|
Northern Ireland22486 Posts
On February 20 2024 18:15 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2024 11:09 WombaT wrote:On February 20 2024 07:28 Vindicare605 wrote:On February 20 2024 07:22 WombaT wrote:On February 20 2024 05:44 Vindicare605 wrote:On February 20 2024 04:32 Nebuchad wrote:On February 20 2024 04:10 Vindicare605 wrote:On February 19 2024 21:36 Nebuchad wrote:On February 19 2024 20:39 AxiomB wrote:On February 19 2024 10:26 Vindicare605 wrote:
[quote]
This is a bunch of bullshit without context though.
There were 8 Protoss at IEM Katowice.
Astrea, Skillous, Showtime, Trigger, herO, Stats, Firefly and Cyan.
Let's look at how each of them did individually.
Trigger went 3-9 in Group A. He lost to HeroMarine, Solar, Gumiho, Scarlett and beat Spirit. Did Trigger lose to any player in this group that he should have beaten? No.
Stats went 2-10 in Group of Death #1(B) where he took maps off of Cure and Oliveira. Stats had an EXTREMELY difficult group but Stats is also just coming back from the Korean army, so it's not a surprise to anyone that actually watched that he didn't do any better.
Astrea, Firefly and Skillous were all in the same group (C). So realistically all 3 of them could have advanced from this group except there was a problem. SERRAL was in this group. So was Byun who managed to beat all of them. Does anyone realistically think that Serral or Byun should have lost their advancing spot to one of these 3 Protoss? Collectively these 3 Protoss all scored 5 wins a piece (15-21 overall) but most of these wins were in PvP against each other so their win/loss record doesn't matter since they all lost to Serral and Byun. All 3 of these Protoss players defeated the last place finisher of this group Kelazhur who dropped out 1-10 from this group.
Group of Death #2 (D) had herO, Cyan and Showtime in it, but it also had Dark and Maru in it. Maru actually dropped a series here to Cyan in probably the biggest upset in the tournament, but went nearly undefeated (dropping 1 map to herO) against everyone else so it didn't matter. Just like group C. The win/loss of the Protoss in this group, doesn't really matter since most of the matches they played were against each other. But even still Protoss did manage to knock out Reynor in this group with Showtime playing better than I've seen of him in years. But it wasn't enough when he was probably the 5th weakest player in this group when he would have been the third strongest player in Group C or the 4th strongest player in Group A.
Had Katowice spread the Protoss out more evenly so that instead of there being 6 Protoss in Groups C and D only 2 in A or B there would have been more opportunities for Protoss to upset weaker Zergs and Terrans to claim more spots in the final rounds. But unfortunately due to the retarded groupings that we ended up with, 6/8 Protoss players got put in the same groups as 3/4 of our final 4 players with only Cure being the exception. Now you could make the argument that having 6/8 Protoss in the same 2 groups increased the likelihood that we'd have SOME Protoss in the Ro12 instead of none, and maybe there's some truth to that, but it also all but guaranteed that we'd get Protoss players eliminating each other in PvP games instead of actually seeing matches that would showcase balance issues.
As lopsided as the overall stats are, it doesn't take much effort at all to see WHY it happened and why it doesn't have anything to do with balance. Protoss was NEVER going to do well at Katowice. The result we got was actually pretty good all things considered.
I'm not saying that there isn't a balance problem. There obviously is, but trying to use Katowice as some kind of evidence to support that Protoss is struggling is invalid. Having watched the entire tournament, I can easily easily say that the reason Protoss got its ass kicked at this tournament wasn't because of balance. It was because they had much weaker players in unfairly stacked groups. A balance patch wouldn't have done anything here to change the result.
This is a fair post to recognise the few P players in the round of 12. Well put. I propose the Katowice results are not black and white evidence but the cherry on top of the cumulative evidence that P needs a tiny tiny buff at the elite level. Every time you say things like "Does anyone think that X should have lost to Y", it is a reflexion of what happened in the past. You think that Serral and Byun should easily beat the protosses that they play because you have watched Serral and Byun play before and they were beating the protosses that they played. It is an argument that stems from balance, it's not separated from it. Oh come off of it. Do you really think that Skillous would have stood any better of a chance against Dark if Disruptors and Shield Overcharge was unnerfed? Do you think it would have made a lick of difference if Serral couldn't abduct Motherships with Vipers like this thread keeps talking about? Do you really think these Protoss would have beaten him otherwise? This is what I meant when I said a few pages back, about what it's going to take for the Protoss crying to stop. You guys want to completely ignore the OBVIOUS lack of high quality Protoss players compared to what Terran and Zerg have, and want to just buff Protoss so much that guys with no career accomplishments can hang with the GOATS of Starcraft 2 just for the sake of it. If that's what you want just come out and say that's what you want. You want to rig the game so that Protoss wins and you don't care if you break the game's balance to do it. Stop it with this disingenous argument that Protoss is losing these tournaments because their players with no career accomplishments never had any because the race is always imbalanced. What I want is for Stormgate to be a better game than Starcraft 2, and for the majority of players to switch (especially protoss players). Then I want to see people who currently play protoss beat other players that are oBviOuSly mOre dEseRviNg than them because they play in another race setup, and I want to see you or people like you explain why these people suddenly got more skillful. I think I'm going to have a fun time reading that. You're hopeless man. If this is actually what you consider logic, then there's no point in trying to discuss anything with you on this topic. The games are DIFFERENT. TOO DIFFERENT for you to EVER try and make comparisons between skill levels of the players involved. It's like saying that if Lebron James switched to Soccer he'd be the best player in the game there, or vice versa because both games involve putting a ball in a net. We had