StarCraft 2

Glad to see Terran getting nerfed since they were so well represented in IEM

(There were just not good Terrans the Toss/Zerg lineup trumped them so badly skill wise)

Doesn't current GSL only have 1 terran in the Ro8 as well. Once again Terran dominates early, other races start to figure out how to play against it, but instead Blizzard nerfs it and thus terran suffers.

To be fair I haven't played or created a map in months, nor do I really have much motivation to although word on skype is TLMC #3 is coming up soon, although I probably won't create anything new and just submit some map I made years ago. I haven't been watching it as much either. I've watched the GSTL every once awhile when it's on early as well as i check out a couple of the recent IEM games, but I don't even think I watched a full series. :\
edit.

Guess it was 2 terrans in Ro8. But still, no terran in the finals?!?! lol.

Taeja lost before ro8, summer is officially over.

The Q&A Blizzard did on TL for WCS 2014 is so much fluff, I'm kind of disappointed they don't give China their own region, that would bring some fresh blood into international competition. Gom isn't 100% dependant on SC2 anymore, so where the korean scene will go, I have no idea, seems like nothing will happen for a while, otherwise so many people wouldn't quit. It reminds of the community hangover at the end of WoL, but this time LotV isn't even announced and there are no huge tournaments to keep the naysayers shut.

They need to take drastic measures to make SC2 a better eSports game in LOTV. Current eSport enthusiests want more. They want to watch the professional games in client. They want the ability to dis-connect/re-connect to a game. They want a better in-game viewership experience. SC2 lacks all of this. If you are simply a fan of watching SC2 you literally have zero reason to even own the client. If you ask me they need to make it so your main base still has 8 patches but make every other expansion only 6 w/ 1 gas. Re-work almost every unit so all-ins aren't too powerful against FE with this set up and tweak costs. Consider removing MSC from the game since it makes early game PvX completely boring to watch. Add in more "cool" stuff -- such as in the patch where Roaches move at light speed while burrowed. The engine and the game are still amazing but it is getting really, really old watching this game where almost every game is 3 base 200 vs 200.

Tenks_sl said:

They need to take drastic measures to make SC2 a better eSports game in LOTV. Current eSport enthusiests want more. They want to watch the professional games in client. They want the ability to dis-connect/re-connect to a game. They want a better in-game viewership experience. SC2 lacks all of this. If you are simply a fan of watching SC2 you literally have zero reason to even own the client. If you ask me they need to make it so your main base still has 8 patches but make every other expansion only 6 w/ 1 gas. Re-work almost every unit so all-ins aren't too powerful against FE with this set up and tweak costs. Consider removing MSC from the game since it makes early game PvX completely boring to watch. Add in more "cool" stuff -- such as in the patch where Roaches move at light speed while burrowed. The engine and the game are still amazing but it is getting really, really old watching this game where almost every game is 3 base 200 vs 200.

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None of this shit will happen with Dustin Browder and David Kim at the helm. The mechanics and features of StarCraft 2 are already too established in their minds, they won't change the game for the better. All they will do is rework a couple units they feel are underused, underpowerd, or uninteresting. Then they might add a couple more units. They will never make sweeping changes like 6m1g. They won't balance the game around it either.

Defender's advantage while strong in some regards really is nothing compared to Brood War. If they could rework the resource management game and force you to take more bases while increasing the defender's advantage then maybe it wouldn't be so easy to turtle and max out. You'd actually have to take like 4-5 bases at once, fully saturate them, and one big fight wouldn't be a high chance to end a game. In Brood War you have lots of units like Siege Tanks, Lurkers, Defilers, Reavers, and Templar which when positioned correctly, particularly when on defense, are capable of holding off innumerable odds. You also have high ground advantage and units that don't behave so well that you can just rush up a ramp and camp production structures.

As far as current balance goes, Mothership Core and Widow Mines should lose anti-air attacks, imo. The point of HotS was to increase the strength of harassment (which is air based 9/10 times), while these units are so effective at not only shutting it down, but make it a huge risk to even attempt. Mothership Core was put into help Protoss against certain all-ins like 2 rax proxy, etc and also making FE in PvP viable. Instead they made it way too easy to turtle and defend harassment. They should have made defending attacks in those situations possible, but not so overkill when it comes to shutting down harass. I think buffing the Infestor or reworking the Viper a bit would also be beneficial, since ZvT is all about breaking Terran's back with Muta/Ling/Bane before Terran can get a Planetary 4th base and 3/3 upgrades. Zerg needs units other than Muta/Ling/Bane to transition into Tier 3 safely, imo. The state of PvT is completely attrocious. Possible mech openings/transitions being viable to deal with late game Protoss might be nice. Tempest based armies are great against Mech, though, if you can get it up and running.

