Questions from the Community
I recently took an opportunity to share some of the feedback I received from pro players at the G Star event in Korea via a Q & A, and I was interested to see your reactions to that discussion in the blog comments and on the forum. I noticed that some players were worried that we don’t take the community’s feedback into account, and that we only listen to pro players. While we base our balance decisions on many different factors, including pro player feedback, internal testing, tournament play and more, our player community remains a vital source of feedback about StarCraft II. Every week we comb various forums and sites to get a feel for what our players are experiencing, and I thought I’d comment on some of the concerns we’ve seen appear in the community recently.
Mass Mutalisks vs. Protoss
This has remained a community concern since we commented on the issue at BlizzCon. In light of the community’s consistent feedback, we’ve decided to re-evaluate our decision to address this issue in Heart of the Swarm though, as I mentioned in my last Q&A, we prefer to avoid making major design changes until an expansion, since that’s a time when unit changes and dramatic shifts in strategy are all to be expected. At the moment, we’re investigating how much of an impact mutalisks have on the PvZ in order to gauge whether a change is truly necessary, and if so, when the most appropriate time would be to implement a change. If the data suggests that we should make a move sooner, then changing the protoss phoenix seems like it could be the best approach. Still, due to the significant impact it could have on all protoss match ups, we’re being very careful.
Protoss Win Rate is Too Low in Tournaments
In terms of global tournament wins overall, we’re seeing zerg win the most tournaments, whereas in Korea terran is winning the most with zerg not being far behind. Protoss players haven’t brought home quite as many tournament victories compared to the other two races in major tournaments. On the other hand, protoss matchup win percentages are actually very solid in major tournaments. So while protoss tournament players aren’t winning as many tournaments, their match to match win percentages in the same tournaments look very solid.
With that said, we’re currently discussing whether a minor, more generic buff to bring the protoss more in line with the other races would be appropriate. Please note that we’re not considering a major change, and we’re still carefully analyzing this year’s adjusted ratings data from around the world, as well as major tournaments, to determine if a change is needed at all.
Carrier Removal in Heart of the Swarm
Nothing we shared at BlizzCon is final, and the carrier itself is coming and going in our internal builds. The biggest problem we still have with the carrier is that we can’t identify a meaningful role for the unit. It fills a similar niche as the colossus in terms of the tech level and role it provides. Both are siege range units, but the colossus is splash damage, is a lot faster in coming into play, is less of a risk to bring out, and because of how common colossi are in protoss games, counter units such as corruptors or vikings are already available, making carriers even less viable.
We could just do a straight numbers buff on the carrier, but we don’t really think that’ll change too much for the reasons mentioned above. Therefore, we believe the best way to solve this issue is to either change the design of the carrier after locating a viable end game role for the unit or to just bring in a completely new unit that will actually be useful in the late game by removing the carrier. With that said, we are definitely looking into the concerns the community has expressed regarding the potential carrier removal in Heart of the Swarm. In the meantime, we’ll follow your discussions on the topic and we encourage you to continue providing feedback about the carrier’s place in the protoss lineup.
Terran Can’t Beat Protoss
We don’t think this is an accurate assessment of the matchup because win/loss ratios are swinging both ways. This is especially true at league levels below Masters. That said, we have noticed that terran at lower skill levels are underperforming a bit, especially vs. zerg and somewhat vs. protoss. We suspect that the initial complexity of the terran race may be a contributing factor to this, so internally, we’re experimenting with moving some of the new terran units around to make terran slightly more intuitive to play -- at lower levels only.
Just as an example, one of the things we’re experimenting with is making the battle hellion available from the factory instead of the normal hellion. Much as vikings come from the starport in flight mode, hellions would emerge from the factory as battle hellions by default, and players could then opt to transform them into the faster, but more fragile, normal Hellion. One downside is that higher level players have found this frustrating in certain situations, especially when trying to get the jump on zerg opponents, but our general philosophy is that we’re not afraid of making the game more difficult to master at the highest levels. Of course, this isn’t a final decision, just an example of one idea we’ve tried out.
Ghost EMP is Too Weak
We aren’t seeing an issue with EMP in the game currently. Ghosts remain in heavy use vs. protoss, which makes us think they’re still really powerful for cost. The terran race remains competitive and effective, so we’re not planning any buffs at the moment. Still, we are aware that at lower levels of play, terran isn’t performing as well as they are at the pro level and we’re examining different solutions to deal with that issue.
Forge Fast Expand is Difficult to Stop as Zerg
This is something we discussed at BlizzCon as well. The new units we’re bringing in should allow zerg to play more aggressively versus players who are defending heavily with little intention of attacking in the early/mid game. For now, we believe this isn’t a game breaking issue because overall, zerg is performing well against protoss. In fact, zerg is not struggling at any level of play, and their win ratio compared to skill is extremely solid at every skill level.
Nydus Worm is Too Inconsistent -- Make It More Like the Overlord Transport
We’d like to see nydus worms used more often, and we’re contemplating some changes to achieve that goal. The idea for the nydus was for it to have greater rewards while being more difficult to pull off versus overlord drops. So, in that light, nydus worms being less consistent than overlord transport is intended. We still want to preserve that risk vs. reward ratio, and the zerg already have the overlord transport and they don’t need another identical or very similar method of transporting units. Thank you for this suggestion, and we will discuss ways we can have nydus see more play without changing the design of the unit.
Thank You!
StarCraft II wouldn’t be what it is without the avid participation of Blizzard gamers all over the globe. Thanks for sharing your opinions on the StarCraft II forums and community sites. We'll keep reading your comments and concerns as we continue to work on making StarCraft II the best game possible. We also look forward to sharing more about Heart of the Swarm and the exciting changes it will bring in the future.
