httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ63i9BXZSs&feature=related
Anyone who's played Starcraft 2 knows that Terran is pretty overpowered at the moment, which is exactly the reason I use them. I mean, taking down a Nexus with four stimmed Maruaders? Please.
Blizzard has confirmed that its developers are studying the online StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm matches in order to detect any balance problems between the old units and the new ones and that. With three races, four modes, and infinite ways to play, StarCraft II is the ultimate real-time strategy experience. Do you have what it takes to become the galaxy's greatest commander?
In any case, Blizzard has taken the unprecedented step of releasing a new unit for the race that I believe will tip things in Terran's favor a bit more. Why? Well, once you see the Terran-Tron in action, you should understand pretty quickly. Granted it uses all your buildings, but I don't think the Xel ‘Naga themselves could stop it if they wanted to.
Update: Yes, I realize this is an April Fool's joke from a while back.
Bashiok, Blizzard's community manager, has posted on the battle.net forums, discussing a subject that's on the mind of every StarCraft 2 player: gameplay balance and patches that change it. The thread began with worries that Blizzard is keeping the game in an unbalanced form that will only be addressed by the next expansion, Heart of the Swarm, when it introduces new units and balance changes.
Our intent is not to have a game with broken balance in an attempt to sell an expansion. That should go without saying. It makes me sad it isn't.
Starcraft 2 Balance Issues 2020
Next, he clarifies Blizzard's approach to patching:
Our intent is also to not apply knee jerk fixes based on the first few weeks as understanding of the game and strategies are still in flux. The game is young, and we don't feel that it would have been helpful to progressing peoples understanding by throwing in tons of fixes based on flavor-of-the-week (or day, or hour) strats.
We see a lot of variation between the regions. Making a change for how NA players play may be completely ridiculous for how KR players play, and actually mess up a balance there. For instance 10 of their top 20 players are zerg. So that's one place where we have to be mindful and careful and attack balance issues with great prejudice.
Unlike during the beta, Blizzard can't afford to patch the game every few days orradically alter components of the game for a test run. 'Real' patches are indeed coming, but they will be heavily scrutinized first to make sure the introduced balance changes are worthy:
That said. There are balance changes coming. What everyone was seeing in beta with tons of quick balance changes are because it was in beta and we feel we can get away with throwing out a lot of ‘we think this may help' type fixes. With a live environment we're not going to throw stuff out there unless we're pretty sure. We've played. We've looked at data. We've looked at each region. And then we act. Which isn't to say we may not be wrong from time to time, but it's a more measured approach than beta players may be used to or expecting.
There you have it! Balance changes are coming, and they'll be thought out and tested before we're exposed to them. Indeed, in mid-September, Blizzard is planning on releasing the first real patch, and they've already released asituation report detailing some of the planned changes:
Patch 1.1 will contain a number of improvements including additional mod features, Editor improvements and bug fixes, some custom game improvements, support for NVIDIA's 3D Vision, and more. We'd also like to share some specific plans for this patch with you.
We have several balance changes in store. One general change we're making is that friendly units will no longer provide vision after being killed. Enemy units previously revealed will no longer be targetable. Now let's break down the additional balance changes we're implementing.
This changes the way vision works so that units that are killed immediately lose the vision they provided on the field. Previously, killed units would still supply intelligence for a few short seconds, allowing players to jump to the location of the 'under attack!' ping and see exactly what had happened.
We're going to be adding destructible rocks to the Desert Oasis map to make natural expansions easier to protect. In addition, the center map watchtower area is being narrowed.
We have two key changes in mind for the zealot: the build time is being increased from 33 to 38 seconds, and the warpgate cooldown is being increased from 23 to 28 seconds. Zealot rushes are currently too powerful at various skill levels, particularly those that rely on rapidly assaulting an enemy base from nearby 'proxy' gateways. We feel the window players have to scout for and fend off this rush is too small. We also want to address the problem of protoss being able to dump minerals a bit too quickly with the combination of warpgates and Chrono Boost.
While this gives victims of proxy gateway rushes a little more breathing room, it also puts Protoss players in danger of getting Zerglings going past their choke point just slightly before the first bouncer Zealot comes out.
The late-game effect that slightly hinders the Protoss' ability to mass up Zealots quickly is also no doubt a reaction to the following Siege Tank change:
There are several changes in the works for terrans. Reapers against zerg are stronger than expected. Due to the zealot build time increase, reapers would be a bit problematic in combination with proxy barracks, bunkers, and/or marauders against protoss. Therefore, we have decided toincrease the build time of reapers as well from 40 to 45 seconds.Fast reaper + bunker, or fast marine + bunker rushes are problematic against zerg. Although this rush would never outright destroy the zerg player, we feel zerg suffers too much of a disadvantage from either having to cancel the fast expansion, or getting trapped inside the main base for too long, so we are also increasing the bunker build time from 30 to 35 seconds.