Now we are in the phase "let's redesign the whole game" again ? Personally I think the game is better than ever, it's just that it became too predictable in the process. Or I simply had to get bored after watching most of the big tournaments for 3 years straight. You still have the sudden death syndrome in TvZ, Protoss seem to be much more stable now. If there is one thing that could use tweaking, it's the 200/200 supply limit. There's pretty low cap on how much you want to power eco because once you are maxed out, it matters a lot more. Most machines these days should have no problem handling 250/250 or 300/300

yes, the supply limit is way too low given how many workers you already need to have a solid macro game and when one reason to only have 60 instead of 80 workers is so you can have a 140 supply army that limit cuts into strategy too much.

What bugs me about what Tenks said about SC2 still esporting in the iron age is that streams are a really horrible way of reaching a broad audience. I've never, ever seen a well working HD stream, I get constant stutters video and audio basically every time. A client based observer mode would instantly fix that

Zaphid_sl said:

Now we are in the phase "let's redesign the whole game" again ? Personally I think the game is better than ever, it's just that it became too predictable in the process. Or I simply had to get bored after watching most of the big tournaments for 3 years straight. You still have the sudden death syndrome in TvZ, Protoss seem to be much more stable now. If there is one thing that could use tweaking, it's the 200/200 supply limit. There's pretty low cap on how much you want to power eco because once you are maxed out, it matters a lot more. Most machines these days should have no problem handling 250/250 or 300/300

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Simply increasing the supply limit would just stall the game further. I don't see how it would fix much of anything. Everything would still apply to the current state of the game only you'd turtle on 3 bases and get 100 more army supply to slam into another blob of units. Are you saying you don't think the game needs some drastic measure if it wants to ever live up to brood wars? You can point to a few key issues where SC2 falls short to brood wars and they are quite simple. In SC2 you are discouraged from over expand. T3 is lackluster, boring and -- in most cases -- downright useless. Carrier blimp micro and cliffing will always be more entertaining to watch than a-move Colossus and Tempest. Ravens are a poor replacement for Sci Vessels since they fulfill virtually zero niche. Ultralisk are about the same as they were in BW but in BW they were always paired with a defiler which their spell casting made them more interesting. You say the game is better than ever but that may be if you're looking at pie charts and balance graphs. Yes this game is more balanced than BW. The game is also outstandingly sterile and boring due to this religious devotion to balance graphs. Does anyone actually look forward to a PvX? I have to be honest the only PvX matchup I even sniff an amount of enjoyment from is PvP. Because it is over fast. Instead I have to watch 2 hour long stallfest in PvZ or I can watch a Terran either succeed or fail with his initial medivac drops and the game is decided then and there. It is abysmal. I thought Protoss couldn't get worse with FF but then in Blizzard's infinite wisdom they introduced Nexus cannon. You don't even see Zergs make too much use out of their new HOTS additions because they're niche and boring. Widow mines are either completely OP or completely worthless depending on how the AI decides to select a target. So no I won't agree the game is better than ever. The height of the game was just before the Zerg queen patch in WoL. The game I'm watching now is a predictable, slow and boring showing.

I've actually been tuning into some of these WCS finals games after not really watching much of any sc2 since like...i dunno a couple GSLs ago and man, it really hasn't changed much at all. Still see Biomine all day. Still see ling/muta all day. Still see 2base all-ins from toss all day. Hell, these are the first days I've actually watched games on Frost & Yeonsu. I still have yet to see a game on Polar Nights though. Yet I still see Akilon, Derelict & Whirlwind are still in the map pool for god knows what reason.

At this point I mainly just tune in if it's a player I'm rooting for. Currently it's just Maru left in WCS that I really care for. Soulkey isn't too bad to watch either.

There still isn't a protoss that I care to watch or root for. MC is fun to watch but that's just because his on-screen personality is awesome, but honestly watching PvX (basically agreeing with tenks) is boring as shit for the most part. I kind of like PvT if it goes End game because sometimes the EMP vs Feedback/Storm micro is fun, yet then you realize if T fucks up once and 1 good storm lands it's GG. Also yeah, Tempests/Collosus just aren't fun to watch.

