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This is brief.
Late game Terran can make any unit they want with the production facilities they will have made. Armory will be thrown down for upgrades eventually, so that really just leaves BCs that they need to make a building for. I think this is meant to be balanced out by how much research they have to get, but really, the fact that all the research is on tech labs makes it laughably easy.
They can reactor some of the most hard-counterish units in existence (viking and hellion) to very quickly adapt to your unit composition. Thought you'd surprise them with mass zerglings when they didn't have a single hellion built? They won't be useful for long. Thought you could take advantage of their 1+A MMM ball that only has marines for AA by making void rays or *gasp* carriers? Vikings will be on the way.
I think in future expansions Terran needs to be made less flexible. Perhaps add more buildings they must build to unlock a particular unit beyond tech labs, for example.
For example, make it so that a building is required for them to make vikings so that they cant instantly counter Collosi/carriers/battlecruisers/brood lords.
Actually, now that I think about it, adding a specific building for Viking/Hellion would balance this out quite nicely. Hellions could come with factory, but require a specific building to get infernal pre-igniter (and maybe put whatever upgrade they intend to make reapers a real unit in future expansions).
Vikings could start off with no bonus damage to armored and require an upgrade from the building to get it  That way, with micro they could still roflstomp Void Rays, but they could not instantly wtfpwn Corrupter/brood lord or void ray/carrier.
Just lost a game versus a Terran where I killed off his early dropship attempt, expanded forever before him, had a larger army... and decided hey, he's mostly marauders, I'll go carriers.
He scanned. Pushed out a few minutes later with a million vikings and marauders. Able to hard-counter my (I thought) relatively safe stalker/carrier combination. Obviously I could have done more/better to win, but the instantaneous ability to counter my units made me rage. ZERG is supposed to be able to do that, not Terran.
Edit: Before someone else feels smart pointing out that I went a horrible build, that's the point. Carriers will never be viable because of how quickly Terran can hard-counter them with reactored vikings. They wont have to throw down a new building, or grab some new research, or anything. Just spam vikings instead of medivacs into a victory they dont deserve. In a game where I was at such an advantage where I figured "What the hell? I could win if I massed probes" I managed to lose because of how flexible Terran is without making the trade-off of having less specialized units that Zerg has to make.
  
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As long as they have the prerequisite building, Zerg can instantly tech switch into anything. Saw this match on HDstarcraft's channel the other day where the Terran player went BCs and mass vikings. The zerg immediately spawned 35 corruptors before his spire went down and smashed the fleet to pieces. (To be fair the zerg eventually lost after an epic base race, but still.)
edit: What I intend to say is that if you think Terran is too flexible you should look at Zerg. Going by your profile icon, yes it is true that us protoss players are the most inflexible D: At least we have Warp Gate.
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On August 12 2010 04:56 Aberacht wrote:
As long as they have the prerequisite building, Zerg can instantly tech switch into anything. Saw this match on HDstarcraft's channel the other day where the Terran player went BCs and mass vikings. The zerg immediately spawned 35 corruptors before his spire went down and smashed the fleet to pieces. (To be fair the zerg eventually lost after an epic base race, but still.)
edit: What I intend to say is that if you think Terran is too flexible you should look at Zerg.
I saw that game too and I loved it. Flexibility is a racial trait of Zerg-- not of Terran. Or, I should say, it IS a racial trait for Terran, and I feel it should not be.
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I always thought the reactor/research lab swapping ability is way too gimmicky. Whats wrong with specialized add-on for every building in the first place.
