Designated Balance Discussion Thread

Read this one somewhere else, just gonna throw it out there:

Problem: The Warp-in mechanic is kinda neat...but requires weak gateway units and force fields and is still "discussed" (even called imba by god himself

)

Solution: Make the cooldown for units in warp-in mode higher than in gateway mode, therefore buff gateway units and remove forcefields from the game. Also decrease the switching time between warpgate and gateway mode, so that Protoss can switch between defensive- mode (Gateway) and offensive-mode (Warpgate)

Side Effects: Changes all PvX matchups as we know them...and people dont like changes

Last edit: 2012-05-25 08:44:01

phiinix United States. May 25 2012 08:52. Posts 1124

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On May 25 2012 08:39 Schlendrian wrote:
Read this one somewhere else, just gonna throw it out there:

Problem: The Warp-in mechanic is kinda neat...but requires weak gateway units and force fields and is still "discussed" (even called imba by god himself

You can't actually win games with protoss without forcefield, without buffing units so hard that it completely breaks the game past midgame.

This isn't about people not liking changes, it just doesn't make any sense from a balance perspective.

Last edit: 2012-05-25 08:53:15

Evangelist May 25 2012 08:53. Posts 1167

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Just a few things I noticed from my scrubby level.

They could really do with taking a look at both carriers and battlecruiser build times. Zerg T3 is 55 and 70ish seconds respectively. Both Protoss and Terran have one reasonable T3 unit (Thor/Archon) but both carriers and battlecruisers are 90 to 120s. BCs also have the colossal disadvantage of spawning with tons of HP but lots of feedbackable energy. Would be nice to see the effect of feedback reduced against massive units seeing as the Yamato cannon and the 250mm strike cannons require 150HP worth of damage to actually use and prevent such ridiculous tactics as EMPing your own units.

Also think BCs could do with a range upgrade.

Warpgate could do with another looking at. Making it so there's an additional penalty on warp in (maybe a 10s warp in time) would increase the risk of a forward protoss reinforcement attack and reduce both the power of mass chargelot warp ins and early protoss pressure (thus making PvP much more fun). It'd also give some use back to gateways - protoss would switch back to GWs to defend pressure rather than warping in close to the base.

This'd also add a bit of complexity to protoss attacks - they'd have to defend ground in order to be able to reinforce, rather than just moving towards the base in a big clump knowing the wave of chargelots they warped in either will win or lose them the game.

Last edit: 2012-05-25 08:55:42

Schlendrian May 25 2012 08:54. Posts 42

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On May 25 2012 08:52 phiinix wrote:

Show nested quote +

You can't actually win games with protoss without forcefield.

Here, let me zoom in on the text for you:

"therefore buff gateway units"

But seriously, other stuff would have to be rebalanced too, of course.

Last edit: 2012-05-25 08:55:31

Evangelist May 25 2012 08:57. Posts 1167

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Why are people so keen on changing forcefield? Good forcefields are match winners.

Schlendrian May 25 2012 09:03. Posts 42

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On May 25 2012 08:57 Evangelist wrote:
Why are people so keen on changing forcefield? Good forcefields are match winners.

You answered the question yourself.
An RTS-game should not (at least according to some peoples opinion) be decided by 3-4 well placed force fields, but rather by many engagements, tons of harrassment, battles about controlling territory and so on

Evangelist May 25 2012 10:50. Posts 1167

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On May 25 2012 09:03 Schlendrian wrote:

Show nested quote +

That's the point though. There are good force fields and bad force fields. They aren't guarenteed to be good every time and they only contribute to winning a match. A protoss doesn't autowin because of good force fields. Terrans tend to pick up with medivacs and build more bunkers than they need to deal with them. Zerg is pretty devastating early game against toss anyway and late game if they are desperate to get the upper hand, they can burrow.

Good storms were devastating in BW, they're devastating here as is a good EMP and fungal can land on one unit and be devastating.

