This week we’d like to discuss the Zerg balance concerns that were mentioned that week, and also discuss the results of the TLMC and which maps seemed like a good fit for the ladder!
Zerg Feedback
First, we would like to thank everyone who was constructive in this discussion. We know that it’s easier to just make extreme conclusions while putting little thought into some of the proposals, so it’s always cool to see players focused on figuring out what’s best for the game.
Something rather odd that we wanted to point out is that we are seeing our Korean community (non-pros) agreeing quite heavily with the current pro-stance, whereas the non-Korean community disagrees with such a big move. Since we wanted to be absolutely sure we’re going down the right path, we took the time to further analyze the current situation and discuss the state of Zerg with both sides.
After having many more discussions not just with Kespa, but also with some of the non-Korean pro players as well, we realized the main feedback is that Zerg is having a lot of trouble against Liberator harassment.
For this issue, we want to make sure that Liberators aren’t nerfed in other matchups, so we should focus on a Zerg buff that doesn’t impact them. Some potential solutions can be decreasing the root time of Spore Crawlers and/or increasing the Queen’s AA range. Also, after drilling deeper into the actual concerns of the pros, we realized that a larvae buff isn’t the right direction. It’s too big of a change across the board (as many of you have also pointed out), and if we need to help Zerg deal with Liberators, we can just target that specific problem instead.
Let’s continue getting productive discussions going on these proposals to see if we have a direction we can start testing.
Season 3 Maps
It was cool to see that the highest voted and best map from the contest was New Gettysburg, which was also our top pick. Other than this map, we wanted to let you know that we’re in the process of working on the last few map picks from the TL.net map contest.
The first choice of the three was quite simple. We just took the highest placed macro map: Apotheosis, since that’s what the majority of the players view as the strongest macro map out of this list.
Going down the list after that, we realized that even though the next two are both macro maps, Galactic Process felt strong due to the use of backdoor paths, how the 3rd and 4th bases are laid out, and the potential use of gold bases which could add an interesting depth to the map as well.
These selections would leave us with one map slot, and without any rush maps being represented. Out of the maps that favor rush, we felt Dasan Station is very interesting because it’s a new map as well as a rush map.
We believe that these four maps would represent the new map additions that are coming really well—not just because we would have a very strong mix of maps from different categories, but also because all of these maps scored highly in your voting.
Please let us know your thoughts/considerations in the comments below!
surprised about dasan tbh. It can either become an awesome ladder addiction or the most terrible disaster ever in the sc2 ladder. gotta see, not a fan to be honest
Wow so Blizzard not only doesn't care about what maps they make, they also don't care about what maps other people make. Dasan Station on ladder, really?
queen AA range buff would also be a huge buff in PvZ (both for killing prisms and phoenix). It's potentially a good change because as we all know Z is not in the best place currently in both mus but it could actually be far better than it sounds.
Also Dasan Station lol, here goes my first veto. Doesn't matter since the rest of the map pool looks really fantastic.
Finally, I would like to emphasize how much I'm liking those short, clear and overall sensible updates.
How about the inject larva ability is renamed to inject and can be used on a spore/spine crawler which temporarily buffs movement speed and burrow/unburrow speed?
okay 1 automatic veto with dasan station. But well, with KSS, Frost, gettysburg, Apotheosis and Galactic Process I think it's still the best mappool in a long time so can't really complain. Just wish shiva made it.
On June 18 2016 03:30 Charoisaur wrote: But well, with KSS, Frost, gettysburg, Apotheosis and Galactic Process I think it's still the best mappool in a long time.
agree, it's the best set of maps we got for ages. I'm just sad that maybe some huge bo7 series will end on Dasan.
On June 18 2016 03:22 IeZaeL wrote: surprised about dasan tbh. It can either become an awesome ladder addiction or the most terrible disaster ever in the sc2 ladder. gotta see, not a fan to be honest
the competition is really strong in this category.
On June 18 2016 03:22 IeZaeL wrote: surprised about dasan tbh. It can either become an awesome ladder addiction or the most terrible disaster ever in the sc2 ladder. gotta see, not a fan to be honest
the competition is really strong in this category.
dasan is a really strong contender though, at least Daedalus 1.0 strenght.
Realistically they will hold any patch back, until the new maps is arrived. I don't think Queen range buff is any good though, but I think they picked this to softly nerf Phoenix as well.
I'm not sure Liberators are the only problem. I would buff spore root time AND probably try to make baneling nest/bane speed happen earlier or cheaper, because early game bio pushes can also be brutal afaik.
Surprised that it's Liberator harass giving pro Zergs the most trouble, I don't find Terran OP at a mid masters level but obviously that's where the hesitation on rolling out a balance patch is, Zerg sucks in Korea where the level of play is essentially tip top but is OP against foreign Protoss/Terran players, I feel for the balance team on this one.
Zerg anti-air sucks balls anyways, maybe the Queen buff could help fight against Skytoss/Templar compositions which are becoming a nightmare to deal with lately. The damage is so low anyways and most air units have high HP so making Queens a bit less pathetic against air sounds reasonable.
The spore buff sounds pretty good as well to be honest, smaller and cautious but sometimes that's okay.
Oh god Dasan station. I hate that map. And I'm not sure placing 8th out of 15 counts at scoring highly.
Galactic Process felt strong due to the use of backdoor paths
??? You mean the backdoor paths that were never used in the entire tournament, and were constantly the butt of jokes? The backdoors were easily the weakest feature of Galactic Process, and even with the changes to make them more usable I doubt we'll see them much.
On June 18 2016 03:33 [PkF] Wire wrote: Holy shit queen AA range is already at 7, I don't think buffing it would be reasonable.
Buffing spores root time makes a lot of sense though.
I actually like the change. only early game harass (liberators, medivacs, phoenixes) is really affected which is the part zerg struggle currently. In mid-lategame it probably won't make a big difference. edit: banshee affected too which is a nerf to hellion banshee openings, not sure I like the change anymore, just reduce spore uproot time.
On June 18 2016 03:29 BisuDagger wrote: How about the inject larva ability is renamed to inject and can be used on a spore/spine crawler which temporarily buffs movement speed and burrow/unburrow speed?
It would never get used. When given the choice between injecting a hatch and not injecting a hatch the Zerg will 100% of the time pick the hatchery. There's just no way they could make the burrow/unburrow speed short enough to make it worth it, short of teleportation, and even then I doubt it
On June 18 2016 03:33 [PkF] Wire wrote: Holy shit queen AA range is already at 7, I don't think buffing it would be reasonable.
Buffing spores root time makes a lot of sense though.
I actually like the change. only early game harass (liberators, medivacs, phoenixes) is really affected which is the part zerg struggle currently. In mid-lategame it probably won't make a big difference. edit: banshee affected too which is a nerf to hellion banshee openings, not sure I like the change anymore, just reduce spore uproot time.
Yeah after giving it some more thought I think that's quite a clever try that could help enough in both mus given the current meta.
On June 18 2016 03:29 BisuDagger wrote: How about the inject larva ability is renamed to inject and can be used on a spore/spine crawler which temporarily buffs movement speed and burrow/unburrow speed?
It would never get used. When given the choice between injecting a hatch and not injecting a hatch the Zerg will 100% of the time pick the hatchery. There's just no way they could make the burrow/unburrow speed short enough to make it worth it, short of teleportation, and even then I doubt it
You're telling me that you don't give enough queens and that you don't have the energy to spare? You must have a ton of hatcheries in your games.
Yeah, we feel for the korean zergs. But what about the foreign terrans that are being crushed by infestor/ultra compositions. If they are gonna nerf terran mid-game, they should do something about zerg late-game as well.
Spore faster drill would be fine. Increasing queen AA range not so much.
Increasing larvae spawn rate on lair&hive would give zergs a very slight buff that'd help make LBM more viable. Or make the inject 4 larvae on lair and 5 on hive would work too.
Now add 2 supply to tempest and revert cyclone to 3 supply and we'll hit a good spot for the game.
spore its a good change but this will just make hive rush faster (one of the biggest weakness that foreign terran dont exploit is mid game liberator harass) and not really affect ling bane mutal/corruptor or roach bane corruptor styles
Haha if you actually watch the games where Zergs get rolled over you would know its not just a liberator problem. Tankivac is also extremely OP and the combo of the two makes it nearly impossible for zerg to make it out of midgame with any foothold in the game.
And protoss have two compositions that Zerg cannot cost effectively counter: zealot archon immortal and skytoss. And overcharge prevents zerg from punishing protoss prior to reaching either of those compositions.
The Lib is the new Medivac. Everything revolves around it and this is very damaging to the game through variety and fun factor. We got rid of the sentry and FG as cruches and we now have Libs.
From seeing Gumiho 3-0 DRG on GSL this morning, i'd say liberator harass is part of the issue for sure. It's so easy to execute, and it's so hard to counter correctly.
I like how they went from "Zerg has problems" to "Zerg has only problem with liberator harass" which is absolutely not true lol, only range liberator is broken
i like the increasing of Queen's anti-air range. in general, air is too strong and ground is too weak. i'm all for ground-based anti-air being stronger.
thx for bringing in Catz. Great move. the guy is an innovative and unorthodox thinker and should bring a fresh perspective to the game.
On June 18 2016 04:10 Nerchio wrote: I like how they went from "Zerg has problems" to "Zerg has only problem with liberator harass" which is absolutely not true lol, only range liberator is broken
at the level you play zerg is the strongest race so maybe you aren't the best person to say where zergs problems are.
what I want to say is that if the koreans say liberators are the problem I believe them and not nerchio. Didn't mean to insult him.
Queen AA range would effect each Matchup... I would be fine with the root time decrease for spore crawlers, as long as it is not als fast as the unrooting. Liberators don't shoot at it while it moves into the liberation zone so I think it's a good change for Z
On June 18 2016 03:29 BisuDagger wrote: How about the inject larva ability is renamed to inject and can be used on a spore/spine crawler which temporarily buffs movement speed and burrow/unburrow speed?
It would never get used. When given the choice between injecting a hatch and not injecting a hatch the Zerg will 100% of the time pick the hatchery. There's just no way they could make the burrow/unburrow speed short enough to make it worth it, short of teleportation, and even then I doubt it
You're telling me that you don't give enough queens and that you don't have the energy to spare? You must have a ton of hatcheries in your games.
I'm saying that larva injects are that much better. Being able to move one spore quickly versus injecting seems like a no brainer to me. That and energy not being used for inject is much better saved for transfuse. I don't think it would be possible to make a buff to burrow/unburrow time that would be better than just injecting the hatch or transfusing.
We should all push for more ground to air solutions, they are very resolute on having air be a powerful and constant threat. It should be possible to play in such a way that you can deal with it without being forced to commit entirely to air yourself. Even if it's not as efficient as getting the "correct" counter you should be able to fight it. Queens are a good example of a homogenous combination of defense, caster, specialist, macro mechanic and ground to air dps but they might be the answer in this situation. There are far too many all-rounder units and far too few specialists, so balancing something like this is going to be hell. Especially if map design continues to promote choked mineral lines and excess air space.
On June 18 2016 04:10 Nerchio wrote: I like how they went from "Zerg has problems" to "Zerg has only problem with liberator harass" which is absolutely not true lol, only range liberator is broken
at the level you play zerg is the strongest race so maybe you aren't the best person to say where zergs problems are.
Judging by that comment, none of us here should be allowed to comment at all... Koreans were the one that demanded the 4 larvae per inject in the first place so it is not that easy to just point out and say "Koreans knows better", a lot of Koreans showed to be very biased or don't understand how to deal with some strategies at all.
I love Dasan Station, please make Dasan go through. I'm a big fan of macro maps but Dasan is just amazing, it has a really big potential to be a amazing map
I still don't get it. So many great maps, but they purposely(?) choose the most horrible ones possible? Every **** time. Creativity and innovation they say, and then we have to play clones of CK and Bel'shir Vestige for another half a year. With an addition of ugly and unbalanced Dasan Station (the epitome of creativity, especially in terms of naming).
On June 18 2016 04:10 Nerchio wrote: I like how they went from "Zerg has problems" to "Zerg has only problem with liberator harass" which is absolutely not true lol, only range liberator is broken
at the level you play zerg is the strongest race so maybe you aren't the best person to say where zergs problems are.
what I want to say is that if the koreans say liberators are the problem I believe them and not nerchio. Didn't mean to insult him.
Not sure what you're saying and where zerg is the strongest lol
On June 18 2016 04:10 Nerchio wrote: I like how they went from "Zerg has problems" to "Zerg has only problem with liberator harass" which is absolutely not true lol, only range liberator is broken
at the level you play zerg is the strongest race so maybe you aren't the best person to say where zergs problems are.
what I want to say is that if the koreans say liberators are the problem I believe them and not nerchio. Didn't mean to insult him.
Not sure what you're saying and where zerg is the strongest lol
You'd have to be pretty biased to say that zergs aren't the strongest in non-Korean tournaments or at the very least at parity with protoss.
Blizzard please, play Zerg for a week and see for yourself.
Most ZvT's you'll get dropped early on chokes, and struggle to kill the marines because lings suck and you don't have enough larvae to make 3 times the marines your opponent got (that's what it takes to kill them). You pull your queens to help and there goes your injects.
Most ZvP's you'll face mass adepts shading into your mineral lines. Spines are useless and all you can do is spliting your army after the shades and hope your opponent is not good enough to focus fire your drones, because adepts take a while to die.
Zerg is obviously super strong outside of the top level of play. Last time I looked Z was 40% of masters players, so buffing Z would only make it worse for people trying to play harder races.
