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I'm making a normal 'ol melee/use map settings starcraft map.
Looking for anyone to give their 2 cents on battling issues.
I've seen replays and MAN pro zerg seem to kick the CRAP of any other pro races's...

Any balancing issues on ANYTHING?
(Zerglings come out too fast in the begining, ghosts have too little hp, vultues (without mines) are useless, carriers/bc's build too slow, etc...)

I'm highly considering nerfing zerg slightly...

Toss in your two cents... and I'll have a dollar in no time!

ghost are mostly spell casting units, not offensive. Vultures are fine without mines, only cost 75 minerals, do 20 damage to small units(have you ever seen vultures killing peons), and are one of (if not) the fastest unit in the game with speed upgrade. The only major balancing issues are late game zerg over protoss, zerg gets owned on island maps especially by protoss. Those are the only major balance issues I'm aware of.

well, try making scouts a little bit better, tobad you cant mess with damage types. Imagen a scout as a flying version of a vulture, 15+2 concussion damage to land, 11+1 typless damage to air same costs and stats.

Also, gols OWN, anyouther race (asuming paraty in econ) is better off not even geting air units if a Terran player has +1 to his tanks attack or armor.


But your biggest problem would be ballanceing an already ballanced game. Except for scouts. and possably queens, broodling being so expensive. (cut brood to 75, same as storm, and remove the queen energy upgrade.)

dude all the races are already balanced its just how you use them. for example, there are at least 2 unit counters to every 1 unit. zergling counters are marine and firebat, 1 firebat ownz 2 lings no question, but 1 marine can also own 2 lings if you micro well. its all about how you use them. but, overall protoss owns island maps with no competition, zerg owns maps with a lot of expansions and small maps with easy rushing with almost no competition, and protoss is the most hardest race to master usually dominating other races with their capability of turtleing defences which require little minerals. if your going to alter a race, alter all 3 of them. make it so that there is not an island map, you can have islands just not at main bases, make it big enough to counter zergs early rushes or limit the number of expansions on the map, and then, make it nearly impossible for terran to turtle, this would most likely be done by reducing the number of minerals and gas given at each regular base, which means that all races will have to expand!

Look at Nostalgia for some ideas. I myself think it's a pretty balanced map. Or maybe it's just because my fav replay with OgOgO is played on that one....

chest and terran, thanks for your input. Taking 2 cents from everyone else too.

Aye guys, I understand what you mean, races are pretty much balanced already (otherwise blizzard would be in deep crap).
But there are always some things that may need modification.

Scouts is a good one, for the price, might as well get carriers (yes yes, scouts own anti air).

Thanks for the info also chest on race differencials. Aye, it will be a ground map with a few islands. Large enough for zerg not to rush, quite a few multiple bases though.

Maybe I'm just being dumb. Why is it that zerg seem to expand more rapidly?
I mean hatchery build time is long, produces workers faster... is it just the cost? only 300min?

well at least in zvp, zerg usually ends up containg protoss with lurker / observer killing capabilities. So that leaves them free to take the map basically, and 300 minerals isn't much to zerg especially if they early expo.

SC is already balanced.
Zerg is devasting in number, but that's also their weakness. Most of the time there are only an average of 40~60 units in battle. The rest of them are either in the back walking or doing nothing(no units in range) Zerglings has been greatly nerfed that it takes much longer to come out. The extra 50 mineral cost on spawning pool made delayed the zerglings' arrival by a grand 2 minutes! That's enough for any average player to do a lot of things.

Ghosts are spell casters. They can cloak, lockdown and nuke. What else do you want? It's a ghost not a demon. Ghosts are fragile.

Vultures are useless? They're the worker assassins! 20 vultures can charge into any non-terran base, and destroy their workers(2 hits to kill one). Plus with mines they can destroy a base! (put mines next to production buildings...anything that comes out dies, along with their building...)

Carriers/BC build too slow? Well...are you building them from ONE Stargate/Starport? Then it's very slow...Capital Ships they are, CAPITAL SHIPS! How many capital ships do you want in battle?

P.S.
btw, those players who got kicked the 'CRAP' out are not pros at all. Any average can fight 8 computer zerg. It's ont really that hard. Just practice.

