We are happy to push 5.0.13 to PTR which features a variety of Map Pool Updates and Balance. We would like to thank our partners at ESL, Balance Community Council and Community Mapmakers for all your contributions that went into 5.0.13.
BALANCE UPDATE
General
Worker attack range increased from 0.1 to 0.2.
Worker inner radius (collision with terrain / structures) reduced from 0.375 to 0.3125.
Reduced footprint size of Vespene Geysers.
'Zerg Rocks' now lose hp off creep.
Mineral Fields now all have 500 hp (can be killed by collapsible rock towers)
Terran
Liberator • Advanced ballistics range bonus reduced from 3 to 2.
Widow Mine • Invisibility while reloading now requires Drilling Claws upgrade instead of a constructed Armory. • Splash damage radius reduced from 1.75 to 1.5. • Now gives an attack alert to the enemy when burrowing in range of enemy units. • Increased visibility of targeting line and targeted unit.
Armory • Cost reduced from 150/100 to 150/50.
Engineering Bay • Infantry weapons/armor upgrades cost reduced from 100/175/250 to 100/150/200.
Cyclone • Weapon cooldown increased from 0.48 to 0.58. • Lock On now cooldown increased from 0 to 2.86. • Damage bonus per weapon upgrade increased from 1 to 2. • Weapon now has turret tracking, turns faster, removed damage point. • Health increased from 110 to 130.
Raven • Interference Matrix can no longer target units already targeted or affected by Interference Matrix.
Zerg
Hatchery/Lair/Hive • Creep spread radius increased from 12 to 13.
Infestor • Fungal Growth range increased from 9 to 10. • Vision range while burrowed reduced from 10 to 8. • Unburrow time increased from 0.36 - 0.71 seconds to 0.54 - 0.71 seconds (Range relates to random delay). • Burrowed Infestor is now more visible while moving.
Overlord • Transport Overlord morph time increased from 12.14 to 15 seconds. • Transport Overlord move speed increased from 1.10 to 1.28 (2.83 to 3.00 with Pneumatized Carapace).
Protoss
Observer • Build time reduced from 21.43 to 17.86 seconds. • Health/Shields increased from 40/20 to 40/30. • Model size increased by 10% / Surveillance Mode animation speed increased by 75%.
Sentry • Damage increased from 6 to 6 (+4 vs Shields). • Light attribute tag removed.
Pylon • Sight range increased from 9 to 10.
BUG FIXES & QUALITY OF LIFE UPDATE
Siege Tank Turret now tracks previously attacked unit.
Fixed an issue where Siege Tank attack animation would sometimes not play.
Fixed an issue with Reaper's KD8 Charge Animation.
Fixed an issue with Ghost's Snipe tooltip not showing bonus damage vs psionic.
Fixed an issue where Banelings could deal additional damage on ramps.
Activating Generate Creep on overlords now activates for all selected Overlord types (Drop / Default).
Lurker subgroup priority increased (Now has higher priority than Ravager).
Fixed an issue where Immortals would not fire while surrounded by units or covered by Forcefields.
Immortal Turret now tracks previously attacked unit.
Fix tooltip on Mothership Cloak Field buff.
Fixed various issues with Recall.
No longer includes units already being Recalled.
All Recall abilities now cancel Adept Psionic Transfer and Disruptor Purification Nova.
Feedback can no longer units with no Energy.
Tempest Tectonic Destabilizers upgrade now also applies to attacks targeting flying buildings.
Fixed an issue where Guardian Shield would not apply to units on a different cliff level than the Sentry.
Fixed an issue where certain Vespene Geysers would not update visually when Depleted.
Fixed various issues with Rocks appearance on the minimap.
Fixed various issues with Healing Shrines.
MAP POOL UPDATE
1v1
Goldenaura LE Site Delta LE Oceanborn LE Post-Youth LE Amphion LE Crimson Court LE Dynasty LE Alcyone LE Ghost River LE
2v2
Catalesque CE Divergence CE Nightscape CE Emerald City CE Heavy Artillery LE Overgrowth LE (Void) Reclamation LE Rhoskallian LE Graystone Ravine
3v3
Flashback CE Black Site 2E Sandstorm CE Mountain Pass CE Sentinel CE Jungle Depths LE Bastion of the Conclave Misty Swamp
4v4
Alaeni Enclave CE Enigma CE Fractional Disstilation Plant Lexiphanicism CE Multiprocessor CE Concord LE Forgotten Sanctuary Shipwrecked LE Tuonela LE
reddit finally gets the Widow Mine nerfs it wants so badly.
I'm convinced these balance changes will have next to zero impact on Protoss' struggles in tournament play, which is the main balance concern for most.
These changes might have significant impacts in TvZ and TvT though. I for one am relieved the Cyclone is getting nerfed in TvT.
The Interference Matrix change is my favorite of this patch. Nerfs how oppresive the spell can be in situations in TvT. Also nerfs it slightly against Protoss which is still needed due to Terran timings with Ravens.
4 heavy widow mine nerfs? Seems a bit much, might as well remove the unit from the game. The upgrade buffs are pretty good though and probably enough to compensate. Still seems like they let r/starcraft balance the game
On March 08 2024 04:46 Charoisaur wrote: 4 heavy widow mine nerfs? Seems a bit much, might as well remove the unit from the game. The upgrade buffs are pretty good though and probably enough to compensate. Still seems like they let r/starcraft balance the game
I think the Widow Mine changes are ridiculous but if it will shut up r/starcraft on the issue I'm willing to let it go. This won't have any impact in TvP at all. It will just make mines less effective vs Zerg.
The Liberator nerf also seems unneeded but it's not a huge deal since Lib range is such a late game upgrade anyway so whatever.
There are many games in which a good widow mine hit happens and then we pretend the game isn't over for ten minutes. There will now be fewer of those. It's not the change I would have done in TvP, seems strange to focus on this interaction and not the ghost interaction, but it isn't nothing at all.
On March 08 2024 04:58 Nebuchad wrote: There are many games in which a good widow mine hit happens and then we pretend the game isn't over for ten minutes. There will now be fewer of those. It's not the change I would have done in TvP, seems strange to focus on this interaction and not the ghost interaction, but it isn't nothing at all.
In the balance council's own words. They aren't nerfing Widow Mines because they think it will help TvP. They are nerfing them because it's a "community concern at all levels of play."
They're calling it what it is. A reaction to r/starcraft whining about it so often. That's all it is. The council isn't considering it anything more substantial than that.
The fact it has the largest impact by far in TvZ isn't really a concern to anybody apparently.
So we nerfed terran and buffed zerg? Zerg could undergo a drastic nerf and still be the strongest race by a mile and instead infestor range has gone up by more than ten percent.
On March 08 2024 04:58 Nebuchad wrote: There are many games in which a good widow mine hit happens and then we pretend the game isn't over for ten minutes. There will now be fewer of those. It's not the change I would have done in TvP, seems strange to focus on this interaction and not the ghost interaction, but it isn't nothing at all.
In the balance council's own words. They aren't nerfing Widow Mines because they think it will help TvP. They are nerfing them because it's a "community concern at all levels of play."
They're calling it what it is. A reaction to r/starcraft whining about it so often. That's all it is. The council isn't considering it anything more substantial than that.
The fact it has the largest impact by far in TvZ isn't really a concern to anybody apparently.
It is objectively true that it will help TvP. I agree with you that it isn't the change I would have made either, but there's no reason to lie about something obvious.
What I like: Observer change, infestor changes, visibility and alert changes for WM (honestly WM drops are so painful this is just good for the game), pylon vision radius.
What I don't like: WM splash radius, Lib range nerfs. The lib nerf seems unnecessary? Why are we changing this? And the splash radius is just going to delete bio mine from TvZ completely.
Everything else just seems kind of arbitrary. Like... why the sentry + shield damage? What's the plan there? The dropperlord changes seem like an overall buff, I guess, but why? Will have to see how the cyclone plays out to have any feel for it - on first read it seems like they've moved it midway between its last two iterations. Just not really understanding their rationale for this patch.
Quote from rentry entry:
The progamers involved in the balance council feel that the state of Terran versus Zerg and Protoss versus Zerg doesn't require any major balance changes
If this is the case, why are we drastically shifting TvZ in Zerg's favor? I hate mines, and am as much a zergy fellow as one can be, but I can admit that the splash radius change is not going to leave the matchup in a pretty state.
On March 08 2024 04:58 Nebuchad wrote: There are many games in which a good widow mine hit happens and then we pretend the game isn't over for ten minutes. There will now be fewer of those. It's not the change I would have done in TvP, seems strange to focus on this interaction and not the ghost interaction, but it isn't nothing at all.
In the balance council's own words. They aren't nerfing Widow Mines because they think it will help TvP. They are nerfing them because it's a "community concern at all levels of play."
They're calling it what it is. A reaction to r/starcraft whining about it so often. That's all it is. The council isn't considering it anything more substantial than that.
The fact it has the largest impact by far in TvZ isn't really a concern to anybody apparently.
It is objectively true that it will help TvP. I agree with you that it isn't the change I would have made either, but there's no reason to lie about something obvious.
Read the balance council's post, don't take it from me. They say in their own words why they are nerfing Widow Mines.
They're nerfing Liberator range for TvP. They're nerfing Widow Mines because r/starcraft wants them to.
On March 08 2024 05:16 Ciaus237 wrote: Lmao goodbye TvZ.
What I like: Observer change, infestor changes, visibility and alert changes for WM (honestly WM drops are so painful this is just good for the game), pylon vision radius.
What I don't like: WM splash radius, Lib range nerfs. The lib nerf seems unnecessary? Why are we changing this? And the splash radius is just going to delete bio mine from TvZ completely.
Everything else just seems kind of arbitrary. Like... why the sentry + shield damage? What's the plan there? The dropperlord changes seem like an overall buff, I guess, but why? Will have to see how the cyclone plays out to have any feel for it - on first read it seems like they've moved it midway between its last two iterations. Just not really understanding their rationale for this patch.
Yeah pretty much this. I can get behind the nerfs to WM drops as those can be really frustrating but in head to head engagements they really aren't a problem at all and the radius nerf will probably prevent them from fulfilling their only role in them
Nerfing lib range and buffing fungal range seem questionable. Ranged libs are the main unit Terran uses to zone out infestors during lategame and that interaction is being changed in both directions. Mine radius nerf feels like it will help zerglings way more than probes.
Overall feels like Zerg got buffed more in ZvT than Protoss in PvT.
On March 08 2024 04:58 Nebuchad wrote: There are many games in which a good widow mine hit happens and then we pretend the game isn't over for ten minutes. There will now be fewer of those. It's not the change I would have done in TvP, seems strange to focus on this interaction and not the ghost interaction, but it isn't nothing at all.
In the balance council's own words. They aren't nerfing Widow Mines because they think it will help TvP. They are nerfing them because it's a "community concern at all levels of play."
They're calling it what it is. A reaction to r/starcraft whining about it so often. That's all it is. The council isn't considering it anything more substantial than that.
The fact it has the largest impact by far in TvZ isn't really a concern to anybody apparently.
It is objectively true that it will help TvP. I agree with you that it isn't the change I would have made either, but there's no reason to lie about something obvious.
Read the balance council's post, don't take it from me. They say in their own words why they are nerfing Widow Mines.
They're nerfing Liberator range for TvP. They're nerfing Widow Mines because r/starcraft wants them to.
Do you really require an argument as to why instalosing to a widow mine drop a little less often will help protoss in PvT?
I agree that widow mines on toss worker lines were pretty anticlimactic and too powerful for the amount of effort. I just would prefer something else besides the attack alert. I feel like that is such a weird decision and I really can't think of any other interaction like this.
Why is shift clicking mines to walk towards a third base any different than rolling banes in? I really don't get it. By the time you get the alert for banes your workers are dead and for mines you get the alert to pull workers away before the damage is done?
Again totally fine with making changes to help toss in PvT since they're struggling
On March 08 2024 04:58 Nebuchad wrote: There are many games in which a good widow mine hit happens and then we pretend the game isn't over for ten minutes. There will now be fewer of those. It's not the change I would have done in TvP, seems strange to focus on this interaction and not the ghost interaction, but it isn't nothing at all.
In the balance council's own words. They aren't nerfing Widow Mines because they think it will help TvP. They are nerfing them because it's a "community concern at all levels of play."
They're calling it what it is. A reaction to r/starcraft whining about it so often. That's all it is. The council isn't considering it anything more substantial than that.
The fact it has the largest impact by far in TvZ isn't really a concern to anybody apparently.
It is objectively true that it will help TvP. I agree with you that it isn't the change I would have made either, but there's no reason to lie about something obvious.
Read the balance council's post, don't take it from me. They say in their own words why they are nerfing Widow Mines.
They're nerfing Liberator range for TvP. They're nerfing Widow Mines because r/starcraft wants them to.
Do you really require an argument as to why instalosing to a widow mine drop a little less often will help protoss in PvT?
Do you really need me to explain how gutting the Widow Mine does next to NOTHING for Protoss in a tournament setting? So Terrans won't open with Widow Mine drops as often anymore, big deal. There's dozens of other openings to go for.
You're smarter than this Nebuchad. You know as well as I do, this change will have a much bigger impact on the ladder than in tournaments. This change will have a much bigger impact in TvZ than it will in TvP.
This change wasn't done to address the balance issue that everyone agrees needs to be addressed. This change is being done because enough people on r/starcraft whined about it.
You don't need to convince me that this change will have AN impact. I obviously know it will. You need to convince me that this is a good change. It's not.
On March 08 2024 04:58 Nebuchad wrote: There are many games in which a good widow mine hit happens and then we pretend the game isn't over for ten minutes. There will now be fewer of those. It's not the change I would have done in TvP, seems strange to focus on this interaction and not the ghost interaction, but it isn't nothing at all.
In the balance council's own words. They aren't nerfing Widow Mines because they think it will help TvP. They are nerfing them because it's a "community concern at all levels of play."
They're calling it what it is. A reaction to r/starcraft whining about it so often. That's all it is. The council isn't considering it anything more substantial than that.
The fact it has the largest impact by far in TvZ isn't really a concern to anybody apparently.
It is objectively true that it will help TvP. I agree with you that it isn't the change I would have made either, but there's no reason to lie about something obvious.
Read the balance council's post, don't take it from me. They say in their own words why they are nerfing Widow Mines.
They're nerfing Liberator range for TvP. They're nerfing Widow Mines because r/starcraft wants them to.
Do you really require an argument as to why instalosing to a widow mine drop a little less often will help protoss in PvT?
I don't think that really happens at pro level. At least not often enough that it will have a significant impact
On March 08 2024 04:58 Nebuchad wrote: There are many games in which a good widow mine hit happens and then we pretend the game isn't over for ten minutes. There will now be fewer of those. It's not the change I would have done in TvP, seems strange to focus on this interaction and not the ghost interaction, but it isn't nothing at all.
In the balance council's own words. They aren't nerfing Widow Mines because they think it will help TvP. They are nerfing them because it's a "community concern at all levels of play."
They're calling it what it is. A reaction to r/starcraft whining about it so often. That's all it is. The council isn't considering it anything more substantial than that.
The fact it has the largest impact by far in TvZ isn't really a concern to anybody apparently.
It is objectively true that it will help TvP. I agree with you that it isn't the change I would have made either, but there's no reason to lie about something obvious.
Read the balance council's post, don't take it from me. They say in their own words why they are nerfing Widow Mines.
They're nerfing Liberator range for TvP. They're nerfing Widow Mines because r/starcraft wants them to.
Do you really require an argument as to why instalosing to a widow mine drop a little less often will help protoss in PvT?
Do you really need me to explain how gutting the Widow Mine does next to NOTHING for Protoss in a tournament setting?
You're smarter than this Nebuchad. You know as well as I do, this change will have a much bigger impact on the ladder than in tournaments. This change will have a much bigger impact in TvZ than it will in TvP.
This change wasn't done to address the balance issue that everyone agrees needs to be addressed. This change is being done because enough people on r/starcraft whined about it.
You don't need to convince me that this change will have AN impact. I obviously know it will. You need to convince me that this is a good change. It's not.
Ok we're in a tournament setting, I'm one of the top protosses in the world, I missed a widow mine hit, I lost the game, we're now 0-1 in favor of the terran. Patch hits, now I haven't lost the game, we're still 0-0. Pretty big impact in my opinion.
On March 08 2024 04:58 Nebuchad wrote: There are many games in which a good widow mine hit happens and then we pretend the game isn't over for ten minutes. There will now be fewer of those. It's not the change I would have done in TvP, seems strange to focus on this interaction and not the ghost interaction, but it isn't nothing at all.
In the balance council's own words. They aren't nerfing Widow Mines because they think it will help TvP. They are nerfing them because it's a "community concern at all levels of play."
They're calling it what it is. A reaction to r/starcraft whining about it so often. That's all it is. The council isn't considering it anything more substantial than that.
The fact it has the largest impact by far in TvZ isn't really a concern to anybody apparently.
It is objectively true that it will help TvP. I agree with you that it isn't the change I would have made either, but there's no reason to lie about something obvious.
Read the balance council's post, don't take it from me. They say in their own words why they are nerfing Widow Mines.
They're nerfing Liberator range for TvP. They're nerfing Widow Mines because r/starcraft wants them to.
Do you really require an argument as to why instalosing to a widow mine drop a little less often will help protoss in PvT?
I don't think that really happens at pro level. At least not often enough that it will have a significant impact
On March 08 2024 04:58 Nebuchad wrote: There are many games in which a good widow mine hit happens and then we pretend the game isn't over for ten minutes. There will now be fewer of those. It's not the change I would have done in TvP, seems strange to focus on this interaction and not the ghost interaction, but it isn't nothing at all.
In the balance council's own words. They aren't nerfing Widow Mines because they think it will help TvP. They are nerfing them because it's a "community concern at all levels of play."
They're calling it what it is. A reaction to r/starcraft whining about it so often. That's all it is. The council isn't considering it anything more substantial than that.
The fact it has the largest impact by far in TvZ isn't really a concern to anybody apparently.
It is objectively true that it will help TvP. I agree with you that it isn't the change I would have made either, but there's no reason to lie about something obvious.
Read the balance council's post, don't take it from me. They say in their own words why they are nerfing Widow Mines.
They're nerfing Liberator range for TvP. They're nerfing Widow Mines because r/starcraft wants them to.
Do you really require an argument as to why instalosing to a widow mine drop a little less often will help protoss in PvT?
I don't think that really happens at pro level. At least not often enough that it will have a significant impact
It does happen quite often. Maybe 1 in 15 games, something like that? That would be my guess. If widow mines drops are less dangerous you might also be able to adapt your opening.
Again it's not the change I would have made but it's absurd to say there's zero impact.
The changes to make Widow mines less frustrating to play against is nice, but that range nerf is probably too much. I hope it doesn't completely delete bio mine TvZ which is a iconic unit comb at this point.
Buff to creep is out of nowhere.
Someone finally got the burrowed infestor nerf they want.
Buffed sentry in PvP senarios? Did anyone asked for that? Who builds sentries for damage anyway? I'd much rather they to increase hallucination time or require two ravager shot for one force field.
On March 08 2024 04:58 Nebuchad wrote: There are many games in which a good widow mine hit happens and then we pretend the game isn't over for ten minutes. There will now be fewer of those. It's not the change I would have done in TvP, seems strange to focus on this interaction and not the ghost interaction, but it isn't nothing at all.
In the balance council's own words. They aren't nerfing Widow Mines because they think it will help TvP. They are nerfing them because it's a "community concern at all levels of play."
They're calling it what it is. A reaction to r/starcraft whining about it so often. That's all it is. The council isn't considering it anything more substantial than that.
The fact it has the largest impact by far in TvZ isn't really a concern to anybody apparently.
It is objectively true that it will help TvP. I agree with you that it isn't the change I would have made either, but there's no reason to lie about something obvious.
Read the balance council's post, don't take it from me. They say in their own words why they are nerfing Widow Mines.
They're nerfing Liberator range for TvP. They're nerfing Widow Mines because r/starcraft wants them to.
Do you really require an argument as to why instalosing to a widow mine drop a little less often will help protoss in PvT?
I don't think that really happens at pro level. At least not often enough that it will have a significant impact
It does happen quite often. Maybe 1 in 15 games, something like that? That would be my guess. If widow mines drops are less dangerous you might also be able to adapt your opening.
Again it's not the change I would have made but it's absurd to say there's zero impact.
The impact this change has on TvZ is WAY more significant.
Your 1 in 15 game "chance" that it might happen, vs a core unit interaction in TvZ. Which is the bigger impact Nebuchad?
Why the fuck are we nerfing Terran more vs Zerg than we are vs Protoss in the same patch we (the balance council says) say TvP is the match up that needs addressing over any of the others?
On March 08 2024 04:58 Nebuchad wrote: There are many games in which a good widow mine hit happens and then we pretend the game isn't over for ten minutes. There will now be fewer of those. It's not the change I would have done in TvP, seems strange to focus on this interaction and not the ghost interaction, but it isn't nothing at all.
In the balance council's own words. They aren't nerfing Widow Mines because they think it will help TvP. They are nerfing them because it's a "community concern at all levels of play."
They're calling it what it is. A reaction to r/starcraft whining about it so often. That's all it is. The council isn't considering it anything more substantial than that.
The fact it has the largest impact by far in TvZ isn't really a concern to anybody apparently.
It is objectively true that it will help TvP. I agree with you that it isn't the change I would have made either, but there's no reason to lie about something obvious.
Read the balance council's post, don't take it from me. They say in their own words why they are nerfing Widow Mines.
They're nerfing Liberator range for TvP. They're nerfing Widow Mines because r/starcraft wants them to.
Do you really require an argument as to why instalosing to a widow mine drop a little less often will help protoss in PvT?
I don't think that really happens at pro level. At least not often enough that it will have a significant impact
It does happen quite often. Maybe 1 in 15 games, something like that? That would be my guess. If widow mines drops are less dangerous you might also be able to adapt your opening.
Again it's not the change I would have made but it's absurd to say there's zero impact.
The impact this change has on TvZ is WAY more significant.
Your 1 in 15 game "chance" that it might happen, vs a core unit interaction in TvZ. Which is the bigger impact Nebuchad?
Why the fuck are we nerfing Terran more vs Zerg than we are vs Protoss in the same patch we (the balance council says) say TvP is the match up that needs addressing over any of the others.
Explain this logic to me please.
You're changing the argument, I don't care about tvz
On March 08 2024 04:58 Nebuchad wrote: There are many games in which a good widow mine hit happens and then we pretend the game isn't over for ten minutes. There will now be fewer of those. It's not the change I would have done in TvP, seems strange to focus on this interaction and not the ghost interaction, but it isn't nothing at all.
In the balance council's own words. They aren't nerfing Widow Mines because they think it will help TvP. They are nerfing them because it's a "community concern at all levels of play."
They're calling it what it is. A reaction to r/starcraft whining about it so often. That's all it is. The council isn't considering it anything more substantial than that.
The fact it has the largest impact by far in TvZ isn't really a concern to anybody apparently.
It is objectively true that it will help TvP. I agree with you that it isn't the change I would have made either, but there's no reason to lie about something obvious.
Read the balance council's post, don't take it from me. They say in their own words why they are nerfing Widow Mines.
They're nerfing Liberator range for TvP. They're nerfing Widow Mines because r/starcraft wants them to.
Do you really require an argument as to why instalosing to a widow mine drop a little less often will help protoss in PvT?
I don't think that really happens at pro level. At least not often enough that it will have a significant impact
It does happen quite often. Maybe 1 in 15 games, something like that? That would be my guess. If widow mines drops are less dangerous you might also be able to adapt your opening.
Again it's not the change I would have made but it's absurd to say there's zero impact.
The impact this change has on TvZ is WAY more significant.
Your 1 in 15 game "chance" that it might happen, vs a core unit interaction in TvZ. Which is the bigger impact Nebuchad?
Why the fuck are we nerfing Terran more vs Zerg than we are vs Protoss in the same patch we (the balance council says) say TvP is the match up that needs addressing over any of the others.
Explain this logic to me please.
You're changing the argument, I don't care about tvz
I'm not changing the argument, you're just not looking outside of your tunnel visioned box like you always do.
I'm not against this change because it doesn't have an impact on TvP, I'm against this change because it's a bad change that impacts TvZ more than TvP, that impacts the ladder more than it does tournaments, and yea it's obvious you don't care about TvZ. You just want to see Green Bars in the win collumn, you don't care how we get them.
On March 08 2024 05:42 Nebuchad wrote: So why did you open with the claim that it would change next to nothing in TvP and then spend a whole ass page arguing against me saying it would?
I said it would have no impact on Protoss tournament wins. I never said it would have no impact on TvP. I said it would have a negligible impact on TvP and I'm right on both counts. Wait and see.
hahah wow serral basically being responsible for all of the infestor nerfs. the last time i remember one player/game triggering an instant balance fix was stephano v zerg where it was a swarmhost stalemate.
re: every comment crying about zerg - the matchup is pretty balanced, and every pro who've said something in an interview/stream basically agrees (reynor, hero, maxpax, showtime are the ones i've seen [edit: and harstem in his latest video]). reynor is coin flipping vs herO these days, maxpax is even vs dark, and this is what you'd expect. serral being unbeatable is a serral thing, not a matchup thing, you shouldnt change the player because you dont want one person winning. the design might not be great, but thats not a balance thing.
that being said i still stop watching a tournament when all the protosses get eliminated, so it'd good for viewership and the scene if herO can stop throwing games.
On March 08 2024 05:42 Nebuchad wrote: So why did you open with the claim that it would change next to nothing in TvP and then spend a whole ass page arguing against me saying it would?
I said it would have no impact on Protoss tournament wins. I never said it would have no impact on TvP. I said it would have a negligible impact on TvP and I'm right on both counts. Wait and see.
You actually didn't say that btw, lol, but okay the next time you mean to say that and someone responds with "No it will help PvT" you can answer "I agree with you, it will help PvT, just not enough to win a tournament" instead of arguing against the notion that it will help PvT for a whole page and then pretending that I'm talking about which impact is bigger, TvZ or TvP, when I'm clearly not talking about that. Just a quick tip though maybe you prefer doing it this way.
On March 08 2024 05:42 Nebuchad wrote: So why did you open with the claim that it would change next to nothing in TvP and then spend a whole ass page arguing against me saying it would?
I said it would have no impact on Protoss tournament wins. I never said it would have no impact on TvP. I said it would have a negligible impact on TvP and I'm right on both counts. Wait and see.
You actually didn't say that btw, lol, but okay the next time you mean to say that and someone responds with "No it will help PvT" you can answer "I agree with you, it will help PvT, just not enough to win a tournament" instead of arguing against the notion that it will help PvT for a whole page and then pretending that I'm talking about which impact is bigger, TvZ or TvP, when I'm clearly not talking about that. Just a quick tip though maybe you prefer doing it this way.
On March 08 2024 04:43 Vindicare605 wrote: reddit finally gets the Widow Mine nerfs it wants so badly.
I'm convinced these balance changes will have next to zero impact on Protoss' struggles in tournament play, which is the main balance concern for most.
These changes might have significant impacts in TvZ and TvT though. I for one am relieved the Cyclone is getting nerfed in TvT.
The Interference Matrix change is my favorite of this patch. Nerfs how oppresive the spell can be in situations in TvT. Also nerfs it slightly against Protoss which is still needed due to Terran timings with Ravens.
That is the first comment i wrote in this thread. My bad for assuming you actually read the thread and ALL of my comments before telling me what I said in this thread, rather than just the ones addressed to you specifically.
On March 08 2024 05:42 Nebuchad wrote: So why did you open with the claim that it would change next to nothing in TvP and then spend a whole ass page arguing against me saying it would?
I said it would have no impact on Protoss tournament wins. I never said it would have no impact on TvP. I said it would have a negligible impact on TvP and I'm right on both counts. Wait and see.
You actually didn't say that btw, lol, but okay the next time you mean to say that and someone responds with "No it will help PvT" you can answer "I agree with you, it will help PvT, just not enough to win a tournament" instead of arguing against the notion that it will help PvT for a whole page and then pretending that I'm talking about which impact is bigger, TvZ or TvP, when I'm clearly not talking about that. Just a quick tip though maybe you prefer doing it this way.
On March 08 2024 04:43 Vindicare605 wrote: reddit finally gets the Widow Mine nerfs it wants so badly.
I'm convinced these balance changes will have next to zero impact on Protoss' struggles in tournament play, which is the main balance concern for most.
These changes might have significant impacts in TvZ and TvT though. I for one am relieved the Cyclone is getting nerfed in TvT.
The Interference Matrix change is my favorite of this patch. Nerfs how oppresive the spell can be in situations in TvT. Also nerfs it slightly against Protoss which is still needed due to Terran timings with Ravens.
That is the first post I read in this thread. My bad for assuming you actually read the thread and ALL of my comments before telling me what I said in this thread, rather than just the ones addressed to you specifically.
That's okay, I misunderstood you, when you said protoss struggles I thought you were referring to protoss struggles, rather than protoss winning a tournament. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.
Nerfing widow mine drops somewhat is fine, I just think the nerf will be way too impactful in TvZ. Why couldn't the splash radius go back to 1.75 after researching drilling claws? That way TvZ wouldn't be too impacted, but full power mine drops would be a major commitment against Protoss.
Cheaper upgrades might allow for some nasty timings, but even if this compensates for the widow mine nerf (big if) I think the match-up will still be worse for it.
Also can anyone explain to me why the balance council feels that Overlord drops need to be buffed? Why does Zerg need this? This feels like the Cyclone buffs all over again. Who is asking for faster Overlord drops? How does this help Protoss?
This and the Sentry change are both pork barrel changes. They seem like they just got tacked on as side projects certain council members wanted so they'd vote yes on the patch as a whole. If the stated goal of the patch was to address TvP at the highest level and Widow Mines, what are these changes for? Who are they for?
On March 08 2024 05:45 bela.mervado wrote: Overgrowth LE (Void) is listed under 2v2 maps, but this was an 1v1 map
Could they mean Overgrown Facility ? It's the only 2v2 map that has a remotely similar name that I could find with 30 seconds on Google, so somebody could correct me if I'm wrong
On March 08 2024 06:04 Vindicare605 wrote: Also can anyone explain to me why the balance council feels that Overlord drops need to be buffed? Why does Zerg need this? This feels like the Cyclone buffs all over again. Who is asking for faster Overlord drops? How does this help Protoss?
This and the Sentry change are both pork barrel changes. They seem like they just got tacked on as side projects certain council members wanted so they'd vote yes on the patch as a whole. If the stated goal of the patch was to address TvP at the highest level and Widow Mines, what are these changes for? Who are they for?
I agree, it's a weird patch. Feels like zerg will end up the best race instead of terran, and a lot of the changes seem like they're there just to have an additional line rather than because something was interesting or needed.
On March 08 2024 05:45 bela.mervado wrote: Overgrowth LE (Void) is listed under 2v2 maps, but this was an 1v1 map
Could they mean Overgrown Facility ? It's the only 2v2 map that has a remotely similar name that I could find with 30 seconds on Google, so somebody could correct me if I'm wrong
The sentry change will actually be quite interesting in PvP. Sentries will be far better against adepts and oracles; adept openings (and especially adept into oracle) have been very dangerous to sentry/stalker first openers. Strengthening the sentry vs adept/oracle will promote faster/safer scouting, which should reward more stable macro play.
I don't know if this was necessary, but it will cause an interesting meta shift. I am looking forward to it.
The weirdest thing about the WM changes are that I don't think the alert and indicator changes will change anything at lower skill levels. If you only start reacting once the widow mine is already in the process of burrowing you need lightning fast reactions to move away your probes in time and seperating only the targeted probes isn't easy either.
On March 08 2024 04:58 Nebuchad wrote: There are many games in which a good widow mine hit happens and then we pretend the game isn't over for ten minutes. There will now be fewer of those. It's not the change I would have done in TvP, seems strange to focus on this interaction and not the ghost interaction, but it isn't nothing at all.
In the balance council's own words. They aren't nerfing Widow Mines because they think it will help TvP. They are nerfing them because it's a "community concern at all levels of play."
They're calling it what it is. A reaction to r/starcraft whining about it so often. That's all it is. The council isn't considering it anything more substantial than that.
The fact it has the largest impact by far in TvZ isn't really a concern to anybody apparently.
It is objectively true that it will help TvP. I agree with you that it isn't the change I would have made either, but there's no reason to lie about something obvious.
Read the balance council's post, don't take it from me. They say in their own words why they are nerfing Widow Mines.
They're nerfing Liberator range for TvP. They're nerfing Widow Mines because r/starcraft wants them to.
FROM THE BALANCE COUNCIL'S POST:
Reduce game ending moments when Armory-cloaked Widow Mines are dropped throughout multiple Protoss bases in the midgame.
On March 08 2024 04:58 Nebuchad wrote: There are many games in which a good widow mine hit happens and then we pretend the game isn't over for ten minutes. There will now be fewer of those. It's not the change I would have done in TvP, seems strange to focus on this interaction and not the ghost interaction, but it isn't nothing at all.
In the balance council's own words. They aren't nerfing Widow Mines because they think it will help TvP. They are nerfing them because it's a "community concern at all levels of play."
They're calling it what it is. A reaction to r/starcraft whining about it so often. That's all it is. The council isn't considering it anything more substantial than that.
The fact it has the largest impact by far in TvZ isn't really a concern to anybody apparently.
It is objectively true that it will help TvP. I agree with you that it isn't the change I would have made either, but there's no reason to lie about something obvious.
Read the balance council's post, don't take it from me. They say in their own words why they are nerfing Widow Mines.
They're nerfing Liberator range for TvP. They're nerfing Widow Mines because r/starcraft wants them to.
Reduce game ending moments when Armory-cloaked Widow Mines are dropped throughout multiple Protoss bases in the midgame.
Yes that's why it's a community concern. Not why it's a problem at the highest level of TvP games. You see when you post the entire context of a post it changes the meaning of the post. That's why context is important.
On March 08 2024 06:33 CicadaSC wrote: when does the patch go live?
just played a ladder game and the changes are not in effect.
These are the notes for the Public Test Realm which if it's not available yet, should be available today. Should be able to access it through the client like normal. Do they still also have PTR custom games on the Arcade? that's how I used to test these.
On March 08 2024 06:23 Charoisaur wrote: The weirdest thing about the WM changes are that I don't think the alert and indicator changes will change anything at lower skill levels. If you only start reacting once the widow mine is already in the process of burrowing you need lightning fast reactions to move away your probes in time and seperating only the targeted probes isn't easy either.
I agree since you would look to split and mitigate the shot damage at that point. My biggest issue is inconsistency, I don't get minimap alerts when a disruptor ball is over my bio clump or when ravagers bile my clump while I'm macroing. Edit: I mean alerts pre effect I know we get alerts once they actually connect
These are all obviously avoidable by me playing better, so then why would the mine be the sole exception here?
Widow mine visibility - coming from a BW standpoint that is laughable, but with the general SC2 approach of things, the general design of the game goes in that direction, so why not.
I agree with some of the other comments, Protoss needs more sugar, and I am saying that as someone whos least favorite race is P. About liberators, hard to say, because this affects the different matchups in different ways, but generally, range changes are amongst the most radical changes you can make.
