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First of all this is not a balance whine but just an observation with the upcoming patch. So with the new patch protoss will now not need to transform their gates AND dont need to group them either because protoss as everybody knows have a personalized group for warpgate. With the new patch protoss will only need to build a gateway ( or a lot ) and have direct access to the warp mechanic without even grouping it. I think people really underestimate how huge of a buff it's at every level of play for the protoss macro, obviously even at high level of play where every move is optimized. Any thoughts ?
I think we need to just get rid of the personalized group of warpgate to balance this change.
Imagine if terrans for example had their barracks directly after building it in a control group like the warpgate one, that's what this patch does for protoss and their warpgates.
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Long as you remember to manualy transfrom your gates (which only bothers lower league players) you don't have to group your gates, the default warpgate hotkey is more than enough in most situations.
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Every move isn't optimized at the highest level of play. And I don't know of any pros that actually use all 10 hotkeys, but maybe I'm wrong. Even if someone did use all 10 hotkeys, at least one of them would be for improv micro (like pulling probes off the line for harass etc). They would just use that one for upgrading gates if they didn't want to keep track of it with camera hotkeys.
Thus the difference is just in the effeciency of the upgrade - in particular this would have a minor impact on the gateway explosions protoss often do around 4-5 minutes (or later, otherwise). But for the opening, it's nailed down so well that no pro is going to miss the timing on thier warpgate upgrade.
Anyway I think its a bad change because it needlessly makes the game easier, but it's not a big deal in terms of balance.
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On November 12 2018 11:42 yht9657 wrote: Long as you remember to manualy transfrom your gates (which only bothers lower league players) you don't have to group your gates, the default warpgate hotkey is more than enough in most situations.
Yes and that was balanced around it, u needed to manually transform all ur gates and it cost attention/apm when u are multitasking, now it's automatically done, dont underestimate this kind of QOL change for the balance, i think it's dangerous to change core mechanics like this.
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It's a one time action per gateway--apart from the DT blink changes I don't think there's anything less relevant to pro play in the patch.
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On November 12 2018 11:51 Crozo64 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2018 11:42 yht9657 wrote: Long as you remember to manualy transfrom your gates (which only bothers lower league players) you don't have to group your gates, the default warpgate hotkey is more than enough in most situations. Yes and that was balanced around it, u needed to manually transform all ur gates and it cost attention/apm when u are multitasking, now it's automatically done, dont underestimate this kind of QOL change for the balance, i think it's dangerous to change core mechanics like this. As I mentioned, this is a very simple move that takes very little apm or attention to do, I'm not a high-level player (4200mmr on EU) yet I don't feel this troubles me in any way and I don't group my gateways. If you compare this mechanic to Zerg's injection you will see how simple it is.
Also Protoss players add their gateways in a regular pattern, for example in one gate expansion it's usually 1-3-8 or 1-3-6-8 depending on exact build, either way they are very used to transforming their newly added gateways according to this pattern, so again this is a very simple move that doesn't really cost any substantial apm or attention.
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Still feel a bit unfair to have a free group for your warpgate compared to terran, at least before the patch u needed to transform so why not, i dont like this kind of change and hope it will be the last. Every little change like this dumb down the game in the long run.
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Every race is different.
Protoss players have to look at a Pylon to warp in units. So while fighting, they have to look away from the fight to warp in new units. Terran players can just press 4AAAAA (or whatever you use) in the middle of a battle.
Every race will have things that are specific to it. Please stop trying to make all the races the same.
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pro players forgetting to transform gates happens so rarely that it makes them laughingstocks when it does happen, which means this change is 100% for nonprofessional players. even in low or mid leagues it's a pretty odd and uncommon thing to happen.
the relevant fact here is that casual players get annoyed and disinterested by fiddly issues like one warp gate not being switched, and this change is designed to make the game's UI less hostile to the player, which is correct and has been correct ever since we started dismantling and fixing brood war's disastrous and unfun interface
in the unlikely event that protoss somehow suddenly becomes imbalanced because of automatic warp gates you can simply nerf a core unit or make a statistical value-based balance change to weaken the race. struggling to make your assets functional is not 2018 gaming, and anyone who likes it is free to play BW
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On November 12 2018 14:18 DinoMight wrote: Every race is different.
Protoss players have to look at a Pylon to warp in units. So while fighting, they have to look away from the fight to warp in new units. Terran players can just press 4AAAAA (or whatever you use) in the middle of a battle.
Every race will have things that are specific to it. Please stop trying to make all the races the same.
Protoss dont need separate control groups for armies. Lets remove unit control groups for Protoss, they can use F2 instead. Every race is different
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I love how people are justifying this with 'Not everything has to be about the pro scene', but when you say how insuferable terran matchups are they're like 'Just play like Maru lul'.