The reason zerg can expand so easily is simply because their hatchery is also their barracks and supply or their pylon and gateway, instead of building a barracks and supply, they simply build 1 hatchery. barrack and supply together costs 250 minerals, just for 50 more minerals you could easily build a second hatchery, get it? thats why zerg is so awesome at expanding. but the downside to that is that larvae takes time to build up, so you cannot mass produce without mass hatchery. Zerg NEEDS more than 1 hatchery. <-- use this information in making your map. I hope this answers your question and feel free to ask more.

Hatcheries only provide 1 supply. I doubt that's even noticable to most Zerg players past 2 minutes into the game.

The "strategy" that Blizzard wanted was
Zerg was mostly mass
Terran was mostly power and spells (strategy)
Protoss is a mix of the 2

Of course some players don't play this way, this is how they meant it to be.

I kinda knew that before Legacy.. but now that you mention it...

Isn't that why zerg owns so much (most of the time).
Because the only spell-using units are Defiler and Queen (Broodling/DarkSwarm/Plauge).

Terran (using strategy) requires a whole lot more unit moving and time clicking for each unit, each ability and what not.

Not exactly as easy to mass with terran as zerg or protoss. (Toss mass goons, Zerg mass Hydras) Terran can't exactly mass any unit unless it's Air or medics are loaded up, even so it's hard to manuver them.

Should this be considered in balancing?

If you ABSOLUTELY need to limit the supply within 20 of 100 then it would definately be...

Terran 80
Protoss 100
Zerg 120

Otherwise I would tell you to do something like...

Terran 80
Protoss 120
Zerg 200

That's so general...
Terran is usually considered 'unbalanced'. The best players in B.net are terran players (not all). Here's why:
Terran, when given enough micro-management*, can wreck harvoc. Their abilities are the most devasting during a battle. Unlike the zerg and protoss ones, which are mostly support type spells. Here's a list of terran spells:

Repair--yes this is one of the most darned annoying ability. With good control, a couple SCV mixed in an assault can make the army last THRICE as long. No joke.
Stim--This spell doubles the fire rate of units. With stim on, units loose a little bit of their life, but deal double damage. However, with heal, who cares of the puny little bit of health?
Heal--rigged, as people say. Healing is just like the ability repair. Although it cost energy, I've seen a squad of marines mixed with medics wiping out 6 Carriers with ease.
Blind--this is not always useful, but against those 'virus'** type players, it's a nightmare.
Cloak--really annoying. Imagine in the middle of game a group of units pop up in your base and start wracking harvoc in your base. You ordered your troops there and they disappeared all of a sudden, killing them before detected.
Lockdown--rigged, as people say. Not only it wipes out a unit from the field temporary, the low mp cost allows it to be casted twice! With a squad of ghosts, all mechanicals are dead.
Nuclear Strike--self explainatory...
Defensive Matrix--This can be useful in many situations. The low mp cost allows multiple units to be 'godly' for quite a while. Combine with Nuclear Strike and it's evil. (units under Defensive Matrix has 255 armor unless overwhelmed, as I observed)
EMP shockwave--rigged. A pain in the a__ for protoss. Especially when you have a couple archon, you'll be greately annoyed.
Irritate--rigged. Funny units attacked by this spell won't raise any alert. I was slaughtered by this spell once when I'm a newb. Deplated my resourse line completely without me noticing at all.
Yamato Cannon--250 damage, ignores all armor. What else do you want? This ability is just like 10 Battle Cruiser shots combined into one, taking only the time of 3 shots to fire.
Seige Mode--Yes, it's a spell even you don't think so. If a tank is supreme, then a seiged tank is godly.
Spider Mine--Another ability of evil. 3 vultures equpped with spider mines can completely destroy a line of workers(provided if any melee units chase after them) Don't believe me? Try!

The rest of the spells are not that powerful, but some upgrades still need to be looked upon:
U238 shells--this doubles the marine range. Which means it allows the marine to have an extra shot before upgraded.
Thrusters--this makes the vultures really a vulture. When your cousin is annoyed by vultures on the beach, you can be greately annoyed by vultures in SC.

