I think the Oracle is a great unit. It is actually extremely hard to optain it's full value, if not impossible. It is very cutthroat and extremely frustrating to play against, but that doesn't make it a unit with a 'problem.' The guy on the other end is having the time of his life. With Stasis Trap added to it, it will provide even more depth to the game, which is great. On the Protoss side, the new Oracle is what I'm the most excited about,
It is very cutthroat and extremely frustrating to play against, but that doesn't make it a unit with a 'problem.'
If 50% of the players experiencing an oracle are extremely frustrated by it, I do think it is a unit with a problem. Of course there will always be the tryhards who don't like any unit that is used against them and only play to win, but most players differentiate between better and worse matchups/gameplay and what you are playing against is one of the single biggest factors in that.
Archon mode should also have a camera in the corner of the screen somewhere where you can see your ally's screen.
This way you can be macroing and still know what kind of units are fighting, what is dieing, what needs to be built unitwise, what kind of tech you need, if you need defensive structure etc.
On December 26 2014 11:03 ejozl wrote: It is very cutthroat and extremely frustrating to play against, but that doesn't make it a unit with a 'problem.'
Actually, it does. A single unit should not require so much reactions from the opponent (stalkers in mineral lines / 6 marines in each mineral line and very often turrets / spores) while barely allowing any counterplay. The oracle has far too much game ending potential for the map control it provides, especially against T and P. It should deal less damage or use more energy per shot.
On December 26 2014 11:03 ejozl wrote: I think the Oracle is a great unit. It is actually extremely hard to optain it's full value, if not impossible. It is very cutthroat and extremely frustrating to play against, but that doesn't make it a unit with a 'problem.' The guy on the other end is having the time of his life. With Stasis Trap added to it, it will provide even more depth to the game, which is great. On the Protoss side, the new Oracle is what I'm the most excited about,
The Oracle is a unit that could be made great, but its current form is awful, leading to coinflips via proxy Stargates + too many low effort/fluke instant wins against all races. When Rain killed 10 drones against Solar in the Conn.Si WB Finals, I immediately tabbed out because I knew he had already won the game. Just look at the following sequence until the end of the game: http://www.twitch.tv/connsi/b/602414981?t=2h02m50s Who wants to watch that? Stupid and anticlimatic.
On top of that the unit has limited midgame usage. In PvT the Oracle is so powerful in early game that it has to be one-shot by Mines; and while an Oracle spectacularly crashing at full speed into a Mine never fails to make me grin, things should unwind differently. More back-and-forth, less "hit-or-miss".
a) a proper risk/reward to Oracle usage should be introduced. Lesser initial investment but no low commitment complete security behind it (= goodbye MSC; if Oracles existed in WoL PvT they would be unplayable there).
b) the impact of a single Oracle should be scaled down, the reward for extra Oracles should be higher (comparatively). Currently 2, 3, 4, 5 Oracles add little compared with the first one that already triggers (costly) defensive measures and assures map control alone. It goes without saying that a single Oracle should have considerably less chances to win the game on its own; it should deal a sizeable amount of damage to an undefended mineral line, of course, but without bulldozing 1/3 - 1/2 of the workers here in a few seconds. At any rate, reducing the impact of a single Oracle is forced anyway since there is no particular way to prevent Stargate proxies, especially if the Stargate tree tech is largely/completely irrelevant afterwards (as it's the case nowadays in PvT if you have no intention to build Phoenixes).
The cost of Oracles should be decreased, of course. I'm so tired of SC2 being plagued with overexpensive units. My interest for the Disruptor immediately dropped to zero when I read it was to cost 300 gas. It's like they learnt nothing from 4 years of Protoss deathballing. Please stop with 300 gas units. 300 gas is the cost of a capital ship. Is the Disruptor a capital ship? I'm already facepalming at how much the third generation of the Goliath will cost in SC3 … SC1 100/50/2 … SC2 300/200/6 … SC3 1000/450/18? Please. Can I split my army? Can Protoss players decide where they want to put their resources instead of having 1.5 minutes of gas blocked in one unit for their first Oracle or their first Colossus? The 150/150/3 cost of the Oracle could easily be reduced to 150/100/2, if not 100/75/2. Small is beautiful.
The interaction with other units needs to be reworked as well. 6 Marines kill 1 Oracle, always; no micro can change that. 1 Oracle kills 5 Marines, always, no micro can change that. Compare with the far superior Banshee vs Marines relationship.
If the unit is properly redesigned, then its shield/life ratio can be tweaked to 1:1, i.e. 80/80 instead of 60/100. This will reward a bit more activity.
Increasing the movement speed of the Oracle was a bad idea. It lowered the skill floor of the unit, made it more forgiving for no reason. Behind that change lies their dangerous obsession with "uncatchable harass units" — Blizzard tries to fix their own failures regarding the passivity of the game but the roots of the deathball/inactivity problems lie elsewhere (economy, critical mass, bad unit design, etc.) and cannot be fixed via things like Oracles, Medivac boost or muta regen—things that are bound to become new issues of their own, adding a burden that SC2 doesn't need...