On the zerg side of things, I see detail changes that confuse me, maybe someone can enlighten me. The infestor changes seem to be very targeted at Serral and of course TvZ in general.
Overall, while the patch is not bad, I am a bit unimpressed. I think Protoss needs more tweaking
Anyway, while it seems very bizarre to me to claim that Widow Mine drops aren't an issue at all at the highest levels of TvP, this still seems like an odd set of changes to "fix" TvP.
I actually more or less agree with the implicit analysis that PvZ and TvZ are more or less in a good state, and the problem is TvP. I also more or less agree that two of the big issues in the matchup are Bio-Mine-Lib being just silly in how much it checkmates Protoss ground armies and there being too much fragility in Protoss openings and early-game defensive play. And all these changes at least broadly make sense along those lines. Nerfing early-game cyclone not only helps with all-ins, but as Harstem says has the potential to help the strength of Protoss cheese vs Terran also. The widow-mine nerfs help significantly at the highest level with a very potentially snowbally and oppressive opening; and again, I owe to Harstem that the widow mine nerfs also help significantly with Zealot runbys. In theory, the HT change has the potential to make Feedback significantly better against Ghosts. The Observer change feels good.
All that being said, these changes don't really feel like enough even for TvP. Nerfing mine-ghost-lib is very right and even necessary, and ending that stupid interaction with Liberators and needing to build a single phoenix is great, but this nerf feels largely unimpactful for actual engagements, which is where Ghost-Lib is most oppressive in just melting entire Protoss ground armies with little or no counterplay. They need to just actually nerf ghosts or liberators; and between the two, liberators are the obvious one to target since they affect TvZ less. So actually nerf liberators so they no longer 1-shot Stalkers with an EMP! Or, idk, buff a Protoss ground unit!
While I get the idea behind buffing Protoss without buffing Protoss units so as not to destabilize PvZ (which actually feels like it's in a fairly decent spot)...I don't know, maybe actually buff a Protoss unit for real anyway? If the need is to make early game Protoss less fragile, then it seems hard to do that without just buffing early game Protoss. It hardly feels like a minor or targeted buff is impossible or would make Protoss unbeatable. The Sentry change feels great for PvP; but why not buff the Sentry for the other matchups also? It hardly feels like Terrans or Zergs are going to fall apart with a little more Sentry damage.
As for the TvZ changes, the widow mine stuff I think is fine, and I don't really see any genuine need to nerf the Infestor, but I also think the change won't make that big of a difference. But given the dire straits of Protoss and TvP at the moment, this doesn't really feel like enough tbh.
Tbh I'm changing my mind, this patch seems pretty good. I had overlooked some aspects of it at first, Harstem's video helped me see things that I hadn't considered
On March 08 2024 04:37 Vindicare605 wrote: • Burrowed Infestor is now more visible while moving.
Hey I whined something into existence!
Interesting patch all around. I'm not against centering a patch on a single race (terran), we'll see how it goes, good idea all around I think, although its a lot of terran nerf at once. I'm very perplexed about the overlord speed change, I feel like drops are in a good place where they are and I don't really want to see zerg drop zoom pass missile turret or cannons, especially since nydus is still pretty underuse imo.
Also, a little heads up, I think the collapsing rocks killing mineral patch may make break some old maps, not sure it's worth it.
Libs: I feel Lib range was fine, i just didn't understand why adding tons of range Libs so easily was a thing. Liberators don't need to be reactored. It's like being able to reactor Tanks, kind of silly design wise. But it's also fine to nerf it a little. Massing Libs, Lurkers, Disruptors shouldn't be a thing, and it will still be powerful and fun. Also it's great that 1 less range will make it slightly easier to design maps, using multi-prong Lib harass was too easy and strong.
WMs: Although it was great as a Terran player, i always felt tying invisibility to Armory was weird. I like tying it back to Drilling Claws. I like gating things more behind upgrades in general, many upgrades and tech paths have gotten easier over the years, and it makes the game a little less interesting because there's less of a commitment in the tech choices you make. Splash damage radius is pretty significant, but it's fine and i think it's good to reduce game ending damage. Being able to kill say 6 probes instead of 9 probes is much less volatile. But damn, it won't be nearly as useful vs ling/bling anymore. If WM gives an attack alert to the enemy, I think Disruptor nova could give an alert too. Nice they were able to increase the visibility of the targetting line! I also wondered, couldn't they simply add a slight delay to WMs when being dropped from a Medivac, similar to Thors and Disruptors? It could even be 1 second. That plus the attack alert would make them less game ending.
This is also a mech nerf, but... funnily enough it does nerf Bio much more than mech, especially since it doesn't benefit from Armory upgrades. I never preferred to use WMs much anyway in mech comps. What I don't like is that the WM didn't get any buffs to make up for it...
It's kind of a shame because these kind of zoning units (which double as harassment units), like Disruptor Lurker Lib WM etc., were made to be powerful to help slow the game down and make it a little more positional, and encourage and allow for both creating fires for the opponent and defending vs fires, and splitting things up more in general. But AOE decrease makes sense cus I guess SC2 has proven to still be a super fast game and making these units powerful hasn't really led to players for example, slowing down their army movement, usually it's more like people still need to try to move as fast as possible and sometimes it means they get hit by lots of WMs lol.
Armory: Design wise, it's whack for it to only be 50 gas... but balance wise, I like it cus it saves that precious 100 gas for Mech. Not enough to compensate for the WM nerf, but helps for non-WM comps!
Cyclone: So a slight damage nerf, a cooldown on Lock On, in return for being tanker. Good changes and I'm totally fine with this! Mentioned this before, but making them have lower dps and higher HP will make it synergize better with Mech than Bio because they can soak more damage for your Tanks, and 130 HP is nice for 2 supply (only slightly less than Hellbats!). The no-cooldown Lock On was so dumb just design wise. Abilities like that in games always have cooldowns. Now personally, I'd like to see a 7 Lock On range maybe now that there's a cooldown, and reworking the damage slightly so that it's stronger for Mech TvP than Zerg, but i guess the Lock-On cooldown would nerf it vs lings the most, requiring more Hellion support which is great, and the more tankiness will benefit tank Mech in general.
Cyclone upgrade scaling is hmm. I guess it further makes it benefit Mech more than bio, but for Mech the main thing is that they need something good enough vs early Blink Stalkers... However paired with the HP change is interesting as it will help increase Mech lategame power while making it less OP early on. I'm afraid that the Lock On cooldown will make Cyclones even weaker vs Blink Stalkers. I'm really hoping the HP change will compensate, and maybe it really will. But it'll take 8 shots vs 7 shots to kill a Cyclone now, while Cyclone damage is now 85% of what it used to be...
Dunno how the turret tracking and faster damage point will turn out... i guess it'll deal damage sooner and maybe glitch out vs lings less? Trying to stutter step with them felt really weird, I guess that's cus the turret took a while to turn. If that's what this change does, then this might help compensate for the Lockon cooldown vs Blink stalker micro.
Zerg: Infestor change might be an overreaction. Decreasing vision range is nice enough already, but i guess decreasing the unburrow time so slightly is only a tiny change. Can we stop making weird buffs to overlords that allow for Queen drops?
Protoss: Making obs even easier to spot is weird. Sentry damage buff is nice, but why vs P? Just revert the WoL Beta nerf so the damage goes back from 6 to 8. Removing light attribute is nice though, it didn't need to be weak vs banelings and hellions.
Overall some weird stuff again, but nothing as incriminating as a Consume buff. I'm happy for making Libs and WMs less overpowering, and some interesting small buffs for Mech specifically. I guess i shouldn't grow too attached to these changes as they might change again. Though this time it's pushed directly to PTR not a balance map so maybe it's pretty set.
I mostly like the changes, with some exceptions: - Drop lord's should not get a buff, Zerg is already extremely mobile on offense with Nydus Worrns - Why not decreasing WM damage vs shields instead of the radius? This way it would not affect TvZ - Is the council memeing with the Sentry buff? At this point I just think they want to maintain their perfect record of never buffing any Protoss unit vs T or Z...
All in all I like it. Libs are imo extremely oppressive for a unit that's reactored out, especially since T has a fairly easy time keeping air superiority and especially in TvP where T can pump out air superiority units much faster than P (and Z has a bunch of good ground units that softcounter libs anyways while stalkers are less than effective vs libs). Having a slightly lower range means that ground units now can actually get shots off before melting. It also affects TvP more than TvZ imo.
I get the ideas behind the infestor changes, burrowed infestors often deal game ending damage in TvZ. Then again it often feels like they need to, because if they don't T just fortifies the map and trades while Z slowly mines out. So not sure all in all on the ideas there.
WM nerfs are imo in the right direction. Although I agree that the splash damage reduction may be too much and the alert prolly should only go on when they're targeting workers (although they only alert when burrowing near your units, so it affects mines functioning as actual mines much less). Overall I think there should be a different way to nerf them than the radius nerf.
The buffs to T's infantry upgrades seem rather absurd to me, but what do I know. Overall I still think that EMP is way too strong vs shields and that's the main reason for why the matchup is skewed. But libs, interference matrix and how oppressive cyclones are early on definitely plays a role.
I like the obs buffs, but admittedly don't get why we make them more visible when T can just uncover part of the map for energy and they are high tech scouts.
Sometimes nerfs on unfun units are fine too even if they were not op. If we get to a state where we can balance things out without having unfun interactions in the game its way better than to keep them imo. Same thing why banes were nerfed to not one shot probes anymore.
On March 08 2024 08:19 darklycid wrote: Sometimes nerfs on unfun units are fine too even if they were not op. If we get to a state where we can balance things out without having unfun interactions in the game its way better than to keep them imo. Same thing why banes were nerfed to not one shot probes anymore.
Yeah, but none of those unfun interactions are actually changing. The only thing that's changing is the reward for the attacker.
As much as I don't like WM-like units - far too often terrans depend on good mine shoots too survive vs zerg. I wonder how these WM changes will affect the matchup. As long as WM nerf doesn't prove to be too much in TvZ, otherwise this patch seems to be okayish, if unimpressive.
I love this! THANK YOU so much for keeping in a few normal style maps. Goldenaura, Oceanborn and Site Delta are excellent choices. The first two in particular showcase how well this games' graphics have aged, and it absolutely is important when attracting new players (or pleasing old ones).
On March 08 2024 05:15 Telephone wrote: So we nerfed terran and buffed zerg? Zerg could undergo a drastic nerf and still be the strongest race by a mile and instead infestor range has gone up by more than ten percent.
Yes, after the massive zerg nerfs last patch I think these very small "buffs" to zerg are absolutely warranted. They kept the baneling damage AND hp nerf, and that isn't enough for you? Remember they kept the infestor damage nerf, lurker nerf, broodlord nerf and now nerfed burrowed infestors.
"The strongest race by a mile" this is a common misconception and completely false.
If you look on Liquipedia's statistics page, here: Statistics/2023
You will see that there exists zero trends of zerg domination overall. Not in basic, minor, major, nor total. Zerg was ahead in premier tournament wins only, an incredibly tiny sample size which arguably showcases nothing but individual player skill. If zerg was OP, we'd see zerg dominating all other tournaments too, but we don't.
In fact, if we look at Race distribution on the ladder (remember: no ladder players=no viewers, subs, or players)
We see that zerg is VERY underrepresented in GM. They used to be prevalent, but not for a while. GM demonstrated how hard it is to get into that rank-zerg is there in diamond but heavily falls off in Masters and GM. If zerg was OP, GM would be flooded with zergs.
On March 08 2024 07:37 Archeon wrote:
WM nerfs are imo in the right direction. Although I agree that the splash damage reduction may be too much and the alert prolly should only go on when they're targeting workers (although they only alert when burrowing near your units, so it affects mines functioning as actual mines much less). Overall I think there should be a different way to nerf them than the radius nerf.
I don't think the radius nerf is too much, it's a nice small buff to ling bane after the baneling nerfs. WM are just way, way way too effective vs ling bane. Very little resource cost and also costs very little attention to use.
The buffs to T's infantry upgrades seem rather absurd to me, but what do I know. Overall I still think that EMP is way too strong vs shields and that's the main reason for why the matchup is skewed. But libs, interference matrix and how oppressive cyclones are early on definitely plays a role.
I like the obs buffs, but admittedly don't get why we make them more visible when T can just uncover part of the map for energy and they are high tech scouts.
I agree. Terran bio is still very, very powerful, coming ahead last patch with nerfs to banelings and disruptors. I don't think the reduction to upgrade costs is necessary.
I'm fine with the balance council nerfing Terran as much as they need to for TvP, but these changes are egregious in TvZ. If the goal is for terrans to just die to 90 drone hydra-ling-bane every game then this is a pretty good way to go about it.
lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
OMG i completely forgot, we're getting the new more unique maps!! Glad to keep Goldenaura oceanborn site delta alcyone too, great solid maps.
Regarding WMs, isn't it possible to nerf the damage from 125 + 40 splash, to just 120 + 35 splash? That way it takes 2 shots to kill workers, which might be a little weird, but it might be totally fine. You still kill 1 worker if a single WM hits. And you have a little more time to react because 2 WMs need to hit to kill multiple. This way, it still has a potent AOE vs Zerg. It might make Terrans consider dropping Marine/Hellion with their WM instead of loading up 4 WMs.
Another way to adjust it is, have 2 different splash zones. WM does 125 (+35 vs Shield) single target, 40 splash (+25 vs Shield) to 1.5 radius (maybe even 1.25), and 35 (+20 vs Shield) splash to 1.75 radius. That way it does 5 less shield damage to some units so it'd still be slightly weaker in TvP fights.
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
Frustrating is not equal to unbalanced and never did i say that.
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
Frustrating is not equal to unbalanced and never did i say that.
So long as we're all clear that we're not nerfing the Widow Mine for balance reasons, but because we don't think it's fun. Want to get all of our facts straight when Zerg wins again this year when TvZ balance takes a hit.
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
Frustrating is not equal to unbalanced and never did i say that.
sc2 is full of these frustrating aoe esports units, but touching them just now when it posed not much of problem in pro PvT while it has bigger implication of TvZ just because protoss redditors whined enough is just poor man.
Adjust mines/other unfun aoe units in a big patch all together at once instead of proving balance council will 100% be influenced by community brigading is terrible showing and only encourages repeat of what has been happening for months beforehand. I'm just sick of the whining on the subreddit that has been plaguing reddit for months now. It has never been this bad historically ever but moment redditors realize they have influence over balance like current one, it will just get worse. And it has been terrible for past few months. Can't wait for repeat forever now.
I get it, its frustrating unfun unit. But all this proves is that those spam posting whine posts with obvious alt accounts/trying to justify it on recent buff or pro performance was just annoying to see as they are clearly pushing their own agenda to their own benefit lol.
On March 08 2024 10:14 WombaT wrote: Are these good? Fuck knows! Is the fact that such a slew of changes are even being considered for a ‘dead game’ somewhat positive, I’d say so
Wombat if we're going to start balancing the game around whatever is the most popular thing for r/starcraft to bitch about then I don't know if we can call this game alive, or a zombie.
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
Frustrating is not equal to unbalanced and never did i say that.
sc2 is full of these frustrating aoe esports units, but touching them just now when it posed not much of problem in pro PvT while it has bigger implication of TvZ just because protoss redditors whined enough is just poor man.
Adjust mines/other unfun aoe units in a big patch all together at once instead of proving balance council will 100% be influenced by community brigading is terrible showing and only encourages repeat of what has been happening for months beforehand. I'm just sick of the whining on the subreddit that has been plaguing reddit for months now. It has never been this bad historically ever but moment redditors realize they have influence over balance like current one, it will just get worse. And it has been terrible for past few months. Can't wait for repeat forever now.
I get it, its frustrating unfun unit. But all this proves is that those spam posting whine posts with obvious alt accounts/trying to justify it on recent buff or pro performance was just annoying to see as they are clearly pushing their own agenda to their own benefit lol.
Fair but as the pro scene is gradually winding down I mean there’s something to be said for making the game a bit more enjoyable at a casual level.
The game’s been balanced based of a pro level of play for like forever
On March 08 2024 10:14 WombaT wrote: Are these good? Fuck knows! Is the fact that such a slew of changes are even being considered for a ‘dead game’ somewhat positive, I’d say so
Wombat if we're going to start balancing the game around whatever is the most popular thing for r/starcraft to bitch about then I don't know if we can call this game alive, or a zombie.
I mean it really depends on what makes it in or not, based on this initial spitball of ideas.
Do we see a sensible pruning or do we get something like the reworked cyclone which basically nobody really wanted?
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
Frustrating is not equal to unbalanced and never did i say that.
sc2 is full of these frustrating aoe esports units, but touching them just now when it posed not much of problem in pro PvT while it has bigger implication of TvZ just because protoss redditors whined enough is just poor man.
Adjust mines/other unfun aoe units in a big patch all together at once instead of proving balance council will 100% be influenced by community brigading is terrible showing and only encourages repeat of what has been happening for months beforehand. I'm just sick of the whining on the subreddit that has been plaguing reddit for months now. It has never been this bad historically ever but moment redditors realize they have influence over balance like current one, it will just get worse. And it has been terrible for past few months. Can't wait for repeat forever now.
I get it, its frustrating unfun unit. But all this proves is that those spam posting whine posts with obvious alt accounts/trying to justify it on recent buff or pro performance was just annoying to see as they are clearly pushing their own agenda to their own benefit lol.
I mean this is still a ptr (and yes i know how recent ptrs went), so if they take out the radius change i dont see the rest of the changes be an issue at higher levels (also harsetem vid on these changes i think said that the radius change shouldnt affect non worker interactions too much).
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
Frustrating is not equal to unbalanced and never did i say that.
sc2 is full of these frustrating aoe esports units, but touching them just now when it posed not much of problem in pro PvT while it has bigger implication of TvZ just because protoss redditors whined enough is just poor man.
Adjust mines/other unfun aoe units in a big patch all together at once instead of proving balance council will 100% be influenced by community brigading is terrible showing and only encourages repeat of what has been happening for months beforehand. I'm just sick of the whining on the subreddit that has been plaguing reddit for months now. It has never been this bad historically ever but moment redditors realize they have influence over balance like current one, it will just get worse. And it has been terrible for past few months. Can't wait for repeat forever now.
I get it, its frustrating unfun unit. But all this proves is that those spam posting whine posts with obvious alt accounts/trying to justify it on recent buff or pro performance was just annoying to see as they are clearly pushing their own agenda to their own benefit lol.
Fair but as the pro scene is gradually winding down I mean there’s something to be said for making the game a bit more enjoyable at a casual level.
The game’s been balanced based of a pro level of play for like forever
ideally you balance around both with more emphasis on pro level but being too swung by community brigading when most of them are not affected by said balance/dont even know implication of their whine nerfs have me doubting on listening to community at all.
On March 08 2024 07:04 Nebuchad wrote: Tbh I'm changing my mind, this patch seems pretty good. I had overlooked some aspects of it at first, Harstem's video helped me see things that I hadn't considered
i'd take anything he says with a grain of salt. he is too humble. the balance council needs a toss that is not afraid to whine. They are rare but necessary when the other two races arent afraid to QQ to get what they want.
This patch is interesting. I doubt it goes far enough to assist Protoss compete on a level equal to Zerg and Terran. That said Classic and Stats both got out of their group (beating Dark and Bunny) in GSL. Hope? LOL as if.
Widow mines being hit so hard is strange, sure a small nerf was needed but this overkill.
Please, if you know anyone on the balance team, inform them of a regression that needs fixing: There was a patch in the past where zerg eggs morphed from larva would no longer block hatcheries. This behavior was undone long ago and eggs are once again blocking new hatches from being built.
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
The unbalance at pro level comes from the ease to make a game-losing mistake as protoss. Having a situation where it's harder for you to make a game-losing mistake than it was before is obviously influencing balance at pro levels, I don't exactly understand why this is even a talking point.
On March 08 2024 09:39 darklycid wrote: [quote] just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
Frustrating is not equal to unbalanced and never did i say that.
sc2 is full of these frustrating aoe esports units, but touching them just now when it posed not much of problem in pro PvT while it has bigger implication of TvZ just because protoss redditors whined enough is just poor man.
Adjust mines/other unfun aoe units in a big patch all together at once instead of proving balance council will 100% be influenced by community brigading is terrible showing and only encourages repeat of what has been happening for months beforehand. I'm just sick of the whining on the subreddit that has been plaguing reddit for months now. It has never been this bad historically ever but moment redditors realize they have influence over balance like current one, it will just get worse. And it has been terrible for past few months. Can't wait for repeat forever now.
I get it, its frustrating unfun unit. But all this proves is that those spam posting whine posts with obvious alt accounts/trying to justify it on recent buff or pro performance was just annoying to see as they are clearly pushing their own agenda to their own benefit lol.
Fair but as the pro scene is gradually winding down I mean there’s something to be said for making the game a bit more enjoyable at a casual level.
The game’s been balanced based of a pro level of play for like forever
ideally you balance around both with more emphasis on pro level but being too swung by community brigading when most of them are not affected by said balance/dont even know implication of their whine nerfs have me doubting on listening to community at all.
I mean to a certain degree sure, equally how many of these changes proposed were things the Reddit community were screaming for?
On March 08 2024 10:14 WombaT wrote: Are these good? Fuck knows! Is the fact that such a slew of changes are even being considered for a ‘dead game’ somewhat positive, I’d say so
Wombat if we're going to start balancing the game around whatever is the most popular thing for r/starcraft to bitch about then I don't know if we can call this game alive, or a zombie.
That's always how balance goes, in every game. If they change things everyone complains about they are just idiots pandering to haters, if they change stuff no one is talking about, they are just idiots ignoring the community. We've been playing that game for a decade and a half.
I for one am just happy they are trying new things balance-wise, it's pretty great to still see new patches and new maps and I'm hype to see how it tvp will play out. I would love to have a clearer view of when Blizz plan to stop supporting patches though, just to make sure we can plan for it and not get stuck on a terrible patch.
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
Frustrating is not equal to unbalanced and never did i say that.
sc2 is full of these frustrating aoe esports units, but touching them just now when it posed not much of problem in pro PvT while it has bigger implication of TvZ just because protoss redditors whined enough is just poor man.
Adjust mines/other unfun aoe units in a big patch all together at once instead of proving balance council will 100% be influenced by community brigading is terrible showing and only encourages repeat of what has been happening for months beforehand. I'm just sick of the whining on the subreddit that has been plaguing reddit for months now. It has never been this bad historically ever but moment redditors realize they have influence over balance like current one, it will just get worse. And it has been terrible for past few months. Can't wait for repeat forever now.
I get it, its frustrating unfun unit. But all this proves is that those spam posting whine posts with obvious alt accounts/trying to justify it on recent buff or pro performance was just annoying to see as they are clearly pushing their own agenda to their own benefit lol.
Fair but as the pro scene is gradually winding down I mean there’s something to be said for making the game a bit more enjoyable at a casual level.
The game’s been balanced based of a pro level of play for like forever
ideally you balance around both with more emphasis on pro level but being too swung by community brigading when most of them are not affected by said balance/dont even know implication of their whine nerfs have me doubting on listening to community at all.
I mean to a certain degree sure, equally how many of these changes proposed were things the Reddit community were screaming for?
Any changes proposed that reddit community screamed for getting through is 1 more than it should ever be.
On March 08 2024 09:48 darklycid wrote: [quote] I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
Frustrating is not equal to unbalanced and never did i say that.
sc2 is full of these frustrating aoe esports units, but touching them just now when it posed not much of problem in pro PvT while it has bigger implication of TvZ just because protoss redditors whined enough is just poor man.
Adjust mines/other unfun aoe units in a big patch all together at once instead of proving balance council will 100% be influenced by community brigading is terrible showing and only encourages repeat of what has been happening for months beforehand. I'm just sick of the whining on the subreddit that has been plaguing reddit for months now. It has never been this bad historically ever but moment redditors realize they have influence over balance like current one, it will just get worse. And it has been terrible for past few months. Can't wait for repeat forever now.
I get it, its frustrating unfun unit. But all this proves is that those spam posting whine posts with obvious alt accounts/trying to justify it on recent buff or pro performance was just annoying to see as they are clearly pushing their own agenda to their own benefit lol.
Fair but as the pro scene is gradually winding down I mean there’s something to be said for making the game a bit more enjoyable at a casual level.
The game’s been balanced based of a pro level of play for like forever
ideally you balance around both with more emphasis on pro level but being too swung by community brigading when most of them are not affected by said balance/dont even know implication of their whine nerfs have me doubting on listening to community at all.
I mean to a certain degree sure, equally how many of these changes proposed were things the Reddit community were screaming for?
Any changes proposed that reddit community screamed for getting through is 1 more than it should ever be.
What ones?
TL is slightly less balance whiny than Reddit, the latter I don’t really frequent that often.
Basically none of these proposed changes strike me as things people were vociferously advocating for.
So what are these changes that Reddit whining have apparently pushed to the PTR testing level?
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
Frustrating is not equal to unbalanced and never did i say that.
sc2 is full of these frustrating aoe esports units, but touching them just now when it posed not much of problem in pro PvT while it has bigger implication of TvZ just because protoss redditors whined enough is just poor man.
Adjust mines/other unfun aoe units in a big patch all together at once instead of proving balance council will 100% be influenced by community brigading is terrible showing and only encourages repeat of what has been happening for months beforehand. I'm just sick of the whining on the subreddit that has been plaguing reddit for months now. It has never been this bad historically ever but moment redditors realize they have influence over balance like current one, it will just get worse. And it has been terrible for past few months. Can't wait for repeat forever now.
I get it, its frustrating unfun unit. But all this proves is that those spam posting whine posts with obvious alt accounts/trying to justify it on recent buff or pro performance was just annoying to see as they are clearly pushing their own agenda to their own benefit lol.
Fair but as the pro scene is gradually winding down I mean there’s something to be said for making the game a bit more enjoyable at a casual level.
The game’s been balanced based of a pro level of play for like forever
ideally you balance around both with more emphasis on pro level but being too swung by community brigading when most of them are not affected by said balance/dont even know implication of their whine nerfs have me doubting on listening to community at all.
I mean to a certain degree sure, equally how many of these changes proposed were things the Reddit community were screaming for?
Any changes proposed that reddit community screamed for getting through is 1 more than it should ever be.
What ones?
TL is slightly less balance whiny than Reddit, the latter I don’t really frequent that often.
Basically none of these proposed changes strike me as things people were vociferously advocating for.
So what are these changes that Reddit whining have apparently pushed to the PTR testing level?
past like 5 months of reddit was just pure whining about widow mines and notable members of diamond protoss community trying really hard to link it to pro games/any means to justify it, with stemmed from "why did widow mines get buffed?!" last patch. It was pretty clear they took the opportunity to whine and ran with it despite the change on mine having 0 effect on what was killing them inf irst place. and all this did was prove that whining on reddit works. It was daily half of frontpage for months. Just widow mine posts after widow mine posts.
if it's going to change, change it in a bigger patch that deals with all these concerns without specifically advocating the one community whine posts clump. Address multiple at once without acknowledging a particular event. All this did was give them approval and set a precedence
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
The unbalance at pro level comes from the ease to make a game-losing mistake as protoss. Having a situation where it's harder for you to make a game-losing mistake than it was before is obviously influencing balance at pro levels, I don't exactly understand why this is even a talking point.
Yes you do, you just don't care. This is a MUCH bigger change for TvZ than it is for TvP.
In TvP Widow Mines are pretty much ONLY used for Widow Mine drops, they're hardly used for anything else. Nerfing them has a very minor impact on the overall winrate of TvP because Terrans will just use other openers.
Widow Mines in TvZ are a HUGE part of the balance of the match up. Bio vs Zerg heavily uses Widow Mines to counter Banelings. This change will have a MUCH more substantial impact in that match up than it will in TvP.
We're giving Terran a significant nerf vs Zerg, for a very minor trade off in TvP. There are better changes that can be made to address TvP in Protoss' favor, but the balance council is doing THIS one just because of reddit's whining. They're going with what the mob thinks is popular rather than what's an actually good and impactful change for their stated goal.
On March 08 2024 09:57 darklycid wrote: [quote] I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
Frustrating is not equal to unbalanced and never did i say that.
sc2 is full of these frustrating aoe esports units, but touching them just now when it posed not much of problem in pro PvT while it has bigger implication of TvZ just because protoss redditors whined enough is just poor man.
Adjust mines/other unfun aoe units in a big patch all together at once instead of proving balance council will 100% be influenced by community brigading is terrible showing and only encourages repeat of what has been happening for months beforehand. I'm just sick of the whining on the subreddit that has been plaguing reddit for months now. It has never been this bad historically ever but moment redditors realize they have influence over balance like current one, it will just get worse. And it has been terrible for past few months. Can't wait for repeat forever now.
I get it, its frustrating unfun unit. But all this proves is that those spam posting whine posts with obvious alt accounts/trying to justify it on recent buff or pro performance was just annoying to see as they are clearly pushing their own agenda to their own benefit lol.
Fair but as the pro scene is gradually winding down I mean there’s something to be said for making the game a bit more enjoyable at a casual level.
The game’s been balanced based of a pro level of play for like forever
ideally you balance around both with more emphasis on pro level but being too swung by community brigading when most of them are not affected by said balance/dont even know implication of their whine nerfs have me doubting on listening to community at all.
I mean to a certain degree sure, equally how many of these changes proposed were things the Reddit community were screaming for?
Any changes proposed that reddit community screamed for getting through is 1 more than it should ever be.
What ones?
TL is slightly less balance whiny than Reddit, the latter I don’t really frequent that often.
Basically none of these proposed changes strike me as things people were vociferously advocating for.
So what are these changes that Reddit whining have apparently pushed to the PTR testing level?
past like 5 months of reddit was just pure whining about widow mines and notable members of diamond protoss community trying really hard to link it to pro games/any means to justify it, with stemmed from "why did widow mines get buffed?!" last patch. It was pretty clear they took the opportunity to whine and ran with it despite the change on mine having 0 effect on what was killing them inf irst place. and all this did was prove that whining on reddit works. It was daily half of frontpage for months. Just widow mine posts after widow mine posts.
if it's going to change, change it in a bigger patch that deals with all these concerns without specifically advocating the one community whine posts clump. Address multiple at once without acknowledging a particular event. All this did was give them approval and set a precedence
Isn’t that what they’re potentially doing here?
Tbh I don’t personally like it, I didn’t like the last couple of patches either where they changed like 8 things at once in a big patch rather than gradually doing targeted changes but more frequently. How does one assess the effectiveness of one change if there’s a bunch running alongside it etc
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
Frustrating is not equal to unbalanced and never did i say that.
sc2 is full of these frustrating aoe esports units, but touching them just now when it posed not much of problem in pro PvT while it has bigger implication of TvZ just because protoss redditors whined enough is just poor man.
Adjust mines/other unfun aoe units in a big patch all together at once instead of proving balance council will 100% be influenced by community brigading is terrible showing and only encourages repeat of what has been happening for months beforehand. I'm just sick of the whining on the subreddit that has been plaguing reddit for months now. It has never been this bad historically ever but moment redditors realize they have influence over balance like current one, it will just get worse. And it has been terrible for past few months. Can't wait for repeat forever now.
I get it, its frustrating unfun unit. But all this proves is that those spam posting whine posts with obvious alt accounts/trying to justify it on recent buff or pro performance was just annoying to see as they are clearly pushing their own agenda to their own benefit lol.
Fair but as the pro scene is gradually winding down I mean there’s something to be said for making the game a bit more enjoyable at a casual level.
The game’s been balanced based of a pro level of play for like forever
ideally you balance around both with more emphasis on pro level but being too swung by community brigading when most of them are not affected by said balance/dont even know implication of their whine nerfs have me doubting on listening to community at all.
I mean to a certain degree sure, equally how many of these changes proposed were things the Reddit community were screaming for?
Any changes proposed that reddit community screamed for getting through is 1 more than it should ever be.
What ones?
TL is slightly less balance whiny than Reddit, the latter I don’t really frequent that often.
Basically none of these proposed changes strike me as things people were vociferously advocating for.
So what are these changes that Reddit whining have apparently pushed to the PTR testing level?
past like 5 months of reddit was just pure whining about widow mines and notable members of diamond protoss community trying really hard to link it to pro games/any means to justify it, with stemmed from "why did widow mines get buffed?!" last patch. It was pretty clear they took the opportunity to whine and ran with it despite the change on mine having 0 effect on what was killing them inf irst place. and all this did was prove that whining on reddit works. It was daily half of frontpage for months. Just widow mine posts after widow mine posts.
if it's going to change, change it in a bigger patch that deals with all these concerns without specifically advocating the one community whine posts clump. Address multiple at once without acknowledging a particular event. All this did was give them approval and set a precedence
Isn’t that what they’re potentially doing here?
Tbh I don’t personally like it, I didn’t like the last couple of patches either where they changed like 8 things at once in a big patch rather than gradually doing targeted changes but more frequently. How does one assess the effectiveness of one change if there’s a bunch running alongside it etc
I'm fine with them touching unit itself, but not fine with the sole change to be targeted for widow mine clearly because reddit whined it. It's just rewarding that. If they were going ot change it, they should have addressed multiple unit of similar fashion and avoid acklowedging the direct influence balance whining on reddit has.
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
The unbalance at pro level comes from the ease to make a game-losing mistake as protoss. Having a situation where it's harder for you to make a game-losing mistake than it was before is obviously influencing balance at pro levels, I don't exactly understand why this is even a talking point.
Yes you do, you just don't care. This is a MUCH bigger change for TvZ than it is for TvP.
In TvP Widow Mines are pretty much ONLY used for Widow Mine drops, they're hardly used for anything else. Nerfing them has a very minor impact on the overall winrate of TvP because Terrans will just use other openers.
Widow Mines in TvZ are a HUGE part of the balance of the match up. Bio vs Zerg heavily uses Widow Mines to counter Banelings. This change will have a MUCH more substantial impact in that match up than it will in TvP.
We're giving Terran a significant nerf vs Zerg, for a very minor trade off in TvP. There are better changes that can be made to address TvP in Protoss' favor, but the balance council is doing THIS one just because of reddit's whining. They're going with what the mob thinks is popular rather than what's an actually good and impactful change for their stated goal.
Could you highlight the part of my post that talks about TvZ?
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
Sounds like terrans whining about Zergs after every tournaments
Terran should take your advice and spent a fraction of the time practicing instead of whining about burrow infestors. Terran is already the strongest race for years now
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
The unbalance at pro level comes from the ease to make a game-losing mistake as protoss. Having a situation where it's harder for you to make a game-losing mistake than it was before is obviously influencing balance at pro levels, I don't exactly understand why this is even a talking point.
Yes you do, you just don't care. This is a MUCH bigger change for TvZ than it is for TvP.
In TvP Widow Mines are pretty much ONLY used for Widow Mine drops, they're hardly used for anything else. Nerfing them has a very minor impact on the overall winrate of TvP because Terrans will just use other openers.
Widow Mines in TvZ are a HUGE part of the balance of the match up. Bio vs Zerg heavily uses Widow Mines to counter Banelings. This change will have a MUCH more substantial impact in that match up than it will in TvP.
