Starcraft II

[fwiffo]

If you're bronze, don't worry too hard about having exactly the right unit mix, or the exact right counter to a particular unit you're afraid of. If you just focus on macro (build probes, build pylons, keep your money low), you'll just have way more stuff than your opponent and it won't really matter what you have unless you do something really one dimensional.

[Solomon]

...and it won't really matter what you have unless you do something really one dimensional.

[fwiffo]

Hey, whatever dude. I'm going mass immortal in all my games now. They smash things so fast it doesn't matter if they start making air units. What are they gonna do, fly away with their buildings?

[fwiffo]

I guess patch 1.1.2 is out and here are the patch notes.

My initial thoughts:

Yay about phoenix fix.

No idea why they removed feedback on thors and corruptors. I don't ever recall anyone complaining about that and now it will be even less likely that Protoss will go air. They also nerfed voidrays is too much. The nerf to the speed upgrade makes it not worth the expense of getting a fleet beacon. Probably voids will become almost as rare as carriers.

The buffs to nexus shields/health and health of zerg buildings seems backwards. If marauder drops do too much damage to buildings, nerf freaking marauders rather than trying to buff all the umpteen buildings they kill.

Didn't the last patch make PPDs a structure so that feedback wouldn't work on them? Why bother with the first change if you're just going to make them feedbackable again?

The nitro pack change seems weird and maybe goes too far nerfing the reaper. I think the supply depot before barracks thing is weird, but won't actually be that big a deal in practice. Roach range seems reasonable, as does the fungal fix; blinking out of fungal growth was obviously broken.

[Solomon]

All I have to say is I AM DISAPPOINT. Seriously, this VR nerf is garbage. Reaper nerf is silly. Thors can't be feedbacked. Supply depot before Barracks. Only thing I'm kind of okay with are the building HP increase, but overall this is just dumb, oh so very dumb, for real.

[fwiffo]

Compared to mutas and banshees, voidrays look totally pathetic now considering the cost and risk.

[Aphelion]

Lol, guess templar no longer counter Thors. Voidray nerf is in response to the Korean 3 gate + voidray PvT bust. I think its not so much that the voidray was imbalanced as that the whole role of air in SC2 is messed up to begin with. Banshees are the prime suspect here. Air simply is too powerful and does too much damage for its mobility. Phoenix are the only real air unit I like in SC2. That said, I almost never build voids and I prefer phoenix greatly, so this patch doesn't affect my game play much.

Supply requirement for Barracks pisses me off so much, I'm going to kill kittens. Kittens in Bronze league.

Not sure roach range increase is merited or not, but I know its going to push my already horrid PvZ to Bronze league levels. PvT, luckily, will be slightly easier.

[Solomon]

Voidray nerf is in response to the Korean 3 gate + voidray PvT bust. I think its not so much that the voidray was imbalanced as that the whole role of air in SC2 is messed up to begin with.

Not sure about this; iirc, Blizzard said a lot of changes were going to be implemented with team play in mind, and reapers + VRs are overused a lot in team games, especially in the lower leagues. I know a handful of people in the Bronze-Gold league who cry their heart out over mass VRs and how it's unpossible to stop (not just in team games, but also in 1v1s)...guess they'll feel better now.

[Aphelion]

So your telling me this is the noob patch. I hate Blizzard. I'm starting to feel BW was so great because Blizzard did NOT get their hands on it. Maybe I should start ICCuping...

[Solomon]

So your telling me this is the noob patch. I hate Blizzard. I'm starting to feel BW was so great because Blizzard did NOT get their hands on it. Maybe I should start ICCuping...

:(

[Tooveli]

I think it's great to have changes that make the game more accessible for all levels and types of players. Have you ever been frustrated with how the number people who have discovered go is so small? The only area where go is lacking as a game is in its accessibility to new players. Imagine how many more people would play if the first few games weren't so confusing and the level of difficulty off-putting. Starcraft will never be as elegant as go. But it can attract a wider range of people.

At the top level, the game needs to be well balanced and have a large variety of plausible strategies and styles. I'm not convinced that this patch makes anything worse in this regard. The supply depot change appears to only limit the number of options but I don't think it is going to make too much of a difference. If anything, the patch will skew things slightly towards longer, more macro orientated games which should make games contain more decision making.

[Aphelion]

How does removing a rax first build entirely add to decision making and options in high level games? Also, macro games != more decision making.

[Tooveli]

Macro games tend to be longer which means there's more room for decision making.

[Aphelion]

Thats not true. If anything, it may be untrue. Macro games can just as easily degenerate to a set predetermined path. Look at the current state of BW PvT for example, its hard to argue that the current Terran turtle fest produces more decision making that the 1 base play of earlier years.

This is especially true of the lower levels. Whereas at high level play there is a lot of thinking going on behind the scenes of a long, relatively peaceful game, in lower levels that's more indicative of a a turtle fest where both players are in their comfort zone and with insufficient scouting. Getting in this comfort zone makes games boring. What shorter, cheesier and more micro intensive games lack for in time they make up for in intensity and forcing you to think on the fly.

[Tooveli]

Yeah, I see your point (though I've no idea about BW).
I think we look at the depot/barracks thing from different perspectives. If it's an indicator that the way Blizzard are going to patch the game is to continually take away more and more options as time goes on then it's obviously a bad thing. I'm hoping that it will just mean the rest of the game will have to become more interesting and exciting to compensate. Maybe I'm too optimistic. I've never played an RTS before so I don't have much idea of how it's likely to change over time. I guess the only thing is to wait and see.