The LotV trap idea sounds nice, as long as it's not overdone; AoE disables are frustrating to play against, plus spells are generally easy to cast in SC2, so their efficiency shouldn't be disproportionate. But if they're done nicely, they could bring that little plus to small Oracles squads and increase tactical depth—a good point!
But all of this is irrelevant anyway. The fact they want to add other "harassment units" shows they haven't understood that you have to break the deathball model first. You can add 36 "harass units" to Protoss, they will simply be used to build the deathball in a more comfortable position. As long as Protoss has to rely on excessive teching + units like Sentries, Immortals or Colossi, their model will never be skirmishes/multi-pronged attacks but timings/all-ins or deathball with a bit of harassment specifically built to disrupt their opponent's attempts at breaking them first. The problem lies at the core and needs to be addressed as such. Peripheral reworking cannot succeed here. You have to tackle that head on.
If you want more "harass," here's a much simpler way to do it: add versatility to existing units (and then, ask yourselves if others are needed…). Higher movement speed for Zealots instead of Charge. A proper synergy between a reworked Colossus and the Prism, rather than this dumb long distance pick (or whatever it is; I can't believe how many basic rules you're willing to break just to accomodate flawed nonsense). A race that doesn't have a critical resource called ''robo production time'' so that it can build more Prisms to begin with. A race that doesn't have to assume a defensive stance in macro games so it can afford to send more Storm drops, etc. A revamped Oracle would fit nicely into that normalized model, but in the current system it's bound to fail.
On December 26 2014 06:43 [PkF] Wire wrote: I hope they get the "we don't want more harass units part". "Harass" units are specialized, boring, frustrating, even infuriating sometimes. Hell, look at the oracle. To promote multitasking and reward actual skill, we need units that can operate in small packs (marines), not the disgraces they call harass units (oracle).
I don't think so: hellion, mutalisk, medivac, warp prism to some extend the banshee in TvT and TvZ to some extend all the "fast" zerg core units like roaches, banelings and most prominently speedlings in all matchups infestors when the game gets to it can be used for harass
Those are all units that aren't pidgeonholed harass units (useful or even strong in proper engagment play), but they excell at harassing. That's what an "harass unit" should can like. That's what most units that aren't specialized on combat superiority and tactical/positional play should look like. The problem isn't harass units, the problem is that blizzard isn't putting enough work into their unit ideas and still surf on ancient Dune/CnC/Broodwar unit designs in which the main idea was giving the unit a purpose to be built. Not whether the unit is actually fun to play with or play against. In particular the second part is where they keep on failing, not just with units but with whole races, their core mechanics and matchups. Because they keep on being satisfied with having stuff in the game that people use. "Oracle so good because Protoss build them"; seems to be enough for them.
This is exactly what I meant, my last sentence is probably really not accurate. What I meant is any unit that is good only at harassing and has no other role should not exist. It's just frustrating to play against and even to use because it becomes useless once deflected. Your examples are good and we indeed have enough harass units.
I was just reacting on their proposing another "harass unit" for Protoss. That infuriates me.
In the end, I'd like them to just acknowledge HotS did a lot of things wrong : I'm pretty sure than WoL with the infestor nerf that came with HotS, phoenix +1 base range and HotS hydras (only three things, we can add vipers if you wish) would be a far superior game. They need to take away everything that's plain boring or not working, not to keep adding bandaids over bandaids. And I'm afraid they're not doing that : speed medivacs, muta regen, swarm hosts, widow mines, mothership core, oracles, tempests and everything that made the game stale and uninteresting will still be there (OK, some of them will be tweaked... but can you make a good unit out of such bad ones ?).
On a more general note, I don't get why they think they have to add new units to create hype / justify the price of the expansion. I don't think any of the units HotS added was necessary in the end and I'm convinced the same will hold true for LotV units : do any of the units proposed seem to fulfill a role that no existing unit could fulfill ? I'd have been more than happy to pay for the campaign + tweaks on the WoL units that would have made the game perfect, because I believe WoL was quite well designed unit wise and only the corruptor should have got worked on. Only the viper seems to have some point existing. I'm happy they're trying to mess up with the economy and some mechanics like WG (and maybe forcefields, who knows) for LotV though, just worried that the end result could very well be simply worse.
I don't think HotS has done everything wrong. WMs have made it possible for terran to be constantly active on the map vs zerg and not just turtle to the critical mass of tanks and then doing a timing push. you can complain about the design of the mothershipcore as much as you want but nobody can deny that it was just necessary for protoss to be more safe in the early game and to be able to be more active on the map with recall. The hellbat also added a well needed meatshield for mech, and i also think the buffs to the harass units(medivac, mutalisk, warpprism) have made the game much more dynamic. For oracles, tempests and swarmhosts i agree with you; they are completely garbage and i hope they all get removed/redesigned.
