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A few good suggestions and a lot of bad ones. Game design threads are worth reading right now, balance threads are not. I thought this was going to be a cool thread like Grubby's or Artosis' but a lot of the stuff really does come off as whiny and nonsensical. Like; infested terrans don't make air play useless, you don't have to attack into a mass of them.
What's wrong with shooting them while burrowed? Maybe Zerg should have a stealth harass unit.
Can you imagine if AI targeted infested terran eggs over other units that are in range? That would be awful for toss.
Infested terrans and broodlings would be TRASH vs an upgraded army late game if they didn't benefit from upgrades. Like, literally broodlings would be hitting for 1 damage on 3 armor marines.
I just picked the first four of his horrible suggestions, but almost all of them are pretty absurd. Don't even get me started on putting a timer on when to build the spawning pool. I almost stopped reading right there, and I wish I had. I even agree that some of these things are problems, but there are way WAY more intelligent ways of fixing them. Ways that actually make sense.
I agree that infestors are too good. Spine/infestor turtle is horrible to play and to spectate, and mothership/vortex is bad for the game.
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Totally agree that mothership needs to be removed
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On October 20 2012 02:54 YourAdHere wrote: Totally agree that mothership needs to be removed
Good luck winning ANY PvZ late game without the mothership, not saying it should be in the game but with the current balance Z will always win after 20 minutes of game time
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The main thing I got out of this thread is that reading comprehension should be classified a super power - it's that rare.
Our new hero will be Reading Comprehension Man who solves mysteries by finding information in written text and actually understanding it!
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On October 20 2012 02:57 arcHoniC wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 02:54 YourAdHere wrote: Totally agree that mothership needs to be removed Good luck winning ANY PvZ late game without the mothership, not saying it should be in the game but with the current balance Z will always win after 20 minutes of game time
yea, because removing the MS was the ONLY thing that was suggested here...
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Okay you want to theorycraft SaSe let's theorycraft.
On October 19 2012 11:38 SaSe wrote: What does toss do? Nothing.
Nothing? How about warp gates? Warp in mechanics, where there can be 15 zealots in my main in a matter of seconds? Do you not understand the concept of 'being out of position'? Sure I can make a ton of spines at every base but it takes A LOT of god damn spine crawlers to stop zealots with good upgrades, at every base (I need 5 gas miners to support late game armies, otherwise its just an all in push). If Zerg has the money to do that at every bases and their front line...you got out-macroed hard and deserve to lose. Infestors are slow, Broodlords are slow, lings tickle zealots, and I don't have enough food for anything else because I need a Queens (lots of food) only to macro and spread creep.
I'm sure you know this being a progamer and all, but warp in removes defenders advantage, a core mechanic of any RTS games. Force field gives you a defensive advantage (also offensive) because you can position yourself as you wish when you are defending. So essentially protoss negates the defenders advantage through warp in and gains a (extra) defensive advantage with force field and just decent positioning. Of course your gateway units have to be weaker. Of course Zerg needs movable defenses. So imagine ANY warp gate push, there's at least too attack locations. Zerg is going to be behind if they cover both (sometimes more) areas with spines and makes enough units to hold. If it was the case protoss could just walk back and take no damage. Then imagine with recall. At any moment (well, 100 energy) you can walk across the map, force a ton of units, use up your forcefield energy and kill a bunch of shit, then recall. It's like an immortal all in, except not all in. How is this going to be balanced, I have no idea.
I'm going off into tangents a bit but my point is that instead of complaining about balance, complain about design. Protoss works in a certain way right now where sure, you can die to a lot of things, but there's also a ton of things you can do to Zerg that can just kill him. Furthermore, after the early game all ins (which you beat by good scouting, let's be serious) Zerg has no way to be aggressive if you haven't fallen behind (ie have collosus or HT by the time they have infestor) so they need to tech to Broodlords. Any Zerg push before that will be all in. If you defend any Zerg attack with minimal damage, a collosus push will win you the game. Meanwhile Protoss has a bunch of aggressive options, granted somewhat all in for certain maps, but not so much for others.
