On October 26 2024 09:42 Vindicare605 wrote: Nebuchad at this point, you're the guy saying Climate Change isn't real while the rest of us are debating the hard decisions that need to be made about what to do about it.
Even PiG in his rant mentions over and over again that Protoss has underlying design problems. It is a fact of life in SC2.
We can either choose to ignore them and engage in this cyclical balancing that we've been doing for the last 14 years or we can talk about them and try and do something about them. It's really that simple.
Trying to pretend like Protoss design isn't problematic doesn't do anyone any favors.
The difference is that when people say that climate change is real the data is correct, as opposed to you who posts incorrect data BUT IN CAPS LOCK.
I'm not really afraid that what I say might hurt the future of protoss because the future of protoss players is probably just to go play Stormgate.
That's really funny you say that because Stormgate has all of Protoss' design problems only much worse in the Celestials.
The Celestials were designed by the same designers that ruined SC2 Protoss and that didn't learn their lesson and were desperately trying to prove their idiotic concepts could work.
I'd invite you to go take a look at Celestials yourself and tell me you think that race can ever work in a competitive RTS. Because that's the end result that your kind of denial ends up at.
I think we're going to be fine
If you ever want to address the fact that tossboy referenced a period of the game where protoss could win things but wasn't winning everything, contrary to your claim that this is impossible, I'll be around.
On October 26 2024 09:42 Vindicare605 wrote: Nebuchad at this point, you're the guy saying Climate Change isn't real while the rest of us are debating the hard decisions that need to be made about what to do about it.
Even PiG in his rant mentions over and over again that Protoss has underlying design problems. It is a fact of life in SC2.
We can either choose to ignore them and engage in this cyclical balancing that we've been doing for the last 14 years or we can talk about them and try and do something about them. It's really that simple.
Trying to pretend like Protoss design isn't problematic doesn't do anyone any favors.
The difference is that when people say that climate change is real the data is correct, as opposed to you who posts incorrect data BUT IN CAPS LOCK.
I'm not really afraid that what I say might hurt the future of protoss because the future of protoss players is probably just to go play Stormgate.
That's really funny you say that because Stormgate has all of Protoss' design problems only much worse in the Celestials.
The Celestials were designed by the same designers that ruined SC2 Protoss and that didn't learn their lesson and were desperately trying to prove their idiotic concepts could work.
I'd invite you to go take a look at Celestials yourself and tell me you think that race can ever work in a competitive RTS. Because that's the end result that your kind of denial ends up at.
I think we're going to be fine
If you ever want to address the fact that tossboy referenced a period of the game where protoss could win things but wasn't winning everything, contrary to your claim that this is impossible, I'll be around.
I already did. If you actually read my posts you'd know that already.
But since we have done this dance more than once, I already know that you don't read my posts completely.
So we can eliminate Clem as the “top terran” in question that is fighting for nerfs for other races
Maybe Maru is the terran in question? He does has a history of complaining how weak terran is in lots of interviews (even when terran was strong)
Was somebody mention its Spirit who advocate for Terran in the balance forum? As for Maru, he would complain in interview but I doubt he care much about the game overall at his point to make some balance suggestion. The way he played in the last couple tournament showed how he was lacking preparation or even practice, keep doing the same thing, make no adjustment and terrible at reading the game state.
On October 25 2024 23:06 Captain Peabody wrote: As a longstanding "just buff Protoss!" advocate, I would like to thank PiG for his services.
JUST BUFF PROTOSS. what's the worst that can happen? Classic and herO win some tournaments? Oh no... It's not like Serral/clem have been winning everything for years.
You want to know what the problem is? This is the problem.
Protoss is not designed well. It has a lower skill ceiling than the other 2 races do and a lower skill floor. This is why they are over represented in GM and in the lower rungs of pro play and under represented at the top of pro play.
So buffing Protoss so that herO (as an example) can consistently beat Serral and Maru and Clem and Dark would have a cascading effect that would impact every tier of play from the top of the professional level all the way down to Bronze league.
This would turn into tournaments where PvP is the most played match up which would kill viewership. This would mean that Protoss which already dominates the ladder would absolutely CRUSH the ladder.
This would lead to an outcry from the community that would demand Protoss nerfs, and they would get them. And then we start this entire process over again.
This isn't hypothetical. This process has already happened many times in SC2's lifespan. It always comes from the same place. Protoss is designed poorly. PiG in his rant even talks about it a lot but mostly as a point that the balance council is unable to actually do anything to fix Protoss' core design so all that's left them for them to do is to tune their power level which if tuned far enough to produce Protoss champions will cause a backlash at the community level immediately afterward.
