I’d agree with some kind of compensation if not for two things:
Besides, he’s still got lots going for him. Even his mass cannon still works.
Ahaahahaha. No, really, no.
@GhostWhoWalk Thank you for taking your time to write the response.
Is this competitive? No. …
I agree with you that SC2 Co-op isn’t competitive like Hearthstone. But it is also because Hearthstone is a competitive game, in many instances, nerfs are actually welcome and more unavoidable. And those who dislike it are at least compensated for the dust value. I think that is healthy for the game and the community.
One could ask that if it is not competitive, why nerf in the first place? In a way, a nerf in a game like SC2 Co-op isn’t as necessary as that in a primarily competitive game like Hearthstone. So, simply saying that SC2 Co-op isn’t competitive like Hearthstone isn’t a good argument against giving the players some kind of compensation.
So please stop moaning and groaning about how unfair his nerfs were. He’s fine. Everything is fine.
I hear your frustration about complainers, and I really hope that I am able correctly write my post so that readers understand that I’m not here to moan and groan about the nerf, but I am here to propose a way to make people complain less about the nerf.
I’m not the best writer 
I swear, I’ve never seen people get so upset over something they spent FIVE DOLLARS on.
Yeah, people get upset over even things they spent no money on. It’s not just the amount of the money that matters, but also how people feel that they were treated. If a restaurant incorrectly charges me extra few dollars, I would be bothered and ask them about it.
I actually agree with that, I never personally found any of the parts of Zeratul or Mengsk they nerfed was all that bad. But there was just so much complaining before the nerf about him that I feel that pushed the devs to doing it. There was more complaining before than there is now.
But I personally just don’t feel that the core of the two has been hit that hard. Though to be fair, I never really used the Cannons all that much, so I’m sure I’m a bit biased there.
I just want to say though, I appreciate that you’re actually making good faith arguments rather than just attacking everyone that disagrees with you. Too much of that going on since the nerf on these forums.
Why don’t you want to play Zeratul anymore?
I used Zeratul as an example, but if there is an option for me to explore a commander I do not own, I would be happy to exchange a nerfed commander for a new commander. Having that option, I believe, would make both parties happy: People who didn’t like the nerf can try a new commander and people who are satisfied with the nerf can keep the same commander.
Simple answer? Escalation. Suppose the dev team never nerfed any of the commanders, even when they release one that’s more powerful than they had planned, and instead continuously buffed the other commanders until they were on the level of whichever one was strongest. What happens then? The difficulty of the missions drops down to the point where people get bored because they’re so easy. So, naturally, they have to buff the AI units as a result. This cycle repeats every time a new commander is released, or even when one if buffed and they overdo it, until every commander is spitting out full economies and free supply right from the start of a mission, the first attack wave arrives at minute 1 with Hybrids and basic Marines and Zealots have triple-digit health and damage. At some point, the dev team has to draw a line and says “this is the limit of how strong players should be, this is the limit of how strong the AI can be” and get the strength of both as close to those lines as possible through both buffs and nerfs, to ensure that every co-op match offers the opportunity to both make the players feel powerful and offer them a reasonable challenge. Zeratul, Tychus and Mengsk were over that line, so the devs reeled them back a bit to try and bring them more on par with the other commanders.
And that’s certainly a noble sentiment, but this is like getting kids to eat their vegetables: they don’t understand that it’s good for them in the long run, all they care about is that it feels bad for the short term, so they are going to complain until their faces turn blue. Sure, the devs could compensate players every time they nerf something, but that’s like bribing those kids with candy so they’ll eat their greens, it makes them happy for the moment but it sets a bad precedent and they don’t learn what they needed to understand in the first place. Better to just give it to them straight and talk them down as best you can, at least then it has a chance to sink in. Eventually.
There was more complaining before than there is now.
This, I did not know, and I am happy about it.
But I personally just don’t feel that the core of the two has been hit that hard. Though to be fair, I never really used the Cannons all that much, so I’m sure I’m a bit biased there.
