Hi all.
By way of introduction, I have been playing this game for almost ten years off and on. Quit late-WoL because I was sick of every game devolving into Brood Lord/Infestor. Went to team games.
Quit again in mid-HotS because I was sick of the 2 hour long Swarm Host Vs Mech games, and went to team games once again (seeing a pattern?). LotV was promised to be the revival of the game,
but we all know what happened there (F2P).
I quit again soon after LotV came out, because between the seemingly unfair all-ins, the badly-designed new economy, and the general lack of direction or design principles that the game had been showing.
I realised that this game was not for me anymore. I decided to try the game out again when the changes went live after they got rid of DK, and it wasn’t too bad (2017).
This is a long post, but a lot needs to be said about the current state of the game, and where it is heading for 2020. I never post on the forums, but I am willing to make this one post an exception.
If not for change, then at least for closure. To acknowledge and accept that perhaps this game now appeals to a different kind of audience, and that I can move on from this game, and this time, never come back.
This post is my final attempt at having my say as someone who has been playing this game for a very long time.
With the above being said, LotV’s flaws are different than its other two predecessors. Between the massive change toward how economy now works, and the way that so many units are designed simply to kill workers,
consequently made all-ins a lot more stronger. Another side effect to this is that it subsequently dropped the level of skill required to execute very potent attacks, but demanded more skill in being able to hold said potent attacks.
An example of this would be the simple three-button shift click required to siege a liberator in a mineral line, Vs the amount of attention as
(well as lost mining time) required to defend against it. Such cases may be deemed as “unfair”, but with sufficient scouting, and decent reaction time, a sieged liberator in a mineral line is not considered game-ending nor “bad design” by any means. Perhaps a little annoying, but that is about it.
It should be noted that I no longer play 1v1 games, as I simply find them too rote, and repetitive with very little variability between games for the most part, and that is not something I enjoy.
Also, it is objectively clear that the current balance team has no clue what they are doing, and are only using a combination of high-level math, and DK’s old balance/design notes from 2013 to find a 50/50/50 (all three race)
win rate across the board at the cost of player enjoyment and satisfaction, which is ironically why this game died in the first place in late 2016, before being reanimated into undeath with F2P in 2017.
I do enjoy random team games more, and I mostly play 4v4, as well as the odd 2v2 or 3v3, but mostly 4v4 due to the sheer amounts of unit combinations and permutations that are possible with each of the different races’ units. Also, I consider it a great test of skill to be able to 1vX players.
It is so fun to be able to 1v2, 1v3, and even 1v4 players (very rare) and
achieve victory, especially when that one ally you were carrying leaves the game with 6000 minerals and 3500 gas in the bank.
What I want to talk about in this forum post, is how after almost ten years, how did we get from a game that required the mental quickness, the unparalleled focus and the physical dexterity of a pianist, to one where the game favors degenerative playstyles that make it very easy for anyone to execute, but make it extremely difficult to beat unless you play almost 100% perfectly, and still lose.
Some players may find team games inferior, and that is fine as each to their own, but a lot of people still play team games, and I assure you, it requires a more creative and adaptive mindset in order to approach the very many varied situations that can quite possibly occur within each game, which adds to its skill factor.
With all this being said, there are some units that are problematic (or just down-right broken) in 1v1, leading to their design flaws being compounded in team games.
Despite leaving the game over the years, I do still love it, especially after they got rid of DK. I have absolutely no bias between any race, and just want a fun, relatively fair, and skill-oriented game again, where I can be prowd of how I lost to a better opponent, that deserved to win, and be able to learn from the loss, so that I improve for next time.
The emphasis of this post is more on the sheer amount of mass-teleport abilities that are in the game at the moment, which for a real time strategy game, completely and utterly fundamentally breaks what makes
a real time strategy game strategic.
There is no strategy in simply mass teleporting all over the map, circumventing defender’s advantage and positioning. This same thought process also applies to units that have the ability to mind control other units. It wasn’t fun or fair in Age of Empires in 1998, and it is still not now, at least not without significant investment from the player or unit involved.
I play only Zerg and am masters in 4v4 on many accounts, and carry team games more times than I would like to admit, which is a requirement to even enter masters due to the way the matchmaker finds players these days, as it is not uncommon to be matched with gold and platinum, instead of mid/high diamond and masters to create an even playing field of relatively equal skill.
After hitting a 60% win rate, the matchmaker then wants you to lose more to force a 50% win rate, so I sometimes get matched with silver and gold players, whilst my opponents are in platinum and mid/high diamond or even masters.
Anyway, without further delay, I sure do hope that the November balance patch fixes the following units to more rational levels, mostly by adding more counterplay and skill. Here are some suggestions as follows:
TERRAN:
(Being able to teleport a strong tier 3 unit anywhere, at anytime with no consequence, and no warning, creates no counterplay for the defendee, and is bad real time strategy game design fundamentally.)
