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Wow... DAT TURTLING.
There is so much to talk about that game. How indesisive Dimaga was at moments. How stupidly tense that midgame was (though it got a bit boring at some moment). How late game mothership became a real standard in late game PvZ just a few months ago. How zergs by now actually learned to play versus archon toilet.
...and that leads us to yet another thread about SC2 mechanics. We've seen probably a hundred of these. We know that Blizzard will probably not change unit clumping. We're bored and mad about people still discussing this topic, despite the fact Blizzard is not willing to drastically change this game. Yet still feel we want to discuss it. When after a hundred or two SC2 videos I watch a few SCBW matches, and can not stop noticing how epic and drawn out battles feel, with units not just obliterating each other in a few seconds, but constantly flowing into battle. Hell, I wasn't even watching that much BW before SC2, as I wrote before, I jumped into spectating RTSes mostly with WarCraft3. Yet... now I cannot stop noticing these things. I notice how even in old SC2 promotional materials Blizzard staged screenshots and demo videos with units not clumped up (like they do naturally in SC2), but spread out and in fraking formations!
Which brings us back to the most exciting moment of that game, which of course was the final battle. It was almost as short and brutal as most SC2 200 limit vs 200 limit battles are, but it still was ridiculously epic because of how spread out the action was. The camera was jumping all over the place, the casters screamed in excitement, and the armies clashed across a long front line.
That was beautiful. Of course, SC2 encourages players to do ball vs ball or line vs line battles, but I want to see more of this epicness.
So what conclusion can we make? The "BW mechanics are great" threads are still stupid. Blizzard will not enforce a harder mechanics in their game. Hell, I wouldn't personally invest that much time into playing a game like SC1 (and I actually didn't play more than 2 multiplayer games and didn't even finish BW campaign): for me playing without MBS and unlimited unit selection feels like I am struggling with the game UI, not with my opponent. Remember the old saying "AI doesn't need to click"? BW campaign felt extremely unfair to me because of how much clicking I needed to do to express my intentions to my own units.
SC2 found a pretty good compromise. It has MBS, unlimited unit selection and smartcasting as a modern RTS needs to, yet it still has a decently high skill ceiling. The tricks like forcing player to do more actions through chronoboosts, mules and injects feel like they fit naturally into the game. I love playing and watching that game, and will definitely spend hundreds and thousands more hours with it.
But what about less clumped units? Will Blizzard ever change it (probably not)? Or maybe players will learn how to "unclump" and force more drawn out battles? With the current status quo SC2 feels "good enough" for both playability and spectacle. But the more I watch it, the more I want something even better. So here I am, bashing threads about SC2 mechanics in a thread about SC2 mechanics.
Bollocks.
  
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I don't know if you can use that dual sight game to actually say "... zergs by now actually learned to play versus archon toilet". Archon toilet was quite the killer for Dimaga in that series. At one point Bitter just said that it was silly. If you think turtling with 30 spines in an armpit expansion is a solution to combat mothership, life is indeed very hard as a Zerg.
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Don't infestor eggs in the vortex spread out the archons upon emerging ?
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If units would automatically spread out when the battle starts... then why would anyone ever need to micro?
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On January 10 2012 03:47 Zaphid wrote:
Don't infestor eggs in the vortex spread out the archons upon emerging ?
you are supposed to spam the eggs outside the vortex, hold position the infested terrans, and click your broodlords away.
it has nothing to do with spread, it just fucks with the AI of the archons while you try to move your broodlords out of range (and honestly I fail to see how spreading the archons matters when they're the ones dealing the splash damage, not taking it...)
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On January 10 2012 03:44 Spec wrote:
I don't know if you can use that dual sight game to actually say "... zergs by now actually learned to play versus archon toilet". Archon toilet was quite the killer for Dimaga in that series. At one point Bitter just said that it was silly. If you think turtling with 30 spines in an armpit expansion is a solution to combat mothership, life is indeed very hard as a Zerg.
The turtling with 30 spines wasn't the counter to mothership. Splitting your fucking BLs is, and somehow DIMAGA remembered to do that this game but not in the following 2 -_-;
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On January 10 2012 04:53 polishedturd wrote:Show nested quote +On January 10 2012 03:47 Zaphid wrote:
Don't infestor eggs in the vortex spread out the archons upon emerging ? you are supposed to spam the eggs outside the vortex, hold position the infested terrans, and click your broodlords away. it has nothing to do with spread, it just fucks with the AI of the archons while you try to move your broodlords out of range (and honestly I fail to see how spreading the archons matters when they're the ones dealing the splash damage, not taking it...)
so the archons arnt in range of the bls
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On January 10 2012 03:44 Spec wrote:
I don't know if you can use that dual sight game to actually say "... zergs by now actually learned to play versus archon toilet". Archon toilet was quite the killer for Dimaga in that series. At one point Bitter just said that it was silly. If you think turtling with 30 spines in an armpit expansion is a solution to combat mothership, life is indeed very hard as a Zerg.
I did my best to stay away from balance discussion in that post 
Yes, PvZ is silly. Remember what Grubby or Rotterdam replied to this Bitter's phrase? "This is the only way"
Zergs have upper hand in macroing, so they power up their economy faster and get their expensive late game composition faster. And the only way to beat broodlord infestor with roach ling support is archon toilet. Archon toilet effectiveness actually relies on zerg putting all BLs in one control group and giving them a move command, so they nicely bunch up and end up sucked into one vortex. It's pretty much like EMP vs templars (both templars and broodlords are slow and like to clump up when moving), except there is that timing window, when protoss builds stargate, builds fleet beacon, builds mothership, waits for 100 energy, than shits his pants and waits for 200 energy. And zerg still can make an effort to spread his army, you know.
Play a macro game as a Protoss vs mass muta, and then tell me how hard the life of Zerg is
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That game has no relation to balance like whatsoever.
The whole map was basically mined out, but Dimaga was crafting his army more efficiently. Notice how he didn't just max on roaches(like JYP did with stalkers.)
Archon vortex will always get at least 3 broods, If you spread out the broods any more to a degree where you can only get two, then they'll vulnerable and can be picked off. Keep in mind that a mothership can get 2 vortexes of course.....
Really late game protosses should be going carriers vs zerg. Hero understands this, MC understands this, Puzzle understands this etc.... The problem, if ANYTHING, would be that map. There weren't enough bases left with minerals in order to "secure" a high lead vs a turtling zerg. Dimaga, un wittingly, managed to take mots of the minerals on the map, taking 5 total bases vs JYP's eventual 4.
Finally, in that situation, JYP shouldn't even have engaged. He should have just base traded when the broodlords went so out of position. Blink past spines, or just fight them head on(hell you even have collusus, out range them.) When broodlords come back, just go back.
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EPT