Siege tanks in large numbers are performing too well in all matchups. In the mid- to late-game, siege tanks are too dominant against all ground units. We want a small set of light and unarmored ground units to perform better against siege tanks. With this in mind, we're changing the Siege Mode damage of the siege tank from 50 to 35, +15 vs. armored; to correspond with this, damage upgrades will be changed from +5 to +3, +2 vs. armored. This change reduces the base damage of the siege tank against light and unarmored units, as well as the splash damage.
Siege Tanks will now perform more like their StarCraft 1 Predecessors, dealing less damage to light-armored units like the Zealot, Marine, Zergling, and Hydralisk. A huge change for this unit that the Terran race has come to rely on, Tanks in siege mode will now be significantly less deadly to these units. Hydralisks will need 3 shots instead of 2 to be killed; carapace-upgraded Zerlings will survive the first shot, non-stimmed Marines will as well. Zealots, already capable of taking some tank fire while charging in to the battle, will be able to take one extra hit as well and survive 5 direct shots. This is not the first nerf to the Siege Tank, which has already had its damage lowered from 60 to 50 during the beta.
Siege Tanks will now benefit greatly from the +1 damage upgrade, allowing them to one shot Zerglings regardless of upgrades. A +2 attack Siege Tank will two-shot Hydralisks again, even if the Hydralisk is +2 carapace upgraded itself.
Battlecruisers currently lack good counters from the ground and still perform very well against a wide array of unit types. We're aware that it is not easy to get battlecruisers out for the cost, but at the same time, it is possible in both 1v1s and team games to create stalemate situations to bring them out. Overall, we feel that battlecruisers are too strong for their cost, and the terran-forced stalemate situations are causing less interesting gameplay. We will be lowering their damage against ground units from 10 to 8.
Ultralisk damage is being decreased from 15, +25 vs. armored to 15, +20 vs. armored. This reduction is comparable to the changes being made to the battlecruiser and siege tank. Like the battlecruiser, ultralisks are simply too powerful for the cost, even though they are difficult to muster. Also, in combination with other units, ultralisks are difficult to counter from the ground. The ultralisk building attack (Ram) is being removed because the damage rate is too similar to its normal attack, which will be used against buildings instead. When ultralisks target tightly packed smaller buildings such as supply depots, the Ram attack is actually outputting considerably less overall damage than its normal attack, as Ram only hits a single target.
The Ultralisk, which was highly underused during the beta, has finally been seeing use since the release of the game thanks to the final patches of the beta that haveimproved the unit's damage, speed, and have given it a permanent 'frenzy' effect along with the ability to break down Sentry Force-Fields. This is has made it quite devastating in some situation, so the current damage reduction definitely makes sense. On the other hand, Ultralisks will now be better than ever for breaking down tight chokes, as their AoE melee attack will be used against buildings as well.
Starcraft 2 Balance Issues Reviews
Bashiok, Blizzard's community manager, has posted on the battle.net forums, discussing a subject that's on the mind of every StarCraft 2 player: gameplay balance and patches that change it. The thread began with worries that Blizzard is keeping the game in an unbalanced form that will only be addressed by the next expansion, Heart of the Swarm, when it introduces new units and balance changes.
Our intent is not to have a game with broken balance in an attempt to sell an expansion. That should go without saying. It makes me sad it isn't.
Starcraft 2 Balance Issues 2020
Next, he clarifies Blizzard's approach to patching:
Our intent is also to not apply knee jerk fixes based on the first few weeks as understanding of the game and strategies are still in flux. The game is young, and we don't feel that it would have been helpful to progressing peoples understanding by throwing in tons of fixes based on flavor-of-the-week (or day, or hour) strats.
We see a lot of variation between the regions. Making a change for how NA players play may be completely ridiculous for how KR players play, and actually mess up a balance there. For instance 10 of their top 20 players are zerg. So that's one place where we have to be mindful and careful and attack balance issues with great prejudice.
Unlike during the beta, Blizzard can't afford to patch the game every few days orradically alter components of the game for a test run. 'Real' patches are indeed coming, but they will be heavily scrutinized first to make sure the introduced balance changes are worthy:
That said. There are balance changes coming. What everyone was seeing in beta with tons of quick balance changes are because it was in beta and we feel we can get away with throwing out a lot of ‘we think this may help' type fixes. With a live environment we're not going to throw stuff out there unless we're pretty sure. We've played. We've looked at data. We've looked at each region. And then we act. Which isn't to say we may not be wrong from time to time, but it's a more measured approach than beta players may be used to or expecting.
There you have it! Balance changes are coming, and they'll be thought out and tested before we're exposed to them. Indeed, in mid-September, Blizzard is planning on releasing the first real patch, and they've already released asituation report detailing some of the planned changes:
Patch 1.1 will contain a number of improvements including additional mod features, Editor improvements and bug fixes, some custom game improvements, support for NVIDIA's 3D Vision, and more. We'd also like to share some specific plans for this patch with you.
We have several balance changes in store. One general change we're making is that friendly units will no longer provide vision after being killed. Enemy units previously revealed will no longer be targetable. Now let's break down the additional balance changes we're implementing.