If you give protoss a really good counter to broodlords...you just break the game. Vikings kind of counter broodlords, but Zerg can switch to ultralisk. Against protoss, thats just not doable, every unit beats the ultralisk. Game design makes it that if zerg want to play macro, they have to tech to broodlords, take a bunch of bases which they only defend with mass spines and slowly push across the map. I agree, it's fucking dumb and overpowered, but if it wasn't Zerg wouldn't win.
Sure Protoss has a really hard time against late game Zerg but overall not doing terribly these days. Instead of complaining about balanced, work towards design change because right now there is fine line between Zerg have a late game advantage and Protoss being overpowered.
Now onto your ideas..
*Remove mothership.
Completely agree. Entire games come down to the energy of 1 unit. Protoss can be extremely behind all game and get one good Vortex and win the game decisively. The converse is also true, if you fail to vortex roughly a third of the BL you're never breaking a Zerg. Most likely you're not getting that Vortex though because Zergs are just going to take an hour, pushing slowly to make sure you don't. It's dumb and frustrating for both races.
Remove burrow movement on infestors Hence remove infested terran throwing while burrowed
Interesting idea, but you need to realize how flimsy they are. If they are too easy to snipe, Zerg is going to have a hard time. Understand that the infestor (due to its strenght) is the core of all matchups. Its also keeping TvZ balanced, and it's making ZvZ more than just roach all ins.
Remove upgrades on broodling and infested terrans
It's easy for protoss to say that because your ground upgrades affect all your ground units. Tell me, what do I upgrade as a Zerg? Armor, okay it's good. Range? Melee? Lings are a good mineral dump but countered by your mineral dump. So if I want to play Macro style, I don't get upgrades and double spire or something? Makes me even weaker to all ins, and more likely to all in when Protoss has few upgrades. You need to make upgrading worthwhile for Zerg. It's already not great because your core late game
IMO, making the upgrades less effective on Broodlings and Infested Terrans is better idea.
*Infested terrans in eggs are being ignored if other units are possible to attack, this is an AI bug that needs to be fixed asap.
Sure. Not sure how much that would actually help though. If you have nothing else in range you are attacking eggs...
*Infested terrans can attack air. Makes toss air pretty useless. Could remove this. Again, the infestor isn't only a ZvP unit man, removing this fucks up every other matchup. The infestor is usually the one and only mobile air attacking unit for a long time in ZvZ and ZvT, they need to attack air...
*You can't fungal something that's fungaled. This way stalkers would be able to blink away and not be stuck forever. *Make infestors smaller so it requires more micro vs storm and collosus. *Fungal doesn't reveal dts, yet they hold them in place and deal damage. *Give infestor a HIVE upgrage for moving underground. Now they just need burrow and they get to move for free. *You cant move while being fungled. Alot of people say this is the issue with infestors, I don't really agree, but sure it's annoying.
This is the type of small changes that need to be tested on the infestor. It helps protoss without breaking the core mechanics of the infestor in all matchups. Good ideas.
*Neutral parasite on mothership means game over. Make it impossible to neutral parasite Mothership. But yeah, I rather see the mothership removed.
Honestly it's a retarded concept that you can even neural a mothership. On the other hand its the only use for neural. Remove both for the better IMO.
Creep gives way too much vision, speed is pretty extreme too. But let's focus on the vision. It's way very hard to get a warpprism or a sneaky zealot flank into the zergs exp late game because of the vision creep gives. I would suggest creep tumours have a vision of 2,5 or something. Then zerg would have to pay more attention to what's going on. * Make pylon like a flower, when it's complete you get your supply and psi, but you can't warp in stuff for 10 seconds. * Give pylon the old range. You said it was made shorter to stop 4gate. My suggestion is way better with the flowerpylon. I get attention disorder every lategame I wanna warp in 20 units and the range is not enough. We can't warp at ramps anymore. We can't warp on buildings or units and in Hots we can't warp up ramps either.. if you don't want us to warp stuff just remove warpgate Could also choose to make units which is warping in really small and become bigger during the process it's warping.
This could be a good trade off. I wish there was a delay on the prism too. With speed you can't catch it with corruptors (your only air attacking unit) so you just got to kill the units it spawns. But in the late game you have no mobile food capable of dealing with zealots. Your only solution is mass spines but its not that strong either. It they really want a building they'll get it, and it never feels like that much of an investment.