Note that terrans has at least 13 spells that can make a direct impact on the battle field, let's look at the other race:
Zerg:
spells that can make a direct impact on the battle field:
Dark Swarm--nulled by firebats. All terran builds massive firebats versus zerg
Plague--nulled by restoration/repair. But sometimes effective if u use it at the right place.
Burrow--good for ambushes, but with the massive Science Vessels floating around, I doubt.
Spawn Brooding--perhpas the most damagins zerg spell. All time useful when destroying small squad of tanks.

Only 4 spells, which are waaay too little compared with a terran.

Protoss:
spells that can make a direct impact on the battle field:
Maelstorm--good spell. Perhaps one of the best spell in the game. This spell is for the infantries, and when a terran uses infantries, you're guarenteed a whole crap load of them. That's when this spell comes in.
Mind Control--BEST SPELL IN SC! But, this costs 150 mp so it's really scarce. A science vessel can simply screw you up.
Feed back--good spell, instant kill for many spell casters. But against a terran...I've never seen any terran unit keeping full mana with 2 seconds of battle.
Psi storm--second best spell in SC. This spell can diss out heavy damage against Battle Cruiser, and with 2 of them, no BC can survive( provided you storm on right spot)
Archon Meld--this spell doesn't sound, but if you merge 2 templar in the middle of the field, it can draw a lot of attention. Most players will focus their fire on it, allowing you to do some other evil cult.
Distrubtion Web--great spell, nulls a lot of attack. But against the massive number of terrans, this spell is only effective for a while.

6 spells. Am I missing any? I'm not an expert protoss...

Now on units:
Zerg has zergling
Terran has firebats, vultures and marine mass

Zerg has hydralisk mass
Terran has M&M, Tanks in seige mode

Zerg has Guardian
Terran has Valkyrie

Zerg has Lurkers
Terran has Irritate from Science Vessel

Zerg has Scourges
They can't get through terran's marine mass
Zerg has Devourvers
Terrans doesn't care about them

Protoss has shields
EMP.

Protoss has zealots
5 maine kills 2 zealot

Protoss has Dragoons
Tanks. lockdown.

Protoss has Reavers
Tanks.

Protoss has Archons
Tanks. EMP.

Protoss has Dark Archon
EMP.

Protos has Carriers
lockdown.

Protoss has Arabiter
lockdown.

Protoss has Scout
lockdown.

Protoss has Corsair
lockdown. EMP.

Protoss has Psi Storm
Irritate. EMP.

Protoss has a long history
Terran has a hotty called Jim

Well, I get the point that terran owns all, if played correctly.
They can counter any race (including themselves).
However, even to an expert player, there is so much freakin' stuff going on, it's incredibly difficult to maximize each unit's abilities to their full extent.

Not to mention, practically half of terrans forces (exhaderating) are stuck in bunkers. Many SCV's are required for building, repairing, and mining, thus taking up even MORE supply.

Just an arguement for the Terran side as to why they should get more supply than say... zerg.

Zerg masses, with less numbers... well.. who cares?
1hydra = 1 food,
1 tank/wraith/golith = 2 food,
mass hydras could own wraiths/goliaths. (but not mass seige tanks)

Protoss,
Not relied on abilities quite as much as terran, but it's still quite an advantage. Again, it's difficult for a single human being to maximize every unit's capabilities.
Easier to mass attack (compared to terran) still.

Terran is mainly just difficult to mass attack because you can't really mass a single unit. (except BC's, but as always, everything has a weakness)
Goliaths - ground owns 'em
Tanks - air own's 'em
Marines - weaklings!
Firebats - no range!

So the easiest (and cheapest) successful way to mass for terran is medic/firebat/marine/ghost.
And even so, it's much more difficult to manuver large terran parties and have the medics keep close proximity to the rest. More clicking, more time, more deaths due to time loss...

Still looking for more votes as to how the Supply should be divided... Thanks

after almost 7 years of patches and updates I think blizzard has down all aspects of all LADDER maps for balance. Just use 1 of those maps to make the ums with. Forget about the supply limits and the rest of the stuff. This game is balanced and doesn't need to be changed. If ure good at a race use it if not use whichever your best at or perfer no balancing required enless u want to add in a mix of things. Newblar!

Well thank you Kept, that did absolutely nothing for me.
Yes, for the millionth time, blizzard has the races balanced.