the Brood War pros swap over to SC2, and guess what? The goats of SC2 are all players that never played Brood War professionally. Want to know why that is? Because Brood War and SC2 are DIFFERENT games. Stormgate and SC2 are DIFFERENT games. Hate to be that guy (ok no, I secretly love it), but quite a lot of the GOAT candidates for various races were all BW pros. Be it ones yet to break out when the switch happened, promising players who hadn’t fulfilled their potential, or merely solid A-teamers. Of course, they are indeed different games with different skillsets. But the one thing you can rule out in SC2 to explain Protoss’ woes is a lack of mechanical chops. Rain, Stats, Classic were all solid BW pros getting match time. I will add the important caveat that this is specific to folks saying those players don’t have the mechanics, I’m not saying that being good at BW should make you great at SC2. Raw mechanics is part of the skillset, it’s far from the only skill in such a complex game, I think it’s observably a combination that Protoss doesn’t scale well versus the other races with raw mechanics, as well as gradually having chapter after chapter excised from the Protoss book of bullshit that was somewhat compensatory for that. This dovetails rather neatly with what Neb said about mistakes. There are way more obviously game-crippling mistakes that Toss can make, and part of the reason they’re so crippling is because you can’t make up a deficit easily with raw mechanical outjousting your opponent. With Zerg you can drone hard, make some gambles, hit every inject, have a few runbys to buy time. Terrans can go for broke and micro their little hearts out, drop everywhere and macro like machines. As Toss can’t do these things remotely easily from a deficit in the game state, it’s super obvious what the mistakes they’re making to push them into it. Lose some oracles in a PvZ while doing very little damage? Things are already looking very rough. Trying to pressure, or even worse, anll-in and lose your reinforcement Prism? Good luck! Get caught on the map in midgame, or out of position for an attack and you might already have sustained too much damage. This is far from saying other races are all that forgiving of mistakes either, it’s just a brutal, cutthroat game overall. They just don’t have the combination Toss does where they have to take risks with one, or a couple of hyper-specialised units that if they lose them it can be ruinous. Wombat you know already how I'm going to respond to this. THEN LETS FIX THE ACTUAL FUCKING PROBLEMS WITH PROTOSS THEN! Stop fucking around with unit tweaks and numbers balancing when the core problem with the race is in its fundamental design. I've been saying that for 11 years! Either accept that Protoss is broken at a fundamental design level (which requires overhauling the entire race to fix) or accept that Protoss in its current state is not going to consistently win unless they get blatantly favored balance changes that artificially inflate their winrate to a point where lower tier Protoss players can beat SC2 GOATS. I said this several pages ago that this is where we are, and the same conclusion is the same as its ever been. This isn't a problem you're going to fix with a balance patch.You're either going to replace the problem with another one, or you're going to make small changes that don't change much in the grand scheme of things. Especially as there’s really nobody coming up, if Protoss don’t achieve a better state while the aforementioned guys are still active, they’ll be extinct when they’re not. Which is all the more reason why a redesign should be done sooner rather than later. We have 13 almost 14 years of hard evidence to look at for why Protoss design in Starcraft 2 doesn't work. We could have another 13 or 14 years of trying to balance around this fundamental design problem and we still won't come up with an answer.
Aye, unfortunately Blizzard hold the keys to the kingdom 
God knows it would be an unholy shitshow to get parsed and implemented, but I’ve definitely heard tons of great critique on Protoss core design over the years, and enough good suggestions from enough people that the raw material does exist to radically change fix Protoss. Hell I may even have had at least one sensible idea!
The daed game may be too alive to drag folks away from stock SC2, with a still appreciable pro scene going, but perhaps one day it would be doable.
But unless Blizzard open it up so modded versions of the game can implement other necessary things, like a 3rd party ladder, I dunno how you’d ever give such a project legs.
Even now, I’d be more enthused to return to active competitive RTS play if Protoss’ core design wasn’t so fucking atrocious.
|
On February 20 2024 22:42 ejozl wrote:
What do people actually mean with redesign?, Protoss received plenty of redesigns, more than the other two races and I think it made the race the coolest. That was until the tools started to get tuned down because of Terran+Zerg bias.
Protoss needs Warp Gate tech taken off of the Cybernetics Core and reworked to be a late game mechanic. They've needed this since WoL. Until this happens, Protoss Gateway units will never be as cost efficient as Zerg and Terran early and midgame units, because if they were Warp Gate all ins would be too powerful.
So. Protoss has since WoL been designed around Gateway combat units like Zealots and Stalkers being cost inefficient units that require support units from the Robotics Facility (or even things like Sentries) to be with them in order to be able to fight at later stages of the game.
This interdependence of Protoss units needing slow and immobile support units leads to Protoss Deathballs. They are strong in a direct engagement, but are much weaker when forced to split apart and fight in smaller groups. This dynamic has ALWAYS existed with Protoss, but when the game's meta got spread out and more and more emphasis was put on smaller skirmishes and map control with the LOTV Economy changes it became more and more of a problem which brings us to where we are today.
If you look back at some of the posts that Wombat has made about how Protoss gets punished a lot more heavily for making mistakes, when key units get picked off or are out of position. This is why.
Protoss design, neccessitates that Protoss army compositions be together and in certain ratios in order to be effective. They can't just mass up a large number of low cost units and strike over and over again the way Zerg and Terran can because their army roster isn't designed to work like that past the early game. That's all because of the way Warp Gate works.