We're giving Terran a significant nerf vs Zerg, for a very minor trade off in TvP. There are better changes that can be made to address TvP in Protoss' favor, but the balance council is doing THIS one just because of reddit's whining. They're going with what the mob thinks is popular rather than what's an actually good and impactful change for their stated goal.
Not sure what games you are watching. Widow mines are in more than 50% of tvp games. (Not used for mine drops)
How many times have we saw Protoss struggle to clear a mine field because their obs died. Literally cannot advance or counteract until they clear it
Good patch. I think the general direction is just right.
Here is Harstem's view of it, and I largely agree. It's also amusing that Harstem directly argues against some TL.net's favorite opinions, such as that TvZ is zerg-favored and that building ravens in TvZ is out of the question for principled reasons.
On March 08 2024 10:06 darklycid wrote: [quote] Frustrating is not equal to unbalanced and never did i say that.
sc2 is full of these frustrating aoe esports units, but touching them just now when it posed not much of problem in pro PvT while it has bigger implication of TvZ just because protoss redditors whined enough is just poor man.
Adjust mines/other unfun aoe units in a big patch all together at once instead of proving balance council will 100% be influenced by community brigading is terrible showing and only encourages repeat of what has been happening for months beforehand. I'm just sick of the whining on the subreddit that has been plaguing reddit for months now. It has never been this bad historically ever but moment redditors realize they have influence over balance like current one, it will just get worse. And it has been terrible for past few months. Can't wait for repeat forever now.
I get it, its frustrating unfun unit. But all this proves is that those spam posting whine posts with obvious alt accounts/trying to justify it on recent buff or pro performance was just annoying to see as they are clearly pushing their own agenda to their own benefit lol.
Fair but as the pro scene is gradually winding down I mean there’s something to be said for making the game a bit more enjoyable at a casual level.
The game’s been balanced based of a pro level of play for like forever
ideally you balance around both with more emphasis on pro level but being too swung by community brigading when most of them are not affected by said balance/dont even know implication of their whine nerfs have me doubting on listening to community at all.
I mean to a certain degree sure, equally how many of these changes proposed were things the Reddit community were screaming for?
Any changes proposed that reddit community screamed for getting through is 1 more than it should ever be.
What ones?
TL is slightly less balance whiny than Reddit, the latter I don’t really frequent that often.
Basically none of these proposed changes strike me as things people were vociferously advocating for.
So what are these changes that Reddit whining have apparently pushed to the PTR testing level?
past like 5 months of reddit was just pure whining about widow mines and notable members of diamond protoss community trying really hard to link it to pro games/any means to justify it, with stemmed from "why did widow mines get buffed?!" last patch. It was pretty clear they took the opportunity to whine and ran with it despite the change on mine having 0 effect on what was killing them inf irst place. and all this did was prove that whining on reddit works. It was daily half of frontpage for months. Just widow mine posts after widow mine posts.
if it's going to change, change it in a bigger patch that deals with all these concerns without specifically advocating the one community whine posts clump. Address multiple at once without acknowledging a particular event. All this did was give them approval and set a precedence
Isn’t that what they’re potentially doing here?
Tbh I don’t personally like it, I didn’t like the last couple of patches either where they changed like 8 things at once in a big patch rather than gradually doing targeted changes but more frequently. How does one assess the effectiveness of one change if there’s a bunch running alongside it etc
I'm fine with them touching unit itself, but not fine with the sole change to be targeted for widow mine clearly because reddit whined it. It's just rewarding that. If they were going ot change it, they should have addressed multiple unit of similar fashion and avoid acklowedging the direct influence balance whining on reddit has.
If you dislike nerfs being whined into existence, why don't you mention the infestor nerf in the same breath? The past weeks have seen a comical amount of whining about the infestor here on TL (but, notably, not on Reddit), although it is essentially only a single player in the world – the best player in the world – who can use them to their full potential.
On March 08 2024 11:16 Antithesis wrote: Good patch. I think the general direction is just right.
Here is Harstem's view of it, and I largely agree. It's also amusing that Harstem directly argues against some TL.net's favorite opinions, such as that TvZ is zerg-favored and that building ravens in TvZ is out of the question for principled reasons.
sc2 is full of these frustrating aoe esports units, but touching them just now when it posed not much of problem in pro PvT while it has bigger implication of TvZ just because protoss redditors whined enough is just poor man.
Adjust mines/other unfun aoe units in a big patch all together at once instead of proving balance council will 100% be influenced by community brigading is terrible showing and only encourages repeat of what has been happening for months beforehand. I'm just sick of the whining on the subreddit that has been plaguing reddit for months now. It has never been this bad historically ever but moment redditors realize they have influence over balance like current one, it will just get worse. And it has been terrible for past few months. Can't wait for repeat forever now.
I get it, its frustrating unfun unit. But all this proves is that those spam posting whine posts with obvious alt accounts/trying to justify it on recent buff or pro performance was just annoying to see as they are clearly pushing their own agenda to their own benefit lol.
Fair but as the pro scene is gradually winding down I mean there’s something to be said for making the game a bit more enjoyable at a casual level.
The game’s been balanced based of a pro level of play for like forever
ideally you balance around both with more emphasis on pro level but being too swung by community brigading when most of them are not affected by said balance/dont even know implication of their whine nerfs have me doubting on listening to community at all.
I mean to a certain degree sure, equally how many of these changes proposed were things the Reddit community were screaming for?
Any changes proposed that reddit community screamed for getting through is 1 more than it should ever be.
What ones?
TL is slightly less balance whiny than Reddit, the latter I don’t really frequent that often.
Basically none of these proposed changes strike me as things people were vociferously advocating for.
So what are these changes that Reddit whining have apparently pushed to the PTR testing level?
past like 5 months of reddit was just pure whining about widow mines and notable members of diamond protoss community trying really hard to link it to pro games/any means to justify it, with stemmed from "why did widow mines get buffed?!" last patch. It was pretty clear they took the opportunity to whine and ran with it despite the change on mine having 0 effect on what was killing them inf irst place. and all this did was prove that whining on reddit works. It was daily half of frontpage for months. Just widow mine posts after widow mine posts.
if it's going to change, change it in a bigger patch that deals with all these concerns without specifically advocating the one community whine posts clump. Address multiple at once without acknowledging a particular event. All this did was give them approval and set a precedence
Isn’t that what they’re potentially doing here?
Tbh I don’t personally like it, I didn’t like the last couple of patches either where they changed like 8 things at once in a big patch rather than gradually doing targeted changes but more frequently. How does one assess the effectiveness of one change if there’s a bunch running alongside it etc
I'm fine with them touching unit itself, but not fine with the sole change to be targeted for widow mine clearly because reddit whined it. It's just rewarding that. If they were going ot change it, they should have addressed multiple unit of similar fashion and avoid acklowedging the direct influence balance whining on reddit has.
If you dislike nerfs being whined into existence, why don't you mention the infestor nerf in the same breath? The past weeks have seen a comical amount of whining about the infestor here on TL (but, notably, not on Reddit), although it is essentially only a single player in the world – the best player in the world – who can use them to their full potential.
It also took like five minutes of whining for terrans to get what they wanted, while protoss has to wait years, but let's not pretend that everyone isn't aware of that.
On March 08 2024 09:25 jinjin5000 wrote: lmfao reddit diamond protoss balance whine brigade got what they wanted after months of whining despite it not being issue at pro level just because they had excuse to whine about mine having a "buff" on unburrow part.
That's fucking amazing. You'd think if they spent fraction of time whining to practicing, they would have been in masters long, long time ago.
just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
The unbalance at pro level comes from the ease to make a game-losing mistake as protoss. Having a situation where it's harder for you to make a game-losing mistake than it was before is obviously influencing balance at pro levels, I don't exactly understand why this is even a talking point.
Yes you do, you just don't care. This is a MUCH bigger change for TvZ than it is for TvP.
In TvP Widow Mines are pretty much ONLY used for Widow Mine drops, they're hardly used for anything else. Nerfing them has a very minor impact on the overall winrate of TvP because Terrans will just use other openers.
Widow Mines in TvZ are a HUGE part of the balance of the match up. Bio vs Zerg heavily uses Widow Mines to counter Banelings. This change will have a MUCH more substantial impact in that match up than it will in TvP.
We're giving Terran a significant nerf vs Zerg, for a very minor trade off in TvP. There are better changes that can be made to address TvP in Protoss' favor, but the balance council is doing THIS one just because of reddit's whining. They're going with what the mob thinks is popular rather than what's an actually good and impactful change for their stated goal.
Could you highlight the part of my post that talks about TvZ?
The part where you don't care.
You say you don't see what the issue is. The issue is that TvP is not the only match up being affected by this patch. This patch does more to impact TvZ than TvP. You don't care because you don't care about anything that isn't explicitly related to Protoss.
That's why it's a bad patch. It doesn't accomplish its stated goal, and goes against what the Balance Council said was their assessment of the other match ups.
On March 08 2024 09:39 darklycid wrote: [quote] just a payback for the observer nerf I dunno if i like the radius nerf but the rest is completely fine imo as i said wms lead to some of the most unfun interactions (even if not a problem really at high levels), which is a very fine reason to do changes against that (same goes for other of those insta poof units like disruptors).
Now reddit knows it will work and /r/starcraft will turn into battle.net forums like it has been for past few months for rest of eternity.
I mean why shouldnt they change unfun interactions? Because they are neccessary for the balance? Sounds like a shit crux to rely on.
I won't deny units like disruptor, widow mines, ect are terrible unit design and SC2 has way too much of instant lose aoe units/harass units, but touching a unit that only really affects pvt at low level and has much bigger implication for tvz just because diamond protoss redditors whined really hard for past few months is just sending wrong message.
People pulling forward pro stats/"there was a BUFF to mines!!!" justification to rally their thinly-veiled agenda when there were much needed concerns elsewhere just proves to these guys that what they do are working. If they were going to touch these units, they should really touch a lot of them and revamp all at once instead of "community feedback". If you are going to touch these units, don't do it in way that justify these low level whiners pushing their own agenda.
Only if those whiners spent fraction of time in the game instead of whining, they wouldn't have widow mine drop as concern anymore to them lol.
I mean wms were still frutrating to pros as well (can listen to e.g. showtime on his stream occasionally mentioning it iirc), so the unfun part isnt only for lower levels tho it was obv not unbalanced on pro level.
boy, if you are going to take those complaints on stream from pros as proof of unbalanced on pro level, IDK what to tell you lmfao.
The unbalance at pro level comes from the ease to make a game-losing mistake as protoss. Having a situation where it's harder for you to make a game-losing mistake than it was before is obviously influencing balance at pro levels, I don't exactly understand why this is even a talking point.
Yes you do, you just don't care. This is a MUCH bigger change for TvZ than it is for TvP.
In TvP Widow Mines are pretty much ONLY used for Widow Mine drops, they're hardly used for anything else. Nerfing them has a very minor impact on the overall winrate of TvP because Terrans will just use other openers.
Widow Mines in TvZ are a HUGE part of the balance of the match up. Bio vs Zerg heavily uses Widow Mines to counter Banelings. This change will have a MUCH more substantial impact in that match up than it will in TvP.
We're giving Terran a significant nerf vs Zerg, for a very minor trade off in TvP. There are better changes that can be made to address TvP in Protoss' favor, but the balance council is doing THIS one just because of reddit's whining. They're going with what the mob thinks is popular rather than what's an actually good and impactful change for their stated goal.
Could you highlight the part of my post that talks about TvZ?
The part where you don't care.
You say you don't see what the issue is. The issue is that TvP is not the only match up being affected by this patch. This patch does more to impact TvZ than TvP. You don't care because you don't care about anything that isn't explicitly related to Protoss.
That's why it's a bad patch. It doesn't accomplish its stated goal, and goes against what the Balance Council said was their assessment of the other match ups.
I'm answering a conversation where someone made the claim that it won't change PvT at pro level (no mention of TvZ) with the counterclaim that it obviously will (no mention of TvZ). When you want to talk about something and people are talking about something else, it's okay to not answer.
On March 08 2024 11:16 Antithesis wrote: Good patch. I think the general direction is just right.
Here is Harstem's view of it, and I largely agree. It's also amusing that Harstem directly argues against some TL.net's favorite opinions, such as that TvZ is zerg-favored and that building ravens in TvZ is out of the question for principled reasons.
On March 08 2024 10:55 jinjin5000 wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:47 WombaT wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:37 jinjin5000 wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:35 WombaT wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:31 jinjin5000 wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:30 WombaT wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:23 jinjin5000 wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:20 WombaT wrote: [quote] Fair but as the pro scene is gradually winding down I mean there’s something to be said for making the game a bit more enjoyable at a casual level.
The game’s been balanced based of a pro level of play for like forever
ideally you balance around both with more emphasis on pro level but being too swung by community brigading when most of them are not affected by said balance/dont even know implication of their whine nerfs have me doubting on listening to community at all.
I mean to a certain degree sure, equally how many of these changes proposed were things the Reddit community were screaming for?
Any changes proposed that reddit community screamed for getting through is 1 more than it should ever be.
What ones?
TL is slightly less balance whiny than Reddit, the latter I don’t really frequent that often.
Basically none of these proposed changes strike me as things people were vociferously advocating for.
So what are these changes that Reddit whining have apparently pushed to the PTR testing level?
past like 5 months of reddit was just pure whining about widow mines and notable members of diamond protoss community trying really hard to link it to pro games/any means to justify it, with stemmed from "why did widow mines get buffed?!" last patch. It was pretty clear they took the opportunity to whine and ran with it despite the change on mine having 0 effect on what was killing them inf irst place. and all this did was prove that whining on reddit works. It was daily half of frontpage for months. Just widow mine posts after widow mine posts.
if it's going to change, change it in a bigger patch that deals with all these concerns without specifically advocating the one community whine posts clump. Address multiple at once without acknowledging a particular event. All this did was give them approval and set a precedence
Isn’t that what they’re potentially doing here?
Tbh I don’t personally like it, I didn’t like the last couple of patches either where they changed like 8 things at once in a big patch rather than gradually doing targeted changes but more frequently. How does one assess the effectiveness of one change if there’s a bunch running alongside it etc
I'm fine with them touching unit itself, but not fine with the sole change to be targeted for widow mine clearly because reddit whined it. It's just rewarding that. If they were going ot change it, they should have addressed multiple unit of similar fashion and avoid acklowedging the direct influence balance whining on reddit has.
If you dislike nerfs being whined into existence, why don't you mention the infestor nerf in the same breath? The past weeks have seen a comical amount of whining about the infestor here on TL (but, notably, not on Reddit), although it is essentially only a single player in the world – the best player in the world – who can use them to their full potential.
It also took like five minutes of whining for terrans to get what they wanted, while protoss has to wait years, but let's not pretend that everyone isn't aware of that.
More like Maru filed the complain and the council immediately approve it, what power that man has, lol. Btw the Libs nerf might have to do with how one Lib might deny the entire mineral line by seiging in the dead space behind the base and there is nothing Zerg/Toss can do about it without an air unit.
On March 08 2024 11:16 Antithesis wrote: Good patch. I think the general direction is just right.
Here is Harstem's view of it, and I largely agree. It's also amusing that Harstem directly argues against some TL.net's favorite opinions, such as that TvZ is zerg-favored and that building ravens in TvZ is out of the question for principled reasons.
On March 08 2024 10:55 jinjin5000 wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:47 WombaT wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:37 jinjin5000 wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:35 WombaT wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:31 jinjin5000 wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:30 WombaT wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:23 jinjin5000 wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:20 WombaT wrote: [quote] Fair but as the pro scene is gradually winding down I mean there’s something to be said for making the game a bit more enjoyable at a casual level.
The game’s been balanced based of a pro level of play for like forever
ideally you balance around both with more emphasis on pro level but being too swung by community brigading when most of them are not affected by said balance/dont even know implication of their whine nerfs have me doubting on listening to community at all.
I mean to a certain degree sure, equally how many of these changes proposed were things the Reddit community were screaming for?
Any changes proposed that reddit community screamed for getting through is 1 more than it should ever be.
What ones?
TL is slightly less balance whiny than Reddit, the latter I don’t really frequent that often.
Basically none of these proposed changes strike me as things people were vociferously advocating for.
So what are these changes that Reddit whining have apparently pushed to the PTR testing level?
past like 5 months of reddit was just pure whining about widow mines and notable members of diamond protoss community trying really hard to link it to pro games/any means to justify it, with stemmed from "why did widow mines get buffed?!" last patch. It was pretty clear they took the opportunity to whine and ran with it despite the change on mine having 0 effect on what was killing them inf irst place. and all this did was prove that whining on reddit works. It was daily half of frontpage for months. Just widow mine posts after widow mine posts.
if it's going to change, change it in a bigger patch that deals with all these concerns without specifically advocating the one community whine posts clump. Address multiple at once without acknowledging a particular event. All this did was give them approval and set a precedence
Isn’t that what they’re potentially doing here?
Tbh I don’t personally like it, I didn’t like the last couple of patches either where they changed like 8 things at once in a big patch rather than gradually doing targeted changes but more frequently. How does one assess the effectiveness of one change if there’s a bunch running alongside it etc
I'm fine with them touching unit itself, but not fine with the sole change to be targeted for widow mine clearly because reddit whined it. It's just rewarding that. If they were going ot change it, they should have addressed multiple unit of similar fashion and avoid acklowedging the direct influence balance whining on reddit has.
If you dislike nerfs being whined into existence, why don't you mention the infestor nerf in the same breath? The past weeks have seen a comical amount of whining about the infestor here on TL (but, notably, not on Reddit), although it is essentially only a single player in the world – the best player in the world – who can use them to their full potential.
It also took like five minutes of whining for terrans to get what they wanted, while protoss has to wait years, but let's not pretend that everyone isn't aware of that.
Exactly.
The historical discrepancies are actually hilarious if we think about it. The present notion that infestors are somehow OP was conjured up, on the fly, while we were still witnessing game two between Serral and Maru in Katowice (happily ignoring, of course, the rest of the series). Then Maru reinforced it a couple of weeks ago. And now it took only like what, a month, until the unit got nerfed. And yet some people are unhappy with the fact that months, if not years, of dissatisfaction with the widow mine, a unit almost universally considered to be incredibly frustrating, finally have an effect.
Throwing random suggestions that have been mentioned before
1) Why not buff Canon air attack damage from 20 to 20 + 10 vs Biological? Just to make defending vs Mutas a little less punishing. It's not going to change the fact that a flock of mutas will snipe that 1 canon quickly, but hey taking a little more damage adds up, especially if you build multiple.
2) Why buff Sentry damage only vs Protoss? Why not buff Sentry damage from 6 to 8 (revert the WoL beta nerf), or even from 6 to 10? It would strengthen Gateway comps slightly, and give a tiny more help vs Mutas.
3) Instead of the Cyclone, there is a better unit to buff that very targetedly helps Mech and not Bio. And that's the Hellion and Infernal Pre-igniter upgrade. Bio players only make 6-8 Hellions at most, usually in TvZ only, and basically never make more than 8 Hellions in any MU.
You can buff Hellion damage from 8 (+6 Light) to 9 (+5 Light), which helps compensate for the nerfed AA missile and helps Raven Hellion, which is a unique opener that can also help lead into Mech. You could also buff Infernal Pre-Igniter so that instead of increasing the damage from 8 (+6 Light) to 8 (+11 Light), it increases it to 11 (+8 Light) so it doesn't only give more bonus vs Light. Neither of these will make Hellions suddenly beat Stalkers, Marauders, or Roaches. But they'll be slightly better vs Queens, and more importantly they'll be a little less sucky vs Stalkers and Marauders if you're forced to fight. (Maybe with some great plays and micro, you could trade well vs Stalkers which could allow to fun micro dances, but not actually counter them). Mech can be really weak early on and hard to hold a 3rd before you get enough Tanks, and giving just a little more damage to Hellions that you might use to open with would be nice!
It would also be a way to allow you to redistribute some of the Cyclone's dps to another Mech unit, and it would help make Mech unit's weaknesses a little less weak.
I know I also made a snarky post like this one kinda recently but oh look, all the people who were assuring us Terran was doomed because something stupid and un-fun got nerfed (mass ghost snipe turtling) are back to again assure us that Terran is doomed because something stupid and un-fun got nerfed.
If Terran needs buffs after the stupidity that is Widow Mines took a hit, so be it, give them some buffs. I must say decreasing the upgrade costs feels minor to me but those also tend to feel more minor than they really are, and I'm certainly not going to claim the expertise necessary to judge that.
Call it reddit-tier analysis if you wish, but Terran victories should not be dependent on something so swingy. Mines are honestly bad enough in Brood War, I have no idea why they ever needed the ability to "explode" multiple times and to be moved and to be transported in medivacs. Disruptors and banelings took their turns to get a tap-down, now Widow Mines get the same.
I wish they would experiment with increasing unit collision radius of bio by 10% that would have a strange effect of nerfing big bio balls against non-splash units (lings, chargelot/stalker), but would nerf the splash counters (banes/storm/colossus/disruptor would have the same area of effect which now covers less bio).
I wonder if this would be a good change (i'm with the dudes who think the root of all evil is the stim bio and the splash options of the other races as a fix).
On March 08 2024 12:08 Turbovolver wrote: I know I also made a snarky post like this one kinda recently but oh look, all the people who were assuring us Terran was doomed because something stupid and un-fun got nerfed (mass ghost snipe turtling) are back to again assure us that Terran is doomed because something stupid and un-fun got nerfed.
If Terran needs buffs after the stupidity that is Widow Mines took a hit, so be it, give them some buffs. I must say decreasing the upgrade costs feels minor to me but those also tend to feel more minor than they really are, and I'm certainly not going to claim the expertise necessary to judge that.
Call it reddit-tier analysis if you wish, but Terran victories should not be dependent on something so swingy. Mines are honestly bad enough in Brood War, I have no idea why they ever needed the ability to "explode" multiple times and to be moved and to be transported in medivacs. Disruptors and banelings took their turns to get a tap-down, now Widow Mines get the same.
Funny how unfun Zerg bullshit always flies under the radar or gets extremely minor nerfs. Mass queen turtling? Still the standard. Insta-losing to a 75/75 nydus in your main. Totally fine apparently. Instant burrow lurkers? A .2 second burrow time increase will fix that! Vipers abducting units at 9 range for 75 energy (an effective instant kill most of the time). Oh, we'll add a .5 second delay _after_ the abduct, so it's harder for the viper to delete two units at the same time, instead of just one.
The baneling nerf is the only real, consequential nerf that Zerg has taken in ages that wasn't compensated for by some other change, and half of that nerf was just reverting the previous HP buff that banelings never should have gotten in the first place.
Widow Mine has been the most hated unit in the game for years on every single SC2 related forum/circle I've been to, yet there's that one guy on this thread acting like it's just some Redditor's opinion, and the world is falling because balance council actually dare to address it.
Burrowed Infestors has been at work for years and I rarely ever heard anyone complained about it, yet when Maru actually lose to it for one game in the finals some people decided that it's unacceptable now, and got their wishes granted immediately. This of course got completely ignored by the whoever unhappy about Widow Mine nerf.
The speed and timing of the Infestor nerf is truly incredible. Literally the best player in the world uses it to barely win 1 mined-out game against the best turtle Terran ever. Didn't seem to be a problem when Clem picked off a ton of burrowed infestors en route to a 3-1 victory a month prior, or with Reynor/Dark/Solar against any other Terran...Or you know, on ladder in general.
Not really a fan of the widow mine changes, if only because core unit interactions shouldn't be remixed at this point. Felt the same about the baneling nerf.
On March 08 2024 12:08 Turbovolver wrote: I know I also made a snarky post like this one kinda recently but oh look, all the people who were assuring us Terran was doomed because something stupid and un-fun got nerfed (mass ghost snipe turtling) are back to again assure us that Terran is doomed because something stupid and un-fun got nerfed.
If Terran needs buffs after the stupidity that is Widow Mines took a hit, so be it, give them some buffs. I must say decreasing the upgrade costs feels minor to me but those also tend to feel more minor than they really are, and I'm certainly not going to claim the expertise necessary to judge that.
Call it reddit-tier analysis if you wish, but Terran victories should not be dependent on something so swingy. Mines are honestly bad enough in Brood War, I have no idea why they ever needed the ability to "explode" multiple times and to be moved and to be transported in medivacs. Disruptors and banelings took their turns to get a tap-down, now Widow Mines get the same.
Funny how unfun Zerg bullshit always flies under the radar or gets extremely minor nerfs. Mass queen turtling? Still the standard. Insta-losing to a 75/75 nydus in your main. Totally fine apparently. Instant burrow lurkers? A .2 second burrow time increase will fix that! Vipers abducting units at 9 range for 75 energy (an effective instant kill most of the time). Oh, we'll add a .5 second delay _after_ the abduct, so it's harder for the viper to delete two units at the same time, instead of just one.
Nydus Worms are stupid and if they got further nerfed I would not complain. That is a great example of game-ending damage being too easy to deal, and especially so pre-nerf. If a bunch of people whined and pretended Zerg was doomed because Nydus was nerfed I'm sure that would troll me into actually posting, too.
Your other examples don't seem anywhere near as egregious to me. People aren't regularly insta-losing their whole mineral line in early game to Vipers. Nor is "Viper turtling" a thing I've ever seen, but who knows what's happening on the ladder (not me!). As for lurkers, they take more than a second to burrow after upgrade, and yet your post pretends it's "instant" + 0.2. Also the change in the patch was actually +0.36 seconds. Please be honest.
That said, if lurker drops were a standard opening that can be transitioned out of and also just occasionally won the game by deleting mineral lines at the pro level, that would be shitty and I'd want to see it gone too.
Queens are a defensive unit, and when they started getting used offensively in cheeses they were soon nerfed. That is different to the turtling I am talking about, where one builds up an unstoppable 200/200 army on a comparatively small number of bases and then slowly wins the game through inevitability. The latter is unfun. The former can be unfun if a race becomes impossible to attack into and everything is a stalemate, but that's not what I've seen in progames at least. In TvZ progames it's the T turtling if anyone is.
That said, I do think Queens are a bit stupid. One can see the patch history of them being upgraded from macro units to defensive terrors coming about in response to other stupidity, like the Banshee. Starcraft was smart enough not to give the cloaking fliers much damage against ground, so they couldn't easily fly in and kill a ton of workers in seconds. Then SC2 designers go and unlearn that lesson just to do something different in the sequel and also make hydras slower to get. So now here we are, lol
The baneling nerf is the only real, consequential nerf that Zerg has taken in ages that wasn't compensated for by some other change, and half of that nerf was just reverting the previous HP buff that banelings never should have gotten in the first place.
I'm not here to talk about how many nerfs/buffs Terran gets versus how many Zerg gets. I have a Zerg icon because I liked to play them in Brood War, and for SC2 I only watch the pro scene and if anything my favourite race is Protoss. I've already said if Terran needs buffs to compensate for Widow Mines, they should have them. The reason I mentioned Banelings and Disruptors was because they could also do game-ending damage too easily, and so were nerfed. Just like Widow Mines should be, and apparently finally will be.
Nydus Worms are stupid and if they got further nerfed I would not complain. That is a great example of game-ending damage being too easy to deal, and especially so pre-nerf. If a bunch of people whined and pretended Zerg was doomed because Nydus was nerfed I'm sure that would troll me into actually posting, too.
And yet here we are, with Nyduses still being dumb and still winning games.
Your other examples don't seem anywhere near as egregious to me. People aren't regularly insta-losing their whole mineral line in early game to Vipers.
You complained about "stupid and un-fun" mechanics, where the viper is a prime example of something stupid and unfun, where both the cost and the risk/reward for the attacker is hugely out of whack, and the only counter-play is to deny the viper (a fast flying unit, mind you) before it gets in range. Watching even the best Protosses getting their motherships abducted over and over again because they aren't babysitting their army 100% of time is peak game design I guess.
Nor is "Viper turtling" a thing I've ever seen, but who knows what's happening on the ladder (not me!).
Since I never mentioned "viper turtling" I have no idea why you brought this up. But while we're talking about the viper, not only is abduct dumb, but the viper inherently promotes deathball play (since it doesn't operate effectively without a critical mass of supporting units).
As for lurkers, they take more than a second to burrow after upgrade, and yet your post pretends it's "instant" + 0.2. Also the change in the patch was actually +0.36 seconds. Please be honest.
Compared to any other siege unit, lurkers burrow instantly. A siege tank or a liberator takes 2.89 seconds to siege. A lurker, a unit that does splash damage in a 10 range line, burrows as fast as a widow mine. For a long time you'd literally see Zerg players run up and bury their lurkers in their opponent's faces as a viable tactic, and this continued after the burrow nerf.
How is this an example of a healthy interaction?
Queens are a defensive unit, and when they started getting used offensively in cheeses they were soon nerfed. That is different to the turtling I am talking about, where one builds up an unstoppable 200/200 army on a comparatively small number of bases and then slowly wins the game through inevitability. The latter is unfun. The former can be unfun if a race becomes impossible to attack into and everything is a stalemate, but that's not what I've seen in progames at least. In TvZ progames it's the T turtling if anyone is.
Queens are stupid because they deny 90% of early game interactions that aren't all-ins, and the answer to any early game problem for the Zerg is almost always more queens. And yet this festering sore is still permitted to stay in the game.
You complain about volatile, game ending damage, when Zerg is by far the race that benefits the most from momentary lapses of attention. Banelings, fungals, neurals, nyduses, even simple ling run-bys can and do win games when someone leaves their wall open (something that happens routinely even at the highest levels of play).
Ok i tried the new Cyclone out, I actually love the changes, and the game feel!
Previously it was really clunky and hard to stutter step with, probably cus of the turret turn speed and damage point. Perhaps these remained the same from the previous Cyclone which fired slower, and it worked for that but needed to be sped up to match the new Cyclone's attack rate, which the Balance Council has now done.
Now it feels like the Cyclone has a normal attack and the Lock-On is special, rather than the Lock-On being the normal attack and you never wanting to use the normal attack lol.
It feels really satisfying to have the rhythm and reward of Lock-On now with its cooldown!! And before it felt like too much paper weight for the size and visual design of the unit, now it feels right.
It's cool that the early game strength in a straight up fight will be about the same, while the +2 damage per upgrade helps scaling better into the lategame so that mech has a stronger lategame to make up for its weaker earlygame. +2 instead of +1 feels pretty huge, by the time you get to +3 attack, the fully upgraded dps is the same as before when it fired faster with only +1 damage per upgrade, but now you get that +20 HP too, which makes it so much better of a compliment to tanks by soaking up more damage and just by being better AA overall!
Also i was trying it out vs early blink stalkers, and I realized another thing that I think is a very big help for Mech - while Blink Stalkers will be slightly more effective now that the Lock-On has a cooldown, the increased HP of the Cyclone allows the player to poke more and do more damage. This is because when you go to Lock-On, you're going to trade 1 round of shots because it has the same range as Stalkers. And then you start kiting and getting free damage. So, actually even if in a straight up A-move fight Cyclones are about the same in strength (less dps but more HP) vs Stalkers, the result of this change is that there is more micro on both sides. Lock-On is more potent, and Blink is more potent, but this change allows Cyclones to be stronger vs Stalkers than before before they get Blink, and lets Cyclones also deal with Stalker/Immortals better.
So overall... I think this will be a slight buff for Mech in early TvP, including vs Blink Stalkers. And then the Cyclone gets better the later the game goes with those +2 upgrades. I'm very excited!!
And obviously for TvZ, it should be slightly weaker vs lings cus it can't keep locking back on as it runs away, which is fine since it actually seemed slightly too strong than it should be in TvZ.
On March 08 2024 11:16 Antithesis wrote: Good patch. I think the general direction is just right.
Here is Harstem's view of it, and I largely agree. It's also amusing that Harstem directly argues against some TL.net's favorite opinions, such as that TvZ is zerg-favored and that building ravens in TvZ is out of the question for principled reasons.
sc2 is full of these frustrating aoe esports units, but touching them just now when it posed not much of problem in pro PvT while it has bigger implication of TvZ just because protoss redditors whined enough is just poor man.
Adjust mines/other unfun aoe units in a big patch all together at once instead of proving balance council will 100% be influenced by community brigading is terrible showing and only encourages repeat of what has been happening for months beforehand. I'm just sick of the whining on the subreddit that has been plaguing reddit for months now. It has never been this bad historically ever but moment redditors realize they have influence over balance like current one, it will just get worse. And it has been terrible for past few months. Can't wait for repeat forever now.
I get it, its frustrating unfun unit. But all this proves is that those spam posting whine posts with obvious alt accounts/trying to justify it on recent buff or pro performance was just annoying to see as they are clearly pushing their own agenda to their own benefit lol.
Fair but as the pro scene is gradually winding down I mean there’s something to be said for making the game a bit more enjoyable at a casual level.
The game’s been balanced based of a pro level of play for like forever
ideally you balance around both with more emphasis on pro level but being too swung by community brigading when most of them are not affected by said balance/dont even know implication of their whine nerfs have me doubting on listening to community at all.
I mean to a certain degree sure, equally how many of these changes proposed were things the Reddit community were screaming for?
Any changes proposed that reddit community screamed for getting through is 1 more than it should ever be.
What ones?
TL is slightly less balance whiny than Reddit, the latter I don’t really frequent that often.
Basically none of these proposed changes strike me as things people were vociferously advocating for.
So what are these changes that Reddit whining have apparently pushed to the PTR testing level?
past like 5 months of reddit was just pure whining about widow mines and notable members of diamond protoss community trying really hard to link it to pro games/any means to justify it, with stemmed from "why did widow mines get buffed?!" last patch. It was pretty clear they took the opportunity to whine and ran with it despite the change on mine having 0 effect on what was killing them inf irst place. and all this did was prove that whining on reddit works. It was daily half of frontpage for months. Just widow mine posts after widow mine posts.
if it's going to change, change it in a bigger patch that deals with all these concerns without specifically advocating the one community whine posts clump. Address multiple at once without acknowledging a particular event. All this did was give them approval and set a precedence
Isn’t that what they’re potentially doing here?
Tbh I don’t personally like it, I didn’t like the last couple of patches either where they changed like 8 things at once in a big patch rather than gradually doing targeted changes but more frequently. How does one assess the effectiveness of one change if there’s a bunch running alongside it etc
I'm fine with them touching unit itself, but not fine with the sole change to be targeted for widow mine clearly because reddit whined it. It's just rewarding that. If they were going ot change it, they should have addressed multiple unit of similar fashion and avoid acklowedging the direct influence balance whining on reddit has.
If you dislike nerfs being whined into existence, why don't you mention the infestor nerf in the same breath? The past weeks have seen a comical amount of whining about the infestor here on TL (but, notably, not on Reddit), although it is essentially only a single player in the world – the best player in the world – who can use them to their full potential.
Maru said in an interview that he specifically asked for burrowed Infestors to be nerfed. So no, it wasn't just low level forum posters asking for that change
On March 08 2024 13:49 Glorfindelio wrote: The speed and timing of the Infestor nerf is truly incredible. Literally the best player in the world uses it to barely win 1 mined-out game against the best turtle Terran ever. Didn't seem to be a problem when Clem picked off a ton of burrowed infestors en route to a 3-1 victory a month prior, or with Reynor/Dark/Solar against any other Terran...Or you know, on ladder in general.
