SearchBalance Patch Coming
Posted by Jimmy "DJTyrant" Blocksom 1 year ago
Bashiok has responded to a thread on the StarCraft 2 general forums, quelling concern that balance changes wouldn't be coming till the next expansion.
With the game only being out for three weeks, there has been a fervor of complaints about Terran being too powerful in the game and other races not being able to keep up with Terran players of the same skill level, players of all skills levels have been noticeably been very vocal about the situation, most notably the Zerg player IdrAIdrA.
Full response to the thread is here:
(Hopefully this doesn't read too harsh, it's been a tough Monday. ;) <3 <3 <3)
Our intent is not to have a game with broken balance in an attempt to sell an expansion. That should go without saying. It makes me sad it isn't.
Our intent is also to not apply knee jerk fixes based on the first few weeks as understanding of the game and strategies are still in flux. The game is young, and we don't feel that it would have been helpful to progressing peoples understanding by throwing in tons of fixes based on flavor-of-the-week (or day, or hour) strats.
We see a lot of variation between the regions. Making a change for how NA players play may be completely ridiculous for how KR players play, and actually mess up a balance there. For instance 10 of their top 20 players are zerg. So that's one place where we have to be mindful and careful and attack balance issues with great prejudice.
That said. There are balance changes coming. What everyone was seeing in beta with tons of quick balance changes are because it was in beta and we feel we can get away with throwing out a lot of 'we think this may help' type fixes. With a live environment we're not going to throw stuff out there unless we're pretty sure. We've played. We've looked at data. We've looked at each region. And then we act. Which isn't to say we may not be wrong from time to time, but it's a more measured approach than beta players may be used to or expecting.
Our intent is not to have a game with broken balance in an attempt to sell an expansion. That should go without saying. It makes me sad it isn't.
Our intent is also to not apply knee jerk fixes based on the first few weeks as understanding of the game and strategies are still in flux. The game is young, and we don't feel that it would have been helpful to progressing peoples understanding by throwing in tons of fixes based on flavor-of-the-week (or day, or hour) strats.
We see a lot of variation between the regions. Making a change for how NA players play may be completely ridiculous for how KR players play, and actually mess up a balance there. For instance 10 of their top 20 players are zerg. So that's one place where we have to be mindful and careful and attack balance issues with great prejudice.
That said. There are balance changes coming. What everyone was seeing in beta with tons of quick balance changes are because it was in beta and we feel we can get away with throwing out a lot of 'we think this may help' type fixes. With a live environment we're not going to throw stuff out there unless we're pretty sure. We've played. We've looked at data. We've looked at each region. And then we act. Which isn't to say we may not be wrong from time to time, but it's a more measured approach than beta players may be used to or expecting.
The differences between Korean and American realms was brought up a lot during the beta, and most recently the most recent BlizzCast. Do you think this is something that can be fixed to balance the game in both regions? What changes do you think should be made?
| Links |
| StarCraft 2 Forums - Source |
| Comments \ Paging |
1, 2, 3 
|
12
| Dont rly care what it brings, i just want to see patch ;P |
| even in korea, although it looks like the most skilled players are zerg, the zergs are struggling. If you watch enough replays, you'll see that most terran players suck, but still get around %50 win ratio at very high levels. You can bring this Korea vs NA and EU region comparison all you want. I am intelligent enough to see how imbalanced this game is. |
| Game seems pretty balanced to me.. It's just like the blizz guy said.. players are constantly discovering new strats.. and use their race to the fullest rather than start yelling imba imba.. see our fellow rage quitter Idra.. PS : #1 you could be easily flamed on that line :) |
| imo its pretty good, i dont look upon terran as slightly favored than others, imo zerg is better but who am i to tell, just hope they wont nerf zerg next patch :) so i can PERWPEPWEPWPEWPEPWPEW |
| #1 LOL so I dont really care if you give me a ferrari or a compact car I only want a car -.- On topic zerg is in bad shape, terran is in extremely good shape no mather what they say with the regions |