Protoss air compositions aren't any better since aside from the Phoenix and Carrier none of their air units have any real tactical flexibility. The Oracle, Void Ray, Tempest and Mothership all have VERY specific uses and require being in carefully mixed unit compositions to be effective. Basically they don't work if they are not in a big deathball. Phoenixes are great but they are harrassment tools mainly that have finite situations they are useful in just like Mutalisks and Banshees are.
So what Protoss needs, is a fundamental redesign of how its army roster operates. Gateway units need to be able to more robust and tactically flexible at all stages of the game. In order for that to happen Warp Gate needs to be removed from the early game. It can still be available in the game but not in the early game. Once Gateway units are adjusted this way, it opens up the possibility of changing Protoss Support units since they are now no longer needed to be used as the primary backbone of Protoss ground armies in the mid and late game.
One of the big changes I'd push for just as an example is I'd move the Immortal to the Gateway from the Robotics Facility, (which is where it originally was just btw) but require a Robotics Facility to be built in order to train them. This is something you could NEVER do with the way Warp Gate works now since warping in Immortals in the midgame would be way too strong. But if Warp Gate wasn't a factor in those early game situations, I don't see why you couldn't train Immortals from Gateways in the normal way which frees up Robotics facilities for more Observers and Warp Prism use.
Once Warp Gate is no longer the big ball and chain mechanic that Protoss is designed and balanced around, the possibilities for what you could do to improve them for the modern meta game are vast.
|
Northern Ireland22486 Posts
On February 20 2024 22:42 ejozl wrote:
What do people actually mean with redesign?, Protoss received plenty of redesigns, more than the other two races and I think it made the race the coolest. That was until the tools started to get tuned down because of Terran+Zerg bias.
Their absolute core design is an issue, it’s something of a 1-2 punch.
1. Warpgate from close to the beginning of a game negates reinforcement distance, and this has always caused issues. Gateway units have to be nerfed compare to their counterpart stock units because WG rushes would be unstoppable otherwise.
2. As gateway units kinda suck, Protoss absolutely requires potent AoE. Which has seen them fluctuate over the years, at times maybe being too potent in turtling to enough AoE and sending out the deathball, in other times where strats and metas develop that Toss just can’t get enough reliable AoE out, they’re extremely fragile. We’re in the latter phase currently IMO, least in PvT. For periods of WoL/HoTS Toss was also super reliant on forcefields and chokes to survive certain periods, as gateway units would get mashed.
3. As the games have got faster, in HoTS with new units and offensive options, and in Legacy where the eco ramps up faster, gateway units sucking becomes even more noticeable. Protoss either just straight-up can’t hold certain pushes when they’re still largely on gateway units, or they struggle to defend multiple positions while in that game state. So you see Mothership core added as a bandaid, pylon cannons, battery overcharge and other IMao just unsatisfying mechanics being added. But without those Protoss just outright dies. You end up in a scenario where if batteries are too strong, or too weak Protoss itself can fluctuate between too strong, and pitifully weak. Again, current PvT I believe the primary issue is that batteries are too weak, and Protoss continually die to pushes, or drops when trying to secure their 3rd and before they have too much tech out.
So that’s (generally) what people are talking about with Protoss’ core design being flawed.
It’s not all bad, one of the frustrations I have is that Toss has some of the best-designed units in the game, with character, good strength/weakness balance and some interesting and also fun abilities.
Phoenixes - Genuinely my favourite unit in SC2, outside of Phoenix war metas. One of the only harassment units in the game you have to control to do damage with, outside of sniping overlords, where you can just sorta leave them there. They have lots of utility, they can lift critical units in an engagement, like a siege tank or a sentry with Guardian Shield, they’re good defensively in stopping them at source, or lifting widow mines. You can drag mines and you can even save high-value units of your own if your opponent is lacking anti air.
Oracles - IMO one of the most fun spellcasters in the game. They’re also one of the few who are better outside of direct engagements, with the occasional exception you actively want them flying around, zapping the odd worker or stasising a mineral line. If defences are tight, you want them giving you the indirect map control of stasis traps, or poking around and tagging army and tech if you can. That’s cool to me, most other casters have at least some harassment potential, but are optimally used when part of a big fight, not so Oracles.
(Blink) Stalkers - Gotta love my teleporting robot spiders. I like how they have a niche in circumventing terrain, one that may require another unit to spot. I also like how they scale, because they have very clear strengths and weaknesses and they end up shifting roles as a game progresses. They’re potent enough to poke a Terran or Zerg, and sometimes just go full all-in, but equally when damage starts scaling against you, no amount of saves from blink micro can win a fight. They’re speedy enough that with the addition of blink they can give you map presence, but they’re not fast enough to outrun lings or stimmed bio even with a blink, so you have to be careful not to overextend. They gradually morph into a shielding force/hit squad on high value units when you get to later game where their low DPS doesn’t scale. Blink micro is just outright some of the most fun micro in the game, what the pros do is crazy and also, it absolutely requires your attention at all times too, which is an element I like and share with my love of the Phoenix.
This is very much the pity, I do genuinely think Protoss has some of the best designed units in the game, but they sit on top of a flawed foundation.
I will also add that I know people love the splitting and stutter-step shenanigans, and I too find bio micro exceptionally satisfying. At a core design level I also feel giving Terran a 3 unit MMM combo that has huge DPS, is insanely microable, mobile and the medivac negates the risk/reward of stim to some degree, was a mistake.
Protoss are so reliant on AoE because they can’t do shit against bio with their core, way, way less microable units. Zergs need something like banes because balled MMM just utterly shreds lings.