In my experience, using the cannon was such a unique play-style that no other commander provided, it had become an identifying feature and core of Zeratul for me.
I played Zeratul post-nerf, and his army comp is still solid, so yeah, one would not feel the difference much if one hadn’t played cannons pre-nerf.
I just want to say though, I appreciate that you’re actually making good faith arguments rather than just attacking everyone that disagrees with you. Too much of that going on since the nerf on these forums.
Thank you very much for this. Same to you!
Simple answer? Escalation.
I agree that balancing is healthy for the game and is necessary. However…
but this is like getting kids to eat their vegetables
I don’t think we should consider the players “kids” and the Devs “parents”. Players are consumers and Devs are producers, and they should be standing at the equal footing.
We can argue for the opposite as well, and let’s back up for a minute. The nerf would not have happened in the first place, if Devs tested and balanced the commanders before they released them.
As consumers, we should not allow Devs to push out OP commanders to lure players to purchase them, only to be followed by nerfs. The commanders (ideally) should be well balanced before they are released. And if consumers do nothing about it (borrowing your words):
it makes them happy for the moment but it sets a bad precedent and they don’t learn what they needed to understand in the first place
If we keep allow them to nerf the commanders without a cost, this cycle will continue, and you’ll have to deal with the complainers again!
Devs need to be conservative when they add new commanders, and they should try their best to balance without nerfs (buffs only) - start them on the slightly weaker side, and then slowly make them stronger.
That’s why requiring compensation for the nerf will be healthier for the game in the long run.
Mengsk was never overtuned. He is one of the hardest commanders to play well and struggles against many mutators. I can agree the imperial mandate generation was too high, but he should gotten some buff to compensate. As he stands now, Mengsk is mid-tier among all the commanders. The only edge he has is bomb from long range with ESO which has several major weaknesses.
These sorts of players don’t care. They want an overtuned hyper easy, brain dead experience.
Blizz made a MASSIVE mistake when they started catering to these types of players in World of Warcraft on the basis that they were subscribed customers. Starcraft as a F2P game has no such obligation, and since Starcraft is Blizzard’s classic competitive RTS experience they never should.
These players don’t like that so they whine. Blizzard doesn’t have to listen.
There’s the problem with “what do we do with people who already own all commanders?” I’m not into hearthstone, but I assume that because there are so many cards, 90% of people haven’t shelled out all the money/time to get them all, and thus can benefit some from getting different ones.
But there’s a LOT of people who own all commanders. We just saw 2 (according to some people) large nerfs that call for compensation. What do we give to the those people? Next 2 commanders are free? What about the people hit by the aba and stukov nerfs? Do we give them 4 commanders for free? It’s going to be a long time before that compensation gets redemption.
I don’t get the logic here. If he is mid-tier now (which is ideal, to have commanders within the existing spectrum of effectiveness) and got nerfed by a large factor, he HAS to have been overturned before.
“Mid-tier → Major nerf → Mid tier” is not a thing that exists.
“High/Top-tier → Major nerf → Mid tier” is what happens/did happen.
“Hard to play, struggles with many mutators” is not new either. Alarak especially, but fenix to some degree (and arguably artanis) all require good control/macro in order to actually be effective, and don’t have particularly op mutator-neutralizing abilities. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Also, are you going to ignore the buffs he ACTUALLY GOT? Increased base mandate generation, Thor range buffs, ghost full energy drain, nuke build time halved, increased witness sight/detection range.
Mengsk was between mid and high-tier and dropped to mid-tier. The nerf was actually not big overall, it just hurt early game. In the late game you can still get endless Mandate to spam top bars with. The problem right now is actually getting to late game. The buffs he got also help late game but not early on and they are units that won’t see much play anyway. The Tanks and BC units are simply better in every situation. A couple of rank 3 Prides can wipe out an entire wave if hybrids almost instantly with yamato cannon.