To those who say that frustration picking up the race is not important because it is in lower leagues.... you are oh so wrong. Blizzard is making the game for all levels of skill. Terrans are very complicated and harder to learn, which causes people to pick other races or stop playing out of frustration. I like the battle hellion idea- it'd be difficult to make the race friendlier without changing its dynamic nature. Was this an issue in BW too? Perhaps a solution within the matchmaking system for beginning Terrans might be sought?
I don't see the Carrier's lack of role as a serious issue... c'mon when was the last time someone used Reapers in 1v1? I am seeing Carriers all the time now however especially in PvZ. They fulfill an anti BL/Infestor role in PvZ and an antimech role in PvT (especially if T mech becomes viable in HOTS as it looks to become)- and they fill a "confuse the hell out of enemy units and create chaos" role similiar to the Brood Lord- this role can be expanded upon perhaps. Making the Interceptors immune to FG might be a small change. If a Muta solution is being south, give splash upgrade option to Carrier, from Fleet Beacon? This might make them OP vs Zerg however- they seem to be pretty strong already. I know a lot of fans would have liked to see something done to the Carrier rather than just remove it. The Tempest seems like a gimmicky specialist, not really a capital ship... but really the issue here is the Colossus which is just a ridiculous unit, the creator of all these deathball problems.
Ghost EMP is NOT too weak. I think Ghosts are just right. I can see lower leagues having difficulty using them but it'd be hard to fix without making it OP for high leagues.
For Nydus Worms, if playing with changes, an area map ping for opposing players would reveal its general whereabouts, which can be balanced by shortening the time, or by making it slightly cheaper- or maybe even relocatable? I agree that seeing more worms would be awesome, in all levels of play. I am amazed more players don't abuse them. I think I read somewhere that Zerg might be getting multiple kinds of worms? Awesome!!
I know a lot of these things are still swinging back and forth. We look forward to seeing what you come up with!
Why should anything below masters matter. If its balanced at pro levels that means it balanced period. Why should the entire game structure be changed to accommodate us lower leaguers? It just means that we need to be better. Stop complaining and just practice.
On a more topical note. I think the nydus worm is almost always approached as a purely surprise oriented tech. I would love to see the metagame shift to see zergs using it to make the immobile hydra army able to bounce between the battlefront and home to hold off drop play. It seems under-utilized to me.
Speaking as a Protoss...mass muta is imbalanced. period. I feel suitable fixes could be giving photon cannons air splash, or at least decreasing the acceleration of mutas. Making them actually get punished for being in range of HTs.
I think something that should be changed not just for the muta problem but stalkers in general is to have them have two attacks of base 5 instead of one attack of base 10. So that they would get a +2 with each upgrade just like marauders and roaches...
Stalkers seriously upgrade horribly. But if the upgrades changed as I stated that could at least help the muta problem.
While I think balance at the pro level is the most important, there should be a rough form of balance throughout all leagues.
Why should it matter? Those of us in the fat middle of the distribution generate the game development revenue. Without us (Bronze-Diamond) buying the game, there wouldn't be the next expansion. I'm not saying this task is easy, but it is necessary and so far they have fallen short (and even admit it).
@IOPatriot: Saying protoss imba at lower leagues makes no sense. Imbalance refers to the games structure, not the skill of the players at various stages of the game. Your solution to beating protoss in gold is to play more, find a protoss friend to practice with and keep playing. Watch MLG/GSL videos for strategies and ideas. This is an RTS, you're suppose to come up with a new strategy when your current one is failing.
As for the blogger, the only thing I agree with is muta play vs protoss. Being a zerg player myself I can admit that mutas are very strong vs protoss. Why are we using Mutas though? Zerg used to get trampled on by deathball over and over. Muta is our response to the deathball, simply don't let it happen. A direct counter to mutas is required as protoss but the entire race shouldn't be buffed.
What % of games are won by terran, zerg, and protoss in each of the leagues, bronze silver gold etc. Then we can perhaps see how balanced, or imbalanced the game really is.
Thanks!
1) Mules promoting sloppy play with wins against more skilled opponents. This is achieved by lowering the skill level needed to control terran's macro. (could be easily fixed by having a limit to 1 Mules per Orbital Command or by removing over saturation).
2) Snipe vs Zerg tier 3
Rest in my opinion is balanced although the meta game right now is a little too focused on defense via wall-in strategies but I expect that to be resolved by unit abilities or new maps by time Legacy of the Void is released.
As designed into the game as a mid to late game siege unit they serve the role of freeing up the robo bay to produce observers.
They also give the toss another air/ground attack unit besides stalkers.
Toss should already have the other toss siege unit colossus out in sufficient numbers.
your not wrong in any sense, So don't feel that you are. People in general complain to much. And your right, the game should be balanced for upper level play, but is the lower tier players like me who just play to have fun on the weekends here and there do need some attention too though. I think Starcraft is a game that should be fun for everybody, both those in the pro leagues and the wood leagues.
2. "I think they shouldn't worry about lower level players they are low level for a reason :/" I am having trouble understanding what exactly you mean by this.. Is it bcus you are "In code" saying they suck so this simply makes you feel good about your self? Or maybe your saying "Hey its low level people who cares about them" How is that fair at all first off? And no I dont agree with makeing "Terran" eaier to play for lower levels or in other words "Compensation" I would even say thats a bad idea, and they should learn from there mistakes.
Fix your broken marines and then talk to me about O.P.