On June 18 2016 04:09 avilo wrote: Revert liberator damage nerf so Terran is playable again. Remove liberator range from the game.
Two problems solved.
Yes!!! I don't at all understand why they think liberator range upgrade is a good idea.
The liberator range upgrade is in my opinion the reason for most of the issues with the liberator
Liberator harass is cool, with good liberator micro terran can re position his liberators constantly to dodge spores, queens and stalkers.
What is not cool is liberator harass with range.
No one likes playing against it, and if it hits you unprepared there is nothing you can do to hold it. It's a lot like DT's in that regard. Either you scout and you counter it, or you flat out lose the game.
The other issue that the range upgrade creates, is a lack of counter play
Early liberators spice up engagements a huge ton! If protoss and zerg micros well, they can snipe the liberators and engage around them. This is fun for both sides of the engagement, as it creates micro opportunities for both races!
That all changes once terran gets out liberator range. Once range is out, terran can comfortably position his liberators far behind his army, making it much easier for terran to control and much harder for zerg and protoss to snipe and play against.
This is where the liberator stops being fun for zerg and protoss. This is the point where the liberator just feels like this unstoppable force that slowly leap frogs towards your base, while you can only sit and watch.
Liberator range, makes the liberator easy to control and hard to play against.
On June 18 2016 05:41 TheWinks wrote: A queen range buff during a period where zerg has an amazingly strong late game in TvZ? No way that could go wrong!
On June 18 2016 04:10 Nerchio wrote: I like how they went from "Zerg has problems" to "Zerg has only problem with liberator harass" which is absolutely not true lol, only range liberator is broken
at the level you play zerg is the strongest race so maybe you aren't the best person to say where zergs problems are.
what I want to say is that if the koreans say liberators are the problem I believe them and not nerchio. Didn't mean to insult him.
Not sure what you're saying and where zerg is the strongest lol
You'd have to be pretty biased to say that zergs aren't the strongest in non-Korean tournaments or at the very least at parity with protoss.
Just because there are more Zergs doesn't mean zerg is stronger. Quality does not equal quantity.
On June 18 2016 03:33 [PkF] Wire wrote: Holy shit queen AA range is already at 7, I don't think buffing it would be reasonable.
Buffing spores root time makes a lot of sense though.
queen AA range to 8 or 9 and spore root time would both affect PvZ phoenix, prism, dt etc play a lot, as well as muta play in ZvZ and non-lib ZvT games. If the problem is with liberator then change lib IMO.
The fact is that non-Kr terran and protoss are largely inferior in skill to their Kr counterparts. If they don't make any changes soon GSL,SSL, and proleague will basically be two races, and as a spectator that kind of sucks.
Apologizes for my ignorance, but rather I'm not "map smart" and I don't understand what might be so bad about it. Is it the rush distance? How the bases are set up? The size of the map? Something else?
If someone could please explain this to a map illiterate person that'd be much appreciated!
On June 18 2016 06:58 Frudgey wrote: So why don't people like Dasan station?
Apologizes for my ignorance, but rather I'm not "map smart" and I don't understand what might be so bad about it. Is it the rush distance? How the bases are set up? The size of the map? Something else?
If someone could please explain this to a map illiterate person that'd be much appreciated!
If you saw the games from the BasetradeTV map test tournament it was almost only cheeses and rushes with 2 longer games. There's lots of easily abusable positions with siege tanks being able to cover the main ramp from the other side of the doodads, or shooting at the main gas from the natural, or tempests taking unassailable positions. And when the game does go longer the army movements are incredibly awkward due to all the walls everywhere, which makes defending any number of bases a huge pain due to the army having to circle around everything. I don't think there were any games that went to the late game, but having such a constrained map probably makes the late game really painful too--or causes people to simply go mass air. Also the map is most likely fundamentally broken.
Note that not all people dislike Dasan. But those that dislike Dasan (like me) really dislike it a lot.
On June 18 2016 05:41 TheWinks wrote: A queen range buff during a period where zerg has an amazingly strong late game in TvZ? No way that could go wrong!
On June 18 2016 04:10 Nerchio wrote: I like how they went from "Zerg has problems" to "Zerg has only problem with liberator harass" which is absolutely not true lol, only range liberator is broken
at the level you play zerg is the strongest race so maybe you aren't the best person to say where zergs problems are.
what I want to say is that if the koreans say liberators are the problem I believe them and not nerchio. Didn't mean to insult him.
Not sure what you're saying and where zerg is the strongest lol
You'd have to be pretty biased to say that zergs aren't the strongest in non-Korean tournaments or at the very least at parity with protoss.
On June 18 2016 03:33 [PkF] Wire wrote: Holy shit queen AA range is already at 7, I don't think buffing it would be reasonable.
Buffing spores root time makes a lot of sense though.
queen AA range to 8 or 9 and spore root time would both affect PvZ phoenix, prism, dt etc play a lot, as well as muta play in ZvZ and non-lib ZvT games. If the problem is with liberator then change lib IMO.
None of those things sound bad IMO. Giving Zergs better tools to deal with phoenix openings and warp prisms actually sounds like a wonderful thing and could help balance that match up as well. Maybe compensate with a Queen attack/attack speed nerf if the need would arise.
On June 18 2016 03:33 [PkF] Wire wrote: Holy shit queen AA range is already at 7, I don't think buffing it would be reasonable.
Buffing spores root time makes a lot of sense though.
queen AA range to 8 or 9 and spore root time would both affect PvZ phoenix, prism, dt etc play a lot, as well as muta play in ZvZ and non-lib ZvT games. If the problem is with liberator then change lib IMO.
None of those things sound bad IMO. Giving Zergs better tools to deal with phoenix openings and warp prisms actually sounds like a wonderful thing and could help balance that match up as well. Maybe compensate with a Queen attack/attack speed nerf if the need would arise.
I kinda agree since P looks indeed slightly favored in PvZ with PICA ; I think this is something that could be tested because it has the potential to help in both mus as it would make the harass (be it banshees, meditanks, prisms or phoenix) easier to deal with. Needs to be heavily tested and monitored though, we all know what happened last time queens allowed Z to get to a favorable lategame in ZvT.
On June 18 2016 03:33 [PkF] Wire wrote: Holy shit queen AA range is already at 7, I don't think buffing it would be reasonable.
Buffing spores root time makes a lot of sense though.
queen AA range to 8 or 9 and spore root time would both affect PvZ phoenix, prism, dt etc play a lot, as well as muta play in ZvZ and non-lib ZvT games. If the problem is with liberator then change lib IMO.
None of those things sound bad IMO. Giving Zergs better tools to deal with phoenix openings and warp prisms actually sounds like a wonderful thing and could help balance that match up as well. Maybe compensate with a Queen attack/attack speed nerf if the need would arise.
I think that better tools would be nice, but the Queen is already a bit of a weird unit. It's been buffed repeatedly over the years because of zerg earlygame woes rather than giving the tools in any other way. It's strong enough to be regularly used in large numbers and to be used regularly on offense (via hatch tech speed drop, nydus or just straight up walking across the map on maps like prion and ulrena) as they're pretty great units for the mineral cost and 0 larvae cost if you can get around the core weakness of no mobility off creep. They have some other interactions like augmenting hive units very well as well.
Do you really want to put that power onto the queen specifically? I can't think of a good reason to do that other than every other unit and mechanic being even less appropriate to touch
I'd rather see zerglings shoot up than another queen buff. remember what happened last time?
a queen AA buff will not only stop liberator harass, it'll stop banshees and medivacs too. how is terran supposed to open without the threat of drops or banshees?
I don't know how it would affect ZvP, but I think tier 1 hydras would be better than the proposed spore/queen changes.
On June 18 2016 03:33 [PkF] Wire wrote: Holy shit queen AA range is already at 7, I don't think buffing it would be reasonable.
Buffing spores root time makes a lot of sense though.
queen AA range to 8 or 9 and spore root time would both affect PvZ phoenix, prism, dt etc play a lot, as well as muta play in ZvZ and non-lib ZvT games. If the problem is with liberator then change lib IMO.
None of those things sound bad IMO. Giving Zergs better tools to deal with phoenix openings and warp prisms actually sounds like a wonderful thing and could help balance that match up as well. Maybe compensate with a Queen attack/attack speed nerf if the need would arise.
I think that better tools would be nice, but the Queen is already a bit of a weird unit. It's been buffed repeatedly over the years because of zerg earlygame woes rather than giving the tools in any other way. It's strong enough to be regularly used in large numbers and to be used regularly on offense (via hatch tech speed drop, nydus or just straight up walking across the map on maps like prion and ulrena) as they're pretty great units for the mineral cost and 0 larvae cost if you can get around the core weakness of no mobility off creep. They have some other interactions like augmenting hive units very well as well.
Do you really want to put that power onto the queen specifically? I can't think of a good reason to do that other than every other unit and mechanic being even less appropriate to touch
I'd rather not but the options to fix both ZvP and ZvT would be a) nerf liberators and possibly reapers, nerf phoenix, tempest, possibly immortals and then probably nerf mutas and ultras a drop to compensate
On June 18 2016 03:33 [PkF] Wire wrote: Holy shit queen AA range is already at 7, I don't think buffing it would be reasonable.
Buffing spores root time makes a lot of sense though.
queen AA range to 8 or 9 and spore root time would both affect PvZ phoenix, prism, dt etc play a lot, as well as muta play in ZvZ and non-lib ZvT games. If the problem is with liberator then change lib IMO.
None of those things sound bad IMO. Giving Zergs better tools to deal with phoenix openings and warp prisms actually sounds like a wonderful thing and could help balance that match up as well. Maybe compensate with a Queen attack/attack speed nerf if the need would arise.
I think that better tools would be nice, but the Queen is already a bit of a weird unit. It's been buffed repeatedly over the years because of zerg earlygame woes rather than giving the tools in any other way. It's strong enough to be regularly used in large numbers and to be used regularly on offense (via hatch tech speed drop, nydus or just straight up walking across the map on maps like prion and ulrena) as they're pretty great units for the mineral cost and 0 larvae cost if you can get around the core weakness of no mobility off creep. They have some other interactions like augmenting hive units very well as well.
Do you really want to put that power onto the queen specifically? I can't think of a good reason to do that other than every other unit and mechanic being even less appropriate to touch
I'd rather not but the options to fix both ZvP and ZvT would be a) nerf liberators and possibly reapers, nerf phoenix, tempest, possibly immortals and then probably nerf mutas and ultras a drop to compensate
b)buff queens
Sounds like its the best of a bad situation
I don't think that buffing queen AA "fixes" most of those things. Many of the things that you consider it to fix are not a massive issue at the moment and/or affect multiple matchups as much as vs Z, so wouldn't be dealt with using a queen AA buff
Blizzard. Stop. Buffing. Shit. Seriously. If nerfing Liberators makes TvP(i don't think TvT really sees much lib use tbh) more brutal, then give some time for the pros to figure stuff out, and nerf the focking thing that makes TvP more brutal if it doesn't get solved in 2~3 seasons.
Blizzard's habit of going for the smallest possible change is harmful in the long run. Changes like buffing spores vs biological units are unhealthy, since they don't solve the underlying problem. If Blizzard thinks the liberators are the problem in TvZ (personally I don't feel like that's the problem, but that's irrelevant for this argument) they should nerf the liberator instead of going for some inelegant change of limited scope. Mild repercussions to other match-ups shouldn't block a change from going ahead if that change is truly the best one. Those repercussions can be handled later or mitigated by other simultaneous buffs or nerfs.
On June 18 2016 12:05 ZigguratOfUr wrote: Blizzard's habit of going for the smallest possible change is harmful in the long run. Changes like buffing spores vs biological units are unhealthy, since they don't solve the underlying problem. If Blizzard thinks the liberators are the problem in TvZ (personally I don't feel like that's the problem, but that's irrelevant for this argument) they should nerf the liberator instead of going for some inelegant change of limited scope. Mild repercussions to other match-ups shouldn't block a change from going ahead if that change is truly the best one. Those repercussions can be handled later or mitigated by other simultaneous buffs or nerfs.
On June 18 2016 12:05 ZigguratOfUr wrote: Blizzard's habit of going for the smallest possible change is harmful in the long run. Changes like buffing spores vs biological units are unhealthy, since they don't solve the underlying problem. If Blizzard thinks the liberators are the problem in TvZ (personally I don't feel like that's the problem, but that's irrelevant for this argument) they should nerf the liberator instead of going for some inelegant change of limited scope. Mild repercussions to other match-ups shouldn't block a change from going ahead if that change is truly the best one. Those repercussions can be handled later or mitigated by other simultaneous buffs or nerfs.
Spores doing bio vs muta did wonders in HOTS
Oh it did in the short term. After the change ZvZ was no longer a muta vs muta fest. However later in HotS it worsened the match-up considerably most notably by strengthening swarm host turtling, but also by narrowing tech options in the mid-late game etc. Nerfing mutas by removing the idiotic health regeneration would have been much better. It would have helped out ZvZ, and also down the line made PvZ better.
It was a bad change overall as it targetted the symptoms rather than seeking to adress the true problem - muta strength after massive buffs to speed and regeneration that occured in late 2012.
Balance Update #8
Speed increased from 3.75 to 4
Balance Update #9
New passive ability: Mutalisk Regeneration Mutalisk health regeneration rate increased from .2734 to 1.
Because of that response, the mutalisk and its interactions continue to suffer today (it's generally strong but the "OP" counters are too prevelant). It's painful to see how blizzard shot themselves in the foot and actually made the Mutalisk a worse and less usable unit through overbuffing it and then responding too strongly with counters.
