I really hope they kill the macro mechanics. Most people who say "they took away my mechanics, not playing anymore" were already complaining about everything else. On the other hand, there seems to be many people saying "no macro mechanics, I'm back baby!". That without even talking about the newbs.
I still dont like "auto-inject" for the reason that forgetting to build units is not punished for zerg in that regard. He just builds more units parallel, but later. If Larva/Hatch was capped, to lets say .....5 it might "feel" right. Now the zerg inject is like automated building of production and in that regard more "auto macro" then in any other race.
innnovation vs DRG is the Iconic Hots game i remember when it was constant MMMM Parade vs ling bane muta and it was about hitting all the injects and hitting all the banes. With autoinject this game is ez for Zerg, because you can focus on army and creep a lot more.
All Races produce workers and protect their mining, and for Terran its now fully automated, Protoss can get workers at a better rate, not control needed. But, if you miss making stuff, as Terran and Protoss, because of intense micro or scout, or whatever. You end up with unspent resources that you can not use. You can pump them into more buildings, wich punishes Terran even more, because the Time Workers spent at making stuff, Protoss can throw down some cannons and additional Gates. And the fact that you can not relocate a base and mule-Spam it to fuel your additional production to full efficiency. That was okay, if you spent 550 mins for another OC and get additonal Mules and Scan. So you could spend the overmins quite-okay-ish. Even spending them on Depots was okay. But in LOTV you will reach xx/200 very fast anyway. Apart from that you can not mule-Spam to make use of bases anyway. I tend to never Scan in Legacy. I look at my CCs and think oh yeah 3 scans soon to be 6, and its actually NO SCAN because all have 75-80 energy.
Oh and if your main and natural start getting mined out, it is even more stressfull to manually change muling to non-autocast and use them on the additional bases. And that hits right in a phase of the game, where you have to watch your army 99% of the time. with the idead that you should take bases quicker that feels kind of strange. Chronoboost has the same strange feel in using.
Yep the game feels about 10 Times quicker and more stressfull. But that is because of the 12 Worker start. Its basicly starting in midgame with overmins to spent. Reducing the start worker count (like 10 or even 8) would give the game a slightly less stressing feel all over (i guess)
It’s not uncommon to see the first 6-15 units out of the gateway be adepts. The zealot is all but dead until charge because of the adept while stalkers see almost no use early on.
Stalkers are kinda bad units, especially without blink and against light targets. It's unsurprising that people are not building them - we have been FORCED to build stalkers for the last 5 years of the game because all 3 races have early game units that zealots can't deal with, it was just build stalkers or die. The dominance of the adept there is due to the weakness of the stalker as well as the strength of the adept in low numbers
Surprised that you like chronoboost, it takes more actions to use effectively than the previous WOL+HOTS chrono boost especially when you have 3+ nexii. You have to move it less often but you need to do a really awkward dance of moving the camera to your fourth base, selecting that individual nexus, moving the camera to your main, hitting C and then clicking the building - then repeat that for nexus 3, 2 and 1.
The new chronoboost is really easy to use on 1 nexus and then becomes a trainwreck on 3-5 (having to individually move each chrono boost and remember which nexus is chrono boosting what unless you want to re-do every single one of them to chrono 1-2 new buildings), while the old chrono boost was moderately difficult to manage on 1 nexus and then became easy on 3-5 (as you had a ton of energy)
Oh and if your main and natural start getting mined out, it is even more stressfull to manually change muling to non-autocast and use them on the additional bases.
Your main and nat will be mining out anyway so if you're gonna drop mules at third you should be manually casting it there as soon as you have a CC at the third
With the version currently in the beta, chronoboost is cast by the Nexus closest to the target, and there are suggestions to change that to other methods. One thing we’re noticing here is there’s really no ideal way to handle how we move the Chrono Boosts around - no matter which rule set we go with, we haven’t found a way to always guarantee an optimal use case. Therefore, we believe it’s best to just increase the cooldown of the ability so that it’s easier to not make a mistake in terms of the same Nexus recasting Chronoboost on multiple things in quick succession.