- Battlecruiser TACTICAL JUMP requires 125 energy, and vision of the teleport destination on a 150 second cooldown. Requires an upgrade at the fusion core. Whilst in mid-teleport,
Battlecruisers are vulnerable to attack for 4 seconds, and attacks to the Battlecruiser ignore armor.
(REASON: Who the hell thought it was a good idea to release the current Battlecruiser in its current state?)
OR
-
Battlecruiser TACTICAL JUMP removed.
-
New ability, which is researched at the fusion core. This ability adds a sweeping area of effect laser-like ability, similar to the one used in the WoL campaign at the end of mission 3.
This ability would be effective against large clumped up areas of light units, such as marines, Hydralisks, mutalisks and interceptors. Does low-moderate damage over time. Costs 75 Energy, targets ground and air units, and damage from multiple battlecruisers using the spell at the same time in the same location does not stack. 8 second cooldown. 1 Second charge time. Lasts 5 seconds.
(REASON: Shores up the Battlecruisers’ rather unique weakness of being weak against large numbers of small light units that can attack air, and allowing a degree of skill to flow between both players.
Ground units need to split, and Battlecruisers need to time the AOE target strategically.
- Yamato Cannon Requires 100 Energy to use. No Cooldown.
(REASON: Players need to decide if they require a single-target nuke, or multi-target AOE. There is enough energy for both at 175+ energy, but in most cases it would not be ideal to mix them, or wait for 175+ energy to generate.)
- Passive ability added that prevents feedback and EMP spells from working on Battlecruisers, so that they can use their core energy-using abilties as needed, as a capital tier 3 unit.
ZERG:
(Trying to beat a player who is Nydusing and mass-teleporting all over the place is extremely difficult, and very unfun, especially in team games.
Miss just one Nydus or even just have your units out of position for five seconds, and it can do unfair, game-ending damage, and even if playing perfectly, 9 times out of 10, you will miss one.
Also Infestors are very strong at the moment, and whoever created the idea of the Swarm Host should never be allowed to ever work in the games industry again, with the exception being that they are working as the Janitor or something.)
- Infestor NEURAL PARASITE costs 125 energy, and can no longer target air units. Can no longer cast while burrowed. Fungal Growth does +3 more damage per second to massive targets. Infested Terran remains the same.
(REASON: Even as a Zerg, I agree that Neural Parasite is a dumb spell, so its energy requirement should be higher to justify its strength.
Neural parasite should at least be removed Vs air units as the Infestor already has plenty of anti-air capabilities as it is. The +3 addition per second (+9 damage total per target) to fungal growth Vs Massive targets helps out a little as well.
Infested Terrans are strong, but slow, and can be kited rather easily.
Neural parasite has become a spell with the potential to single-handedly do a lot of damage, and does not offer the opponent much counterplay as well, especially when used while burrowed.
- NYDUS NETWORK costs 250/250, and only one can be built in a game, similar to the mothership.
(REASON: Being able to spawn more than one Nydus worm at a time is very unfair. Already, units need to be in position to deal with one that is spawning in your base, but when there is a second one spawning in the natural as well at the same time, then that is considered unfair and broken design, as there is no counterplay.
The large cost increase justifies the potential game-ending damage it is able to do to the oppenent, should one be able to be spawned in an opponent’s base.)
Spawning a Nydus worm costs 100/100, and takes 14 seconds to build. Armor remains at 3, but the spawning nydus worm’s collision size should be increased from at max 10 zerglings being able to attack it simultaneously to 12.
In addition, the load and unload times of units into/out from the worm are reduced by 100%. Costs 2 supply per worm. Massive units cannot enter a Nydus network/worm. 16 Second cooldown per worm spawn, after a nydus worm has finished spawning.
(REASON: As mentioned above, mass-teleporting of units in a real time strategy game, breaks the fundamental aspects of strategy, in terms of scouting information, enemy army positioning, flanking tactics, and overall skill.
Contrast this to drops, that actually require planning, positioning and multitasking. This is where drops have become so redundant, that I actually miss seeing them now. Why drop when you can just teleport your whole army for 50/50 in your opponent’s own base???
Ultralisks are tier 3 units, and should not be able to teleport into a main base and wreck it in 10 seconds, if defending units are out of position or easily countered (such as zerglings).
- Spawning a Nydus worm also requires a beacon to be placed by an overseer in order to establish the site where the worm will spawn. This Adds more planning and skill requirements for the player wanting to Nydus.
(REASON: This shuts down the broken scan-nydus play in team games. Swarm Host/Nydus would have to be the single most disgusting and degenerate thing I have ever seen in a competitive PvP game ever, and should not be in the game.
The incredibly low skill ceiling required to execute such an extremely broken game mechanic, even at times makes me fear an 80 APM gold-level zerg.)
- The SWARM HOST is now considered a massive unit.