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"I just lost a game where I used carrier / stalker, a composition that sucks and no1 ever uses...and I lost with it....TERRAN IMBA"
Why would you go carriers against terran? They're so bad vs vikings
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On August 12 2010 04:56 Aberacht wrote:
As long as they have the prerequisite building, Zerg can instantly tech switch into anything. Saw this match on HDstarcraft's channel the other day where the Terran player went BCs and mass vikings. The zerg immediately spawned 35 corruptors before his spire went down and smashed the fleet to pieces. (To be fair the zerg eventually lost after an epic base race, but still.)
edit: What I intend to say is that if you think Terran is too flexible you should look at Zerg. Going by your profile icon, yes it is true that us protoss players are the most inflexible D: At least we have Warp Gate.
the point is that Terran has access to all their units (outside battlecruiser) in one tech path. Barracks->Factory->Starport. How is that less flexible than Zerg? if a zerg wants hydras, he needs to build a hydralisk den. if he wants air, he needs a spire. If he wants ultralisks, he needs an ultralisk cavern. Now if Zerg had every tech building made then I can see why Zerg can easily switch between units.
It was the same situation in SC1, but it wasn't much of a problem since only certain types of units were viable in each matchup. But in SC2, it seems like EVERY unit type is viable for Terran.
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On August 12 2010 04:59 SubtleArt wrote:
"I just lost a game where I used carrier / stalker, a composition that sucks and no1 ever uses...and I lost with it....TERRAN IMBA"
Why would you go carriers against terran? They're so bad vs vikings
EXACTLY. That is the point of this thread. I had blink researching so I could use my stalkers to smite the vikings. It would be a cool strategy if vikings werent so hard-counterish and massable.
Carriers are completely non-viable because Vikings hard-counter them and are able to be instaneously mass-produced. Why should Terran be able to do that? What trade-off do they make? Zerg give up specialized units with bonus damage in favor of more generic units. Think of how bad and useless corrupters are compared to vikings, who get massive bonus damage against all but 2 air to air units and can then morph to ground units...
If they scout it and start preparing vikings before hand, they should be able to stop it, but he scouted it once I had a bunch and was able to have a ton when he pushed out.
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Wait, according to your theory Zerg should be OP not terran. Zerg can do a tech switch instantly with all their unit producing structures.
Also about your game, if people see your army structure, they will get units to counter it, no matter what race they are.
This seems like a thread not good enough for the SC2 forums and being passed off as blog. ><
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On August 12 2010 05:04 Shatter wrote:
Wait, according to your theory Zerg should be OP not terran. Zerg can do a tech switch instantly with all their unit producing structures.
Also about your game, if people see your army structure, they will get units to counter it, no matter what race they are.
This seems like a thread not good enough for the SC2 forums and being passed off as blog. ><
Yeah it is. I wanted to rage really quickly.
The different is, Zerg units dont do MASSIVE bonus damage. Zerg units don't have "hard counters" except for a few specific examples. That is the BALANCE and trade-off for being able to massively tech-switch. Terran has the ability to slightly less well tech-switch, with zero trade-off. Units are very strong counters to what they counter, very strong for cost, etc.
The example, once again, is comparing the corrupter to the viking.
Mutas and roaches are countered by the same unit in PvZ. Mutas and Hydras are taken care of pretty well by Thors in TvZ.
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On August 12 2010 05:01 blabber wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 04:56 Aberacht wrote:
As long as they have the prerequisite building, Zerg can instantly tech switch into anything. Saw this match on HDstarcraft's channel the other day where the Terran player went BCs and mass vikings. The zerg immediately spawned 35 corruptors before his spire went down and smashed the fleet to pieces. (To be fair the zerg eventually lost after an epic base race, but still.)
edit: What I intend to say is that if you think Terran is too flexible you should look at Zerg. Going by your profile icon, yes it is true that us protoss players are the most inflexible D: At least we have Warp Gate. the point is that Terran has access to all their units (outside battlecruiser) in one tech path. Barracks->Factory->Starport. How is that less flexible than Zerg? if a zerg wants hydras, he needs to build a hydralisk den. if he wants air, he needs a spire. If he wants ultralisks, he needs an ultralisk cavern. Now if Zerg had every tech building made then I can see why Zerg can easily switch between units. It was the same situation in SC1, but it wasn't much of a problem since only certain types of units were viable in each matchup. But in SC2, it seems like EVERY unit type is viable for Terran.