One other thing to note here is that one of our core design values in StarCraft II is to only make changes that are significant improvements. The reason is that if something is only a slight improvement to an existing thing, we don’t believe it warrants players having to relearn that mechanic. Therefore, for Protoss, it’ll be a question of exactly how much of an improvement this new version would be versus the old one.
I really like the new chrono boost. It feels more intuitive and obvious in its functionality and result. It’s also easier for new players to use which is a plus. I hope that they find a way to leave it as it is as this one feels like a definite improvement over the HoTS version.
I've made a video proposing and analysing blizzards current idea for a soultion (longer cooldown on chrono) with 3 others brought up by the community. Would love to know what you all think:
I wonder if anyone from blizzard lurks the TL forums just for posts like this . I do feel like it'd be awesome. Not surprised that I agree iwth most of qxc's comments...but the mule was/is so much fun!
On September 14 2015 07:31 [PkF] Wire wrote: Thanks, was waiting your next write-up.
Agree that the adept is awfully wrong. All the nerfs qxc proposes are very reasonable and worth studying. The warp prism is going to get the axe at some point also. Maybe some gas cost could do the trick.
The pylon overcharge has to be nerfed in some way. Only being able to cast it on pylons linked to a Nexus or a WG would be a great solution.
The liberator still comes far too early.
I still liked the warpgate change where pylons linked to gateway allowed fast warp and the other slow warp, then the fast warp pylone get a strong overcharge, and the slow warp pylone get a weaker version. It would nerf the warp prism, but it needs to be nerfed. ^^
On September 15 2015 02:55 fireforce7 wrote: I wonder if anyone from blizzard lurks the TL forums just for posts like this . I do feel like it'd be awesome. Not surprised that I agree iwth most of qxc's comments...but the mule was/is so much fun!
they have to be in touch with qxc, he's one of the guys that's truly committed to the beta and in an awesome and thoughtful way
On September 14 2015 22:49 DinoMight wrote: This new chrono boost is a disaster.
Honestly HotS was fine.
agree, it was a mechanic with depth, just like MULE (injects have no depth though). Just tone the interesting mechanics down, don't remove them altogether.
Disagree with basically everything QXC says about reducing macro, i do not think making SC2 more like WC3/WC4 is a good idea at all. Auto-inject/auto-mule/auto-chrono all are terrible in comparison to the original set of macro mechanics.
Also, like most "progamers" and players i do not think people are understanding the economical impact of Terran not being able to mule further away bases later on in the game. It may seem fine as it is now while people are still learning the beta, but once the game has been out a while you'll all realize Terran orbitals become useless late game with the new bandaid mules, and that Terran needs those mules on far bases late game to keep up with the other two races.
Terran in every single iteration of SC2 - WOL, HOTS, and now LOTV has always been fine early and mid-game. Late game Terran has always been the weakest of all 3 races and with now with having no economy and no scans late game, once the game is played more by more "pros" the game will never be balanced around the terrible automated and diminished macro.
I honestly hope more people encourage blizzard to remove their artificial automation from the game and simply revert macro mechanics back to HOTS so we can all enjoy SC2 again and then they can truely start working on the gameplay balance and unit designs. There's too much math behind why mules/larva inject/chrono all balanced each other out with WOL/HOTS that people don't understand. You cannot just remove thousands of resources from some of the races and ever expect SC2 to be playable again.
Aside from all of this, only thing i agree with that he said are that adepts are absolutely broken. This unit is warhound 2.0, every single game in beta is just Protoss massing this one unit. Why you may ask?
It is overloaded with stats in every category that make no sense, it's basically a fucking super unit at tier 1.
List of adept stats:
-More health than a blink stalker -More shields -More mobility than a blink stalker without an upgrade, on tier 1 tech -Cheaper than a blink stalker -Available earlier than a blink stalker -Has an upgrade to become even tankier than a blink stalker -2 shots marines...even a blink stalker cannot do this.