Not really a fan of the widow mine changes, if only because core unit interactions shouldn't be remixed at this point. Felt the same about the baneling nerf.
Yeah tbh not a fan of the Infestor change. But it's not like nerfing a unit because 1 player uses it to incredible effect is unheard of, Maru single-handily got Ghosts and Ravens nerfed, ByuN got Reapers nerfed, way back in WoL Mvp got Ghosts nerfed
On March 08 2024 13:49 Glorfindelio wrote: The speed and timing of the Infestor nerf is truly incredible. Literally the best player in the world uses it to barely win 1 mined-out game against the best turtle Terran ever. Didn't seem to be a problem when Clem picked off a ton of burrowed infestors en route to a 3-1 victory a month prior, or with Reynor/Dark/Solar against any other Terran...Or you know, on ladder in general.
Not really a fan of the widow mine changes, if only because core unit interactions shouldn't be remixed at this point. Felt the same about the baneling nerf.
Yeah tbh not a fan of the Infestor change. But it's not like nerfing a unit because 1 player uses it to incredible effect is unheard of, Maru single-handily got Ghosts and Ravens nerfed, ByuN got Reapers nerfed, way back in WoL Mvp got Ghosts nerfed
Re: Ravens. The issue wasn't Maru. The problem was that iteration of the Raven was the grossest unit ever. You didn't need to be good to spam missiles and kill 120 supply of mutalisks in .1 seconds.
I think giving WMs back the 1.75 radius with drilling claws researched would be pretty fair since that wouldn't impact TvP at all and prevent Terran from getting completely run over by Ling Bane
lol.....they actually nerfed infestors......wtf....Maybe Serral should start whining about stim every time he loses now to Clem/Maru/Buyn etc....
On March 08 2024 07:37 Archeon wrote: I get the ideas behind the infestor changes, burrowed infestors often deal game ending damage in TvZ. Then again it often feels like they need to, because if they don't T just fortifies the map and trades while Z slowly mines out. So not sure all in all on the ideas there.
Often deal game ending damage ? Like.......in what universe is that ? Infestors are basically end game unit to help zerg to defend against terran ball+ghost+lib pushes, and even in that its unreliable at best. With scans or *cough* raven...even that is very hard or impossible to do.
On March 08 2024 09:05 Poopi wrote: Terrans are already struggling versus Zerg, so this patch seems a bit weird But as people said it’s the twilight years so it doesn’t really matter
Struggling ? Where is that happening ? At IEM, 5 from top8 were Terrans and at Masters Coliseum 6, there were 3 terrans in top4. The matchup seems pretty balanced at pro level, maybe excluding Serral. But thats not a balance issue.
On March 08 2024 16:35 Charoisaur wrote: [Yeah tbh not a fan of the Infestor change. But it's not like nerfing a unit because 1 player uses it to incredible effect is unheard of, Maru single-handily got Ghosts and Ravens nerfed, ByuN got Reapers nerfed, way back in WoL Mvp got Ghosts nerfed
Didnt you want the Infestor-nerf in the first place ? And this isnt about just one player, its from one single map, lol. They should have at least bare minimum try to watch some more SC2 to see if thats a real problem.
On March 08 2024 18:56 Charoisaur wrote: I think giving WMs back the 1.75 radius with drilling claws researched would be pretty fair since that wouldn't impact TvP at all and prevent Terran from getting completely run over by Ling Bane
On March 08 2024 13:49 Glorfindelio wrote: The speed and timing of the Infestor nerf is truly incredible. Literally the best player in the world uses it to barely win 1 mined-out game against the best turtle Terran ever. Didn't seem to be a problem when Clem picked off a ton of burrowed infestors en route to a 3-1 victory a month prior, or with Reynor/Dark/Solar against any other Terran...Or you know, on ladder in general.
Not really a fan of the widow mine changes, if only because core unit interactions shouldn't be remixed at this point. Felt the same about the baneling nerf.
Yeah tbh not a fan of the Infestor change. But it's not like nerfing a unit because 1 player uses it to incredible effect is unheard of, Maru single-handily got Ghosts and Ravens nerfed, ByuN got Reapers nerfed, way back in WoL Mvp got Ghosts nerfed
Re: Ravens. The issue wasn't Maru. The problem was that iteration of the Raven was the grossest unit ever. You didn't need to be good to spam missiles and kill 120 supply of mutalisks in .1 seconds.
On March 08 2024 16:35 Charoisaur wrote: [Yeah tbh not a fan of the Infestor change. But it's not like nerfing a unit because 1 player uses it to incredible effect is unheard of, Maru single-handily got Ghosts and Ravens nerfed, ByuN got Reapers nerfed, way back in WoL Mvp got Ghosts nerfed
Didnt you want the Infestor-nerf in the first place ? And this isnt about just one player, its from one single map, lol. They should have at least bare minimum try to watch some more SC2 to see if thats a real problem.
No I just responded to the argument "terran players just need to build a Raven, they are all stupid and don't know how to play" which is obviously ridicolous, but yeah I don't think burrowed Infestors were a huge balance issue. Maybe a bit a design issue because it was luck dependant if the scan caught the Infestor or not
On March 08 2024 16:35 Charoisaur wrote: [Yeah tbh not a fan of the Infestor change. But it's not like nerfing a unit because 1 player uses it to incredible effect is unheard of, Maru single-handily got Ghosts and Ravens nerfed, ByuN got Reapers nerfed, way back in WoL Mvp got Ghosts nerfed
Didnt you want the Infestor-nerf in the first place ? And this isnt about just one player, its from one single map, lol. They should have at least bare minimum try to watch some more SC2 to see if thats a real problem.
No I just responded to the argument "terran players just need to build a Raven, they are all stupid and don't know how to play" which is obviously ridicolous, but yeah I don't think burrowed Infestors were a huge balance issue. Maybe a bit a design issue because it was luck dependant if the scan caught the Infestor or not
So if you can replace EMP from Ghost with a Psionic Ability that can deal 25damage and temporarily stun enemy units for 2 secs, would you allow the change as Zerg? The answer is hell no, because Ghost with cloak and that ability will be the end of Zerg lategame as well.
On March 08 2024 04:55 Moonerz wrote: The attack alert on WM burrow is so dumb imo. Can we get alerts when banes are rolling towards our workers too?
Yes, over the years there has been a noticable pattern which especially is aimed towards Protoss balance changes to 'help' them out by lowering the actual skill ceiling, it seems like:
- parking Observer in place to punish F2 usage less (to be fair, Overseers got the same thing) - High Templar receiving an auto-attack, so they are at least doing SOMETHING when a-moving the whole army, I guess? - Now getting a freaking HEADS-UP alert shortly BEFORE a Widow Mine shot goes off
Sorry, I don't play Protoss myself and I know they have lots of spellcaster abilities they need to manage/control throughout a fight, but JFC I kinda fail to see the trade-off here, the unit gets nerfed quite heavily and people still need to have a hand-holding mechanic on top?!
I get that the Widow Mine feels super unfair at times and nerfing the maximum damage potential to eliminate some volatility that comes with how the unit works hopefully ends up making it more consistent, but c'mon, when we're reeeeally honest here with ourselves we know that Zealot run-by's have been among the dumbest/easiest multipronged harassment plays ever as in most cases people simply warp-in > shift-attack move and forget and nobody is ever accounting for the fact that Zealots can be VERY annoying to deal with as Terran in these situations.
Yeah no shit, like you said we should then also get warned about incoming banelings before they go off in the mineral line or how about my turret warns me when a DT is within it's radius? But maybe I'm also increasingly growing out of touch with the game as the meta might require some dumbing down in specific areas to help people manage a little better?
EDIT: Also I'm really starting to be disappointed that they STILL cannot manage to utilise the "Testing" option on live servers for proposed changes to hopefully get more people to try them.
Great that observer buff is finally gonna get Protoss out of the mud Don't mind Colossus being dogshit and Disruptors being highly unreliable At least Liberators finally got a nerf! I've been struggling with them in lategame for years when T can just pump them out of reactors, that never made sense to me. Why can't Zerg finally get nerfed too?? They swung the banhammer on Terran, deservedly so, but what about Zerg??? I bet you could nerf Queens and creep and banelings a lot and the most prominent names of the race would still win tournaments
On a more positive note, I am really glad that we finally got a patch for a game that is considered "dead" to many, anything is better than the current level of balance becoming stale over years of the game not receiving updates.
On March 08 2024 04:46 Charoisaur wrote: 4 heavy widow mine nerfs? Seems a bit much, might as well remove the unit from the game. The upgrade buffs are pretty good though and probably enough to compensate. Still seems like they let r/starcraft balance the game
not sure why the lib nerf is necessary
Widow mines are the reason I (and so many others) left the game. Absolutely terrible game design.
On March 08 2024 11:16 Antithesis wrote: Good patch. I think the general direction is just right.
Here is Harstem's view of it, and I largely agree. It's also amusing that Harstem directly argues against some TL.net's favorite opinions, such as that TvZ is zerg-favored and that building ravens in TvZ is out of the question for principled reasons.
On March 08 2024 10:55 jinjin5000 wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:47 WombaT wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:37 jinjin5000 wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:35 WombaT wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:31 jinjin5000 wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:30 WombaT wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:23 jinjin5000 wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:20 WombaT wrote: [quote] Fair but as the pro scene is gradually winding down I mean there’s something to be said for making the game a bit more enjoyable at a casual level.
The game’s been balanced based of a pro level of play for like forever
ideally you balance around both with more emphasis on pro level but being too swung by community brigading when most of them are not affected by said balance/dont even know implication of their whine nerfs have me doubting on listening to community at all.
I mean to a certain degree sure, equally how many of these changes proposed were things the Reddit community were screaming for?
Any changes proposed that reddit community screamed for getting through is 1 more than it should ever be.
What ones?
TL is slightly less balance whiny than Reddit, the latter I don’t really frequent that often.
Basically none of these proposed changes strike me as things people were vociferously advocating for.
So what are these changes that Reddit whining have apparently pushed to the PTR testing level?
past like 5 months of reddit was just pure whining about widow mines and notable members of diamond protoss community trying really hard to link it to pro games/any means to justify it, with stemmed from "why did widow mines get buffed?!" last patch. It was pretty clear they took the opportunity to whine and ran with it despite the change on mine having 0 effect on what was killing them inf irst place. and all this did was prove that whining on reddit works. It was daily half of frontpage for months. Just widow mine posts after widow mine posts.
if it's going to change, change it in a bigger patch that deals with all these concerns without specifically advocating the one community whine posts clump. Address multiple at once without acknowledging a particular event. All this did was give them approval and set a precedence
Isn’t that what they’re potentially doing here?
Tbh I don’t personally like it, I didn’t like the last couple of patches either where they changed like 8 things at once in a big patch rather than gradually doing targeted changes but more frequently. How does one assess the effectiveness of one change if there’s a bunch running alongside it etc
I'm fine with them touching unit itself, but not fine with the sole change to be targeted for widow mine clearly because reddit whined it. It's just rewarding that. If they were going ot change it, they should have addressed multiple unit of similar fashion and avoid acklowedging the direct influence balance whining on reddit has.
If you dislike nerfs being whined into existence, why don't you mention the infestor nerf in the same breath? The past weeks have seen a comical amount of whining about the infestor here on TL (but, notably, not on Reddit), although it is essentially only a single player in the world – the best player in the world – who can use them to their full potential.
Maru said in an interview that he specifically asked for burrowed Infestors to be nerfed. So no, it wasn't just low level forum posters asking for that change
Typical Maru asking other races to get nerf. Cause Maru knows only Serral can beat him so he ask for a direct “Serral ” nerf
We already seen how hard it is for Zerg to finish terran off in the late game without infestor during Group A GSL
On March 08 2024 11:16 Antithesis wrote: Good patch. I think the general direction is just right.
Here is Harstem's view of it, and I largely agree. It's also amusing that Harstem directly argues against some TL.net's favorite opinions, such as that TvZ is zerg-favored and that building ravens in TvZ is out of the question for principled reasons.
On March 08 2024 10:55 jinjin5000 wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:47 WombaT wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:37 jinjin5000 wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:35 WombaT wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:31 jinjin5000 wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:30 WombaT wrote:
On March 08 2024 10:23 jinjin5000 wrote: [quote]
ideally you balance around both with more emphasis on pro level but being too swung by community brigading when most of them are not affected by said balance/dont even know implication of their whine nerfs have me doubting on listening to community at all.
I mean to a certain degree sure, equally how many of these changes proposed were things the Reddit community were screaming for?
Any changes proposed that reddit community screamed for getting through is 1 more than it should ever be.
What ones?
TL is slightly less balance whiny than Reddit, the latter I don’t really frequent that often.
Basically none of these proposed changes strike me as things people were vociferously advocating for.
So what are these changes that Reddit whining have apparently pushed to the PTR testing level?
past like 5 months of reddit was just pure whining about widow mines and notable members of diamond protoss community trying really hard to link it to pro games/any means to justify it, with stemmed from "why did widow mines get buffed?!" last patch. It was pretty clear they took the opportunity to whine and ran with it despite the change on mine having 0 effect on what was killing them inf irst place. and all this did was prove that whining on reddit works. It was daily half of frontpage for months. Just widow mine posts after widow mine posts.
if it's going to change, change it in a bigger patch that deals with all these concerns without specifically advocating the one community whine posts clump. Address multiple at once without acknowledging a particular event. All this did was give them approval and set a precedence
Isn’t that what they’re potentially doing here?
Tbh I don’t personally like it, I didn’t like the last couple of patches either where they changed like 8 things at once in a big patch rather than gradually doing targeted changes but more frequently. How does one assess the effectiveness of one change if there’s a bunch running alongside it etc
I'm fine with them touching unit itself, but not fine with the sole change to be targeted for widow mine clearly because reddit whined it. It's just rewarding that. If they were going ot change it, they should have addressed multiple unit of similar fashion and avoid acklowedging the direct influence balance whining on reddit has.
If you dislike nerfs being whined into existence, why don't you mention the infestor nerf in the same breath? The past weeks have seen a comical amount of whining about the infestor here on TL (but, notably, not on Reddit), although it is essentially only a single player in the world – the best player in the world – who can use them to their full potential.
Maru said in an interview that he specifically asked for burrowed Infestors to be nerfed. So no, it wasn't just low level forum posters asking for that change
Typical Maru asking other races to get nerf. Cause Maru knows only Serral can beat him so he ask for a direct “Serral ” nerf
We already seen how hard it is for Zerg to finish terran off in the late game without infestor during Group A GSL
Yeah lord forbid Shin can't also run over Maru in the late game. It's not like Maru has been stomping him across multiple patches pretty consistently. No, it's just that Zerg is too weak late game ZvT
A game like SC2 should: 1) avoid units that can deal instant game-changing AOE damage 2) encourage fast-paced play rather than the other way around
Disruptor is one of the worst such examples of "how not to design a unit", but at least it can't cloak and the novas are now smaller. Widow mines can cloak, but are only effective against low health units - now nerfed. Infestors can deal AOE damage AND immobilize (deadly vs. Terran bio) AND neural (deadly vs. mech/sky) AND cloak!
Serral has used it way too effectively for at least a couple of years, despite people claiming otherwise (a KoB game between Serral and Maru from ~2 years ago comes to mind, in which a single fungal to a balled up group of bio did the trick), it's just that in this year's Katowice the abuse has become so obvious that even the balance council can no longer ignore it. And what did they do? Make infestor movements a bit easier to see but hey let's increase fungal range!
And to all those folks claiming Terran can just build a Raven and the threat will be gone - THINK about the fact that infestors are mostly used in the late game, and how difficult it is to keep slow moving Ravens relevant and alive in late game TvZ: you must spread them out (so they can detect at the perimeter in several different directions) but also tracking the main army (so as to be relevant; also otherwise they get one shot by a few corruptors/queens/hydras) - all this when nearly every other Terran unit needs to be micro'ed? If the answer is so obvious don't you think the best Terrans would've tried it already?
On March 08 2024 04:46 Charoisaur wrote: 4 heavy widow mine nerfs? Seems a bit much, might as well remove the unit from the game. The upgrade buffs are pretty good though and probably enough to compensate. Still seems like they let r/starcraft balance the game
not sure why the lib nerf is necessary
Widow mines are the reason I (and so many others) left the game. Absolutely terrible game design.
They should remove it.
It’s caused so many frustrations over the years, you have all the volatility of disruptors from both sides where they can do all the damage, or nothing, indeed they can be a net negative and actually friendly fire you.
Not so big a deal in small skirmishes when you can pull back a unit reliably, or manually retarget etc, or do a mine drag somewhat deliberately. In bigger engagements where that’s not really viable they feel almost a crapshoot sometimes.
Add to that the additional wonkinees of drops, which has seen rework after rework necessitated by them being outright too strong (invisible with just an armoury and outright ending games), bouncing between killing a single worker with a pull versus 15+ depending solely on if your opponent is looking or too weak/strong at times in other scenarios.
That they keep getting changed so much is somewhat indicative to me of how hard to balance such a potentially potent but volatile unit is.
They’re a bit too core nowadays to outright remove IMO, and I don’t always hate every element of them either, but in a volatility sense they may be the worst unit ever added into the game.
Add to that they’re not super fun to use and frustrating to play against. Disruptors share the volatility issue and frustration to face, but at least they’re fun to actually use and it’s quite challenging to properly move and effectively target a few simultaneously, blink/disruptor wars are some of the more fun intense micro battles in the game outside its early phases IMO. You don’t have that satisfaction of pushing and leapfrogging tanks and the positional back-and-forth either, although ofc what I find fun is very subjective!
Other units may just be outright too strong, vipers versus mech springs to mind, but they aren’t these inconsistent, frustratingly volatile kind of units like mines can be. You can at least nerf and tweak some things, mines have a real core problem with their design and how it fits into such a fast-paced game.
Let’s take two volatile, uncontrollable units at scale and combine them, chargelots and mines. When those intersect is when you really see that aforementioned volatility, almost anything can happen! No human can reliably target either mines or charge targets in a big battle, depending on where the UI chooses the Zealots to swarm will then dictate initial mine targeting. So you can get anything from a giant hit on a big clump of chargelots, to a relatively harmless one on a peripheral zealot, to some big friendly fire hits.
That’s really not great design, IMO to say the least. But I’m more having a general complaint about the mine at its core.
Within the confines of the current state of the game, and accepting the mine is unlikely to be removed and replaced with some new unit, I don’t actually mind those changes in that context,
On March 08 2024 13:49 Glorfindelio wrote: The speed and timing of the Infestor nerf is truly incredible. Literally the best player in the world uses it to barely win 1 mined-out game against the best turtle Terran ever. Didn't seem to be a problem when Clem picked off a ton of burrowed infestors en route to a 3-1 victory a month prior, or with Reynor/Dark/Solar against any other Terran...Or you know, on ladder in general.
Not really a fan of the widow mine changes, if only because core unit interactions shouldn't be remixed at this point. Felt the same about the baneling nerf.
Yeah tbh not a fan of the Infestor change. But it's not like nerfing a unit because 1 player uses it to incredible effect is unheard of, Maru single-handily got Ghosts and Ravens nerfed, ByuN got Reapers nerfed, way back in WoL Mvp got Ghosts nerfed
Re: Ravens. The issue wasn't Maru. The problem was that iteration of the Raven was the grossest unit ever. You didn't need to be good to spam missiles and kill 120 supply of mutalisks in .1 seconds.
Well Maru was the only relevant terran player on that on patch. It's not like they were imba at the pro level, no other terran was getting to the point of 20 ravens out. You never saw mass ravens blowing up corrupters like that outside of casual play
It wasn't the first time either, Ravens got nerfed/redesigned on the patch over a year ago after Maru spent 18 months without losing a TvT.
On March 08 2024 11:16 Antithesis wrote: Good patch. I think the general direction is just right.
Here is Harstem's view of it, and I largely agree. It's also amusing that Harstem directly argues against some TL.net's favorite opinions, such as that TvZ is zerg-favored and that building ravens in TvZ is out of the question for principled reasons.
Yeah because Harstem knows better than actual terran players.
We see Ryung and Maru make ravens when the games slow down and it's just about babysitting one base. But in a splitmap there's no point, you can't just make one in every spot an Infestor could lurk and expect corruptors to not kill them.
Infestor burrow vision was also 10, while ravens, the literal detector, was only 11. In that infamous Serral game he has Infestors in 15 different different spots, how is a raven supposed to cover that?
On March 08 2024 13:49 Glorfindelio wrote: The speed and timing of the Infestor nerf is truly incredible. Literally the best player in the world uses it to barely win 1 mined-out game against the best turtle Terran ever. Didn't seem to be a problem when Clem picked off a ton of burrowed infestors en route to a 3-1 victory a month prior, or with Reynor/Dark/Solar against any other Terran...Or you know, on ladder in general.
Not really a fan of the widow mine changes, if only because core unit interactions shouldn't be remixed at this point. Felt the same about the baneling nerf.
Yeah tbh not a fan of the Infestor change. But it's not like nerfing a unit because 1 player uses it to incredible effect is unheard of, Maru single-handily got Ghosts and Ravens nerfed, ByuN got Reapers nerfed, way back in WoL Mvp got Ghosts nerfed
Re: Ravens. The issue wasn't Maru. The problem was that iteration of the Raven was the grossest unit ever. You didn't need to be good to spam missiles and kill 120 supply of mutalisks in .1 seconds.
Well Maru was the only relevant terran player on that on patch. It's not like they were imba at the pro level, no other terran was getting to the point of 20 ravens out. You never saw mass ravens blowing up corrupters like that outside of casual play
It wasn't the first time either, Ravens got nerfed/redesigned on the patch over a year ago after Maru spent 18 months without losing a TvT.
Either way, you should never be able to mass 20 spell caster and having enough burst damage output to actually destroy large armies in very short time. It's just not how the units are intended to do.
Infestors used to be able to do similar things with infested Terrans, and it was rightfully nerfed and finally removed.
I think this "balance" patch is doing the opposite of what it should intend to do.
Widow mine nerfs are unnecessary, so are Liberator range nerfs. They are not just unnecessary but bad. Liberator is ok for PvT but both shift TvZ even more in favor of Z.
Infestor burrow sight shouldve been nerfed long ago to even less than 8, so thats something.
There are no changes for the most needed things like: Creep Speed Queen adaptions Ghost lategame efficiency
This patch and the "balance team" reads like they are reddit community people who dont play competitively? I mean, why arent pro players part of it but instead casters?
I feel like, after Hots (heroes of the storm) was balance patched out slowly when shifting away from the 2 healer meta into healer uselessness, this is slowly but surely, since Lotv 12 worker start happening with sc2 too. Yeah hots (heart of the swarm) had a big initial problem, but lotv feels like slowly going towards it more and more and bleeding long time sc2 players
On March 08 2024 11:16 Antithesis wrote: Good patch. I think the general direction is just right.
Here is Harstem's view of it, and I largely agree. It's also amusing that Harstem directly argues against some TL.net's favorite opinions, such as that TvZ is zerg-favored and that building ravens in TvZ is out of the question for principled reasons.
Yeah because Harstem knows better than actual terran players.
We see Ryung and Maru make ravens when the games slow down and it's just about babysitting one base. But in a splitmap there's no point, you can't just make one in every spot an Infestor could lurk and expect corruptors to not kill them.
Infestor burrow vision was also 10, while ravens, the literal detector, was only 11. In that infamous Serral game he has Infestors in 15 different different spots, how is a raven supposed to cover that?
I've watched that game like 5 times, and I'll die on this hill time and again: Maru didn't need a raven to cover 15 different spots, but he surely could have used it when moving out to take his gold base. Or just have been 20% more careful/methodical and slow-crawled it versus keeping his ghosts in a massive clump with none of his siege units prepared. Even after Serral crushed that fight and landed multiple huge fungals, he still barely won. ONE game.
I'm fine with nerfs driven from one player's singular skill, but this wasn't caused from a pattern of exploitation or a series of games where burrowed infestors seemed unstoppable and swung things irrevocably. It was from forum whining and one player's direct complaints. So congrats, burrowed infestors are nerfed but now widow mines are measurably worse. Wonder which one affects 99% of game play for most mortals.
On March 08 2024 11:16 Antithesis wrote: Good patch. I think the general direction is just right.
Here is Harstem's view of it, and I largely agree. It's also amusing that Harstem directly argues against some TL.net's favorite opinions, such as that TvZ is zerg-favored and that building ravens in TvZ is out of the question for principled reasons.
Yeah because Harstem knows better than actual terran players.
We see Ryung and Maru make ravens when the games slow down and it's just about babysitting one base. But in a splitmap there's no point, you can't just make one in every spot an Infestor could lurk and expect corruptors to not kill them.
Infestor burrow vision was also 10, while ravens, the literal detector, was only 11. In that infamous Serral game he has Infestors in 15 different different spots, how is a raven supposed to cover that?
I've watched that game like 5 times, and I'll die on this hill time and again: Maru didn't need a raven to cover 15 different spots, but he surely could have used it when moving out to take his gold base. Or just have been 20% more careful/methodical and slow-crawled it versus keeping his ghosts in a massive clump with none of his siege units prepared. Even after Serral crushed that fight and landed multiple huge fungals, he still barely won. ONE game.
Maru was literally chain scanning his ghosts, it wasn't like he was just wondering around with no detection after getting his with fungals.
The problem was really the map was so big that scans didn't even cover the path they were fighting on. You'd have to blitz like 5 scans at once to cover every angle of attack on that map. What on earth is a raven, which has less vision than a scan anyway, gonna do? If the game had slowed down to be a turtle focused one base or angle of attack, then Maru would have probably made one like he normally does.
Yeah Serral barely won, because Maru played one of the best games of his career I don't think burrowed Infestors hitting surprise fungals should really the be deciding factor in a game. Considering widow mines are getting slammed for being too game ending if you don't pay immediate attention as well
On March 08 2024 11:16 Antithesis wrote: Good patch. I think the general direction is just right.
Here is Harstem's view of it, and I largely agree. It's also amusing that Harstem directly argues against some TL.net's favorite opinions, such as that TvZ is zerg-favored and that building ravens in TvZ is out of the question for principled reasons.
Yeah because Harstem knows better than actual terran players.
We see Ryung and Maru make ravens when the games slow down and it's just about babysitting one base. But in a splitmap there's no point, you can't just make one in every spot an Infestor could lurk and expect corruptors to not kill them.
Infestor burrow vision was also 10, while ravens, the literal detector, was only 11. In that infamous Serral game he has Infestors in 15 different different spots, how is a raven supposed to cover that?
And TL and Reddit posters knows more than Harstem right?
How Maru was able to drag that game out and almost force a draw is just shows how dumb turtle terran ability is.
But continue to complain about burrow infestors when Serral is the only player in the world that is able to make it work constantly at the pro level.
You need to stop making up history to prop your boy maru. Raven was not nerfed because of Maru, it was nerfed because the raven was a bad design at that time. Maru isn’t good enough like Byun who literally got reaper nerfed due to skill /micro
Also props to the community to finally nerf the widow nerfs. That unit should have been nerfed to the ground during hots era
On March 08 2024 13:49 Glorfindelio wrote: The speed and timing of the Infestor nerf is truly incredible. Literally the best player in the world uses it to barely win 1 mined-out game against the best turtle Terran ever. Didn't seem to be a problem when Clem picked off a ton of burrowed infestors en route to a 3-1 victory a month prior, or with Reynor/Dark/Solar against any other Terran...Or you know, on ladder in general.
Not really a fan of the widow mine changes, if only because core unit interactions shouldn't be remixed at this point. Felt the same about the baneling nerf.
Yeah tbh not a fan of the Infestor change. But it's not like nerfing a unit because 1 player uses it to incredible effect is unheard of, Maru single-handily got Ghosts and Ravens nerfed, ByuN got Reapers nerfed, way back in WoL Mvp got Ghosts nerfed
Re: Ravens. The issue wasn't Maru. The problem was that iteration of the Raven was the grossest unit ever. You didn't need to be good to spam missiles and kill 120 supply of mutalisks in .1 seconds.
Well Maru was the only relevant terran player on that on patch. It's not like they were imba at the pro level, no other terran was getting to the point of 20 ravens out. You never saw mass ravens blowing up corrupters like that outside of casual play
It wasn't the first time either, Ravens got nerfed/redesigned on the patch over a year ago after Maru spent 18 months without losing a TvT.
Either way, you should never be able to mass 20 spell caster and having enough burst damage output to actually destroy large armies in very short time. It's just not how the units are intended to do.
Infestors used to be able to do similar things with infested Terrans, and it was rightfully nerfed and finally removed.
I don't defend anti-amour missile blowing up balls of units, I'm just saying it was only Maru at the professional level who was able to do it.
And pro zergs players were still complaining about it despite terran being irrelevant in tournaments outside of Maru during that patch.
Lol, why you are acting like Mines was nerfed because of the Burrowed Infesfor nerf? The mines would have been nerfed either way because how people have complained about it too much. People say you need Infestor to break Terran defense, I would argue that Terran would turtle even further because of Burrow Infestor.
The Cyclone changes are kind of interesting- cooldown for Lock-On plus turret tracking and damage point removal? So basically encouraging stutter-step and focus-fire micro? I'm ok with that.
Seems like the dynamics of Lock-On could potentially be weird, though. Like, you stutter-step kite until Lock-On triggers and then just move-kite while the opponent can move away to break the Lock-On? Some Cyclones being locked-on while others are just kiting? Or is this intended to encourage turning off auto-cast for Lock-On and having it specifically be used for chasing units down? It'll be interesting to see how this works but I can't say if it'll be "good" or not.
Ultimately, I think it would be best for the Cyclone to not have to be massed to be good for mid-lategame, by being a unit that is useful for buying time for the protection and repositioning of Tanks. I'm not sure how well these changes will accomplish that (granted, that may not be the goal of the balance council).
On March 08 2024 11:16 Antithesis wrote: Good patch. I think the general direction is just right.
Here is Harstem's view of it, and I largely agree. It's also amusing that Harstem directly argues against some TL.net's favorite opinions, such as that TvZ is zerg-favored and that building ravens in TvZ is out of the question for principled reasons.
Yeah because Harstem knows better than actual terran players.
We see Ryung and Maru make ravens when the games slow down and it's just about babysitting one base. But in a splitmap there's no point, you can't just make one in every spot an Infestor could lurk and expect corruptors to not kill them.
Infestor burrow vision was also 10, while ravens, the literal detector, was only 11. In that infamous Serral game he has Infestors in 15 different different spots, how is a raven supposed to cover that?
And TL and Reddit posters knows more than Harstem right?
How Maru was able to drag that game out and almost force a draw is just shows how dumb turtle terran ability is.
But continue to complain about burrow infestors when Serral is the only player in the world that is able to make it work constantly at the pro level.
You need to stop making up history to prop your boy maru. Raven was not nerfed because of Maru, it was nerfed because the raven was a bad design at that time. Maru isn’t good enough like Byun who literally got reaper nerfed due to skill /micro
Believe it or not, people can be wrong about things. Including Harstem, who isn't even a terran or zerg player.
Harstem seems to think it terrans just made a raven it would make burrowed Infestors irrelevant, which is silly because we've seen terrans like Maru and Ryung do that when games come down to 1 or 2 bases, which is when it's useful. If your ghosts are running up and down the map, like they will in a split map, you're better off making 8 orbitals and always scanning.
It's even more silly if you look at the stats, ravens have almost the same vision range as burrowed Infestors. It's impossible to have any mass of units covered from more than one angle by a raven
Also, if you actually read the thread, you'd see I didn't bring up Maru getting ravens nerfed. It was used as an example of nerfing something because one player won with it. Another example was ByuN, which you agree with, otherwise proving the point that history supports nerfing a unit because of one player
And if you really believe Maru had nothing to do with ravens getting nerfed on multiple occasions (TvZ in 2018, TvT in 2022) then you're living in a dream world. Nothing else to it really
On March 08 2024 13:49 Glorfindelio wrote: The speed and timing of the Infestor nerf is truly incredible. Literally the best player in the world uses it to barely win 1 mined-out game against the best turtle Terran ever. Didn't seem to be a problem when Clem picked off a ton of burrowed infestors en route to a 3-1 victory a month prior, or with Reynor/Dark/Solar against any other Terran...Or you know, on ladder in general.
Not really a fan of the widow mine changes, if only because core unit interactions shouldn't be remixed at this point. Felt the same about the baneling nerf.
Yeah tbh not a fan of the Infestor change. But it's not like nerfing a unit because 1 player uses it to incredible effect is unheard of, Maru single-handily got Ghosts and Ravens nerfed, ByuN got Reapers nerfed, way back in WoL Mvp got Ghosts nerfed
Re: Ravens. The issue wasn't Maru. The problem was that iteration of the Raven was the grossest unit ever. You didn't need to be good to spam missiles and kill 120 supply of mutalisks in .1 seconds.
Well Maru was the only relevant terran player on that on patch. It's not like they were imba at the pro level, no other terran was getting to the point of 20 ravens out. You never saw mass ravens blowing up corrupters like that outside of casual play
It wasn't the first time either, Ravens got nerfed/redesigned on the patch over a year ago after Maru spent 18 months without losing a TvT.
Either way, you should never be able to mass 20 spell caster and having enough burst damage output to actually destroy large armies in very short time. It's just not how the units are intended to do.
Infestors used to be able to do similar things with infested Terrans, and it was rightfully nerfed and finally removed.
I don't defend anti-amour missile blowing up balls of units, I'm just saying it was only Maru at the professional level who was able to do it.
And pro zergs players were still complaining about it despite terran being irrelevant in tournaments outside of Maru during that patch.
It’s only really been Serral who’s utilised burrowed Infestors that effectively in the business end of tournaments.
To me it’s a question of base design, not who did what when that should dictate such decisions.
Should a support caster be able to nuke entire armies? No, it’s not all that relevant if thus far it’s just one guy who’s got into game states where it happens.
Should a support caster with a potentially game ending 1-2 punch be able to be effectively invisible underground while snarling around? Again I’d say no
How quickly, or not we’re talking about doesn’t really change that they’re potentially broken interactions. If one’s argument is ‘how come Maru got ravens nerfed so quickly, or Mvp with ghost snipes’ versus other race’s stuff like all you’re arguing is an inequity in obviously broken or unfun stuff being removed versus others
On March 08 2024 11:16 Antithesis wrote: Good patch. I think the general direction is just right.
Here is Harstem's view of it, and I largely agree. It's also amusing that Harstem directly argues against some TL.net's favorite opinions, such as that TvZ is zerg-favored and that building ravens in TvZ is out of the question for principled reasons.
Yeah because Harstem knows better than actual terran players.
We see Ryung and Maru make ravens when the games slow down and it's just about babysitting one base. But in a splitmap there's no point, you can't just make one in every spot an Infestor could lurk and expect corruptors to not kill them.
Infestor burrow vision was also 10, while ravens, the literal detector, was only 11. In that infamous Serral game he has Infestors in 15 different different spots, how is a raven supposed to cover that?
And TL and Reddit posters knows more than Harstem right?
