I'm going to go over all of the flaws of the deathball, from the way it affects the meta-game, to how it affects the spectator experience.
First of all, what is a 'deathball'? A deathball (DB) is when a player gets the critical mass of units moving together, so that each unit has it's weaknesses covered, and there's enough units there that to defeat it you need to also have your full army (or more) to defeat it.
The base concept is to get a mass of units that increase in value the more of them and their supporting units you have. quick example of the standard Voidray Stalker Sentry Colossus DB. Every unit added to that mix is worth exponentially more when it's grouped together with the rest vs being spread out.
What this then means is that players NEVER want their units fighting outside of the DB, except to defend harass. This also means that units that don't work with the DB are not made, because they don't get the force multiplier the DB provides.
What this ends up meaning for overall metagame is that everything revolves around making/killing the inevitable DB. With this in mind, it is small wonder that people are doing so little creative play like nydus, void prism or nukes. The money that could have been spent on that interesting play is instead needed to simply survive the other guy's army just rolling you over. So at best you will be doing some form of base-trade, and he still has his almost untouched DB rolling around the map.
Because of the critical mass factor, fights are far more likely to be swingy in one direction or the other. Either you have enough to overwhelm the deathball and move on to kill him, because now he has no critical mass, or you don't, and he hardly loses anything while killing your base.
Because of how tightly packed the units are in the DB, melee units are generally obsolete by a certain point, at least as damage dealers, serving only to soak up some damage. Though due to the same token, units with splash are becoming the absolute staple of every race, with tanks and colossus dominating the mid-game battlefield. This has even lead to the protoss strat of going a colossus deathball, forcing the terran into tank+viking, and then transitioning into immortal+HT. As the zerg's only 2 splash units are melee, we're seeing creativity in getting them in next to the army (overlord drops/burrow etc) This may also be helped with the infestor change in the upcoming patch.
This brings me to the spectator view on this. In BW we had very large spread out battle lines and areas of engagement, often with armies being split up to attack multiple locations at once. What got me the most though, was the willingness of players in mid to late game to sacrifice small to medium sized forces to kill bases or important structures. We don't see this behavior in SC2, because if you are ever not fully prepared to deal with the DB rolling your way, it will steamroll you and you'll lose. So almost every unit you make needs to be ready to defend against that push in the most effective way possible. If you send off a force to kill an expansion, do so, but lose that force without doing damage to his army, he'll just attack then and win before the econ hit he just took takes effect.
So we have less going on on the map, where the game revolves around poking at eachother's mass army in the middle of the map over and over until one side thinks they can win and they push in and have one big battle that decides the game.
Now, I'm not saying by any stretch that every game happens like this, simply that it has been the trend over the last few months, and if something isn't done, be it by the players finding ways to counter deathballs, or by blizzard in some form of patch, I believe we'll just continue to see play stagnant further and further into boring games decided by one battle.
Hmm, I don't really agree with this. The concept of getting deathballs certainly plays a big role in a lot of sc2 games, however, I wouldn't go as far to say it's necessarily hurting the game, nor do I think the metagame will go towards more deathball focused strategy. If you think about it, the metagame seems to shift further from it if anything in most matchups.
For example, the deathball is rarely seen in TvZ matchup, where there will be action all over the map at almost all times. Take a recent game like HayprO vs GanZI for example, there were drops flying around everywhere and small marine forces taking out expansions as well as mutas flying around doing as much harassment as possible.
Another example is White-ra's play. Protoss play has for a long time been very centered around getting a deathball, but his warp prism harassment with zealots and stuff has proven to be very successful, and I think we will be seeing more of this in the future as more players learn how they can survive big attacks while still utilizing harassment like this.
I think the reason the game might feel so centered around getting a huge army and 1a-ing to victory, with essentialy one battle deciding the outcome of the game, is because right now it's such a strong strategy. That doesn't mean it's the strongest though, and I don't think it is. It just takes time to figure out timings and how you can survive such attacks with as little army as possible, and not before then can you start to really utilize the other portions of your army.
Another thing is that if you're a new up and coming player, instead of trying to figure out some new way of playing a matchup and how to get around just deathballing, it's a lot easier to take advantage of the current metagame and just jump right into it, not leaving a lot of space for evolution of the matchup.
And then we have the obvious argument, the maps. It's hard to justify not deathballing on maps like steppes or slag pits because they are just so damn small. We've seen a lot of interesting games with lots of action on the whole map on the new GSL maps though, but it takes one player not dying to a timing attack to get these games. I think when the game gets more figured out, we'll see more creative play.