So that's the answer to your question, "what's the worst that can happen." You want to see worst case scenario look at what happened during the Void Ray meta when Blizzard buffed those not that long ago.
Any buff that the balance council gives to Protoss will be twice as impactful at the lower levels than it will be at the top level. Protoss needs a LOT of buffs to get it to where Serral stops dominating them, and that will mean a LOT of buffs x2 when facing Protoss on the ladder.
This is the fundamental problem when looking at Protoss balance in SC2. It's a badly designed race, it's a race that is designed to thrive in Best of 1's on the ladder, not Best of 7's in a tournament setting. All of the problems that come from being unable to find a good balance for that race comes from that foundational problem.
Until Blizzard has the guts to address those fundamental design problems, we're just going to keep repeating the same cycle over and over again.
This is an excellent, and I think quite accurate, assessment of the problem. A cognizance of what would actually happen if we buff protoss to tournament winning levels without addressing the design is sorely lacking from most of these discussions.
Having a "heavy tech unit" race built around super-synergistic hardcounter units, that just cheats a lot of the rules of unit reinforcements and map positioning, is not good. Warpgate (and now recall) are awful, awful ideas to try implement in a skill based highly competitive RTS. I see recall as essentially a needed crutch for the needed limitations of warp-gate based armies: they cannot be too mobile and good at responding on the map if you can literally make them, on location, with frontloaded production.
Carriers as a unit are an entirely separate problem, but also just a terrible unit and Blizzard should have removed them when they had the chance (sadly, they backed down from this). It's always going to be giga-busted at levels where lategame control is bad (i.e., everyone below like top 20-30), and useless for the very top. If you make it good enough to be good against Serral, it will make the game unplayable for the rest.
For what it is worth - the direction of just removing battery overcharge and trying to create a unit/spell interaction based replacement is a real step in the right direction. It will probably be too weak though, and are many steps back in this patch (salvaging turrets and moving Zerg defence budget to static D when we want to reduce turtling what the actual **** lmao), so I can't really get excited by it.
So we can eliminate Clem as the “top terran” in question that is fighting for nerfs for other races
Maybe Maru is the terran in question? He does has a history of complaining how weak terran is in lots of interviews (even when terran was strong)
It's 100% Heromarine Though the top terran tag is questionable in his case
??? HM has said many times, that he does not participate in the balance council, since he thinks it is stupid, when the pros balance the game they are playing, exactly because of conflicting interests. So, it is 0% Heromarine...
On October 25 2024 22:14 BlackEyed wrote: I don't understand, is this some kind of conspiracy or why is the obvious OP of ghosts being ignored? Has a pew pew lover gotten to power or is there some other reason?
Remember that the balance council is heavily Terran favoured and Protoss biased
There is no way the ghost will get nerfed no matter how Op they due to all the terran pros whining within the council
Right, there's no way they'd ever nerf the Ghost. I must have imagined them nerfing EMP radius by 33%, snipe damage by 20% and making units being able to cancel snipe by running away
On October 25 2024 22:14 BlackEyed wrote: I don't understand, is this some kind of conspiracy or why is the obvious OP of ghosts being ignored? Has a pew pew lover gotten to power or is there some other reason?
Remember that the balance council is heavily Terran favoured and Protoss biased
There is no way the ghost will get nerfed no matter how Op they due to all the terran pros whining within the council
Right, there's no way they'd ever nerf the Ghost. I must have imagined them nerfing EMP radius by 33%, snipe damage by 20% and making units being able to cancel snipe by running away
How on earth has this to do with anything? If a unit is stronger than it should be, does it matter how many times has been nerfed or changed? Brother, u have reached a point where ur "arguments" only provide spam for this thread and nothing more.
So we can eliminate Clem as the “top terran” in question that is fighting for nerfs for other races
Maybe Maru is the terran in question? He does has a history of complaining how weak terran is in lots of interviews (even when terran was strong)
Was somebody mention its Spirit who advocate for Terran in the balance forum? As for Maru, he would complain in interview but I doubt he care much about the game overall at his point to make some balance suggestion. The way he played in the last couple tournament showed how he was lacking preparation or even practice, keep doing the same thing, make no adjustment and terrible at reading the game state.
Maru has also never to my knowledge been vocal about balance and he's had the longest career of any top tier pro still playing SC2. In all of the teams that Maru has been on I can remember teammates of his being vocal about balance, be them Ryung, Rogue, Creator, or even Polt.