For the LotV units i'm as sceptical as you because currently i just don't see the point of any of those units. But who knows, maybe blizzard will surprise me and they all find a good place in the metagame. For me it will be reason enough to buy lotv that swarmhosts, tempests and maybe the collossus are getting redesigned; those three units take imo all the fun out of the game.
On December 26 2014 06:43 [PkF] Wire wrote: I hope they get the "we don't want more harass units part". "Harass" units are specialized, boring, frustrating, even infuriating sometimes. Hell, look at the oracle. To promote multitasking and reward actual skill, we need units that can operate in small packs (marines), not the disgraces they call harass units (oracle).
I don't think so: hellion, mutalisk, medivac, warp prism to some extend the banshee in TvT and TvZ to some extend all the "fast" zerg core units like roaches, banelings and most prominently speedlings in all matchups infestors when the game gets to it can be used for harass
Those are all units that aren't pidgeonholed harass units (useful or even strong in proper engagment play), but they excell at harassing. That's what an "harass unit" should can like. That's what most units that aren't specialized on combat superiority and tactical/positional play should look like. The problem isn't harass units, the problem is that blizzard isn't putting enough work into their unit ideas and still surf on ancient Dune/CnC/Broodwar unit designs in which the main idea was giving the unit a purpose to be built. Not whether the unit is actually fun to play with or play against. In particular the second part is where they keep on failing, not just with units but with whole races, their core mechanics and matchups. Because they keep on being satisfied with having stuff in the game that people use. "Oracle so good because Protoss build them"; seems to be enough for them.
This is exactly what I meant, my last sentence is probably really not accurate. What I meant is any unit that is good only at harassing and has no other role should not exist. It's just frustrating to play against and even to use because it becomes useless once deflected. Your examples are good and we indeed have enough harass units.
I was just reacting on their proposing another "harass unit" for Protoss. That infuriates me.
In the end, I'd like them to just acknowledge HotS did a lot of things wrong : I'm pretty sure than WoL with the infestor nerf that came with HotS, phoenix +1 base range and HotS hydras (only three things, we can add vipers if you wish) would be a far superior game. They need to take away everything that's plain boring or not working, not to keep adding bandaids over bandaids. And I'm afraid they're not doing that : speed medivacs, muta regen, swarm hosts, widow mines, mothership core, oracles, tempests and everything that made the game stale and uninteresting will still be there (OK, some of them will be tweaked... but can you make a good unit out of such bad ones ?).
On a more general note, I don't get why they think they have to add new units to create hype / justify the price of the expansion. I don't think any of the units HotS added was necessary in the end and I'm convinced the same will hold true for LotV units : do any of the units proposed seem to fulfill a role that no existing unit could fulfill ? I'd have been more than happy to pay for the campaign + tweaks on the WoL units that would have made the game perfect, because I believe WoL was quite well designed unit wise and only the corruptor should have got worked on. Only the viper seems to have some point existing. I'm happy they're trying to mess up with the economy and some mechanics like WG (and maybe forcefields, who knows) for LotV though, just worried that the end result could very well be simply worse.
I don't think HotS has done everything wrong. WMs have made it possible for terran to be constantly active on the map vs zerg and not just turtle to the critical mass of tanks and then doing a timing push.
Widow Mines aren't really bad for gameplay, but they wouldn't really be necessary without the HotS zerg additions/buffs, especially mutalisk speed+regen and partly Blinding Cloud, assuming that WoL TvZ were to be more balanced than it was with BL/Infestor. You gotta remember that WoL maps were smaller on average than HotS maps Catallena 164x164 Deadwing 172x172 MGR 160x166 Nimbus 152x152 ...
Only Whirlwind (160x160) was that size in WoL, which is now the standard size. Daybreak (148x120) and similarily and smaller sized maps Antiga Shipyard, Ohana, Cloud Kingdom, Bel'Shire Vestige were the average. So the effects of units like mines/mutalisks and medivacs have simply been balanced out to some degree by maps, and on those smaller maps doing multiple tank pushes or drops was really not that uncommon. Even though doing single 2-2 pushes with tank/marine/medivac seemed to be the way to go towards the end, due to gameplans revolving around "killing him before BL/Infestor". And it is rather HotS that really killed those strategies (leapfrogging Antiga or CK or Daybreak is just way easier than doing the same on Deadwing, or god forbid, Alterzim).
you can complain about the design of the mothershipcore as much as you want but nobody can deny that it was just necessary for protoss to be more safe in the early game and to be able to be more active on the map with recall.