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Austria24413 Posts
On November 12 2018 14:35 brickrd wrote: pro players forgetting to transform gates happens so rarely that it makes them laughingstocks when it does happen, which means this change is 100% for nonprofessional players. even in low or mid leagues it's a pretty odd and uncommon thing to happen.
the relevant fact here is that casual players get annoyed and disinterested by fiddly issues like one warp gate not being switched, and this change is designed to make the game's UI less hostile to the player, which is correct and has been correct ever since we started dismantling and fixing brood war's disastrous and unfun interface
in the unlikely event that protoss somehow suddenly becomes imbalanced because of automatic warp gates you can simply nerf a core unit or make a statistical value-based balance change to weaken the race. struggling to make your assets functional is not 2018 gaming, and anyone who likes it is free to play BW
This is usually true but from watching the very best Protoss stream I can tell that it does happen to them in certain situations. When there's a lot going on, especially when they're being attacked, I see a lot of them not transform 1-2 gates by accident and it does quite heavily impact the outcome of fights. I've seen it with Stats and Zest on stream, for example.
So while it isn't a buff to Protoss macro in general, it will certainly help in pressure situations when your full focus is required somewhere else.
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It is something less to do, so it is surely helping anyone from bronze to pro.
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Czech Republic12116 Posts
On November 12 2018 11:51 Crozo64 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2018 11:42 yht9657 wrote: Long as you remember to manualy transfrom your gates (which only bothers lower league players) you don't have to group your gates, the default warpgate hotkey is more than enough in most situations. Yes and that was balanced around it, u needed to manually transform all ur gates and it cost attention/apm when u are multitasking, now it's automatically done, dont underestimate this kind of QOL change for the balance, i think it's dangerous to change core mechanics like this. The question is whether the balance should be based on the top level or the bottom. Because I've never met a player who would have this issue. If there's an issue with warp gates than it's forgetting(or ignoring) it completely. But most P players on my level never had the issue of forgetting the warpgate. It's an issue on the lower level and it's an issue if you, by an accident, start creating a unit instead of transforming(which can happen, general Swarmhost says it all )
In my eyes - top level - we can safely ignore this. When's the last time we saw anyone forgetting to transform? When's the last time we saw anyone forget the upgrade completely? So we're talking about a split second view from the army(or generally the focus screen) to transform the gates. Sorry, but I don't see how this affects the top level. - bottom level - while this helps such players, I dare to say that forgetting the upgrade on CC is more frequent. But as I don't have any data it's my own estimation based on my own experience But the more important thing is - do we really want to balance this change based on the low level? Does it really affects the game this much? I say - no.
Edit> By saying it's not an issue on my level I mean, that if it's not an issue for my level it can't be an issue for the top level either. I am, by no means, on the top level or nowhere near
On November 12 2018 16:37 Olli wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2018 14:35 brickrd wrote: pro players forgetting to transform gates happens so rarely that it makes them laughingstocks when it does happen, which means this change is 100% for nonprofessional players. even in low or mid leagues it's a pretty odd and uncommon thing to happen.
the relevant fact here is that casual players get annoyed and disinterested by fiddly issues like one warp gate not being switched, and this change is designed to make the game's UI less hostile to the player, which is correct and has been correct ever since we started dismantling and fixing brood war's disastrous and unfun interface
in the unlikely event that protoss somehow suddenly becomes imbalanced because of automatic warp gates you can simply nerf a core unit or make a statistical value-based balance change to weaken the race. struggling to make your assets functional is not 2018 gaming, and anyone who likes it is free to play BW This is usually true but from watching the very best Protoss stream I can tell that it does happen to them in certain situations. When there's a lot going on, especially when they're being attacked, I see a lot of them not transform 1-2 gates by accident and it does quite heavily impact the outcome of fights. I've seen it with Stats and Zest on stream, for example. So while it isn't a buff to Protoss macro in general, it will certainly help in pressure situations when your full focus is required somewhere else. On streams - sure. In tournaments? I can't happen to remember a single instance of this.
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Do players actually use the default warpgate key? I just group them like usual because I'm used to having my production on other keys.
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Austria24413 Posts
On November 12 2018 19:17 Charoisaur wrote: Do players actually use the default warpgate key? I just group them like usual because I'm used to having my production on other keys.
Usually people bind them to a regular hotkey because it allows them to transform gates without looking at their base.
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On November 12 2018 14:35 brickrd wrote: in the unlikely event that protoss somehow suddenly becomes imbalanced because of automatic warp gates you can simply nerf a core unit or make a statistical value-based balance change to weaken the race. struggling to make your assets functional is not 2018 gaming, and anyone who likes it is free to play BW
This seems like a terrible suggestion that would heavily effect the game balance. Units being underpowered to counter your race having easier macro. Its like giving zerg automatic injects and nerfing zerglings to counter it to make a "balance".
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to be honest, i never understood why protoss had a separate automatic control group for gateways anyways.