I’ve lived both sides of the coin, my MMR was pretty equivalent with both T and P, my best matchups PvT and TvP. With Terran you have those times where you just fucking melt to Colossus/storm and latterly disruptors and . But anyone who’s played Toss to like any level at all has had times where you’re caught and a Terran just melts your army, or you’re trying to pursue and your opponent kites you effectively infinitely and there is absolutely shit all you can do about it except hope your opponent forgets how to stutter-step.
I will die on this hill that Terran bio is also a core issue with the balance of the game, or at least the fun/design aspect of it. If you effectively make one race incredibly microable and glass cannons, you have to give the other factions strong 1A options because they cannot overcome your basic units with their own units micro ceiling.
|
On February 20 2024 23:42 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2024 22:42 ejozl wrote:
What do people actually mean with redesign?, Protoss received plenty of redesigns, more than the other two races and I think it made the race the coolest. That was until the tools started to get tuned down because of Terran+Zerg bias. I will die on this hill that Terran bio is also a core issue with the balance of the game, or at least the fun/design aspect of it. If you effectively make one race incredibly microable and glass cannons, you have to give the other factions strong 1A options because they cannot overcome your basic units with their own units micro ceiling.
I agree with you, but this isn't an easy issue to fix.
First of all Zerg, has an easy 1A answer to Bio that absolutely SLAUGHTERS it if they are not micro'd in the Baneling. If you think that Terran Bio is a gameplay issue, then I'd counter that the Baneling is as big of one if not bigger.
The other problem is that Zerg and Protoss are able to rapidly reinforce their forces so quickly, that Terran is put in a situation where its armies HAVE to be able to trade cost efficiently, because if they can't they will die and then be out produced via the Larva or wait a second... WARP GATE mechanics drowning them in units.
So IMO one of the side effects of redesigning Warp Gate is that you are able to allow Protoss Gateway units to actually be strong 1A counters to Terran Bio (or at least a lot more so than they are right now) because if Protoss doesn't have the ability to instantly replace and reinforce in one click any unit it loses in an even trade with a Terran army, Terran isn't in such a position where they NEED such cost efficient trades to stay even.
|
Protoss has needed help for a while but hopefully we can also get away from giant maps where all the bases are wrapped around the edges (mapmakers tried to make it seem like maps aren't as big anymore but then there's nothing but empty space in the middle so they still feel massive...).
Also Terran clicks medi/lib/BC around edge of map to avoid vision already anyway, guess where 99% of possible expansions this season are... (some maps still give a triangle 3rd or a half base gold in the middle. there are practically 0 other full bases that aren't touching the edge of the map in some way).
We just need smaller maps. That's really it. And by smaller I don't mean main to main rush distance, I mean having bases IN the map, not just around the map. When protoss recalls, they are almost guarenteed to be going as far away from the place they want to attack as possible, since expanding often mirrors two players and when you're going around the edge of the map... anyway it's not that hard to see if you're willing to have a good-faith discussion about it. That's not even counting the very large number of players who hate getting cheesed by Protoss that don't think they deserve anything just because of their own ladder games.
|
Disclaimer: Rarely play Sc2 anymore - when I do I play protoss. I am however a long time viewer with a wish for a balanced game and somewhat equal representation of all three races.
Having witnessed yet another premier with Protoss getting demolished I find it difficult to have faith in this issue ever being solved. 5 years of underperformance culminating in a 2023 with 0 premier wins and 1 second place finish and a balance council who clearly have not been able to find the solutions.
On the good side it seems most people at least finally agree there is an issue (although there still seem to be a fair share of "Just player material" - "Toss fine on lower levels" - "If only MaxPax.." sort of comments). Yes, player material is at its worst state ever and noone has an interest in skewing balance so that 2nd tier players can beat Serral....but something really needs to be done.
It's fun to chat about a complete redesign of the race but clearly it's never going to happen, so I agree that map design, reverse some nerfs and looking into the robo dependance would be a great way to go - rather sooner than later. I love a good TvZ and its intensity but when every tournament comes down to endless waves of banelings rolling into a terran base it's kind of grueling from a viewers perspective
|
On February 20 2024 23:03 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2024 22:42 ejozl wrote:
What do people actually mean with redesign?, Protoss received plenty of redesigns, more than the other two races and I think it made the race the coolest. That was until the tools started to get tuned down because of Terran+Zerg bias. Protoss needs Warp Gate tech taken off of the Cybernetics Core and reworked to be a late game mechanic. They've needed this since WoL. Until this happens, Protoss Gateway units will never be as cost efficient as Zerg and Terran early and midgame units, because if they were Warp Gate all ins would be too powerful. So. Protoss has since WoL been designed around Gateway combat units like Zealots and Stalkers being cost inefficient units that require support units from the Robotics Facility (or even things like Sentries) to be with them in order to be able to fight at later stages of the game. This interdependence of Protoss units needing slow and immobile support units leads to Protoss Deathballs. They are strong in a direct engagement, but are much weaker when forced to split apart and fight in smaller groups. This dynamic has ALWAYS existed with Protoss, but when the game's meta got spread out and more and more emphasis was put on smaller skirmishes and map control with the LOTV Economy changes it became more and more of a problem which brings us to where we are today. If you look back at some of the posts that Wombat has made about how Protoss gets punished a lot more heavily for making mistakes, when key units get picked off or are out of position. This is why. Protoss design, neccessitates that Protoss army compositions be together and in certain ratios in order to be effective. They can't just mass up a large number of low cost units and strike over and over again the way Zerg and Terran can because their army roster isn't designed to work like that past the early game. That's all because of the way Warp Gate works. Protoss air compositions aren't any better since aside from the Phoenix and Carrier none of their air units have any real tactical flexibility. The Oracle, Void Ray, Tempest and Mothership all have VERY specific uses and require being in carefully mixed unit compositions to be effective. Basically they don't work if they are not in a big deathball. Phoenixes are great but they are harrassment tools mainly that have finite situations they are useful in just like Mutalisks and Banshees are. So what Protoss needs, is a fundamental redesign of how its army roster operates. Gateway units need to be able to more robust and tactically flexible at all stages of the game. In order for that to happen Warp Gate needs to be removed from the early game. It can still be available in the game but not in the early game. Once Gateway units are adjusted this way, it opens up the possibility of changing Protoss Support units since they are now no longer needed to be used as the primary backbone of Protoss ground armies in the mid and late game. One of the big changes I'd push for just as an example is I'd move the Immortal to the Gateway from the Robotics Facility, (which is where it originally was just btw) but require a Robotics Facility to be built in order to train them. This is something you could NEVER do with the way Warp Gate works now since warping in Immortals in the midgame would be way too strong. But if Warp Gate wasn't a factor in those early game situations, I don't see why you couldn't train Immortals from Gateways in the normal way which frees up Robotics facilities for more Observers and Warp Prism use. Once Warp Gate is no longer the big ball and chain mechanic that Protoss is designed and balanced around, the possibilities for what you could do to improve them for the modern meta game are vast.