I know ZvP feels shitty right now, but it does for Zerg too, it always had. A lot of protoss just warp in a ton of dts and zealots and do no damage but it never seems to be a big deal. I don't win because they wasted a ton of resources and I don't lose because they did good damage, it's just kind of random and luck based. Zerg figured out that the best way to win, aside from wacky all ins, is to go for broodlord and take forever. It's boring for everyone. It's frustrating to play 5000 zerg games, play random in HOTS and win more with protoss than zerg because the macro is so easy and you don't really need to know timings. Then, at the tip top level where Zerg knows every timing and can figure out what a protoss is doing by checking the gases, Protoss can't win. The design is terrible.
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On October 20 2012 03:08 emc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 02:57 arcHoniC wrote:On October 20 2012 02:54 YourAdHere wrote: Totally agree that mothership needs to be removed Good luck winning ANY PvZ late game without the mothership, not saying it should be in the game but with the current balance Z will always win after 20 minutes of game time yea, because removing the MS was the ONLY thing that was suggested here...
read whats in the spoiler, all he said was remove mothership
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On October 20 2012 02:44 DreamTheaterFan wrote: I'm glad some people here mentionned that the issue is not balance, but rather game/race design that makes the matchup boring and anything but dynamic. Sase has some interesting ideas, but our efforts should be focused on breaking the current metagame and find ways to make the matchup more exciting and less reliant on deathballs.
Being aggressive early on would break up the deathball. If you're nonstop fighting with your opponent then it will only become deathball vs deathball if both players are REALLY good and extremely evenly matched. In other words, community maps these days have to go and Blizzard maps need to come back in style.
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lol jeez. People should realize those wishlist will never see the day if its heavily favor one race (or defavor w/e). For example if I take your 15 infestor nerf, you could have said : Make the burrowed mouvement researcheble at Lair but remove the Pathogen Glands research, making the infestor spawn with 75 energy. (I am not saying this would be balance, just saying you cant ask for 15 nerfs without giving a damn thing)
My fav part is the Attack move on Warp rally...lol. Really ? You guys (pro) always bitch that the game become easier and easier but want attack move on a rally ?
To me, attack move rally is the same as asking for smart cast Psi storm when more then 6 units cluster.
One thing I dont get, mothership add randomness to the game and you dont like that, thats fine. Why do you build it then ?
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The spawning pool change is an awful idea, lol. How is it fair to put a time constraint on the very first building you can build as zerg? This is way too biased for toss.
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On October 20 2012 03:40 AnomalySC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2012 02:44 DreamTheaterFan wrote: I'm glad some people here mentionned that the issue is not balance, but rather game/race design that makes the matchup boring and anything but dynamic. Sase has some interesting ideas, but our efforts should be focused on breaking the current metagame and find ways to make the matchup more exciting and less reliant on deathballs. Being aggressive early on would break up the deathball. If you're nonstop fighting with your opponent then it will only become deathball vs deathball if both players are REALLY good and extremely evenly matched. In other words, community maps these days have to go and Blizzard maps need to come back in style.
The community can make maps that encourage aggression also. I don't know why they haven't yet, but Blizzard maps are definitely not the way to go. They have proven that they are completely incompetent at map making. To be honest I think the pvz problems can be fixed with better maps if we want to. Ones where zerg doesn't get an easy third and protoss doesn't get an easy FFE. In any case I wish good map makers would stop making these turtle maps, we've reached the point where they aren't working.
Also, I think OP is a good example of why Blizzard doesn't just balance the game around pro's advice. Although you wouldn't think it, some pros have really terrible ideas for the game.
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Dustin Browder already addressed why they aren't removing the Mothership even though it is extremely gimmicky in how it decides late game PvZ. He said people like to watch excitement, games and big battles coming down to 1 big moment which is what the Mothership provides.
Not saying I agree or that he's right, but that's what the lead designer said about it.
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On October 20 2012 03:47 ChosenSC2 wrote: Dustin Browder already addressed why they aren't removing the Mothership even though it is extremely gimmicky in how it decides late game PvZ. He said people like to watch excitement, games and big battles coming down to 1 big moment which is what the Mothership provides.