Hm, well, without speedmedivacs, mine (and in early HotS hellbat) drops the necessity of PO wasn't really given in PvT. It feels more like the power of the MsC just allows Protoss to be greedier or more aggressive, to balance out the plainly buffed (in comparison to HotS) Terran midgame standard play in HotS. PvZ I think the MsC is much healthier, though I don't think Time Warp should have ever been given to the MsC. And in all honesty, I think that there would be ways to make PvZ gateway expand possible without the PO or the Time Warp (which are the abilities that I think aren't really that necessary). After all, the untouchable MsC has an AtG attack capable of shutting down most early plays of zerg if paired with proper setup+scouting anyways and is only used for offense. All other applications of the PO are mainly used to help with HotS Zerg builds, like buffed hydralisk and mutalisk builds.[/QUOTE]
The hellbat also added a well needed meatshield for mech,
I don't think so. Mech was working as well as bio in TvT and TvZ without it, so it didn't really need it. In TvP my personal belief is that it was even better before HotS, because banshees were more viable in PvT. In either case, it wasn't played in WoL or HotS in that matchup, so a discussion about its state is mood. The hellbat did nothing here.
and i also think the buffs to the harass units(medivac, mutalisk, warpprism) have made the game much more dynamic.
As I said previously, what happened was that the maps got bigger to prevent those units from being overpowered. Which led to not using those units to be unviable. F.e.(drop-comparison): There have been some pretty good drop-based games in WoL, because on small maps it was easy to drop. There are still many games in HotS in which drops don't play all to big of a role, because the distances for dropping are very long and the drop counters have been buffed as well.
I think that PvZ aside, the improvements to the gamedesign haven't been that big in HotS. There has been the one or other nice thing (ultralisks viable against Protoss in HotS; tense TvZ combats with mines) but a lot of it has come on the expense of other cool things. HotS didn't really build on the solid parts of WoL, and it didn't really build its own fundament. And I fear Lotv is repeating the same mistake with lots of pin-up ideas ("we change the economy", "we change warpgate"), but little ideas that go along the lines of "guys, roaches aren't as fun to control as they could be. here are a bunch of design and stat-changes we want to apply to that unit, so that combat interactions with Immortals and zealots change to the better!".
HotS didn't do everything wrong (I said : did a lot of things wrong). Some things were needed : phoenix base range buff, hydra buff and infestor nerf (with infested terrans benefiting from upgrades again). The reaper redesign was really great and in the end I like banshee cloak cost reduction. Ultralisks buffs were also needed and it's great to see them become a threat in ZvP.
Now imagine WoL with just those simple things, plus : some tweak to the corruptor to make it more interesting (and not another ability), the colossus range is 6(8) instead of 6(9), snipe becomes again powerful against anything biological, and viper is redesigned to help greatly (not counter) against colossi while not hardcountering tanks ; hell viper is maybe not even needed if your corruptor tweak is clever. The carrier buff they're doing could also have been added back then instead of making another capital ship with retarded range that only has a role because swarm hosts exist.
I didn't add any unit to the WoL setup and I think we'd have gotten a far more better game that would have allowed them to then make the revolution (economy, FFs, warpgate) they're preparing for LotV in good conditions.
The problem is that they're doomed from the start with that stupid three expansions thing : they had to add units to justify the price of the expansion, right ? And those units had to be shiny and powerful so that everyone use them, right ? WoL set of units was already quite well designed and you could (should ?) have balanced the game around those units + maybe 1 per race. Not more. With HotS + LotV all we get are units that don't fulfill any role another unit couldn't fulfill and a lot of the things added were added to balance imbalance novelties created, not problems WoL had ; no need of the msc if no medivac speed ; no need of the widow mine and spore biological buff without muta regen ; no need of tempests after the infestor nerfs.
Muta regen, speed medivac and mothership core are seriously the worst things that happened to the game (OK no, the worst thing is swarm hosts, but most people realize it for that one). I like how the msc allowed me to be absurdly greedy in PvT, to at last play solid gate expands in PvZ and to have a stable PvP, but the price of my comfort was too high : all those things ended up creating a metagame that is stale, and the mothership core is in the end the contrary of what it should have been. Instead of encouraging moveouts with recall, it helps turtling and deathballing. Notice how PvP had already moved away from the 4 gates era at the end of WoL and was becoming a fully fledged match-up. Contrary to the common belief, msc was not needed, especially with the no warp in on high ground nerf.
I fear I'm not explaining what I mean very well, but the general idea is that I don't like how they're working on LotV with the mindset that the things added in HotS had their place and were the right things to add ; I think it's far more compelling to remove speed boost on medivacs, muta regen, msc, swarm hosts than to rework an already functional (though admittedly not perfect) economy and nerf warpgate to the ground. But they didn't even talk about it once ; if you ask me, they're building a castle on sand.
On December 27 2014 07:02 Big J wrote: HotS didn't really build on the solid parts of WoL, and it didn't really build its own fundament. And I fear Lotv is repeating the same mistake.
That guy said it all. Instead of relying on what WoL did right -and WoL did some things wrong (4 gates or broodlord infestor era), but for a first iteration a lot of things right-, they just threw everything away. No problem if the end product was undisputably better ; that's not the case. I hope it's the case for LotV, but I fear the outlook is bleak.
