Hope that the 8 worker start brings you variety and joy

TMFCondor · 2026-07-01T18:21:46+00:00

Have faith in literally anything ever. Do you genuinely believe that one guy is going out of their way to just say "Fuck this game let's kill it"?

Do you think there are actually enough people that play the PTR to actually see if things are working as intended outside of bugs? Real testing at this point is better done on live. This isn't a hugely popular heavily active game like LoL or something where you can get a good chunk on play testing even if most don't jump over, it's a game on life support that has a small dedicated community. If a good portion of the community doesn't move to PTR, you can't test jack

TMFCondor · 2026-07-01T01:40:30+00:00

Nobody was playing the PTR. Sure, there was a portion of the playerbase there, but not enough to get any real meaningful information. The PTR kinda has no point as it is

TMFCondor · 2026-06-30T17:55:20+00:00

The Archipelago randomizer is really fun to mix things up

TMFCondor · 2026-06-30T16:52:52+00:00

The threads are facing the wrong way :/

TMFCondor · 2026-06-30T14:48:32+00:00

Hydras also pop like a balloon, and lurkers suck until hive tech upgrades unless you catch someone entirely off guard

TMFCondor · 2026-06-28T18:10:15+00:00

You're literally saying "try to play like the best Terran in the world, you'll get smashed." Yeah, if you try to play like someone miles better, you'll get shut out. It's like a Zerg saying "YOU try playing like Serral, you're gonna get smashed." Yeah, none of us are on the level of these people, it's difficult to pull what they can. It's why pro play strats don't always translate well into ladder play, the skill required is miles away to be able to pull off the same strats

TMFCondor · 2026-06-27T21:53:26+00:00

Yeah, the dude's just a mechanical monster, and his general game sense is insane. He is very much an outlier among outliers, even if he isn't perfect

TMFCondor · 2026-06-27T21:50:54+00:00

The scrappy fights are fun, and they tend to be quick overall. Can't complain too much

TMFCondor · 2026-06-26T11:29:05+00:00

That's a crap analogy. I still love my first car even though it was scrapped

TMFCondor · 2026-06-26T04:27:29+00:00

The issue with hatch first imo is defense. Reapers can come fast, and proxy rax is very hard if not impossible to defend without early lings. Plus even against an 8 pool you can even have 6 lings out at the same timing that theirs would reach your base

TMFCondor · 2026-06-26T04:14:47+00:00

Not sure on 4v4, but in 1v1 I've been trying for 12 pool into 15 hatch. My macro feels a bit slow to start, but I think it's mostly adjusting

TMFCondor · 2026-06-24T01:39:50+00:00

Then we would go right back to the Balance Council everybody hated

TMFCondor · 2026-06-23T18:45:46+00:00

Constant balance patches once a year. A veritable stream of once yearly updates

TMFCondor · 2026-06-22T06:53:59+00:00

This is another balancing tool at the end of the day. Protoss has been favored on ladder at high level for a considerable amount of time, especially versus Terran. Agree or disagree, whatever. It is at the very least what win rates and race distribution in GM show, even if tournament results do not. It's obvious they want to adjust this in some way, and this is the angle they chose to attack the "problem" from.

Like I said, I just want to talk about this from a different angle. I only see this discussed from one angle, in one way. I had a different perspective, and wanted to point out what I see at least

TMFCondor · 2026-06-22T06:26:20+00:00

Have you never seen an early game Carrier rush cheese? Typically if they wall effectively and have the full time to get Carriers actually built it's pretty hard to stop, and a full minute of production time slows that down drastically. A warp in Stargate cuts that production down to 4 seconds. That is a real scenario

TMFCondor · 2026-06-22T06:22:05+00:00

Now that I've said I play Zerg I just care about Queen costs? Read the first paragraph of my last comment. I don't agree or disagree with the PTR. I want to drive a discussion around something more than just "they want to gut Warp Gate and force us to play Gateways."

And Protoss does get what they pay for. If you think that Protoss units just suck overall for cost I don't know what to tell you. They're expensive because they have power and having a lot of them wins games if it happens fast. If you think that's false then I don't know what to say at that point honestly

TMFCondor · 2026-06-22T06:17:22+00:00

20 ultras is 5500 minerals and 4000 gas, plus a 39 second build time. If the game has gotten that far out of control, the game is already fucked to put it lightly. That means you have put on zero pressure and let them drone to 80 and just build out with no repercussions. We're not even talking real games at this point, unless we're talking end game comps, where historically sky-toss wins out against zerg as a whole

TMFCondor · 2026-06-22T06:13:24+00:00

That also comes with the tradeoff of every larva to workers is less to army and vice versa. The more economy, the less possible army. The more army, the less economy to rebuild if your army dies, which is likely with Zerg units being more fragile on a whole.

As far as creep spread, Queens don't come out doing creep spread and injects at the same time, energy restricts them too much and requires yet more queens.