Not saying I agree or that he's right, but that's what the lead designer said about it.
Does he really think that? That's not exciting at all it's frustrating, mornic, and bad for game play. Holy shit the creator of starcraft 2 is an idiot guys. Turns out we are doomed after all.
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There have been many posts from community members lately, some have been good some were just silly whine posts.
This is a silly whine post.
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I'm actually a huge fan of the 6m and 7m map concepts, I think that the game should be balanced more about taking bases and pressuring bases. I think requiring more bases for the same mineral amount would make spines a heafty investment. Sure you could mass a bunch, but having them where the opponent attacks can be challenging.
I already have issues when protoss does tricky stuff that my spines weren't setup for. Sase plays at a level much higher then me, but I suspect warp prism and warp prism hallucinations could go a long ways to throwing spine/spore zergs off their game. Warp prism hallucinations are the biggest mind game in SC2. Knowing how many units are needed to respond to a warp prism is a challenge as it changes based on the amount of warpgates and type of units protoss is warping in.
I do agree that infested terrans are too cheap. The fact that a spellcaster worth 2 supply can throw down 8 supply worth of marines doesn't sit right with me. Yes it's possible to run away, but the sitation zerg players use these in tend to be when they are pressuring protoss bases, or when they are already landing fungles and the army can't move. I think something along the lines of 50 energy with a bit longer spawn time and movement speed of a thor would be a better option.
While I value your opinion Sase, it seems your post was a rant of frustration after a long days work. If you would like it to be posted to the b.net forums it can be done, but it may come across smoother if you reformat it with a cooler head.
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4713 Posts
Its kind of disgusting that in all the threads I read regarding game design with pro-players coming forth to speak their thoughts, the threads instantly fill replays from people that just don't understand the main problem, bash the OP, or don't contribute to the discussion at all.
I for one agree with Sase, while the game might (and I use this word very carefully) be balanced, but design wise the game is in a deplorable state, a lot of times its very predictable and boring and there are many, ways in which it feels unfair for once race or another in some way or another, regardless of balance.
Design wise, 0 supply armies like the kinds that BLs and Infestors can create are indeed broken, it leads to weird and exploitable situations, and it can feel very cheep and unfair if you are fighting against it.
Static defenses not being static and being used as part of an army is also broken, its one of the main reasons static defenses in other games have received so many nerfs/limitations, so you can't slow push with them, without the other guy having any say on it.
Hero units in a game like SC2 are broken, it leads to weird stalemate situations like you have in today's PvZ where the outcome of an entire 30 minute game can be decided in a fraction of a second by either how the vortex went or if the MS was neuraled.
Lastly it is very stupid design wise for a unit to be as strong and as versatile as infestors are. They are literally used in every composition, at nearly all stages of mid and late game and against every race against any and every composition. This is supposed to be a game of strategy and choice, you not only have a choice of where and how you fight, but what you fight with, and infestors taking up 90% of the choices limits strategies and new builds.
Yes, SC2 is a brilliant game in many regards, but it also has some gaping flaws and design issues that have been here since the beta. When people, especially the pro gamers come forth and speak their mind regarding the state of the game, people should take the time to listen and digest what they have said.
Most of what SaSe said is true, there are design issues with zerg and toss and it has lead to today's stagnation in the meta-game, stagnation in map making, and stagnation of gameplay in general.
My suggestions/feedback Since I want to contribute to SaSe's post more then just agree, I want to leave my own toughs and analysis on his proposed changes.
Mothership removed. I agree 100%, hero units aren't meant for a game like SC2, however it will break PvZ late game unless some other fundamental problems are addressed regarding the final composition of zerg. So I'll focus on those more, however if MS was to remain in the game, it definitely needs to be immune to neural parasite.
Infestor changes. Their mobility and "stealthiness" is indeed and issue, the only other comparable unit is Ghost, and while they do have cloak, they move much slower then infestors and are also a lot smaller, meaning Aoe can kill more. A reduction in their size and collision size + a nerf to the movement speed both on and off creep could indeed be worth looking into. The alternative of giving infestors burrow movement from Hive is an option, but with more and more zergs opting for faster Hives I'm not sure how much of an impact it will have.