On December 26 2014 06:43 [PkF] Wire wrote: I hope they get the "we don't want more harass units part". "Harass" units are specialized, boring, frustrating, even infuriating sometimes. Hell, look at the oracle. To promote multitasking and reward actual skill, we need units that can operate in small packs (marines), not the disgraces they call harass units (oracle).
I don't think so: hellion, mutalisk, medivac, warp prism to some extend the banshee in TvT and TvZ to some extend all the "fast" zerg core units like roaches, banelings and most prominently speedlings in all matchups infestors when the game gets to it can be used for harass
Those are all units that aren't pidgeonholed harass units (useful or even strong in proper engagment play), but they excell at harassing. That's what an "harass unit" should can like. That's what most units that aren't specialized on combat superiority and tactical/positional play should look like. The problem isn't harass units, the problem is that blizzard isn't putting enough work into their unit ideas and still surf on ancient Dune/CnC/Broodwar unit designs in which the main idea was giving the unit a purpose to be built. Not whether the unit is actually fun to play with or play against. In particular the second part is where they keep on failing, not just with units but with whole races, their core mechanics and matchups. Because they keep on being satisfied with having stuff in the game that people use. "Oracle so good because Protoss build them"; seems to be enough for them.
This is exactly what I meant, my last sentence is probably really not accurate. What I meant is any unit that is good only at harassing and has no other role should not exist. It's just frustrating to play against and even to use because it becomes useless once deflected. Your examples are good and we indeed have enough harass units.
I was just reacting on their proposing another "harass unit" for Protoss. That infuriates me.
In the end, I'd like them to just acknowledge HotS did a lot of things wrong : I'm pretty sure than WoL with the infestor nerf that came with HotS, phoenix +1 base range and HotS hydras (only three things, we can add vipers if you wish) would be a far superior game. They need to take away everything that's plain boring or not working, not to keep adding bandaids over bandaids. And I'm afraid they're not doing that : speed medivacs, muta regen, swarm hosts, widow mines, mothership core, oracles, tempests and everything that made the game stale and uninteresting will still be there (OK, some of them will be tweaked... but can you make a good unit out of such bad ones ?).
On a more general note, I don't get why they think they have to add new units to create hype / justify the price of the expansion. I don't think any of the units HotS added was necessary in the end and I'm convinced the same will hold true for LotV units : do any of the units proposed seem to fulfill a role that no existing unit could fulfill ? I'd have been more than happy to pay for the campaign + tweaks on the WoL units that would have made the game perfect, because I believe WoL was quite well designed unit wise and only the corruptor should have got worked on. Only the viper seems to have some point existing. I'm happy they're trying to mess up with the economy and some mechanics like WG (and maybe forcefields, who knows) for LotV though, just worried that the end result could very well be simply worse.
I don't think HotS has done everything wrong. WMs have made it possible for terran to be constantly active on the map vs zerg and not just turtle to the critical mass of tanks and then doing a timing push.
Widow Mines aren't really bad for gameplay, but they wouldn't really be necessary without the HotS zerg additions/buffs, especially mutalisk speed+regen and partly Blinding Cloud, assuming that WoL TvZ were to be more balanced than it was with BL/Infestor. You gotta remember that WoL maps were smaller on average than HotS maps Catallena 164x164 Deadwing 172x172 MGR 160x166 Nimbus 152x152 ...
Widow Mines force Zerg to micro in battle. Without WMs, battles become way too mechanically easy for Zerg compared to Terran. There absolutely have to be "oh no I got stressed out and done goofed up" checks throughout the game, and whether you're dealing well with WMs is a huge one for Zergs.
you can complain about the design of the mothershipcore as much as you want but nobody can deny that it was just necessary for protoss to be more safe in the early game and to be able to be more active on the map with recall.
Hm, well, without speedmedivacs, mine (and in early HotS hellbat) drops the necessity of PO wasn't really given in PvT. It feels more like the power of the MsC just allows Protoss to be greedier or more aggressive, to balance out the plainly buffed (in comparison to HotS) Terran midgame standard play in HotS. PvZ I think the MsC is much healthier, though I don't think Time Warp should have ever been given to the MsC. And in all honesty, I think that there would be ways to make PvZ gateway expand possible without the PO or the Time Warp (which are the abilities that I think aren't really that necessary). After all, the untouchable MsC has an AtG attack capable of shutting down most early plays of zerg if paired with proper setup+scouting anyways and is only used for offense. All other applications of the PO are mainly used to help with HotS Zerg builds, like buffed hydralisk and mutalisk builds.
My understanding is that the MSC plays a huge role in PvP, which was entirely unwatchable in WOL and now actually can, on occasion, produce diverting games.
The hellbat also added a well needed meatshield for mech,
I don't think so. Mech was working as well as bio in TvT and TvZ without it, so it didn't really need it. In TvP my personal belief is that it was even better before HotS, because banshees were more viable in PvT. In either case, it wasn't played in WoL or HotS in that matchup, so a discussion about its state is mood. The hellbat did nothing here.