I AM limiting supply capacity, regardless of what anyone says.
I want it to be more like WC3 (in the sense that there is little supply, aswell as heroes with spells).
The question is.... what is the most appropriate supply to limit each race to?
100/100/100 Doesn't sound accurate... but I may be wrong...

I already posted my suggestions for supply limitations.

Oh...so you're trying to make a WC feel in SC?
I've done it once, times the hp of every unit by 10.

Well I know what you mean by x10 hp (longer battles), and I've thought about something like that a LONG time ago....

For one, the value of a 50mineral marine is IMMENCE and ALL units would have to be changed (cost wise). Aswella s unit balancing. Zerglings at 350hp (all upgrades) would OWN marines with 500hp (all upgrades).
(Also, medics wouldn't be even NEAR as effective, aswell as psi storm, iraditate, and what not)

That's just not possible (without a TON more balance testing)...

Not to mention defencies would be pretty useless. Unless blockaded, cannons/sunkens/bunkers, etc could simply be bypassed quite easily and a raid for the harvesters/base could be invaded 10x more easily than an already fragile base.

Just my opinion...

iamandragon, you must be a newb, seriously.
MC is not the best spell in the game, late in game, one battlecuruiser aint gona save ya, and building another base is very veru unemocnical.

EMP Shockwave is a not rigged, without it, toss would just pwn terran.

2 Zealots beaten by 5 Marines? Welll DUh - 200 minerals to 250?

No-one can nuke in pro-games unless your name is Boxer.

Psi-Storm PWNZ M&M, majorly

Lockdown is not rigged either WTF? Unless you waste money on lots of ghosts 2 units wont make that much of a difference.

I can could on for a while...

Well now that you bring that up High... in a low supply limit game, terran WOULD own... Say toss only has 30 zealots (60 supply + maybe 20-30 harvesters)

Terran could EMP them (in swarm) and nullify tosses only army.

Nuke would be more effective, because there's less supply to use as defencive detectors.

Psi storm, similar to EMP.

Lockdown, only a few units max, therefore lockdown can nullify most of the larger enemies (like BC's, Carriers) and limit the supply even more...

Perhaps I should give TERRAN less supply capacity than zerg/toss?

You think pro Zerg players generally are better than others?? I don't think so, there are less Zerg players that are good then others <-- my opinion. But all races are balanced very well.

200views, only a few votes...

Well I've seen zerg play the Replays SEN has... I think it was Beer Keg?

Anyway, simply mass, mass, and mass and mass summore, mass your own base for defence, mass enemy base, mass and more mass. (hydras)

That's why I'm considering limiting zerg supply more.
BUT with only 100 sujpply to begin with (if all races had only 100),
then they can't mass quite as easily...

I dunno

No offense, but since when I said I'm a gosu?
MC might not be the best spell in your opinion, but it is my favourite spell. It's good for abusing enemies. I often mc their scouts/workers, which ruins their life. Most of the player don't put defense in the back of the base so I can get an extra 200 supply easily.
The greatness of mc is that it doesn't 'attack' the unit, meaning you scan steal opponent scouts, which is good for your health, and bad for him. Some players won't even notice a scout go missing if you give him some heavy action.

EMP is not rigged, just exageratting it...sorry. But it's really powerful, which I must say again.
Erm...my fault that I made Psi Storm bad, it's uber, yap.
2 zealots beaten by 5 marines is very true. 200 to 250 min is also very true. Just think of it. 2 zealots have a total hp of 320 and an attack 32, while 5 marines have a total hp of 200 and a total of 30 firepower. I am saying that just to say that terran doesn't win by brute force, but with skills and micro management. You can always try beating 2 zealots with 3 marines, which I have seen someone did it against a newb.

Nuking does huge damage, and it's best to be used durnig the heat of a battle. I often nuke the edge where my units are battling the opponent's army. There's 2 advantage:
1: because terran's 'best' unit are long ranged, they dont get hit by the nuke, which hurts the other guy's force(most of toss and zerg are medium-short range), which helps my army out.
2: if he managed to beat the crap outta my army and rush forwards towards my tanks, all his long ranged units are going down(and they're THAT expensive)
3: even if I'm not nuking anywhere, the sound 'nuclear launch detected' will annoy my opponent a lot.