Infestor's anti-air is a major problem and its a major reason why they are so versatile, they can not only lock things in place but can also summon units for no cost to deal damage to air units. I believe that, even if you where to make infested terrans unable to shoot air, fungal hitting and damaging air would still be a major problem. Zergs will still get a large number of infestors to deal with all issues and might add a small number of corrupters into the fold to deal some extra damage while units are pinned by fungal.
I think fungal would be better off if it was re-worked into a slow that does no damage. This + IT nerf would force zerg to get more anti-air into their compositions and it might detract enough supply away from BLs and Inferstors that it could make ZvP late game manageable without a Mothership. It could also make infestors have diminishing returns.
At the moment Infestors don't have diminishing returns like Ghosts or HT. HT, if you make too many at some point they become harder to manage and easier to clump and it, and not all of them do damage at the same time because storm is damage over time. Ghost, while good for EMP, aren't that good DPS and their movement speed and attack speed is pitiful compared to marines and marauders, to the point where having to many may come back to hurt you at some point.
Infestors are always useful in large numbers, because you can always make use of the energy via fungals and ITs, these also do something the other spell casters don't do, they allow the infestor to fight without endangering itself, at least not to the extent that other casters do. However, if fungal was merely a slow with no damage, then having too many infestors would possibly hurt as they might not deal enough damage to be justifiable once ITs can be dealt with.
Note However such a change to infestors would require that all other zerg units get a buff in some way shape or form to compensate, to what magnitude would require a lot of testing to figure out. However if say, you also re-work FFs and WGs, (because the design of both of those is equally as broken as fungal but for different reasons), and nerf them, you could have enough justification to buff standard GW units, if less reliance was put on the sentry for GS and FF, then you'd also see maybe a lot more skirmishes, fights and pressures from protoss, you know, something fun that doesn't require a specific timing.
Conclusion and TLDR I agree with a lot of SaSe's points I believe both zergs and tosses have fundamental design flaws that lead to today's stagnation in all aspects of the game, be it development of new builds, maps or gameplay in general. Mothership shouldn't be in the game, but to remove it would require a re-work of both zerg and protoss.
Infestors could use a mobility nerf of some sort, either a movement speed nerf on and off creep or the burrow movement being Hive tech. Infestors need to have both fungal and ITs nerfed in some way to make air toss viable, nerfing just one won't suffice.
If fungal was changed to a slow without damage, it would change infestor, turning it into a unit with diminishing returns, greatly decrease its power and would force more supply away from the infestor and BL into anti-air or other units to defend BLs.
If Infestors are nerfed, all zerg and toss needs to be re-balanced, how much only testing can determine.
Final thoughts. While I agree a lot with SaSe and I know there are lots of design flaws in the game, I also realize that, no changes will occur unless more people become aware of these issues and start doing something about it. At the moment this community is to aggressive and to focused on witch hunting any pro gamers that voice their thoughts on balance or design, regardless of how right they might be.
This community needs to realize that pro gamers aren't bashing SC2 when they post this, they love the game, that's why they keep playing it, but when they post to point out the flaws they do it with the intention of maybe having the game changed for the best.
I as well love SC2 and I want it to be rid of the flaws that have plagued it for so long, matter of fact is, these same issues that pro gamers are talking about now regarding P and Z, are issues that have been pointed out and known all the way back in the beta, and yet the community has chosen to ignore it. Perhaps its time to really do something about it, something other then trying to bash pro gamers or tell them how you don't agree. Otherwise you reap what you sow.
Kudos to the people who actually posted constructive criticism.
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It's funny how all these "constructive criticism" posts in support of this drivel come to the same conclusion, that Protoss and Zerg both need changes, but apparently the only problem with Protoss is the mothership, and the laundry list of needed nerfs for Zerg are several paragraphs long.
All I have to say to this is LOL.
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I dont agree with everything but infestors are just terribly OP. Especially fungal growth. Fungal growth is good against almost every unit in the game and makes it so that zerg needs very little dedicated anti-air. Zerg needs to be nerfed because right now WoL is, as Avilo would say, Zergcraft 2.
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Sorry, Sase as a Terran I have to disagree with a lot of things that you suggested. Some things are valid points but others would just break the game even more.
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