Thank you for this post, I was nodding the whole time reading it.
This is the exact problem statement and the solution that is going around the TL for many years now. Sad that there is no chance now for this to be realized. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened to SC2 if this changes were implemented with LotV.
|
On February 20 2024 23:42 WombaT wrote:
I will die on this hill that Terran bio is also a core issue with the balance of the game, or at least the fun/design aspect of it. If you effectively make one race incredibly microable and glass cannons, you have to give the other factions strong 1A options because they cannot overcome your basic units with their own units micro ceiling. Since more or less day 1, I have been on the hill that Terran bio is too strong from a design perspective. Marauders are very good. I have no idea who thought concussive shell as a passive ability that removed opponents' ability to micro on a very microable unit was a good idea.
But Marines are strong enough that the balance of game is warped around them, and Blizzard contorted themselves into knots to avoid nerfing them*. It's not just the stats, which are already very good. Nobody talks about it anymore, but Marines are one of very few hitscan units. The only other one I can name offhand is the Siege Tank. Neither of them waste any damage on overkill, and Siege Tanks ate multiple nerfs to bring their damage down from 60 to 35 (+15 armored) early in Wings of Liberty. The Marine was never touched.
There is a defunct video from 2010 or so where somebody edited Hydralisks to have the exact same stats as Marines and set balls of Marines and Hydralisks against each other. The only difference was that the Marines were hitscan and the edited Hydralisks had very fast projectiles. The Marines won, and it wasn't even close. IIRC, around 25% of the Marines survived.
To make other ranged units trade approximately evenly with Marines, their stats would need to be inflated beyond what looks like parity on paper to account for the increased efficiency of. The end result is that we're stuck with Zerg and Protoss having massively powerful splash damage that they have no real choice but to rely on to fight Terran Bio with anything approaching cost efficiency.
|
On February 20 2024 06:43 Charoisaur wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2024 05:44 Vindicare605 wrote:On February 20 2024 04:32 Nebuchad wrote:On February 20 2024 04:10 Vindicare605 wrote:On February 19 2024 21:36 Nebuchad wrote:On February 19 2024 20:39 AxiomB wrote:On February 19 2024 10:26 Vindicare605 wrote:On February 18 2024 18:25 AxiomB wrote:
If the results of Protoss players at Katowice:
106 games played by Protoss with only 38 wins
only 2 Protoss in the round of 12
no Protoss past the round of 12
does not influence the balance team to address Protoss, nothing will.
This is a bunch of bullshit without context though. There were 8 Protoss at IEM Katowice. Astrea, Skillous, Showtime, Trigger, herO, Stats, Firefly and Cyan. Let's look at how each of them did individually. Trigger went 3-9 in Group A. He lost to HeroMarine, Solar, Gumiho, Scarlett and beat Spirit. Did Trigger lose to any player in this group that he should have beaten? No. Stats went 2-10 in Group of Death #1(B) where he took maps off of Cure and Oliveira. Stats had an EXTREMELY difficult group but Stats is also just coming back from the Korean army, so it's not a surprise to anyone that actually watched that he didn't do any better. Astrea, Firefly and Skillous were all in the same group (C). So realistically all 3 of them could have advanced from this group except there was a problem. SERRAL was in this group. So was Byun who managed to beat all of them. Does anyone realistically think that Serral or Byun should have lost their advancing spot to one of these 3 Protoss? Collectively these 3 Protoss all scored 5 wins a piece (15-21 overall) but most of these wins were in PvP against each other so their win/loss record doesn't matter since they all lost to Serral and Byun. All 3 of these Protoss players defeated the last place finisher of this group Kelazhur who dropped out 1-10 from this group. Group of Death #2 (D) had herO, Cyan and Showtime in it, but it also had Dark and Maru in it. Maru actually dropped a series here to Cyan in probably the biggest upset in the tournament, but went nearly undefeated (dropping 1 map to herO) against everyone else so it didn't matter. Just like group C. The win/loss of the Protoss in this group, doesn't really matter since most of the matches they played were against each other. But even still Protoss did manage to knock out Reynor in this group with Showtime playing better than I've seen of him in years. But it wasn't enough when he was probably the 5th weakest player in this group when he would have been the third strongest player in Group C or the 4th strongest player in Group A. Had Katowice spread the Protoss out more evenly so that instead of there being 6 Protoss in Groups C and D only 2 in A or B there would have been more opportunities for Protoss to upset weaker Zergs and Terrans to claim more spots in the final rounds. But unfortunately due to the retarded groupings that we ended up with, 6/8 Protoss players got put in the same groups as 3/4 of our final 4 players with only Cure being the exception. Now you could make the argument that having 6/8 Protoss in the same 2 groups increased the likelihood that we'd have SOME Protoss in the Ro12 instead of none, and maybe there's some truth to that, but it also all but guaranteed that we'd get Protoss players eliminating each other in PvP games instead of actually seeing matches that would showcase balance issues. As lopsided as the overall stats are, it doesn't take much effort at all to see WHY it happened and why it doesn't have anything to do with balance. Protoss was NEVER going to do well at Katowice. The result we got was actually pretty good all things considered. I'm not saying that there isn't a balance problem. There obviously is, but trying to