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In Defence of Mech - Page 14

Blogs > Falling
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Fyrewolf
Profile Joined January 2010
United States1533 Posts
August 16 2012 19:13 GMT
#261
On August 17 2012 03:45 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 16 2012 20:53 Sapphire.lux wrote:
Yoshi Kirishima, i did read your post, i always try to actualy as i realy like the way you write I admire your positive aproach, i just think is missguided based on what we have seen in WOL, the interviews Blizzard gave, etc.

We can agree that Warhounds killing Tanks is a very bad idea, ok. This is fundamental to understanding the strenght the Warhound will have in TvP, and the very, very unlikly scenario where tanks might be buffed.

Where we disagree completly is that i, and the OP, do not consider a ball of robots (with some tanks if you will) to have anything to do with mech as a play style. What the OP means by mech, is not just units that have "mechanical" as one of the stats. This is why i said you can not have 3...4 completly different unit compositions and call all of them "mech".

Sure you have different builds that alow you to do different things: macro focused to get to 200/200 fast and steam roll the oponent, very harass based, etc. They all have to be Tank focused though.

Nothing wrong with having an army of robots going up and down the map (like some people play THOR/ hellion/ banshee). But lets not pretend that is pure terran mech...the way it playes out, it has more in common with bio or protoss then actual mech.

My personal fear for HOTS is that they will not try or even want to have a viable, tank-positioning based, mech be viable. They slaped a factory marauder, see that the new factory ball can beat the protoss ball, and call that a job well done.

BTW, by viable i mean at pro level. At my level i can play mech TvP (with PF walls, ST, etc) just fine. It's the pro scene where i don't want to see mech warriors dancing with the protoss death ball, and have Blizzard pleased that they made mech viable.


kk, awesome

I think part of my optimistic view is due to having experienced reading about blizzard implementing or suggesting stupid things in interviews or such, in which I think "ok that can't be something they're actually going to do" or "oh, it'll probably get removed after they test or discuss it more", and it happens. For example, anyone remember Slag Pits? It was described as a more macro version of metalopolis. What a joke, right? From this instance, we can see there are many different people working on different things, and the person writing that description probably didn't have a good understanding of the game or the team had bad communication.

I see what you mean, things like thor/hellion/banshee aren't mech like in BW. But while being similar to bio or protoss, it still is a little unique, because overall the bulk of the army (thors) are still slow. Instead of me thinking that it's not a true mech style, like in BW where tanks are essential to mech, I think of it as a bonus -- a new way to mech. While it doesn't have the iconic positioning factor in it, it is still a new style (strong, slow, but slightly more mobile than with a composition including tanks, though doesn't scale as well lategame because there is much less splash) which I would consider to be "part of mech".

However, if that is the only style they are promoting, then I have a problem. I guess that's what a lot of my first post was about, I was posting my thoughts on how different compositions would have their own place. I noticed that Blizzard has been trying to give each style more options (again, lategame zerg doesn't have to be deathball, it can be mobile but weaker in direct engagements now), the stargate tech of protoss is becoming more full and thus stargate openings should become at least slightly more viable, so from this, I assume that they are willing to do the same with mech as well -- the "bio units that are made from the factory" kind of style of warhound/hellion or thor/hellion/banshee etc. for a more aggressive, mobile style of mech, while those who want to play the more traditional style of mech (with tanks and more positioning) can do that as well.


Show nested quote +
On August 16 2012 23:35 Nazza wrote:
On August 16 2012 19:49 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On August 16 2012 18:08 Nazza wrote:
Not really sure why Blizzard would think bio-mech is a good thing to have. It takes resources from two tech trees, and you need two different upgrade buildings for both. That just makes transitioning difficult/hard, as when the game goes on, you will have worser upgrades, or have to split upgrades between 2 different unit types. Of course, making support units from different tech trees are fine (such as ghosts in SC2/Vessels in BW), because you don't really need weapon/armor upgrades for them, but having a style that has a single focus is much stronger imo.


Actually I think it's almost the opposite of what you're describing.