How Maru was able to drag that game out and almost force a draw is just shows how dumb turtle terran ability is.
But continue to complain about burrow infestors when Serral is the only player in the world that is able to make it work constantly at the pro level.
You need to stop making up history to prop your boy maru. Raven was not nerfed because of Maru, it was nerfed because the raven was a bad design at that time. Maru isn’t good enough like Byun who literally got reaper nerfed due to skill /micro
Believe it or not, people can be wrong about things. Including Harstem, who isn't even a terran or zerg player.
Harstem seems to think it terrans just made a raven it would make burrowed Infestors irrelevant, which is silly because we've seen terrans like Maru and Ryung do that when games come down to 1 or 2 bases, which is when it's useful. If your ghosts are running up and down the map, like they will in a split map, you're better off making 8 orbitals and always scanning.
It's even more silly if you look at the stats, ravens have almost the same vision range as burrowed Infestors. It's impossible to have any mass of units covered from more than one angle by a raven
Also, if you actually read the thread, you'd see I didn't bring up Maru getting ravens nerfed. It was used as an example of nerfing something because one player won with it. Another example was ByuN, which you agree with, otherwise proving the point that history supports nerfing a unit because of one player
And if you really believe Maru had nothing to do with ravens getting nerfed on multiple occasions (TvZ in 2018, TvT in 2022) then you're living in a dream world. Nothing else to it really
He’s a better Zerg and Terran player than almost all of us here. And to broadly summate his opinion it is was more ‘Ravens seem to solve the issue, but top Terrans don’t do it, there must be some reason they don’t that I’m not privy to because I’m not a top pro Terran’
Which more accurately summarises what he said on said patch, whether he is correct or not is another issue
Its really funny how everyone says Zerg is best race just because Serral is best player. Theres literally half as many zergs as there are protoss in GM.
Its crazy, Starcraft2 is the only game where the most OP race/faction/hero is the one that is super under populated the higher you go on the ladder. And dont tell me theres just less Zerg players. In all of hots, Zerg was around 40% of GM. For first 2-3 years of LOTV Zerg was also around 40% of GM. I can just show my profile with 40k+ games played in GM and you can see the races played against, im not making anything up.
Its funny because all those reddit posts often start with; '' I dont play this game but from watching premier tournaments its clear Zerg is OP''.
There are only like 4 or 5 players who can win premier tournaments. The pro player base is SUPER small and have had the same players for many many years.
Of course the same race is gonna win most premier when its such a small player pool in a game that scale almost infinitely with player skill.
The best player wins more often than not. Illusion of Zerg strenght is what it is. Dark got destroyed by Stats and Classic. Solar very rarely gets tournament wins, Reynor hasnt been doing nearly as good since the last patch, and Clem beats Serral pretty often.
The reality is, the younger players are the ones doing the best. Serral, Clem, Reynor, MaxPax. The korean pros are all getting in their 30s, and dont practice nearly as much as before.
But hey, maybe Maru losing to Olivera in Katowice grand finals was a balance issue.
On March 09 2024 10:39 highsis wrote: Why are we buffing zerg when they are clearly the strongest race at the moment? ZvP has no issue? Seriously?
ZvP isn’t actually that bad at the minute, Protoss are doing OK there although maybe struggling a bit in PvT
This keeps getting brought up yet in both main tournaments of 2024, as well any probably most premier tournaments of 2023, zergs kept bopping protosses.
On March 08 2024 11:16 Antithesis wrote: Good patch. I think the general direction is just right.
Here is Harstem's view of it, and I largely agree. It's also amusing that Harstem directly argues against some TL.net's favorite opinions, such as that TvZ is zerg-favored and that building ravens in TvZ is out of the question for principled reasons.
Yeah because Harstem knows better than actual terran players.
We see Ryung and Maru make ravens when the games slow down and it's just about babysitting one base. But in a splitmap there's no point, you can't just make one in every spot an Infestor could lurk and expect corruptors to not kill them.
Infestor burrow vision was also 10, while ravens, the literal detector, was only 11. In that infamous Serral game he has Infestors in 15 different different spots, how is a raven supposed to cover that?
And TL and Reddit posters knows more than Harstem right?
How Maru was able to drag that game out and almost force a draw is just shows how dumb turtle terran ability is.
But continue to complain about burrow infestors when Serral is the only player in the world that is able to make it work constantly at the pro level.
You need to stop making up history to prop your boy maru. Raven was not nerfed because of Maru, it was nerfed because the raven was a bad design at that time. Maru isn’t good enough like Byun who literally got reaper nerfed due to skill /micro
Believe it or not, people can be wrong about things. Including Harstem, who isn't even a terran or zerg player.
Harstem seems to think it terrans just made a raven it would make burrowed Infestors irrelevant, which is silly because we've seen terrans like Maru and Ryung do that when games come down to 1 or 2 bases, which is when it's useful. If your ghosts are running up and down the map, like they will in a split map, you're better off making 8 orbitals and always scanning.
It's even more silly if you look at the stats, ravens have almost the same vision range as burrowed Infestors. It's impossible to have any mass of units covered from more than one angle by a raven
Also, if you actually read the thread, you'd see I didn't bring up Maru getting ravens nerfed. It was used as an example of nerfing something because one player won with it. Another example was ByuN, which you agree with, otherwise proving the point that history supports nerfing a unit because of one player
And if you really believe Maru had nothing to do with ravens getting nerfed on multiple occasions (TvZ in 2018, TvT in 2022) then you're living in a dream world. Nothing else to it really
He’s a better Zerg and Terran player than almost all of us here. And to broadly summate his opinion it is was more ‘Ravens seem to solve the issue, but top Terrans don’t do it, there must be some reason they don’t that I’m not privy to because I’m not a top pro Terran’
Which more accurately summarises what he said on said patch, whether he is correct or not is another issue
Maru said zerg is a problem, but I guess that gets discounted because he's biased. Since serral got hot this community has turned 180 in terms of deciding balance. Prior to that a race would get nerfed even if only player was outperforming everyone. Guess that doesn't apply anymore because "reasons"
On March 09 2024 10:39 highsis wrote: Why are we buffing zerg when they are clearly the strongest race at the moment? ZvP has no issue? Seriously?
ZvP isn’t actually that bad at the minute, Protoss are doing OK there although maybe struggling a bit in PvT
This keeps getting brought up yet in both main tournaments of 2024, as well any probably most premier tournaments of 2023, zergs kept bopping protosses.
But that's not relevant to current times as there were recent patches that changed the way ZvP works. I would agree with Wombat's assessment that ZvP is generally fine right now.
On March 09 2024 10:39 highsis wrote: Why are we buffing zerg when they are clearly the strongest race at the moment? ZvP has no issue? Seriously?
ZvP isn’t actually that bad at the minute, Protoss are doing OK there although maybe struggling a bit in PvT
This keeps getting brought up yet in both main tournaments of 2024, as well any probably most premier tournaments of 2023, zergs kept bopping protosses.
But that's not relevant to current times as there were recent patches that changed the way ZvP works. I would agree with Wombat's assessment that ZvP is generally fine right now.
You all laughed at me a few weeks ago right after IEM when I made a post specifically about Infestor being near impossible to spot with burrow movement and how broken it is and that it was gonna get nerfed, it was obvious after watching those Serral games, who is laughing now , love to say I told you so
I think it is time to come together as a communiy, put our bias and fandom aside, and make a decision. A decision to stop putting the updates of the game DIRECTLY in the hands of people who benefit financially from imbalances in these updates. Stop putting updates into the hands of people, who develop and profit from a COMPETING PRODUCT. This is utterly insane. End this balance council nonsense.
On March 09 2024 10:39 highsis wrote: Why are we buffing zerg when they are clearly the strongest race at the moment? ZvP has no issue? Seriously?
ZvP isn’t actually that bad at the minute, Protoss are doing OK there although maybe struggling a bit in PvT
This keeps getting brought up yet in both main tournaments of 2024, as well any probably most premier tournaments of 2023, zergs kept bopping protosses.
But that's not relevant to current times as there were recent patches that changed the way ZvP works. I would agree with Wombat's assessment that ZvP is generally fine right now.
Protoss went 5-24 in PvZ at IEM. For reference, this is a bigger gap than PvT yet everyone claims PvT was busted.
Trigger 0-2 Solar 0-2 Scarlett Stats 0-2 Shin Skillous, Astrea, Fireflying all 0-2 to Serral Skillous 0-3 Dark
her0 0-2 Dark 2-0 Reynor
Showtime 2-1 Reynor 1-2 Dark
Cyan 0-2 Dark 0-2 Reynor
What part of these results suggests imbalance to you? HerO and Showtime going toe to toe with two top3 zergs? All the other protoss, who are nowhere near the caliber of the best zergs getting wiped by all of them? What are you expecting if your perceived imbalance didn't exist, exactly? Trigger, rated around 2350, to take a map off of Solar and Scarlett? Serral's protoss opponents to take a map off him, where even Clem and Maru couldn't? Cyan, rated 2300, to take a map from the top 3 zergs? Please, put down the "zerg imba" lense, and actually look at reality for what it is.
Claiming imbalance based on these results is basically what the majority of balance babies on reddit and here have been doing incessantly for years.
Due to the inherent region-locked qualifiers of this tournament, extremely low level protoss (Cyan, Firefly, and Trigger) took the places of much better protoss (Classic, Parting, and Creator). Those three would almost definitely snatch at least a few more maps for protoss. Of course, the results would still look lopsided, because some of those zergs had been performing like monsters for several years. They're just better players.
It was a terran that blocked herO from advancing into the quarterfinals, not a zerg.
On March 08 2024 09:43 Nakajin wrote: Just saw that one : Siege Tank Turret now tracks previously attacked unit.
Does anyone know if it changes attack priority or things of that nature?
Yes, it changes the attack priority of the unsieged tank to prefer the target it is already shooting at, provided the target hasn't left the tank's range. Once the unit it is targeting down dies, if no further command has been given it tries to shoot the next-closest unit to where that unit was. However, if an order has been given after the original unit it was shooting at dies (like a move order stutter step) the tank will revert to how it operates in-game right now (just pick the closest unit as its next dedicated target).
The purpose is partly to make the turret rotate less, as in the live game the turret will wildly swing around because it endlessly re-calculates its target based on distance, which can result in very large angle swings. The tank is a "heavy" unit, and so the turret should "feel heavy". Additionally, it makes the extremely rare micro situations with the unsieged tank not feel like a piece of crap
I'm not sure if it's on PTR but at least the file I'm looking at, the Yaw Idle Rate reduction change for the tank has also been added. This one is a purely visual change that makes the turret "relax" to its reset version instead of snapping to reset if it detects no target nearby. Again, just makes the turret feel heavier and more like a tank.
The Immortal received the targeting change, but no dedicated visual change. The cyclone is apparently receiving a purely visual change to the turret to bring it in line with "looking" at the unit it's gonna shoot at, like other turret units, although if some difficult technical issues are resolved there is a remote possibility it could also receive the targeting change.
The Phoenix is noticeably absent. The targeting change on the Phoenix is the most important targeting change, and I have no idea how they managed to fix the Tank/Immortal/Cyclone without doing the Phoenix. It's actually kind of funny tbh lul. The Phoenix cannot currently target fire ingame because issuing a move command breaks whatever target fire order you just issued it (it recalculates based on distance every time you issue a move command, which you do constantly since it fires while moving). Because the weapon period cannot be controlled as the weapon automatically fires the second it enters range, you can't even "sync up" the attacks across phoenix with a timed moving-shot like you could with other weapons to get around it. So... yah. My money is if we don't see the phoenix fixed in this patch, we're basically guaranteed to see it in the next patch
On March 09 2024 17:23 Branch.AUT wrote: I think it is time to come together as a communiy, put our bias and fandom aside, and make a decision. A decision to stop putting the updates of the game DIRECTLY in the hands of people who benefit financially from imbalances in these updates. Stop putting updates into the hands of people, who develop and profit from a COMPETING PRODUCT. This is utterly insane. End this balance council nonsense.
People were screaming "imba" long before the balance council was formed.
I'd like to think professional SC2 players have more integrity than to warp a game's balance in their favor. I think the moment we begin to doubt the integrity of our pro players is the moment the scene truly begins to fall apart. It happened in the Korea with Life. SC2 isn't that big anymore; the vast majority of pro players stand to make very little income from tournament wins/results. For the most part, the game is a labor of love. I think we should be more careful to attribute selfishness onto the people whose work is a major factor as to why the scene still exists. The SC2 scene can only stand if both the fans and the players are united. Once separated, it's the beginning of an end.
On March 09 2024 17:23 Branch.AUT wrote: I think it is time to come together as a communiy, put our bias and fandom aside, and make a decision. A decision to stop putting the updates of the game DIRECTLY in the hands of people who benefit financially from imbalances in these updates. Stop putting updates into the hands of people, who develop and profit from a COMPETING PRODUCT. This is utterly insane. End this balance council nonsense.
People were screaming "imba" long before the balance council was formed.
I'd like to think professional SC2 players have more integrity than to warp a game's balance in their favor. I think the moment we begin to doubt the integrity of our pro players is the moment the scene truly begins to fall apart. It happened in the Korea with Life. SC2 isn't that big anymore; the vast majority of pro players stand to make very little income from tournament wins/results. For the most part, the game is a labor of love. I think we should be more careful to attribute selfishness onto the people whose work is a major factor as to why the scene still exists. The SC2 scene can only stand if both the fans and the players are united. Once separated, it's the beginning of an end.
The problem here is that these are people who've spent significant amounts of time playing ONE game - do they have profound knowledge of the game they are playing? Yes, very likely. Do they understand every aspect and unit interaction aka the big picture? I highly doubt this, because, at the end of the day not even the game designers do, there always is some trial & error factor that needs to be considered as it's a pretty damn complex game, after all, which kinda makes it hard to be aware of every little nuance.
Everyone is subjective and therefore has a slightly tinted view at things, so if not even the people designing the game could get it right 100% of the time, how are we expecting PLAYERS to do it better, esp since we're long past the unit stat tweaks and instead are getting unit reworks.
I certainly still hope for the best, but I'm more of a 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' person, as you might end up not improving the game, but making it worse over time.
On March 09 2024 10:39 highsis wrote: Why are we buffing zerg when they are clearly the strongest race at the moment? ZvP has no issue? Seriously?
ZvP isn’t actually that bad at the minute, Protoss are doing OK there although maybe struggling a bit in PvT
This keeps getting brought up yet in both main tournaments of 2024, as well any probably most premier tournaments of 2023, zergs kept bopping protosses.
But that's not relevant to current times as there were recent patches that changed the way ZvP works. I would agree with Wombat's assessment that ZvP is generally fine right now.
Protoss went 5-24 in PvZ at IEM. For reference, this is a bigger gap than PvT yet everyone claims PvT was busted.
That's not how statistics work though (and neither is Perceveire's post). You don't look at 29 games and make conclusions that contradict the evidence that you get from the data of the whole patch.
On March 09 2024 17:23 Branch.AUT wrote: I think it is time to come together as a communiy, put our bias and fandom aside, and make a decision. A decision to stop putting the updates of the game DIRECTLY in the hands of people who benefit financially from imbalances in these updates. Stop putting updates into the hands of people, who develop and profit from a COMPETING PRODUCT. This is utterly insane. End this balance council nonsense.
People were screaming "imba" long before the balance council was formed.
I'd like to think professional SC2 players have more integrity than to warp a game's balance in their favor. I think the moment we begin to doubt the integrity of our pro players is the moment the scene truly begins to fall apart. It happened in the Korea with Life. SC2 isn't that big anymore; the vast majority of pro players stand to make very little income from tournament wins/results. For the most part, the game is a labor of love. I think we should be more careful to attribute selfishness onto the people whose work is a major factor as to why the scene still exists. The SC2 scene can only stand if both the fans and the players are united. Once separated, it's the beginning of an end.
I think you haven't looked past your bias at all. Professional SC2 players are young people who spent the majority of their life's getting good at a video game. That doesn't teach you anything about integrity. Nothing at all. What it does teach these young men and women, is winning at any cost. And sacrificing most other things, to achieve that win. You seem to be putting these young professionals at a very high pedestal. And there is little to no evidence to warrant that.
On March 09 2024 17:23 Branch.AUT wrote: I think it is time to come together as a communiy, put our bias and fandom aside, and make a decision. A decision to stop putting the updates of the game DIRECTLY in the hands of people who benefit financially from imbalances in these updates. Stop putting updates into the hands of people, who develop and profit from a COMPETING PRODUCT. This is utterly insane. End this balance council nonsense.
People were screaming "imba" long before the balance council was formed.
I'd like to think professional SC2 players have more integrity than to warp a game's balance in their favor. I think the moment we begin to doubt the integrity of our pro players is the moment the scene truly begins to fall apart. It happened in the Korea with Life. SC2 isn't that big anymore; the vast majority of pro players stand to make very little income from tournament wins/results. For the most part, the game is a labor of love. I think we should be more careful to attribute selfishness onto the people whose work is a major factor as to why the scene still exists. The SC2 scene can only stand if both the fans and the players are united. Once separated, it's the beginning of an end.
The problem here is that these are people who've spent significant amounts of time playing ONE game - do they have profound knowledge of the game they are playing? Yes, very likely. Do they understand every aspect and unit interaction aka the big picture? I highly doubt this, because, at the end of the day not even the game designers do, there always is some trial & error factor that needs to be considered as it's a pretty damn complex game, after all, which kinda makes it hard to be aware of every little nuance.
Everyone is subjective and therefore has a slightly tinted view at things, so if not even the people designing the game could get it right 100% of the time, how are we expecting PLAYERS to do it better, esp since we're long past the unit stat tweaks and instead are getting unit reworks.
I certainly still hope for the best, but I'm more of a 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' person, as you might end up not improving the game, but making it worse over time.
I want to point out that from a KNOWLEDGE perspective, there are few people better equipped to analyze the game interactions properly. The issue is not with the knowledge. The issue is that the people on the balance council have other interests outside of SC2, that directly compete with what the sc2 balance council should be trying to achieve. Be it financial investment in a different game. Or a developmental role at a competing company. Could even just be the goal to finally win a big prizepool at a big tournament. Or to keep being in contention for the big price pool at the big tournament.
My point is, that it is impossible for ANY person in such a situation to make a decision on balance, that is independent of these outside considerations. Therefore, people in these situations, should never get to make balance update decision for SC2. I agree with you creager. We Cannot expect the players to make good decisions for SC2s balance. I do however no longer "hope for the best" because so far, all the attempts they made fell flat on the ground.
On March 09 2024 17:23 Branch.AUT wrote: I think it is time to come together as a communiy, put our bias and fandom aside, and make a decision. A decision to stop putting the updates of the game DIRECTLY in the hands of people who benefit financially from imbalances in these updates. Stop putting updates into the hands of people, who develop and profit from a COMPETING PRODUCT. This is utterly insane. End this balance council nonsense.
People were screaming "imba" long before the balance council was formed.
I'd like to think professional SC2 players have more integrity than to warp a game's balance in their favor. I think the moment we begin to doubt the integrity of our pro players is the moment the scene truly begins to fall apart. It happened in the Korea with Life. SC2 isn't that big anymore; the vast majority of pro players stand to make very little income from tournament wins/results. For the most part, the game is a labor of love. I think we should be more careful to attribute selfishness onto the people whose work is a major factor as to why the scene still exists. The SC2 scene can only stand if both the fans and the players are united. Once separated, it's the beginning of an end.
I think you haven't looked past your bias at all. Professional SC2 players are young people who spent the majority of their life's getting good at a video game. That doesn't teach you anything about integrity. Nothing at all. What it does teach these young men and women, is winning at any cost. And sacrificing most other things, to achieve that win. You seem to be putting these young professionals at a very high pedestal. And there is little to no evidence to warrant that.
Your outlook is very dark and twisted. There are myriad examples of athletes and competitors showing tremendous signs of great sportsmanship in virtually all arenas of competitions, most of which have money and prestige many orders of magnitude greater than SC2. Despite this enormous temptation, they still maintain their integrity and humility.
In SC2, there is Rogue, who admitted the 2018 imbalance in favor of zerg. Harstem has consistently denied that protoss has been weak against zerg. In fact, he claims the opposite. There are countless examples of players showing respect for each other, and almost always attributing their losses to their own mistakes during interviews.
Frankly, these "young people" are many times wiser than you, if you really view them with such undeserved cynicism.
On March 09 2024 10:39 highsis wrote: Why are we buffing zerg when they are clearly the strongest race at the moment? ZvP has no issue? Seriously?
ZvP isn’t actually that bad at the minute, Protoss are doing OK there although maybe struggling a bit in PvT
This keeps getting brought up yet in both main tournaments of 2024, as well any probably most premier tournaments of 2023, zergs kept bopping protosses.
But that's not relevant to current times as there were recent patches that changed the way ZvP works. I would agree with Wombat's assessment that ZvP is generally fine right now.
Protoss went 5-24 in PvZ at IEM. For reference, this is a bigger gap than PvT yet everyone claims PvT was busted.
That's not how statistics work though (and neither is Perceveire's post). You don't look at 29 games and make conclusions that contradict the evidence that you get from the data of the whole patch.
I wasn't making any statistical claim. My post was to give proper context more than anything.
On March 09 2024 10:39 highsis wrote: Why are we buffing zerg when they are clearly the strongest race at the moment? ZvP has no issue? Seriously?
ZvP isn’t actually that bad at the minute, Protoss are doing OK there although maybe struggling a bit in PvT
This keeps getting brought up yet in both main tournaments of 2024, as well any probably most premier tournaments of 2023, zergs kept bopping protosses.
But that's not relevant to current times as there were recent patches that changed the way ZvP works. I would agree with Wombat's assessment that ZvP is generally fine right now.
Protoss went 5-24 in PvZ at IEM. For reference, this is a bigger gap than PvT yet everyone claims PvT was busted.
That's not how statistics work though (and neither is Perceveire's post). You don't look at 29 games and make conclusions that contradict the evidence that you get from the data of the whole patch.
I wasn't making any statistical claim. My post was to give proper context more than anything.
Sure I get it, but it's also not true that the reason why we shouldn't care about Katowice results in this conversation is because it makes sense to us that some people lose to some other people, I just wanted to add that.
On March 09 2024 17:23 Branch.AUT wrote: I think it is time to come together as a communiy, put our bias and fandom aside, and make a decision. A decision to stop putting the updates of the game DIRECTLY in the hands of people who benefit financially from imbalances in these updates. Stop putting updates into the hands of people, who develop and profit from a COMPETING PRODUCT. This is utterly insane. End this balance council nonsense.
People were screaming "imba" long before the balance council was formed.
I'd like to think professional SC2 players have more integrity than to warp a game's balance in their favor. I think the moment we begin to doubt the integrity of our pro players is the moment the scene truly begins to fall apart. It happened in the Korea with Life. SC2 isn't that big anymore; the vast majority of pro players stand to make very little income from tournament wins/results. For the most part, the game is a labor of love. I think we should be more careful to attribute selfishness onto the people whose work is a major factor as to why the scene still exists. The SC2 scene can only stand if both the fans and the players are united. Once separated, it's the beginning of an end.
I think you haven't looked past your bias at all. Professional SC2 players are young people who spent the majority of their life's getting good at a video game. That doesn't teach you anything about integrity. Nothing at all. What it does teach these young men and women, is winning at any cost. And sacrificing most other things, to achieve that win. You seem to be putting these young professionals at a very high pedestal. And there is little to no evidence to warrant that.
Your outlook is very dark and twisted. There are myriad examples of athletes and competitors showing tremendous signs of great sportsmanship in virtually all arenas of competitions, most of which have money and prestige many orders of magnitude greater than SC2. Despite this enormous temptation, they still maintain their integrity and humility.
In SC2, there is Rogue, who admitted the 2018 imbalance in favor of zerg. Harstem has consistently denied that protoss has been weak against zerg. In fact, he claims the opposite. There are countless examples of players showing respect for each other, and almost always attributing their losses to their own mistakes during interviews.
Frankly, these "young people" are many times wiser than you, if you really view them with such undeserved cynicism.
When you have no arguments besides "I REALLY HOPE THIS IS GOING TO BE GREAT" I suppose the personal insult is a way to go. Kudos!
On March 09 2024 10:39 highsis wrote: Why are we buffing zerg when they are clearly the strongest race at the moment? ZvP has no issue? Seriously?
ZvP isn’t actually that bad at the minute, Protoss are doing OK there although maybe struggling a bit in PvT
This keeps getting brought up yet in both main tournaments of 2024, as well any probably most premier tournaments of 2023, zergs kept bopping protosses.
But that's not relevant to current times as there were recent patches that changed the way ZvP works. I would agree with Wombat's assessment that ZvP is generally fine right now.
Protoss went 5-24 in PvZ at IEM. For reference, this is a bigger gap than PvT yet everyone claims PvT was busted.
That's not how statistics work though (and neither is Perceveire's post). You don't look at 29 games and make conclusions that contradict the evidence that you get from the data of the whole patch.
There is always a response to shut down any type of statistical analysis, huh. Interesting thing throughout the whole patch zerg was performing protoss, but I guess there is yet another reason for why that also doesn't count
On March 09 2024 10:39 highsis wrote: Why are we buffing zerg when they are clearly the strongest race at the moment? ZvP has no issue? Seriously?
ZvP isn’t actually that bad at the minute, Protoss are doing OK there although maybe struggling a bit in PvT
This keeps getting brought up yet in both main tournaments of 2024, as well any probably most premier tournaments of 2023, zergs kept bopping protosses.
But that's not relevant to current times as there were recent patches that changed the way ZvP works. I would agree with Wombat's assessment that ZvP is generally fine right now.
Protoss went 5-24 in PvZ at IEM. For reference, this is a bigger gap than PvT yet everyone claims PvT was busted.
Trigger 0-2 Solar 0-2 Scarlett Stats 0-2 Shin Skillous, Astrea, Fireflying all 0-2 to Serral Skillous 0-3 Dark
her0 0-2 Dark 2-0 Reynor
Showtime 2-1 Reynor 1-2 Dark
Cyan 0-2 Dark 0-2 Reynor
What part of these results suggests imbalance to you? HerO and Showtime going toe to toe with two top3 zergs? All the other protoss, who are nowhere near the caliber of the best zergs getting wiped by all of them? What are you expecting if your perceived imbalance didn't exist, exactly? Trigger, rated around 2350, to take a map off of Solar and Scarlett? Serral's protoss opponents to take a map off him, where even Clem and Maru couldn't? Cyan, rated 2300, to take a map from the top 3 zergs? Please, put down the "zerg imba" lense, and actually look at reality for what it is.
Claiming imbalance based on these results is basically what the majority of balance babies on reddit and here have been doing incessantly for years.
Due to the inherent region-locked qualifiers of this tournament, extremely low level protoss (Cyan, Firefly, and Trigger) took the places of much better protoss (Classic, Parting, and Creator). Those three would almost definitely snatch at least a few more maps for protoss. Of course, the results would still look lopsided, because some of those zergs had been performing like monsters for several years. They're just better players.
It was a terran that blocked herO from advancing into the quarterfinals, not a zerg.
It was cure who blocked hero, you know, the best TvPer in the world, but sure let's not bring that up. But more importantly, you looked at all the ZvP matches and concluded every match played out the way it was meant to. Fine, let's apply that to TvP. Which Terran beat a Protoss they traditionally wouldn't have beat? Since your post inherently relies on the Protoss field being inherently weaker than usual, surely you can see how to applies to them facing Terran as well, right?
I'll note the reason why I brought IEM was because this was yet another datapoint reddit used to claim TvP was too skewed for Terran.
On March 09 2024 17:23 Branch.AUT wrote: I think it is time to come together as a communiy, put our bias and fandom aside, and make a decision. A decision to stop putting the updates of the game DIRECTLY in the hands of people who benefit financially from imbalances in these updates. Stop putting updates into the hands of people, who develop and profit from a COMPETING PRODUCT. This is utterly insane. End this balance council nonsense.
People were screaming "imba" long before the balance council was formed.
I'd like to think professional SC2 players have more integrity than to warp a game's balance in their favor. I think the moment we begin to doubt the integrity of our pro players is the moment the scene truly begins to fall apart. It happened in the Korea with Life. SC2 isn't that big anymore; the vast majority of pro players stand to make very little income from tournament wins/results. For the most part, the game is a labor of love. I think we should be more careful to attribute selfishness onto the people whose work is a major factor as to why the scene still exists. The SC2 scene can only stand if both the fans and the players are united. Once separated, it's the beginning of an end.
The problem here is that these are people who've spent significant amounts of time playing ONE game - do they have profound knowledge of the game they are playing? Yes, very likely. Do they understand every aspect and unit interaction aka the big picture? I highly doubt this, because, at the end of the day not even the game designers do, there always is some trial & error factor that needs to be considered as it's a pretty damn complex game, after all, which kinda makes it hard to be aware of every little nuance.
Everyone is subjective and therefore has a slightly tinted view at things, so if not even the people designing the game could get it right 100% of the time, how are we expecting PLAYERS to do it better, esp since we're long past the unit stat tweaks and instead are getting unit reworks.
I certainly still hope for the best, but I'm more of a 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' person, as you might end up not improving the game, but making it worse over time.
I want to point out that from a KNOWLEDGE perspective, there are few people better equipped to analyze the game interactions properly. The issue is not with the knowledge. The issue is that the people on the balance council have other interests outside of SC2, that directly compete with what the sc2 balance council should be trying to achieve. Be it financial investment in a different game. Or a developmental role at a competing company. Could even just be the goal to finally win a big prizepool at a big tournament. Or to keep being in contention for the big price pool at the big tournament.
My point is, that it is impossible for ANY person in such a situation to make a decision on balance, that is independent of these outside considerations. Therefore, people in these situations, should never get to make balance update decision for SC2. I agree with you creager. We Cannot expect the players to make good decisions for SC2s balance. I do however no longer "hope for the best" because so far, all the attempts they made fell flat on the ground.
There’s certainly a pretty heavy pro presence in terms of consultation, but are they actually making decisions and actively calling the shots?
This patch had some tweaks that went in based on mapmaker feedback, that a guy like Harstem just shrugged and had no real opinion of. So presumably those suggestions were sourced from the mapmaking community as the patch note indicated. Or the various QoL changes which weren’t something on the pro radar, but the dev team have either noticed themselves, or been made aware of from other sources.
Or last patch where every pro known to be involved in the Balance Council was negative on the Cyclone change, but it still ended up in the game.
While it’s important to be wary of the pitfalls of putting too much stock in the opinions of those with direct personal interest in said changes, so too is it I think to do so within a framing related to what that role actually is.
Additionally not all pros are created equal, somebody like Pig who I believe consults on the mysterious council does SC2 for a living, but as a content creator and caster rather than as a competitive Zerg player. Harstem is still an active pro, and hopefully 2024 is the #YearOfHarstem but he’s pivoted a bit to content stuff too. He’s quite open with his opinion that Protoss is actually stronger than Zerg outside of your Serral level of players, based on his experiences and observations off-racing as Zerg to a GM level. An observation that absolutely tracks with Zerg’s generally declining presence in the top amateur/not pro bracket of the playerbase that high master/GM covers.
It seems to me the process isn’t that different from ye olden days, with the SC2 team sourcing feedback from various areas, with pros featuring heavily, and trying to make judgement calls on what feedback is reasonable versus what is biased.
The only difference is nowadays it’s the pros who are known to be on the Balance Council who are effectively the public face of the process and thus carry the blame in many eyes for what goes into patches, whereas previously it was ultimately David Kim who used to be that lightning rod.
All one can hope to do is aggregate knowledge of various stakeholders, try to account for bias and try to patch in a way that achieves whatever objectives one might have. What is balanced, what is fun to play and what is entertaining to watch I’d say are those 3 main areas.
Pros despite bias leaking in will generally have the best knowledge to deal with the nitty gritty of balance, and likely have as good a sense of what’s entertaining as anyone else.
I’d say they’d have a skewed sense of what is fun, just because they’re so good at the game that what’s frustrating to mortals they perhaps don’t have a great sense of.
Furthermore I mean, read any thread on TL (where we handily have racial icons) or a Reddit and it’s patently apparent that racial bias is just as prevalent, if not even more ingrained in the average player as it is a pro. So it’s not like weighting the average player is going to get you opinions divorced from that factor.
Getting into TLDR territory (for a change) but I do think the pros are getting the blame a bit unfairly here for what’s ultimately a consulting gig rather than a decision-making one. Perhaps the still semi-mysterious structure of how the Balance Council actually operates is partly to blame there.
On March 09 2024 17:23 Branch.AUT wrote: I think it is time to come together as a communiy, put our bias and fandom aside, and make a decision. A decision to stop putting the updates of the game DIRECTLY in the hands of people who benefit financially from imbalances in these updates. Stop putting updates into the hands of people, who develop and profit from a COMPETING PRODUCT. This is utterly insane. End this balance council nonsense.
People were screaming "imba" long before the balance council was formed.
I'd like to think professional SC2 players have more integrity than to warp a game's balance in their favor. I think the moment we begin to doubt the integrity of our pro players is the moment the scene truly begins to fall apart. It happened in the Korea with Life. SC2 isn't that big anymore; the vast majority of pro players stand to make very little income from tournament wins/results. For the most part, the game is a labor of love. I think we should be more careful to attribute selfishness onto the people whose work is a major factor as to why the scene still exists. The SC2 scene can only stand if both the fans and the players are united. Once separated, it's the beginning of an end.
I think you haven't looked past your bias at all. Professional SC2 players are young people who spent the majority of their life's getting good at a video game. That doesn't teach you anything about integrity. Nothing at all. What it does teach these young men and women, is winning at any cost. And sacrificing most other things, to achieve that win. You seem to be putting these young professionals at a very high pedestal. And there is little to no evidence to warrant that.
Your outlook is very dark and twisted. There are myriad examples of athletes and competitors showing tremendous signs of great sportsmanship in virtually all arenas of competitions, most of which have money and prestige many orders of magnitude greater than SC2. Despite this enormous temptation, they still maintain their integrity and humility.
In SC2, there is Rogue, who admitted the 2018 imbalance in favor of zerg. Harstem has consistently denied that protoss has been weak against zerg. In fact, he claims the opposite. There are countless examples of players showing respect for each other, and almost always attributing their losses to their own mistakes during interviews.
Frankly, these "young people" are many times wiser than you, if you really view them with such undeserved cynicism.
When you have no arguments besides "I REALLY HOPE THIS IS GOING TO BE GREAT" I suppose the personal insult is a way to go. Kudos!
Putting all caps words into others' mouths—another sign of great maturity and wisdom.
On March 09 2024 10:39 highsis wrote: Why are we buffing zerg when they are clearly the strongest race at the moment? ZvP has no issue? Seriously?
ZvP isn’t actually that bad at the minute, Protoss are doing OK there although maybe struggling a bit in PvT
This keeps getting brought up yet in both main tournaments of 2024, as well any probably most premier tournaments of 2023, zergs kept bopping protosses.
But that's not relevant to current times as there were recent patches that changed the way ZvP works. I would agree with Wombat's assessment that ZvP is generally fine right now.
Protoss went 5-24 in PvZ at IEM. For reference, this is a bigger gap than PvT yet everyone claims PvT was busted.