I'm not against any change in particular but these changes were a large straight buff and not properly dealt with. Some comparable changes in todays gameplay could be the 16% range buff on brood lords and +2 armor on ultralisk plating upgrade which were thrown in during the LOTV beta to change up the game just as these mutalisk buffs were added in the HOTS beta
On June 18 2016 04:37 NinjaToss wrote: I love Dasan Station, please make Dasan go through. I'm a big fan of macro maps but Dasan is just amazing, it has a really big potential to be a amazing map
I like how this thread is completely at the extremes, some love the map while others vomit when they hear it LOL Stay classy tl
On June 18 2016 03:33 [PkF] Wire wrote: Holy shit queen AA range is already at 7, I don't think buffing it would be reasonable.
Buffing spores root time makes a lot of sense though.
queen AA range to 8 or 9 and spore root time would both affect PvZ phoenix, prism, dt etc play a lot, as well as muta play in ZvZ and non-lib ZvT games. If the problem is with liberator then change lib IMO.
None of those things sound bad IMO. Giving Zergs better tools to deal with phoenix openings and warp prisms actually sounds like a wonderful thing and could help balance that match up as well. Maybe compensate with a Queen attack/attack speed nerf if the need would arise.
Maybe nerf the phoenix and warprism, terran has a lot of problems with it as well.
On June 18 2016 18:36 egrimm wrote: dammit I wanted annihilation station
Same. Would have preferred it over both macro maps they picked.
I was counting on blizzard to add annihilation station to mappool after the map didnt win in TLMC. For me that map was clearly better than other contenders and I was really surprised wasn't first.
I'm not a big fan of either solution to be honest, they all revolve around defensive play. They might find the sweet spot where ZvT is balanced, i.e. where it's not too easy to defend but not impossible either, but if the only way to play the match-up is to turtle to ultras it's not so interesting.
Anyway, where is the Hyperballistic Missile Queen vs full Carrier test map? :D
One change I would love to see which would never happen, is to remove Medivac Boost, but buff Medivac speed to a standard of 4 or something similar. Then make Medivac Boost the upgrade on the Tech Lab and give the ability a 25 energy cost requirement. This would really help out Zergs that don't feel like going Mutalisks, since Liberators is a natural counter. TvT would be forever saved and maybe we can see strats coming up where it's not singlehandedly relying on this unit. Possible Mech?! Players like Maru that really excel at dropping could go for the Upgrade, together with Liberator range and have an even more buffed Medivac and they could really go bonkers with the harass. Would really help Terrans distinguish themselves.
Maybe Protoss would be stronger vs Terran now, but then Blizz could do other things to help make the matchup less frustrating. Something like a small vs light nerf to Oracles similar to the Adept nerf, so it takes 3 shots to kill an SCV. Maybe buff it's damage a little vs non Light, possibly 18+4 ?
I also feel like Phoenix could do with a -1 range at the start, to have it hard counter Mutalisks less and with nerfed Medivacs (pre-upg,) Phoenix would not shut down Terran harassment as hard. Also PvP would be less Phoenix wars. They could make Mutalisk regeneration be an upgrade on the Spire, so it's more of a commitment to open Mutalisks, which could help ZvZ and make Muta's less of a counter to Phoenix-less Protoss. Protoss can scout that the Spire is wiggling and at that point put down Star Gates.
Why not just remove the reaper's KD8 charge thing? That's meaningless in TvP, and it only induces all-ins in TvT, and it is the primary reason why zergs can't open up greedier.
The proposed changes are very conservative and safe. They could be implemented instantly and would be helpful. However, clearly they will not resolve all the issues in TvZ or PvZ and further patches will be needed anyway.
I like the queen AA range buff idea very much !!! Great against liberators, better against phoenix oracles and tempest, good vs mutas... a great solution since air play tends to always be too strong vs Zerg
zzzz Most important things are still not patched --> reaper abilty , prism way too strong, ultra armor, and dumb maps too good for tankivacs blink or zerg runbies. And if u care about team games, nerf phenix play and remove ressource sharing. Peace \\ //
On June 18 2016 03:29 BisuDagger wrote: How about the inject larva ability is renamed to inject and can be used on a spore/spine crawler which temporarily buffs movement speed and burrow/unburrow speed?
LOL! And who in their right mind would waste energy on that when injecting for larva is NECESSARY in order to macro their units?
On June 18 2016 20:35 Zulu23 wrote: If there is really a Queen buff coming then the number of Queens shall be limited to the number of bases
Why?!!? Massing queens can only be really powerful if they are fighting with broodlords and ultras. Its not like they have amazing dps and speed that they can run across the map and use their extra AA range to win games. Your reaction is harsh and I think the majority of people can admit that an AA range buff will not suddenly make queens ridiculously OP.
On June 18 2016 03:29 BisuDagger wrote: How about the inject larva ability is renamed to inject and can be used on a spore/spine crawler which temporarily buffs movement speed and burrow/unburrow speed?
It would never get used. When given the choice between injecting a hatch and not injecting a hatch the Zerg will 100% of the time pick the hatchery. There's just no way they could make the burrow/unburrow speed short enough to make it worth it, short of teleportation, and even then I doubt it
You're telling me that you don't give enough queens and that you don't have the energy to spare? You must have a ton of hatcheries in your games.
OR! You could just reduce the burrow time of spores as a buff instead of making weird and overly-complex mechanic changes that don't have any logical sense behind them.
On June 18 2016 04:10 Nerchio wrote: I like how they went from "Zerg has problems" to "Zerg has only problem with liberator harass" which is absolutely not true lol, only range liberator is broken
Exactly the point. 3 larva is the clue. It slows down Zerg too muchh in early game and the snowball effect kills us in midgame where we cannot compete with Terran BIO production and as we know BIO is the most cost effective comp in the game. 4 larva or riot.
I'm gonna maintain my position from few weeks ago- I find lotv already too stale..
I really dislike the way game have gone at least for a viewer. It's the same monotony of bio/lib, PICA, roach ravager in the match ups and the game is extremely slow on any forseeable changes that would change this.
At least in hots you had ling bing muta vs 4m monotony that provided better form of action. Maybe even odd mech thrown in. Now you have nurtured lbm vs terran all in before hive or boring boring roach ravager.
Tvt is a mess to watch in my opinions. Takivacs are flat out boring to watch after the initial rush of excitement when it was introduced. Tvt used to be very varied mirror but it just feels chore to watch now, with strong early game counters than before leading to same old Takivacs marine that drops tanks bypassing most position advantage
we realized the main feedback is that Zerg is having a lot of trouble against Liberator harassment.
the issue here is that liberators kill queens, larva and drones very quickly. Instead of making harrassment less viable you could adress the issue by preventing liberators from killing larva and reducing the burrow time of spores. It would also help to increase the build time of the liberator-rangeupgrade by another 30 seconds ingame time so you can have mutas out in time.
But in my opinion the ZvT matchup right know lacks one thing most of all:
Zerg can't attack without beeing super all in. Flying siegetanks, reapers and liberators make early game defence almost unbreakable. If terran doesn't have to respect zerg all ins they can get more abusive with their own harrassment leading to strong gamble builds (liberator range, banshee/hellbat timings...)
If the only viable strategy for zerg is: surrviving till ultras are out to have a super strong timewindow to go for the kill then the game feels monoton and stupid.
On June 19 2016 01:32 Nerchio wrote: Can't wait for the time when playing protoss will require some skill
Race vs league distribution makes it reasonably obvious that Protoss is currently the hardest race. And yours the easiest.
Not saying anything about which race is the "hardest" but your argument has a few holes in it. I can say that zerg is the hardest race because they are doing worst at the top korean level. Terran is the hardest because non-koran terrans are not doing that well etc.
On June 19 2016 01:32 Nerchio wrote: Can't wait for the time when playing protoss will require some skill
Race vs league distribution makes it reasonably obvious that Protoss is currently the hardest race. And yours the easiest.
Not saying anything about which race is the "hardest" but your argument has a few holes in it. I can say that zerg is the hardest race because they are doing worst at the top korean level. Terran is the hardest because non-koran terrans are not doing that well etc.
objectively what Nerchio says is pointless and just adds fuel to the whine fire. I would agree that P is definitely not the hardest race to play -it may even be the easiest- but saying that playing P requires no skill is just stupid -and plain false.
maybe it's time to consider more options in regards to the unit movement speeds. all movement speeds in the game are very linear/static or just flat out high. liberator is extremely fast compared to its siege-y role, and it accelerates very quickly so it's hard to punish a run-away lib and they reposition super fast. fortunately it has at least some negative deceleration properties. if accel/decel took a little longer, one could get more damage in and punish unsieges more easily. and if maxspeed was higher, terran wouldn't be totally screwed on cross maps because stuff would actually fly really fast given enough time. accel/decel can be a great normalizer
goes for turbovac too. it used to have a decently slow acceleration phase, turbo just wrecked that part of its design. it could have had an interesting acceleration curve over say 3-10 seconds and REALLY high maxspeed but got turbo instead. if the problem was that new maps were so big terrans needed more avg. speed, it could have been given slow acceleration phase over 10 seconds and really high maxspeed. but now we remove cross positions from maps instead because zerg becomes imba.
Boost upgrade could have been removed or converted into a flat bonus to 'current acceleration value' - now it just goes crazy for x seconds. i wouldn't mind a medivac having higher base speed than mutalisk if i already had 8-10 seconds to deal a decent amount of damage to it, or if terrain basically stimmed their medivac to 0-energy in order to get away (assuming turbo would cost energy now). also, that should be a thing, having the choice to boost hard but lose a little bit of longevity. or just take it slow and let the acceleration do its thing. i'm not looking to nerf medivac extremely on small maps but adding a curve wouldn't be bad imo. far more opportunities for design choices and adding strength or weakness if you change boost/accel/decel properties, or other tweaks such as unload rate of the medivac.
as for esports/entertainment value acceleration curves also feel good, more suspense i think. nowadays when someone press the turbo button we know what's going to happen, everything's invincible for x seconds and we already know what the formula looks like in terms of map size and units catching up.
there are many minor tweaks that could potentially improve things, but we always see these medium-scale suggestions focusing on a single property from week to week instead of trying out a cocktail of things. i'm surprised that -2 armor on chitinous and +1 base armor to ultralisk hasn't been tried already for example ... and we always talk about something and then it's just kinda forgotten. like THIS thing which was delayed with a very good post, but then it just completely disappeared off the radar unless i'm completely wrong on that. i recently checked on twitter asking zergs what they'd prefer and 63% of 649 votes on my twitter said they wanted two buttons for unburrow/burrow compared to the current method.
i just feel like we're giving a ton of feedback which is great but most of the current issues just change from week to week and i'm not feeling like the testing happens enough, it's definitely possible to experiment with a lot at a time for balance test maps, and some potentially great changes are just left to be forgotten like the burrow change.
For example, here's a potential balance test map, straight out of imagination: Liberator acceleration speed decreased, now accelerates to max speed over 2 (+-) seconds. Liberator max speed increased to 5 (up from 4.72). Liberator siege-up animation takes 0.5sec longer Liberators can no longer target larva, only eggs. Liberator bonus damage per attack vs light air decreased to 1 (down from 2). Liberator base damage per attack vs air increased to 6 (up from 5). Queen gains +1 bonus damage vs anti-air armored Ultralisk chitinous plating upgrade now adds 2 armor down from 4. Ultralisk chitinous plating upgrade cost decreased from 150/150 to 100/100. Ultralisk base armor increased to 2, up from 1. Marauder attacks combined to one. Liberator upgrade Advanced Ballistics now reduces the time of the Liberator siege-up and unsiege animation greatly. Liberator upgrade Advanced Ballistics range down to 3 from 4. Liberator upgrade Advanced Ballistics now increases the sight range of the liberator by 4 also outside of Defender mode.
and that's without even touching the medivac aside from queens doing 1 more damage to them, and nothing on the reaper either.
it's far easier to play a few games on a cocktail of changes to get a good feel of what seems right and what seems wrong. instead of just one change with limited context. because an unit test map with real games will never be perfect proving grounds to test ONE change that happens at ONE point in the game, people are just wasting like 90% of valuable playtime then. Introduce a big list, and balance test maps will be far more attractive and fun to play. And one can get far more actual valuable information. Hardly anyone (at least pro) care too much about test maps because they end up being pretty boring a lot of the time with only 1 or 2 changes.
On June 19 2016 05:22 Liquid`Snute wrote: maybe it's time to consider more options in regards to the unit movement speeds. all movement speeds in the game are very linear/static or just flat out high. liberator is extremely fast compared to its siege-y role, and it accelerates very quickly so it's hard to punish a run-away lib and they reposition super fast. fortunately it has at least some negative deceleration properties. if accel/decel took a little longer, one could get more damage in and punish unsieges more easily. and if maxspeed was higher, terran wouldn't be totally screwed on cross maps because stuff would actually fly really fast given enough time. accel/decel can be a great normalizer
goes for turbovac too. it used to have a decently slow acceleration phase, turbo just wrecked that part of its design. it could have had an interesting acceleration curve over say 3-10 seconds and REALLY high maxspeed but got turbo instead. if the problem was that new maps were so big terrans needed more avg. speed, it could have been given slow acceleration phase over 10 seconds and really high maxspeed. but now we remove cross positions from maps instead because zerg becomes imba.