Dark.EX United States. May 25 2012 11:05. Posts 1504

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On May 25 2012 08:54 Schlendrian wrote:

Show nested quote +

Here, let me zoom in on the text for you:

"therefore buff gateway units"

But seriously, other stuff would have to be rebalanced too, of course.

Most notably, everything.

But seriously, the Mothership, Colossus, Voidray, and Carrier would all need big changes, aside from the obvious ones for Gateway Units. This is an expansion sized change, and I don't think we're getting it with HotS. I think we might with LotV, though.

Catatonic United States. May 25 2012 11:24. Posts 690

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On May 25 2012 11:05 Fencer710 wrote:

Show nested quote +

Well the Carrier and Mothership are both going away in HotS, nothing wrong with the colossus or voidray though in my opinion maybe voids could have a longer build time to prevent that massing you see on ladder or longer timing till fully charged but thats all an those timings wouldnt need to be much longer then they are now since voids are easily countered by the most basic of unit the terran has though zerg has no decent portable anti air till well into lair.

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bittman Australia. May 25 2012 11:24. Posts 7259

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On May 25 2012 11:05 Fencer710 wrote:

Show nested quote +

Agreed, as generally a lot of the units that haven't been targetted by Blizzard need rebalancing. If I had to make a short list of units that I think need some work in one form or another it would be something like:

- Mothership: Vortex still a godly powerful spell, but at the same time most viable super-late anti-sky PvX tool. Mothership is also basically useless except for vortex and the occasional recall.
- Carriers: if super-massed, difficult to beat, but that's a poor goal for a unit. Hardly seen in competitive play, takes too long to build, etc. Blizzard has never attempted to balance this since release.
- Void Rays: Largely an a-move unit outside of early game micro pushes.
- Collosus: Same issue as void ray, except we see them more.

- Hydras: Rarely used in anything other than ZvZ or early game vP air defence. Needs something more which makes it stand out from the roach.

- Reapers: hardly used in any matchup anymore except maybe some early harass/scouting in TvT.

Huh as I started this list I expected more. I have small complaints about roaches, thors and templars, but largely the design of most of these units is fine, just some numbers could use tweaking. On the other hand a lot of the list above needs a fair bit of rework to be both more interesting to viewers and useful to players.

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Liquid`Jinro Sweden. May 25 2012 11:30. Posts 32587

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On May 24 2012 13:52 HeroMystic wrote:
^Terrible suggestions.

Show nested quote +

A Mecher should never be relying on Mass tanks in TvP. I'm surprised players don't know this yet.

If you can't rely on tanks TvP as your backbone, you end up with extremely 1 dimensional mech --

tell the guy that interplanatar interaction is pivotal to terrans variety of optionitudals in the pre-midgame preperatories as well as the protosstinal deterriggation of elite zergling strikes - Stimey n Formerly FrozenArbiter

ETisME Hong Kong. May 25 2012 11:44. Posts 4835

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I am sure this has been said many times already but I want to see this to be a bigger focus of discussion:
Maxed army and ball vs ball situation

The biggest problem I see right now is the maxed vs maxed situation more than anything else.
I am not talking about maxed roaches (units that are supply inefficient) but more like the deathball 200/200
The strength of the 200/200 makes it so that there are almost no skirmish in between because everyone would prefer to muster up a maxed deathball before the other. (with the exception of terran I suppose because they are better at defensive posture)

It is really annoying/awkward to see players have to kill off their workers/units (dimaga especially) just so that he can build a stronger deathball.

This would be fine if the game was to have a good deathball clashes and then becomes fairly even (which rarely happens).
The game ideally would be like the mid game ZvT where the Terran pushes would be deflected by zerg's ling baneling muta or ling infestors. But both side would still be fairly even afterward and continue into late game.

This problem is worst for ZvP: either P lands a vortex on the bl/infestor/roach army and wins with archon toilet, or Z just slow pushes for the win.