use Katowice as some kind of evidence to support that Protoss is struggling is invalid. Having watched the entire tournament, I can easily easily say that the reason Protoss got its ass kicked at this tournament wasn't because of balance. It was because they had much weaker players in unfairly stacked groups. A balance patch wouldn't have done anything here to change the result. This is a fair post to recognise the few P players in the round of 12. Well put. I propose the Katowice results are not black and white evidence but the cherry on top of the cumulative evidence that P needs a tiny tiny buff at the elite level. Every time you say things like "Does anyone think that X should have lost to Y", it is a reflexion of what happened in the past. You think that Serral and Byun should easily beat the protosses that they play because you have watched Serral and Byun play before and they were beating the protosses that they played. It is an argument that stems from balance, it's not separated from it. Oh come off of it. Do you really think that Skillous would have stood any better of a chance against Dark if Disruptors and Shield Overcharge was unnerfed? Do you think it would have made a lick of difference if Serral couldn't abduct Motherships with Vipers like this thread keeps talking about? Do you really think these Protoss would have beaten him otherwise? This is what I meant when I said a few pages back, about what it's going to take for the Protoss crying to stop. You guys want to completely ignore the OBVIOUS lack of high quality Protoss players compared to what Terran and Zerg have, and want to just buff Protoss so much that guys with no career accomplishments can hang with the GOATS of Starcraft 2 just for the sake of it. If that's what you want just come out and say that's what you want. You want to rig the game so that Protoss wins and you don't care if you break the game's balance to do it. Stop it with this disingenous argument that Protoss is losing these tournaments because their players with no career accomplishments never had any because the race is always imbalanced. What I want is for Stormgate to be a better game than Starcraft 2, and for the majority of players to switch (especially protoss players). Then I want to see people who currently play protoss beat other players that are oBviOuSly mOre dEseRviNg than them because they play in another race setup, and I want to see you or people like you explain why these people suddenly got more skillful. I think I'm going to have a fun time reading that. You're hopeless man. If this is actually what you consider logic, then there's no point in trying to discuss anything with you on this topic. The games are DIFFERENT. TOO DIFFERENT for you to EVER try and make comparisons between skill levels of the players involved. It's like saying that if Lebron James switched to Soccer he'd be the best player in the game there, or vice versa because both games involve putting a ball in a net. We had the Brood War pros swap over to SC2, and guess what? The goats of SC2 are all players that never played Brood War professionally. Want to know why that is? Because Brood War and SC2 are DIFFERENT games. Stormgate and SC2 are DIFFERENT games. Playing Protoss and playing Zerg is also completely DIFFERENT so I wonder how you can so objectively determine that the Protoss players are so much less skilled
The only objectiv reason I can come up with is that there is no particular Protoss ahead of the pack. It's just the pack.
Serral is objectively the best Zerg atm. Nobody can argue that. Same with Maru. Both are head and shoulders above the rest.
Protoss got herO who is probably the best by the smallest of margins
|
I recognize that any buff to Protoss must suit at least the following 3 conditions:
1) It cannot exacerbate the state of Protoss being played predominantly on ladder, ie it cannot be a buff that can be exploited by the majority of the player base, I would argue it should therefore only be a buff that can be effectively utilized by elite players.
2) It cannot drastically affect PvT and PvZ winrates. There is some evidence to suggest that PvZ is currently slightly P favored at the moment anyway, that said, I would suggest any buff to P should only increase win rates by P ever so slightly against T and Z, maby only a 2% winrate increase.
3) Given the highly detailed description of the issues P face outlined by others above, particularly against T it has to be a gateway unit that goes a tiny way to mitigating the issues P has relying so heavily on splash.
With this in mind I came up with a buff to charge that may suit the above.
Make Zealot Charge give same running speed (charge not activated) at present and an activated ability that once activated increases Zealot speed to current charge speed for 1.5 seconds (at present Charge is a passive ability), same cool down at present (7 seconds). Naturally numbers could be adjusted to make reasonable.
Suits Category 1: to effectively use Zealots with charge as an activated ability, a player would need a higher apm to stagger charging zealots in groups (less derping, less wasted charge movement, more effective connects, charging to retreat would also become an option). This ‘buff’ would actually tax many average P players to use effectively to leverage an advantage.
Suits Category 2: As the numbers are basically the same as at present this change would only affect when Zealots charge and how (away or towards). It is a tiny buff that I cannot see radically changing PvT or PvZ but it may just be enough to give elite players a little more control over engagements.
Suits Category 3: It is a gateway unit buff that could go small way to addressing gateway unit flimsiness, charging to attack or retreat would make Zealot death rate lower and increase decision making, adding greater control to a unit that is just thrown away atm.
Overall: Whilst I recognize P already have so many spells and activated abilities it is a very slight buff to the Zealot and would be interesting to see how it would play out.