You can't make Thors, Ghosts, BCs, or further infantry upgrades with those 3 buildings?
Add-ons also takes time to build even if the resource cost is negligible... I don't understand what the point of this thread is, if you are trying to argue late game flexibility shouldn't all races have the capacity to build most units they want anyway? How is throwing down a spire different than throwing down an armory?
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Why is there never a non biased terran in these kinds of threads? I completely agree with the OP about the tech switch can be done way too quick with so many upgrades per tech lab. On top of this I want to move the emp from ghost to raven, I think that should help things out as well :D
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What Terrans lack in inability to mass produce an army (Chronoboost/WarpGate or mass Larva morph), they make up for with the ability to produce the RIGHT unit. If the Terran makes the WRONG unit, the Terran loses. This is why unscouted tech switches are so bad for Terran, we can't just warp in 4 Stalkers instantly to scare away the Void Ray, we can only make a couple Marines at a time.
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On August 12 2010 05:13 MangoTango wrote:
What Terrans lack in inability to mass produce an army (Chronoboost/WarpGate or mass Larva morph), they make up for with the ability to produce the RIGHT unit. If the Terran makes the WRONG unit, the Terran loses. This is why unscouted tech switches are so bad for Terran, we can't just warp in 4 Stalkers instantly to scare away the Void Ray, we can only make a couple Marines at a time.
This is true, but scouting as Terran isn't exactly a challenge x_X.
My main point, which I will refine and eventually make a non blog post, is that Vikings and Hellions are too good and too strong of hard-counters to be so easily massable without any kind of an investment.
How many times have you seen a Terran go MMM, so a Toss player goes Collosi, so the Terran player has vikings up and ready as soon as they see the Collosi without having to make any type of investment or preparation. Carriers are completely useless in PvT as a result of this as well, where, if Vikings required a bit more investment to reach before they could be massed, taking a Terran by surprise with Carriers could be viable.
And we all know what Hellions do to Zerglings. X_x
Moving their upgrades to a specific building will mean they can get made, but wont be SO strong until the Terran makes a bit of an investment.
For example, what if Viking +armor damage was added to fusion core and hellion pre-ignitor were moved to engineering bay?
Would add a tiny bit more time/investment for a Terran to use those units in their strategy. Well, a lot more investment in the fusion core example.
Note that I am saying do this in FUTURE expansions, as it would require a lot of re-balancing to make this work for Wings of Liberty.
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And you need tech labs to make marauders, reapers, tanks, banshees, and ravens..... And, to get some of the simpler units out two at a time, you need to build a reactor (which takes a long fucking time to build).
Yea, who really thinks that building a starport would actually require another tech building before you could actually make air combat units? Seriously OP?
Nawe, it's just cause you don't like vikings..... Don't be mad cause you left yourself open to being hard-countered.....
And, honestly, Z can still pump units out quicker when they make a tech switch. Much faster. By far.
And having every unit being viable in every matchup is an awesome thing..... I don't see how that's bad, at all..... It makes it a much more diverse game, strategically.
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How is this any different from a terran with a vulture/tank composition being able to switch to goliaths once scouting carriers in scbw?
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On August 12 2010 05:13 MangoTango wrote:
What Terrans lack in inability to mass produce an army (Chronoboost/WarpGate or mass Larva morph), they make up for with the ability to produce the RIGHT unit. If the Terran makes the WRONG unit, the Terran loses. This is why unscouted tech switches are so bad for Terran, we can't just warp in 4 Stalkers instantly to scare away the Void Ray, we can only make a couple Marines at a time.
The same thing can be said to Zerg as well... I think sc2 still has too many hard counters, which makes scouting much more important than macro/micro mechanics.
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On August 12 2010 05:17 Impervious wrote:
And you need tech labs to make marauders, reapers, tanks, banshees, and ravens..... And, to get some of the simpler units out two at a time, you need to build a reactor (which takes a long fucking time to build).