I might be wrong though, maybe the deathball is too strong.
edit: I do agree with bw having a lot more action around the map and it being more interesting to watch btw. Just saying that sc2 isn't completely missing that, and I don't think it will in the future.
It doesn't happen so often in TvZ because Terran prefers bio. TvZ mech-style, with blue-flame hellion harass into mass tank/thor is incredibly strong. It works well in TvP too (there's a great example cast by Diggity with Diggity versus InControl. playing very well against it, but still coming out behind).
The immobility of mech is an issue, but missile turrets and PFs - along with the sheer power of the death ball - means that as said in the blog, backstabs and small drop or skirmish attacks ultimately just play into the deathball builder's hands.
Snaiil, I agree with you on a lot of points, especially that this is a problem that doesn't necessarily need blizzard's intervention to possibly fix. Simply that their intervention could go a long way to decrease this type of play. I really enjoy seeing those rare games like you mention where stuff is happening all over the map, but it feels like those games are 1 or 2 in 10.
It also feels a little weird to watch a BW PvT, where P will recall in a force of dragoons to the terran main, and hardly do any damage, but the game doesn't instantly end there like it would for an SC2 game.
The immobility of mech is an issue, but missile turrets and PFs - along with the sheer power of the death ball - means that as said in the blog, backstabs and small drop or skirmish attacks ultimately just play into the deathball builder's hands.
This is exactly what I'm trying to get across. Doing anything other then prepping to smash the deathball will mean it will destroy whatever you DO have, without many losses.
What is a deathball? - It's one of those new terms I hated from the start. It's at the same level with counter and hard counter when talking about units. First of all a "Deathball" to me is a sign of one control group syndrome. Any army composition in the game works better when not in a gigantic blob.
If you have a big army, you are supposed to call it a big army and control it as such.
On March 10 2011 03:21 Dragar wrote: The only way 'mobile' play really works is if you can hit them before the deathball exists.
So basically your saying to harass them? just like you should be anyway.
Harass doesn't work on two bases, it needs to be a full on push. Hence all the recent Zerg 2-base hydra drops against Protoss, or July's aggression versus Terran in his recent GSL matches. It's too expensive to harass if those harassing units can't be used versus the deathball later.
On March 10 2011 04:21 HwangjaeTerran wrote: What is a deathball? - It's one of those new terms I hated from the start. It's at the same level with counter and hard counter when talking about units. First of all a "Deathball" to me is a sign of one control group syndrome. Any army composition in the game works better when not in a gigantic blob.
If you have a big army, you are supposed to call it a big army and control it as such.
the deathball is the phenomenon seen when units gain exponential value in larger and larger groups, leading to the units being nearly worthless in comparison when they are not part of that critical mass, thus leading to what I discussed above.
On March 10 2011 01:55 Shiladie wrote: We don't see this behavior in BW, because if you are ever not fully prepared to deal with the DB rolling your way, it will steamroll you and you'll lose.
Correct this, change it to SC2
There hasn't really been a deathball in Broodwar because it's much harder to max out in broodwar than in SC2. There's twice as much units in a 200/200 broodwar army.
But if anyone centered this around his play in Broodwar, it's Flash. You'll see Flash trying to get to 200/200 asap and winning with the superior 200/200 army of terran. It worked quite well.
On March 10 2011 01:55 Shiladie wrote: We don't see this behavior in BW, because if you are ever not fully prepared to deal with the DB rolling your way, it will steamroll you and you'll lose.
Correct this, change it to SC2
There hasn't really been a deathball in Broodwar because it's much harder to max out in broodwar than in SC2. There's twice as much units in a 200/200 broodwar army.
But if anyone centered this around his play in Broodwar, it's Flash. You'll see Flash trying to get to 200/200 asap and winning with the superior 200/200 army of terran. It worked quite well.
I noticed this odd thing too, at first I was wondering whether he talking about SC2 or BW because I don't recall a lot of deathballs in BW and watch even less games SC2 than BW now.
On March 10 2011 01:55 Shiladie wrote: We don't see this behavior in BW, because if you are ever not fully prepared to deal with the DB rolling your way, it will steamroll you and you'll lose.
Correct this, change it to SC2
There hasn't really been a deathball in Broodwar because it's much harder to max out in broodwar than in SC2. There's twice as much units in a 200/200 broodwar army.