That's not how statistics work though (and neither is Perceveire's post). You don't look at 29 games and make conclusions that contradict the evidence that you get from the data of the whole patch.
There is always a response to shut down any type of statistical analysis, huh. Interesting thing throughout the whole patch zerg was performing protoss, but I guess there is yet another reason for why that also doesn't count
Listing a bunch of results where B/C tier Protoss are losing to S/A class Zergs isn’t really any kind of earnest statistical analysis.
PvZ is in a better spot than it’s been for a while. A top Protoss can beat a top Zerg, or lose ofc. herO going 1:1 versus Dark and Reynor at that tourney.
Week before Kato herO made a final defeating Reynor. Since then we’ve had two Protoss emerge from a Code S group, both beating Dark along the way.
It’s not perfectly balanced sure, but we’re in a scenario where if the best PvZer in herO is in some kind of shape, he’s got a borderline 50/50 shot against any Zerg except perhaps Serral.
Whereas going back 2/3 years even the best PvZers you gave maybe a 40/60 shot, or worse against any of the top Zergs. They could still win matches but if you compound those odds with multiple matches in a bracket they start to look pretty bad. Whereas PvT Toss was at worst 50/50 at equivalent levels, sometimes perhaps even favoured at times.
Nowadays it feels the reverse is true, and PvT is now that 40/60 matchup in a big tournament setting. Far from impossible to take a win a match, but the odds of doing so in multiple PvTs get worse and worse the more you’re playing in a bracket.
On March 09 2024 17:23 Branch.AUT wrote: I think it is time to come together as a communiy, put our bias and fandom aside, and make a decision. A decision to stop putting the updates of the game DIRECTLY in the hands of people who benefit financially from imbalances in these updates. Stop putting updates into the hands of people, who develop and profit from a COMPETING PRODUCT. This is utterly insane. End this balance council nonsense.
People were screaming "imba" long before the balance council was formed.
I'd like to think professional SC2 players have more integrity than to warp a game's balance in their favor. I think the moment we begin to doubt the integrity of our pro players is the moment the scene truly begins to fall apart. It happened in the Korea with Life. SC2 isn't that big anymore; the vast majority of pro players stand to make very little income from tournament wins/results. For the most part, the game is a labor of love. I think we should be more careful to attribute selfishness onto the people whose work is a major factor as to why the scene still exists. The SC2 scene can only stand if both the fans and the players are united. Once separated, it's the beginning of an end.
The problem here is that these are people who've spent significant amounts of time playing ONE game - do they have profound knowledge of the game they are playing? Yes, very likely. Do they understand every aspect and unit interaction aka the big picture? I highly doubt this, because, at the end of the day not even the game designers do, there always is some trial & error factor that needs to be considered as it's a pretty damn complex game, after all, which kinda makes it hard to be aware of every little nuance.
Everyone is subjective and therefore has a slightly tinted view at things, so if not even the people designing the game could get it right 100% of the time, how are we expecting PLAYERS to do it better, esp since we're long past the unit stat tweaks and instead are getting unit reworks.
I certainly still hope for the best, but I'm more of a 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' person, as you might end up not improving the game, but making it worse over time.
I want to point out that from a KNOWLEDGE perspective, there are few people better equipped to analyze the game interactions properly. The issue is not with the knowledge. The issue is that the people on the balance council have other interests outside of SC2, that directly compete with what the sc2 balance council should be trying to achieve. Be it financial investment in a different game. Or a developmental role at a competing company. Could even just be the goal to finally win a big prizepool at a big tournament. Or to keep being in contention for the big price pool at the big tournament.
My point is, that it is impossible for ANY person in such a situation to make a decision on balance, that is independent of these outside considerations. Therefore, people in these situations, should never get to make balance update decision for SC2. I agree with you creager. We Cannot expect the players to make good decisions for SC2s balance. I do however no longer "hope for the best" because so far, all the attempts they made fell flat on the ground.
Again, being a top player might give you very good overall knowledge on how the game plays, but it still gives you 0 knowledge about design systems or what philosophy was predominant when initially designing SC2, but also data/client structure which largely determines what you can and cannot do, therefore limiting the total number of design approaches. Other aspects of the game that you personally might enjoy less than your peers and feel are highly impactful for your enjoyment of the game might boil down to the game just not catering towards your personal preference rather than being outright problematic for the majority of the player base.
How do you weigh and prioritise those issues? Is it a democratic process where everybody gets to vote on everything? I wouldn't even need to go as far as you and focus on conflict of interest of the involved players, as I honestly don't believe people on there are simply doing it to finally get their shot in the lime light, but it also cannot be completely ruled out, so there's some risk factor to it.
On March 09 2024 17:23 Branch.AUT wrote: I think it is time to come together as a communiy, put our bias and fandom aside, and make a decision. A decision to stop putting the updates of the game DIRECTLY in the hands of people who benefit financially from imbalances in these updates. Stop putting updates into the hands of people, who develop and profit from a COMPETING PRODUCT. This is utterly insane. End this balance council nonsense.
People were screaming "imba" long before the balance council was formed.
I'd like to think professional SC2 players have more integrity than to warp a game's balance in their favor. I think the moment we begin to doubt the integrity of our pro players is the moment the scene truly begins to fall apart. It happened in the Korea with Life. SC2 isn't that big anymore; the vast majority of pro players stand to make very little income from tournament wins/results. For the most part, the game is a labor of love. I think we should be more careful to attribute selfishness onto the people whose work is a major factor as to why the scene still exists. The SC2 scene can only stand if both the fans and the players are united. Once separated, it's the beginning of an end.
The problem here is that these are people who've spent significant amounts of time playing ONE game - do they have profound knowledge of the game they are playing? Yes, very likely. Do they understand every aspect and unit interaction aka the big picture? I highly doubt this, because, at the end of the day not even the game designers do, there always is some trial & error factor that needs to be considered as it's a pretty damn complex game, after all, which kinda makes it hard to be aware of every little nuance.
Everyone is subjective and therefore has a slightly tinted view at things, so if not even the people designing the game could get it right 100% of the time, how are we expecting PLAYERS to do it better, esp since we're long past the unit stat tweaks and instead are getting unit reworks.
I certainly still hope for the best, but I'm more of a 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' person, as you might end up not improving the game, but making it worse over time.
I want to point out that from a KNOWLEDGE perspective, there are few people better equipped to analyze the game interactions properly. The issue is not with the knowledge. The issue is that the people on the balance council have other interests outside of SC2, that directly compete with what the sc2 balance council should be trying to achieve. Be it financial investment in a different game. Or a developmental role at a competing company. Could even just be the goal to finally win a big prizepool at a big tournament. Or to keep being in contention for the big price pool at the big tournament.
My point is, that it is impossible for ANY person in such a situation to make a decision on balance, that is independent of these outside considerations. Therefore, people in these situations, should never get to make balance update decision for SC2. I agree with you creager. We Cannot expect the players to make good decisions for SC2s balance. I do however no longer "hope for the best" because so far, all the attempts they made fell flat on the ground.
There’s certainly a pretty heavy pro presence in terms of consultation, but are they actually making decisions and actively calling the shots? --snip snip-- Getting into TLDR territory (for a change) but I do think the pros are getting the blame a bit unfairly here for what’s ultimately a consulting gig rather than a decision-making one. Perhaps the still semi-mysterious structure of how the Balance Council actually operates is partly to blame there.
I cut he part in the middle out, and I am going to focus on the opening and closing statements here. Not because the part in the middle is wrong in any way. It might be. It might not be. There is no way of knowing, because most of it is speculation. Since you mentioned them specifically: I don't know Harstem of Pig personally. Never talked to them. They might actually believe the things they say in curated, edited youtube content. They might not. Since it's impossible to verify or falsify, discussing their candor is pointless. Personally im not going to take their word as fact, purely based on trust. Neither am I taking Lambo's off-hand comment on a HSC couch that "nobody liked that change and it got in anyway" at face value.
I think you certainly nailed the issue in the opening statement. We have no information on who is consulted, how those opinions get used and which decisions are made. Ever since the mass layoffs in SC2 team, my assumption was that the team only had mid level custodians left. That leaves the "community balance council" the only entity still developing the game.
In my opinion: It's all shady back door dealings. And it either needs to step out into the light. Or cease completely. Because right now they are making the game worse for the third year running.
On March 09 2024 10:39 highsis wrote: Why are we buffing zerg when they are clearly the strongest race at the moment? ZvP has no issue? Seriously?
ZvP isn’t actually that bad at the minute, Protoss are doing OK there although maybe struggling a bit in PvT
This keeps getting brought up yet in both main tournaments of 2024, as well any probably most premier tournaments of 2023, zergs kept bopping protosses.
But that's not relevant to current times as there were recent patches that changed the way ZvP works. I would agree with Wombat's assessment that ZvP is generally fine right now.
Protoss went 5-24 in PvZ at IEM. For reference, this is a bigger gap than PvT yet everyone claims PvT was busted.
Trigger 0-2 Solar 0-2 Scarlett Stats 0-2 Shin Skillous, Astrea, Fireflying all 0-2 to Serral Skillous 0-3 Dark
her0 0-2 Dark 2-0 Reynor
Showtime 2-1 Reynor 1-2 Dark
Cyan 0-2 Dark 0-2 Reynor
What part of these results suggests imbalance to you? HerO and Showtime going toe to toe with two top3 zergs? All the other protoss, who are nowhere near the caliber of the best zergs getting wiped by all of them? What are you expecting if your perceived imbalance didn't exist, exactly? Trigger, rated around 2350, to take a map off of Solar and Scarlett? Serral's protoss opponents to take a map off him, where even Clem and Maru couldn't? Cyan, rated 2300, to take a map from the top 3 zergs? Please, put down the "zerg imba" lense, and actually look at reality for what it is.
Claiming imbalance based on these results is basically what the majority of balance babies on reddit and here have been doing incessantly for years.
Due to the inherent region-locked qualifiers of this tournament, extremely low level protoss (Cyan, Firefly, and Trigger) took the places of much better protoss (Classic, Parting, and Creator). Those three would almost definitely snatch at least a few more maps for protoss. Of course, the results would still look lopsided, because some of those zergs had been performing like monsters for several years. They're just better players.
It was a terran that blocked herO from advancing into the quarterfinals, not a zerg.
It was cure who blocked hero, you know, the best TvPer in the world, but sure let's not bring that up. But more importantly, you looked at all the ZvP matches and concluded every match played out the way it was meant to. Fine, let's apply that to TvP. Which Terran beat a Protoss they traditionally wouldn't have beat? Since your post inherently relies on the Protoss field being inherently weaker than usual, surely you can see how to applies to them facing Terran as well, right?
I'll note the reason why I brought IEM was because this was yet another datapoint reddit used to claim TvP was too skewed for Terran.
I'm not sure how PvT has anything to do with this. Are you suggesting that since the PvT rate in the tournament (37.8%) is much higher than the (17.2%) of PvZ that PvZ is more imbalanced? Upsets, of course, also happen. No one thought Cyan could do what he did to Maru. You don't make large statistical conclusions out of extremely small sample sizes, regardless. Even with large sample sizes, it's still difficult, because there are so many factors at play, such as individual skill.
If anyone is saying that TvP is terran-favored based on this single tournament, I'd also say that is also a weak argument for the same reasoning. However, a faulty reasoning doesn't mean the conclusion was incorrect. I personally think the MU is terran-favored. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Maru at some point implicitly agree? He said that Protoss' only viable option was to open phoenix into colossus, but even that only gives them a 50% chance at best, if the Terran plays correctly. My memory isn't great these days.
TvP advantage is because how many openers terran have that gives them clear edge and ability to end games at mid game with +30 army pop. Remember that terran army trades roughly equality to protoss army, so any army size advantage is big. Another thing to note late game army control is much harder for terran side, you can tell me its not, but fact is it, and no terran in the world wants to play late game tvp, even if theoretically terran army is stronger. So what happens is terran gets early advantage > allin toss > wins at high %. I also see times were terran doesnt get early advantage and game goes to macro full end game, and honestly i dont see any imbalance from terran side in those games.
On March 09 2024 17:23 Branch.AUT wrote: I think it is time to come together as a communiy, put our bias and fandom aside, and make a decision. A decision to stop putting the updates of the game DIRECTLY in the hands of people who benefit financially from imbalances in these updates. Stop putting updates into the hands of people, who develop and profit from a COMPETING PRODUCT. This is utterly insane. End this balance council nonsense.
People were screaming "imba" long before the balance council was formed.
I'd like to think professional SC2 players have more integrity than to warp a game's balance in their favor. I think the moment we begin to doubt the integrity of our pro players is the moment the scene truly begins to fall apart. It happened in the Korea with Life. SC2 isn't that big anymore; the vast majority of pro players stand to make very little income from tournament wins/results. For the most part, the game is a labor of love. I think we should be more careful to attribute selfishness onto the people whose work is a major factor as to why the scene still exists. The SC2 scene can only stand if both the fans and the players are united. Once separated, it's the beginning of an end.
The problem here is that these are people who've spent significant amounts of time playing ONE game - do they have profound knowledge of the game they are playing? Yes, very likely. Do they understand every aspect and unit interaction aka the big picture? I highly doubt this, because, at the end of the day not even the game designers do, there always is some trial & error factor that needs to be considered as it's a pretty damn complex game, after all, which kinda makes it hard to be aware of every little nuance.
Everyone is subjective and therefore has a slightly tinted view at things, so if not even the people designing the game could get it right 100% of the time, how are we expecting PLAYERS to do it better, esp since we're long past the unit stat tweaks and instead are getting unit reworks.
I certainly still hope for the best, but I'm more of a 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' person, as you might end up not improving the game, but making it worse over time.
I want to point out that from a KNOWLEDGE perspective, there are few people better equipped to analyze the game interactions properly. The issue is not with the knowledge. The issue is that the people on the balance council have other interests outside of SC2, that directly compete with what the sc2 balance council should be trying to achieve. Be it financial investment in a different game. Or a developmental role at a competing company. Could even just be the goal to finally win a big prizepool at a big tournament. Or to keep being in contention for the big price pool at the big tournament.
My point is, that it is impossible for ANY person in such a situation to make a decision on balance, that is independent of these outside considerations. Therefore, people in these situations, should never get to make balance update decision for SC2. I agree with you creager. We Cannot expect the players to make good decisions for SC2s balance. I do however no longer "hope for the best" because so far, all the attempts they made fell flat on the ground.
There’s certainly a pretty heavy pro presence in terms of consultation, but are they actually making decisions and actively calling the shots? --snip snip-- Getting into TLDR territory (for a change) but I do think the pros are getting the blame a bit unfairly here for what’s ultimately a consulting gig rather than a decision-making one. Perhaps the still semi-mysterious structure of how the Balance Council actually operates is partly to blame there.
I cut he part in the middle out, and I am going to focus on the opening and closing statements here. Not because the part in the middle is wrong in any way. It might be. It might not be. There is no way of knowing, because most of it is speculation. Since you mentioned them specifically: I don't know Harstem of Pig personally. Never talked to them. They might actually believe the things they say in curated, edited youtube content. They might not. Since it's impossible to verify or falsify, discussing their candor is pointless. Personally im not going to take their word as fact, purely based on trust. Neither am I taking Lambo's off-hand comment on a HSC couch that "nobody liked that change and it got in anyway" at face value.
I think you certainly nailed the issue in the opening statement. We have no information on who is consulted, how those opinions get used and which decisions are made. Ever since the mass layoffs in SC2 team, my assumption was that the team only had mid level custodians left. That leaves the "community balance council" the only entity still developing the game.
In my opinion: It's all shady back door dealings. And it either needs to step out into the light. Or cease completely. Because right now they are making the game worse for the third year running.
You kind of have to take their opinions at face value otherwise one is assuming duplicity and mendacity at work.
If every pro’s PTR reaction that I saw was negative to the initial cyclone change, in the absence of alternative information I have to assume that’s the feedback they were giving. Even Heromarine as a Terran player didn’t like it, although his rationale was more ‘it won’t help make mech be more viable’ than couched in whether it made T stronger or weaker.
More transparency would absolutely be nice, equally if, as seems likely SC2 is operating on an absolute skeleton crew (see bugs like Colossus range you’re left with few options in effectively crowdsourcing knowledge through which to patch outside of pros doing that element.
There’s been a few missteps at times, but overall I don’t think this era has been that bad in terms of how balance and design have been tweaked and iterated on.
I’d argue it’s been better handled than at times when it was purely Blizzard’s domain and we had long periods of very potent and unfun metas like BL/Infestor, or Swarmhost turtle strategies
If they don't buff protoss significantly, this patch does not have any impact. Some of the changes are nice to have but neither does tackle the major problem SC2 has balance wise: Protoss being dominated by both, T and Z, because it does not have any proper variations in early to mid game strategies/timing attacks.
With SC2 being in its twilight, it's a bit sad if Protoss will have to continue to suffer in TvP. It's already been a full year since the Battery Overcharge nerf, and despite the patches to try to make back up for it, it still hasn't been enough. I can't imagine how many of those close PvT series would have went Creator's way for example at DH Atlanta if Protoss had a slightlyy stronger earlygame.
I will be really sad if the Cyclone reverts back to its former state, as a Mech player who finally got a solid toy that can make it work in LotV... I hope this change can be enough. I guess there is the lategame Lib nerf, and the WM nerf too, which definitely helps earlygame. (It's not uncommon for pros to slip up and lose 7-10 workers to 1 WM unfortunately. Since the economic damage per worker killed increases exponentially, if the max damage is reduced more to around 5-7 workers then saving that 2-3 workers + lost mining time really makes a difference).
Though, another idea I had. Pros mention that one reason Cyclones is strong is it's hard to scout for it because it's reactorable and you don't know if it's WMs or hellions or Cyclones. Would making it require a Tech Lab, and reducing its build time a bit make up for that? It would make it a bit more of a commitment for Terran to build a Tech lab instead of a Reactor, so i think it could also make it a bit more of a Mech oriented opener than a Bio one.
Another idea. Would there be more of a rock paper scissors dynamic if say, Cyclone lost its Armored tag, but lost 20% HP? For example keep the suggested PTR change, but keep the HP at 110 and remove Armored tag. That way, it'd be a little stronger vs Stalkers (thus helping Mech open vs early blink openers) and much more vs Immortals, but it would then be weaker to Stargate, and even adepts and chargelots and colossus later too. I guess it might be a little big of a nerf in TvZ though, and possibly have the side effect of being even stronger in TvT (would die to tanks in 3 shots instead of 2).
On March 09 2024 10:39 highsis wrote: Why are we buffing zerg when they are clearly the strongest race at the moment? ZvP has no issue? Seriously?
ZvP isn’t actually that bad at the minute, Protoss are doing OK there although maybe struggling a bit in PvT
This keeps getting brought up yet in both main tournaments of 2024, as well any probably most premier tournaments of 2023, zergs kept bopping protosses.
But that's not relevant to current times as there were recent patches that changed the way ZvP works. I would agree with Wombat's assessment that ZvP is generally fine right now.
Protoss went 5-24 in PvZ at IEM. For reference, this is a bigger gap than PvT yet everyone claims PvT was busted.
That's not how statistics work though (and neither is Perceveire's post). You don't look at 29 games and make conclusions that contradict the evidence that you get from the data of the whole patch.
There is always a response to shut down any type of statistical analysis, huh. Interesting thing throughout the whole patch zerg was performing protoss, but I guess there is yet another reason for why that also doesn't count
Meanwhile in the real world I have argued based on data that protoss was so underpowered that the game wasn't worth watching in the last five years against a bunch of people who kept arguing that protoss players were just bad and didn't deserve to win. I've just looked at the current situation in PvZ and it's different.
I've always wanted the pylon range nerf it suffered in wings of liberty reverted. Now that they changed the vision maybe they should rever the pylon energy field now.
It would help with map variety allowing the entrace to be made slightly differently, and how make some crucial pylons less vulnerable.
It was nerfed due to 4 gate when you could put a pylon in the lowground outside the range of stalkers and warp in the highground, but you can't do that anymore so it should come back.
Though, another idea I had. Pros mention that one reason Cyclones is strong is it's hard to scout for it because it's reactorable and you don't know if it's WMs or hellions or Cyclones. Would making it require a Tech Lab, and reducing its build time a bit make up for that? It would make it a bit more of a commitment for Terran to build a Tech lab instead of a Reactor, so i think it could also make it a bit more of a Mech oriented opener than a Bio one.
Yes, balance council doesnt understand terran philosophy. Armored units was for tech lab, while lights units are for reactor.... Such a detail ! I mean, nobody here wouldn t have done this mistake as this forum is of course full of SC2 expert... isn t it ,
Second argument, there are not enought light units in SC2
Though, another idea I had. Pros mention that one reason Cyclones is strong is it's hard to scout for it because it's reactorable and you don't know if it's WMs or hellions or Cyclones. Would making it require a Tech Lab, and reducing its build time a bit make up for that? It would make it a bit more of a commitment for Terran to build a Tech lab instead of a Reactor, so i think it could also make it a bit more of a Mech oriented opener than a Bio one.
Yes, balance council doesnt understand terran philosophy. Armored units was for tech lab, while lights units are for reactor.... Such a detail ! I mean, nobody here wouldn t have done this mistake as this forum is of course full of SC2 expert... isn t it ,
Second argument, there are not enought light units in SC2
Wow i didn't even realize that but you're right haha. Hmm if Cyclone HP is decreased a little and becomes light, it could be a little better for Mech vs early Blink Stalkers, while having a new weakness to adept or phoenix/stargate opener. Previously, adept was shit vs Mech, and Cyclones made opening Stargate even worse. It could also make Colossus a good option.
Meanwhile, Cyclone would be able to trade evenly vs Stalker/Immortal, and Mech could safely take their 3rd. Against Stargate or Adept, you can make WMs or hellions or even Thors, and against Colossus you can make Vikings or Tanks.
Cyclone would become really weak vs Banelings, but you shouldn't be able to just mass Cyclone vs Zerg lol.
Though, another idea I had. Pros mention that one reason Cyclones is strong is it's hard to scout for it because it's reactorable and you don't know if it's WMs or hellions or Cyclones. Would making it require a Tech Lab, and reducing its build time a bit make up for that? It would make it a bit more of a commitment for Terran to build a Tech lab instead of a Reactor, so i think it could also make it a bit more of a Mech oriented opener than a Bio one.
Yes, balance council doesnt understand terran philosophy. Armored units was for tech lab, while lights units are for reactor.... Such a detail ! I mean, nobody here wouldn t have done this mistake as this forum is of course full of SC2 expert... isn t it ,
Second argument, there are not enought light units in SC2
Ghosts, Banshees and Ravens are light and from techlab, Vikings and Medivacs are armored and from reactor
Though, another idea I had. Pros mention that one reason Cyclones is strong is it's hard to scout for it because it's reactorable and you don't know if it's WMs or hellions or Cyclones. Would making it require a Tech Lab, and reducing its build time a bit make up for that? It would make it a bit more of a commitment for Terran to build a Tech lab instead of a Reactor, so i think it could also make it a bit more of a Mech oriented opener than a Bio one.
Yes, balance council doesnt understand terran philosophy. Armored units was for tech lab, while lights units are for reactor.... Such a detail ! I mean, nobody here wouldn t have done this mistake as this forum is of course full of SC2 expert... isn t it ,
Second argument, there are not enought light units in SC2
Ghosts, Banshees and Ravens are light and from techlab, Vikings and Medivacs are armored and from reactor
Well Ghosts aren't Light, but... maybe they could be. It feels wrong seeing clumped ghosts getting hit by banelings, casters say "oh no!" but then most ghosts are still alive after tanking 10 baneling hits. Maybe it could be interesting to let Phoenixes, Oracles, and Adepts do bonus damage to Ghosts. Maybe it could give them more niche uses in mid-game comps?
Also thinking about things more, I wonder what SC2 would be like without rapid firing. I think it might be better, the mechanical aspect is already relatively low... rapid fire only makes massing spellcasters scale better than it needs to be. It makes it easy to do mass gateway warpins and mass snipes for example, and after this PTR mass interference matrix or instant feedbacks.
Also, for Cyclones another thing they could play with again is make it so that Lock-On has a higher dps than the normal attack. This would allow small numbers of early game Cyclones to do well, such as vs early Blink stalkers, but massing Cyclones would be worse because in a straight-up fight their Lock-On won't be available after the first kill. This would benefit bio openers more too though which isn't a desired outcome, so this would have to be mixed with some other things to make it less strong for bio openers.
Though, another idea I had. Pros mention that one reason Cyclones is strong is it's hard to scout for it because it's reactorable and you don't know if it's WMs or hellions or Cyclones. Would making it require a Tech Lab, and reducing its build time a bit make up for that? It would make it a bit more of a commitment for Terran to build a Tech lab instead of a Reactor, so i think it could also make it a bit more of a Mech oriented opener than a Bio one.
Yes, balance council doesnt understand terran philosophy. Armored units was for tech lab, while lights units are for reactor.... Such a detail ! I mean, nobody here wouldn t have done this mistake as this forum is of course full of SC2 expert... isn t it ,
Second argument, there are not enought light units in SC2
Ghosts, Banshees and Ravens are light and from techlab, Vikings and Medivacs are armored and from reactor
I m not surprised at all that air units compared to ground units are designed from the opposite mind of view. Don t you ?
Though, another idea I had. Pros mention that one reason Cyclones is strong is it's hard to scout for it because it's reactorable and you don't know if it's WMs or hellions or Cyclones. Would making it require a Tech Lab, and reducing its build time a bit make up for that? It would make it a bit more of a commitment for Terran to build a Tech lab instead of a Reactor, so i think it could also make it a bit more of a Mech oriented opener than a Bio one.
Yes, balance council doesnt understand terran philosophy. Armored units was for tech lab, while lights units are for reactor.... Such a detail ! I mean, nobody here wouldn t have done this mistake as this forum is of course full of SC2 expert... isn t it ,
Second argument, there are not enought light units in SC2
Ghosts, Banshees and Ravens are light and from techlab, Vikings and Medivacs are armored and from reactor
Well Ghosts aren't Light, but... maybe they could be. It feels wrong seeing clumped ghosts getting hit by banelings, casters say "oh no!" but then most ghosts are still alive after tanking 10 baneling hits. Maybe it could be interesting to let Phoenixes, Oracles, and Adepts do bonus damage to Ghosts. Maybe it could give them more niche uses in mid-game comps?
.
Yes if you are thinking to units which haven t tag armor, you have (mainly, i don t remember all):
Queen, Ghost, Banelings, Broodling and Interceptor
Only Broodling and Interceptor looks to fit a no "tag armor", because of their functionnal role in fight.
Queen should get a transform ability which improve his function to extend creep and to get the healing spell (Queen cost is now 100 minerals, morphing in "Sister queen for 75 minerals. (avoid spamming tumors spell like a dumb in modyfing the multiplicator coefficient of creep spread, increase mana spell cost of tumors spell, adding small cooldown) The question of queen's armor is a hot subject in the community, i feel. So, as phoenix are one of the main threat, his tag armor can only be an armored tag, then if you decide to morph some of your queens to get a better extension of creep, the armor tag could switch to light (but "sister queens" get healing spell)
Banelings supply cost should be equal to one, light armor tag added + fire rate of all units in SC2 decrease by 25%
Finally, add light armor to ghosts with some counterparties
PS: in WoL, Banelings probably keeps their supply cost while morphing for a "quality of life". Mean that developpers could decided to make the morph easy because of the supply max cap equal to 200. But ravagers has been added, so the question and discuss around this subject is still open.
These modification list could be a part of the "balance light/armored units chapter in SC2.
The no tag armor is more a clue that developpers haven t done the game balance process completely (but almost......)
TBH the protoss early game issue is more of an issue because zerg has a free early game due to Queens still existing, and terran actually has strong early game units in the reaper and clone that allow them to be bigger bullies than before. Destroying the omni-situational queen is still the way to fix it. Protoss is an issue because the other two races have better early games.
ofc I'm a boomer hater so take everything I say with a pinch of salt.
On March 10 2024 21:40 Wintex wrote: TBH the protoss early game issue is more of an issue because zerg has a free early game due to Queens still existing, and terran actually has strong early game units in the reaper and clone that allow them to be bigger bullies than before. Destroying the omni-situational queen is still the way to fix it. Protoss is an issue because the other two races have better early games.
ofc I'm a boomer hater so take everything I say with a pinch of salt.
Protoss has an early game issue because of Warp Gate. It cant have the same kind of "normal" openings as the other races because any opening advantage you're able to get with early units can quickly snowball out of control with a Warp Gate timing because Warp Gate is able to mitigate all defender's advantages.
So Protoss early game has to be balanced around everything being turned into a Warp Gate all in.
Queens need to be balanced in such a way so they are able to be strong enough defensively to STOP Warp Gate all ins.
I think anyone with a brain in this community can agree that having Zerg's entire defensive identity wrapped around the Queen is bad game design, but we can't even get to a point where we can start to fix it while Warp Gate exists because the second we start nerfing the Queen's defensive capability is the second that PvZ becomes unplayable because Warp Gate all ins will start wiping Zergs out to say nothing of the impact such a change would have on TvZ and ZvZ also.
Who said queen will be less efficient against other units ?
It s not because queens would be splitted in two complementary units that the balance will suddenly slip.
The mecanism of warp gate is broken because of the new economy introduced with 12 workers, in doing this insanity, developpers have killed build orders and put to the trash most of the no-warp gate strategy/pressure.
But let s not discuss about the 12 workers, even if we put this aside, queen remain the only unit able to deal with the other best units along the game and without any building requirement or gas. (until very middle end game at least)
For Warp gate upgrade, Time of warpgate units has to inverted with gateway units cooldown. (This is part of chapter "decrease fire rate of all units by 25%) By the way, if not reverse to 9 workers, warpgate upgrade is removed and gateway now acquire the warpgate function ON/OFF (gateway minerals cost from 150 to 200)
Ofc i prefer return to 9 workers and it has to be tested without changing the cost of gateway buildings. And i mpretty sure most of the pro prefer a 9 workers start (or 6) than 12
On March 11 2024 02:35 Vision0 wrote: Who said queen will be less efficient against other units ?
It s not because queens would be splitted in two complementary units that the balance will suddenly slip.
The mecanism of warp gate is broken because of the new economy introduced with 12 workers, in doing this insanity, developpers have killed build orders and put to the trash most of the no-warp gate strategy/pressure.
But let s not discuss about the 12 workers, even if we put this aside, queen remain the only unit able to deal with the other best units along the game and without any building requirement or gas. (until very middle end game at least)
For Warp gate upgrade, Time of warpgate units has to inverted with gateway units cooldown. (This is part of chapter "decrease fire rate of all units by 25%) By the way, if not reverse to 9 workers, warpgate upgrade is removed and gateway now acquire the warpgate function ON/OFF (gateway minerals cost from 150 to 200)
Ofc i prefer return to 9 workers and it has to be tested without changing the cost of gateway buildings. And i mpretty sure most of the pro prefer a 9 workers start (or 6) than 12
The only no-warp-gate strategy/pressure I remember from before 12 workers is 2 gate zealot all-in, which is the equivalent of a ten-pool. Good riddance tbh, all in all I find the 12 workers a large improvement in part because most of the pre-ten worker all-ins got removed.
I also don't think warpgate is that much of a problem anymore after consecutive nerfs and if we want to change Protoss way of aggression nerfing their counters or reducing tech building costs to open up build possibilities is a preferable way than making P about gateway units again.
I have to admit that I don't get how Protoss air is kept unchanged when void rays only see a little use in PvP and are garbage in the other two matchups and phoenix are a niche build in both MUs too.
On March 10 2024 21:40 Wintex wrote: TBH the protoss early game issue is more of an issue because zerg has a free early game due to Queens still existing, and terran actually has strong early game units in the reaper and clone that allow them to be bigger bullies than before. Destroying the omni-situational queen is still the way to fix it. Protoss is an issue because the other two races have better early games.
ofc I'm a boomer hater so take everything I say with a pinch of salt.
Protoss has an early game issue because of Warp Gate. It cant have the same kind of "normal" openings as the other races because any opening advantage you're able to get with early units can quickly snowball out of control with a Warp Gate timing because Warp Gate is able to mitigate all defender's advantages.
So Protoss early game has to be balanced around everything being turned into a Warp Gate all in.
Queens need to be balanced in such a way so they are able to be strong enough defensively to STOP Warp Gate all ins.
I think anyone with a brain in this community can agree that having Zerg's entire defensive identity wrapped around the Queen is bad game design, but we can't even get to a point where we can start to fix it while Warp Gate exists because the second we start nerfing the Queen's defensive capability is the second that PvZ becomes unplayable because Warp Gate all ins will start wiping Zergs out to say nothing of the impact such a change would have on TvZ and ZvZ also.
Effectively the warp gate issue can be solved by just pushing it down the tech tree, this is not an excuse. Currently, the matchup is botched because the Queen is a omni-situational existence. Capping the amount of queens or anything similar doesn't deal with the issue you present anyway. Also, a lot of the early game power creep happened exactly because the Queen was an answer to literally everything. Warp gate is fixable, this ain't.
The root of the whole "Queens defend everything" problem dates back to the very beginning of SC2, when Blizzard decided to push Hydras later into Lair tech and made Roaches the early ranged unit for Zerg. Suddenly Zerg doesn't have any early game mobile anti air units other than Queens. You have to rely on Queens and Spores for all the potential Phoenix, Voidrays, Oracles, Banshees, Medivacs plays in early game. So they had to buff the Queens, until at some point Zerg found out that Queens were buffed to a point that mass Queens became the answer to almost all early aggressions.
You can't nerf Queens now because that's the only thing Zerg could rely on for early game defense.
Yet another example of SC2 design team's attempt at deviating from BW ended up backfiring...
Zergs will happily accept nerfs to Queens if you give them BW Hydras back.
On March 10 2024 21:40 Wintex wrote: TBH the protoss early game issue is more of an issue because zerg has a free early game due to Queens still existing, and terran actually has strong early game units in the reaper and clone that allow them to be bigger bullies than before. Destroying the omni-situational queen is still the way to fix it. Protoss is an issue because the other two races have better early games.
ofc I'm a boomer hater so take everything I say with a pinch of salt.
Protoss has an early game issue because of Warp Gate. It cant have the same kind of "normal" openings as the other races because any opening advantage you're able to get with early units can quickly snowball out of control with a Warp Gate timing because Warp Gate is able to mitigate all defender's advantages.
So Protoss early game has to be balanced around everything being turned into a Warp Gate all in.
Queens need to be balanced in such a way so they are able to be strong enough defensively to STOP Warp Gate all ins.
I think anyone with a brain in this community can agree that having Zerg's entire defensive identity wrapped around the Queen is bad game design, but we can't even get to a point where we can start to fix it while Warp Gate exists because the second we start nerfing the Queen's defensive capability is the second that PvZ becomes unplayable because Warp Gate all ins will start wiping Zergs out to say nothing of the impact such a change would have on TvZ and ZvZ also.
Effectively the warp gate issue can be solved by just pushing it down the tech tree, this is not an excuse. Currently, the matchup is botched because the Queen is a omni-situational existence. Capping the amount of queens or anything similar doesn't deal with the issue you present anyway. Also, a lot of the early game power creep happened exactly because the Queen was an answer to literally everything. Warp gate is fixable, this ain't.
