On August 17 2011 03:10 Aletheia27 wrote: With regard to infestors being overpowered, I feel like the argument goes along the same lines as how forcefields were considered overpowered for toss players. I think people just haven't learened to adapt to them yet and adjust their play. Just my 2 cents.
Forcefield is still jacked.
I've seen pros lose games because they can't get out of their main due to the ramp being forcefielded for what appears to be an indefinite period of time (game eventually just ends).
That, to me, doesn't even seem remotely fair.
I think IdrA actually lost recently to this. He had the proper unit counters but just couldn't field them because the Protoss just FF'd his ramp over and over. With warp in you can bring in fresh sentries as needed.
EDIT: Before the flames - I realize Protoss needs FF to stay alive. That doesn't mean the spell isn't borked, though. There could have been far better solutions than a spell that early on in the game is defensive, and later on is just abusive.
On August 17 2011 03:10 Aletheia27 wrote: With regard to infestors being overpowered, I feel like the argument goes along the same lines as how forcefields were considered overpowered for toss players. I think people just haven't learened to adapt to them yet and adjust their play. Just my 2 cents.
Kind of. Except that Zerg doesn't depend on infestors for surviving. Without sentries Protoss dies to every early game aggression. Zerg can live without infestors. Forcefields aren't overpowered, they're a necessity.
Yes, they definitely do. You can't beat turtle protoss 200/200 deathball without them. The deathball is already good enough(and turtle protoss is getting popular again), it does not need a buff.
On August 17 2011 03:10 Aletheia27 wrote: With regard to infestors being overpowered, I feel like the argument goes along the same lines as how forcefields were considered overpowered for toss players. I think people just haven't learened to adapt to them yet and adjust their play. Just my 2 cents.
Kind of. Except that Zerg doesn't depend on infestors for surviving. Without sentries Protoss dies to every early game aggression. Zerg can live without infestors. Forcefields aren't overpowered, they're a necessity.
Yes, they definitely do. You can't beat turtle protoss 200/200 deathball without them. The deathball is already good enough(and turtle protoss is getting popular again), it does not need a buff.
Rarely do good zergs let a protoss deathball form these days.
On August 17 2011 03:10 Aletheia27 wrote: With regard to infestors being overpowered, I feel like the argument goes along the same lines as how forcefields were considered overpowered for toss players. I think people just haven't learened to adapt to them yet and adjust their play. Just my 2 cents.
Kind of. Except that Zerg doesn't depend on infestors for surviving. Without sentries Protoss dies to every early game aggression. Zerg can live without infestors. Forcefields aren't overpowered, they're a necessity.
Except that deathball is pretty hard to deal without infestors dealing additional damage to armored units?
On August 16 2011 21:15 Nothingtosay wrote: Do you guys feel that infestors are too good versus protoss? I've been saying this for awhile and now we have whitera saying the same.
It just seems like they are too versatile and fungal growth is is so amazing with how it prevents the constant micro that protoss needs to perform in battles. I'm happy that the root time was reduced from 8 to 4 seconds before zerg started realizing how good it is. I think being rooted for 4 more seconds is way worse than the dps increase. Obviously I know that feedback is really good but you can't reliably feedback every infestor.
They might be too good, but without them, then it becomes extremely difficult for zerg to play against protoss. The infestor buff always seemed like an improvised fix for the flaws of the race to me. I hope HoTS can give zerg more interesting options to play the game.
Ehhh even if Infestors got nerfed, Zerg still has baneling play to fall back on. I don't think the match-up would be ruined without the current state of infestors. Banelings aren't quite as strong, but the protoss can at least micro against them with forcefields. or spreading units, or kiting overlord drops. I think it would make all the Protoss happier and the battles would be more micro/skill dependent than just sitting there with your thumb up your butt cause your units can't move.
Baneling play is okay, but simply cannot be relied on in late game. Infestors are the only response to a deathball, and imo neural parasite is a lot more important in those situations, rather than fungal. Good forcefields and stalker management are important in dealing with fungal, imo.
On August 16 2011 07:00 Condor Hero wrote: I feel that this thread will have tons of balance whine despite what you say.
The game should be balanced around the absolute HIGHEST level of play. That's GM Korea because everyone should aspire to be the best therefore it should be balance around that.
