BW Terran and Zerg.
and if people are gonna ask where he talked about it, its around 30-40min marks in this vod : https://vod.afreecatv.com/player/119042257
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On March 28 2024 06:54 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2024 03:20 Athenau wrote:
I don't know how you can call the Cyclone changes anything but a nerf. The tradeoff is 18% less DPS for 18% more HP, and a 2.8 second lock-on cooldown vs no cooldown. This is a unit meant for harassment and contesting map control. It isn't a tanking unit. There's absolutely no reason to "tank" with 125/50 cyclones when you have 100 mineral hellbats available.
As such it is unambiguously worse. It does less damage and kites less effectively before.
Edit: Heromarine is trying out the new cyclones and, surprise, they suck. Good points. Thinking about it now, they were reducing the base speed / upgrade speed because the no cooldown lock on was so good. Now that the lock on has a cooldown, why not give it a little more range, or buff the speed upgrade to give more speed than it does now? If the problem is early game cyclones, and bio players using cyclones (since the goal was to strengthen Mech and make it more viable, Bio was fine), then sure nerf it early on and gate more of its power behind the upgrade that Bio players would have to go out of their way to get. The idea of giving it better damage scaling with upgrades into the lategame was good, now it's gone and it's totally just a nerf. They could have given it +1 damage (+1 vs Mechanical) per upgrade. They could have even given it +1 base damage to make up for it now not being able to do as much damage due to the worse kiting.
There's no point in proposing solutions if the balance council doesn't see this as a problem. Since they're supposed to be a bunch of pros and ex-pros, it's implausible that they don't recognize the consequences of their changes, so one is left with the conclusion that this is intentional, just like making a bunch of changes that affect TvZ in a patch that's supposed to fix TvP is intentional.
TL;DR version: Don't assume the balance council is operating in good faith.
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On March 28 2024 08:33 Athenau wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2024 06:54 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On March 28 2024 03:20 Athenau wrote:
I don't know how you can call the Cyclone changes anything but a nerf. The tradeoff is 18% less DPS for 18% more HP, and a 2.8 second lock-on cooldown vs no cooldown. This is a unit meant for harassment and contesting map control. It isn't a tanking unit. There's absolutely no reason to "tank" with 125/50 cyclones when you have 100 mineral hellbats available.
As such it is unambiguously worse. It does less damage and kites less effectively before.
Edit: Heromarine is trying out the new cyclones and, surprise, they suck. Good points. Thinking about it now, they were reducing the base speed / upgrade speed because the no cooldown lock on was so good. Now that the lock on has a cooldown, why not give it a little more range, or buff the speed upgrade to give more speed than it does now? If the problem is early game cyclones, and bio players using cyclones (since the goal was to strengthen Mech and make it more viable, Bio was fine), then sure nerf it early on and gate more of its power behind the upgrade that Bio players would have to go out of their way to get. The idea of giving it better damage scaling with upgrades into the lategame was good, now it's gone and it's totally just a nerf. They could have given it +1 damage (+1 vs Mechanical) per upgrade. They could have even given it +1 base damage to make up for it now not being able to do as much damage due to the worse kiting. There's no point in proposing solutions if the balance council doesn't see this as a problem. Since they're supposed to be a bunch of pros and ex-pros, it's implausible that they don't recognize the consequences of their changes, so one is left with the conclusion that this is intentional, just like making a bunch of changes that affect TvZ in a patch that's supposed to fix TvP is intentional. TL;DR version: Don't assume the balance council is operating in good faith.
It's really unfortunate. It's going to be so boring if TvZ just goes to mainly bio and mech goes back to being niche and weak. And if mech TvP goes back to unviable outside of mixing it up on the occasional map that it's decent on.
At this point I have to wonder if the current cyclone is even more desirable to me than the previous cyclone before it turned into a warhound on skates.
Nerfing Libs, WMs, and Cyclones could have led to a small Hellion/Hellbat buff targetted at Mech play (Bio players don't make more than 6-8 Hellions outside of the rare 2 Fact BFH opener which is pretty much a Mech opener). But instead we get nothing... meanwhile Zerg keep getting more fun Overlord shenanigans.
I was actually so motivated to grinding and playing SC2 again (finally got back to masters MMR lol), and now my motivation is killed. At least Armory gas is lower and Infestor/BL is overall still weaker than before. And maybe opening with a few Cyclone vs Protoss is still a good option for Mech. The nerf seems more noticeable when you get to mid-sized armies where you want to be constantly kiting and locking on.