Mech only worked in TvT without Hellbats. In TvZ, it was used for supremely high pressure builds, nothing more. Not macro games. Look at ForGG vs Life g3 and tell me that's possible without Hellbats.
I think that PvZ aside, the improvements to the gamedesign haven't been that big in HotS. There has been the one or other nice thing (ultralisks viable against Protoss in HotS; tense TvZ combats with mines) but a lot of it has come on the expense of other cool things. HotS didn't really build on the solid parts of WoL, and it didn't really build its own fundament. And I fear Lotv is repeating the same mistake with lots of pin-up ideas ("we change the economy", "we change warpgate"), but little ideas that go along the lines of "guys, roaches aren't as fun to control as they could be. here are a bunch of design and stat-changes we want to apply to that unit, so that combat interactions with Immortals and zealots change to the better!".
Blizzard could have done a lot more with HOTS, no question about it, but the things they did do made the game substantively better. Eventually.
On December 26 2014 06:43 [PkF] Wire wrote: I hope they get the "we don't want more harass units part". "Harass" units are specialized, boring, frustrating, even infuriating sometimes. Hell, look at the oracle. To promote multitasking and reward actual skill, we need units that can operate in small packs (marines), not the disgraces they call harass units (oracle).
I don't think so: hellion, mutalisk, medivac, warp prism to some extend the banshee in TvT and TvZ to some extend all the "fast" zerg core units like roaches, banelings and most prominently speedlings in all matchups infestors when the game gets to it can be used for harass
Those are all units that aren't pidgeonholed harass units (useful or even strong in proper engagment play), but they excell at harassing. That's what an "harass unit" should can like. That's what most units that aren't specialized on combat superiority and tactical/positional play should look like. The problem isn't harass units, the problem is that blizzard isn't putting enough work into their unit ideas and still surf on ancient Dune/CnC/Broodwar unit designs in which the main idea was giving the unit a purpose to be built. Not whether the unit is actually fun to play with or play against. In particular the second part is where they keep on failing, not just with units but with whole races, their core mechanics and matchups. Because they keep on being satisfied with having stuff in the game that people use. "Oracle so good because Protoss build them"; seems to be enough for them.
This is exactly what I meant, my last sentence is probably really not accurate. What I meant is any unit that is good only at harassing and has no other role should not exist. It's just frustrating to play against and even to use because it becomes useless once deflected. Your examples are good and we indeed have enough harass units.
I was just reacting on their proposing another "harass unit" for Protoss. That infuriates me.
In the end, I'd like them to just acknowledge HotS did a lot of things wrong : I'm pretty sure than WoL with the infestor nerf that came with HotS, phoenix +1 base range and HotS hydras (only three things, we can add vipers if you wish) would be a far superior game. They need to take away everything that's plain boring or not working, not to keep adding bandaids over bandaids. And I'm afraid they're not doing that : speed medivacs, muta regen, swarm hosts, widow mines, mothership core, oracles, tempests and everything that made the game stale and uninteresting will still be there (OK, some of them will be tweaked... but can you make a good unit out of such bad ones ?).
On a more general note, I don't get why they think they have to add new units to create hype / justify the price of the expansion. I don't think any of the units HotS added was necessary in the end and I'm convinced the same will hold true for LotV units : do any of the units proposed seem to fulfill a role that no existing unit could fulfill ? I'd have been more than happy to pay for the campaign + tweaks on the WoL units that would have made the game perfect, because I believe WoL was quite well designed unit wise and only the corruptor should have got worked on. Only the viper seems to have some point existing. I'm happy they're trying to mess up with the economy and some mechanics like WG (and maybe forcefields, who knows) for LotV though, just worried that the end result could very well be simply worse.
I don't think HotS has done everything wrong. WMs have made it possible for terran to be constantly active on the map vs zerg and not just turtle to the critical mass of tanks and then doing a timing push.
Widow Mines aren't really bad for gameplay, but they wouldn't really be necessary without the HotS zerg additions/buffs, especially mutalisk speed+regen and partly Blinding Cloud, assuming that WoL TvZ were to be more balanced than it was with BL/Infestor. You gotta remember that WoL maps were smaller on average than HotS maps Catallena 164x164 Deadwing 172x172 MGR 160x166 Nimbus 152x152 ...
Widow Mines force Zerg to micro in battle. Without WMs, battles become way too mechanically easy for Zerg compared to Terran. There absolutely have to be "oh no I got stressed out and done goofed up" checks throughout the game, and whether you're dealing well with WMs is a huge one for Zergs.