| I suggest these changes ;) http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/thread/595840-gooseboy-mod< /b> |
| yeees terran nerf here we goo! |
| #3 "game seems pretty balanced to me" why wouldn't it surprise me if you were actually playing Terran ? good news anyway. |
| #3 Terran right there. People, really don't talk when you don't even know why and every other fact surrounding it. |
| I think it's a majority of skilled players that they randomly decided to play Zerg and are doing it well in Korea. Zenio is a good Zerg player and he is a good player overall, not cuz of the race he is playing while comparing to Ensnare (terran) that I think would struggle alot more if Terran were a little weaker. Terran is a little too strong atm even tho the very top Korean players are skilled Zerg players. But it could also be map problems, too many features, openings, for Terran. edit: while thinking about it I think Zerg needs something that replaces the Lurker. Sure the Zerg got Banelings with alot of damage, but the problem is that Zerg doesnt have anything as a Tank or Collosus. Zerg lacks range? |
Reaper http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/replays/35632 is this your idea of "balanced"? 29 kills on a Reaper...vs a pro gamer Zerg...because there is basicly no counter for it that allows a Zerg to have even a half decent economy in the same time. Yeah, it takes a pro to do that with reapers, but the mere fact that it is even possible for one tier 1 unit to get 29 kills against a player of the SAME SKILL LEVEL is ridiculous. Even in Platinum they are such a big threat that you basicly have to make an "anti-reaper" build from the start or you lose vs Terran....and then the Terran doesn't even have to go reapers....but if you don't open with fast Stalker and he does open reaper you lose. And Zerg doesn't even have a "real" counter to the reaper at all, because if you go fast Roach before you expand then you're going to lose anyway on macro...so ZvT you basicly just rely on the Terran to micro bad in order to survive?...spine crawlers really don't counter them because they just attack somewhere else until they have critical mass and then kill the crawler anyway with their ridiculous 30 damage vs buildings. Damage vs light needs to be reduced till reapers no longer 2-shot zerglings, nor 3-shot workers of any race. Banshee Almost every banshee that gets made is an automatic 8 to 10 kills...even without the cloak..., much like I said for two years even back in pre-alpha, and had even demonstrated with a custom BW map. This with even top level players often not even microing them, just parking them over the mineral line....with some circle strafe micro and cloak, they are practically unkillable. Why? Simply because it's impossible for an opponent to prepare for "everything" in the terran arsenal, EVEN IN THE MIRROR, so when they hit the field, there is often no answer for many kills, as we have often seen base trades in TvT when both players rush banshee, and they are just flat ridiculous in TvP. they need their attack reduced to 2x10 and hp reduced to 120....period...If the 2x12 is needed for some existing balance issue I'm not aware of, it can probably be fixed through the use of the "bonus damage" system. I haven't even dealt with the bio units, but maybe if there wasn't this constant looming threat of the Terran just ROFL raping you with one unit at any given moment, then the bio wouldn't be so bad... |
| #11 Hey, if you want to complain and/or QQ, the WoW forums are right here: forums.worldofwarcraft.com Game is not as unbalanced as people tend to believe, the game is only 3 weeks old since release to the masses. People need to realize that they lose 99% of the time because their opponent just played better then them or you made too many mistakes. I think Warp Prisms deserve the biggest buff, like, actually make them useful and be able to survive more than 3 shots. |
| #12 Warp prism is just like nydus worm. If you want that buffed, then you must also want a buff on nydus worms. I would love a buff for nydus worms, because atm it is even worse than a warp prism. |
| #12... even at the top levels the banshees are single handedly ending games in all 3 TvX matchups... |
| #14 Not exactly. Warp Prisms are similar to the Medivac, however, Warp Prisms take longer to build, have less HP, less armor, and are slower. Even though they cost 100 gas less than the Medivac, they just too easily focused and killed. #15 Ok, you're exaggerating. They are not "single handedly" ending anything. I think they're most apparent in TvT to be honest. Protoss players should ALWAYS have a Robotics Bay against Terran. And Zerg can also morph Overseers and use their Queens. |
| stop whining, play more. |