But if anyone centered this around his play in Broodwar, it's Flash. You'll see Flash trying to get to 200/200 asap and winning with the superior 200/200 army of terran. It worked quite well.
gah, yes I typoed that as BW, changed to SC2 like I was meaning it to be, sorry about that.
On March 10 2011 01:55 Shiladie wrote: We don't see this behavior in BW, because if you are ever not fully prepared to deal with the DB rolling your way, it will steamroll you and you'll lose.
Correct this, change it to SC2
There hasn't really been a deathball in Broodwar because it's much harder to max out in broodwar than in SC2. There's twice as much units in a 200/200 broodwar army.
But if anyone centered this around his play in Broodwar, it's Flash. You'll see Flash trying to get to 200/200 asap and winning with the superior 200/200 army of terran. It worked quite well.
Well, I think one of the reasons that death balls are more common in SC2 is nature of the game's macro mechanics and popular unit compositions.
Larval inject, MULEs, and Chronoboost allow players to supercharge their economy like never before. The same macro mechanics allow for armies to be built up much faster, and this allows for the dreaded deathballs to be quickly created off of a few bases, and even quicker off of more bases.
Also, getting to 200/200 is much quicker due to more core units costing more supply.
Hydras and Roaches cost 2 food in SC2, yet Hydras only cost 1 food in BW, and combined with larval injects, getting to a 200/200 Zerg ball is much easier in SC2, especially when playing passively.
In BW, the majority of the core Protoss army only costs 2 food each, with the major exceptions being Archons and Reavers which cost 4 food. However, players don't win by massing Reavers in BW (or do they?!?). In SC2, quite a few popular strategies revolve around massing Colossi and/or Void Rays, which cost 6 food and 3 food respectively. Colossi, though boring, are much better front-line fighting units compared to Reavers, especially when massed. Void Rays are stupidly powerful when massed to a ridiculous critical mass. Consequently, PvX often revolves around maxing out with these power units as quickly as possible, which is quite easy with the Protoss macro mechanics and the fact that these power units cost so much food.
Dunno about Terran since I don't play Terran lol. It seems that the Siege Tank food price got upped from 2 to 3 from BW to SC2. Marauders are much hardier compared to Vultures, and Thors are both durable and cost a ton of food compared to Goliaths. Also, instead of 1 food Medics, Terrans now have 2 food Medivacs.
But anyways, it's much, much easier and quicker to max out to 200/200 in SC2.
And I just realized that I've basically restated your point, but with a wall of words and facts. Oh well.
it does not necessarily have to be a 200/200 ball either.
even at low food battles like 60-80, if you take 10 food worth of units and harass (like a small drop or whatever), that 10 food can be the difference between trading armies and getting absolutely crushed when the counterattack comes in.
It's good to see that I'm not alone in my thoughts on this, and hope more people take note. While I really hope it is something the game will move past as the metagame evolves, I am worried that the opposite will happen, and we'll need to rely on blizzard to make a fix to prevent that stagnation.
On March 11 2011 03:57 Shiladie wrote: It's good to see that I'm not alone in my thoughts on this, and hope more people take note. While I really hope it is something the game will move past as the metagame evolves, I am worried that the opposite will happen, and we'll need to rely on blizzard to make a fix to prevent that stagnation.
I think we'll need to see something from blizzard to actually get changes to the 'deathball'. Protoss is the only race that really forms such an army, and it's because of the units involved. Colossus and voidrays are such great damaging units however; they're relatively fragile. A collosus costs 300/200, but only has 350 total life, and 150 of that is shields (no armor, for the most part). Comparing to the thor and ultra, both of which cost 300/200 have 400 and 500 HP respectively. Part of that is unit design, but 350 hp on a massive/armored unit is pretty easy to focus down, and will be targeted quickly because of it's damage potential. Colossus are terrible units on their own, and even only so-so with a small army. With their ability to stand on top of units, using a wad of them on top of other ranged units is incredibly powerful, they're protected while the range 9 can dish out the damage.
Voidrays are the same way, expensive (250/150) and fairly weak (150/100). They take quite a few seconds to really get up their damage, making them weak alone or without other units to soak damage. Add them into a ball, though, and they shine. Plenty of time to charge while the incoming fire hopefully hits other units instead.
With the unit starts how they are now, making a giant ball really seems to be the only way to play protoss. PvX is so focused around colossus that every colossus counts, so they must be kept together and built up, losing a couple is just too risky. They're far too fragile without the ball.
If the deathball-ness is to change, it will need to be through patches or some other influence
EPT