On March 11 2024 06:33 Nasigil wrote: The root of the whole "Queens defend everything" problem dates back to the very beginning of SC2, when Blizzard decided to push Hydras later into Lair tech and made Roaches the early ranged unit for Zerg. Suddenly Zerg doesn't have any early game mobile anti air units other than Queens. You have to rely on Queens and Spores for all the potential Phoenix, Voidrays, Oracles, Banshees, Medivacs plays in early game. So they had to buff the Queens, until at some point Zerg found out that Queens were buffed to a point that mass Queens became the answer to almost all early aggressions.
You can't nerf Queens now because that's the only thing Zerg could rely on for early game defense.
Yet another example of SC2 design team's attempt at deviating from BW ended up backfiring...
Zergs will happily accept nerfs to Queens if you give them BW Hydras back.
You absolutely can solve the Queen problem by just adjusting the unit. It already has two separate attacks for ground and air, you can nerf the ground damage and keep its air damage the same, or you can increase the supply of Queens and buff its anti-air stats. You can put a unit cap on Queens (1 Queen per hatchery seems about right) and again buff it so that each queen is as strong as needed for anti-air purposes. This would require changing how creep spread works, but you could do it.
The thing is, Zerg's early game defense issues are not JUST related to anti-air. Anti-air is a big part of it but if it was the only real problem you could be creative enough to fix it so that Zerg's early game anti-air was covered. But Zerg needs Queens for ALL forms of early game aggression and in PvZ in particular with Warp Gates being such a clear and present danger Queens need to be strong enough to assist with that.
The point is that right now in the current state of the game Zerg DOES have early game defense worries, and Protoss DOES have early game Warp Gate. The need to address both is part of what gives us Queens as they are right now. We have to address all problems at the same time if we're going to address them properly.
Hi, I'm still catching up on reading the previous pages. What are your thoughts on changing the Cyclone from armoured to light, would this be a good change? The object is so that Phoenix and Oracles pwn them, making Star Gate openers viable. I think it's not a problem vs Ling/Bane, because that hellion+more comp should already get wrecked by Banes if they connect. And yes Adepts would own them, but they would also own Stalkers. I find Stalker vs Cyclone battles so dull, because it's basically Stalker vs Stalker.. I think Adept vs Cyclone/Hellion would be more interesting and then we let Cyclones pwn Stalkers. What are your thoughts?
On March 11 2024 07:28 ejozl wrote: Hi, I'm still catching up on reading the previous pages. What are your thoughts on changing the Cyclone from armoured to light, would this be a good change? The object is so that Phoenix and Oracles pwn them, making Star Gate openers viable. I think it's not a problem vs Ling/Bane, because that hellion+more comp should already get wrecked by Banes if they connect. And yes Adepts would own them, but they would also own Stalkers. I find Stalker vs Cyclone battles so dull, because it's basically Stalker vs Stalker.. I think Adept vs Cyclone/Hellion would be more interesting and then we let Cyclones pwn Stalkers. What are your thoughts?
No dice. If they are Light they don't take bonus damage from Siege Tanks and Marauders. They're already strong enough in the TvT match up that they are borderline oppressive.
Changing Cyclones to Light could easily be paired by decreasing the HP a bit to say 100-110. So that it's only a little stronger vs Stalker/Immortal (Mech's weakness early game), while much weaker vs Phoenix/Oracle/Adept but in enough numbers the Cyclones can still trade decently with micro (and you can easily add in Hellions or WMs to support them vs Stargate or Adepts).
That way it'd only take 1 more tank shot to kill them too. Marauders don't need to do bonus dmg vs them if Marines kill them faster, it could balance out.
Btw what has happened to the BC opening, either into Bio or into Mech? Even Gumiho hasnt done much of that lately, while it was looking quite promising a few years ago. I thought with the Cyclone change, they would give BC a much better protection against Corruptor.
On March 10 2024 21:40 Wintex wrote: TBH the protoss early game issue is more of an issue because zerg has a free early game due to Queens still existing, and terran actually has strong early game units in the reaper and clone that allow them to be bigger bullies than before. Destroying the omni-situational queen is still the way to fix it. Protoss is an issue because the other two races have better early games.
ofc I'm a boomer hater so take everything I say with a pinch of salt.
Protoss has an early game issue because of Warp Gate. It cant have the same kind of "normal" openings as the other races because any opening advantage you're able to get with early units can quickly snowball out of control with a Warp Gate timing because Warp Gate is able to mitigate all defender's advantages.
So Protoss early game has to be balanced around everything being turned into a Warp Gate all in.
Queens need to be balanced in such a way so they are able to be strong enough defensively to STOP Warp Gate all ins.
I think anyone with a brain in this community can agree that having Zerg's entire defensive identity wrapped around the Queen is bad game design, but we can't even get to a point where we can start to fix it while Warp Gate exists because the second we start nerfing the Queen's defensive capability is the second that PvZ becomes unplayable because Warp Gate all ins will start wiping Zergs out to say nothing of the impact such a change would have on TvZ and ZvZ also.
Effectively the warp gate issue can be solved by just pushing it down the tech tree, this is not an excuse. Currently, the matchup is botched because the Queen is a omni-situational existence. Capping the amount of queens or anything similar doesn't deal with the issue you present anyway. Also, a lot of the early game power creep happened exactly because the Queen was an answer to literally everything. Warp gate is fixable, this ain't.
On March 11 2024 06:33 Nasigil wrote: The root of the whole "Queens defend everything" problem dates back to the very beginning of SC2, when Blizzard decided to push Hydras later into Lair tech and made Roaches the early ranged unit for Zerg. Suddenly Zerg doesn't have any early game mobile anti air units other than Queens. You have to rely on Queens and Spores for all the potential Phoenix, Voidrays, Oracles, Banshees, Medivacs plays in early game. So they had to buff the Queens, until at some point Zerg found out that Queens were buffed to a point that mass Queens became the answer to almost all early aggressions.
You can't nerf Queens now because that's the only thing Zerg could rely on for early game defense.
Yet another example of SC2 design team's attempt at deviating from BW ended up backfiring...
Zergs will happily accept nerfs to Queens if you give them BW Hydras back.
You absolutely can solve the Queen problem by just adjusting the unit. It already has two separate attacks for ground and air, you can nerf the ground damage and keep its air damage the same, or you can increase the supply of Queens and buff its anti-air stats. You can put a unit cap on Queens (1 Queen per hatchery seems about right) and again buff it so that each queen is as strong as needed for anti-air purposes. This would require changing how creep spread works, but you could do it.
The thing is, Zerg's early game defense issues are not JUST related to anti-air. Anti-air is a big part of it but if it was the only real problem you could be creative enough to fix it so that Zerg's early game anti-air was covered. But Zerg needs Queens for ALL forms of early game aggression and in PvZ in particular with Warp Gates being such a clear and present danger Queens need to be strong enough to assist with that.
The point is that right now in the current state of the game Zerg DOES have early game defense worries, and Protoss DOES have early game Warp Gate. The need to address both is part of what gives us Queens as they are right now. We have to address all problems at the same time if we're going to address them properly.
I think the double response kinda bled his argument into mine which wasn't as necessary. Unit caps kinda suck, in this situation, and I would assume you agree there.
I'd say it all depends on the motivation of the developers. What changing the unit will cause is that if it's weak enough, Zerg early game functionally changes from a mineral-capped situation to a significantly more larva-capped situation depending on how much you hamstring the unit, and it makes the opportunity cost of larva match the designed intent (if we believe larval flexibility is the actual intent of Zerg). This greatly weakens Zerg, since Queens and Drones have been the name of the game for so long. Needless to say, the offensive power of some of the other races' units would be necessary, but the solutions that the developer teams over the last 12 years have created are in part due to fundamentally changing this tenet of Zerg and significantly simplifying them in the process. You are right tho, when you say we can imagine and see all the problems that will unfold from pushing away from the current philosophy. If Zerg sucks for a few months, is it worth the effort?
Overwatch just went through the same issue even after 5v5 was implemented, and the new patch with changes to every hero and more, and the game is significantly better for it.
On March 10 2024 21:40 Wintex wrote: TBH the protoss early game issue is more of an issue because zerg has a free early game due to Queens still existing, and terran actually has strong early game units in the reaper and clone that allow them to be bigger bullies than before. Destroying the omni-situational queen is still the way to fix it. Protoss is an issue because the other two races have better early games.
ofc I'm a boomer hater so take everything I say with a pinch of salt.
Protoss has an early game issue because of Warp Gate. It cant have the same kind of "normal" openings as the other races because any opening advantage you're able to get with early units can quickly snowball out of control with a Warp Gate timing because Warp Gate is able to mitigate all defender's advantages.
So Protoss early game has to be balanced around everything being turned into a Warp Gate all in.
Queens need to be balanced in such a way so they are able to be strong enough defensively to STOP Warp Gate all ins.
I think anyone with a brain in this community can agree that having Zerg's entire defensive identity wrapped around the Queen is bad game design, but we can't even get to a point where we can start to fix it while Warp Gate exists because the second we start nerfing the Queen's defensive capability is the second that PvZ becomes unplayable because Warp Gate all ins will start wiping Zergs out to say nothing of the impact such a change would have on TvZ and ZvZ also.
Effectively the warp gate issue can be solved by just pushing it down the tech tree, this is not an excuse. Currently, the matchup is botched because the Queen is a omni-situational existence. Capping the amount of queens or anything similar doesn't deal with the issue you present anyway. Also, a lot of the early game power creep happened exactly because the Queen was an answer to literally everything. Warp gate is fixable, this ain't.
On March 11 2024 06:33 Nasigil wrote: The root of the whole "Queens defend everything" problem dates back to the very beginning of SC2, when Blizzard decided to push Hydras later into Lair tech and made Roaches the early ranged unit for Zerg. Suddenly Zerg doesn't have any early game mobile anti air units other than Queens. You have to rely on Queens and Spores for all the potential Phoenix, Voidrays, Oracles, Banshees, Medivacs plays in early game. So they had to buff the Queens, until at some point Zerg found out that Queens were buffed to a point that mass Queens became the answer to almost all early aggressions.
You can't nerf Queens now because that's the only thing Zerg could rely on for early game defense.
Yet another example of SC2 design team's attempt at deviating from BW ended up backfiring...
Zergs will happily accept nerfs to Queens if you give them BW Hydras back.
You absolutely can solve the Queen problem by just adjusting the unit. It already has two separate attacks for ground and air, you can nerf the ground damage and keep its air damage the same, or you can increase the supply of Queens and buff its anti-air stats. You can put a unit cap on Queens (1 Queen per hatchery seems about right) and again buff it so that each queen is as strong as needed for anti-air purposes. This would require changing how creep spread works, but you could do it.
The thing is, Zerg's early game defense issues are not JUST related to anti-air. Anti-air is a big part of it but if it was the only real problem you could be creative enough to fix it so that Zerg's early game anti-air was covered. But Zerg needs Queens for ALL forms of early game aggression and in PvZ in particular with Warp Gates being such a clear and present danger Queens need to be strong enough to assist with that.
The point is that right now in the current state of the game Zerg DOES have early game defense worries, and Protoss DOES have early game Warp Gate. The need to address both is part of what gives us Queens as they are right now. We have to address all problems at the same time if we're going to address them properly.
I think the double response kinda bled his argument into mine which wasn't as necessary. Unit caps kinda suck, in this situation, and I would assume you agree there.
I'd say it all depends on the motivation of the developers. What changing the unit will cause is that if it's weak enough, Zerg early game functionally changes from a mineral-capped situation to a significantly more larva-capped situation depending on how much you hamstring the unit, and it makes the opportunity cost of larva match the designed intent (if we believe larval flexibility is the actual intent of Zerg). This greatly weakens Zerg, since Queens and Drones have been the name of the game for so long. Needless to say, the offensive power of some of the other races' units would be necessary, but the solutions that the developer teams over the last 12 years have created are in part due to fundamentally changing this tenet of Zerg and significantly simplifying them in the process. You are right tho, when you say we can imagine and see all the problems that will unfold from pushing away from the current philosophy. If Zerg sucks for a few months, is it worth the effort?
Overwatch just went through the same issue even after 5v5 was implemented, and the new patch with changes to every hero and more, and the game is significantly better for it.
The problem I see is that if you say for example nerf the Queen because of balance concerns with Protoss it doesn't just impact PvZ, it also impacts TvZ. This is the big argument I've been making since Page 1 about why I hate the Widow Mine nerfs in this patch, it doesn't just impact PvT, in fact it has a much larger impact on TvZ.
Making Zerg suck, wouldn't just be Zerg sucking for a few months it would also make Terran start dominating (because even with balance help, Protoss still doesn't have the elite level players that Terran does) which would in turn create a massive outcry of whining that Terran needs to be nerfed, when in fact the real situation is that Zerg was weak because of changes we made to help the design element.
We get so thrown off track then trying to bring Terran balance back into line, that by the time we get back to actually rebalancing Zerg around the new Queen, we have a completely new set of balance issues because we fucked up Terran because of its temporary OP status from the interim period.
Do I think it's worthwhile to address key gameplay design problems? Of course I do. Protoss being handcuffed by Warp Gate balance is the biggest design issue that race has and I would like nothing more than to see it addressed so the race could be rebalanced without it. But the reason I think it's a good time to go after them instead of going after Queens is because Protoss right now ISNT in a good place, and balance wise Zerg is mostly in a good place. It's safer for the integrity of the meta if we make major changes to the race that is struggling the most since the worst that can happen is that we tune them too far and then have to tune them back. Adjusting the strong race in a fundamental way has much bigger ripple effects that destabilize the meta that I think makes it a much messier issue addressing.
So. IMO, If we're going to go after big design problems like Warp Gates and Queens we have to do it either very carefully 1 at a time, or by blowing up the meta altogether by addressing them all at once. Right now is a really good opportunity to address Protoss. It's not the best opportunity to go after Queens.
I always like SC2. However, I play off and on throughout the year and play a maximum of 10 hours per week. Most people on here are way more serious about the game than I am.
On March 12 2024 01:23 tigera6 wrote: Btw what has happened to the BC opening, either into Bio or into Mech? Even Gumiho hasnt done much of that lately, while it was looking quite promising a few years ago. I thought with the Cyclone change, they would give BC a much better protection against Corruptor.
Why would the Cyclone change help, they are much worse against Corruptors now?
On March 12 2024 01:23 tigera6 wrote: Btw what has happened to the BC opening, either into Bio or into Mech? Even Gumiho hasnt done much of that lately, while it was looking quite promising a few years ago. I thought with the Cyclone change, they would give BC a much better protection against Corruptor.
i believe a fast (straight to) bc opener dies to a comitted roach ravager push/allin.
still, creep speed is probably the most important unchanged thing that should be removed or nerfed and see how that works out. zerg is undeniable dominant since years and in current state, and so is protoss too weak. This is not because of serral/reynor just better.
It s not a problem to balance Queen in ZvT and ZvP because it exist a bonus against shield.
Which mean, with only one type of attack : damage = 2 x ( 4 + 1 against shield), range = 7, Mineral cost from 150 to 125
Morph to sister Queen for 25 minerals
Queen : Armored, Spells : Transfuse, Inject Larva mana cost = 25, Inject tumors mana cost = 50
Sister Queen : Light, HP decrease from 175 to 140, get an additionnal +1 bonus against light (against phoenix) Spells : Transfuse, Inject Larva spawn only two larvas, Inject tumor mana cost decreased from 50 to 25
The idea of course is to suggest a strategy between extend creep or spawn larva, A really careful tweak,
On March 12 2024 01:23 tigera6 wrote: Btw what has happened to the BC opening, either into Bio or into Mech? Even Gumiho hasnt done much of that lately, while it was looking quite promising a few years ago. I thought with the Cyclone change, they would give BC a much better protection against Corruptor.
I’m curious why it’s not at least a pocket build that you occasionally see. It’s been ages since I can recall one, which in itself strengthens such builds. When they’re common in the meta people have a lot more practice in exploiting their weaknesses and shutting them down.
It feels to me, I haven’t seen a huge amount of Battlemech in general so I may be wrong but the cyclone change in general seems to have done 2 things:
1. It’s easier/cheaper to get out safety cyclones that make Terran safer against a few things, they kind of fill that role that a Banshee can in 3CC, so you do see more of them defensively. 2. They are kind of worse units in smaller groups, but more massable. I think this makes them a very snowbally unit and very tempo-based to an even more extreme level than before.
Basically any game I’ve seen them work they’ve been made early, massed up and either combined with a death push or poking and transitioning to tanks etc. Most games I’ve seen the count reset early without doing much damage, I tend to see the Terran struggle because they can’t get back to critical mass, because a few replacement cyclones are not as potent as the old one.
It could be that the BC investment is just too steep for the Terrans to get up the cyclone number high enough to seize the tempo and they don’t dovetail as well together, or some kind of timing issue?
Honestly unsure, perhaps someone like Yoshi who resolutely tries to mech will have more insight here.
This patch seems pretty good, it does kind of seem like there is alot more of a TvP issue then a ZvP issue so it makes sense to approach it this way.
The Sentry shield thing is a good mirror match change I really like that one. Wish ground toss maybe got a tiiiiny bit more love but still, good patch,
On March 12 2024 01:23 tigera6 wrote: Btw what has happened to the BC opening, either into Bio or into Mech? Even Gumiho hasnt done much of that lately, while it was looking quite promising a few years ago. I thought with the Cyclone change, they would give BC a much better protection against Corruptor.
Why would the Cyclone change help, they are much worse against Corruptors now?
I believe you only need 2-3 Reactor Factory to make Cyclone against Corruptor, coupled with Turret, that should give BC enough protection imo. I saw a couple of Mech opening with Banshee speed upgrade, and thought BC could do better than Banshee against Zerg.
Like others mentioned, BC opener vs just a normal banshee opener (especially with the buffed speed upgrade) is much more vulnerable to early busts if they scout what you're doing.
Even if they don't know what you're doing, if they're not greedy they'll have enough queens, spores, and know to pull drones away from your BC thus losing very few drones. If you get Yamato you can trade and get free Queen/corruptor kills sure but unfortunately compared to how fast Zerg can grow (especially knowing that you won't have a strong ground army to fight straight up), it isn't really worth it and you'll fall behind compared to doing a build that puts on more real pressure and threat.
If they make a few Corruptors to stop your BCs, I think the previous Cyclones were more useful for that specific timing. Making 2-4 Cyclones meant that the first ~6 Corruptors that arrive lead to 2-4 of them being insta killed without being able to retreat. The new Cyclone isn't able to do that, the Corruptors can back off without much losses. The new Cyclone also doesn't do enough dps vs Corruptors if they force a fight. The Corruptors will still be able to sac themselves to kill your BCs, meaning you're left with Cyclones vs Roach/Ravager without enough tanks to support.
This is my understanding at least xD. BC opener is fun and cool but even watching it in GSL it seems Zergs figured out how to defend vs it years ago already. 3 years ago it was still used pretty commonly in GSL, but already at that point it usually resulted in the Terran being behind, and occasionally even-ish.
Going cloak banshees just seems like it gives you similar enough harass potential and ability to kill workers, you get to scout earlier, you're safer vs early rushes, you can't soft-counter them like you can with adding corruptor tech for BCs, it's cheaper and faster tech, and we also have the cheaper and faster banshee speed upgrade now. And and we now have the new Cyclone which pairs well with speed banshees.
I think once in a while a BC opener could catch them off guard if you hide it well and they go a bit greedy, but it's not to be used as a standard opener.
Also I'm glad Artosis likes the new patch! Liked how he said that it feels like a David Kim patch. I know what he means and I agree, also respect to him for respecting David Kim like that.
If the balance council improved this much, and delivered as good of a patch as this, then I'm feeling quite happy and hopeful for what might come in the future!
On March 12 2024 12:18 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Thanks @Wombat xD
Like others mentioned, BC opener vs just a normal banshee opener (especially with the buffed speed upgrade) is much more vulnerable to early busts if they scout what you're doing.
Even if they don't know what you're doing, if they're not greedy they'll have enough queens, spores, and know to pull drones away from your BC thus losing very few drones. If you get Yamato you can trade and get free Queen/corruptor kills sure but unfortunately compared to how fast Zerg can grow (especially knowing that you won't have a strong ground army to fight straight up), it isn't really worth it and you'll fall behind compared to doing a build that puts on more real pressure and threat.
If they make a few Corruptors to stop your BCs, I think the previous Cyclones were more useful for that specific timing. Making 2-4 Cyclones meant that the first ~6 Corruptors that arrive lead to 2-4 of them being insta killed without being able to retreat. The new Cyclone isn't able to do that, the Corruptors can back off without much losses. The new Cyclone also doesn't do enough dps vs Corruptors if they force a fight. The Corruptors will still be able to sac themselves to kill your BCs, meaning you're left with Cyclones vs Roach/Ravager without enough tanks to support.
This is my understanding at least xD. BC opener is fun and cool but even watching it in GSL it seems Zergs figured out how to defend vs it years ago already. 3 years ago it was still used pretty commonly in GSL, but already at that point it usually resulted in the Terran being behind, and occasionally even-ish.
Going cloak banshees just seems like it gives you similar enough harass potential and ability to kill workers, you get to scout earlier, you're safer vs early rushes, you can't soft-counter them like you can with adding corruptor tech for BCs, it's cheaper and faster tech, and we also have the cheaper and faster banshee speed upgrade now. And and we now have the new Cyclone which pairs well with speed banshees.
I think once in a while a BC opener could catch them off guard if you hide it well and they go a bit greedy, but it's not to be used as a standard opener.
Also I'm glad Artosis likes the new patch! Liked how he said that it feels like a David Kim patch. I know what he means and I agree, also respect to him for respecting David Kim like that.
If the balance council improved this much, and delivered as good of a patch as this, then I'm feeling quite happy and hopeful for what might come in the future!
No problem sir!
As per the bolded yeah that at least intuitively makes sense, I’d be intrigued to hear what the real elite Terran pros think of course, I do kinda miss there being more regular SC talk shows where you did get a bit more insight there.
But yeah SC2 is quite a phase-driven game to begin with, and it feels BC Battlemech is really especially locked into discrete phases and how they intersect. Merely putting them out of sync even a little can turn a strat from old reliable to borderline unviable, at least at the highest level.
As it was even before, it 100% wouldn’t work without BCs being able to teleport off that bat.
And look obviously you never want to throw units away, but it feels having a strat that is so dependent on keeping units alive and giving consistent value is just going to be quite brittle.
Most popular meta strats have at least one component being something if not always completely expendable, then at least not catastrophic to lose cheaply. Be it lings, be it harassing MMM, be it a huge chunk of manly, manly Zealots
BC thru battlemech it feels you really can’t afford to lose either component cheaply. Lose the BCs and you’re losing a chunk of money and their consistent ability to pop in and do damage and retreat. Lose your battlemech once and you’re either getting pounced on immediately, or you’re ceding a ton of map control for a period while you build it back up. You can’t cost-efficiently poke around with a small amount of cyclones/hellions once the mid game is in in nearly the way you can with even 1 or 2 medivacs as you lack the retreat potential and sustain.
On March 11 2024 02:35 Vision0 wrote: Who said queen will be less efficient against other units ?
It s not because queens would be splitted in two complementary units that the balance will suddenly slip.
The mecanism of warp gate is broken because of the new economy introduced with 12 workers, in doing this insanity, developpers have killed build orders and put to the trash most of the no-warp gate strategy/pressure.
But let s not discuss about the 12 workers, even if we put this aside, queen remain the only unit able to deal with the other best units along the game and without any building requirement or gas. (until very middle end game at least)
For Warp gate upgrade, Time of warpgate units has to inverted with gateway units cooldown. (This is part of chapter "decrease fire rate of all units by 25%) By the way, if not reverse to 9 workers, warpgate upgrade is removed and gateway now acquire the warpgate function ON/OFF (gateway minerals cost from 150 to 200)
Ofc i prefer return to 9 workers and it has to be tested without changing the cost of gateway buildings. And i mpretty sure most of the pro prefer a 9 workers start (or 6) than 12
The only no-warp-gate strategy/pressure I remember from before 12 workers is 2 gate zealot all-in, which is the equivalent of a ten-pool. Good riddance tbh, all in all I find the 12 workers a large improvement in part because most of the pre-ten worker all-ins got removed.
I also don't think warpgate is that much of a problem anymore after consecutive nerfs and if we want to change Protoss way of aggression nerfing their counters or reducing tech building costs to open up build possibilities is a preferable way than making P about gateway units again.
I have to admit that I don't get how Protoss air is kept unchanged when void rays only see a little use in PvP and are garbage in the other two matchups and phoenix are a niche build in both MUs too.
Yes, I agree that build orders before-10-workers was garbage but the result of adding 6 workers (instead of 4) is that all races retarded their build order by about fifteen or twenty seconds. Then Zerg has been widely favored because as they are more willing to run ahead in economy.
While the 11' SCV could built the barrack and the 12' probe could buit the stargate, all BO were retarded which help Zerg to expand and now everybody forgot the 12-workers change (note : i like modification of mineral quantity in mineral field),
To the question : is a relation between 12-workers and queen issue ? i would say YES, like most of players in SC2 community.
The 12 workers change come from 2.5.0 balance patch during LotV Beta.
Economy income change at start :
Another thread on Reddit about 12 workers (I M NOT ALONE, <3 BOOMER)
In line with this goal, doubling the starting worker count increases the resource gathering rate at the start, and this allows players to access their desired buildings, units, and upgrades quicker.
We can t ignore the fact that Zerg can develop faster since 2015. we have to request a change from 12 to 10 especially because we have the PTR server. The duration of SC2 games won t be affected by removing 2 workers at start, the old protoss build orders could shine again and the queen issue must be solved like that.
On March 12 2024 01:23 tigera6 wrote: Btw what has happened to the BC opening, either into Bio or into Mech? Even Gumiho hasnt done much of that lately, while it was looking quite promising a few years ago. I thought with the Cyclone change, they would give BC a much better protection against Corruptor.
Why would the Cyclone change help, they are much worse against Corruptors now?
I believe you only need 2-3 Reactor Factory to make Cyclone against Corruptor, coupled with Turret, that should give BC enough protection imo. I saw a couple of Mech opening with Banshee speed upgrade, and thought BC could do better than Banshee against Zerg.
Well, the biggest threat to BC openings are Roach Ravager Corruptor timings and neither new or old Cyclones are sufficient against them. That's why Maru used to go tanks after BC openings when he played that style like in that infamous series vs Reynor at DH Valencia. Why he has mostly abandoned that I'm not sure, but BC into Cyclone wouldn't work
On March 14 2024 08:32 sidasf wrote: A great step in the right direction! Also very glad to see at least a few standard maps in the pool. Oceanborn, Site Delta, Goldenaura, great maps.
Bad take. There are tons of unused standard maps like Starchild (winner of TLMC17). No content is bad content. I loved and most people I know loved when we got 9 new maps last time.
I can only watch so many pro games on the same map before it starts to be repetitive. Made even worse by the fact that the older the map the less likely to be vetoed
On March 08 2024 07:22 Xamo wrote: I mostly like the changes, with some exceptions: - Drop lord's should not get a buff, Zerg is already extremely mobile on offense with Nydus Worrns - Why not decreasing WM damage vs shields instead of the radius? This way it would not affect TvZ - Is the council memeing with the Sentry buff? At this point I just think they want to maintain their perfect record of never buffing any Protoss unit vs T or Z...
Because Widow Mine needs an absolute nerf, not just one against protoss. It's such a stupidly cheap, low APM unit to use. 25 gas and it kills endless hordes of ling bane while the zerg break's his finger microing zerglings every time just to not lose half of his army.
On March 08 2024 14:24 CMS_Flash wrote: WTF, heaviest window mine nerf ever w/ no meaningful compensation. How can Terrans fight ling/bane/muta or chargelots?
I swear some people completely and utterly ignore the fact that the last patch existed. You know, the one where baneling got nerfs to damage AND hp. Oh and infestors got nerfed damage (now being brought back to their former casting range), lurkers nerfed too. In it's current state terran bio is VERY powerful, an AOE nerf to widow mines won't make terran weak or unable to deal with ling/bane/muta.
On March 08 2024 05:23 JJH777 wrote: Nerfing lib range and buffing fungal range seem questionable. Ranged libs are the main unit Terran uses to zone out infestors during lategame and that interaction is being changed in both directions. Mine radius nerf feels like it will help zerglings way more than probes.
Overall feels like Zerg got buffed more in ZvT than Protoss in PvT.
Don't mean to pick on you, but how is buffing fungal range questionable, at all? Not only is it only getting reverted simply to it's former range before the last patch, but infestors don't even have auto attacks like HT/Ghost. Terran and Protoss get babysat with their spellcasters but god forbid we revert a range nerf to zerg spellcasters which have no such training wheels. Come on now.
as a QoL, can you make the in-game clock run with a speed proportional to the game speed? show 'game time', not real time, so by practicing a build slowly on fast/normal game speed, the timings in replay (or just glancing at the game clock, checking benchmarks) would make sense?
On March 08 2024 11:16 Antithesis wrote: Good patch. I think the general direction is just right.
Here is Harstem's view of it, and I largely agree. It's also amusing that Harstem directly argues against some TL.net's favorite opinions, such as that TvZ is zerg-favored and that building ravens in TvZ is out of the question for principled reasons.
sc2 is full of these frustrating aoe esports units, but touching them just now when it posed not much of problem in pro PvT while it has bigger implication of TvZ just because protoss redditors whined enough is just poor man.
Adjust mines/other unfun aoe units in a big patch all together at once instead of proving balance council will 100% be influenced by community brigading is terrible showing and only encourages repeat of what has been happening for months beforehand. I'm just sick of the whining on the subreddit that has been plaguing reddit for months now. It has never been this bad historically ever but moment redditors realize they have influence over balance like current one, it will just get worse. And it has been terrible for past few months. Can't wait for repeat forever now.
I get it, its frustrating unfun unit. But all this proves is that those spam posting whine posts with obvious alt accounts/trying to justify it on recent buff or pro performance was just annoying to see as they are clearly pushing their own agenda to their own benefit lol.
Fair but as the pro scene is gradually winding down I mean there’s something to be said for making the game a bit more enjoyable at a casual level.
The game’s been balanced based of a pro level of play for like forever
ideally you balance around both with more emphasis on pro level but being too swung by community brigading when most of them are not affected by said balance/dont even know implication of their whine nerfs have me doubting on listening to community at all.
I mean to a certain degree sure, equally how many of these changes proposed were things the Reddit community were screaming for?
Any changes proposed that reddit community screamed for getting through is 1 more than it should ever be.
What ones?
TL is slightly less balance whiny than Reddit, the latter I don’t really frequent that often.
Basically none of these proposed changes strike me as things people were vociferously advocating for.
So what are these changes that Reddit whining have apparently pushed to the PTR testing level?
past like 5 months of reddit was just pure whining about widow mines and notable members of diamond protoss community trying really hard to link it to pro games/any means to justify it, with stemmed from "why did widow mines get buffed?!" last patch. It was pretty clear they took the opportunity to whine and ran with it despite the change on mine having 0 effect on what was killing them inf irst place. and all this did was prove that whining on reddit works. It was daily half of frontpage for months. Just widow mine posts after widow mine posts.
if it's going to change, change it in a bigger patch that deals with all these concerns without specifically advocating the one community whine posts clump. Address multiple at once without acknowledging a particular event. All this did was give them approval and set a precedence
Isn’t that what they’re potentially doing here?
Tbh I don’t personally like it, I didn’t like the last couple of patches either where they changed like 8 things at once in a big patch rather than gradually doing targeted changes but more frequently. How does one assess the effectiveness of one change if there’s a bunch running alongside it etc
I'm fine with them touching unit itself, but not fine with the sole change to be targeted for widow mine clearly because reddit whined it. It's just rewarding that. If they were going ot change it, they should have addressed multiple unit of similar fashion and avoid acklowedging the direct influence balance whining on reddit has.
If you dislike nerfs being whined into existence, why don't you mention the infestor nerf in the same breath? The past weeks have seen a comical amount of whining about the infestor here on TL (but, notably, not on Reddit), although it is essentially only a single player in the world – the best player in the world – who can use them to their full potential.
I disagree with the Infestor burrow nerf. This is actually what Blizzard wanted by cheating and making the Infestor able to Fungal while Burrowed. But I don't agree that only Serral is able to do this, he just made a new meta and now we already see every top Zerg utilize sharkfestors. I think it's cool, mb it's too strong, I dno. But the worst part is buffing the Fungal range at the same time, this is the biggest cabal move and if this goes through Zerg will never lose a late game again to Protoss.
On March 09 2024 03:09 goldensail wrote: A game like SC2 should: 1) avoid units that can deal instant game-changing AOE damage 2) encourage fast-paced play rather than the other way around
Disruptor is one of the worst such examples of "how not to design a unit", but at least it can't cloak and the novas are now smaller. Widow mines can cloak, but are only effective against low health units - now nerfed. Infestors can deal AOE damage AND immobilize (deadly vs. Terran bio) AND neural (deadly vs. mech/sky) AND cloak!
Serral has used it way too effectively for at least a couple of years, despite people claiming otherwise (a KoB game between Serral and Maru from ~2 years ago comes to mind, in which a single fungal to a balled up group of bio did the trick), it's just that in this year's Katowice the abuse has become so obvious that even the balance council can no longer ignore it. And what did they do? Make infestor movements a bit easier to see but hey let's increase fungal range!
And to all those folks claiming Terran can just build a Raven and the threat will be gone - THINK about the fact that infestors are mostly used in the late game, and how difficult it is to keep slow moving Ravens relevant and alive in late game TvZ: you must spread them out (so they can detect at the perimeter in several different directions) but also tracking the main army (so as to be relevant; also otherwise they get one shot by a few corruptors/queens/hydras) - all this when nearly every other Terran unit needs to be micro'ed? If the answer is so obvious don't you think the best Terrans would've tried it already?
1) I disagree, the Disruptor is an awesome highlight creating unit. People complain about death balls and strong AoE is how we nerf death balling. Some AoE's are still too strong like the Fungal and Baneling AoE, but AoE needs to be strong and players should learn to split up their units vs. these abilities. 2) It should be possible to play many types of games, Mech as well as Bio. Many players still adore the Avilo Raven playstyle and SH playstyles. It was sickening when it was most games, but Starcraft should be more than a horse race click on space as fast as you can, game.
On March 09 2024 10:39 highsis wrote: Why are we buffing zerg when they are clearly the strongest race at the moment? ZvP has no issue? Seriously?
ZvP isn’t actually that bad at the minute, Protoss are doing OK there although maybe struggling a bit in PvT
This keeps getting brought up yet in both main tournaments of 2024, as well any probably most premier tournaments of 2023, zergs kept bopping protosses.
But that's not relevant to current times as there were recent patches that changed the way ZvP works. I would agree with Wombat's assessment that ZvP is generally fine right now.
So keep ZvP mostly as is, the problem is that they're going in the opposite direction and buffing Zerg, so Protoss will perform even worse vs. Z at high lvls. Not to mention that they're messing with TvZ, which is another cabal move. They say they think ZvP and ZvT is fine atm, but clearly the changes do not agree with this.