Right? The entire reason I stopped playing Diablo 3 is because Sets got so out of hand it completely killed build creativity; why bother coming up with interesting builds and hunting for gear that enables that build when you can go with the cookie-cutter Roland’s Set build that buffs the damage of two particular skills by 13000%, as an example. No, people who have not played D3, I am not exaggerating that number.
Oh, they absolutely test and balance them before release, but never underestimate the difference between having a few people test them in a controlled environment versus a few thousand people testing them in a live environment. It is so rare that a new piece of content is released perfectly balanced (not to mention free of bugs) that it’s a god-damn miracle when it happens.
If you play Heroes of the Storm, you got to see a dozen examples of this over the past few years; a new hero released roughly every other month, in a competitive environment, and nine times out of ten, they were always at least a little overpowered. And then, like clockwork, they would get some degree of nerfs about two weeks later. I could count on one hand the number of times the reverse happened, where a hero was released underpowered and then got buffed. Why? Well, the cynical answer would be the example you gave, where the developers make them overpowered intentionally to get people to buy, then nerf once the honeymoon period was over, and that’s certainly a valid possibility.
But during an AMA some time back, one of the dev team gave a different answer; I wish I could find the exact quote, but IIRC, it was something along the lines of “we try to release characters on the stronger side because our top priority is to make sure they’re fun to play, and because we get much better data from our players. The times when we released someone and they ended up on the weaker side, many more people were unhappy because they felt short-changed, and it was much harder to get enough data to see where the hero needed fixing because fewer people were playing it. So we aim high initially and then dial it back later.”
Which is right? Hard to say. Some degree of both probably. The end result is the same: nerfs happen, even in PvE content, even in single-player PvE content, and it’s the responsibility of the players to understand that those nerfs are often justified.
Don’t go underestimating the power of his Aegis Guard, three of them (the rough vespene cost of an Augustgrad) will wipe ground waves with just an A move. Blackhammers aren’t that far off, backwards Liberators with a huge defence buff aren’t something to scoff at.
Yes, I was surprised how quickly they nerfed Mengsk.
When the first revamps were announced, I expected future commanders be balanced around that on release (no useless units to begin with for example).
The thoughts they put into revamps should have been applied during creation of new commanders.
Aegis guards are good against small numbers of tough armored units such as hybrids, whereas Tanks are better against everything else. Blackhammers’ extra armor is nice if you’re facing a low damage enemy, but that was never a problem for Mengsk. The things that kill his army is usually AoE damage or mutators which the extra armor won’t help against. You’re better off just massing Prides and Troopers.
Nah, remember that Aegis Guard have splash attached to their attacks too. They do similar damage to a siege tank with the splash, but considerably higher damage to the main target. Plus it’s a fan behind the target so they tend to hit more units than the Tanks.
Personally, I’ve found making one Augustgrad then either Aegis for ground or Tanks for air is best.
You’re absolutely right though that stuff like black death just spells the end to his Troopers though.
In my experience, Aegis guard struggled against swarms of enemies, particularly early game. Maybe the splash you’re referring to is their upgradable slow effect? If they do AoE damage too, it’s low enough that I didn’t even notice.
If you need anti-air, rocket Troopers are great and they don’t cost gas, allowing you to get Aegis guards, Tanks or Prides as needed. I have not yet found a situation where the Ghosts or Blackhammer are necessary.
Oh yea and the Sky Furies are trash not even worth mentioning, to the point I forgot they exist.
Edit: Ok I checked the wiki and you’re right that Aegis Guards do aoe damage, but it’s a measly 20% and only at rank 2. I will still prefer Tanks against large numbers of ground enemies.
Rank 2 they pick up a fan splash that’s 20% of their attack. Doesn’t sound like much but it’s pretty comparable to the Tank’s damage. Given the cost or supply difference Aegis come out ahead for splash damage, and way ahead in single target.
Really it’s a choice between air attack and short duration stun, versus health and long term slow.
Bearing in mind, an Aegis gets to rank 2 just after Augustgrad hit rank 1. They’ll hit rank 3 before Augustgrad gets to 2 as well.