We never hear from Maru about balance and any time we do it's the shortest vaguest answer possible just to give an answer to whoever is asking him in an interview.
I sincerely doubt that Maru is advocating for tons of Terran buffs behind the scenes, especially at this point in his career.
On October 25 2024 22:14 BlackEyed wrote: I don't understand, is this some kind of conspiracy or why is the obvious OP of ghosts being ignored? Has a pew pew lover gotten to power or is there some other reason?
Remember that the balance council is heavily Terran favoured and Protoss biased
There is no way the ghost will get nerfed no matter how Op they due to all the terran pros whining within the council
Right, there's no way they'd ever nerf the Ghost. I must have imagined them nerfing EMP radius by 33%, snipe damage by 20% and making units being able to cancel snipe by running away
How on earth has this to do with anything? If a unit is stronger than it should be, does it matter how many times has been nerfed or changed? Brother, u have reached a point where ur "arguments" only provide spam for this thread and nothing more.
Jesus, what's going on with your reading comprehension? He said there's no way the balance council would ever nerf the Ghost. This statement is hardly justifiable when we know from past data that in fact the balance council is very willing to nerf the Ghost as they have done it multiple times.
On October 25 2024 22:14 BlackEyed wrote: I don't understand, is this some kind of conspiracy or why is the obvious OP of ghosts being ignored? Has a pew pew lover gotten to power or is there some other reason?
Remember that the balance council is heavily Terran favoured and Protoss biased
There is no way the ghost will get nerfed no matter how Op they due to all the terran pros whining within the council
Right, there's no way they'd ever nerf the Ghost. I must have imagined them nerfing EMP radius by 33%, snipe damage by 20% and making units being able to cancel snipe by running away
How on earth has this to do with anything? If a unit is stronger than it should be, does it matter how many times has been nerfed or changed? Brother, u have reached a point where ur "arguments" only provide spam for this thread and nothing more.
Did you not read the post he was replying to? What part of "There is no way the ghost will get nerfed" do you not understand?
I'm so tired of the "you can't buff Protoss" stuff. No matter how many times it's repeated, it still won't be anything more than a perception-based meme. Honestly, please just watch the PiG video. It's a great rant, and if you watch it you can see what he actually says.
PiG does an excellent job of addressing how (1) the idea that Protoss is waaaay easier than the other races is mostly a meme, since it still takes lots of skill to win with them at high levels, (2) even to the degree it's true it's unavoidable due to the basic design of the game and doesn't really matter, and (3) even to the degree it's true it's better for the scene to have Protoss win anyway.
Honestly, has anyone actually been watching the game for the past ten years? Anyone? The idea that (1) every time Protoss has been competitive with the other races they've easily won everything to a problematic degree, and (2) everyone has hated it and it's hurt the scene is...I mean, it's breathtaking, honestly. It bears no relation to any reality not based purely on TL dot net theorycrafting discussion threads.
I've been watching SC2 and on TL since 2007, the first announcement video, the first Battle Report. For the vast majority of SC2's lifespan, Protoss was competitive with the other two races. For most of that time, a decent part (but not all) of their competitiveness came through aggressive play, rushes, timing pushes, etc. During that time, there is absolutely 0 question that (1) there was still a huge skill gap among Protoss players and (2) Protoss did not dominate everything, nor were they represented to an unfair degree in tournaments (in fact, they still lagged slightly even at peak).
Did some Protoss wins sometimes annoy pros of other races? Were there memes about Protoss? Yes, there were. But did anyone take them actually 100% seriously other than grumpy Terran pros and/or Terrans on Reddit and/or theorycrafters on TL? Did casual fans of the game care? Was the scene negatively impacted?
The simple answer is no. Not only no but literally the opposite. If you actually look at past eras and past tournaments and weren't just arguing on TL all day it's very clear that SC2 as an ESPORT was positively impacted by Protoss winning. Hell, it was even positively impacted by The Big Book of Protoss Bullshit.
As PiG again very eloquently argues, casuals and ESPORTs viewers by and large don't care about perfect balance or the question of who is the objectively most skilled player in the sense of pure APM or mult-tasking. They care about (1) seeing all races be at least competitive, and (2) seeing lots of cool stuff and even (3) seeing lots of competition and drama. And Protoss winning is necessary and in fact very positive for all those things.
And man, we're not even playing the same game we were playing then. Everything in SC2 took less APM and multi-tasking and rapid decision-making in WoL and people still showed their skill in other more "strategic" ways and the better player still won. "Skill" does not equal "raw APM and multi-tasking." Who cares that Protoss macro takes fewer clicks than Terran macro?