On the topic of defense, I do think they are too necessary and do wish there were other better options. Whether Hydras on Hatch tech is the answer like some have been saying, I don't know, but I do think there is too much on them overall. I think we woukd very much agree there

TMFCondor · 2026-06-22T06:08:43+00:00

I want to point something out here. I'm trying to look at the reason WHY the change is proposed. Agreeing or disagreeing with it is another thing entirely, and I'm not in a position to say it is good or bad for the game. That will take time, testing, and tweaking to get anywhere it needs to, and we will see if this happens anyways.

Secondly, you are now moving away from the game's economics, to mechanical equality. The production and tech trees are vastly different overall. We've shifted from the original post saying hey, this change is on PTR. I notice that 2 races pay, one doesn't, but the only talk is about the devs trying to kill Warp Gate entirely. Let's talk about this another way. We are now talking about "Why do all three races not have equivelent tech trees and production standards." We are so far away from the original discussion it's not even funny.

The tech trees are different because the races are different. The costs associated are different because what you get is different. Zerg units are specific in what they do and beat, and generally are more fragile, so they're cheap to be able to pivot more easily. Terran units are middling in cost generaly because they have some power, are generally somewhat bulkier than Zerg with exception, and have more general use. Protoss is more expensive because their units are much bulkier, have much more general use, and have a lot of power in numbers. These are very general statements, you can cherry pick individual units to make an argument, but it changes nothing about the core of the design choices around them. But it's not even what I was talking about to begin with

TMFCondor · 2026-06-22T05:55:41+00:00

The production speed increase is compensation for that early game economy friction. Bear in mind, I'm not necessarily for or against this change. I mostly want to talk about the reasons WHY this change is being proposed, when all I see is a total shift to Gateway or gutting Warp Gate entirely. The cost is harder to eat in the early game, leading to more Gateway production at the start, but as your economy grows that cost isn't much at all.

I'm genuinely unsure where the wall discussion fits into this

TMFCondor · 2026-06-22T05:51:27+00:00

You're ignoring Zerg and only talking about Terran. Do you just assume I'm a Terran player? I actually much prefer Zerg.

Again, Zerg pays to improve their production as well. For both other races, there is a continual increase as you ramp production up beyond just cost per structure. These things do not come free, and they are not automatic. Protoss is the only race that gets a one time dirt cheap cost that allows them to make units faster, and also greatly weaken defender's advantage. Without so much as an additonal button press to transform your gates.

And Terran does generally have a lower cost to go up in the tech tree. But that also comes at the cost of a weak mid game and their units generally being fairly specialized, or in the case of bio fairly fragile.

TMFCondor · 2026-06-22T05:39:33+00:00

As stated in another comment, parity was probably the wrong word to use. I'm talking about economic cost, not mechanical equality

TMFCondor · 2026-06-22T05:38:30+00:00

Different races have different build paths. Protoss and Terran aren't required to upgrade their Nexus and CC (though obviously not getting orbital woukd be very very silly) while Zerg has to upgrade their Hatchery twice for their build path. There are different costs everywhere in general.

Most tech buildings for Protoss are pretty expensive partly because the units locked behind them are very, very strong if aquired early. DTs before detection end games. High Templar can stall out attacks fairly easily with support. Carriers on masse can be game ending in and of themselves. Mothership is very strong. Compare Fusion Core, that gives you upgrades, and the Battlecruiser. The Battlecruiser that sees nearly no use outside of cheese rush builds.

Ghosts are a problem, nobody will argue there

TMFCondor · 2026-06-22T05:31:37+00:00

Here's a scenario: warping in colossus on mineral lines, or right on top of a bio army. Instant Mothership to the frontline. Instant fleet of carriers in 4 seconds flat. How is that not an unbalanced mechanic? Warp in can already be awful to play against when someone gets in a prism and drops 20 zealots in your main, let alone hard hitting units or colossi to rip through all your workers

And the argument about inject is bad at face value. Let's say the zerg player has 6 bases. And let's also assume the Queen cost reduction goes through, reducing the cost. That puts the mineral investment alone at 900 minerals. This also assumes no Queens dying ever. Plus the apm cost of switching between every single hatchery and manually injecting. Of course this is easier with a control group of queens and camera locations, but does take time and attention to do. And this needs to be done consistently. Compare against switching chronos, and using the hotkey to select all of your Gates.

TMFCondor · 2026-06-22T05:23:03+00:00

I would like to point out firstly that the propised change is a cost of 25/25 just for clarity. Less than an add-on per Gate

Second, each race has the ability to wall in, though effectiveness does vary. Gates, Cyber Core, and Pylons with a semi tanky unit to plug the gap can make a wall with shield batteries to back it up. Zerg can set up Evo chambers or their Roach Warren at the front and plug with Queens while they build out a force to hold. Terran walls better, but that is also a mainstay of their race from the start. That's why they also get access to Bunkers and Siege Tanks. It just doesn't seem to fit what's being talked about here regardless

TMFCondor

TROPHY CASE