The unit is absolutely broken and i've said it since the beta started. This unit is so broken to the point out of the entirety of myself playing the beta i have never even seen a Protoss ever make a disruptor more than 3 of my ladder games. (I AM NOT EXAGGERATING). Because there's no need to build any other unit than the one super unit you have + then transitioning into your second super OP unit, the carrier.
I hope they honestly nerf hammer the adept because this unit is ruining the beta hardcore.
edit: Last thought for those of you that think auto-injects are OK to be in SC2 (and i do not say this lightly):
There are hacks that existed in WOL/HOTS that were programmed to auto-inject Zerg players' hatcheries automatically. For blizzard to basically program this "cheat" into their game is just that - when you play Zerg with this mechanic you basically feel like you're cheating because that's exactly what it used to be - a cheat. I find it ludicrous that people are OK with this being in SC2 at all. I hope more people get up in arms over it, instead of lying down and not saying a goddamn word about something so important. Also in my opinion, any "progamer" or personality that honestly is advocating for this type of automation that used to be considered a hack/cheat to be put into SC2 should reconsider their stance on this being in SC2, because they are doing a disservice to the community and to the game they love to play.
you'll all realize Terran orbitals become useless late game with the new bandaid mules, and that Terran needs those mules on far bases late game to keep up with the other two races
That is a balance issue, not a design issue
-2 shots marines...even a blink stalker cannot do this.
Of course not, stalkers have some of the worst DPS against light units in the game. Stalker DPS is lower than sentries. You list a ton of upsides against stalkers, some of which are subjective and some not and then leave out all of the downsides.
Why don't you watch huk stream for a bit? He's barely using adepts and getting crushed often by terran god comp (marine marauder medivac ghost liberator midgame). If you didn't notice, liberators are extremely good and EMP takes ~74% of an adepts health so you autolose if playing adept in that situation.
you'll all realize Terran orbitals become useless late game with the new bandaid mules, and that Terran needs those mules on far bases late game to keep up with the other two races
-2 shots marines...even a blink stalker cannot do this.
Of course not, stalkers have some of the worst DPS against light units in the game. Stalker DPS is lower than sentries. You list a ton of upsides against stalkers, some of which are subjective and some not and then leave out all of the downsides
Why don't you watch huk stream for a bit? He's barely using adepts and getting crushed often by terran god comp (marine marauder medivac ghost liberator midgame). If you didn't notice, liberators are extremely good and EMP takes ~74% of an adepts health so you autolose if playing adept in that situation
No, that's a design issue that happens to affect balance. They said they don't want mules to be able to be dropped to far away bases for the "late game mule case" the issue is that late game Terran actually needs that economy from far away bases and it has always been a part of the balance for Terran to get those thousands of resources from mules versus the other two races.
Even now, in early-mid game you cannot mule your third base which is a big deal and people will see i'm absolutely correct. Maybe not right now, months from now people will agree with me as always happens. I'm not some goddamn sage or savant - i just look at the numbers and compare income between the patches and see it is completely screwed up.
People will refuse to look at objective data and claim someone is being biased, instead of realizing Terran is once again still missing thousands of resources worth of minerals once the game reaches mid-late game.
On September 15 2015 09:46 Cyro wrote: so no comment on the terran god comp?
This thread not really about some Terran comp i dun wanna derail it, if you think there's some Terran god comp you should make a TL strategy post about it :D
On September 15 2015 09:46 Cyro wrote: so no comment on the terran god comp?
This thread not really about some Terran comp i dun wanna derail it, if you think there's some Terran god comp you should make a TL strategy post about it :D
The thread's not really about adept balance either, In general i think it should be design discussion, not balance.
Balance aside, the biggest issue with the adept is that it’s so good that protoss players aren’t using other units at all early on. It’s not uncommon to see the first 6-15 units out of the gateway be adepts
I think from a design standpoint, part of the issue here is that stalkers are weak. They require you to take gasses at different timings, they cost more and take longer to build. They're worse at dealing with literally every kind of early attack that you could face in a meta that's all about expanding immediately.