Boost upgrade could have been removed or converted into a flat bonus to 'current acceleration value' - now it just goes crazy for x seconds. i wouldn't mind a medivac having higher base speed than mutalisk if i already had 8-10 seconds to deal a decent amount of damage to it, or if terrain basically stimmed their medivac to 0-energy in order to get away (assuming turbo would cost energy now). also, that should be a thing, having the choice to boost hard but lose a little bit of longevity. or just take it slow and let the acceleration do its thing. i'm not looking to nerf medivac extremely on small maps but adding a curve wouldn't be bad imo. far more opportunities for design choices and adding strength or weakness if you change boost/accel/decel properties, or other tweaks such as unload rate of the medivac.
as for esports/entertainment value acceleration curves also feel good, more suspense i think. nowadays when someone press the turbo button we know what's going to happen, everything's invincible for x seconds and we already know what the formula looks like in terms of map size and units catching up.
there are many minor tweaks that could potentially improve things, but we always see these medium-scale suggestions focusing on a single property from week to week instead of trying out a cocktail of things. i'm surprised that -2 armor on chitinous and +1 base armor to ultralisk hasn't been tried already for example ... and we always talk about something and then it's just kinda forgotten. like THIS thing which was delayed with a very good post, but then it just completely disappeared off the radar unless i'm completely wrong on that. i recently checked on twitter asking zergs what they'd prefer and 63% of 649 votes on my twitter said they wanted two buttons for unburrow/burrow compared to the current method.
i just feel like we're giving a ton of feedback which is great but most of the current issues just change from week to week and i'm not feeling like the testing happens enough, it's definitely possible to experiment with a lot at a time for balance test maps, and some potentially great changes are just left to be forgotten like the burrow change.
For example, here's a potential balance test map, straight out of imagination: Liberator acceleration speed decreased, now accelerates to max speed over 2 (+-) seconds. Liberator max speed increased to 5 (up from 4.72). Liberator siege-up animation takes 0.5sec longer Liberators can no longer target larva, only eggs. Liberator bonus damage per attack vs light air decreased to 1 (down from 2). Liberator base damage per attack vs air increased to 6 (up from 5). Queen gains +1 bonus damage vs anti-air armored Ultralisk chitinous plating upgrade now adds 2 armor down from 4. Ultralisk chitinous plating upgrade cost decreased from 150/150 to 100/100. Ultralisk base armor increased to 2, up from 1. Marauder attacks combined to one. Liberator upgrade Advanced Ballistics now reduces the time of the Liberator siege-up and unsiege animation greatly. Liberator upgrade Advanced Ballistics range down to 3 from 4. Liberator upgrade Advanced Ballistics now increases the sight range of the liberator by 4 also outside of Defender mode.
and that's without even touching the medivac aside from queens doing 1 more damage to them, and nothing on the reaper either.
it's far easier to play a few games on a cocktail of changes to get a good feel of what seems right and what seems wrong. instead of just one change with limited context. because an unit test map with real games will never be perfect proving grounds to test ONE change that happens at ONE point in the game, people are just wasting like 90% of valuable playtime then. Introduce a big list, and balance test maps will be far more attractive and fun to play. And one can get far more actual valuable information. Hardly anyone (at least pro) care too much about test maps because they end up being pretty boring a lot of the time with only 1 or 2 changes.
There's a lot of great ideas here, but the cynical side of me says that Blizzard will never consider changing this much at one time, or even ever.
On June 19 2016 01:32 Nerchio wrote: Can't wait for the time when playing protoss will require some skill
Race vs league distribution makes it reasonably obvious that Protoss is currently the hardest race. And yours the easiest.
Not saying anything about which race is the "hardest" but your argument has a few holes in it. I can say that zerg is the hardest race because they are doing worst at the top korean level. Terran is the hardest because non-koran terrans are not doing that well etc.
Is it a hole in an argument? We can assume korean pros can play the game, and that difficulty is not deciding factor for them. Then again, huge amounts of stats back up the notion that protoss is most difficult to play or at least most difficult to do well with, while zerg seems easiest by a wide margin.
Snute coming with some great ideas again! I hope, when he stops being progamer one day, Blizzard will hire him into the balance team of all their future games.
On June 19 2016 05:22 Liquid`Snute wrote: maybe it's time to consider more options in regards to the unit movement speeds. all movement speeds in the game are very linear/static or just flat out high. liberator is extremely fast compared to its siege-y role, and it accelerates very quickly so it's hard to punish a run-away lib and they reposition super fast. fortunately it has at least some negative deceleration properties. if accel/decel took a little longer, one could get more damage in and punish unsieges more easily. and if maxspeed was higher, terran wouldn't be totally screwed on cross maps because stuff would actually fly really fast given enough time. accel/decel can be a great normalizer
goes for turbovac too. it used to have a decently slow acceleration phase, turbo just wrecked that part of its design. it could have had an interesting acceleration curve over say 3-10 seconds and REALLY high maxspeed but got turbo instead. if the problem was that new maps were so big terrans needed more avg. speed, it could have been given slow acceleration phase over 10 seconds and really high maxspeed. but now we remove cross positions from maps instead because zerg becomes imba.
Boost upgrade could have been removed or converted into a flat bonus to 'current acceleration value' - now it just goes crazy for x seconds. i wouldn't mind a medivac having higher base speed than mutalisk if i already had 8-10 seconds to deal a decent amount of damage to it, or if terrain basically stimmed their medivac to 0-energy in order to get away (assuming turbo would cost energy now). also, that should be a thing, having the choice to boost hard but lose a little bit of longevity. or just take it slow and let the acceleration do its thing. i'm not looking to nerf medivac extremely on small maps but adding a curve wouldn't be bad imo. far more opportunities for design choices and adding strength or weakness if you change boost/accel/decel properties, or other tweaks such as unload rate of the medivac.
as for esports/entertainment value acceleration curves also feel good, more suspense i think. nowadays when someone press the turbo button we know what's going to happen, everything's invincible for x seconds and we already know what the formula looks like in terms of map size and units catching up.
there are many minor tweaks that could potentially improve things, but we always see these medium-scale suggestions focusing on a single property from week to week instead of trying out a cocktail of things. i'm surprised that -2 armor on chitinous and +1 base armor to ultralisk hasn't been tried already for example ... and we always talk about something and then it's just kinda forgotten. like THIS thing which was delayed with a very good post, but then it just completely disappeared off the radar unless i'm completely wrong on that. i recently checked on twitter asking zergs what they'd prefer and 63% of 649 votes on my twitter said they wanted two buttons for unburrow/burrow compared to the current method.
i just feel like we're giving a ton of feedback which is great but most of the current issues just change from week to week and i'm not feeling like the testing happens enough, it's definitely possible to experiment with a lot at a time for balance test maps, and some potentially great changes are just left to be forgotten like the burrow change.
For example, here's a potential balance test map, straight out of imagination: Liberator acceleration speed decreased, now accelerates to max speed over 2 (+-) seconds. Liberator max speed increased to 5 (up from 4.72). Liberator siege-up animation takes 0.5sec longer Liberators can no longer target larva, only eggs. Liberator bonus damage per attack vs light air decreased to 1 (down from 2). Liberator base damage per attack vs air increased to 6 (up from 5). Queen gains +1 bonus damage vs anti-air armored Ultralisk chitinous plating upgrade now adds 2 armor down from 4. Ultralisk chitinous plating upgrade cost decreased from 150/150 to 100/100. Ultralisk base armor increased to 2, up from 1. Marauder attacks combined to one. Liberator upgrade Advanced Ballistics now reduces the time of the Liberator siege-up and unsiege animation greatly. Liberator upgrade Advanced Ballistics range down to 3 from 4. Liberator upgrade Advanced Ballistics now increases the sight range of the liberator by 4 also outside of Defender mode.
and that's without even touching the medivac aside from queens doing 1 more damage to them, and nothing on the reaper either.
it's far easier to play a few games on a cocktail of changes to get a good feel of what seems right and what seems wrong. instead of just one change with limited context. because an unit test map with real games will never be perfect proving grounds to test ONE change that happens at ONE point in the game, people are just wasting like 90% of valuable playtime then. Introduce a big list, and balance test maps will be far more attractive and fun to play. And one can get far more actual valuable information. Hardly anyone (at least pro) care too much about test maps because they end up being pretty boring a lot of the time with only 1 or 2 changes.
There's a lot of great ideas here, but the cynical side of me says that Blizzard will never consider changing this much at one time, or even ever.
I don't think they should change that many things at a time. The game would get confusing very fast, with all the exceptions and subtle changes all over. I like it for the test map though, since you see what's great and what's not and then the best changes can be published into the game.
I think it could be pretty cool to give all dropships more max speed, but give them intentional very slow acceleration speed.
It feels like David Kim has multiple personalities with a very short attention span. It could be simply the result of being a spokesperson for a team of people that may or may not exist, or that they genuinely changed their minds due to new feedback or evidence, but the amount of times they have backtracked, ignored or contradicted themselves from week to week is just bizarre. 4 larvae change has popped back again this week dispide dismissing it earlier, only to decide that liberators are the real problem. It truly makes you wonder what exactly does the balance team do with their time.
On June 19 2016 05:22 Liquid`Snute wrote:Boost upgrade could have been removed or converted into a flat bonus to 'current acceleration value' - now it just goes crazy for x seconds. i wouldn't mind a medivac having higher base speed than mutalisk if i already had 8-10 seconds to deal a decent amount of damage to it, or if terrain basically stimmed their medivac to 0-energy in order to get away (assuming turbo would cost energy now). also, that should be a thing, having the choice to boost hard but lose a little bit of longevity. or just take it slow and let the acceleration do its thing. i'm not looking to nerf medivac extremely on small maps but adding a curve wouldn't be bad imo. far more opportunities for design choices and adding strength or weakness if you change boost/accel/decel properties, or other tweaks such as unload rate of the medivac.
I don't think it could have. The medivac needed a good escape mechanism for drop play to remain relevant beyond a quick early drop. It needed it at the end of Wings of Liberty, frankly, and in the face of things like photon overcharge and faster mutas, it became even more necessary. It has resulted in far more entertaining and fun gameplay than any sort of flat buff could have. Even if we retain some sort of acceleration booster, units with really slow acceleration curves are just not fun to play with and they would be absolutely miserable to play with in normal army engagements outside of drops. Just imagine trying to dance against zerg/protoss armies with MMM with medivacs that can't keep up with your dance and just get continually and frustratingly picked off.
On June 19 2016 05:22 Liquid`Snute wrote:as for esports/entertainment value acceleration curves also feel good, more suspense i think. nowadays when someone press the turbo button we know what's going to happen, everything's invincible for x seconds and we already know what the formula looks like in terms of map size and units catching up.
Invincible? Players that force pickups and then position units along the retreat path to pick off the medivacs happens all the time. Why would just a-moving units at slowly accelerating units be more interesting and superior gameplay?
On June 19 2016 05:22 Liquid`Snute wrote:Boost upgrade could have been removed or converted into a flat bonus to 'current acceleration value' - now it just goes crazy for x seconds. i wouldn't mind a medivac having higher base speed than mutalisk if i already had 8-10 seconds to deal a decent amount of damage to it, or if terrain basically stimmed their medivac to 0-energy in order to get away (assuming turbo would cost energy now). also, that should be a thing, having the choice to boost hard but lose a little bit of longevity. or just take it slow and let the acceleration do its thing. i'm not looking to nerf medivac extremely on small maps but adding a curve wouldn't be bad imo. far more opportunities for design choices and adding strength or weakness if you change boost/accel/decel properties, or other tweaks such as unload rate of the medivac.
I don't think it could have. The medivac needed a good escape mechanism for drop play to remain relevant beyond a quick early drop. It needed it at the end of Wings of Liberty, frankly, and in the face of things like photon overcharge and faster mutas, it became even more necessary. It has resulted in far more entertaining and fun gameplay than any sort of flat buff could have. Even if we retain some sort of acceleration booster, units with really slow acceleration curves are just not fun to play with and they would be absolutely miserable to play with in normal army engagements outside of drops. Just imagine trying to dance against zerg/protoss armies with MMM with medivacs that can't keep up with your dance and just get continually and frustratingly picked off.
On June 19 2016 05:22 Liquid`Snute wrote:as for esports/entertainment value acceleration curves also feel good, more suspense i think. nowadays when someone press the turbo button we know what's going to happen, everything's invincible for x seconds and we already know what the formula looks like in terms of map size and units catching up.
Invincible? Players that force pickups and then position units along the retreat path to pick off the medivacs happens all the time. Why would just a-moving units at slowly accelerating units be more interesting and superior gameplay?
i think a slower accelerate and higher max speed would encourage interceptions, and help terran on larger maps. but, right now it's extremely situational to intercept vacs in zvt for zerg. both with ravagers skillshots (until fungal bile), queens, and even mutas (requires ling support and certain terrain criteria). i wouldn't say it happens 'all the time'.. very rarely, i think. i really wish i could land more shots on moving liberators and vacs but it's almost impossible because they're too oily.
as for frontline engagements, maybe if healing rates were increased it would be more okay to take a trade and focus on mm micro (target-firing and splitting). as an alternative to packing up and boosting away quickly when the time is right. a lot of the time, medivacs survive anyway because of the lack of anti-air in zvt. protoss are a big problem when it comes to tuning medivac acceleration, sadly.
i guess my point is that if bio units and tanks were stronger, terran wouldn't have to rely so much on vacs and hit&run to do anything. it could benefit ground for both terran and zerg if medivac mobility was reduced and if ground units became stronger, especially the siege tank. but i suppose that discussion has already been taken many places before this and it's not exactly on point about this community update and the liberator, so i guess i shouldn't spend too much time talking about it ...
i agree with the other posters that the way that focus went from 'zerg having trouble in the match-up' to 'liberator is the issue' way too fast, too. i know they're stating that this is the majority of the feedback they received, and while i do agree that liberator harass is somewhat annoying, it can't possibly be as simple as "if zerg just defends liberator harass ZvT is perfectly fine". because i play so much zvt and i know what it looks like, liberator harass is a very minor part of the match-up and the early game issues that zerg face, it can't be that simple.
