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As we all know zergling, mutalisk scourge is mostly an air confrontation and is unfun without a grounded counter to mutas, so far I see no answer as to keeping the 3 armor/damage types or the gameplay intact while giving hydralisks the option to be a good specific counter to mutalisks.
The only solution is to introduce a very specific solution and that is to allow hydralisks to be a good counter to mutalisks by giving them regular (aka double) damage to very light armor types of which mutalisks now possess this "very light" armor type.
This would allow for more grounded-play in ZvZ and would make lurkers a viable defensive option to slow down the pace of ZvZ to a considerable rate without altering the fundamental gameplay or style of ZvZ.
None of this can break Zv.Z as mirror-matchups cannot be broken in terms of balance but merely broken in terms of level of depth or choices in options or fun value.
I know this is a very specific solution. But it seems to be the only one unless Pete Stillwell has a better solution.
This can be a good solution for the rock, paper, scissors scenario that exists at high level Zerg vs. Zerg play which unfortunately ends the fun. This would positively raise the skill ceiling for zerg vs. zerg play which would extend the rock, paper, scissors scenario so that it would take more time before ZvZ players would reach that unfun ceiling.
This is my thought.
What do you guys, especially at Blizzard think? (They deleted my post because as we all know they want to protect their reputation more than anything aka the starbow shutdown so maybe you guys could push this idea out there for the benefit of the game and science.
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I don't think there's any need to mess with perfection.
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I'd compare ZvZ to car/motorcycle racing. For the driver it's all about milliseconds and millimeters: brake a tiny bit later, hit apex a tiny bit later, press accel a tiny bit more. For people who don't race, it looks just like cars going round and round, exciting when someone crashes or overtakes, but otherwise unspectacular. If you tried going fast on a race track yourself however, you will notice those little details and sometimes a tiny thing that most don't even notice, will make you go "holy shit wow!" So, to make watching ZvZ fun, there's one thing you need to do - play it yourself
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I think it even states on TL strategy here that ZvZ is said to be the one broken MU in terms of fun or maybe that was some user's post on reddit. Regardless, once you fix this it will be near perfect. Perhaps the numbers of the game can be tweaked going into the future for better usage of less common units, all very robust but if not at the very least I think we should address this one concern that many people agree is legitimate .
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ZvZ is probably the best mirror match-up. No one wants to see mass macro 1a2a3a hydra/lurk fights as opposed to the highly micro intensive low econ style it is now. It would ruin the match-up.
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However, slightly more grounded battles is not a bad thing. We're not eliminating mutalisks completely. They will fit the usual harass option.
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It's not RPS. JD's record (vZ: 164-61 (72.89%)) speaks for itself.
As for fun, how is mass hydralisk more fun than Mutaling when hydra vs hydra battles will largely revolve around concaves like in sc2?
Lastly, hydra builds are viable on all but the pro level so I fail to see what you're complaining about.
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lurkers counter mass hydralisks defensively due to slow overlord speed however we are making hydralisks be more of a core option rather than the end-all-be-all.
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On June 19 2017 12:50 kenf4444 wrote: However, slightly more grounded battles is not a bad thing.
Just so you're aware, Hydralisks do half damage to Mutalisks/Zerglings as is. Even with this, it is somewhat in the realm of viability, albeit gimmicky, to go Hydralisk ZvZ. SataNiK, Day9, and other Zerg players have done this and done it well. Day9 hit A- ICCup (old ranking system) exclusively using Hydralisks ZvZ. SataNiK beat Lowley with Hydralisks on Peaks of Baekdu in WCG. I can promise you a player can hit A on ICCup right now by only playing a Hydralisk-oriented ZvZ. Only when you encroach C and above ranks on Fish I would imagine it would become a lot harder.
Even then, it is still seen sometimes if you watch Afreeca streams. Rarely do you see pros play ZvZ on stream, and seeing a Hydralisk game on top of it is like finding a needle in a haystack, but it still happens. And they can win. I've personally witnessed Effort lose a ZvZ to Hydralisks like four or five months ago.