Yea, who really thinks that building a starport would actually require another tech building before you could actually make air combat units? Seriously OP?
Nawe, it's just cause you don't like vikings..... Don't be mad cause you left yourself open to being hard-countered.....
And, honestly, Z can still pump units out quicker when they make a tech switch. Much faster. By far.
And having every unit being viable in every matchup is an awesome thing..... I don't see how that's bad, at all..... It makes it a much more diverse game, strategically.
I agree with the bolded, and it was one of the goals of this thread.
I also haven't said Terran is OP, at least, not because of their flexibility. Its just poor design in my opinion that should be fixed in the future
On August 12 2010 05:18 naonao wrote:
How is this any different from a terran with a vulture/tank composition being able to switch to goliaths once scouting carriers in scbw?
The fact that Goliaths couldn't be reactored and weren't air units, so Carriers could make use of high-ground ledges, etc. They weren't as strong of a hard-counter. And they didn't ever out-range Carriers... and required an upgrade to get decent range at all...
I can keep going.
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On August 12 2010 05:16 Ndugu wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 05:13 MangoTango wrote:
What Terrans lack in inability to mass produce an army (Chronoboost/WarpGate or mass Larva morph), they make up for with the ability to produce the RIGHT unit. If the Terran makes the WRONG unit, the Terran loses. This is why unscouted tech switches are so bad for Terran, we can't just warp in 4 Stalkers instantly to scare away the Void Ray, we can only make a couple Marines at a time. This is true, but scouting as Terran isn't exactly a challenge x_X. My main point, which I will refine and eventually make a non blog post, is that Vikings and Hellions are too good and too strong of hard-counters to be so easily massable without any kind of an investment. Moving their upgrades to a specific building will mean they can get made, but wont be SO strong until the Terran makes a bit of an investment. For example, what if Viking +armor damage was added to fusion core and hellion pre-ignitor were moved to engineering bay? Would add a tiny bit more time/investment for a Terran to use those units in their strategy. Well, a lot more investment in the fusion core example. Note that I am saying do this in FUTURE expansions, as it would require a lot of re-balancing to make this work for Wings of Liberty.
Preignitor is in the tech lab. Massing hellions takes a reactor. Two different tech labs, requiring 2 different production facilities to work properly.
And why should you have to pay for bonus damage? Why should it be the only unit in the game that has to do this? Fighting off the first void ray in TvP can be bad enough (if your opponent can micro well), depending on how fast he rushed to it and how delayed your starport is.....
Also, if preignitor was added to the ebay, hellion rushes would be even stronger..... You could get the upgrade while the factory was still building (or time it to start right as the building finishes, if that's a required building to upgrade), put the factory on a reactor made by the barracks, and mass reactor hellions, getting the upgrade really, really quickly..... Yea, kinda dumb idea overall..... Thanks for suggesting a way to make terran even easier to play though 
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You cant jus make some units and then 1a into him n expect to win. Most sc2 complain threads have been where people make some units 1a and lose, then the next game, they do the same thing, and lose, then do the same thing, and lose. Then they go, OMFG THIS GAME IS IMBA.
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On August 12 2010 04:58 Ndugu wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2010 04:56 Aberacht wrote:
As long as they have the prerequisite building, Zerg can instantly tech switch into anything. Saw this match on HDstarcraft's channel the other day where the Terran player went BCs and mass vikings. The zerg immediately spawned 35 corruptors before his spire went down and smashed the fleet to pieces. (To be fair the zerg eventually lost after an epic base race, but still.)
edit: What I intend to say is that if you think Terran is too flexible you should look at Zerg. I saw that game too and I loved it. Flexibility is a racial trait of Zerg-- not of Terran. Or, I should say, it IS a racial trait for Terran, and I feel it should not be.
Congratulations on being aware of your feelings. When games should be balanced on them, we'll let you know.
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EPT
