I have been playing Starcraft since 1998. To say the least this latest update is one of the worst updates to the game ever. I suggest reverting to the previous batch right away, gather some feedback from the community and giving another chance to the changes needed, by other methods than slowing the game that much. I play only Terran, and the game is so slow now that I can no longer enjoy it. Starcraft II is fast paced and versatile and I am sure there are other changes that the team can come up with other than this starting with less workers solution.
This surprises me on a level that I don’t think I’ve ever experienced. I’ve played since Vanilla StarCraft and to somehow suggest that high economy is good for the game is beyond me.
Advice: Play the game for 3-4 months and revisit your standard “ I don’t like change “ mentality.
I understand your surprise. But the timing of this update, coupled with the fact that Microsoft owns the game now, makes me suspicious that this update would have gone through if Blizzard is as competent as it has always been in the past. I would say the overwhelming response is rebuking this update.
I am all in for change, but not regressive changes into things that have been proven in the past to be useless. The number was changed from 6 to 12 in 2015, and the length of time it has remained stationary is a testament to its wisdom.
I am interested to see more data coming out from this number. We will wait and see I guess? Time will prove if players are actually enjoying this new start. For me, it is too slow to be interesting now.
The suggestion that you’d have to come up with new strategies isn’t a particularly good appeal.
Eight worker start arguably limits the number of possible strategies, and would also be worse for Terran than any other race. Arguably its best for Zerg unless you severely cripple them at game start.
And you would know that this isn’t true if you had enough games under your belt.
The issue is, you have LoTV eco in your mind, and what you’re trying to do is play the game like it’s LOTV. You can’t do that, it’s a completely different game that you have to learn.
Build diversity is actually insane right now with how many opens you can viably get away with, but because you’re playing low eco like it’s LOTV you likely will never get to experience it.
Once the distruption made by changing the meta settles down, you will no longer find it as diverse as it is now. It is the fun of playing a different game, but once the meta stabilizes, my guess it will not be as diverse as it was before. Overall - It is not as fun as it was, at least for me.
The “community” thought it was best to let the pros dictate how the game should have been balanced after Blizz cancelled any more support. Look at how big of a disaster that turned out to be…
Then the community voted it was best if guys like PiG, Winter, harstem, lowko, and other big name streamers could balance the game better than everyone else, based on nothing more than popularity.
And this patch was the result.
Bottom line: no one in the community knows what the hell they’re talking about when it comes to balance.
The strongest case is PiG. Before 5.0.16, he publicly promoted a broad redesign direction for SC2, including a major emphasis on reviving the early game, and community discussion around his proposal explicitly described his vision as wanting “more early game activity.”
Did you not see his 1 hour video from last year literally discussing this??
The actual 5.0.16 design goal is STRIKINGLY similar: Blizzard says it wanted to extend the early and mid-game, keep players competitive on one to three bases longer, and increase strategic variety; the patch then implemented the enormous 12-to-8 starting-worker change.
So I don’t care what you say. You can NOT convince me that PiG’s redesign philosophy did not in some way coax the latest patch updates. His public advocacy alone by him and his blind followers were all very coincidentally aligned with it.
A youtube video w/ 16k views is hardly an argument to make if you understand that environment at all. I sincerely doubt anyone who makes decisions about the game even saw that video. It might be strikingly similar, only because dropping the worker count down will do exactly that, feel strikingly similar.
Point me somewhere that would suggest that, because no matter how much I scour the web, there’s nothing but gossip and anecdotal evidence that would suggest that.
I’m not even going to entertain this conversation. A video w/ 16K views in no way shape or form would influence the balance team. Perhaps a UThermal or Lowko video would impact that.