The whole point I'm trying to make is Hydralisks aren't as weak in the match-up as people believe, and giving them normal damage vs Muta/Ling (literally doubling their damage) will make it so you will not see any Muta/Ling... almost ever. Also I have played exclusively Hydra ZvZ since coming back to Brood War and I can attest that Hydra vs Hydra ZvZ is some of the stalest and most boring Brood War anyone can experience.
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once again this is only towards mutalisks, not zerglings as you are well aware of you are putting words in my mouth. And it isn't going to solely be hydrasV.hydras like you claim it is, hydras will simply be more of a core option. Grounded fights utilize the actual map terrain.
Viable but gimmicky is not the same as a solid core option.
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United States9652 Posts
What rank are you? Just a question.
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Rank has little to do with design decisions. Blizzard devs cannot beat Flash and David Kim is a little confused I mostly teach baduk so I know a little about design. Professors tend to whereas players can have a lot of talent and skill aka read ahead a lot of moves in a board game but may or may not necessarily understand how something is built.
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On June 19 2017 13:22 kenf4444 wrote: once again this is only towards mutalisks, not zerglings as you are well aware of you are putting words in my mouth. And it isn't going to solely be hydrasV.hydras like you claim it is, hydras will simply be more of a core option. Grounded fights utilize the actual map terrain.
Viable but gimmicky is not the same as a solid core option.
I'm not putting words in your mouth. I'm just explaining increasing the damage Hydralisks do to either or will greatly change the match-up. I'm not shitting on your idea, but I am saying that doubling the damage Hydralisks do to Mutalisks will not ground the match-up or create more composition viability. Any experienced Zerg player will agree with this.
The weakness of Hydralisk ZvZ isn't Hydralisks themselves necessarily... it is that you need a bustling strong economy to make them. They work better in large numbers, whereas you can be effective with Mutalisks and Zerglings in lower counts. And when you turtle up, invest in 3-4 spore colonies per base, as well as sunkens to defend the initial Zerglings, your opponent can abuse the fact that you just threw 7-8 drones and 600+ minerals into static defenses. They have the freedom to take a third also, whereas the Hydralisk player doesn't. Despite this, when a Hydra ZvZ player moves out with 2-3 control groups full of Hydra, it is still a difficult endeavor to stop the attack (however if you do, you more or less just win the game).
I don't know how you're theory crafting this without testing it out yourself and then getting offended when people say it won't work. Make an UMS map where Hydras do double damage vs Mutalisk (or half Muta HP and Spore Colony damage for testing purposes) and get two decent Zerg players to volunteer, one who will go Hydralisks, the other going Mutalisk/Zergling, and watch what happens. There will literally be no incentive or reason to go Mutalisks anymore.
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hmm, you have a point there so maybe we should try testing this as you put it mutalisks may never even be viable for a harass option but how do you know that for sure it might work.
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I'm pretty sure Protoss players really would not appreciate having their observers take double damage just so ZvZ can be dumb in a different way. And there's nothing in SC/BW's engine that would allow for any unit to deal increase damage to mutalisks without also dealing the same damage to scourge, observers, and interceptors.
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ZvZ is not RPS, i wished people stopped saying that.... and also stopped trying to completely change the matchup. ZvZ is fun for me, your version would destroy my fun.
PS: "research" (iirc comparing win% of non-mirror mus to mirror-mu of the "better" players, there was a big ass post about that with graphs and stuff) showed that PvP was more RPS than ZvZ
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Some players that don't want to bother with muta micro only play with hatch 12 opening into full ling spore and tri hatch hydra. I believe you can reach a decent level on a foreign perspective by just doing that. It has its limit.
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ZvZ was for many years (for me) a boring match up... then I started to play a little zvz myself and I quickly started to understand all the insane small decisions and timings that you need to have to play. Understanding lead to a real awe of people who can play it. Not it is the most interesting matchups imo.
Changing it into a more hydras-ground style would be terrible. Making changes to broodwar should not be done. I dont want more sc2, I just want Broodwar.
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On June 19 2017 16:54 abuse wrote: what is RPS ?
Rock paper scissors. Suggesting that ZvZ is a build-order win matchup where 12 Hatch > 12 Pool > 9 Pool > 12 Hatch.
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