I've said everything that can be said for SC2, and have tried to constantly wake up the community. I'll just copy my thoughts/post i made about this patch:
---------- Terribad upddate. We have had about 10 of these updates in a row with no meaningful balance changes. Let alone any MENTION of them at all. Here are the actual balance changes addressing the myriad of issues of LOTV that need to be looked at, and won't be because blizzard seems to not give a fuck or more than likely it is just incompetence at this point on the part of one or more balance devs (i don't know what else it can be at this point).
Here you go, here's a list: -mech viability -reaper grenade (remove it, it makes TvT/TvZ horseshit build order win/loss) -liberator range (should be removed, lib nerf revert) -8 armor ultra (should be removed) -marauder nerf (should be reverted to HOTS) -invincible nydus (revert to HOTS, reduce it's price) -tankivac (remove it, buff the actual tank) -ravager spam (move ravager to lair, tankivac removed with this) -tier 1 overlord drop (moved back to lair) -adepts (make adept shade remove all adept shields, drawback) -warp prism range (remove 1-2 range on this) -protoss chronoboost (not supposed to start game with this...) -cyclones (still suck) -tempests (need to be 6 supply, not 4, it's broken in lategame in every match-up)0000
I may have missed some, apologies if i missed any other big ones for any of the races. The list goes on...
But sure SC2 community let blizzard continue to placate you like they're actually doing any meaningful changes to the game. All of the changes they do are so small, so tiny, so afraid of fixing anything...it's just PR at this point. They won't actually put out a meaningful balance patch.
I understand blizzard obviously doesn't want this game to die...but at this point there is a either a disconnect between the reality and state of balance of the game or someone is really, really incompetent with balance changes/iteration.
It's also why twitch viewers have left the game in droves =/ and i think a lot of them would come back to the game if blizzard would actually put effort and risk into a good balance patch to fix a lot of the above issues.
It won't happen though if they keep just feeding you guys PR and people eat it up and don't say anything and the game stays in the current terrible state that it's in atm =/
I can't wait in 3 months from now guys for the sick new balance patch that will come out from blizzard SC2: -spore crawler unburrow/reburrow reduced by 1 second!
"See you bitches in another 9 months!" -blizzard
p.s. Yes, i'm salty as fuck because i see the game i love dying very slowly through patches that do literally nothing for the gameplay of the game. -------------------------
With this most recent Community Update, which is just PR at this point to satiate SC2 while not actually doing any meaningful balance changes...i've pretty much given up any hope of SC2 growing in the next few years.
It's really depressing, like i mentioned a lot in the past weeks and in another video...it basically will take a huge community rallying/effort to force blizzard's hand to get a more competent balance designer/team or to actually patch their game and iterate upon patch changes.
I don't think 8 anti air range queens are good for the game in general. It would fix a specific problem but create more new problems.
My current suggestions:
1. Remove liberator anti ground before upgrade altogether so that they can be used for anti air. Let the upgrade enable it with standard range like non-upgraded is now!
Terran has enough early harrassment options with medivacs + x and banshees are still there as well.
2. Move ravager to lair requirement in return. Ravagers come way too early to the game and deny mech-play. They also suck in ZvZ that early and create variance.
3. Remove tankivacs and introduce a new tank upgrade that buffs tank damage vs. massive for not too high costs (e.g. 100/100 or 200/25, + ~35 dmg on target only, maybe even add some extra damage vs. protoss shields to this upgrade).
4. Nerf adepts some so that protoss doesn't benefit from these changes too much (e.g. reduce cost to 100/25 but make them 3 shot drones unupgraded and 2 shot them with 1-0 upgrades, like zealots vs. lings basically (10+9 damage instead of 10+12). Or any better idea here?
5. Nerf warp prism pickup range already, it is just bullshit as it is.
6. Remove mothership from the game. I'd rather do this than increase supply of tempests. The major problem for me is that protoss can even put that mothership on top of that unbeatable deathball in the end and cloak everything with it while tempests pick detectors and static defense. Increase of tempest supply: I would go with 5 instead of 6 for now.
Additionally: I gotta agree with avilo on the point that reaper grenades are way overpowered and haven't been mentioned much or at all yet. It is defenitely a thing that has to change sooner or later. I haven't played much 2v2 in LOTV yet but experiencing double Z vs double T double 3 rax reaper was nothing I wanna ever have again.
Only nerfs not buffs .... game is overbuffed already, midgame seems to be too short, endgame comes too early.
On June 18 2016 12:05 ZigguratOfUr wrote: Blizzard's habit of going for the smallest possible change is harmful in the long run. Changes like buffing spores vs biological units are unhealthy, since they don't solve the underlying problem. If Blizzard thinks the liberators are the problem in TvZ (personally I don't feel like that's the problem, but that's irrelevant for this argument) they should nerf the liberator instead of going for some inelegant change of limited scope. Mild repercussions to other match-ups shouldn't block a change from going ahead if that change is truly the best one. Those repercussions can be handled later or mitigated by other simultaneous buffs or nerfs.
Exactly. I wonder why men of adult age cannot understand this simple but valid logic and feel the urge to arrange their philosophy on exclusively buffing instead of buffing+nerfing, no matter at what cost. It hasn't worked in the past and it wont work in the future. That must have come out of the same great mind that believed splitting leagues into divisions and making hundreds of guys #1 is gonna make everything good. Probably some marketing guy was tought that somewhere at college.
On June 19 2016 12:43 LSN wrote: 2. Move ravager to lair requirement in return. Ravagers come way too early to the game and deny mech-play. They also s
can't wait to get immortal all-ined every 2nd ZvP again
On June 19 2016 12:43 LSN wrote: 2. Move ravager to lair requirement in return. Ravagers come way too early to the game and deny mech-play. They also s
can't wait to get immortal all-ined every 2nd ZvP again
On June 19 2016 09:51 avilo wrote: I've said everything that can be said for SC2, and have tried to constantly wake up the community. I'll just copy my thoughts/post i made about this patch:
---------- Terribad upddate. We have had about 10 of these updates in a row with no meaningful balance changes. Let alone any MENTION of them at all. Here are the actual balance changes addressing the myriad of issues of LOTV that need to be looked at, and won't be because blizzard seems to not give a fuck or more than likely it is just incompetence at this point on the part of one or more balance devs (i don't know what else it can be at this point).
Here you go, here's a list: -mech viability -reaper grenade (remove it, it makes TvT/TvZ horseshit build order win/loss) -liberator range (should be removed, lib nerf revert) -8 armor ultra (should be removed) -marauder nerf (should be reverted to HOTS) -invincible nydus (revert to HOTS, reduce it's price) -tankivac (remove it, buff the actual tank) -ravager spam (move ravager to lair, tankivac removed with this) -tier 1 overlord drop (moved back to lair) -adepts (make adept shade remove all adept shields, drawback) -warp prism range (remove 1-2 range on this) -protoss chronoboost (not supposed to start game with this...) -cyclones (still suck) -tempests (need to be 6 supply, not 4, it's broken in lategame in every match-up)0000
I may have missed some, apologies if i missed any other big ones for any of the races. The list goes on...
But sure SC2 community let blizzard continue to placate you like they're actually doing any meaningful changes to the game. All of the changes they do are so small, so tiny, so afraid of fixing anything...it's just PR at this point. They won't actually put out a meaningful balance patch.
I understand blizzard obviously doesn't want this game to die...but at this point there is a either a disconnect between the reality and state of balance of the game or someone is really, really incompetent with balance changes/iteration.
It's also why twitch viewers have left the game in droves =/ and i think a lot of them would come back to the game if blizzard would actually put effort and risk into a good balance patch to fix a lot of the above issues.
It won't happen though if they keep just feeding you guys PR and people eat it up and don't say anything and the game stays in the current terrible state that it's in atm =/
I can't wait in 3 months from now guys for the sick new balance patch that will come out from blizzard SC2: -spore crawler unburrow/reburrow reduced by 1 second!
"See you bitches in another 9 months!" -blizzard
p.s. Yes, i'm salty as fuck because i see the game i love dying very slowly through patches that do literally nothing for the gameplay of the game. -------------------------
With this most recent Community Update, which is just PR at this point to satiate SC2 while not actually doing any meaningful balance changes...i've pretty much given up any hope of SC2 growing in the next few years.
It's really depressing, like i mentioned a lot in the past weeks and in another video...it basically will take a huge community rallying/effort to force blizzard's hand to get a more competent balance designer/team or to actually patch their game and iterate upon patch changes.
Oh wells. =/
I agree 100% with this. The game needs larger changes to make the game more fun to play and more interesting to watch. Just tweaking balance so that win rates stay at around 50% does nothing to ensure SC2 survival.
Seeing the results of all the chickens coming home to roost here.
1. Game is too fast everything dies in seconds, especially workers. There too many harass options early game, especially from Protoss.
2. Unit clumping, your shit dies so fast because if it.
3. Protoss. The bullshit levels are rising from this race. HOTs was bad enough with their invincible 2 bases , but LoTV has took it to a new level. They dont even need build cannons anymore until the fast 3rd base is up, at which point a Protoss on 6 gas gets all their tech and basically shits on the other 2 races so hard. Adepts costing 25 gas is fucking insanely cheap for a unit that can never die unless its owner actually wants to suicide the unit. Also what with the Protoss base being a living weapon, almost 80% of its base can be used as a long rang cannon !!!
Its no wonder the game is declining, people are sick of the bullshit. 2/3rds of the players feel left out and are basically moving on to other things.
Fixes --
Avilo is right, these bullshit community updates are jut PR, i personally would take it further. Blizzard should create a fork in the game, where the game is revamped with a different rule set in Beta and make some fundamental changes.
+1 second to spore burrow or adding 2 seconds to stim research duration once every 3 months is soul destroying and is actually worse than doing nothing.
On June 19 2016 12:43 LSN wrote: 2. Move ravager to lair requirement in return. Ravagers come way too early to the game and deny mech-play. They also s
can't wait to get immortal all-ined every 2nd ZvP again
Surely more is needed than what I suggested. Just wanted to give a direction with these suggestions. Anyway I would prefer to see huge overhaul of everything, but as this is quite unlikely to come small steps must be gone.
Any kind of huge overhaul won't happen and isn't needed IMO.
For example, here are three simple steps that would improve the game very quick : - huge adept shade cooldown nerf and 5 (or 6) supply tempests - removal of liberator range - +1 to queen AA range and additional larvae for lair/hive.
Giving queens 8 or 9 range isn't going to make zerg do better with 1 queen per base, it's just gonna make more people play with like 6-8 queens even more often
As liberator is the only unit in the game that really makes anybody question range 7 AA units, it's the much more obvious thing to adjust if you're looking to change those interactions
On June 19 2016 23:25 Cyro wrote: Giving queens 8 or 9 range isn't going to make zerg do better with 1 queen per base, it's just gonna make more people play with like 6-8 queens even more often
As liberator is the only unit in the game that really makes anybody question range 7 AA units, it's the much more obvious thing to adjust if you're looking to change those interactions
+1 range to queens would help Z vs phoenix and prisms too and I don't think a little bit of help in both mus would hurt Zerg
It's quite a big buff for a unit that's been buffed in combat strength repeatedly since WOL without having the cost changed once. I don't personally think the games with 6 queens super early or 12 queens in the midgame are fun to watch or play
On June 19 2016 23:30 Cyro wrote: It's quite a big buff for a unit that's been buffed in combat strength repeatedly since WOL without having the cost changed once. I don't personally think the games with 6 queens super early or 12 queens in the midgame are fun to watch or play
I thought it was a huge buff at the beginning too but I came to think it was at least worth testing. I have no problems with queens being a core part of Z midgame.
The thing is we can go on with buffs after buffs and queens in 3 years will have 15 anti air range and you will find arguments for it. The point is that alot of stuff is way too strong in this game, therefore matchups are narrowed to very few viable compositions and narrow timings for these. Buffing things more will make things worse in general.
E. g. I don't even know why terran needed the liberator as early game harrass and zerg needs something as strong as the ravager in early games already, probably cause protoss is unattackable with pylon cannon and adepts without them. The spiral can go on infinitely. Buffs support abusive play with units. Queens are a strong unit as they are. When you buff their range nydus play e.g. vs. terran defensive liberator will get stronger. I dont see voidrays ever dealing with queens again in a reasonable way when they get additional range.
The goal for SC2 should be to create reasonable unit interactions and a slower progression through this.
But yes in this very situation +1 queen range would probably help some, so go for it. I just question that we wont be out of problems after that. Nothing general will change. The main problem is that they alianated the races from their natural and organic play: - Terran the better mobile race than zerg with speed medivacs being able to carry everything anywhere on the map and liberators replacing tanks that can move quickly through the air. - Zerg the defensive race unable to utilize their ability to switch units for good and lacking the defense terran has all over the place with wall-ins, bunkers, mines, tanks, liberators, PF, and alot of ranged units.
The right choice would be to let terran be the defensive race with all their ranged units and let zerg attack with their melee stuff. Therefore the big overhaul is needed.
Just restart the game without marauders, without muta regen, without speed medivac, with lurkers come into game early (on ravager position) against bio to force tank, with ravagers being a late midgame option against mech (on lurkers position). With banelings being removed or damage halfed so they are not main component of army but little splash addition to lings. And so on.