First of all, when the OP says bio mech, I think he means marine tank, right? Although you could describe it as bio mech, it is still dominantly bio (most supply is bio units). A bio mech style would be more like something MKP did against July in that one GSL game on metropolis a few months back, where he upgraded both bio attack and mech attack and had an army of Marine Hellion Thor, or something like that. The standard marine/tank in TvZ today, though with its mech features (tanks, giving some sense of positional play), is still a dominantly bio style. The tanks are to support the marines. You don't upgrade go double armory upgrades, you go double ebay upgrades.

Anyways, these tanks and medivacs and vikings are support units, but still part of bio play. However, the game is balanced for these compositions. Do you see marine/tank doing badly in TvZ despite having to get more than 2 upgrades? This design is really awesome for SC2. Unlike in SC1, in which it was easier for you to stick to pure <insert tree here>, in SC2 you can choose to get a more diverse set of units. You can still play pure MMM in TvZ or TvT, but it is not the most common style, and as the game goes on, there is more and more incentive to start adding units from other trees (medivacs, then tanks, then possibly air units).

I think this is important to understand, because many people will say "I want to be able to do pure mech, so please give us back goliaths so we don't need vikings!", but I do not think they have considered this before. SC2 is designed so that you can't go "pure bio" or "pure mech", but that does not make you weaker but instead helps terran scale lategame (ex: in TvZ, he may eventually max out on bio and vehicle attack upgrades, and thus start upgrading vehicle armor) and helps them to transition or diversify their composition even more (ex: in TvZ, once the terran has 3/3 bio and 3/3 mech, he can add more factories).

So this actually allows terran to transition easier, because you may already be, for example, upgrading +1 vehicle attack with your marine/tank composition TvZ.

If you look at BW mech, goliaths were already very good AA units. You didn't really need starport tech. You also don't need bio (ghosts) as you do in SC2 for EMPs. You could stay "pure mech". However, because of this, the game was balanced around that, and as a result, it was difficult for terran to transition.

Another thing to consider is that the air tech tree in SC2 is more complete, and it is common for mech players (especially for TvP and TvT) to add more and more air units, possibly transitioning into full out air (3/3 BCs with Viking/Ravens and some support Ghosts for HTs).


I don't really understand. It is good that Terran has to produce a different structure just to get vikings (a support unit) that also requires a different set of upgrades? A strategy that uses one set of units will have max upgrades for them sooner and more of that unit.

And it's not that goliaths were really good AA units, it's more like wraiths were really bad unless you had them as support units (just a few to sight for tanks) or they were massed (late gate TvT wraith transition). I'm imagining playing TvP without goliaths, and having to rely on a different tech tree to supply your anti-air (imagine vanilla starcraft lol).

It's more like, I have the problem with the viking doing what the goliath used to do... but it's an air unit. Shouldn't air units have their own mentality? Their own playstyle? When you go wraiths in TvP (lol hiya), what's the thing that wraiths can do that goliaths can't? Abuse mobility, cloak, and harass.


Ok so let's look at medivacs. In BW, if you wanted to heal, you could get the bio medics. However, now you have to get medivacs from the starport. I see what you are saying, that it is in a way weaker because bio upgrades don't effect the medivac. However, the game is balanced to be like that. It's balanced so that you don't need to upgrade your medivac armor. When they get BLs, you can get 0/0 vikings. Again, it's balanced to be like that. You can upgrade ship weapons if you want, that's up to you. It'll slightly diminish your viking count, but help you reach the full strength of the viking/air tech faster. If you look at marine tank, it's balanced so that even if you use tanks (instead of the recent tankless MMM styles), you are not behind because you are upgrading 3 things instead of 2.

Now, why does this make our lategame stronger, and help us transition? Because we are upgrading more than 2 things, and already have the production for other tech (tanks, vikings, etc.), we already have part of that tech ready (some upgrades done, some production facilities built). Back to my marine tank example, it's common for terrans to research double ebay and +1 vehicle attack. You could go tankless so that you can have a different style, but it's not exactly stronger (at least not significantly), just different -- even though you save money from the armory and not upgrading vehicle attack so that you can get a few more bio units out, it's not exactly better because tanks are designed (intentionally or uninentionally) to be able to support bio. Same thing with vikings, or ghosts for mech.

