YoGo analyse les modif. sur LotV - 10/09

David Kim sur Mise à jour sur les retours de la Communauté - 10 septembre (Source)

Hello everyone – we're back with another community feedback update. We've got a number of changes to discuss, so let's jump into it!

Next step for macro mechanics

Our team's been a close to a 50-50 split on whether or not we should revert the macro mechanics to be the same as Heart of the Swarm or continue pursuing this direction. After many discussions, we realized that, at the root of it, it boils down to this: Are we chasing the best design for each of these mechanics or is taking away a skill that players have been practicing for years better for the game in the long-term?
Let's take a look at each of the macro mechanics:

Terran Mule

After testing various versions, we've realized that we're not really making mule macro all that much easier, since it was already fairly easy to execute in HotS. In terms of design, however, we believe losing the energy tension with the Orbital Command spells is not a good thing. Therefore, both in terms of saving clicks and in terms of better design, we believe the HotS one is better, and we'd like to go back to it .
For the late game mule spamming issue, if we were to go back to HotS, we would need to do something about it. The current thought is to not have Mules overlap with other Mules on patches so that the Mule dropping in the later stages of the game doesn't get so out of hand.

Protoss Chrono Boost

With the version currently in the beta, chronoboost is cast by the Nexus closest to the target, and there are suggestions to change that to other methods. One thing we're noticing here is there's really no ideal way to handle how we move the Chrono Boosts around - no matter which rule set we go with, we haven't found a way to always guarantee an optimal use case. Therefore, we believe it's best to just increase the cooldown of the ability so that it's easier to not make a mistake in terms of the same Nexus recasting Chronoboost on multiple things in quick succession.

One other thing to note here is that one of our core design values in StarCraft II is to only make changes that are significant improvements. The reason is that if something is only a slight improvement to an existing thing, we don't believe it warrants players having to relearn that mechanic. Therefore, for Protoss, it'll be a question of exactly how much of an improvement this new version would be versus the old one.

Zerg Spawn Larva

This mechanic is the most difficult because, design-wise, the current version is arguably better, however players are losing a skill they've been practicing for years, which isn't ideal. Internally, we're testing a different version for Zerg. We currently have autocast removed, but it is possible to queue Spawn Larva on a Hatchery. E.g. I can cast Spawn Larva three times on the same Hatchery at the same time, and after one pops, the next one will begin. This might be closer to what we're looking for: For a top-end pro player to gain the maximum effect of Spawn Larva, he'll need to be as precise with the casts as he needs to be in HotS, but lower-level players who aren't close to mastering this technique will have a much easier time with this version.

Because this is such a major change, we've been going through major iterations during the beta. We'd like to thank you guys once again for the continued discussions, playtesting, and feedback in this area. This really gives a good example of how we iterate and explore various things internally and it's cool having everyone be a part of this.Please try to focus your feedback on which version is best for the game, and let us know so that we can make a good decision.

Adept

With the stronger Terran and Zerg macro mechanics in the latest patch, we're not really seeing the same Adept strength that we used to. Also in exploring PvP more, it's not quite clear to us that mass Adepts are the best composition in the later stages of the game. We will be continuing to test the Adept armored flag change and potential changes to their upgrade internally, but we'd like to continue testing the current version a bit longer in the beta.

We just don't want to be too quick to judge on the Adept strength at this point, because it's not uncommon for players to overreact when core units are added. One good example here is when the Marauder was first introduced back in Wings of Liberty, for a very long time, even after the game launched, we were getting so much feedback, especially from Korean players, that Marauders were completely broken and needed to be nerfed. We never did nerf them, but they've been seen as well balanced all throughout HotS.

Photon Overcharge

The defensive case with Photon Overcharge in the early to mid -game is too strong right now. It's too difficult to do both harassment type and frontal type attacks against Protoss in the early game. Obviously, this is not what we want from the new ability, so we're exploring potential nerfs. We're thinking of either doing a duration nerf to 10-15 seconds, or a cost nerf to 50. We're slightly leaning towards a duration nerf at the moment because it is a lot more adjustable going forward as we fine-tune the balance of this ability. Though we currently were not concerned with offensive Pylon rushes, this nerf will weaken this tactic.

Overlord transport upgrade

We've explored a few different options here, but your popular suggestion of having an Evolution Chamber requirement looks to have worked out well. It's an additional investment in order to be able to drop early, doesn't necessarily reduce the timing at when Zerg can drop, and it's easier to scout and react against. We would most likely try this out in the next balance update. Thank you for your many suggestions.

Disruptor

We're playing around with different cost versions of the Disruptor so that it's not as heavy of a gas investment. The general idea here is to reduce the gas cost needed so that Disruptors can see more play across the board. We'll try to finalize the numbers for the next balance update.

Maps in Legacy of the Void

As we've done multiple times in the past, we definitely know that if a map isn't completely standard, a majority of players will initially think it's a bad map. However, this is one of the areas that we would really like to push back because the positive effects of having a more diverse map pool is just too good for the game. We see this in HotS season 3 and even more so in the various tournaments going on in LotV, in terms of how different each map plays.

Therefore, we will continue pushing a unique and diverse map pool in LotV for now. We've clearly seen how stale the game becomes both in terms of playing and watching when we've had map pools that everyone agrees is 'good.' The matches are all very standard and similar in terms of playstyle, and we want to clearly avoid this from ever happening again. We feel strongly on this point: A truly good map pool for SC2 is one with lots of map diversity, not a map pool that has 7 of the same type of standard maps.

With that said, because we are constantly exploring new things that can potentially be cool for the game, obviously there is a higher chance of making a mistake. Maps such as Daedalus Point are examples of something that we tried that didn't work out. However, we believe the positives that we gain from pushing map diversity outweigh the negatives. If necessary, it's easy to remove a map that doesn't work out mid-season, and we've seen from experience this doesn't happen on a regular basis.

Thank you everyone for the continued help and support during the development of Legacy of the Void. We are looking forward to hearing your constructive thoughts.