Other than that in current meta: Adepts should get further nerfed and invincible nydus should go immediately.
I agree on arguments that the Game is (too) fast paced. But i would narrow that down to the early midgame usually around the Time when harrassment with mid tier units Starts. This Development Started in hots once the Oracle was introduced... Since then we got more and more even more deadly Units that require too little action to be effective. Yes the liberator is strong, but there are many other Units and comps in the Game that require it bering that strong. I'm Personally Fine with a Queen buff if at the other Hand something is nerved for the Queen at the same Time The Spore crawler buff seems the better option also here i would appreciate when there is a nerf at this Unit then at the Same Time. Maybe decrease damage or range
So I am a little confused... I just played my placement match for season 3, but the maps are still the same - and its says season ends on june 24th ?! Is this a mistake ? Did I miss something ? Why no new maps, i was really looking forward to finally playing some new maps. I even set an alarm to wake up early and play SC before work
On June 19 2016 23:30 Cyro wrote: It's quite a big buff for a unit that's been buffed in combat strength repeatedly since WOL without having the cost changed once. I don't personally think the games with 6 queens super early or 12 queens in the midgame are fun to watch or play
(also range and mobility creep in general..)
The more I look at the problems that arise in sc2 the more I'm convinced that Hydras should have been made T1.5 at hatch tech. Instead Zerg have Queens which try to do the AA job early game but are never enough so they are buffed repeatedly. Terran have Marines, Protoss Stalkers and Zerg have to cope with slow low dmg queens. No wonder they have problems against aerial harass.
On June 19 2016 23:30 Cyro wrote: It's quite a big buff for a unit that's been buffed in combat strength repeatedly since WOL without having the cost changed once. I don't personally think the games with 6 queens super early or 12 queens in the midgame are fun to watch or play
(also range and mobility creep in general..)
The more I look at the problems that arise in sc2 the more I'm convinced that Hydras should have been made T1.5 at hatch tech. Instead Zerg have Queens which try to do the AA job early game but are never enough so they are buffed repeatedly. Terran have Marines, Protoss Stalkers and Zerg have to cope with slow low dmg queens. No wonder they have problems against aerial harass.
Well hydras do have better dps but they get one shotted by libs, while queens take 3 hits and have transfuse. So if one lib sets up behind a mineral line, then GL killing it with hydras in the early game anyway.
Of course the issue is not with the hydras, but with the lib instead. A 150/150 flying unit that's supposed to be mainly AA (Blizz words) is one shotting a 100/50 ground unit.
On June 20 2016 16:17 TequilaMockingbird wrote: So I am a little confused... I just played my placement match for season 3, but the maps are still the same - and its says season ends on june 24th ?! Is this a mistake ? Did I miss something ? Why no new maps, i was really looking forward to finally playing some new maps. I even set an alarm to wake up early and play SC before work
Same, wtf is going on? Sais season ends july 1st for me.
On June 20 2016 16:17 TequilaMockingbird wrote: So I am a little confused... I just played my placement match for season 3, but the maps are still the same - and its says season ends on june 24th ?! Is this a mistake ? Did I miss something ? Why no new maps, i was really looking forward to finally playing some new maps. I even set an alarm to wake up early and play SC before work
Same, wtf is going on? Sais season ends july 1st for me.
On June 20 2016 16:17 TequilaMockingbird wrote: So I am a little confused... I just played my placement match for season 3, but the maps are still the same - and its says season ends on june 24th ?! Is this a mistake ? Did I miss something ? Why no new maps, i was really looking forward to finally playing some new maps. I even set an alarm to wake up early and play SC before work
Same, wtf is going on? Sais season ends july 1st for me.
Bullshit to start a new season for 3 weeks and not even change the maps, honestly. This season is hardly worth playing.
why the hell do they even renew the season? just let season 2 be there for a little longer and they could've changed the maps and started season 3 when they're ready. it's really disappointing
queen range will kill stargate in zvp, oracles will never be worth it even against no spore and mass queen will be able to more effectively shut down phoenix midgame (which is fine, but it's all protoss really has at the moment for stable macro play)
On June 20 2016 16:17 TequilaMockingbird wrote: So I am a little confused... I just played my placement match for season 3, but the maps are still the same - and its says season ends on june 24th ?! Is this a mistake ? Did I miss something ? Why no new maps, i was really looking forward to finally playing some new maps. I even set an alarm to wake up early and play SC before work
Same, wtf is going on? Sais season ends july 1st for me.
Bullshit to start a new season for 3 weeks and not even change the maps, honestly. This season is hardly worth playing.
why the hell do they even renew the season? just let season 2 be there for a little longer and they could've changed the maps and started season 3 when they're ready. it's really disappointing
blizz said somewhere, that season 3 will be rly rly rly short (around 1 month), reasons are, that they wanted to put in the tlmc maps in it (which arent rdy yet to go live on ladder). another reason is, that they wanted to time the season with wcs summer championship, so that pros can train on ladder (if i remember correctly).
the new maps will come in season 4, ~ around end of july.
Terran have Marines, Protoss Stalkers and Zerg have to cope with slow low dmg queens. No wonder they have problems against aerial harass.
Queens are immobile due to the massive reduction in speed off-creep and being a little bit fat but they're not that low damage.
Queen AA is 12.6 DPS at 7 range for 150/0 Stalker AA is 9.7dps at 6 range (12.5 dps vs armored) for 125/50
With current stats, i think that both zerg and protoss are not good at anti air in the early to early midgame - the stuff that clearly stands out is queen immobility and stalker low DPS against air-light.
On June 19 2016 23:30 Cyro wrote: It's quite a big buff for a unit that's been buffed in combat strength repeatedly since WOL without having the cost changed once. I don't personally think the games with 6 queens super early or 12 queens in the midgame are fun to watch or play
(also range and mobility creep in general..)
The more I look at the problems that arise in sc2 the more I'm convinced that Hydras should have been made T1.5 at hatch tech. Instead Zerg have Queens which try to do the AA job early game but are never enough so they are buffed repeatedly. Terran have Marines, Protoss Stalkers and Zerg have to cope with slow low dmg queens. No wonder they have problems against aerial harass.
Well hydras do have better dps but they get one shotted by libs, while queens take 3 hits and have transfuse. So if one lib sets up behind a mineral line, then GL killing it with hydras in the early game anyway.
Of course the issue is not with the hydras, but with the lib instead. A 150/150 flying unit that's supposed to be mainly AA (Blizz words) is one shotting a 100/50 ground unit.
I agree that liberator is main culprit and its harass potential (and dmg output generally) is too big and in this specific scenario (one shoting hydras + lair level hydras cost) it would be still not enough. However I was referring to the fact that Zergs have a lot of problems against aerial harass in general. Oracles, phoenixes, warp prisms, medivacs, tankivacs, libs, banshees etc. most of them would be easier if You had option to focus fire flying units faster with redesigned, hatch-level hydras (cheaper but weaker) instead of slow moving and shooting queens.
Terran have Marines, Protoss Stalkers and Zerg have to cope with slow low dmg queens. No wonder they have problems against aerial harass.
Queens are immobile due to the massive reduction in speed off-creep and being a little bit fat but they're not that low damage.
Queen AA is 12.6 DPS at 7 range for 150/0 Stalker AA is 9.7dps at 6 range (12.5 dps vs armored) for 125/50
With current stats, i think that both zerg and protoss are pretty bad at anti air in the early to early midgame (with zerg being immobile and protoss being weak vs non-armored)
That's also true that stalkers are not strong in AA department. However they are easier replaced/massed with warpgates and have much better mobility with blink and higher movement speed than queens. Plus protoss have PO which deals with most aerial threats which zergs have problem with (early lib harass, tankivacs harass, banshee harass etc). As a result it is easier for protoss to deal with air harass than for zergs. Also I'd rather have zerg early game designed around "normal, common" units (like zerglings, roaches and hydras) than queens which are quite specific unit (macro abilities plus creep spreading but also strong in certain builds especially all-ins).
On June 19 2016 23:30 Cyro wrote: It's quite a big buff for a unit that's been buffed in combat strength repeatedly since WOL without having the cost changed once. I don't personally think the games with 6 queens super early or 12 queens in the midgame are fun to watch or play
(also range and mobility creep in general..)
The more I look at the problems that arise in sc2 the more I'm convinced that Hydras should have been made T1.5 at hatch tech. Instead Zerg have Queens which try to do the AA job early game but are never enough so they are buffed repeatedly. Terran have Marines, Protoss Stalkers and Zerg have to cope with slow low dmg queens. No wonder they have problems against aerial harass.
Well hydras do have better dps but they get one shotted by libs, while queens take 3 hits and have transfuse. So if one lib sets up behind a mineral line, then GL killing it with hydras in the early game anyway.
Of course the issue is not with the hydras, but with the lib instead. A 150/150 flying unit that's supposed to be mainly AA (Blizz words) is one shotting a 100/50 ground unit.
well hydras are horrible in almost every situation in every matchup so maybe thats part of the problem
Zerg needs mobility or proper AA against both T and P. Currently both have total air-dominance against zerg. When you combine this with T mobility and R/R combos you get zerg who is not able to secure fourth expansion and just dies or manages to get to ultras that are the only viable unit at the moment. Either Z needs more mobile units or some way to deal with T and P air dominance.
On June 18 2016 03:28 [PkF] Wire wrote: queen AA range buff would also be a huge buff in PvZ (both for killing prisms and phoenix). It's potentially a good change because as we all know Z is not in the best place currently in both mus but it could actually be far better than it sounds.
mass queen can hardly deal with mass phoenix on their own, they still need spore support so the buff doesn't really change that dynamic much really. The damage output is pretty shit for one queen so zerg would still need to invest in a couple queens per base and since liberators can't move while attacking, this seems like a fair buff that would only effect this specifically. We'll have to see how much they increase it by, I'm going to guess that the range buff will only enable the queen to hit the liberator a bit sooner when stepping into it's siege circle.
Now, it may actually be much harder to scout in ZvZ with a slow overlord, so this could make the match up a lot more volatile in the early game. shouldn't effect medivac harass because they have speed boost, I don't see it changing much else, but we'll have to see. I see how the oracle would be weaker now, do toss still open oracle against zerg?
The only thing blizzard needs to fear is how the queen would work with a nydus all-in, imagine the all-ins you're used to seeing but with queens having +1 range on anti-air, if terran opens 1-1-1 with liberator or banshee, they die.
"only effect this specifically" is exactly what it won't do. It's buffing range to deal with the one outlier unit at the expense of every other unit as they all work at closer ranges
What happened to the balance test map change that gave liberators -1 range until advanced ballistics was researched? Did that never go through?
On June 19 2016 23:30 Cyro wrote: It's quite a big buff for a unit that's been buffed in combat strength repeatedly since WOL without having the cost changed once. I don't personally think the games with 6 queens super early or 12 queens in the midgame are fun to watch or play
(also range and mobility creep in general..)
The more I look at the problems that arise in sc2 the more I'm convinced that Hydras should have been made T1.5 at hatch tech. Instead Zerg have Queens which try to do the AA job early game but are never enough so they are buffed repeatedly. Terran have Marines, Protoss Stalkers and Zerg have to cope with slow low dmg queens. No wonder they have problems against aerial harass.
Well hydras do have better dps but they get one shotted by libs, while queens take 3 hits and have transfuse. So if one lib sets up behind a mineral line, then GL killing it with hydras in the early game anyway.
Of course the issue is not with the hydras, but with the lib instead. A 150/150 flying unit that's supposed to be mainly AA (Blizz words) is one shotting a 100/50 ground unit.
well hydras are horrible in almost every situation in every matchup so maybe thats part of the problem
When a Korea GM says something like this, it's probably best to take note and listen.
And to the people thinking this will kill Stargate openers, it's not like Queens were swatting away Phoenix harass anyways they were more like big fat targets for pick up and kill.
I just think it's hilarious that all these years later Zerg is still suffering from the same damn problem it's always had, our offense sucks outside of all ins and aerial play in general is too strong (more like Zerg anti air defenses are just too weak).
Either that or reduce the liberator ATG damage by like 5 or so or maybe just give hydras one more armor so they don't get 1 shot when liberator has +1 ship weapons. I'd love to play a hydra ling lurker ZvT!
Also maybe buff hydra movespeed off creep a little bit more :3.
I think this is a good idea. Those first couple of libs are a pain, and I don't think zerg should be forced into hydra to deal with a couple of libs. Also slightly weakens stargate play, which I think is a good thing.
Now please make mech viable. I love bio but I'm so sick of watching it!
What made mech play interesting in BW was mass vultures + mines and that they had to be replaced constantly and especially mine placement during engagements and while pushing in.
In SC2 the problem of mech is that it is so incredible easy to play. Few thros barely need any precise micro and can get out of hand and create op situations easily. Mines can be placed easily all over the map and if required moved easily to new positions, they live forever you just spam them in 1-2 factories. The only thing that is like BW is tank placement and movement but thats not much with easy SC2 macro that doesn't require you to put much effort on base management other than building few depots.
Now don't get me wrong I am all for mech style of play. It is way harder to play against mech than to play mech in SC2 tho. I am sure this is something to look at while and for making it viable by any means. I come to the conclusion that somhow marines must be required to take a part in mech-play (in a minor role). Just spamming mines that live forever and add this up with even liberators etc. isn't really a huge thing to achieve as terran, not much skill required. But in the current layout making mech viable means pretty much making terran invulnerable and invincible in several phases of the game. A bigger overhaul therefore is imo required to make mech viable and fair to play and play against. Playing vs liberators, mines, thors and tanks is a pain in the ass as zerg.