In any event, Protoss today takes waaaaaay more of the kind of skill TL dot net people like than it did in WoL or HoS or early LotV. All of the "problematic" aspects of the race have been nerfed or altered. There simply is no "Grand Protoss Threat" anymore. You could buff Protoss to the moon and they still wouldn't have any Bullshit a tenth as potent as the WoL nonsense that MC or sOs got up to; and that stuff was, honestly, generally great for the scene and everyone looks back on it and those players fondly.
Look, I'm not asking for a return to the great era of Protoss Bullshit; and indeed, I don't think it would even be possible to see it given LotV economy, Warp Gate, etc changes. I like the new Energy Overcharge ability; I like that it's a high-level ability that lets ppl showcase skill. But I implore you, again: please let this meme just die.
You can buff Protoss straight-up and nothing bad will happen. Protoss needs buffs to compensate for Battery Overcharge being removed and the strength and diversity of Terran openers and Ghosts and Libs being so strong; it just does. And all this other stuff is just a distraction.
On October 25 2024 22:14 BlackEyed wrote: I don't understand, is this some kind of conspiracy or why is the obvious OP of ghosts being ignored? Has a pew pew lover gotten to power or is there some other reason?
Remember that the balance council is heavily Terran favoured and Protoss biased
There is no way the ghost will get nerfed no matter how Op they due to all the terran pros whining within the council
Right, there's no way they'd ever nerf the Ghost. I must have imagined them nerfing EMP radius by 33%, snipe damage by 20% and making units being able to cancel snipe by running away
Terrans pro were strong negotiators, they took a small nerf in ghost ( don’t kid yourself ghost is still op in its current state) fin exchange for other buffs to their race and nerfs to other races
So overall the terran still came out ahead
The terrans will never let their race to get direct nerfs without other buff compensation. Unlike toss nerfs after nerfs without any direct buff
Pig definitely made all the valid points in his videos.
Like I mentioned the balance council should be made of
On October 25 2024 22:14 BlackEyed wrote: I don't understand, is this some kind of conspiracy or why is the obvious OP of ghosts being ignored? Has a pew pew lover gotten to power or is there some other reason?
Remember that the balance council is heavily Terran favoured and Protoss biased
There is no way the ghost will get nerfed no matter how Op they due to all the terran pros whining within the council
Right, there's no way they'd ever nerf the Ghost. I must have imagined them nerfing EMP radius by 33%, snipe damage by 20% and making units being able to cancel snipe by running away
Terrans pro were strong negotiators, they took a small nerf in ghost ( don’t kid yourself ghost is still op in its current state) fin exchange for other buffs to their race and nerfs to other races
So overall the terran still came out ahead
The terrans will never let their race to get direct nerfs without other buff compensation. Unlike toss nerfs after nerfs without any direct buff
1. Those are not "small" nerfs. 2. Stop trying to move the goalposts. You said that the balance council would never nerf the ghost, when in fact they have nerfed the ghost multiple times. You were wrong, end of story.
On October 25 2024 22:14 BlackEyed wrote: I don't understand, is this some kind of conspiracy or why is the obvious OP of ghosts being ignored? Has a pew pew lover gotten to power or is there some other reason?
Remember that the balance council is heavily Terran favoured and Protoss biased
There is no way the ghost will get nerfed no matter how Op they due to all the terran pros whining within the council
Right, there's no way they'd ever nerf the Ghost. I must have imagined them nerfing EMP radius by 33%, snipe damage by 20% and making units being able to cancel snipe by running away
Terrans pro were strong negotiators, they took a small nerf in ghost ( don’t kid yourself ghost is still op in its current state) fin exchange for other buffs to their race and nerfs to other races
So overall the terran still came out ahead
The terrans will never let their race to get direct nerfs without other buff compensation. Unlike toss nerfs after nerfs without any direct buff
1. Those are not "small" nerfs. 2. Stop trying to move the goalposts. You said that the balance council would never nerf the ghost, when in fact they have nerfed the ghost multiple times. You were wrong, end of story.
You’re delusional if you think those were big nerfs lol. Cause they were hardly noticeable
Moral of the story: Your post ain’t worth my time, welcome to my ignore list
On October 25 2024 22:14 BlackEyed wrote: I don't understand, is this some kind of conspiracy or why is the obvious OP of ghosts being ignored? Has a pew pew lover gotten to power or is there some other reason?
