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Coming from a BW background, I've always been a bit dissatisfied with how my units work in Wings of Liberty. No longer can I take a third base with a force of two lurkers. I can't skimp on units and rely on smart positioning and unit control to win me battles. Most often, it turns into an army vs. army battle with only the most basic micro needed from the Zerg side.
There are key unit concepts that are missing from WoL.
- Space control unit. Example: BW siege tank or lurker.
- Protoss harass unit. Example: Corsair or Reaver
- EXTREME spellcaster unit with potential for huge damage. Example: Defiler/Arbiter
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First example, a space control unit. The big examples from Brood War would be the siege tank and lurker. Perhaps a lesser example would be a high templar for Protoss. Siege tanks and lurkers both have a "setup time". They have to get into position beforehand but do a huge amount of damage. What is so unfortunate in Starcraft 2 is that Blizzard introduced, for lack of a better term, meatshield units. The roach and the marauder. If you think back on the Terran mid-game in Brood War, it consisted of tanks and medicmarine. The medicmarine were the patrol force. They ran around the map looking for expansions and such. But they were so fragile that two lurkers on top of a ramp would push them back. Once the tanks got there though, the Terran would easily be able to break the position. This is the sort of thing I want. Balance it with timings.
The other example is the Terran siege tank. Place five tanks behind a wall of buildings and turrets, and maybe splash a few mines infront. Bang, an inpenetrable defense against Protoss. This is partly because the poor AI in BW made it nigh impossible to navigate through tight choke points against an enemy force. Yes, I'm saying I want terrible pathing back. No, it wont' happen. Of course, the counter-side to this is that such a defensive force is very difficult to move around. The Protoss overcomes this defense with expanding and attacking from different angles, ala recalls.
The final example of the space controlling unit is the high templar. Put high templar with cannons at an expansion and dare the zerg to crack it without dark swarm. Because the Zerg units are so fragile (goes back to the first point), storm completely destroyed any force that dared attack the expo. Both solutions would be in place for this problem. Either wait for the timing with dark swarm, or simply outexpand your opponent/outmanouver him. The best option would be both.
With what Blizzard is employing now, the shredder, they're trying to overcome the inferior gameplay system of Starcraft 2. I am 100%, totally for this. However, I think the shredder's the wrong way to go about this. Note that simply because of the existence of the roach, the shredder is already significantly weakened. But the current incarnation is too powerful. Any form of mutaling play is rendered useless. Of course, if you tweak timings, it could work out, but with how the Terran tech tree works, it'll be pretty difficult unless it requires an additional building after starport or something. What I think is that it should only hit ground targets. I mean, the only actual air unit that will have less range than the shredder is the mutalisk so it won't really matter with anything else.
What I DO like about the shredder is its setup. It takes time to put up and encourages positioning. For example, if you were to incorporate it in a Terran push, you'd be placing it in front of your army and each time you move forward, you'd move the shredders up first, bit by bit. Also, it adds the "layered" factor to the army instead of having a ball. Much like Spider Mines - Vultures - Siege Tank lines in SC1. The Terran is forced to attack from a good angle but it makes the resulting push very powerful.
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A Protoss harass unit. I understand that the new Protoss flying sentry thing sorta fulfills this role but that's not really what I want. This new unit has no sense of urgency. Oh no, you disrupted my mining. Great, just bring a few units here and kill off the barriers. What I want is
"Hehe, I got this game one. This guy should hurry up and leave already. Wait NO WAHEGOEGHEORIA REAVER AHHHHH REAVER AHHHH REAVER AHHHHH!!! MOVE SCVS DAMINIT FIOWEAHFIO NO NO NO HOLY SHIT, BRING UNITS BACK AHHHHH!"
+ Show Spoiler +Yeah, what that funny Korean guy did.
Or corsairs wher you're similarly raging about losing giant clumps of overlords.
I don't necessarily dislike the new unit, I just think we need something more. Something high risk high reward. The high risk thing part is something pretty difficult to do.
In Brood War, the scourge was the unit that defined anti-harass for Zerg. They made drops extremely risky, but because drops in Brood War could do so much damage, it was worth the risk. Think about a marine/medic drop in a Zerg base. Do you know HOW FREAKING HARD that is to clean up? In Starcraft 2, you'd just send a bunch of zerglings in a-move and get the mutas to kill the medivac. In Brood War, if you did that, you'd lose all of your zerglings and not get the dropship either. It was a hugely powerful tool, but scourge made it really risky as well. It's similar to reavers and corsairs. You're putting a lot of cost into something that might necessarily not work. With corsairs it's more subtle and I wasn't good enough at the game to understand the nuances in using lots of corsairs mid-game but I'm sure there was a risk to using them as well.
