EPTSC2 Design Theorycraft: Viking and Colossi - Page 2
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mastergriggy
United States1312 Posts
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LlamaNamedOsama
United States1900 Posts
On May 06 2012 06:46 Forikorder wrote: then the ability is worthless and couldnt possible ever work You're operating under a false dichotomy. You're claiming that either Terrans can use the ability, and colossus die, making it "imbalanced," or you're claiming that Terrans can't use that ability, making it "worthless." First, the dichotomy is false: rather than being a binary, it is a gradual continuum. It isn't: "it will work" vs. "it won't work," it is a gradual scale of how effective the move will be in killing colossi. The great thing about this continuum is that depends on both the control of the terran player AND the control of the protoss player. Second, this proposal is no risk. In attempting to reach a balance, we could (as I've stated three times now, where all three times you've failed to acknowledge the solution) err on the side of caution, err on the side of the ability not being effective versus it being too effective. This would work because the current status quo (simply using vikings' normal attack to counter colossi) would still be present. If it's not effective, then absolutely nothing in the current game/balance would be disrupted or harmed. However, to be clear, this would not make the ability "worthless" simply because it is difficult to pull off. It would simply require a higher skill level from Terrans to accomplish, and in turn, a higher skill level from the protoss to counter the Terrans if Terrans managed to have the level of skill to accomplish this task. This balance of control is much like the marine-baneling dynamic. Theoretically, marine-splits would "nullify banelings" and make them worthless, as you claim that this viking technique would do to colossi. For example: optimal marine splitting. However, this is not the case for two reasons. 1: this is dependent upon skill and control, players would not have the 9000apm of a computer. 2: zergs have a reactive element of control: they can flank and use zerglings to surround. Now, although the above two are reasons why marine splits would not be imbalanced, that isn't to say marine splits wouldn't be perfect: even if players can't marine split like an automaton, they can marine split decently well and still gain a relative benefit from such a move. Likewise with the viking against the colossi. Even if players can't perfectly micro vikings to the point of imbalance, they can still micro them effectively enough to gain some benefit, and the protoss can micro in response to counter the benefit gained from the Terran's move. | ||
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Forikorder
Canada8840 Posts
First, the dichotomy is false: rather than being a binary, it is a gradual continuum. It isn't: "it will work" vs. "it won't work," it is a gradual scale of how effective the move will be in killing colossi. The great thing about this continuum is that depends on both the control of the terran player AND the control of the protoss player. right, the terran has to make moves that rival the accuracy of open heart surgery and the toss has to make the collosus take 2 steps to the left it is impossible for the move to work on a collosus if it has to be within a couple hexes like you said there is no middleground, either the circle has to be so small any toss with a brain gets the collosus out in time or its large enough to make it impossible to get out in time Second, this proposal is no risk. In attempting to reach a balance, we could (as I've stated three times now, where all three times you've failed to acknowledge the solution) err on the side of caution, err on the side of the ability not being effective versus it being too effective. This would work because the current status quo (simply using vikings' normal attack to counter colossi) would still be present. If it's not effective, then absolutely nothing in the current game/balance would be disrupted or harmed. no reason not to add something is not the same as having a reason to add it theres no reason to risk completely imbalancing the game jsut becuase theres no reason to add something, unless theres a good reason to add something its not going in This balance of control is much like the marine-baneling dynamic. you realise the reason infester/ling is so popular is because Terran have gotten so good at splitting that banelings are pretty much never cost effective at all? between marine splitting as terran and getting better at focusing on the Blings with tanks blings rarely exist in ZvT anymore | ||
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LlamaNamedOsama
United States1900 Posts
On May 06 2012 07:18 Forikorder wrote: right, the terran has to make moves that rival the accuracy of open heart surgery and the toss has to make the collosus take 2 steps to the left it is impossible for the move to work on a collosus if it has to be within a couple hexes like you said there is no middleground, either the circle has to be so small any toss with a brain gets the collosus out in time or its large enough to make it impossible to get out in time no reason not to add something is not the same as having a reason to add it theres no reason to risk completely imbalancing the game jsut becuase theres no reason to add something, unless theres a good reason to add something its not going in you realise the reason infester/ling is so popular is because Terran have gotten so good at splitting that banelings are pretty much never cost effective at all? between marine splitting as terran and getting better at focusing on the Blings with tanks blings rarely exist in ZvT anymore Again, it seems you can't think outside of a dichotomy. Of course, deconstruction necessitates that your post contradict itself if you insist on the dichotomy. First, you