Remember that the balance council is heavily Terran favoured and Protoss biased
There is no way the ghost will get nerfed no matter how Op they due to all the terran pros whining within the council
Right, there's no way they'd ever nerf the Ghost. I must have imagined them nerfing EMP radius by 33%, snipe damage by 20% and making units being able to cancel snipe by running away
Terrans pro were strong negotiators, they took a small nerf in ghost ( don’t kid yourself ghost is still op in its current state) fin exchange for other buffs to their race and nerfs to other races
So overall the terran still came out ahead
The terrans will never let their race to get direct nerfs without other buff compensation. Unlike toss nerfs after nerfs without any direct buff
1. Those are not "small" nerfs. 2. Stop trying to move the goalposts. You said that the balance council would never nerf the ghost, when in fact they have nerfed the ghost multiple times. You were wrong, end of story.
You’re delusional if you think those were big nerfs lol. Cause they were hardly noticeable
Moral of the story: Your post ain’t worth my time, welcome to my ignore list
I know you feel compelled to die on the dumbest hill possible, but you really don't have to.
On October 26 2024 06:01 Figgy wrote: Patches like these are why I stopped watching SC2 at all and am now watching Brood War instead. Love watching Soulkey dominate ASL right now
What is the balance team thinking?? Everyone knows Protoss is the weakest race and they just nerf them again. It's completely unbelievable, guess I'll continue to never watch SC2 again, it was fun while it lasted.
Is it that much better seeing Protoss die to a hydra bust for what feels like the millionth time?
There’s pain to be had in both games, most notably if you are a Protoss enjoyer.
I think the overall thrust of this patch is pretty shit as regards Protoss, bafflingly so indeed.
Although I think there’s been some overreaction to the Balance Council’s tenure in its totality. PvZ’s been in a decent shape for a fair well, there have been some smart tweaks that I think have improved PvP as a matchup.
On the other hand, TvP has been crippling Toss’ ability to consistently be at the top end of tournaments/win any and this patch making this worse feels like a giant kick in the balls.
Protoss has been doing just fine in KCM Race Survival, and has good representation across the board in ASL.
The difference between Soulkey winning everything in Brood War is that everyone knows he's just a better player than everyone else. He's playing the least represented race by a longshot and just doing things no one else can do. Imagine taking Brood War, seeing that Soulkey is winning everything, and in response you buff spine crawlers and nerf Dragoon attack speed by 9.6%, and Reavers can no longer kill a Hydralisk in one shot. Just to make sure Protoss can never win a single game every again. It's utterly ridiculous.
As someone who doesn't play either game anymore, I just want to see good balanced entertaining. SC2 hasn't offered that for years, and now they want to make it so one of the races is basically unplayable. Unbelievable
On October 26 2024 06:01 Figgy wrote: Patches like these are why I stopped watching SC2 at all and am now watching Brood War instead. Love watching Soulkey dominate ASL right now
What is the balance team thinking?? Everyone knows Protoss is the weakest race and they just nerf them again. It's completely unbelievable, guess I'll continue to never watch SC2 again, it was fun while it lasted.
Is it that much better seeing Protoss die to a hydra bust for what feels like the millionth time?
There’s pain to be had in both games, most notably if you are a Protoss enjoyer.
I think the overall thrust of this patch is pretty shit as regards Protoss, bafflingly so indeed.
Although I think there’s been some overreaction to the Balance Council’s tenure in its totality. PvZ’s been in a decent shape for a fair well, there have been some smart tweaks that I think have improved PvP as a matchup.
On the other hand, TvP has been crippling Toss’ ability to consistently be at the top end of tournaments/win any and this patch making this worse feels like a giant kick in the balls.
Protoss has been doing just fine in KCM Race Survival, and has good representation across the board in ASL.
The difference between Soulkey winning everything in Brood War is that everyone knows he's just a better player than everyone else. He's playing the least represented race by a longshot and just doing things no one else can do. Imagine taking Brood War, seeing that Soulkey is winning everything, and in response you buff spine crawlers and nerf Dragoon attack speed by 9.6%, and Reavers can no longer kill a Hydralisk in one shot. Just to make sure Protoss can never win a single game every again. It's utterly ridiculous.
As someone who doesn't play either game anymore, I just want to see good balanced entertaining. SC2 hasn't offered that for years, and now they want to make it so one of the races is basically unplayable. Unbelievable
That’s not really especially different from Serral of the last few years, albeit Clem in relatively recent times has stepped it up and gapped him latterly.
That aside I think it’s not merely a bad proposed patch, it’s a bafflingly bad one. So I do agree there. Granted it’s not actually live yet, and I imagine given the backlash we’ll see a better second draft.
EPT