| I was in the top 10 diamond in my division. Protoss player. Then i began facing terrans players in the prob of 7/10 games. I lost to most of the terran players even though all they did was mass mm. I tried to counter it with colossus but by the time you have one, you are either dead or facing two groups of MM. freaking marauders are imba. Even if i managed to have two or three, the stim packed MM can easily destroy my colossus even if i micro em carefully. Stim packked MM are just too fast for colossus. Terran player has another option to counter colossus, build 3 vikings thats it, whole group of colossus is gone because obviously if i spend so much resources on colossus, i have little stalkers(not to mention viking has a long ass range). Even if i have enough stalkers, they will be wiped out in a second by stim packed maruders. If i go for templar,(freaking expensive!!!!!!!!!!!) two ghost (which are cheaper and faster to build than templar) is enough to counter the templar, immortals, and sentries. Did i mention ghost are pretty cheap and its not even a tier 3 unit? Recently my rank has dropped to 33. No idea how to play SC2 no more. Just played a noob terran and rush me with 1 marauder and 3 marines, i only have 2 stalkers( standard opening against terran) cant do shit against the marauder. boom boom all dead. And its not even a real push by terran, its just an early scout attack. #11 reaper counter: early stalker, which is the standard build against terran now. For zerg, queen! or speed upgraded lings. I dont see how reaper is a threat. #18 ultralisk is a tier 3 unit which can be easily owned by MM combo. You dont have to change anything to zerg. Geta lower the marauders hp, they are like a tank for a tier one unit. |
| #18 I agree with you on how dumb stupid and ridicalous #11 sounds, like a crying baby turning blue. BUT unfortunately ultralisks are weaker than thors. just last night me and a friend did a variety of mass units vs mass units. 50 thors vs 50 ultralisks being one of them, both had 3/3/3 upgrades and the thors demolish them. Thors pretty much destroy everything lol, we did alot of match ups in that test game (was TvZ) where we had full upgrades on everything, and the Zerg actually couldnt come out with any units to kill my mass Thors. I actually had to kill my Thors with my Thors lol to be able to test a different unit haha. |
| I wont pretend to be an expert on the game but I have no doubt that more marauders has been trained than any other unit in the game Sc2's short history.. that could justify a look at the unit, even without stim they would mow down both stalkers and roaches (the 'opposite' t1's I guess) =P They felt more balanced in campaign without stim *cough* |
| i hate crybabying imba guys, bw remained unpatched (balance talking) for several years when zerg dominated the scene and people didnt do anything, shut up your mouth and go play to discover new strats instead of calling everything imba, it makes me sick when people do that. |
| I'd have to say that the game is fairly balanced if both players are at 200+ APM. But....... Zerg gets the short end of the stick if your APM is any less. Zerg's macro is A LOT tougher with a low APM because the queen builds up energy that you can't use if you miss a larva spawn, unlike crono and mule/scan. And you have to time the spawning of larva every 40 secs on the dot or delay every future unit you make by that amount. Also it takes like an extra click or two just to select the queen and click on the hatchery rather than just mule and click etc. Also you can't hotkey all your queens at once like can with CCs or Nexii. Plus there is spreading creep. I think all of the above extra macro work over burdens the player more than the very slight APM advantage of producing out of only one building. All of the macro work also makes microing simultaneously more difficult. |
| well #20, 50 thors vs 50 ultras .... at a number like that the ranged unti obviously has an advantage. but as far as it comes to a real game, there wont be 50 thors. and the thors are so slowly, that if you try to push out, you will be surounded instantly by the zerg army, especially on creep and then everyting melts down faster than you can say "lol", the splash of the ultras rly does its job. however, of course terran can turtle and harrass with hellions etc. and of course the point where zerg can build just mass ultras is pretty late in the game, any hardly ever reached, therefore its all fine. All im saying is, that the thors strike cannons are completly useless, and are never used, so why not just remove them? against collossus they would be nice of course, unfortunatly its never worth getting the upgrade. i dont know, does it work on air? I think it doesn't, but maybe that would be an