Overall, I think this sort of extreme/risk reward thing isn't present enough in Starcraft 2. A unit that could support that would be great.
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Extreme spellcasters. ONE defiler would singlehandedly destroy a Terran push. ONE Arbiter would stasis half the Terran army and single handedly give you a fighting chance to break the push straight up. Neither of these units were massable.
Defilers did no straight up damage. Sure they had plague but it only took out the hp and not shields of a Toss and Terran bio can heal, not to mention they work with a tiny amount of HP anyway. They needed a support force of Lurkers and/or Ultras. These units soak up the gas so in the end, you can only support a few defilers in your mix, but these few defilers are game-changing. Of course, you lose them quite quickly because of irradiate but the ability to cast just a few swarms is worth the defiler already.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/flamewheel/SPL_LR/VerSaviorFE/savioririslong13.jpg)
Defiler is out, Terran dies.
Arbiters only removed a portion of the opposing army and cloaked your own units. Since you can't cloak on your cloak and since removing ALL of your opponent's units from a fight isn't really useful (and an insanely high time/gas cost), massing arbiters was not viable either. However, they were game-changers. So much that Protosses would often rush to Arbiters DESPITE it forcing you to go up all three different tech trees relatively quickly (Robo for obs).
Current spellcasters such as Infestors, Ghosts or High Templar are designed to be made in droves. Hell, you can go just Infestor ling and be successful. These units do straight up damage and it's never a bad thing to have too many of them. These sorts of spellcasters did exist in SC1, such as the science vessal or the high templar again, but there is an evident lack of game-altering units like the aforementioned defiler and arbiter.
The mothership was meant for this sort of role. It was basically a giant arbiter except because it was so slow, it didn't have any of the utility that the arbiter had. It also had an artificial limit of one per game, instead of allowing players to ascertain an ideal number to create. Not a very good unit.
The Viper sort of takes on this role but we'll have to see exactly how it functions. Its abilities are rather unique so without actual gameplay knowledge, it's hard to imagine.
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And there's my wall of text for the day. Just a note, I do NOT want carbon copies of BW units. That's boring and it won't work since gameplay in SC2 is completely different from BW. Instead I want units that will allow the game to function in a way similar to Brood War. It's an amazing game for a reason and it should be learned from. I think the shredder is an excellent step towards this, though it clearly needs some balancing. There are definitely lots of other ideas that could be implemented to fill out what Starcraft 2 needs.
Following Fate/Zero and its awesome (<3 UTW). Tons of schoolwork that I should be doing instead of writing this blog. Need to get started on ladder soon. I only made it to rank 10 instead of my goal of rank 8 last season T_T.
Edit: Would get more pictures in but I have to start working on homework.
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if you want to play BW go play BW i think its still around.
User was temp banned for this post.
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I don't want to play Brood War, I want to play a good game. Brood War was a good game so employing similar concepts would likely have good results, no?
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yeah it will have good results if you only want to play BW again. I guess hardcore BW people will just never accept that SC2 is a new game and isnt going to be like BW
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So instead of actually employing reasoning to debate properly, you just repeat what you said? Nice.
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I don't have any other reasons. Why can't it just be a different game? When I play it I don't think it's broken.
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On October 27 2011 14:12 Geosensation wrote:
yeah it will have good results if you only want to play BW again. I guess hardcore BW people will just never accept that SC2 is a new game and isnt going to be like BW
i dont give a damn if sc2 is like bw, i just want it to be good and rewarding of skill, different kinds of skill as well like bw was, as it is now it is not the only race that properly rewards skill is terran -_-
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i wish blizzard would also want to take these steps, but from the interview with Browder that TL did it pretty much sounds like he said "yea it sorta sucks (lots of ball vs ball fights) but we aren't going to change it much". i mean im not saying break the pathfinding but there are ways to have really cool dynamic battles/army organization like in bw and still have good pathfinding. you just need to drastically change a lot of the core units in the game though ( which won't happen). the shredder and viper seem like good starts, but I doubt any of the other announced units will really change the ball vs ball problem at all.
I like the way you differentiated the super spellcaster to the mass-able spellcaster. the viper's cloud spell seems like a really powerful dark-swarmey spell (although its more like 70% d-web and 30% dark swarm) but will probably not be that great since it's on a pretty mass-able spellcaster (which pretty much all casters in sc2 are :\).