Actually tankivacs had to go, liberators should not exist at all and mines should work differently to make mech an appealing and demanding way of play. With the a general mech buff to make it viable and current liberators & mines it is getting quickly into a place where mech cannot be dealt with anymore at all once you get a minor disadvantage just because how mines and liberators work and how hard they are being engaged against once massed. The combination of these mech units would just get too strong. But thats a general problem of SC2 and the reason for why things should get nerfed all over the place instead of more buffs. The only thing I see to make it happen is if terran actually needed marines to complement it against air (at a ~20-30% army component rate).
And i think that Liberators overall are not the problem. The problem is how 3 larva slows Zerg's macro especially in early game, making them be so behind in midgame that they can't really exchange armies with Terran cost efficently. It's not about production in midgame, as macro hatch solves it but it's about early game economy- less larva is less drones and slower base saturation, that means slower 4th and the snowball effect begins. In the same time with Zerg's macro nerfed by 25% u got Terran and Toss with much more powerful harras (liberators,tankivacks and also adepts and disruptor drops for example). I just can't imagine how can this be fair. Mule nerf is like 10% and chrono nerf is about 5% of old ones. Not the liberators are the problem but u just cannot nerf Zergs macro so much buffing harras of other races so strong. The main problem is how LOTv economy+ mules synergies especially in BIO scenario, where Terran needs mostly minerals. And how nerfed macro of Zerg affects this race in early game, snowballing into midgame.
Liberators are good at too many things they need a nerf the range upgrade should be removed or at least fix the maps so you are able engage the liberator.
I've had games where Terran rushes to fusion core and gets the range upgrade if you haven't opened stargate you are as good as dead.
Two base all-ins with adepts are a little overpowered vs zerg the shade ability cool-down should be increased slightly.
4 larva won't save Zerg. The opening build orders I use ZvT never demand 4 larva, you take your 3rd when the first inject completes and the first injects in ZvT take you to nearly full mineral saturation and from there you should be developing queen count, technology, and general defense, even then there's still more room for drones. idk if every zerg on the planet is doing something wrong but with 3 larva i never have issues with larva in ZvT and my macro becomes really solid. Always getting the drones out fast. There are enough larva for well designed builds.
4 larva won't save you from the most common loss reasons, be it defense failure, failing to take a 3rd/4th safely, build failure, scouting failure, losing to a counter-drop or a liberator when attempting a moveout, etc. I think that if there are issues with the match-up, one should be asking for changes in other places where it will actually make a difference, not in 3-4 larva.
Part 1) Zerg cannot move out 90% of the time because of how strong medivacs are and tankivac/liberator defense. So if you want mobility to have increased rights to leave your base, you need to open up mutalisk as an option again, or SOMETHING that prevents the Terran from counter-dropping you. I think a lot of players are still playing this match-up completely wrong: Zerg is by design an extremely turtly race until you reach hive tech. Zerg aggression does underperform on average given sufficient Terran skill. A lot of the losses in the current, grim, modern TvZ statistics are a result of zergs having a too aggressive approach. But primarily, defense failure seems to be the main culprit. Which takes us to the next part: + Show Spoiler [more on MLB] +
4 larva is nice for MLB but it still doesn't change the fact that MLB sucks on average. Liberator strength vs mutas, widow mine splash, tankivac strength, terran mobility, stuff like that. MLB just isn't cost effective anymore compared to what it used to be because of the changes in LOTV. Baneling speed kicks in late if you're also playing quick 2 chamber (which is a necessity), the spire is expensive, tankivacs are a thing now and Liberators are STRONG. The problem is not 4 larva or having to pay 300 for a macro hatch, it's because the game and compositions changed. Having more larva won't help much because you still have to pay for your units, and if your units kinda suck and get eaten alive by liberators/tankivacs/mines then it hardly matters how they were made.
MLB -can- work, but on average in most maps, roach ravager infestor is the clear smart choice. So until they change something, just play proper defense and avoid MLB, you will have enough larva to both develop your build and make units afterwards. If you lose a game to Terran before the 13 minute mark, it's because of defense failure at one stage or another, or because your unit composition wasn't good.
Part 2) Defense failure/harass. Terran has a lot of very strong tools to interrupt Zerg's mining with, such as liberators, tankivacs, mine-marine drops, and all the funky combinations. These attacks are very map dependent and vary in strength, it is difficult to pinpoint one obvious nerf-worthy favorite. 3rax reaper dominates some maps, double reactored drops others, there's liberators with range upgrade on dusk towers, the list goes on and on. It's a complex issue with no easy fix in my opinion. Simply nerfing one unit might be a help in terms of stabilizing global winrates towards 50/50, but it might not be appropriate long-term design that will lead to enjoyable gameplay regardless of map.
In terms of flat out increasing Zerg's win%, should that be a true identified problem, the primary tool to do so will be to increase Zerg defense strength. Two ways to do so. Buff parts of Zerg or nerf parts of Terran. Defense failure is the primary cause of most losses, and it has very little to do with 3 or 4 larva - this one is about units imo.
It's very easy for designers to shift Zerg towards a better win% by, say, buffing the queen range by 1. but the next right move here is a tough one, it's a design choice that needs a lot of consideration.
On June 21 2016 19:04 Liquid`Snute wrote: 4 larva won't save Zerg. The opening build orders I use ZvT never demand 4 larva, you take your 3rd when the first inject completes and the first injects in ZvT take you to nearly full mineral saturation and from there you should be developing queen count, technology, and general defense, even then there's still more room for drones. idk if every zerg on the planet is doing something wrong but with 3 larva i never have issues with larva in ZvT and my macro becomes really solid. Always getting the drones out fast. There are enough larva for well designed builds.
4 larva won't save you from the most common loss reasons, be it defense failure, failing to take a 3rd/4th safely, build failure, scouting failure, losing to a counter-drop or a liberator when attempting a moveout, etc. I think that if there are issues with the match-up, one should be asking for changes in other places where it will actually make a difference, not in 3-4 larva.
Part 1) Zerg cannot move out 90% of the time because of how strong medivacs are and tankivac/liberator defense. So if you want mobility to have increased rights to leave your base, you need to open up mutalisk as an option again, or SOMETHING that prevents the Terran from counter-dropping you. I think a lot of players are still playing this match-up completely wrong: Zerg is by design an extremely turtly race until you reach hive tech. Zerg aggression does underperform on average given sufficient Terran skill. A lot of the losses in the current, grim, modern TvZ statistics are a result of zergs having a too aggressive approach. But primarily, defense failure seems to be the main culprit. Which takes us to the next part: + Show Spoiler [more on MLB] +
4 larva is nice for MLB but it still doesn't change the fact that MLB sucks on average. Liberator strength vs mutas, widow mine splash, tankivac strength, terran mobility, stuff like that. MLB just isn't cost effective anymore compared to what it used to be because of the changes in LOTV. Baneling speed kicks in late if you're also playing quick 2 chamber (which is a necessity), the spire is expensive, tankivacs are a thing now and Liberators are STRONG. The problem is not 4 larva or having to pay 300 for a macro hatch, it's because the game and compositions changed. Having more larva won't help much because you still have to pay for your units, and if your units kinda suck and get eaten alive by liberators/tankivacs/mines then it hardly matters how they were made.
MLB -can- work, but on average in most maps, roach ravager infestor is the clear smart choice. So until they change something, just play proper defense and avoid MLB, you will have enough larva to both develop your build and make units afterwards. If you lose a game to Terran before the 13 minute mark, it's because of defense failure at one stage or another, or because your unit composition wasn't good.
Part 2) Defense failure/harass. Terran has a lot of very strong tools to interrupt Zerg's mining with, such as liberators, tankivacs, mine-marine drops, and all the funky combinations. These attacks are very map dependent and vary in strength, it is difficult to pinpoint one obvious nerf-worthy favorite. 3rax reaper dominates some maps, double reactored drops others, there's liberators with range upgrade on dusk towers, the list goes on and on. It's a complex issue with no easy fix in my opinion. Simply nerfing one unit might be a help in terms of stabilizing global winrates towards 50/50, but it might not be appropriate long-term design that will lead to enjoyable gameplay regardless of map.
In terms of flat out increasing Zerg's win%, should that be a true identified problem, the primary tool to do so will be to increase Zerg defense strength. Two ways to do so. Buff parts of Zerg or nerf parts of Terran. Defense failure is the primary cause of most losses, and it has very little to do with 3 or 4 larva - this one is about units imo.
It's very easy for designers to shift Zerg towards a better win% by, say, buffing the queen range by 1. but the next right move here is a tough one, it's a design choice that needs a lot of consideration.
it could open more options though - yes right now with a good build you won't be limited by lack of larvae; but for example cutting overlord speed would give you 200 more resource for drones; or playing a more ling heavy earlygame without spending 200 on rw. 2 base tech builds would be more viable etc. the current builds only line up with larvae because theyre based around it.
another example is later 3rd zvp (rather than cutting 2nd queen til 28 supply) would be better ; 3rd before overlord is almost autolose to proxy 3gate on some maps so would be nice if we didnt have to do it
right, good points, i totally forgot about 2base tech builds because of how bad they are idk if blizz intended for zerg to always play with a 3rd hatchery in zvt, right now it seems to be the case. zvp is a bit of a special case, i've managed to do somewhat okay there using zvt-esque builds there too. i rarely run into trouble with larva because i usually develop tech or add queens anyway. i have no clue if it would be beneficial to the game or not if 4 larva would be re-introduced, for the sake of build variety it might be, but right now i'd take terran/adept nerfs any day over a flat 4larva buff as a solution, if i had to choose. idk
4 larva is nice for MLB but it still doesn't change the fact that MLB sucks on average. Liberator strength vs mutas, widow mine splash, tankivac strength, terran mobility, stuff like that. MLB just isn't cost effective anymore compared to what it used to be because of the changes in LOTV. Baneling speed kicks in late if you're also playing quick 2 chamber (which is a necessity), the spire is expensive, tankivacs are a thing now and Liberators are STRONG. The problem is not 4 larva or having to pay 300 for a macro hatch, it's because the game and compositions changed. Having more larva won't help much because you still have to pay for your units, and if your units kinda suck and get eaten alive by liberators/tankivacs/mines then it hardly matters how they were made.
MLB -can- work, but on average in most maps, roach ravager infestor is the clear smart choice. So until they change something, just play proper defense and avoid MLB, you will have enough larva to both develop your build and make units afterwards. If you lose a game to Terran before the 13 minute mark, it's because of defense failure at one stage or another, or because your unit composition wasn't good.
I really miss MLB.. What would you suggest to buff/ nerf to make it viable without affecting other match ups?
Big surprise (read my sig): I think liberator has done more bad than good to this game
On June 21 2016 21:58 JackONeill wrote: Simply toning down terran harass strength mid game, and decreasing zerg's strength late game would even out the pace of games
How exactly tho? Keep in mind there's Toss to consider as well
FYI: I dont really have a glue about sc2. This is just some stuff I cooked up from reading this thread and watching sc2 (if-only scenarios when I was rooting for a player). -significantly (ling speed?) increase spore speed on creep -add cooldown based pdd ability(5-6 range) to spore but disable spore attack afterward. -massively nerf liberator air dmg and/or AOE until you upgrade ship weapons. -give the ravager a instant x% snare shot vs air (that precedes the normal shot) so the liberator dies for sure if it stays -longer then 0.x seconds after bile is cast. -give queen an ability to get +1 range for every X energy spent.
On June 21 2016 19:04 Liquid`Snute wrote: 4 larva won't save Zerg. The opening build orders I use ZvT never demand 4 larva, you take your 3rd when the first inject completes and the first injects in ZvT take you to nearly full mineral saturation and from there you should be developing queen count, technology, and general defense, even then there's still more room for drones. idk if every zerg on the planet is doing something wrong but with 3 larva i never have issues with larva in ZvT and my macro becomes really solid. Always getting the drones out fast. There are enough larva for well designed builds.
4 larva won't save you from the most common loss reasons, be it defense failure, failing to take a 3rd/4th safely, build failure, scouting failure, losing to a counter-drop or a liberator when attempting a moveout, etc. I think that if there are issues with the match-up, one should be asking for changes in other places where it will actually make a difference, not in 3-4 larva.
Part 1) Zerg cannot move out 90% of the time because of how strong medivacs are and tankivac/liberator defense. So if you want mobility to have increased rights to leave your base, you need to open up mutalisk as an option again, or SOMETHING that prevents the Terran from counter-dropping you. I think a lot of players are still playing this match-up completely wrong: Zerg is by design an extremely turtly race until you reach hive tech. Zerg aggression does underperform on average given sufficient Terran skill. A lot of the losses in the current, grim, modern TvZ statistics are a result of zergs having a too aggressive approach. But primarily, defense failure seems to be the main culprit. Which takes us to the next part: + Show Spoiler [more on MLB] +
4 larva is nice for MLB but it still doesn't change the fact that MLB sucks on average. Liberator strength vs mutas, widow mine splash, tankivac strength, terran mobility, stuff like that. MLB just isn't cost effective anymore compared to what it used to be because of the changes in LOTV. Baneling speed kicks in late if you're also playing quick 2 chamber (which is a necessity), the spire is expensive, tankivacs are a thing now and Liberators are STRONG. The problem is not 4 larva or having to pay 300 for a macro hatch, it's because the game and compositions changed. Having more larva won't help much because you still have to pay for your units, and if your units kinda suck and get eaten alive by liberators/tankivacs/mines then it hardly matters how they were made.