(REASON: They can no longer enter a Nydus network/worm, because being able to snipe a Hatchery, Nexus or Command Center without any counterplay is not fair, not fun, and broken design. Although I wish they would just delete the thing, or redesign it into a baneling cannon siege-like weapon/mortar or something actually fun to use!)
- The HYDRALISK receives a 4.23% attack speed increase. Attack speed period decreased from 0.59 to 0.565
(REASON: With Neural parasite not affecting air units, and the Hydralisk receiving an 8.47% attack speed nerf in November 2018 (0.54 to 0.59), a 4.23% buff to its attack speed (50% increase after nerf) should help out with the anti-air requirements a little bit, but anymore would make it too strong vs gateway units.)
PROTOSS:
(The cannon rush has long been a controversial topic within StarCraft. Yet with the economy changes added to LotV, there is some merit, as it dramatically increased the potential strength of the cannon rush.
Not so much in just how early it can hit (and it can hit really early), but also, when workers are pulled to defend a cannon rush attempt. Pulling workers is essential to defend an early cannon rush, but pulling workers this early in the game, destroys the economy of the defendee, and forces a so-called lose-lose scenario, where it’s a case of die now, or all-in later due to a weaker starting economy.
You are probably thinking that the protoss invested into the required tech to make the cannon rush possible, and that is true, but every worker that is pulled from a mineral line is 40 minerals per worker per minute that is lost, and never coming back.
The problem with this, is that the investment into a forge, two pylons and a few photon cannons is linear, it is in effect one expenditure.
Whilst every worker mining on a mineral line is considered exponential (the snowball effect if you will).
The more workers on a mineral line, the more higher the income. Yet the income is exponential, not linear, and peaks at around 16 to 17 workers.
Protoss will make those minerals back quicker than what they lost in executing a cannon rush, as opposed to the defendee who pulled workers to defend. Also this is further compounded because of chronoboost and LotV’s economy model.
While this is not always the case, it is what makes cannon rushes in LotV so potent, as compared to the other two predecessor games, where starting with only six workers, placed a soft cap on the amount of potential damage that was able to be dealt so early in a game.
With LotV’s economy, that soft cap has been removed, because a mineral field starts with 75% saturation as soon as a game starts, and quickly creeps to 100% within a minute or so due to chronoboost.)
- Pylons have a “Passive” and an “Active” stance, that can be toggled. Takes 20 seconds to complete. All pylons are warped in on a Passive stance, and will not provide the sufficient psionic matrix requirements for a photon cannon to warp in or attack.
Upon the completion of an Active stance on a pylon, a photon cannon is able to be warped in and also able to attack, which translates to a cannon rush
hitting a little later in order to allow defendees the chance to at least make a unit or two to defend, instead of being forced to pull workers, and allows some form of proper counterplay, especially when it is scouted, but cannot be defended, due to placement in between a tight mineral field.
When a photon cannon is warped within a warp conduit pylon such as those connected to a Gateway (after warp gate research has completeted, NOT before) or Nexus, then even pylons that are in passive stance are able to allow photon cannons to warp in and attack (defensively).
(REASON: This creates a dichotomy that allows defensive photon cannons to continue operating as is, without requiring a gateway or something else as well as a forge, but also weakens the potency of the cannon rush in its current state, as it is simply too strong for the amount of skill required or the amount of sacrifice that is needed to defend against it.
Also, it is not fun to play against, providing the same level of gameplay as wack-a-mole at the circus, which is just like trying to stop nydus worm number 1, 2, 3, 8… 12.)
- Warp Prism retains the Warp Conduit ability in phasing mode and its ranged pickup, but the radius of its psionic matrix is large enough to be able to warp in a maximum of 8 Zealots (+4 inside the Prism) at a time.
Only one Warm prism is able to utilize the warp conduit at a time, so building more than one warp prism will lead to one warping in units slower, if both are used in phasing mode at the same time.
(REASON: Creating a hard cap when a late-game protoss has twenty gateways, and is warping in half the army into an opponents’ base. Once again, unfair, unfun, and broken design due to sheer loss of defender’s advantage at the extreme.)
- Shield Battery can no longer recharge the shields of air units.
(REASON: Have you seen the proxy robo or proxy stargate nonsense with around 16 shield batteries outside an opponent’s base? Who thought that was fair? The shield battery is a primarily defensive building that should be used for… you guessed it, defense, NOT, offense. Bad, bad design.)
- Well, I have said my peace. If you have read this far, then I am grateful for you taking the time. Now we just need to see what blizzard will do for this game at the end of November, because their current fascination with mass-teleportation, mind control and victory by only warping in offensive buildings early for the most part as a game mechanic in a competitive skill-based real time strategy game is most certainly not the answer.
If these types of irrational gameplay elements remain in the game after the next balance patch, then I know that it is finally time for me to move on to another competitive game that respects player skill as a function of practice and time investment.
Thankyou for reading.