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Mexico2170 Posts
I dont like improving cyclones, they will just create more troubles early game to protoss.
But the rest of the patch is good!
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It looks to me like Terran gameplay would be focused on the Bio timing push more than ever, those 2-2 and 3-3 timing on 3-4 bases would be brutal.
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On March 28 2024 14:19 tigera6 wrote:
It looks to me like Terran gameplay would be focused on the Bio timing push more than ever, those 2-2 and 3-3 timing on 3-4 bases would be brutal.
Looks to me like zergs should just skip this season
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They should've probably gated the Cyclone behind the cheaper Armory and had the scaling for the upgrades to try for mech viability with a 15 dmg Cyclone.
And not had the Z,T buffs.
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On March 28 2024 08:11 jinjin5000 wrote:will look forward to it when they have to do additional patch to adjust for TvP because this patch didn't do enough just because they listened to whining reddit balance whiners about stuff like widow mines that would affect TvZ way more than TvP just for sake for 1 build (mine drop) that affects lower level Protoss on ladder. Overall patch has been zerg buff more than anything when Protoss was the one lacking. It's strange how best performing race gets compensatory patches when historically, stuff like Raven (maru) and reaper (Byun) has been nerfed due to a single player performance-but zerg has been dominating premier tournaments while protoss having nearly no presence. I get they need to be careful because Protoss is a very strong ladder race, but shouldn't the game be balanced around toppest levels? Stuff like buffing infestor range +1 is something I don't get when majority of winners of tournaments have been Zerg. Just nerf terran/zerg accordingly and bring up Protoss. Ladder might be more protoss dominanted, but when hasn't it been? It's just how Protoss is with it being stronger at lower non-pro levels. It's just T and Z at SC2 tourneys now. Like it would make absolutely no sense to buff Terran in BW and TY brought up comparison witih BW Terran and Zerg. and if people are gonna ask where he talked about it, its around 30-40min marks in this vod : https://vod.afreecatv.com/player/119042257
I'm interested in what he's saying, but it's in korean
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The idea and Terran should have 2 play style either bio or mech should die. But mech was viable in BW is a weak argument. Different games
Imagine if Protoss say they want 2 play style viable either pure gateway or pure Robo.
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On March 29 2024 05:08 Mmakorea wrote:
The idea and Terran should have 2 play style either bio or mech should die. But mech was viable in BW is a weak argument. Different games
I also remember that in the only matchup where both bio and mech were viable, people favoured bio heavily as being more fun and more dynamic.
And I say this as a Fantasy fan.
I have no desire to see more mech.
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Northern Ireland25071 Posts
On March 29 2024 07:53 Fanatic-Templar wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2024 05:08 Mmakorea wrote:
The idea and Terran should have 2 play style either bio or mech should die. But mech was viable in BW is a weak argument. Different games I also remember that in the only matchup where both bio and mech were viable, people favoured bio heavily as being more fun and more dynamic. And I say this as a Fantasy fan. I have no desire to see more mech.
Mech in SC2 is just a slightly less mobile deathball, and people are pretty vocal on hating deathballs.
People hated metas like heavy swarmhost, or airtoss, which to me only really differ from what folks consider mech by virtue of the race employing them not being Terran.
I love mech and its intricacies in BW, but I just don’t think it translates as well to SC2. Things are less spread, it’s way easier to move whole armies around, the eco buildup is different etc etc.
Mech is either too powerful, which it basically never is, or it’s too weak and has people complaining it’s not viable.
There are certain elements missing IMO that make mech so interesting in BW, but not necessarily an easy fit for SC2. I think unit control is a big one, another huge one is the eco asymmetry is way less pronounced.
In BW you can have a Toss up multiple bases on a Terran and trading cost-inefficiently trying to find holes in the defence. Maxing out takes a lot longer, and you have a lot of anti-mech plays you can make with basic units. Zealot bombs, or lings/zealots dragging mines etc.
In SC2 the biggest eco disparity across all matchups is being conventionally expected to be up one base. As tanks don’t overkill their friendly fire is much less exploitable.
I think it’s why you see units that, while not officially designated so, are basically anti-mech units. The viper being a big one, Tempests being another, although with that air ball role.