As for EU/NA people having problems, that's just a skill thing. Nobody would ask for a platinum player's opinions on balance right?
I will disagree with you on this. You dont make the roof of a house and try to build under it. The game should be balanced at the lowest levels of play so that there is a clear baseline capability to defend or attack againt standard masses like mass VR and other silly nonsense. it takes a LOT more skill to defend against 1 mass unit like mass marines at 8 minutes or mass VRs than it takes to fight a well comp'd unit with your well comp'd unit.
You numbers of unit comp and units themselves have to be very precise, not to mention micro control. its alot easier to be a micro aggressor with a Mass X unit thats been proven time and again to be extremely powerful versus sub-optimal unit comps.The level of knowledge and skill required to do :Mass X", therefore, is nothing compared to the level of knowledge and skill required to counter "Mass X".
hence why so many people can faceroll into plat or diamond easily by finding a BO for one of these unit types and win 2/3 of their games before someone who can deal with the build from actual game knowledge comes along and keeps them from getting higher in leagues, because they actually don't know or understand the game, and simply picked a BO that has been proven to have a high winning rate vs average players, such as 7RR, 2 rax all in, mass VR, banshee mass vs zerg, etc.
My point is that the game, if it were to be truly balanced, would be balanced at the lowest levels of play, so that countering people is a decision of making the proper units, and the proper units are about 20% harder to make and use vs the Mass X function, since winning vs it thereby causes you to gain a lead, so it should rightfully be difficult in some aspect.
With this in mind, then you would see at the highest levels of play, timing becomes a more critical factor (not that it isnt already), good unit comps are much more valuable, and real skills like micro and strategic and tactical setups and decisions, all start making a bigger impact than "Mass X because this will insta-win since they cant deal with it".
In short, balanced at the lowest levels of play would translate into more tactical play in higher levels and make the game much more exciting and interesting. You don't see chess balanced around highest levels of play. there's a baseline balance, via mirror pieces 1 hit kills, that prevents chess "cheese". All truly compettive non-computer games take this into account. There's either a limited number of pieces, a limited number of powerful pieces, and/or everyone gets the same powers/units.
SC2 is in complete opposition to that, and I'm surprised its as balanced as it is, yet from the fact that infestor is the only clear counter to mass VR, which in itself has been whined to death as being OP, and that someone was able to micro stimmed mass marines as their only unit and beat all the supposed protoss counter units and win the game, I think that it would be much more useful to balance it from the bottom up. Starcraft 1 felt like this.
of course if they did this, casuals wouldnt faceroll so well anymore and they'd lose revenue from people saying SC2 is a tough game and not for "casuals".
What the hell.
My point still stands that every should be trying to get BETTER, not WORSE to get balance. No one tries to get worse. Blizz trying to make it an ESPORT. You think people like watching low level basketball because they like to think they actually have a chance?
Idk about you but I get inspired when I see pro players play at a level I never imagined.
Since I started out watching BW, I will say there is nothing like watching Bisu multitask, watching Best simply have a ton of units more than his opponent, watching Boxer marine micro vs lurkers, or watching Jaedong muta harass with two control groups.
tl;dr: Basically I think your opinion is pure garbage and you got no idea what you're talking about.
the game should be balanced at the lowest levels of play so that there is a clear baseline capability to defend or attack againt standard masses like mass VR and other silly nonsense
This, Sir, is nonsense and blasphemy. If sc was balanced by the lower levels of play, competitive brood war would never have been what it was, and sc2 would never have been spawned in its current incarnation. The game is so great because it is so difficult. It is so difficult because it is designed to be difficult to master at the very top levels. If lower level players see that the game is balanced even for the top levels, than any balance complaint they have goes out the window when they realize that it is a problem with their play, not with the game.
On August 17 2011 03:47 Probe1 wrote: I never knew this thread existed. Based on what I just read from Condor I have absolute no interest in ever posting here. God speed to you all.
In my opinion, too much of imbalance is just the way the metagame is, each race finding a build that counters the other players standard then for the time it takes for the other players to figure out a new build the new metagame shift is partially imbalanced, but only against that old build. This is why we had a few players dominating for periods of time in BW, they had discovered holes in their opponents metagame and exploited them for quite some time.