idea, so you could use it against carriers. (like for ultralisks, the terran does not have a real counter against carrier, people used to think carriers are weak and useless, but they are actually insanly good - its the same as with the ultra, the point where you can just get mass carriers is hardly ever reached and usually due to bad play by terran - until then you can manage them with turrets, vikings etc.) €: #23 I highly doubt that you really need 200+ apm to play zerg well. I just met haypro on ladder a few hours ago, and his overall apm was like 120, just like mine. Also everybody should know right now that 2-3 queens is all you need, no matter how many expansions you have. All the good players add a 2nd hatch at their natural or main and use the queen there to inject both. I saw a replay of check vs maka the other day, and check even had 200/200 energy on 2 of his 3 queens, using 1 queen to inject the 2 hatches in his main from time to ime .... while completly destroying maka. |
| @Maximus_RO funny that you would say that beeing Terran and all |
| #18 You say epic fail to others but... You clearly haven't played/watched a lot of games, speedlings counters 2-3 reapers yes, but if they get a criticall ammount of reapers they RAPE your speedlings, and NO u cant juts make more zerglings then.... (watch some LZgamer replays for instant) roach is the only answere really.... As for ultralisks, they are easily counterable (thor is good vs them still, also siege tanks still rapes ultralisks....) Im not gonna cry about imbalance, but something needs to be done about 2 things for zerg, Number 1 is the reapers problom.... Number 2 is the lack of dealing with banshees before tier 2.... (and funny thing.... u might actually see both these things in the same game) |
| I see RAGE!!!! hahahahaha |
| New expension WTF ? games just get launched , |
| Why is everyone whining on T being nerfed? I play toss and terran and I think toss is the one that should be nerfed. 4 gate push is extreme, void ray rush is extreme, collosai is extreme etc etc. When it comes o Z imho I think that most of you with problems tend to stay on t2 and mass hydra/ roaches or ling/muta. Z players that techs and use the race full potential is deadly. Face off against ultras/broodslords and you got tons of problems. |
| Terran are too strong atm, Terran units are too cheap and has like 20 different harass tactics its ridiculous |
| @11 seems really to be bronce sry never read so much shitt last 2 years |
| I don't have alot of time to write a reply atm (on my way to school), but i'm gonna sum up what I keep telling my mates at school, especailly about Zerg: Terran unit costs are ridiculous compared to how insanely effective they are. Marauders need to cost more gas, it doesn't require much, but maybe just 5-10 more gas. When tier 1 units are able to end games, then you need to make it so that you cannot recklessly spam them out of barracks, hatch, gates... Reason zerg is struggling is because we literally don't have any creative units in the roster. We only have combat units for the most part. I do agree nydus worm and infestor are underused, especially neural parasite, but because they are situational, it bumps the reason why they are *not* used. Protoss is as balanced as can be for some reason. I don't know why they are balanced, but they looked balanced to me. The case might be that both zerg and terran are imbalanced, and not just terran. |
| The fact of the matter is that Zerg just can't keep up with Terran and Protoss. "10 out of 20 of the best players in Korea play Zerg" that could be because Zerg is the most popular race there. I don't care about their statistics unless they are going to show me where they found that information. |
| Yeah lets all cry about terran being so OP. Let's do it here at gosugamer.net omg marauder so imba! nerf them asap or I will... NOBODY here cares what do you think about terran being op or not, unless you are one of the top players. If u wanna cry about that go to blizzard forum and cry there. |
| Nerf feedback oneshotting medivacs, if you have tanks in your dropship i dont think you want to have your medivac oneshotted whenever a templar is in range |
