David Kim parle des Chars de siège, des Protoss et de l'équilibrage
Comme chaque semaine, David Kim revient sur l'état de Legacy of the Void. Celui-ci partage aujourd'hui son avis concernant les retours des joueurs professionnels Coréens, la modification des Chars de siège, l'état des Protoss et annonce la prochaine carte d'équilibrage. Voici les détails:
Fostering a Positive Atmosphere
It’s awesome how we’re all working towards having a more positive atmosphere towards StarCraft II on various sites and forums. We’re encouraged by the results of our collaboration with all the dedicated players out there who contribute to the StarCraft community on a daily basis. Thanks to you, we’re able to make the game better through weekly updates, balance test maps, and our constructive discussions. A healthy and positive community is vital to our game, especially when it comes to attracting new players and making them feel welcome. Let’s continue to focus on constructive feedback and work towards our goal of continually improving StarCraft II.
We’d also like to congratulate everyone on the great job you’ve been doing as we continue to iterate and make the design of StarCraft II that much better. You’re also creating a much better environment for newer people to participate in a constructive way. Thank you!
KR Pro Feedback
We recently received feedback from all the professional teams in Korea regarding the current balance test map. Let’s run through what they thought.
The pros didn’t like the Siege Tank damage increase or disabling pickup, saying that Siege Tanks weren’t viable after these changes. The vibe we got was that Siege Tanks don’t need a damage increasewithout mobility, they won’t be an effective tool, even if they hit much harder. We still believe that there could be a scenario where the damage is increased enough to offset the mobility loss. However, the more important question here is not about if the damage buff is stronger or the Medivac pickup is stronger. Instead, we should be more focused on the loss of micro and strategic potential versus the gain of the Siege Tank fulfilling their fantasy better by having clear strengths and weaknesses.
Regarding the Ravager change, the main feedback was that Ravagers are primarily used to counter Liberators and Widow Mines, so if a nerf is needed, then their ability cooldown should be increased instead. Our stance on this one is that the type of change we implement really depends on the issue we’re trying to solve. The damage nerf was suggested to help with not just the Siege Tank change, but also in case Ravager timing pushes are too strong versus Protoss. If either of these scenarios have changed, we would definitely need a different solution.
We also received feedback that players are still testing and figuring out our most recent changes, so it would be best if the next balance patch doesn’t happen until we are sure that the issues being addressed are real and the changes are tested. We agree; while things like Ravager timing attacks looked very strong and Protoss looked to be struggling when the last patch hit, Protoss players are still figuring out how to play in this new patch and we’re still figuring out the current state of the game.
Siege Tank Change
Let’s go into more detail about the Siege Tank change.
We agree with many people out there who disagree with the changes:
The fantasy of the Siege Tank has diminished due to how mobile the unit is now.
We also agree that this isn’t a change that needs to be implemented immediately. Therefore, we should take our time to carefully evaluate different options before making a final decision.
The State of Protoss
Contrary to right after the last patch hit, Protoss didn’t look to be struggling as much. However, we are definitely seeing the strength of early game aggression in ZvP. We will be testing some nerfs on the Zerg early game timing attack so that we can be prepared to make the change if the situation doesn’t improve over time due to players figuring out how to counter these attacks better.
Next Balance Test Map
On the next balance test map, we’re looking to swap out the Ravager and Liberator changes, potentially trying out a different change to the Ravager that only really affects ZvP, and try out a version of the Siege Tank where we heavily increase the delay before Siege Tanks can fire after being dropped off by the Medivac while in Siege Mode. We would obviously want to combo this with more of a damage buff than what we have currently.
We agree with those of you who have pointed out that testing some changes to the Cyclone would be useful. The goal here would be to increase the effectiveness of the Cyclone for early/mid stages of the game while not allowing mass Cyclones to be a viable composition in the later stages of the game. In order to do this, we’re thinking about increasing the effectiveness of Cyclones by either increasing their health or damage, and also increasing the supply cost so that their value diminishes in the late stage of the game when players’ armies start to approach max supply.
If there are other balance issues that we should be testing, please get a conversation started this week so that we can decide together what the best move will be for the next balance test map. Our hope is to evaluate this week and next week, and be in a spot where we can make a decision and release the next balance test map the week after next.
Thanks again for continuing to support and contribute to the future of StarCraft II. Although there are currently no immediate, glaring issues, let’s continue doing what we can during this time so that we can be prepared for the future.