I still don't get why Blizzard doesn't just test more random things especially since they now do those Balance Test Maps. Why not make a balance test map with each base having say 1/2 the resources to force players to expand more and not be able to get such huge armies on 1 base. Or make a test map where t3 units are fucking massive on the hp/dps. (then again toss turtle til 200/200 t3 loooool) Or give Vipers some new spell that spits creep on the group in a straight line that massively speeds up your units or farts out a cloud that gives a 50% miss rate (ehhh? haha)

It wouldn't be hard to do, people already do shit like this in custom maps all the time. I've never done anything like it but I guarantee I could figure out how to do it in a couple hours. You'd think it would be beneficial for blizzard to do that, get the thousands of games played on their balance test map, and see how it turns out.

The Nexus cannon is pure bullshit and it feels like attacking a Warcraft 3 Undead main with the citadel and zigs just sniping your units dead without the player even noticing you're there.

as for Terran, those games last night were pretty hilarious. I see a Terran not mining gas from all his bases, still sit at 2800 gas in the plus and win the game because terran high gas units besides medivacs are neither useful nor necessary.

In TvZ if the Terran is going BioMine he can support his army production off about 5 geysers. So if you take them both at your third you're going to naturally accumulate gas. That is even accounting for constant 2x Medivac, 4x Mine production. It is silly that Terran really has no options to sink gas into at the moment. They should also experiment with making tanks 2 supply. I think that would give them versatility in TvP and TvZ.

More tanks isn't going to solve that Tanks siege much too slow to get a single shot off if your opponent doesn't want you to. Just like Widow Mines, tanks need a siege speed upgrade. If your enemy is smart, he strikes at precisely that moment when you unsiege, until you get those tanks back into siege mode, your entire army is destroyed.

Quineloe_sl said:

More tanks isn't going to solve that Tanks siege much too slow to get a single shot off if your opponent doesn't want you to. Just like Widow Mines, tanks need a siege speed upgrade. If your enemy is smart, he strikes at precisely that moment when you unsiege, until you get those tanks back into siege mode, your entire army is destroyed.

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That can be solved by more tanks, so you have to unsiege only a few every time. Tanks 2 supply would be a solid change imo

The only issue with 2 supply tanks I'd see is that they'd be too powerful unsieged. In BW they were more or less useless while unsieged but in SC2 they are surprisingly good while unsieged. I'd be nervous of seeing a ton of just a-move Hellbat + Tank blobs. But I think real world testing would have to determine that.

Buff siege mode/nerf moving mode. IIRC their rapid fire has bigger dps against armored targets than siege mode...

Zaphid_sl said:

Buff siege mode/nerf moving mode. IIRC their rapid fire has bigger dps against armored targets than siege mode...

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Is that really a big deal, though? For a very expensive, 3 supply unit, the move mode is still fairly weak. Four stimmed marines have higher DPS against everything except Ultralisks.

As for mass tanks being OP, at 125 gas they are just too expensive to be massed before late game. In the late game, a large tank+hellbat army should get taken out easily by mutas or void rays. Not Banshees though, banshees are shit and take forever to mass.

Well, if you want to change everything, then we could start by making the signature terran unit of BW the signature terran unit of SC2. They also give you defender's advantage and zone control.

I'm not talking about changing everything, my original point was that Terrans don't build gas units and if you compare their gas heavy units to what other races pile their gas into, it's pretty clear.

High Templar Feedback and PSI storm are clearly superior to clumsy seeker missile. And once those HTs are out of Energy, they can be morphed for free into one of the most powerful units in the game. Seeker missile relies on your enemy showing Silver league levels of reaction time and can easily backfire if that unit manages to get into your units and ravens that are out of energy are just really slow detectors.

Zerg pile their gas either into mutas or infestors in the mid game, and given how versatile the mutalisk is now that makes perfect sense. The infestor also has a damage attack considerably stronger than the HSM, also incapable of friendly fire damage.


The siege tank was just an example we started discussing as that unit at least can be seen as having potential and does sometimes see good use. As opposed to the Banshee, a pure rush harrass unit with no value whatsoever beyond the mid game and the Raven, a floating pile of garbage that was "fixed" so often by Blizzard, it's amazing it wasn't absolutely OP at some point of its life.

THAAANK YOU DAAAY NINE

This guy makes me want to commit sudoku.

Zaphid_sl said:

Buff siege mode/nerf moving mode. IIRC their rapid fire has bigger dps against armored targets than siege mode...

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Like I said I'd like to see it in a real situation first. Iirc an unsieged tank does about the same dps as a stim marauder versus armor with the tank costing a ton more gas. So the situation may never arise unless the opponent allows it.