write: "the terran has to make moves that rival the accuracy of open heart surgery and the toss has to make the collosus take 2 steps to the left" (of course, evidence of your clearly dichotomous thinking in that you use such hyperbole - "heat surgery" to describe any task of skill). Second, you claim (creating the contradiction): "no reason to risk completely imbalancing the game" If it's so hard for terran as you claim, then it obviously wouldn't imbalance the game. You keep ignoring my point that the implementation would clearly err on the side of making it difficult for terrans. "there is no middleground" - there is always a middle ground, life isn't black and white. There's still a point where it could be hard to do, but still do-able and rewarding when accomplished. The same logic really applies to any instance of micro in starcraft. Splitting marines (in both sc1 and sc2) operated like this - splitting marines was often helpful in counteracting lurkers, but lurkers obviously did not lose use. Mutalisk and scourge against corsairs operated the same way. Ghosts versus high templars. It goes on and on. In every case, there is a scale of better reward for better micro, ultimately because the micro went both ways. If you had 4 ghosts versus 6 high templar, you coould micro poorly, sniping none of them, and getting completely feedback. If you micro'd slightly better, you could snipe 3 of them but still get feedbacked, perhaps stormed, too. If you micro'd optimally, you would snipe all of them. But that wouldn't defeat the purpose of high templar because high templar can counteract ghosts by control from the other player. As you can see, there's a scale of how successful ghosts are against high templar, and even at the highest end, that success is not imbalanced because the protoss has a dual role in microing versus the terran. It's exactly the same. You're assuming that either the terran fails or the terran succeeds, but there's a mix of the terran failing because the protoss succeeds, or the terran and protoss both damaging each other failing, or the terran succeeding because the protoss failing, or the terran and protoss both micro-ing insanely and producing a stalemate. you realise the reason infester/ling is so popular is because Terran have gotten so good at splitting that banelings are pretty much never cost effective at all? Not at all, infestor-ling is so popular because it naturally transitions to late-game ZvT compositions of infestor-BL or infestor ultra, and zergs got better at defending drops without mutalisks. | ||
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Carson
Canada820 Posts
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Forikorder
Canada8840 Posts
First, you write: "the terran has to make moves that rival the accuracy of open heart surgery and the toss has to make the collosus take 2 steps to the left" (of course, evidence of your clearly dichotomous thinking in that you use such hyperbole - "heat surgery" to describe any task of skill). Second, you claim (creating the contradiction): "no reason to risk completely imbalancing the game" If it's so hard for terran as you claim, then it obviously wouldn't imbalance the game. You keep ignoring my point that the implementation would clearly err on the side of making it difficult for terrans. the only way the change could possibly effect the game in any way is bad, since its impossible for it to do good since vikings VS collosus is fine as is then its 99% likely to jsut be the viking version of the Thors cannon with a very very slight chance that someone figures out a way to completely break it There's still a point where it could be hard to do, but still do-able and rewarding when accomplished. no there isnt since theres such a huge skill gap between pros and joes either its impossible for the joes to ever pull off and too mcuh effort with not enough reward for the pros or too easy for the pros and doable by the joes Not at all, infestor-ling is so popular because it naturally transitions to late-game ZvT compositions of infestor-BL or infestor ultra, and zergs got better at defending drops without mutalisks. Zerg went ling/bane/muta for almost 2 years then all of a sudden pretty much everyone switchs to infester/ling and the few times we do see ling/bane/muta in GSL (like DRGs Ro32 matchs) the Zerg struggles to do anything with it since the Terran can pretty much split perfectly and focus the banes down and they know exactly how to defend muta harass so Zergs took the 2 worthless gas guzzlers (mutas and banes) and put them into something useful (infesters and upgrades) if anything muta/ling/bane transitions better since you already have the spire, already have air upgrades and have the ground upgrades however since Terran can pretty mcuh make mutas and banelings worthless people stopped using them | ||
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Shock710
Australia6097 Posts
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Kanil
United States1713 Posts
The ability is completely useless in the Viking vs Overlord battle, the Viking vs Void Ray battle, the occasional Viking vs SCV battle... it only has an effect against Colossus. No other ability in SC has ever been like that. The only thing that would come close is Lockdown being completely ineffective against Zerg. Certainly, some abilities work better against certain units/races/what have you, but even in unfavorable situations they still do something. The insta-kill part is also rather unprecedented in StarCraft, but this isn't nearly as much an issue. I admire you for trying to make the Colossus/Viking interaction more interesting (it's one of the most boring parts of the game) but this idea is just a needless exception. It sounds like a band-aid fix when you can't balance something. (Ultralisk frenzy anyone?) | ||
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Xyik
Canada728 Posts
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