On March 11 2024 06:33 Nasigil wrote: The root of the whole "Queens defend everything" problem dates back to the very beginning of SC2, when Blizzard decided to push Hydras later into Lair tech and made Roaches the early ranged unit for Zerg. Suddenly Zerg doesn't have any early game mobile anti air units other than Queens. You have to rely on Queens and Spores for all the potential Phoenix, Voidrays, Oracles, Banshees, Medivacs plays in early game. So they had to buff the Queens, until at some point Zerg found out that Queens were buffed to a point that mass Queens became the answer to almost all early aggressions.
You can't nerf Queens now because that's the only thing Zerg could rely on for early game defense.
Yet another example of SC2 design team's attempt at deviating from BW ended up backfiring...
Zergs will happily accept nerfs to Queens if you give them BW Hydras back.
They can give Queens a weakness, like making it a Light, or Armoured unit, so that it doesn't defend everything without scouting. Or conversely do as I have suggested many times. Buff the Queens defensive ability, but nerf the Creep cost, so that you don't get a nice side effect of massing Queens as defence.
On March 11 2024 07:28 ejozl wrote: Hi, I'm still catching up on reading the previous pages. What are your thoughts on changing the Cyclone from armoured to light, would this be a good change? The object is so that Phoenix and Oracles pwn them, making Star Gate openers viable. I think it's not a problem vs Ling/Bane, because that hellion+more comp should already get wrecked by Banes if they connect. And yes Adepts would own them, but they would also own Stalkers. I find Stalker vs Cyclone battles so dull, because it's basically Stalker vs Stalker.. I think Adept vs Cyclone/Hellion would be more interesting and then we let Cyclones pwn Stalkers. What are your thoughts?
No dice. If they are Light they don't take bonus damage from Siege Tanks and Marauders. They're already strong enough in the TvT match up that they are borderline oppressive.
It's very funny that the page just before the comment I wrote, people were alrdy discussing Cyclone as a Light unit. But don't you think that a new weakness against Hellion, will make it more dynamic, rather than just Mech is buffed? Another thing that buffs Mech this patch is the nerf to Liberator range, now Thors will outperform Liberators.
I’m curious as to how the feedback change works out. I hadn’t considered the scenario of clumped Vipers, and how a feedback that isn’t casting on a zero energy unit can dovetail with rapid fire so you can spam it on an area and hit desired targets rather than burning all your mana.
It’s not a change in isolation as regards late-game PvZ with Infestors having that little extra range, so how the casters negate each other and other threats will be an interesting dance.
Situationally I can see this being quite strong against medivacs, you can now spam feedback and mouse over a small area and cast once per medivac if you’re quick.
Definitely a stronger buff in theory than I’d initially thought, although quite how strong remains to be seen
The latest iteration removed the Cyclone upgrade scaling buff, and nerfed Infestor unburrow time a bit more (lul).
So basically Terran takes substantial nerfs to mines, libs, and cyclones (the new version is unambiguously worse), Zerg gets an infestor sidegrade, and protoss gets an observer buff.
Pretty comical that the only Protoss buff that had any significant impact at all in PvZ is the one that gets removed.
On the topic of rapid fire, IMO it doesn't make sense that if we're going to allow this "feature" in SC2, that it only applies to select abilities. If it's problematic to have it enabled for all spells then it should be disabled for all spells. It doesn't make sense to only allow certain abilities to take advantage of it.
On March 21 2024 04:52 Vindicare605 wrote: Pretty comical that the only Protoss buff that had any significant impact at all in PvZ is the one that gets removed.
On the topic of rapid fire, IMO it doesn't make sense that if we're going to allow this "feature" in SC2, that it only applies to select abilities. If it's problematic to have it enabled for all spells then it should be disabled for all spells. It doesn't make sense to only allow certain abilities to take advantage of it.
True but then make warp in Work Like with rapid fire (maybe Not the rate of it) anyways If you mean they should fix it in a way that would Return Warp ins to be clicked again per unit.
SCV hp used to be 60, but it was OP for allins. I wish SCV's had 50 or smth HP, but we alrdy see SCV pulls once in a while.
I agree with Vindi. Feedback change is even listed as a bug, and now they refuse to "fix" it. It's so stupid. I'd rather they remove the rapid fire help and make it more worthwhile to play actual Starcraft, change back Snipe so that mana isn't refunded when it cancels. And I would also say reduce the omega-vision bonus that Overseer and Observer siege grants, so that it is just as good to patrol them as sieging them.
On March 21 2024 06:18 ejozl wrote: I agree with Vindi. Feedback change is even listed as a bug, and now they refuse to "fix" it. It's so stupid.
The rapidfire changes have become completely divorced from the idea of which things need fixing. Somehow, despite the feedback target filter being inconsistent with other instant-cast abilities, it is not being fixed to avoid the strength of rapidfire. But interference matrix which was already consistent with abilities in its class like the literally identical Anti-Armour missile (same cost, same projectile method, same command card on same unit etc) or Yamato, is now being changed to be inconsistent with these abilities/ other projectile weapons and have special target filters which grant rapidfire.
Oh damn they're changing the Cyclone changes? At least the Cyclone keeps its +20 HP, but now I feel that Cyclones/Mech won't be good enough TvP now...
Instead of +2 vs all to +1 vs all, why not make it +1 (+1 vs Mechanical)? That'd be a nice middleground that wouldn't make it OP vs Zerg, but still help vs Protoss and slightly benefit Mech TvT vs Bio. You know Bio players aren't going to get +1 for Cyclones haha.
If they're going through with this, it would be really cool if they gave Hellions/Hellbats some love. Change the 8 damage (+6 vs Light) to like 9 damage (+5 vs Light), and/or change Blue Flame so that it gives like 2 damage (+3 vs Light) instead of just +5 vs Light. Just to give a tiny bit of extra damage to Mech players, since Bio players won't be making more than a few Hellions in any MU, even if these buffs go through (they already want their minerals for Marines). Anti-Armor nerf already affected Hellion openings for Mech which were already super niche and not super viable. Would be cool to have some more hellion openers for Mech, so it's not just Cyclone spam.
I wanna say again but I really dislike being able to rapid fire so many abilities. That only allows mass spellcaster to be more powerful and scale better. When it comes to things like Feedback that are anti-spellcaster, things can now become a volatile all-or-nothing kind of scenario. Imagine if for example all your Ghosts get Feedback'd if you don't pay attention for a second or they get their feedbacks first before you EMP. Or if Ravens mass disable (I think it's OK balance wise, the Raven does lack lategame power, but this still wouldn't make lategame Ravens any helpful in TvZ, while making it potentially a little dumb for TvT or TvP lategame). It should be more like you have to split a few spellcasters and then carefully control 1-2 of them at a time, instead of balling things up and spamming all your spells.
Also... I totally agree that Ghost snipe shouldn't refund mana when it cancels. I forgot that was a thing. Imagine if Seeker Missiles would refund mana if snipe gets cancelled. It doesn't seem necessary at all? If you retreat out of range of snipe, then reward the Zerg for making the Terran committ the 50 energy for it. It adds a bit more interesting risk:reward and decision making so that Terran doesn't just spam a ton of snipes instantly. That'd probably be a change that can finally bring down the Ghost's efficiency and power to a more fair level. (You could even make it a Light unit so banelings are more effective vs them, since there is nothing Zerg has that counters or does well vs Ghosts).
Edit:
"Hurricane Thrusters" upgrade renamed to "Hurricane Engines" / Icon updated (The Cyclone doesn't have thrusters)"
The Cyclone getting +2 pr. upgrade didn't make sense anyways. Why should the Cyclone get +2 on a 11 damage weapon, while the Stalker gets +1 on a 13 damage weapon.. What they should do is increase the Cyclone's damage to 15, so that it's actually consistent with how upgrades work and lower the attack speed, this would rightfully also nerf the Cyclone drop vs. Protoss, while making the mech composition stronger. I still think the Cyclone is buffed, Terran has so many glass cannon units and having more hp in the frontline can be super strong. The gas cost they chose on the Cyclone is what makes it overlap with the Hellion, they are both mineral sinks.
I am okay with Feedback change removal, it doesn't make much sense anyway. But you still need to buff them in meaningful way that helps the top players.
I will continue to advocate for following changes:
Make Mothership not abductable by Vipers.
Make Sentry Guardian Shield help against EMP (either by you need one EMP to remove Guardian Shield first, or by making it reduce EMP shield damage in general, something in that nature)
On March 21 2024 19:50 ejozl wrote: The Cyclone getting +2 pr. upgrade didn't make sense anyways. Why should the Cyclone get +2 on a 11 damage weapon, while the Stalker gets +1 on a 13 damage weapon.. What they should do is increase the Cyclone's damage to 15, so that it's actually consistent with how upgrades work and lower the attack speed, this would rightfully also nerf the Cyclone drop vs. Protoss, while making the mech composition stronger. I still think the Cyclone is buffed, Terran has so many glass cannon units and having more hp in the frontline can be super strong. The gas cost they chose on the Cyclone is what makes it overlap with the Hellion, they are both mineral sinks.
Yeah that is fine, I agree it's weird and inconsistent, and as you said a good adjustment would be to rebalance the damage / attack speed so that it's 11 (+4 vs Mechanical) or 12 (+3 vs Mechanical).
And moving more of its power away from its dps to HP is also great for weakening it for early pokes, drops, killing probes, etc, while making it synergize for later game mech instead of bio.
Yeah hellion and cyclone mineral:gas ratio isn't ideal but I think it's fine. I find that I'm often a little short on gas if i spam purely only Cyclones, so mixing in a few hellions does feel like a thing. So you could still go with the more traditional Hellion/Hallbat + lots of tanks, or lots of Cyclones + fewer tanks.
Cyclones also definitely don't need to be good at killing workers, the dps change and lock on cooldown should make a big difference. Being able to lock on instantly and chase probes down without having to stutter step attack is probably letting it kill almost 2x the workers than it should. Would be nice if Hellions got a slight damage buff vs non light now...
I'm definitely still excited for the Cyclone, but damn if only it got +1 (+1 vs Mechanical)... that woulda been so much more helpful for TvP, and even in TvT i feel it would be fine since Mech isn't that popular still.
SC2 has never had perfect balance, and at various times different races had their advantages. What annoys me is people refusing to admit that Zerg has been the strongest race since '18, and the apparent determination by the balance council to keep it that way. This is where the Zerg cabal theory comes from and I certainly didn't invent it. The Council is made up of people, representing interests, not some divine body that's beyond reproach.
Apart from all of the good suggestions made above, a way to improve fairness and entertainment value would be to require players to play random. Viewers will get a lot more variety and players will get to showcase their true skills regardless of race balance.
On March 22 2024 13:56 goldensail wrote: SC2 has never had perfect balance, and at various times different races had their advantages. What annoys me is people refusing to admit that Zerg has been the strongest race since '18, and the apparent determination by the balance council to keep it that way. This is where the Zerg cabal theory comes from and I certainly didn't invent it. The Council is made up of people, representing interests, not some divine body that's beyond reproach.
Apart from all of the good suggestions made above, a way to improve fairness and entertainment value would be to require players to play random. Viewers will get a lot more variety and players will get to showcase their true skills regardless of race balance.
1)There is no hard evidence whatsoever that Zerg is "the strongest race". Same amount of Zergs and Terrans have won Premier events last year for example (3 players from each race). Four Zergs have reached the Finals of Premier events, even five Terrans. Zerg had the lowest amount of players present at Katowice. Only slightly less Zerg dropped out of the Group Stage than Terrans in proportion (40% of the Terrans, 33% of the Zergs). After that it was mostly even dropouts. I know "Zerg OP" is important for the entire Anti-Serral narrative, but c'mon...
2)"Playing random" is a great idea for exactly the amount of time it takes until Serral and Maru clash each other and Serral happens to roll Zerg three times in a row. Then it is the worst idea ever and doesn't count and who came up with that stuff? For real though: Don't we want to see the highest level of Starcraft? Why would I want to see two players offracing each other in a Grand Final, always hoping for the lucky roll to get their main-race? Starcraft 2 (as all Blizzard RTS) isn't meant for multi-racing, never has been. If it was so easy to become great with another race and Zerg apparently is OP for sooooo long, wouldn't have all the pros switched by now? Maybe herO and co. are pretty convinced that they do better with Protoss than switching to another race for a reason...
I guess WoL favored GomTvT, HotS favored Protoss slightly (or as much as you could ask for Protoss), and LotV favored Zerg. I guess it's balanced in a way that way haha.
1)There is no hard evidence whatsoever that Zerg is "the strongest race". Same amount of Zergs and Terrans have won Premier events last year for example (3 players from each race). Four Zergs have reached the Finals of Premier events, even five Terrans. Zerg had the lowest amount of players present at Katowice. Only slightly less Zerg dropped out of the Group Stage than Terrans in proportion (40% of the Terrans, 33% of the Zergs). After that it was mostly even dropouts. I know "Zerg OP" is important for the entire Anti-Serral narrative, but c'mon...
2)"Playing random" is a great idea for exactly the amount of time it takes until Serral and Maru clash each other and Serral happens to roll Zerg three times in a row. Then it is the worst idea ever and doesn't count and who came up with that stuff? For real though: Don't we want to see the highest level of Starcraft? Why would I want to see two players offracing each other in a Grand Final, always hoping for the lucky roll to get their main-race? Starcraft 2 (as all Blizzard RTS) isn't meant for multi-racing, never has been. If it was so easy to become great with another race and Zerg apparently is OP for sooooo long, wouldn't have all the pros switched by now? Maybe herO and co. are pretty convinced that they do better with Protoss than switching to another race for a reason...
1) Your methodology is flawed - it doen't take into account how many top Terran/Zerg players there are. You should look at the *relative* performance of Zergs before and after the inflection point (through '18 vs. from '19). You can also remove Serral/Maru as outliers and look at the rest. From the data that I saw on Premier events, Zerg as a whole, with or without Serral, has done better relative to other races for the last 5 years.
2) What is fun is obviously subjective and I'm not going to tell you what you'll like. But I watch this show called "So you think you can dance", apart from contestants doing their own genre, they also make them perform routines from other genres e.g. getting a hip hop dancer to do contemporary, and the performances are surprisingly good/entertaining.
3) Switching is easier said than done, especially with the top Koreans at the end of their careers. But I imagine the top players are at least proficient outside their main races. I remember Reynor playing Protoss was able to take at least one map from Solar .
On March 22 2024 13:56 goldensail wrote: SC2 has never had perfect balance, and at various times different races had their advantages. What annoys me is people refusing to admit that Zerg has been the strongest race since '18,
interesting Zerg has been the "strongest race" since 2018? on the other hand Serral journey starts since 2018...
On March 22 2024 13:56 goldensail wrote: SC2 has never had perfect balance, and at various times different races had their advantages. What annoys me is people refusing to admit that Zerg has been the strongest race since '18,
interesting Zerg has been the "strongest race" since 2018? on the other hand Serral journey starts since 2018...
Dark as well.. and SoO wins his first tournament there as well. You're right that is interesting.
Actually Zerg dominance starts with LotV. I would say moreso in 2018 and forward, what happens is the irrelevance of Protoss. And if you only have to excel at TvZ, ZvZ/TvT then this would propel some players to the top. Serral and Maru are absoulte experts in TvZ, Clem and Dark as well.
On March 22 2024 05:53 Nasigil wrote: I am okay with Feedback change removal, it doesn't make much sense anyway. But you still need to buff them in meaningful way that helps the top players.
I will continue to advocate for following changes:
Make Mothership not abductable by Vipers.
Make Sentry Guardian Shield help against EMP (either by you need one EMP to remove Guardian Shield first, or by making it reduce EMP shield damage in general, something in that nature)
Make Chrono Boost stackable.
I think that's buffing EMP, if you can also use it to remove Guardian Shields. In the fight of Sentries vs Ghosts, I wouldn't want to be the guy thinking that Sentries will beat Ghosts.
I prefer making Inject non-stackable and decreasing cost of both MULE and Chrono to 25E, but reducing their duration by half, the MULE hp should also be halved.
On March 21 2024 19:50 ejozl wrote: The Cyclone getting +2 pr. upgrade didn't make sense anyways. Why should the Cyclone get +2 on a 11 damage weapon, while the Stalker gets +1 on a 13 damage weapon.. What they should do is increase the Cyclone's damage to 15, so that it's actually consistent with how upgrades work and lower the attack speed, this would rightfully also nerf the Cyclone drop vs. Protoss, while making the mech composition stronger. I still think the Cyclone is buffed, Terran has so many glass cannon units and having more hp in the frontline can be super strong. The gas cost they chose on the Cyclone is what makes it overlap with the Hellion, they are both mineral sinks.
Yeah that is fine, I agree it's weird and inconsistent, and as you said a good adjustment would be to rebalance the damage / attack speed so that it's 11 (+4 vs Mechanical) or 12 (+3 vs Mechanical).
And moving more of its power away from its dps to HP is also great for weakening it for early pokes, drops, killing probes, etc, while making it synergize for later game mech instead of bio.
Yeah hellion and cyclone mineral:gas ratio isn't ideal but I think it's fine. I find that I'm often a little short on gas if i spam purely only Cyclones, so mixing in a few hellions does feel like a thing. So you could still go with the more traditional Hellion/Hallbat + lots of tanks, or lots of Cyclones + fewer tanks.
Cyclones also definitely don't need to be good at killing workers, the dps change and lock on cooldown should make a big difference. Being able to lock on instantly and chase probes down without having to stutter step attack is probably letting it kill almost 2x the workers than it should. Would be nice if Hellions got a slight damage buff vs non light now...
I'm definitely still excited for the Cyclone, but damn if only it got +1 (+1 vs Mechanical)... that woulda been so much more helpful for TvP, and even in TvT i feel it would be fine since Mech isn't that popular still.
I don't know why this solution is so appealing to me, but I like the idea of 90 mineral Hellions. I would also put Hellbat behind an upgrade, remove it from the Factory, make 4 of them fit in a Medivac, and remove the Bio tag.
On March 22 2024 13:56 goldensail wrote: SC2 has never had perfect balance, and at various times different races had their advantages. What annoys me is people refusing to admit that Zerg has been the strongest race since '18,
interesting Zerg has been the "strongest race" since 2018? on the other hand Serral journey starts since 2018...
Dark as well.. and SoO wins his first tournament there as well. You're right that is interesting.
Actually Zerg dominance starts with LotV. I would say moreso in 2018 and forward, what happens is the irrelevance of Protoss. And if you only have to excel at TvZ, ZvZ/TvT then this would propel some players to the top. Serral and Maru are absoulte experts in TvZ, Clem and Dark as well.
Protoss has sucked much more than Zerg has been actually a dominant race in this particular epoch, IMO anyway.
I’d say Zerg have had an overall edge but it’s way less pronounced than some make out:
1. A lot of that perception comes from big World Championships, if Zerg are winning there they’re OP. But there were long stretches in SC2 history where Zerg couldn’t buy a GSL, this big prestige tournament but people don’t seem to weigh that in mitigation. 2. Ultimately it’s literally 4 Zerg players who’ve really won anything in this period. Well, not literally, at the one end soO finally gets that big statement tournament, and a few months ago Solar got his A game together and got that GSL. 3. Trap won tournaments at a borderline Serral level for a period, Zest made a few World finals, we’ve had multiple Terran GSL champs. Clem won multiple Euros against 2 of the monster Zergs and eventually a big international too. Maru has made Ro4+ multiple times in WCs only to come up short, most times from obvious errors rather than hitting a balance wall. 4. At lower but still pretty skilled levels, GM, or pro scenes that aren’t the best of Kr/EU Zerg’s been performing worse and worse over time. In a crude sense they have basically been unable to nerf a Serral or a Reynor/Dark into not being WC contenders, but those nerfs have started to bite elsewhere.
As I said I think on balance Zerg has been overall strongest in this period, albeit carried by a few outliers. Just not nearly as ez mode dominant race as some try to frame it.
I think its main advantage is that generally it’s just strong overall. How strong, varies but it rarely has periods it’s actually bad in the interracial matchups.
Terran has had struggles in vZ at times but mostly it’s bounced between TvP being a favoured, or unfavoured matchup. It’s just harder to be consistent if 50% of your non-mirrors you’re potentially playing from a deficit if you draw that.
Protoss it’s more pronounced again, PvT has bounced in and out of their favour, but PvZ has generally been at best a 50/50 and frequently worse than that.
Zerg will naturally profit from being relatively stable in this sense, even if it’s not actually OP in either matchup. It would be different if it was like Z > T > P > Z, which would actually be more imbalanced but you’d probably see a better distribution of champions.
It sounds somewhat counter-intuitive but it feels Zerg is the imba race by being well, the more consistently balanced one across matchups. Ofc I’m exaggerating its had strong periods, but you’re way more likely to win tournaments with two 55% favoured matchups, than like a 65% one and a 30% one.
I’m just pulling out arbitrary numbers but Trap was both exceptional skill wise in PvT, in a good PvT meta and was consistently winning against all comers in that matchup, IMO the last time the best player in that matchup was from the Protoss side. It didn’t really matter in his quest to win a GSL in his two finals because he ran into a Zerg and got stomped by players just as good/better, when the matchup was awful.
Whereas Serral in Katowice, and let’s assume both ZvP and ZvT are mildly Zerg favoured (although IMO PvZ is in way, way better shape, and also TvZ isn’t really too bad at all). If Serral plays his A game, well he’s Serral and at worst the balance is relatively even no matter who he faces he’s got a very good shot. He’s already basically better than almost everyone and he’s not having to compensate for one imbalanced matchup.
Compounding imbalance has been as big an issue as much as outright Zerg strength IMO. As per the aforementioned when Trap was in PvT god mode, and TvP was just generally hard anyway he knocks out Maru in GSL, which happened more than once iirc. But Maru would have a much better shot winning a TvZ against Dark or Rogue than Trap would have in winning a PvZ against either at that time.
1)There is no hard evidence whatsoever that Zerg is "the strongest race". Same amount of Zergs and Terrans have won Premier events last year for example (3 players from each race). Four Zergs have reached the Finals of Premier events, even five Terrans. Zerg had the lowest amount of players present at Katowice. Only slightly less Zerg dropped out of the Group Stage than Terrans in proportion (40% of the Terrans, 33% of the Zergs). After that it was mostly even dropouts. I know "Zerg OP" is important for the entire Anti-Serral narrative, but c'mon...
2)"Playing random" is a great idea for exactly the amount of time it takes until Serral and Maru clash each other and Serral happens to roll Zerg three times in a row. Then it is the worst idea ever and doesn't count and who came up with that stuff? For real though: Don't we want to see the highest level of Starcraft? Why would I want to see two players offracing each other in a Grand Final, always hoping for the lucky roll to get their main-race? Starcraft 2 (as all Blizzard RTS) isn't meant for multi-racing, never has been. If it was so easy to become great with another race and Zerg apparently is OP for sooooo long, wouldn't have all the pros switched by now? Maybe herO and co. are pretty convinced that they do better with Protoss than switching to another race for a reason...
1) Your methodology is flawed - it doen't take into account how many top Terran/Zerg players there are. You should look at the *relative* performance of Zergs before and after the inflection point (through '18 vs. from '19). You can also remove Serral/Maru as outliers and look at the rest. From the data that I saw on Premier events, Zerg as a whole, with or without Serral, has done better relative to other races for the last 5 years.
2) What is fun is obviously subjective and I'm not going to tell you what you'll like. But I watch this show called "So you think you can dance", apart from contestants doing their own genre, they also make them perform routines from other genres e.g. getting a hip hop dancer to do contemporary, and the performances are surprisingly good/entertaining.
3) Switching is easier said than done, especially with the top Koreans at the end of their careers. But I imagine the top players are at least proficient outside their main races. I remember Reynor playing Protoss was able to take at least one map from Solar .
Of course my "methodology" only applies to the last year, but you said "Zerg is the strongest race since '18", including last year and right now. But more importantly: Your methodology is also flawed - it completly removes players from the equation. Said it before, said it again: There is just no real reason to assume that skill and accomplishments would even itself out between the three races. So the fact that Zerg was "winning so much" is heavily influenced by a slight overhang of more S-Tier Zergs compared to the rest. If Zerg was "too strong" (and lets face it, you people don't talk about slightly too strong, it is generally about Zerg being way too OP), there should be much more of an imbalance in tournaments results. It shouldn't just be carried by very few names.
1)There is no hard evidence whatsoever that Zerg is "the strongest race". Same amount of Zergs and Terrans have won Premier events last year for example (3 players from each race). Four Zergs have reached the Finals of Premier events, even five Terrans. Zerg had the lowest amount of players present at Katowice. Only slightly less Zerg dropped out of the Group Stage than Terrans in proportion (40% of the Terrans, 33% of the Zergs). After that it was mostly even dropouts. I know "Zerg OP" is important for the entire Anti-Serral narrative, but c'mon...
2)"Playing random" is a great idea for exactly the amount of time it takes until Serral and Maru clash each other and Serral happens to roll Zerg three times in a row. Then it is the worst idea ever and doesn't count and who came up with that stuff? For real though: Don't we want to see the highest level of Starcraft? Why would I want to see two players offracing each other in a Grand Final, always hoping for the lucky roll to get their main-race? Starcraft 2 (as all Blizzard RTS) isn't meant for multi-racing, never has been. If it was so easy to become great with another race and Zerg apparently is OP for sooooo long, wouldn't have all the pros switched by now? Maybe herO and co. are pretty convinced that they do better with Protoss than switching to another race for a reason...
1) Your methodology is flawed - it doen't take into account how many top Terran/Zerg players there are. You should look at the *relative* performance of Zergs before and after the inflection point (through '18 vs. from '19). You can also remove Serral/Maru as outliers and look at the rest. From the data that I saw on Premier events, Zerg as a whole, with or without Serral, has done better relative to other races for the last 5 years.
2) What is fun is obviously subjective and I'm not going to tell you what you'll like. But I watch this show called "So you think you can dance", apart from contestants doing their own genre, they also make them perform routines from other genres e.g. getting a hip hop dancer to do contemporary, and the performances are surprisingly good/entertaining.
3) Switching is easier said than done, especially with the top Koreans at the end of their careers. But I imagine the top players are at least proficient outside their main races. I remember Reynor playing Protoss was able to take at least one map from Solar .
Of course my "methodology" only applies to the last year, but you said "Zerg is the strongest race since '18", including last year and right now. But more importantly: Your methodology is also flawed - it completly removes players from the equation. Said it before, said it again: There is just no real reason to assume that skill and accomplishments would even itself out between the three races. So the fact that Zerg was "winning so much" is heavily influenced by a slight overhang of more S-Tier Zergs compared to the rest. If Zerg was "too strong" (and lets face it, you people don't talk about slightly too strong, it is generally about Zerg being way too OP), there should be much more of an imbalance in tournaments results. It shouldn't just be carried by very few names.
I mean 2019 zerg was extremely OP (after the Robo nerfs) and you still didnt have random zergs getting massive success from it. And maybe we think of all of them s Tier zergs as s Tier zergs because they were performing that Well over Others in the Times of zerg being too good, even If it May only be slightly. (I still would say they are s Tier but maybe the perceived overhang was because of Balance as s Tier Players from t or p werent able to Show it).
On March 22 2024 05:53 Nasigil wrote: I am okay with Feedback change removal, it doesn't make much sense anyway. But you still need to buff them in meaningful way that helps the top players.
I will continue to advocate for following changes:
Make Mothership not abductable by Vipers.
Make Sentry Guardian Shield help against EMP (either by you need one EMP to remove Guardian Shield first, or by making it reduce EMP shield damage in general, something in that nature)
Make Chrono Boost stackable.
The Guardian Shield idea has been spreading on Reddit a bit as well. I like both of those ideas, but I think I like the first one better only because if GS does a flat EMP % reduction then 1 Sentry can soft counter multiple Ghosts. Also would be weird to balance, would 2 GS totally invalidate EMP or take it down to 25%? What about 4 Sentries? Does 4 stacks of GS make EMP do 0%?
I'd rather each GS provides one layer of 100% EMP protection, 3 Sentries casting GS? It's gonna take 3 EMP shots to take the GS shield down, then a 4th to strip shields/energy.
I think the Sentry GS blocking 1 EMP is a good idea. Sentries really fall off into the midgame because of EMP, and it would be cool to see them still around. It would make gateway scale slightly better. If this can be implemented, then if needed EMP upgrade to 1.75 aoe could be added back to the game.
Forcefield should also block buildings/units from bile damage. It should take a bile to clear a FF, before you can damage the building. This way you can protect your batteries and canons a little better than just being instantly sniped.
Only thing is, I know that these "X ability blocks Y" things would require a more intensive code change, rather than just tweaking basic numbers/triggers in the editor... so it depends if we even have someone to code it and properly test it so it doesn't fuck the game up
The Zerg OPness stems from Hive getting completely busted since LotV. We have stronger Ultras, Lings(attack speed upgrade buff), Corruptors and Hydras. Lurkers that by patch 4.0 destroy everything on the ground, and in the same patch parasitic bomb was increased to 120 damage, destroying everything in the air. Parasitic Bomb which btw was just given for free to the Viper. We have stronger Nydus, more flexible drops and a bigger Fungal, which will soon be 10 range again. That Roaches was given for free the ability to turn into Ravagers and Hydras can with Lurker Den morph into Lurkers, it adds incredible flexibility to Zerg and the ability to respond to whatever is happening. You can be completely out of Larvae, but then get saved from morphing Roaches to Ravagers, Lings to Banes and Hydras to Lurkers.
Now Zerg is by far the hardest race to play and requires the most knowledge. But with how the cabal wants to balance the game, Zerg just needs to get to the late game, stack those Injects and grab that sweet ticket for the win.
If I wanted to get into the ro16 of a tournament, I would pick Protoss. If I wanted to win a tournament, I would pick Terran. And if I wanted to win more than that, I would pick Zerg.
On March 23 2024 01:25 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: I think the Sentry GS blocking 1 EMP is a good idea. Sentries really fall off into the midgame because of EMP, and it would be cool to see them still around. It would make gateway scale slightly better. If this can be implemented, then if needed EMP upgrade to 1.75 aoe could be added back to the game.
Forcefield should also block buildings/units from bile damage. It should take a bile to clear a FF, before you can damage the building. This way you can protect your batteries and canons a little better than just being instantly sniped.
Only thing is, I know that these "X ability blocks Y" things would require a more intensive code change, rather than just tweaking basic numbers/triggers in the editor... so it depends if we even have someone to code it and properly test it so it doesn't fuck the game up
In theory I’m not against the idea, but in practice I’m not sure how it looks.
As you get a big visual prompt when a bile is coming, and where, it should be trivial to just re-cast force field if a Zerg is dropping one to get rid of the FF and being economical. Say you have multiple sentries and high energy and you’ve got 4/5 FFs on a combo of batteries and cannons, maybe a crucial pylon. Zerg aren’t going to have sufficient ravagers to bile down all those targets, and if they’re spreading them to remove FF you have plenty of time to just recast.
Whereas if a Zerg just hits rapid fire and spams a bunch to kill a singular target, you’re tanking one extra shot and it’s probably not that impactful anyway.
Even top Zergs are frequently overkilling rather than perfectly spreading biles because a super battery is such a priority to take down.
Intuitively to me it feels like a mechanic that would be too strong in certain scenarios, and unimpactful in others in quite a binary sense.
Either Zergs have sufficient firepower to one-volley down a target, or they don’t (or misjudge) and you have a new FF popping up. I use the word a lot but I feel it makes things a bit ‘wonky’. You can see a scenario like Zergs committing to kill something, being one bile short, and losing a bunch of ravagers, then FF being cast again and them being short ravagers to get that target with the next volley.
I don’t have such an issue with EMP, I think the interaction is simpler but I’d change it in the following way to simplify making such a change:
Force field no longer has its cost be instant, but has an initial cast value + a channelling cost
1. This way an EMP can just cancel the spell without having to code some specific interaction, as nuking a sentry’s mana pool will leave them nothing to channel it with. 2. I think you get the side benefit of some additional flexibility in using the spell. As it is it’s a relatively committal spell, not crazily so but offensively you either GS and go, defensively you’re kind of holding off to use it when absolutely necessary, and opponents can bait them/FFs out and just come back when your energy is too low to do it again 3. I’d make the initial cast value non-trivial so there’s still a risk/reward aspect to it. I don’t think it would be desirable if it was borderline free to turn on GS for a few seconds just in case it’s beneficial, turn it off again and rinse and repeat.
On March 23 2024 01:25 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: I think the Sentry GS blocking 1 EMP is a good idea. Sentries really fall off into the midgame because of EMP, and it would be cool to see them still around. It would make gateway scale slightly better. If this can be implemented, then if needed EMP upgrade to 1.75 aoe could be added back to the game.
Forcefield should also block buildings/units from bile damage. It should take a bile to clear a FF, before you can damage the building. This way you can protect your batteries and canons a little better than just being instantly sniped.
Only thing is, I know that these "X ability blocks Y" things would require a more intensive code change, rather than just tweaking basic numbers/triggers in the editor... so it depends if we even have someone to code it and properly test it so it doesn't fuck the game up
In theory I’m not against the idea, but in practice I’m not sure how it looks.
As you get a big visual prompt when a bile is coming, and where, it should be trivial to just re-cast force field if a Zerg is dropping one to get rid of the FF and being economical. Say you have multiple sentries and high energy and you’ve got 4/5 FFs on a combo of batteries and cannons, maybe a crucial pylon. Zerg aren’t going to have sufficient ravagers to bile down all those targets, and if they’re spreading them to remove FF you have plenty of time to just recast.
Whereas if a Zerg just hits rapid fire and spams a bunch to kill a singular target, you’re tanking one extra shot and it’s probably not that impactful anyway.
Even top Zergs are frequently overkilling rather than perfectly spreading biles because a super battery is such a priority to take down.
Intuitively to me it feels like a mechanic that would be too strong in certain scenarios, and unimpactful in others in quite a binary sense.
Either Zergs have sufficient firepower to one-volley down a target, or they don’t (or misjudge) and you have a new FF popping up. I use the word a lot but I feel it makes things a bit ‘wonky’. You can see a scenario like Zergs committing to kill something, being one bile short, and losing a bunch of ravagers, then FF being cast again and them being short ravagers to get that target with the next volley.
I don’t have such an issue with EMP, I think the interaction is simpler but I’d change it in the following way to simplify making such a change:
Force field no longer has its cost be instant, but has an initial cast value + a channelling cost
1. This way an EMP can just cancel the spell without having to code some specific interaction, as nuking a sentry’s mana pool will leave them nothing to channel it with. 2. I think you get the side benefit of some additional flexibility in using the spell. As it is it’s a relatively committal spell, not crazily so but offensively you either GS and go, defensively you’re kind of holding off to use it when absolutely necessary, and opponents can bait them/FFs out and just come back when your energy is too low to do it again 3. I’d make the initial cast value non-trivial so there’s still a risk/reward aspect to it. I don’t think it would be desirable if it was borderline free to turn on GS for a few seconds just in case it’s beneficial, turn it off again and rinse and repeat.