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My heart wants to agree with you, but there are some problems in SC2, such as the AI that naturally clumps units, that makes a unit like the old Arbiter way too powerful, or even the Lurker. Perhaps you could argue that Fungal and storms have the same issue, but both of those spells deal damage over time as opposed to shutting down an entire opponent's army (or most of it), and the Lurker in SC2 would just be way too nuts, in my opinion.
I'm a little uneasy with where we are right now and where we are going, but I have faith in Blizzzard that they'll end up in a good place. If we look at the original Starcraft (no expansion) or WC3: RoC, there are clear holes that exist. They function as a metagame, but looking back there is a much better balance with the new units.
If you're dissatisfied with the Blizzcon released units (not just the OP, but anyone in general), just remember all of the weird things that were revealed before the beta of Wings of Liberty. Nothing that is INSANELY broken will fall through the cracks--this is Blizzard we are working with here, not Ensemble Studios.
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On October 27 2011 14:45 Hikko wrote:
If you're dissatisfied with the Blizzcon released units (not just the OP, but anyone in general), just remember all of the weird things that were revealed before the beta of Wings of Liberty. Nothing that is INSANELY broken will fall through the cracks--this is Blizzard we are working with here, not Ensemble Studios.
the colossus fell through, though it wasnt broken it is a unit that rewards A-moving rather than micro T_T
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On October 27 2011 14:48 unit wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 14:45 Hikko wrote:
If you're dissatisfied with the Blizzcon released units (not just the OP, but anyone in general), just remember all of the weird things that were revealed before the beta of Wings of Liberty. Nothing that is INSANELY broken will fall through the cracks--this is Blizzard we are working with here, not Ensemble Studios. the colossus fell through, though it wasnt broken it is a unit that rewards A-moving rather than micro T_T
I'll trade it for your reaver icon :D lol hell I'll trade carriers/MS and Collosi  lol
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On October 27 2011 14:48 unit wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 14:45 Hikko wrote:
If you're dissatisfied with the Blizzcon released units (not just the OP, but anyone in general), just remember all of the weird things that were revealed before the beta of Wings of Liberty. Nothing that is INSANELY broken will fall through the cracks--this is Blizzard we are working with here, not Ensemble Studios. the colossus fell through, though it wasnt broken it is a unit that rewards A-moving rather than micro T_T
In Beta the colossus had a much slower attack time with the same DPS, so they did something like twice the damage or 2.5x the damage per shot. I personally liked it this way, but it became common in PvP (and maybe PvZ, can't remember) to use a Warp Prism to pick up the colossus in between shots. The nastiest thing of all was that you pretty much had reaver drops with them, except they just 1-shotted ALL of your workers instantly, and then the warp prism just flew to the next expansion and vaporized your workers there, too.
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On October 27 2011 14:54 OmniEulogy wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2011 14:48 unit wrote:On October 27 2011 14:45 Hikko wrote:
If you're dissatisfied with the Blizzcon released units (not just the OP, but anyone in general), just remember all of the weird things that were revealed before the beta of Wings of Liberty. Nothing that is INSANELY broken will fall through the cracks--this is Blizzard we are working with here, not Ensemble Studios. the colossus fell through, though it wasnt broken it is a unit that rewards A-moving rather than micro T_T I'll trade it for your reaver icon :D lol hell I'll trade carriers/MS and Collosi lol
so would i my friend, so would i
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+ Show Spoiler +Oracle is an okay concept for a unit. I like the fact that it is an aerial spellcaster, but that's about it. They have a long time to tweak the spells, so it should be alright by the time it gets into alpha/beta/retail etc.
The scouting spell seems to be kindof useless, because you should be able to tell what terran is up to by using obbies anyways. And you should be able to tell what zerg is up to by what buildings they have by hallucinated phoenix/obbies too. So, imo, it's kindof redundant.
The anti-static defense/neo-contaminate spell seems pretty fitting. Corsairs used to have dweb, although that was never used competitively much.
Replicant is probably a unit that alot of people have problems with. If I were to give a simple reason, it would be because it has no real role in PvP. I'm all for units not being used when competitive players pick up the game and start using certain units in a matchup, but units should be at least designed for all sorts of scenarios and matchups in mind. If I were to give a more advanced reason, it's because you are fighting a war on your opponents terms. The only time you'll be able to use tanks is when the opponent goes tanks himself.