When we compare BW to SC2, it may seem like terran has it harder in SC2 because they have to get more units from different tech, and those support units don't have as many upgrades. But the design is different, as in BW in TvP for example, you would basically have to stick with pure mech. (And thanks for correcting me on goliaths, i joined BW late so i don't know it as well as others). You couldn't add wraiths to counter carriers instead of goliaths because goliaths were more effective (right?). So when we look at SC2, this diversification of our unit compositions actually helps give us more options. Another example is in TvP, if you go mech with tank/hellion. You start adding vikings and ghosts and upgrading air attack. Lategame, you will want more Ravens for PDD and perhaps even seeker missile, and then, while you have +3 attack vikings, why not transition into BCs? They already have half the upgrades, and the mech army serves as the tanks for the BCs anyways, so that armor isn't thaaat important yet.

Because of the synergy and forced variance in the kinds of compositions Terran needs or can use in SC2, I consider it actually a buff such that we can transition easier and have the option to have more diversified/flexible unit compositions (marine tank medivac viking in TvZ) or in some situations, choose a more homogenous composition (MM[M] in TvZ or TvT vs mech or the old Thor/Hellion style in TvZ, with or without tanks).


Actually Goliaths were great AA units against protoss + Show Spoiler +
(marines for zerg because mutas are small type, although there was a famous Boxer play were he blinded like 7 observers with medics optic flare before using cloaked wraiths on carriers)
. The real reason goliaths are good vs protoss carriers is because they have a +3 range upgrade to 8 with charon boosters to rival the carriers range and they scale extremely well with upgrades, 20 +4 for each, leading to Flash popularizing fast double amory for double ups to counter carriers. Goliaths are the best terran antiair for most cases, except for small type mutas for which the marines normal damage was better.
"This is not Warcraft in space" "It's much more...... Sophisticated" "I KNOW IT'S NOT 3D!!!"
pyrostat
Profile Joined August 2012
Korea (South)70 Posts
August 16 2012 20:39 GMT
#262
mvp vs nestea.

nothing beats mech +vikings in tvz. giveme an answer please :D
Hds
Profile Joined July 2011
France200 Posts
August 16 2012 20:45 GMT
#263
Ultras Infest (NP) and Cracklings, then Vik are useless
And a good flank (if no tanks just from 2 sides it's enough

Oh wait, you have a really better reprod, that's it
Watily! ♥
ZjiublingZ
Profile Joined September 2011
United Arab Emirates439 Posts
August 16 2012 21:00 GMT
#264
On August 17 2012 05:45 Hds wrote:
Ultras Infest (NP) and Cracklings, then Vik are useless
And a good flank (if no tanks just from 2 sides it's enough

Oh wait, you have a really better reprod, that's it


This usually won't beat a Maxed Thor Hellion Tank 3/3 army, but it can trade pretty well.
rift
Profile Blog Joined September 2007
1819 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-16 21:17:45
August 16 2012 21:17 GMT
#265
After two years of discussion on the development of Starcraft 2 on this website, I am thoroughly convinced that the community could do a better job of designing the game through a concerted group effort.
Plansix
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States60190 Posts
August 16 2012 21:30 GMT
#266
On August 17 2012 06:17 rift wrote:
After two years of discussion on the development of Starcraft 2 on this website, I am thoroughly convinced that the community could do a better job of designing the game through a concerted group effort.


After more that two years of following game development for AAA titles and indie games, I'm convinced that game development is around twenty thousand times harder that most community members believe it to be. After all, if it were easy, we all would do it.
I have the Honor to be your Obedient Servant, P.6
TL+ Member
Nevertras
Profile Joined October 2011
United States27 Posts
August 16 2012 21:49 GMT
#267
Plansix has it correct.
ejozl
Profile Joined October 2010
Denmark3517 Posts
August 16 2012 22:29 GMT
#268
For me mech play is just really defensive turtle play, with layers of defense till you get the monstrous army which moves out and just grind whatever meat you put in this juggernaut monstrousity.