| I m probably not as good as many other posters here, but I'm complaining about TvZ. All that has been said about terrans ability to harass couldn t be more true from my point of view. Yes we have counters to reapers, the speedlings, yes we can make extra queens against the banshees, but this means we have to react, always be on the backfoot. And for this, we have to scout, and scouting a terran is a pain in the ass, unless you got an ove to sac, but it s pretty costy at the early stage of the game. We also have to get prepared to hellion harass, wich is way more efficient than vulture harass used to be. So yes, once again, we have speedlings, but unless I'm wrong, zerg is the macro race, so we have to get an expo soon or we re doomed. And if I can t really scout my opponent because he walled (and no, blings aren t the ultimate answer), I have to prepare for everything, several queens, a bunch of speedlings, a couple crawlers for the hellions, that s a lot to build, and has to be done since I usually can t tell what T is making until his units are halfway across the map and meet one of my unit. My point is, everything in the terran arsenal can be countered, even by a zerg, but since we constantly have to be reactive to their strategy and can t really scout (after the drone I mean), we have to spend a lot to protect against those strategies, and it costs a lot. If the terran just macro a ball of MM(M) or a thor tank hellion splash omfglolbbq, which is not unrealistic with the 30 mineral-per-trip-over-the-SCV mules, since we lost ressources in harass defense instead of real macro potential, we're doomed, once again. What I consider to be an effective way to make things right, is not to up Z units, but to gives Z other ways to scout the terran, so we can prepare for the right harass, or no harass at all (it happens). Maybe give cliff crawling ability to one unit, or make overlords speed T1 tech, I don t know, but imo, it s the little boost zergs need to be prepared against the T arsenal ZvP is balanced IMO, both races have good counters to the other race's units. |
#31 ColorsOfRainbow 5 @11 seems really to be bronce sry never read so much shitt last 2 years HAHAHHA Btw if Reapers are so overpower, why dont you see them in every highlevel play? OT: Theres seems to be alot of whine on terran! In beta i was a low-silver-terran, now im just a spectator :DDD None of us mere civilians comments feel really applyable since we dont fully understand the forces that are in play. Id like to hear from like Day[9] and TLO what they see actually could be done or not done inorder to get a more balanced game! :> |
Terran unit costs are ridiculous compared to how insanely effective they are. Marauders need to cost more gas, it doesn't require much, but maybe just 5-10 more gas. When tier 1 units are able to end games, then you need to make it so that you cannot recklessly spam them out of barracks, hatch, gates... Terr hass to mass something, Terr has either baracks = marine reaper marauder ghost , or many factories = tanks , thor and helion. If you think terr will stop winning with bio units then you should play another game, its not like blizzard will patch so barack units become useless and you see MECH every game. Btw i didnt think bio was a problem, most seem to think mech is too strong still... why the random whine at banshee? banshee is a great harassunit , but compare it to the void ray that can end games in all matchups. If a banshee gets hit you have to go home and repair it, void ray needs about 10 seconds out of combat to fully regen its shield :( I think protoss is totally fine against terran, any good protoss plays with maphack the whole game ( fast obs ) and can adapt, Zerg versus terran im not sure, there are some maps that shouldnt be in the map pool, steppes of war (tank camp) isnt a good map at all :s |
| i actually have no problems with a reaper/banshee (queens pretty much rape both) harass, for some reason they seem easy enough for me, but I only played 20-30 diamond games and I don't think i've met any good terrans I however, despise the MM ball.. especially mid game, as I have a hard time trying to counter a massive mm army that matches my own army, but my armies don't have stim or heal.... |
| I've watched Sen vs TLO's Zerg vs Terran, so in my opinion Zerg is slightly weaker when going against Terran, but not by much. During those games although TLO had some really successful harasses and even base kills against Sen, Zerg's ability to just run you over with numbers really shines. |
| i personally don't have any problems with terran players |
| If the "imbalance" issue actually exists, then Blizzard vill OBVIOUSLY patch it. Now, ofc races can't be balanced perfectly, that's an impossibility. What can be done is to make them so close that the human errors will have a bigger impact on each game, that's is the only and true usable definition of balance in this game. The game has been out for a couple of weeks just, it's way, way WAY to soon to tell if the balance is broken or not. Terran have been overrepresented in the top of Tournaments but that seems to be changing, just look at the recent Gosucup tours where Protoss is totally dominating. Now does that mean that Terran by some magic move suddenly was massnerfed? Without us noticing? No ofc not, players adapt (the good ones, not the ones crying here) and the meta-game changes when the different groups of players adopt new trends. It is not hard to see why Terran _could_ have had an early boost in fame. First of all, it's the race you play in the campaign and might be the one you start playing with when you go multiplayer. The second thing is the tendency to strongly bias the statistics when you make conclusions. It's enough that the general public thinks terran is OP to make that self fulfilling in the statistics. More good players (read, players who want to win) might transition to them, because they are considered better. Which in turn makes Terran look more OP because they have a stronger set of players. Whine less, play more. |