This changes the way vision works so that units that are killed immediately lose the vision they provided on the field. Previously, killed units would still supply intelligence for a few short seconds, allowing players to jump to the location of the 'under attack!' ping and see exactly what had happened.
We're going to be adding destructible rocks to the Desert Oasis map to make natural expansions easier to protect. In addition, the center map watchtower area is being narrowed.
We have two key changes in mind for the zealot: the build time is being increased from 33 to 38 seconds, and the warpgate cooldown is being increased from 23 to 28 seconds. Zealot rushes are currently too powerful at various skill levels, particularly those that rely on rapidly assaulting an enemy base from nearby 'proxy' gateways. We feel the window players have to scout for and fend off this rush is too small. We also want to address the problem of protoss being able to dump minerals a bit too quickly with the combination of warpgates and Chrono Boost.
While this gives victims of proxy gateway rushes a little more breathing room, it also puts Protoss players in danger of getting Zerglings going past their choke point just slightly before the first bouncer Zealot comes out.
The late-game effect that slightly hinders the Protoss' ability to mass up Zealots quickly is also no doubt a reaction to the following Siege Tank change:
There are several changes in the works for terrans. Reapers against zerg are stronger than expected. Due to the zealot build time increase, reapers would be a bit problematic in combination with proxy barracks, bunkers, and/or marauders against protoss. Therefore, we have decided toincrease the build time of reapers as well from 40 to 45 seconds.Fast reaper + bunker, or fast marine + bunker rushes are problematic against zerg. Although this rush would never outright destroy the zerg player, we feel zerg suffers too much of a disadvantage from either having to cancel the fast expansion, or getting trapped inside the main base for too long, so we are also increasing the bunker build time from 30 to 35 seconds.
Siege tanks in large numbers are performing too well in all matchups. In the mid- to late-game, siege tanks are too dominant against all ground units. We want a small set of light and unarmored ground units to perform better against siege tanks. With this in mind, we're changing the Siege Mode damage of the siege tank from 50 to 35, +15 vs. armored; to correspond with this, damage upgrades will be changed from +5 to +3, +2 vs. armored. This change reduces the base damage of the siege tank against light and unarmored units, as well as the splash damage.
Siege Tanks will now perform more like their StarCraft 1 Predecessors, dealing less damage to light-armored units like the Zealot, Marine, Zergling, and Hydralisk. A huge change for this unit that the Terran race has come to rely on, Tanks in siege mode will now be significantly less deadly to these units. Hydralisks will need 3 shots instead of 2 to be killed; carapace-upgraded Zerlings will survive the first shot, non-stimmed Marines will as well. Zealots, already capable of taking some tank fire while charging in to the battle, will be able to take one extra hit as well and survive 5 direct shots. This is not the first nerf to the Siege Tank, which has already had its damage lowered from 60 to 50 during the beta.
Siege Tanks will now benefit greatly from the +1 damage upgrade, allowing them to one shot Zerglings regardless of upgrades. A +2 attack Siege Tank will two-shot Hydralisks again, even if the Hydralisk is +2 carapace upgraded itself.
Battlecruisers currently lack good counters from the ground and still perform very well against a wide array of unit types. We're aware that it is not easy to get battlecruisers out for the cost, but at the same time, it is possible in both 1v1s and team games to create stalemate situations to bring them out. Overall, we feel that battlecruisers are too strong for their cost, and the terran-forced stalemate situations are causing less interesting gameplay. We will be lowering their damage against ground units from 10 to 8.
Ultralisk damage is being decreased from 15, +25 vs. armored to 15, +20 vs. armored. This reduction is comparable to the changes being made to the battlecruiser and siege tank. Like the battlecruiser, ultralisks are simply too powerful for the cost, even though they are difficult to muster. Also, in combination with other units, ultralisks are difficult to counter from the ground. The ultralisk building attack (Ram) is being removed because the damage rate is too similar to its normal attack, which will be used against buildings instead. When ultralisks target tightly packed smaller buildings such as supply depots, the Ram attack is actually outputting considerably less overall damage than its normal attack, as Ram only hits a single target.
The Ultralisk, which was highly underused during the beta, has finally been seeing use since the release of the game thanks to the final patches of the beta that haveimproved the unit's damage, speed, and have given it a permanent 'frenzy' effect along with the ability to break down Sentry Force-Fields. This is has made it quite devastating in some situation, so the current damage reduction definitely makes sense. On the other hand, Ultralisks will now be better than ever for breaking down tight chokes, as their AoE melee attack will be used against buildings as well.
Starcraft 2 Balance Issues Reviews
Interesting changes all around, and these are only some of the promised ones to come in the next patch!
In a hilarious and predictable turn of events, that will perhaps prevent Blizzard from releasing these situation reports prematurely in the future, players who had read the report and have noted that Zealot proxy rushes and Siege Tanks are overpowered are abusing those to the max while they still can. Be warned!