Just an idea, but any change to P must be within these tiny margins. How do you all think about such a buff to the Zealot?
|
Honestly, I've wondered whether we could try to give Protoss level 4 Forge upgrades, including level 4 Shield Upgrades. This would be a blanket buff to all Protoss ground units but would be a buff that would only kick in, in the late game which is the portion of the game where Gateway units currently feel pretty useless. This would be a slight buff also to Skytoss as well, but it would be very slight, and perhaps the level 4 shield upgrades could be expensive enough that it would be a large investment to get.
I like this idea for a few reasons.
#1 it buffs Protoss late game without buffing Skytoss as much. No one likes mass Carrier metas, and we don't want to see that be the encouraged way to play if we are buffing Protoss late game.
#2 the knobs on this buff are VERY tweakable. If the upgrades turn out to be too strong, we can make them cost more and take longer to research to compensate for how strong they are. If they turn out to be not that strong, we can make them less expensive.
#3. This sort of buff DOES NOT buff Protoss in the portions of the game where they are at their strongest.
#4. This buff would not affect the one problematic late game ground unit for Protoss in the Disruptor since as far as I know Purification Nova doesn't benefit from upgrades.
#5. This buff wouldn't change any of the interactions between the different spell casters, it might even encourage more spellcaster use from opponents in order to counter it.
This is an idea that would require thorough testing on the PTR to see how it works. But it's the only idea I personally can come up with of a way to buff Protoss in what I consider a meaningful way without upsetting the balance of the metagame in ways that we don't want. This wouldn't solve the problems Protoss has in the early or midgame, and I don't really have good answers for how to solve those besides adjusting the maps. But it would address what I think is the biggest weakness in Protoss design right now which is how badly their ground units scale late into a game.
|
I don't think the balance is currently as bad as people are making it out to be, it's been years since the game has been this good. The main thing that's currently needed is a slight nerf to terran in TvP, and then the game would be in a decent state.
|
On February 21 2024 21:10 Nebuchad wrote:
I don't think the balance is currently as bad as people are making it out to be, it's been years since the game has been this good. The main thing that's currently needed is a slight nerf to terran in TvP, and then the game would be in a decent state.
Define slight? Nerfing Ghosts wouldn't help Protoss defend against the various timing pushes that keep killing them because Terran doesn't use Ghosts in timing attacks.
What else would you nerf that wouldn't upset the balance in TvZ? It's not like Zerg needs any help right now.
|
On February 21 2024 21:12 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 21:10 Nebuchad wrote:
I don't think the balance is currently as bad as people are making it out to be, it's been years since the game has been this good. The main thing that's currently needed is a slight nerf to terran in TvP, and then the game would be in a decent state. Define slight? Nerfing Ghosts wouldn't help Protoss defend against the various timing pushes that keep killing them because Terran doesn't use Ghosts in timing attacks. What else would you nerf that wouldn't upset the balance in TvZ? It's not like Zerg needs any help right now.
I don't know and tbh I don't really care that much anymore. It's just that I'm reading stuff like adding upgrades and while it sounds like a cool idea I don't think that protoss is lagging this far behind.
|
On February 21 2024 20:32 Vindicare605 wrote:
Honestly, I've wondered whether we could try to give Protoss level 4 Forge upgrades, including level 4 Shield Upgrades. This would be a blanket buff to all Protoss ground units but would be a buff that would only kick in, in the late game which is the portion of the game where Gateway units currently feel pretty useless. This would be a slight buff also to Skytoss as well, but it would be very slight, and perhaps the level 4 shield upgrades could be expensive enough that it would be a large investment to get.
I like this idea for a few reasons.
#1 it buffs Protoss late game without buffing Skytoss as much. No one likes mass Carrier metas, and we don't want to see that be the encouraged way to play if we are buffing Protoss late game.
#2 the knobs on this buff are VERY tweakable. If the upgrades turn out to be too strong, we can make them cost more and take longer to research to compensate for how strong they are. If they turn out to be not that strong, we can make them less expensive.
#3. This sort of buff DOES NOT buff Protoss in the portions of the game where they are at their strongest.
#4. This buff would not affect the one problematic late game ground unit for Protoss in the Disruptor since as far as I know Purification Nova doesn't benefit from upgrades.
#5. This buff wouldn't change any of the interactions between the different spell casters, it might even encourage more spellcaster use from opponents in order to counter it.
This is an idea that would require thorough testing on the PTR to see how it works. But it's the only idea I personally can come up with of a way to buff Protoss in what I consider a meaningful way without upsetting the balance of the metagame in ways that we don't want. This wouldn't solve the problems Protoss has in the early or midgame, and I don't really have good answers for how to solve those besides adjusting the maps. But it would address what I think is the biggest weakness in Protoss design right now which is how badly their ground units scale late into a game.
I would be in favor of a level 4 shield upgrade only. I am not sure if it would be enough, perhaps a level 4 shield upgrade and activated charge for zealots? what u think?
|
On February 21 2024 21:19 AxiomB wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 20:32 Vindicare605 wrote:
Honestly, I've wondered whether we could try to give Protoss level 4 Forge upgrades, including level 4 Shield Upgrades. This would be a blanket buff to all Protoss ground units but would be a buff that would only kick in, in the late game which is the portion of the game where Gateway units currently feel pretty useless. This would be a slight buff also to Skytoss as well, but it would be very slight, and perhaps the level 4 shield upgrades could be expensive enough that it would be a large investment to get.
I like this idea for a few reasons.
#1 it buffs Protoss late game without buffing Skytoss as much. No one likes mass Carrier metas, and we don't want to see that be the encouraged way to play if we are buffing Protoss late game.