Decendos Germany. May 25 2012 17:39. Posts 912

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On May 25 2012 08:54 Schlendrian wrote:

Show nested quote +

Here, let me zoom in on the text for you:

"therefore buff gateway units"

But seriously, other stuff would have to be rebalanced too, of course.

you cant buff zealots and stalkers since mass blinkstalker in PvZ and mass zealot in PvT is already strong and would become too strong.

blizzard should just remove the FF (which is the most retarded mechanic in the game, well after archon toilet) and give the sentry another shield which e.g. gives all GATEWAY units in the shield radius a damage buff OR instead a guardian shield like shield that migitates melee damage. that way P would be able to fight T and Z with 1 sentry doing guardian shield and another one doing the damage buff/migitate melee damage shield.

as well the mothership really should be gone in HOTS. vortex is also just retarded for both P and Z. they should just let the carrier in the game and give a buff to its building time. a 4-5 carrierbacked deathball is definetly able to fight BL/infestor and forces lots of corruptor which get raped by archons and would force more micro from both sides instead of vortex or NP deciding 20 minute game...

Bobson Sweden. May 25 2012 23:46. Posts 50

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The thing that bugs me as a terran player versus zerg is the fact that the broodlord is 4 food unit. With a maxxed Broodlord,corruptor and infestor army you have 3 units which is really food efficient and not many army types of terran army compositions can even deal with that army. The only success i have had has been ravens with seeker missile vs the mass corruptors ( Stacked ). Or EMP every infestor.

Kinda sucks that Broodlord,Corruptor and infestor is viable against ANY type of terran army composition. And the army composition that terran HAVE to get out to "counter" the heavy air zerg player does only work against that specific Bl,inf and corruptor composition.

NOTE* This is just my thoughts most of it is probably biased terran whine but i believe some of you terrans might find some recognition in this post.

Last edit: 2012-05-25 23:46:55

Zuppp!!??

HeroMystic United States. May 26 2012 00:08. Posts 894

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On May 25 2012 11:30 Liquid`Jinro wrote:

Show nested quote +

If you can't rely on tanks TvP as your backbone, you end up with extremely 1 dimensional mech --

I'll clarify: A mecher should never be relying on just tanks. Tanks should obviously be in the composition but especially in the early-mid game there needs to be more of a variety. Hellions/Ghost are a good start, but Thors happen to be great meatshields with their 400 HP, and having just one is entirely beneficial. Tanks require critical mass to be a truly scary army, but I've always seen Mechers, Korean or not, die before they can get to it. You need other units to cover that weakness.

One thing I want to see Mechers do more is get at least one or two Ravens. PDD is an obvious boon, but Autoturret is also a good yet underutilized spell vs Chargelots and Immortals.

Krejven Sweden. May 26 2012 01:01. Posts 105

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On May 26 2012 00:08 HeroMystic wrote:

Show nested quote +

Autoturrets count as armored which means that immortals eat them whole and spit out the remains before you had time to do anything else.

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Inex Bulgaria. May 26 2012 01:20. Posts 421

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Gateway units are good as they are right now. If you make gateway mode produce units faster than WG, you'll see the return of proxy gatways, in every MU. Such a change will change the whole game balance, especially when GW units get 3/3 and blink/charge, they will just be super broken.

HeroMystic United States. May 26 2012 01:47. Posts 894

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On May 26 2012 01:01 Krejven wrote:

Show nested quote +

Autoturrets count as armored which means that immortals eat them whole and spit out the remains before you had time to do anything else.

Autoturrets can take 3 Immortal shots, which is the same as a Tank. They also take no supply. It's better for that Autoturret to die than for a tank.

BeholdOblivion United States. May 26 2012 06:46. Posts 54

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Sorry to hijack the thread, but I read something around page 200 that really sparked an idea. I haven't really thought through all the balance repercussions but what if zealots were given a SPEED upgrade instead of charge like in BW, and the Marauder concussive shell was altered or removed? Just a quick thought.

EDIT: I forgot the zealots had increased speed with charge (Thank you bobson). I was envisioning a more drastic speed increase, instead of the charge.

Last edit: 2012-05-26 08:17:24

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