On August 16 2011 19:09 isleyofthenorth wrote: TvP is the dullest matchup ever. no strategy whatsoever just 200 supply engagements, if there is a clear winner GG, otherwise repeat. fucking dumb and boring matchup
When I played Terran, I felt this way. After switching to toss, I love to watch it because, imo, the protoss is always vulnerable: vulnerable to early game pushes (pre-stim bio, stim pushes, 1-1-1), vulnerable to drops. This vulnerability wanes late game as toss warp-ins off 15-20 gates allow for a faster army replenishment, but as I've argued earlier in this thread, good emps make late-game relatively balanced--especially when the ghosts are cloaked.
tl;dr I enjoy watching pvt to see how other tosses survive. I think those that haven't played toss might not understand the nuances of how a toss has to read Terran, position units, and play cautiously to compensate for vulnerable toss units. It's a dance and when it is done well, toss looks like a simple a-move race, when, in fact, we are much more complex.
One thing I can think of to buff the Warp Prism would be to give it energy like the Medivac. The Warp Prism then can either "heal" the Protoss units shield (as long as they have shields) OR you can put it in "Warp-In" mode which will drain energy like cloak.
On August 17 2011 03:35 Hollis wrote: On the other hand, tournament results show that Terran doesn't have any real long-term advantage. The race has been at least solid for the entire life of the game so far, but has never really clearly dominated globally. It could be that the Terran design you're talking about - powerful defense and equally powerful offense - can be effectively countered by the tools at the disposal of the other races.
I don't necessarily believe in my own argument here; I'm just playing devil's advocate to show you that every argument has a counter argument. You can't escape the futility of comparing terminally limited perspectives by drawing outward and including more game design choices in your analysis.
We can't really derive anything statistically interesting from the ladder statistics given the way the algorithm works toward a 50% win rate, but terrans outperform the other races in tournaments regularly, and have for months. I don't like statistical arguments though, and I think blizzard relies too heavily on statistical analysis in their balance approach.
If we accept that terrans have the most effective defensive abilities of the three races, (if you don't accept this, we have another argument entirely), then the fact that terrans can compete with the other races offensively is guaranteed to generate imbalance. It's almost tautological. The result will be that terran will be able to push and harass effectively, without being similarly vulnerable to harassment. We see exactly this happening in ZvT, where the zerg is forced to directly engage the terran army in the mid and lategame because harassment options are extremely limited, while the terran can choose to make a strong offensive push or remain defensive, all the while harassing with powerful upgrades tier 1 units.
On August 17 2011 03:10 Aletheia27 wrote: With regard to infestors being overpowered, I feel like the argument goes along the same lines as how forcefields were considered overpowered for toss players. I think people just haven't learened to adapt to them yet and adjust their play. Just my 2 cents.
Forcefield is still jacked.
I've seen pros lose games because they can't get out of their main due to the ramp being forcefielded for what appears to be an indefinite period of time (game eventually just ends).
That, to me, doesn't even seem remotely fair.
I think IdrA actually lost recently to this. He had the proper unit counters but just couldn't field them because the Protoss just FF'd his ramp over and over. With warp in you can bring in fresh sentries as needed.
EDIT: Before the flames - I realize Protoss needs FF to stay alive. That doesn't mean the spell isn't borked, though. There could have been far better solutions than a spell that early on in the game is defensive, and later on is just abusive.
I am assuming you're talking about zerg. Nydus canals, tons of 100 mineral only dropships hovering around doing nothing.. Assuming theres a large enough force that completely shuts down Ol dropping anyway, then you've (or Idra've) already lost. Now, Terrans have no problem due to tanks and medis.Zerg should have no problem due to OLs with drop and nydus. If you scout a large sentry count, build a nydus or get ultras to pop the fields. If you want to abuse the field against protoss get BLs. If its 6-7 minutes in game and they're abusing FF to wall you in after a 4 gate push, its actually quite easy to either have the amount of units to fight them off, or failing that, to retreat all your drones queens and army into your main and put up spines and keep pumping army while they waste time downing a 300 mineral 1500 hp unit that they will continue to FF your ramp for, leaving you breathing room to build defenses and army to counter attack and push them out. Just came back from a game just like that. won 20 minutes later after losing n expo to a 3 gate mass sentry early rush.