#2 the knobs on this buff are VERY tweakable. If the upgrades turn out to be too strong, we can make them cost more and take longer to research to compensate for how strong they are. If they turn out to be not that strong, we can make them less expensive.
#3. This sort of buff DOES NOT buff Protoss in the portions of the game where they are at their strongest.
#4. This buff would not affect the one problematic late game ground unit for Protoss in the Disruptor since as far as I know Purification Nova doesn't benefit from upgrades.
#5. This buff wouldn't change any of the interactions between the different spell casters, it might even encourage more spellcaster use from opponents in order to counter it.
This is an idea that would require thorough testing on the PTR to see how it works. But it's the only idea I personally can come up with of a way to buff Protoss in what I consider a meaningful way without upsetting the balance of the metagame in ways that we don't want. This wouldn't solve the problems Protoss has in the early or midgame, and I don't really have good answers for how to solve those besides adjusting the maps. But it would address what I think is the biggest weakness in Protoss design right now which is how badly their ground units scale late into a game. I would be in favor of a level 4 shield upgrade only. I am not sure if it would be enough, perhaps a level 4 shield upgrade and activated charge for zealots? what u think?
I don't like the idea of buffing the Zealot without addressing Warp Gate. If I've learned anything from so many years of following Starcraft it's that any tweaks to the most basic of units are the ones that can have the biggest unintended impacts. I mean just look what happened when Charge had its guaranteed damage roll whenever it activated.
If we reworked Warp Gate like I've been saying forever that they should do, then I'm down to go crazy on ideas for how to buff the Zealot and the Stalker.
|
Give shields +1 when in vicinity of a nexus (thinking tank range, maybe slightly less. 10-12 range)
|
On February 21 2024 21:45 Harris1st wrote:
Give shields +1 when in vicinity of a nexus (thinking tank range, maybe slightly less. 10-12 range)
I like the idea but I'm starting to get the nauseous feeling I get when I look at Queens. We've given the Nexus Recall, Battery Overcharge, Chronoboost and now we want to add a shield radius to it also? When is it too much to just keep stacking all of the defensive power of a race on one unit or in this case building? There's gotta be a better solution.
|
Northern Ireland22486 Posts
On February 21 2024 12:51 Kyadytim wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2024 23:42 WombaT wrote:
I will die on this hill that Terran bio is also a core issue with the balance of the game, or at least the fun/design aspect of it. If you effectively make one race incredibly microable and glass cannons, you have to give the other factions strong 1A options because they cannot overcome your basic units with their own units micro ceiling. Since more or less day 1, I have been on the hill that Terran bio is too strong from a design perspective. Marauders are very good. I have no idea who thought concussive shell as a passive ability that removed opponents' ability to micro on a very microable unit was a good idea. But Marines are strong enough that the balance of game is warped around them, and Blizzard contorted themselves into knots to avoid nerfing them*. It's not just the stats, which are already very good. Nobody talks about it anymore, but Marines are one of very few hitscan units. The only other one I can name offhand is the Siege Tank. Neither of them waste any damage on overkill, and Siege Tanks ate multiple nerfs to bring their damage down from 60 to 35 (+15 armored) early in Wings of Liberty. The Marine was never touched. There is a defunct video from 2010 or so where somebody edited Hydralisks to have the exact same stats as Marines and set balls of Marines and Hydralisks against each other. The only difference was that the Marines were hitscan and the edited Hydralisks had very fast projectiles. The Marines won, and it wasn't even close. IIRC, around 25% of the Marines survived. To make other ranged units trade approximately evenly with Marines, their stats would need to be inflated beyond what looks like parity on paper to account for the increased efficiency of. The end result is that we're stuck with Zerg and Protoss having massively powerful splash damage that they have no real choice but to rely on to fight Terran Bio with anything approaching cost efficiency.
Yeah I hadn’t really thought about that, but yeah that’s a very good point.
Interesting other thoughts and suggestions folks!
|
On February 21 2024 21:18 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 21:12 Vindicare605 wrote:On February 21 2024 21:10 Nebuchad wrote:
I don't think the balance is currently as bad as people are making it out to be, it's been years since the game has been this good. The main thing that's currently needed is a slight nerf to terran in TvP, and then the game would be in a decent state. Define slight? Nerfing Ghosts wouldn't help Protoss defend against the various timing pushes that keep killing them because Terran doesn't use Ghosts in timing attacks. What else would you nerf that wouldn't upset the balance in TvZ? It's not like Zerg needs any help right now. I don't know and tbh I don't really care that much anymore. It's just that I'm reading stuff like adding upgrades and while it sounds like a cool idea I don't think that protoss is lagging this far behind.
Well that's why I like this idea because it's easy to toggle to get just right. If you feel the buff is too crazy, you could go with just level 4 armor or level 4 shield upgrades.
I settled on Forge upgrades because it's the one place I think we can do something meaningful without buffing Protoss in the areas they don't need help.
i like the idea of giving Protoss a buff rather than your suggestion of nerfing Terran because I don't want to upset the balance of TvZ. Whenever I see all of these garbage posts on reddit about nerfing the Ghost or the Widow Mine for the sake of PvT it gets me annoyed because it's as if these guys don't realize that those nerfs would just make TvZ imbalanced in Zerg's favor and Zerg CLEARLY doesn't need the help.
Ultimately there's also the philosophy that I want to encourage Protoss to play more macro games, and fewer games that are dependent on build order wins and timing windows. Maybe, just maybe if Protoss gets a little nudge in the late game something unexpected might happen that breaks open one of the match ups and we can get some actual metagame evolution. I don't think improving Protoss at what they are already good at is going to do anything like that.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