It’s awesome how we’re all working towards having a more positive atmosphere towards StarCraft II on various sites and forums. We’re encouraged by the results of our collaboration with all the dedicated players out there who contribute to the StarCraft community on a daily basis. Thanks to you, we’re able to make the game better through weekly updates, balance test maps, and our constructive discussions. A healthy and positive community is vital to our game, especially when it comes to attracting new players and making them feel welcome. Let’s continue to focus on constructive feedback and work towards our goal of continually improving StarCraft II.
We’d also like to congratulate everyone on the great job you’ve been doing as we continue to iterate and make the design of StarCraft II that much better. You’re also creating a much better environment for newer people to participate in a constructive way. Thank you!
KR Pro Feedback
We recently received feedback from all the professional teams in Korea regarding the current balance test map. Let’s run through what they thought.
The pros didn’t like the Siege Tank damage increase or disabling pickup, saying that Siege Tanks weren’t viable after these changes. The vibe we got was that Siege Tanks don’t need a damage increasewithout mobility, they won’t be an effective tool, even if they hit much harder. We still believe that there could be a scenario where the damage is increased enough to offset the mobility loss. However, the more important question here is not about if the damage buff is stronger or the Medivac pickup is stronger. Instead, we should be more focused on the loss of micro and strategic potential versus the gain of the Siege Tank fulfilling their fantasy better by having clear strengths and weaknesses.
Regarding the Ravager change, the main feedback was that Ravagers are primarily used to counter Liberators and Widow Mines, so if a nerf is needed, then their ability cooldown should be increased instead. Our stance on this one is that the type of change we implement really depends on the issue we’re trying to solve. The damage nerf was suggested to help with not just the Siege Tank change, but also in case Ravager timing pushes are too strong versus Protoss. If either of these scenarios have changed, we would definitely need a different solution.
We also received feedback that players are still testing and figuring out our most recent changes, so it would be best if the next balance patch doesn’t happen until we are sure that the issues being addressed are real and the changes are tested. We agree; while things like Ravager timing attacks looked very strong and Protoss looked to be struggling when the last patch hit, Protoss players are still figuring out how to play in this new patch and we’re still figuring out the current state of the game.
Siege Tank Change
Let’s go into more detail about the Siege Tank change.
We agree with many people out there who disagree with the changes:
- Siege Tank pickup micro is definitely really cool.
- We see Terran players fielding a good mix of Bio and Mech unitsdo we really have to split those two strategies again?
- We definitely understand this stance. Perhaps Terran is more fun to play with and watch if there’s always a mix of the two like we’re currently seeing, and maybe we don’t need them to be completely split.
- Our stance here is that we should have some changes tested and ready in case we get to this type of spot, so that we can react more quickly if necessary.
The fantasy of the Siege Tank has diminished due to how mobile the unit is now.
- The changes would bring back the “lock down this location at the cost of mobility” vibe.
- The current test map will test how cool it would be to bring this back.
We also agree that this isn’t a change that needs to be implemented immediately. Therefore, we should take our time to carefully evaluate different options before making a final decision.
The State of Protoss
Contrary to right after the last patch hit, Protoss didn’t look to be struggling as much. However, we are definitely seeing the strength of early game aggression in ZvP. We will be testing some nerfs on the Zerg early game timing attack so that we can be prepared to make the change if the situation doesn’t improve over time due to players figuring out how to counter these attacks better.
Next Balance Test Map
On the next balance test map, we’re looking to swap out the Ravager and Liberator changes, potentially trying out a different change to the Ravager that only really affects ZvP, and try out a version of the Siege Tank where we heavily increase the delay before Siege Tanks can fire after being dropped off by the Medivac while in Siege Mode. We would obviously want to combo this with more of a damage buff than what we have currently.
We agree with those of you who have pointed out that testing some changes to the Cyclone would be useful. The goal here would be to increase the effectiveness of the Cyclone for early/mid stages of the game while not allowing mass Cyclones to be a viable composition in the later stages of the game. In order to do this, we’re thinking about increasing the effectiveness of Cyclones by either increasing their health or damage, and also increasing the supply cost so that their value diminishes in the late stage of the game when players’ armies start to approach max supply.
If there are other balance issues that we should be testing, please get a conversation started this week so that we can decide together what the best move will be for the next balance test map. Our hope is to evaluate this week and next week, and be in a spot where we can make a decision and release the next balance test map the week after next.
Thanks again for continuing to support and contribute to the future of StarCraft II. Although there are currently no immediate, glaring issues, let’s continue doing what we can during this time so that we can be prepared for the future.
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