Again, I don't think WMs were a bad addition. They weren't really necessary. And without problematic additions such as mutalisk regeneration they would be a bad addition. If you have to balance something good with something bad the result is a little meh. I don't think that current TvZ is much better than WoL TvZ, better balance aside. It's also not worse. HotS didn't do a lot here besides balance imo. The micro-argument for WMs is a lame comparison, because the reason mines work is that Zerg has to go muta/ling/bling and micro it. WoL Zerg didn't have to go muta/ling/bling to begin with (which also lifts a lot of the Terran micro-burden) and the eventual counters to marine/tank/medivac in WoL were overpowered so micro-comparisons with BL/Infestor are moot. Not to mention that you are talking about the bio-Terran playstyle which requires these sorts of micro, not the Terran race that can be played with a Mech-Terran playstyle too and just choose not to be that micro-reliant.
you can complain about the design of the mothershipcore as much as you want but nobody can deny that it was just necessary for protoss to be more safe in the early game and to be able to be more active on the map with recall.
Hm, well, without speedmedivacs, mine (and in early HotS hellbat) drops the necessity of PO wasn't really given in PvT. It feels more like the power of the MsC just allows Protoss to be greedier or more aggressive, to balance out the plainly buffed (in comparison to HotS) Terran midgame standard play in HotS. PvZ I think the MsC is much healthier, though I don't think Time Warp should have ever been given to the MsC. And in all honesty, I think that there would be ways to make PvZ gateway expand possible without the PO or the Time Warp (which are the abilities that I think aren't really that necessary). After all, the untouchable MsC has an AtG attack capable of shutting down most early plays of zerg if paired with proper setup+scouting anyways and is only used for offense. All other applications of the PO are mainly used to help with HotS Zerg builds, like buffed hydralisk and mutalisk builds.
My understanding is that the MSC plays a huge role in PvP, which was entirely unwatchable in WOL and now actually can, on occasion, produce diverting games.
Till mid 2013 I would have agreed. Because back in those days there were a lot of different PvP playstyles emerging. However, in 2014 it looks a lot to me like 4gate has been replaced with blink rushing and fast expanding is still dead. VR styles have died and so have heavy phoenix styles. In both periods, WoL and HotS, PvP eventually turned into a game in which macro after heavy aggression of some form is the norm. The more interesting macro games - compared to the mass Colossus WoL PvPs - are more a result of the Tempest than the MsC imo, making 3base mass Colossus impossible and allowing people to rely on Archons/Immortals in the midgame for longer. I do believe HotS made PvP better. I still don't think it is a good matchup.
The hellbat also added a well needed meatshield for mech,
I don't think so. Mech was working as well as bio in TvT and TvZ without it, so it didn't really need it. In TvP my personal belief is that it was even better before HotS, because banshees were more viable in PvT. In either case, it wasn't played in WoL or HotS in that matchup, so a discussion about its state is mood. The hellbat did nothing here.
Mech only worked in TvT without Hellbats. In TvZ, it was used for supremely high pressure builds, nothing more. Not macro games. Look at ForGG vs Life g3 and tell me that's possible without Hellbats.
Come on, that is quite a cheap argument. "A hellbat game could not have happened without the hellbat..." I have no clue how to respond to that. Squirtle vs Mvp would also not have happened in HotS because fuck BCs in TvP nowadays... Here are some great Mech macro games from WoL (g1 and g3) as a response to your statement without the example:
If you are into Mech turtle games - just to show you that macro really was viable - Goody vs Stephano on Metropolis from the last HSC in 2012. (can't find the Vod atm) The only problem Mech had was that it BL/Infestor usually beat it between 15-20mins... a common problem with each and every TvZ style towards the end of WoL, with no connection to the hellbat whatsoever.
I think that PvZ aside, the improvements to the gamedesign haven't been that big in HotS. There has been the one or other nice thing (ultralisks viable against Protoss in HotS; tense TvZ combats with mines) but a lot of it has come on the expense of other cool things. HotS didn't really build on the solid parts of WoL, and it didn't really build its own fundament. And I fear Lotv is repeating the same mistake with lots of pin-up ideas ("we change the economy", "we change warpgate"), but little ideas that go along the lines of "guys, roaches aren't as fun to control as they could be. here are a bunch of design and stat-changes we want to apply to that unit, so that combat interactions with Immortals and zealots change to the better!".
Blizzard could have done a lot more with HOTS, no question about it, but the things they did do made the game substantively better. Eventually.
Anytime I pick Zerg in HotS I have to endure the pain in the ass that is HotS ZvZ. That matchup got substantively worse. Anytime I pick Terran in HotS I have to endure mass doom dropping in TvT and the utter randomness of proxygalore in TvP. I fail to see the improvements to my fun here.
On December 26 2014 11:03 ejozl wrote: I think the Oracle is a great unit. It is actually extremely hard to optain it's full value, if not impossible. It is very cutthroat and extremely frustrating to play against, but that doesn't make it a unit with a 'problem.' The guy on the other end is having the time of his life. With Stasis Trap added to it, it will provide even more depth to the game, which is great. On the Protoss side, the new Oracle is what I'm the most excited about,
Disagree. I honestly think there is a very strong correlation between whether you enjoy playing a certain unit and playing against it. Mutalisks are imo fun to play with and fun to play against. At least in TvZ (pvz might be a different story). Running around with an Oracle and trying to run away from Marines and attack scv's isn't interesting at all.