Can someone explain me how that even makes any sense ?
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On November 12 2018 21:08 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: to be honest, i never understood why protoss had a separate automatic control group for gateways anyways.
Can someone explain me how that even makes any sense ?
It's for lower league players. Just like this change. Anyone remotely competitive would have no problems with this anyway. They could do it for T and Z and I would just unbind it because it does not make any difference beyond gold level.
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On November 12 2018 21:08 Siegetank_Dieter1 wrote: to be honest, i never understood why protoss had a separate automatic control group for gateways anyways.
Can someone explain me how that even makes any sense ?
Well, if you are not using control groups, you can produce units as Z/T by looking at your production buildings, clicking them and then building stuff. Same applies to Stargate and Robotics. Warpgates, however, are the only production facilities that do produce units somewhere else than their own location and thus require you to look at two different places (the gate and the place you want to warp in) when trying to produce without control groups, so I assume the warpgate hotkey was added to make this easier for casual players not using control group binding.
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On November 12 2018 16:13 ihatevideogames wrote: I love how people are justifying this with 'Not everything has to be about the pro scene', but when you say how insuferable terran matchups are they're like 'Just play like Maru lul'. you're creating a false equivalency between things people have posted here and unrelated things you've seen other people say elsewhere. if a similar "quality of life" change with minimal balance impact were made available to terran i would favor that as well because it's good design philosophy. not every single comment is about people shitting on your race or defending their race, you come off as paranoid if you think so.
On November 12 2018 16:37 Olli wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2018 14:35 brickrd wrote: pro players forgetting to transform gates happens so rarely that it makes them laughingstocks when it does happen, which means this change is 100% for nonprofessional players. even in low or mid leagues it's a pretty odd and uncommon thing to happen.
the relevant fact here is that casual players get annoyed and disinterested by fiddly issues like one warp gate not being switched, and this change is designed to make the game's UI less hostile to the player, which is correct and has been correct ever since we started dismantling and fixing brood war's disastrous and unfun interface
in the unlikely event that protoss somehow suddenly becomes imbalanced because of automatic warp gates you can simply nerf a core unit or make a statistical value-based balance change to weaken the race. struggling to make your assets functional is not 2018 gaming, and anyone who likes it is free to play BW This is usually true but from watching the very best Protoss stream I can tell that it does happen to them in certain situations. When there's a lot going on, especially when they're being attacked, I see a lot of them not transform 1-2 gates by accident and it does quite heavily impact the outcome of fights. I've seen it with Stats and Zest on stream, for example. So while it isn't a buff to Protoss macro in general, it will certainly help in pressure situations when your full focus is required somewhere else. i'm not arguing that at any level it would have zero impact, just that the benefit to enjoyment of the game outweighs any minute balance impact it could have. also, like i said, if the balance impact were greater than i assume, you can then tweak other parts of the game rather than rolling back sensible, constructive changes. too much hyperfixation on matchup balance sometimes! if the game can be made better for the player it always should. rock paper scissors is perfectly balanced, but not many people are playing and watching thousands of games of RPS.
On November 12 2018 19:42 Ronski wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2018 14:35 brickrd wrote: in the unlikely event that protoss somehow suddenly becomes imbalanced because of automatic warp gates you can simply nerf a core unit or make a statistical value-based balance change to weaken the race. struggling to make your assets functional is not 2018 gaming, and anyone who likes it is free to play BW This seems like a terrible suggestion that would heavily effect the game balance. Units being underpowered to counter your race having easier macro. Its like giving zerg automatic injects and nerfing zerglings to counter it to make a "balance". making balance changes would affect the game balance? you don't say?
seriously though, your comment makes zero sense and i don't think you read what i said carefully. all i did was point out that balance can be approached in many ways and that a problem posed by A can be solved not only by altering A but by altering B, C or D instead. being paralyzed with fear that UI improvements will unbalance the game is a stupid way to dev.
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8716 Posts
This affects pros. It hardly matters for the first few gateways but there are many builds when gateways 5-10 must be transformed to warpgates at a hectic time. Removing this responsibility will enable players to focus on other matters. The gateways transforming automatically will also typically yield faster initial warp-ins, since even pros are often not transforming them immediately, and that timing has a huge impact on mid-game defense and offense.
But I don't think it's something that needs immediate counterbalancing. Sometimes changes like this go in and they just become part of the game. The devs aren't unaware that a change like this could turn a few protoss losses into wins. But if it's a good gameplay change, then it's staying, and if protoss wins too much, then another good gameplay change will be found that reduces protoss win rates.
Neither should it prompt some attempt to homogenize the races as some people suggest (remove warpgate shortcut), since StarCraft is healthiest when the races are as different as possible.
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TIL there is a default warp gate hotkey.
I didnt know until I had stopped playing SC2 that there is select all army and select idle workers hotkeys. And Im ex-high master protoss lol
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