| The race switch of dimaga speaks for itself. |
| #4 zerg is better than terran and i am dressing in money, wich obviously isn`t true |
| Im toss in diamond and i got like 65% against terran, on the other hand when zerg takes fast expand, make 5 spine crawlers to protect entrance to main and expansion + tech to hydra with 15-20 speed lings, it auto lost. Anyway it not on topic, but I think Zerg is fine, Terran is just little to easy to play mechanic-gameplay wise... They can get out with lots of mistakes... Forget to spawn larvae is big lost while, forgetting to drop MULE is ok, because you can drop 2 in same time, you can be loosing the game badly, but you can build free defensive structures with insane repair speed by scv, + 2 tanks and you can demolish 2 times bigger army in food, meanwhile making drops of 4 marauders to opponents base and win by economic. There is a lot of options to make terran "more balanced" by making it little harder to play, without nerfing it to much in f.e PvT, like colddown on MULE :) like spawn larvae, people will have to watch it more carefully and it will require same amout of skill to master, as zergs need to master spawn larvae. #37 you did watch yeasterday finals HyprO vs ajtls :)? He crush HyprO with 5 reapers. #42 the game its almost 6 months long, I dont know why so many of you forget that there was like 5 month long beta, so stop saying the game is way way to young. |
| 10 of the top 20 are zerg in korea my butt. There are 8 zergs in the top 20 and only 2 of them are in the top 10 and none of them are in the top 5. While there are also 8 terrans in the top 20 and 3 of them are in the top 5. |
| Terrans CAN be beat by protoss if you know what you're doing. Obviously for my own reasons I won't discuss my onw anti-terran strategy because like all things there is a counter to it... but to be honest I rarely lose a game when it's PvT because of the build I've adopted... Just think outside the box people and you can win! Game's more balanced than anyone really realizes it's just that we're all learning new strategies and whatnot as we progress. Think outside the box and you'll win!  |
| Since when is having an opinion called whining ? |
| since the moment you posted joking  |
| If you people start talking about Protoss now, you're obviously dumb. It's common knowledge that Protoss is as balanced as can be. Everyone who whines about voidrays are obviously bronze players. Even with my 2 queens, I can keep back the void push, and it should be even easier for terran, because of better damage throughput. Whining about colossus is even more retarded, especially if you're terran. The core problem here, is Terran being OP, and zerg being underpowered because of so many different reasons. They are just not balanced with one another, period. |
Post comment
You are not a logged in, or you are not registered. Create an account or login to be able to post a comment.
Advertisement
Latest news
Feb 10
Ret nyduses his way to the semi-finals
(1)
Feb 10
ReaL ends Feast's IEM Sao Paulo run
(1)
Feb 10
SuperNova with a strenuous QF victory over Slivko
(1)
Feb 10
WhiteRa, Lucky, ReaL among the final Assembly Winter invites
(3)
Feb 10
EG MCSL team line-up wrapped up, Liquid as the final invite
(0)
Feb 10
IEM Sao Paulo Day two: Groups C and D in review
(2)
Feb 9
IEM Sao Paulo: Day one in review
(12)
Feb 8
Supernova stomps upon DarkForce and Killer to make IEM debut
(1)
Feb 8
DarkForce swarms Illusion in Sao Paulo opening series
(0)
Feb 8
CEO confirms: NaDa not to sign with SK-Gaming
(3)
Most read last month
1.
$3,000 up for grabs at the One Nation of Gamers Invitational
(27)
2.
VIDEO: Na'Vi ESWC 2011 highlights in "Top of the Food Chain"
(12)
3.
Ten more to ASUS ROG
Assembly Winter
(17)
4.
Code A and Back Again: A Foreigners' Tale
(10)
5.
Artosis becomes a father
(34)
6.
BoxeR appointed playing head coach of Team SlayerS
(21)
7.
Grubby: 'Protoss needs to grow a bit more diverse'
(15)
8.
Zergs swarm the IEM Sao Paulo groups
(31)
9.
MLG Winter: Online qualifier full player list
(26)
10.
MMA: 'Feast can be a really good player'
(9)