On December 26 2014 13:59 MarlieChurphy wrote: Archon mode should also have a camera in the corner of the screen somewhere where you can see your ally's screen.
This way you can be macroing and still know what kind of units are fighting, what is dieing, what needs to be built unitwise, what kind of tech you need, if you need defensive structure etc.
On December 26 2014 13:59 MarlieChurphy wrote: Archon mode should also have a camera in the corner of the screen somewhere where you can see your ally's screen.
This way you can be macroing and still know what kind of units are fighting, what is dieing, what needs to be built unitwise, what kind of tech you need, if you need defensive structure etc.
Also known as using the minimap ;D
Maybe having a yellow or blue box on the minimap that shows your allies current camera position (with the trapezoid) would be good to show players not on teamspeak or voicechat what their ally is paying attention to. This could be disabled using a hotkey for those with better communication capabilities.
A problem I could see with it though is too much clutter/movement on the minimap but using a dimmer, yet still noticeable color for the box would help differentiate from allied units and enemy units.
On December 26 2014 11:03 ejozl wrote: I think the Oracle is a great unit. It is actually extremely hard to optain it's full value, if not impossible. It is very cutthroat and extremely frustrating to play against, but that doesn't make it a unit with a 'problem.' The guy on the other end is having the time of his life. With Stasis Trap added to it, it will provide even more depth to the game, which is great. On the Protoss side, the new Oracle is what I'm the most excited about,
Mutalisks are imo fun to play with and fun to play against.
See this is where all of you lose me (I'm quoting you but I could quote anyone). Please don't quantify the fun I'm having. It makes no sense.
On December 26 2014 11:03 ejozl wrote: I think the Oracle is a great unit. It is actually extremely hard to optain it's full value, if not impossible. It is very cutthroat and extremely frustrating to play against, but that doesn't make it a unit with a 'problem.' The guy on the other end is having the time of his life. With Stasis Trap added to it, it will provide even more depth to the game, which is great. On the Protoss side, the new Oracle is what I'm the most excited about,
Mutalisks are imo fun to play with and fun to play against.
See this is where all of you lose me (I'm quoting you but I could quote anyone). Please don't quantify the fun I'm having. It makes no sense.
That's the whole point of designing an entertainment product. Apart from moneymaking, answering these questions is where it starts and ends. You may disagree with him or anyone else, but trying to answer these questions is what our feedback to blizzard should be about.
On December 26 2014 11:03 ejozl wrote: I think the Oracle is a great unit. It is actually extremely hard to optain it's full value, if not impossible. It is very cutthroat and extremely frustrating to play against, but that doesn't make it a unit with a 'problem.' The guy on the other end is having the time of his life. With Stasis Trap added to it, it will provide even more depth to the game, which is great. On the Protoss side, the new Oracle is what I'm the most excited about,
Mutalisks are imo fun to play with and fun to play against.
See this is where all of you lose me (I'm quoting you but I could quote anyone). Please don't quantify the fun I'm having. It makes no sense.
Mutalisks are imo fun to play with and fun to play against.
Did you miss the bolded part? And wouldn't it be better if you could actually design units that people enjoyed playing against and using at the same time?
The characteristica of those units is that they incentivize actual micro-interactions for both players. Cat-and-mouse units where one player just tries to catch the enemy unit is really only fun for one of the players. Per design, the Oracle is just not intended to ever be part of an actual engagement.
On December 26 2014 11:03 ejozl wrote: I think the Oracle is a great unit. It is actually extremely hard to optain it's full value, if not impossible. It is very cutthroat and extremely frustrating to play against, but that doesn't make it a unit with a 'problem.' The guy on the other end is having the time of his life. With Stasis Trap added to it, it will provide even more depth to the game, which is great. On the Protoss side, the new Oracle is what I'm the most excited about,
Mutalisks are imo fun to play with and fun to play against.
See this is where all of you lose me (I'm quoting you but I could quote anyone). Please don't quantify the fun I'm having. It makes no sense.
Mutalisks are imo fun to play with and fun to play against.
Did you miss the bolded part? And wouldn't it be better if you could actually design units that people enjoyed playing against and using at the same time?
Well I don't want to get into this again. 'People' don't enjoy one thing, what you mean is the majority of the community. And that's a perfectly legit thing to say btw, if the majority of the community prefers something, Blizzard should probably do it. I can't imagine I'll stay around for the result, as terran makes me fall asleep, but that's not a concern in itself.
Mutalisks are imo fun to play with and fun to play against.
I don't see why mutalisks are more fun to play against than an oracle for example. TBH some of my friends who started playing sc2 were pretty annoyed of "retarded mutalisk balls".