On August 17 2011 03:35 Hollis wrote: On the other hand, tournament results show that Terran doesn't have any real long-term advantage. The race has been at least solid for the entire life of the game so far, but has never really clearly dominated globally. It could be that the Terran design you're talking about - powerful defense and equally powerful offense - can be effectively countered by the tools at the disposal of the other races.
I don't necessarily believe in my own argument here; I'm just playing devil's advocate to show you that every argument has a counter argument. You can't escape the futility of comparing terminally limited perspectives by drawing outward and including more game design choices in your analysis.
We can't really derive anything statistically interesting from the ladder statistics given the way the algorithm works toward a 50% win rate, but terrans outperform the other races in tournaments regularly, and have for months. I don't like statistical arguments though, and I think blizzard relies too heavily on statistical analysis in their balance approach.
If we accept that terrans have the most effective defensive abilities of the three races, (if you don't accept this, we have another argument entirely), then the fact that terrans can compete with the other races offensively is guaranteed to generate imbalance. It's almost tautological. The result will be that terran will be able to push and harass effectively, without being similarly vulnerable to harassment. We see exactly this happening in ZvT, where the zerg is forced to directly engage the terran army in the mid and lategame because harassment options are extremely limited, while the terran can choose to make a strong offensive push or remain defensive, all the while harassing with powerful upgrades tier 1 units.
I agree nearly 100% except that a few hydralisks to kill the medivac and those T1 units get roasted by defensive army/structures. its not like zerg CANT make defensive structures all over just like terran, they simply choose not to (although zerg AA is 125 while terran is 75, which synergizes so well with mules).
I've played games where I float up to 2000 minerals at full army production, so I took 1 base worth of drones and set up spores and spines at all my minerals to protect them, shutting down the light deadly harass and requiring them to opt for a far larger dedicated force to deal with it, and that divides their army, which is exactly the positioon you want to be in as zerg. dividing enemy army = goodness for zerg. its still goodness in TvT as well, however zerg, due to their nature benefit lots of splitting T or P forces. You then simply take 20 eggs and replace all those drones, which is only about 30% of your total larva if you're late game with macro hatches. I think if people are choosing to harass, reacting with mass spore/spine around minerals is the proper response. you either lose those drones anyway to harass and get nothing for it, and possibly lose a base too, or you keep army around to defend it, thus weakening your main force, or you turn drones into defenses and repop them when you want to and when its planned. This is, I think, the main point, if you do it, the initiative cant be taken from you, and you can't be hit at a time when you're likely to have it hurt the worst.
Thats a lot of the reason harass is so good. Its hitting you when you dont have a plan to replace losses and deal with it before they show up. you cant afford that. But ou can afford to stop harass if they start trying it by reacting with defense structures on your time and at your planned stages.
if they hit you, they could hit you in a window of time where you cant afford the hit. If you defend yourtself so they cant, you have defended yourself at a time where you can afford to do so.
On August 17 2011 04:02 Teiwaz wrote: One thing I can think of to buff the Warp Prism would be to give it energy like the Medivac. The Warp Prism then can either "heal" the Protoss units shield (as long as they have shields) OR you can put it in "Warp-In" mode which will drain energy like cloak.
What do you think?
I think protoss just needs something worthwhile to put into the warp prism. Right now we can drop zealots but comon no pro on a decent day would every allow more than 1-2 worker kills from just zealots. Stalker dps is pathetic. Storm drops are incredibly risky (though the potential is there, this can explored further). DT's same with zealots but it's still gimmicky, either wins you game or you just lose a ton of gas more than just zealot drop.
On August 17 2011 04:02 Teiwaz wrote: One thing I can think of to buff the Warp Prism would be to give it energy like the Medivac. The Warp Prism then can either "heal" the Protoss units shield (as long as they have shields) OR you can put it in "Warp-In" mode which will drain energy like cloak.
What do you think?
I think protoss just needs something worthwhile to put into the warp prism. Right now we can drop zealots but comon no pro on a decent day would every allow more than 1-2 worker kills from just zealots. Stalker dps is pathetic. Storm drops are incredibly risky (though the potential is there, this can explored further). DT's same with zealots but it's still gimmicky, either wins you game or you just lose a ton of gas more than just zealot drop.