But to quote from Rekrul's post, it did take BW pro's quite a while to figure out how to play their races properly. So from a game design perspective, units are the tools used by gamers to create a piece of art. Not all tools will be used until they are figured out, but you want to make the tools practical enough that people will use them. But since Starcraft is a competitve ESPORT, you do not want to make the units have a low skill ceiling. Its hard to make units that are designed to be more effective when they are micro'd, but its the sort of thing Dbro and Dkim and co have to deal with.
Am I worried about units being unfair? I am, a little bit. The viper's blinding cloud shouldn't scare you. It's pull should though. Why? Because you can't really micro against it. If you are running away from a losing battle, your units can be pulled. I'm not completely worried, this sort of imbalance is alright for spectators, and it's fun to play too, just need to consider whether it fits into the game or not. Personally, when considering game balance, you need to let the feelings of others (specifically, nerdrage) not get in the way.
Other personal opinions: I feel that if the science vessel and arbiter were removed in TvP, and you just had a battle of zealots/goons vs tanks/spider mines, it would still be a good battle. If you had a battle of MMM vs stalker/zealot/collosus, it would be a lot less interesting battle. Perhaps designing armies first w/o spellcasters in mind would be a better approach? Spellcasters should be like the cherry on top, adding a little bit extra.
(I need to watch more PvZ to see if this is more fitting though, lol).
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I mentioned that I don't really want the same units. I want units that will affect the game in similar ways. The shredder is a good example, but needs changes as is.
TvP it happened like that because those units were at the very top of the tech tree and took time to reach. They're still really important though. Especially the arbiter because a 200/200 supply Toss can't fight a 200/200 supply Terran without comcing out far behind unless they use arbiters. In PvZ, storm was the only thing in the game that kept Protoss at a decent footing against Zerg. In TvZ, it's a gradual layering of units would end up with defiler vs. science vessals where Defilers had godspells.
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United Kingdom14464 Posts
Space Control: Shredder, Swarm Lord, Viper
Protoss Harass: Oracle (see SotG for its potential for awesomeness, Artosis said them really eloquently)
Extreme Spellcasters: Viper has potential, as does a squadron of replicators. I personally don't think that the hugely powerful spellcasters of BW don't really have a role in SC2. The mothership was close, but the line in this game between imba and useless is very fine for such expensive units.
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I saw state of the game. It doesn't give a sense of urgency like what is needed to make games exciting.
I think the uber spellcasters would be cool. They're not outrageously expensive. The defiler was only like 50/150.
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Meh, I don't think spellcasters should be TOO strong, but there's one thing I like about the "super spellcaster" over spellcasters now and that's the fact that right now people mass sentries/ghosts/infestors and just spam spells whenever. Energy should be something that's more important than that.
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I see what you mean that it sucks you can't burrow two lurkers to defend a quick third....but SC2 has different ways of allowing you to do this, you can mass units much more quickly than BW, you can move spine crawlers etc. There are extreme spellcasters - Motherships, Infestors and some of the new units (Viper) fill this role. Protoss HAS harass options. Just different ones from BW.
For a guy that says he doesn't want carbon copies of BW units, you're sure getting pretty specific about what the units and functionalities that you want, and they're the same as they are in BW.
I feel like I should blog about how I want smartcasting and unlimited control groups in BW.
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On October 27 2011 22:41 Zorkmid wrote:
I see what you mean that it sucks you can't burrow two lurkers to defend a quick third....but SC2 has different ways of allowing you to do this, you can mass units much more quickly than BW, you can move spine crawlers etc. There are extreme spellcasters - Motherships, Infestors and some of the new units (Viper) fill this role. Protoss HAS harass options. Just different ones from BW.
For a guy that says he doesn't want carbon copies of BW units, you're sure getting pretty specific about what the units and functionalities that you want, and they're the same as they are in BW.
I feel like I should blog about how I want smartcasting and unlimited control groups in BW.
It's kinda funny how I covered half your points in my OP. Also, you can mass units faster but so can the other races so it doesn't really matter. I'm talking efficient units that take smart use to be effective.
And there's clearly creativity that can go into things, even if they're designed for specific purposes. The shredder, like I already said, is a great idea. Unique and still does the desired effect. If you check the terms I used, they're all very broad and they're the same as the ones in Brood War because Brood War had all the excellent functionalities. I really wish people would read more.
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This is a really, really, really good blog, and is the type of discussion people should be having when looking at the game from a design perspective. I also liked the blog (can't remember who wrote it or what the title was) that compared sc2 units to C&C units and BW units to chess pieces.
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I feel the reaver would make sc2 a whole lot more exciting though. The dud factor + 10kill SCV factor is priceless.
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EPT