The main reason that protoss built stalkers in HOTS was not because stalkers were good (they're awful against light units of any kind), it was because there was literally no other option and you would die unless you built stalkers against early options from all 3 races. Not having "build a stalker now or die" is a breath of fresh air but people are also seeing that few people actually want to build stalkers.
Even if adept was weaker, people would build them to face zealots, adepts, lings, marines, scv's, hydralisks; to counter cannon rushes and to scout and apply pressure. Why? Because the stalker sucks at those things.
Zealots got a significant buff and adepts are better at those things so stalkers are overshadowed. Charge for zealots is now like adding +2 attack; it's a huge buff.
I think adept being reduced in power a bit in the early game is fair game, though it falls off past the early game and terran midgame compositions can destroy adept-based compositions at the moment due to the strengh of bio support and almost 3/4 of adept HP being shields which is awkward to upgrade and highly vulnerable to EMP.
I don't think that should come with huge design changes to the adept and i think that the strength and use cases for other gateway units should be looked at in-depth before any changes are made.
I think the adept ability is also much worse in some ways than blink for harassment and combat; it can't easily be used to save individual adepts and it cannot bypass walls/cliffs which is where a lot of the blink-abuse comes from. As unit counts rise on both sides the ability becomes worse although it is very strong when there are few units and the high mobility when used to blob and crush small retreating armies is very strong too.
With the version currently in the beta, chronoboost is cast by the Nexus closest to the target, and there are suggestions to change that to other methods. One thing we’re noticing here is there’s really no ideal way to handle how we move the Chrono Boosts around - no matter which rule set we go with, we haven’t found a way to always guarantee an optimal use case. Therefore, we believe it’s best to just increase the cooldown of the ability so that it’s easier to not make a mistake in terms of the same Nexus recasting Chronoboost on multiple things in quick succession.
One other thing to note here is that one of our core design values in StarCraft II is to only make changes that are significant improvements. The reason is that if something is only a slight improvement to an existing thing, we don’t believe it warrants players having to relearn that mechanic. Therefore, for Protoss, it’ll be a question of exactly how much of an improvement this new version would be versus the old one.
I really like the new chrono boost. It feels more intuitive and obvious in its functionality and result. It’s also easier for new players to use which is a plus. I hope that they find a way to leave it as it is as this one feels like a definite improvement over the HoTS version.
I've made a video proposing and analysing blizzards current idea for a soultion (longer cooldown on chrono) with 3 others brought up by the community. Would love to know what you all think:
Very nice video - i feel personally that all solutions are more complicated/annoying than the previous chrono boost implementation.
The core of the issue is that the previous chrono boost became easier to use as you had more nexii - you were just getting more and more energy generation but still just hitting 5-c-click to drop a chrono or 5-c-shift-clickclickclickclickclickclickclick - the management difficulty did not go up when you went to extra nexii. You never had to put the camera anywhere aside from over the building/s that you wanted to chrono.
With all of these implementations, they're very easy to use with little thought on 1 nexus but they're (in my opinion) very clunky and annoying when you have 4 nexii, maybe more expansions coming up or you lose a nexus or two. It's a big pain to manage properly which seemed like the opposite of the design intent.
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The new design also gives quite a lot of passive power without giving the same control over what you want to augment any more; for example keeping a forge chrono'd 100% of the time would research +1 and +2 at a rate of 1.5x of normal. Now the maximum that you can do is 1.2x. The uptime is higher but you can only help 1 building with 1 nexus at a time now and that assistance has to be given over the full duration of the production time - it cannot be saved up and it cannot be dropped in a burst.
Because of that it feels a little bit inconsequential - a full chrono now will cut the build time of your first adept by 4 seconds, while two HOTS-chrono's (which you saved and put on the adept instead of on probes) would allow you to get it out 9 seconds earlier (i converted the times back and forth, hopefully correctly). This contributes to the feeling of fighting with the UI to get relatively minor returns