I know, I'm Protoss myself. It's just an idea to make the Warp Prism more viable (or viable at all).
When you see how a Protoss who knows what good FF placement is, and how to prioritize targets, as well as (gasp!) making HTs, you'll see how utterly laughable Infestors are vs. competent Protoss.
On August 17 2011 03:10 Aletheia27 wrote: With regard to infestors being overpowered, I feel like the argument goes along the same lines as how forcefields were considered overpowered for toss players. I think people just haven't learened to adapt to them yet and adjust their play. Just my 2 cents.
Forcefield is still jacked.
I've seen pros lose games because they can't get out of their main due to the ramp being forcefielded for what appears to be an indefinite period of time (game eventually just ends).
That, to me, doesn't even seem remotely fair.
I think IdrA actually lost recently to this. He had the proper unit counters but just couldn't field them because the Protoss just FF'd his ramp over and over. With warp in you can bring in fresh sentries as needed.
EDIT: Before the flames - I realize Protoss needs FF to stay alive. That doesn't mean the spell isn't borked, though. There could have been far better solutions than a spell that early on in the game is defensive, and later on is just abusive.
I am assuming you're talking about zerg. Nydus canals, tons of 100 mineral only dropships hovering around doing nothing.. Assuming theres a large enough force that completely shuts down Ol dropping anyway, then you've (or Idra've) already lost. Now, Terrans have no problem due to tanks and medis.Zerg should have no problem due to OLs with drop and nydus. If you scout a large sentry count, build a nydus or get ultras to pop the fields. If you want to abuse the field against protoss get BLs. If its 6-7 minutes in game and they're abusing FF to wall you in after a 4 gate push, its actually quite easy to either have the amount of units to fight them off, or failing that, to retreat all your drones queens and army into your main and put up spines and keep pumping army while they waste time downing a 300 mineral 1500 hp unit that they will continue to FF your ramp for, leaving you breathing room to build defenses and army to counter attack and push them out. Just came back from a game just like that. won 20 minutes later after losing n expo to a 3 gate mass sentry early rush.
I'm sorry but nydus and OL drop tech is hardly a viable solution at the point in the game where this type of push utterly crushes people.
Even in late game, picking up your army in OLs to move past a FF line is suicide.
Piss-poor design made FF necessary but it is still an utterly absurd spell for an RTS.
On August 17 2011 04:02 Teiwaz wrote: One thing I can think of to buff the Warp Prism would be to give it energy like the Medivac. The Warp Prism then can either "heal" the Protoss units shield (as long as they have shields) OR you can put it in "Warp-In" mode which will drain energy like cloak.
What do you think?
I think protoss just needs something worthwhile to put into the warp prism. Right now we can drop zealots but comon no pro on a decent day would every allow more than 1-2 worker kills from just zealots. Stalker dps is pathetic. Storm drops are incredibly risky (though the potential is there, this can explored further). DT's same with zealots but it's still gimmicky, either wins you game or you just lose a ton of gas more than just zealot drop.
I know, I'm Protoss myself. It's just an idea to make the Warp Prism more viable (or viable at all).
It's an okay idea but it seems too much like Medivacs. BTW, I'm totally okay with seperating Medics and Dropships to stem the effectiveness of Terran drops.
I think maybe a shield battery would make Protoss early game easier against earlier rushes, Idk why they took that out.
I think TvZ is abit broken. Both baneling and hellions drops are badly designed. You can deflect four drops but if one gets in and does some damage all those lost drops have been held off. Zerg doesn't have good scouting options and it makes it a coinflip and to make sure that you're safe from the possible scenarios sets you behind ALOT at high level of play - Masters Zerg.
EDIT: I also believe that DT's are badly designed. A zerg can manage to scout the DT shrine in a coinflip or they can't. Even if they do scout it's hard to know how many dt's are being made. You can make one spore and put troops infront of it. The zerg says I need to pressure or secure a third, makes two spines at each base along with spores and moves out with his units. Four DT's get past the defences and manage to take out the spore crawler with only the shield going down on one of them. Overseer takes 17 seconds to morph and four dt's can get down a hatchery and more in that time. I feel that such things as banelings, dt's and hellions make gameplay too volatile and unforgiving even at the highest levels of play and that they need change.
EPT