If Terran could reliably get up a solid mech ball that’s within a reasonable supply gap, decent ups, Zerg and Toss’ basic ground forces essentially just melt, in a manner they don’t in BW.
Marine/tank mirror makes for some damn fantastic StarCraft, but I think ultimately mech probably should suck in the non-mirrors, because the alternative is likely that it’s too strong and a frustrating style to play/watch if you’re on the other side.
In an ideal world it should be a viable choice and something stylistically different, absolutely. But it’s been over a decade and SC2 has really struggled to hit a sweet spot where it’s an equivalently good choice over bio, and not too powerful outright.
Some may consider it a false dichotomy, although I think we’ve had long enough to maybe consider it a real one, but if the choices are a mech that is too weak, or too strong I think the better call is probably the former.
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On March 29 2024 05:08 Mmakorea wrote:
The idea and Terran should have 2 play style either bio or mech should die. But mech was viable in BW is a weak argument. Different games
Imagine if Protoss say they want 2 play style viable either pure gateway or pure Robo.
It would indeed be dumb if Protoss could mass pure Robo, but thankfully the races aren't designed that way and can't be compared 1:1 like that. Let's look at how their production and upgrades are structured and designed:
Terran production + upgrades is split into Barracks, Factory, and Starport. The production+tech is kind of combined.
Protoss production has a Gateway base, and has access to 3 different tech trees for support.
Upgrades are split between ground and air, so there is overlap, hence no need to go pure Robo or pure Templar.
Zerg is very fluid since all can be produced from larvae with the right tech building, but upgrades are separated a little into melee, ranged, and air. As a result, Zergs can pick from different core compositions like Ling Bling and add Ultras later, or Roach Ravager or Hydra Lurker, or go for more air heavy comp like mass Mutas.
SC2 has made lots of progress in making every tech path and unit usable in some way. For example, Protoss can open with Robo, Stargate, or Twilight as first tech in all 3 MUs, to some degree. They can also choose to get Colossus/Disruptor for their first splash, or Archon/HT or even DTs, or Tempest/Carrier support (Classic does this sometimes) or even rush to Skytoss in weird niche cases.
For Terran, they should be able to do Bio (Barracks based) or Mech (Factory based) because the production/upgrades are split that way, with units from the other buildings as support.
For Zerg, they should be very versatile and able to fluidly change between unit comps.
In SC1, Terran couldn't go Bio and Mech all 3 MUs. This is more of a flaw than intended game design.
Protoss's 3 tech paths weren't as viable as openers in as many MUs. For example Scouts sucked, no phoenix or oracle opener and no ability to rush to skytoss or build Carriers/Tempests as your first big tech support unit.
Zerg was more limited too, for example in ZvZ it was just Muta wars, going ground/hydras wasn't good enough.
SC2 allowed each race to use their units/production/tech to the fullest, but Mech in particular has been very disregarded over the years, even though with the right situations it has led to very fun and exciting matches (Maru vs Stats with cyclone Mech, Ty vs sOs right before his military leave, or Bio vs Mech in TvT in general).
SC2 devs have mentioned trying to make every unit viable/usable in every MU, and I think that's one of the great things about SC2 compared to BW. I support making getting Tempest as Protoss's first big tech support unit more viable, because I think it'd be cool and it's almost there already with Classic using it sometimes. I also support making Protoss have more openers other than getting Twilight+Blink most of the time in PvT, and same with almost always opening Stargate oracle in PvZ. I support Zerg being able to tech to lots of different options, which I feel they are able to do very commonly in games. So, I simply support Terran also having increased variety in going both Bio and Mech in all 3 MUs. Ideally, all races have the most tech options and unit comps to choose from, which just makes the other races also have more options to choose from in response. Win win!
Also, i think being able to go mass gateway is a cool style. I think TvT in WoL being able to be pure Bio, marine tank, or Mech was also really cool. Anyone remember the trinity of MMA (Marine Tank) vs Polt (Pure Bio) vs MVP (Mech)?
Different styles allow for more people to be able to identify with and enjoy playing a game in a way that fits their personality. Variety is good! Only making a game with a standard composition and standard strategies gets stale for most gamers much more quickly.
I'm not saying Mech needs to be played 50% of pro games. I think it's a reasonable to ask if Mech can increase from 0.1% usage in TvP to 5-10% in TvP. We've probably seen more protoss rush skytoss or get tempest/carrier as their first big tech option, than players going Mech TvP in GSL since 2010.
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EPT