MLB -can- work, but on average in most maps, roach ravager infestor is the clear smart choice. So until they change something, just play proper defense and avoid MLB, you will have enough larva to both develop your build and make units afterwards. If you lose a game to Terran before the 13 minute mark, it's because of defense failure at one stage or another, or because your unit composition wasn't good.
Part 2) Defense failure/harass. Terran has a lot of very strong tools to interrupt Zerg's mining with, such as liberators, tankivacs, mine-marine drops, and all the funky combinations. These attacks are very map dependent and vary in strength, it is difficult to pinpoint one obvious nerf-worthy favorite. 3rax reaper dominates some maps, double reactored drops others, there's liberators with range upgrade on dusk towers, the list goes on and on. It's a complex issue with no easy fix in my opinion. Simply nerfing one unit might be a help in terms of stabilizing global winrates towards 50/50, but it might not be appropriate long-term design that will lead to enjoyable gameplay regardless of map.
In terms of flat out increasing Zerg's win%, should that be a true identified problem, the primary tool to do so will be to increase Zerg defense strength. Two ways to do so. Buff parts of Zerg or nerf parts of Terran. Defense failure is the primary cause of most losses, and it has very little to do with 3 or 4 larva - this one is about units imo.
It's very easy for designers to shift Zerg towards a better win% by, say, buffing the queen range by 1. but the next right move here is a tough one, it's a design choice that needs a lot of consideration.
U're much better player than me obviously and i respect your point of viww. It's not only about midgame unit production though.But i feel that u are missing the point how 3 larva inject slows Zerg timings where in the same time slightly nerfed mules combined with LOTV economy keep Terran on much earlier timings with their harrass and bio pushes- look at popular in Korea 2 medivack marines timing. It's instant gg for Zerg as they often cut any unit production to keep their economy going. U say about turtle and faster tech in modern Zerg play, but i still think that it's not how Zerg suppose to look like. And don't take me wrong but i think I often see You on tournaments dying to Terran multi drops or pushes when u try to play as you mentioned.Shit happens when u dont have units to defend because u spend ypir limited larva on drones and tech. I really think Nerchio feels the only player i know who can pull this off in ZvT. And ofc Muta play and LBM is really not possible to work in top level play. And if u dont go muta Terran will abuse drops and choke u sooner or later. Byun showed hiw it works in ZvT more than one time.
So after reading all of this, first I'm not sure giving +1 range to queens will make that much of a difference vs T and it will impact other match up as well. Also, spores are already pretty fast to move...So I think the 2 best things that can be done to improve ZvT are:
1- Liberator: They are still damn good ! Remove lib range upgrade or lower their radius/range because it is OP on specific map and can lead to BO win if executed well, also tweak their move speed/accel/siege time just like Snute said... Other than that, looking into increasing their supply to 4 instead or even removing reactor and making them tech lab could be looked at as another option...Of course I would not apply all those changes at the same time but pick the best one of them, which need some testing obviously...
2- Medivacs: They were the best hots unit Terran had and still pretty much are one of their best... The problem I see is that they almost always have an absurd amount of energy that seems to last forever so with like 4 of them T has enough and can switch to mass liberators instead... So why not make their boost cost 25 energy, this would make Terran playing heavy drop play style think way more about what they are doing and also will nerf the healing of bio so stimpack cannot be blindly over abused. Also tweaking their accel/boost speed like Snute proposed is an interesting idea...
Then IF those 2 nerfs are applied, we could look into things like removing that 8 armor Ultras, removing tankivacs and boosting siege tanks instead, moving ravager to Lair tech, etc...
For the short term putting liberators behind a tech lab and armory and putting medic boost on a 100 100 60s tech would give Zerg and Protoss plenty of breathing room.
On June 22 2016 05:09 ecnahc wrote: For the short term putting liberators behind a tech lab and armory and putting medic boost on a 100 100 60s tech would give Zerg and Protoss plenty of breathing room.
Because if there's anything Protoss needs, it's more breathing room against Terran.
Honestly I think people underestimate the effect of moving liberators to tech labs, especially against Protoss. The unit is key in TvP and you need to have a good production rate, but you also have to balance it with medivacs, especially early on (and if the Protoss is aggressive). And you need to be able to fluently switch to making vikings when tempests are out. All of that gets stifled by moving liberators to tech labs.
Because if there's anything Protoss needs, it's more breathing room against Terran.
Honestly I think people underestimate the effect of moving liberators to tech labs. Especially against Protoss.
Frankly speaking, there is no issue in TvP with liberators... The whole discussion is about ZvT and Liberators. As a Terran player I even would be fine with TL requrement for Liberators, but it needs a compensation then. Something that helps mech becoming more viable. I think of a banshee buff or maybe a buff on hellbats or mines.
we could think about removing cloak or speed reseach for banshees, that makes TL Starport play more flexible you can then build libs or banshees and get the upgrades at the same time off one starport. A straight damage buff on hellbats (not vs. light) could help much to mech because it makes hellbats more sustainable vs. RR after a Hellion opnening, or you remove friendly fire from mines making them them more reliable and less of a surprize, or reduce at least the visibility while activated.
I recognized also that the medivac which is the core unit on Bio comes more and more into question. Zerg can shut down drop play with few well positioned corruptors. It is always too risky to drop with corruptors on the map.
1) remove liberator range and AA splash to open up mutas again 2) buff queens AA range by 1 to help Z dealing with all kinds of early game harass (libs, tankivacs, phoenix, oracles, prisms) 3) heavily nerf adept cooldown so that bad adept micro can actually be punished
On June 18 2016 03:16 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: These selections would leave us with one map slot, and without any rush maps being represented. Out of the maps that favor rush, we felt Dasan Station is very interesting because it’s a new map as well as a rush map.
What...? Can't wait to hear the player comments about it being on the ladder.
yeah definitely not. TvP would not even be playable in that state.
Why?
you need a fine balance between medivacs and libs production in TvP and with tech labs starports required you would never be able to reach the lib counts you need to deal with P armies
I would rather like to see liberators have no anti ground at all without upgrade and the upgrade gets them the anti ground they have now without upgrade. Then ravagers could go to lair and adepts could get nerfed more than just shading cooldown. Banshee role would be strengthened. Usually one good shade opportunity is enough to do the damage. I think adepts need to get weaker even with a cooldown nerf.
On June 22 2016 06:33 [PkF] Wire wrote: I think we should consider those changes :
1) remove liberator range and AA splash to open up mutas again 2) buff queens AA range by 1 to help Z dealing with all kinds of early game harass (libs, tankivacs, phoenix, oracles, prisms) 3) heavily nerf adept cooldown so that bad adept micro can actually be punished
I couldn't agree more, except for AA splash which I like as it now complements the Thor
If liberator range is removed, then the cancerous protoss and zerg air deathballs need to be addressed in some way (tempest supply to 6, broodlord range reverted to 9.5).
If you put liberators behind tech labs and remove the upgrade it would still be the most powerful unit in the entire game. The fact that you can reactor libs vikings and medics is kind of ridiculous if you think about it. All this would do is put a 250 gas wall between current liberator production. Simultaneously it would not interrupt our medic production while also opening up the raven and banshee techs. It seems perfectly reasonable, no?
The entire problem Zerg faces right now is the sheer versatility starport tech gives terran. If you make us make some kind of tell (Armory, and tech lab) it would simultaneously slow down liberator production while allowing Zerg and Protoss to spot the transition to liberators. It's the same concept with the hell bat timing. If you see 4 or more hellion and scout the armory you can react. There is currently no tell for a Liberator outside of the warning on your minimap that you are roasting drones.
i dont get it. Ultralisk can just march into 10 liberators and crush all army,. Why is it only lib thats getting the nerf? ravagers kill it easy aswell
On June 22 2016 08:59 MiCroLiFe wrote: i dont get it. Ultralisk can just march into 10 liberators and crush all army,. Why is it only lib thats getting the nerf? ravagers kill it easy aswell
Liberators are great against ultras and do die to ravagers true. However the issue is that Zerg is confined by the sheer number of options you have to cover to not lose through attrition. If this change happened and Terran was suddenly unable to deal with ultras at 11 minutes I would be very surprised.
The entire crux of my proposed change is that both units remain powerful, they just have a gradient. Delaying boost makes terran early medics more punishable. Delaying double liberator production allows Zerg to get corruptor out if required while playing a RR style. It would also open up the ability to actually make Mutalisk which would be a great change for tvz. It would certainly make it more fun to play from the terran side imo.
Units being powerful is important, however you should be forced to make some kind of commitment to gain that power, correct? Imagine how many builds could stem from putting boost behind an upgrade. Zerg plays greedy, you hide a tech lab port, research medic boost, build liberators from it and suddenly show up in a Zerg base trying for a spire transition completely unprepared. This kind of stuff is what makes starcraft fun. It's no good if everything you makes comes out at full power. Upgrades are fun, upgrades make timings and timings create tension. Keep in mind that if this happened you could easily change the other races to compensate, Lair tech ravagers, phase shift as a cybercore research. This also further increases choices and strategic diversity.
I think that blizzard should be carful if they plan to nerf Terran pressure. Sure Terran is realy strong now because the pressure works but, tvz is ballanced on a knife edge due to the strength of ultras. If you make it so Terran pressure executed by the best Terran players in the world does not work even with the near perfect execution of korean pros, then Terran may start to lose very consistintly. tvz is all about stoping z from getting there. If you push the nerf far enough that z can consistently get there the match will swing heavily the other way. That's the problem with having the power levels of each race be as desperate at diffrent times in the game as they are now. So sure nerf Terran pressure but if you want to make it much easier to stop t will need adjustments vs hive tech.
On June 22 2016 07:19 Zulu23 wrote: you can build a second starport
A second starport is not nearly enough if liberators require tech labs. One liberator at a time is too slow considering its importance, especially against Protoss. But you can't afford making 4 extra starports to keep up the current rate of liberator production while affording everything else. And that's only late game and completely ignoring that liberators are a key unit against Protoss all-ins that happen much earlier.
On June 22 2016 08:59 MiCroLiFe wrote: i dont get it. Ultralisk can just march into 10 liberators and crush all army,. Why is it only lib thats getting the nerf? ravagers kill it easy aswell
Liberators are great against ultras and do die to ravagers true. However the issue is that Zerg is confined by the sheer number of options you have to cover to not lose through attrition. If this change happened and Terran was suddenly unable to deal with ultras at 11 minutes I would be very surprised.
The entire crux of my proposed change is that both units remain powerful, they just have a gradient. Delaying boost makes terran early medics more punishable. Delaying double liberator production allows Zerg to get corruptor out if required while playing a RR style. It would also open up the ability to actually make Mutalisk which would be a great change for tvz. It would certainly make it more fun to play from the terran side imo.
Units being powerful is important, however you should be forced to make some kind of commitment to gain that power, correct? Imagine how many builds could stem from putting boost behind an upgrade. Zerg plays greedy, you hide a tech lab port, research medic boost, build liberators from it and suddenly show up in a Zerg base trying for a spire transition completely unprepared. This kind of stuff is what makes starcraft fun. It's no good if everything you makes comes out at full power. Upgrades are fun, upgrades make timings and timings create tension. Keep in mind that if this happened you could easily change the other races to compensate, Lair tech ravagers, phase shift as a cybercore research. This also further increases choices and strategic diversity.
i am not able to deal whit ultra alredy. i have 20% winrate against zerg. mid master. liberators are pretty bad if you ask me atm.. you can always se the terra pushing on creep and taking some ravagers shots at them, corrupor, is really good. ultras just destroys everything.
Leave liberators alone - unless you are prepared to rebalance many things.
I cannot wait for Blizzard to shut down my ability to harass and stop the Zerg getting to late game. I had forgotten the joy of being ROFL'stomped by undying Ultras or my favourite - the late game Zerg army insta-remax on a completely different composition. Also, the fun of just quitting at the start against Protoss.
I think everything is revolving around liberators right now... If Liberators get nerf again (smaller radius, slower speed), then Ravagers should also be nerf (putting them Lair tech, higher morph time, armored unit type) Another option instead of nerfing Ravagers would be to nerf Ultras (revert back to 6 armor)
Nothing about balance, but I feel TvZ atm is a horrible design.
T strong early game defensive options, linear growth rate, fast access to high tech units, useless T3 units Z early game defense is basically naked, exponetial growth rate, slow access to high tech units, OP T3 units
I know Blizzard wants each race to be really unique but what about those Terran players who wants to play Late game Mech? or Zerg players who wants to go mid game agro? If Terran T3 units are shit because of how accessible they are, couldn't Blizzard just make them really costly(like adding a research to make Thors, a research to increase air attack range from 9 to 11, another research to make air attack range 11 to 15)to be effective instead of being pure garbage as of right now?
Also I feel Blizzard's bandaid solution imo is creating alot of toxic side effects. The biggest bluder I think they made is the introduction of Parasitic Bomb. PB is created to counter mass Liberators, but is also destroys Vikings so fast that TvZ air battle is well... Can't they come up with something that only kills mass Liberators and nothing else?
I think it's fair to nerf speed of Liberator. Slower mobility brings more strategy limitation for Terran. Terran still can do what ever that want to do but cannot do it quickly, the time gap will give zerg a chance to fight back. Just like buff Medivac by ignite afterburners.
Another way is extend switch time of attack mode of Liberator, I think this is a stronger solution. Zerg always using the time to kill Liberator as much as possible.
If you don't want to nerf Liberator, you can nerf tank. You can extend time between each attack, defend zerg is easy for terran in early game. Let terran put more troop on their base will solve everything. The method will also impact protoss vs terran.