I think too much anti air can totally destroy the essence of mech, since you won't need even more time in putting up turrets all over and there won't be a timer, from where mech has to hit.
I love the idea of, if he can get up carriers he's fine, but getting carriers is hard to muster.

The Warhound is silly, since it's a combination of Marauder and Thor and don't contribute to anything.
I'd much rather see that melee pulverizing dog, which terran has in the campaign. Think that unit can actually add a lot of depth to sc2 mech play. There's also a serious lack of melee units in the Starcraft games in general.
Also what would you guys think of a Factory Spellcaster?
SC2 Archon needs "Terrible, terrible damage" as one of it's quotes.
Yoshi Kirishima
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States10378 Posts
August 16 2012 22:36 GMT
#269
On August 17 2012 06:30 Plansix wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 17 2012 06:17 rift wrote:
After two years of discussion on the development of Starcraft 2 on this website, I am thoroughly convinced that the community could do a better job of designing the game through a concerted group effort.


After more that two years of following game development for AAA titles and indie games, I'm convinced that game development is around twenty thousand times harder that most community members believe it to be. After all, if it were easy, we all would do it.


On August 17 2012 06:49 Nevertras wrote:
Plansix has it correct.


Agreed ^^ I also can't believe that some people are so sure that they can do a better job than people who are actually working on it for their 40+hour/week job? (And them also playing the game and watching tournaments on their own time) Not to mention that the balance team has players very capable of GM (david kim, matt cooper, and probably more that are at least masters). Oh and they play random as well <_>
Mid-master streaming MECH ONLY + commentary www.twitch.tv/yoshikirishima +++ "If all-in fails, all-in again."
MCDayC
Profile Joined March 2011
United Kingdom14464 Posts
August 16 2012 23:10 GMT
#270
On August 17 2012 06:30 Plansix wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 17 2012 06:17 rift wrote:
After two years of discussion on the development of Starcraft 2 on this website, I am thoroughly convinced that the community could do a better job of designing the game through a concerted group effort.


After more that two years of following game development for AAA titles and indie games, I'm convinced that game development is around twenty thousand times harder that most community members believe it to be. After all, if it were easy, we all would do it.

Yup. While I think that there would be some areas in which the community as a whole would be better developers than Blizzard (namely the map pool, it took them years to get it even vaguely right) in general people seem to massively underestimate what it takes to make a game as good as SC2 currently is.
VERY FRAGILE, LIKE A BABY PANDA EGG
dvorakftw
Profile Blog Joined November 2011
681 Posts
August 16 2012 23:43 GMT
#271
On August 17 2012 06:17 rift wrote:
After two years of discussion on the development of Starcraft 2 on this website, I am thoroughly convinced that the community could do a better job of designing the game through a concerted group effort.

It can be a struggle to get three people to agree on what to get for lunch. Tossing out random ideas on a messageboard is the easiest thing in the world. I could rattle off a half dozen ideas on about every unit in the game that might sound fun or neat but who knows what they'd mean in actual games.
Loanshark
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
China3094 Posts
August 17 2012 00:10 GMT
#272
On August 17 2012 06:17 rift wrote:
After two years of discussion on the development of Starcraft 2 on this website, I am thoroughly convinced that the community could do a better job of designing the game through a concerted group effort.


The community doesn't have the necessary skills to develop and design a game, but I agree with the essence of things. Maybe not a whole community, but a small core of veteran users with a good understanding of the game can do some discussion and come up with some good ideas that for whatever reason Activision Blizzard isn't implementing. Just take a look at this blog.
No dough, no go. And no mercy.
Nazza
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Australia1654 Posts
August 17 2012 00:20 GMT
#273
On August 17 2012 04:13 Fyrewolf wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 17 2012 03:45 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On August 16 2012 20:53 Sapphire.lux wrote:
Yoshi Kirishima, i did read your post, i always try to actualy as i realy like the way you write I admire your positive aproach, i just think is missguided based on what we have seen in WOL, the interviews Blizzard gave, etc.

We can agree that Warhounds killing Tanks is a very bad idea, ok. This is fundamental to understanding the strenght the Warhound will have in TvP, and the very, very unlikly scenario where tanks might be buffed.

Where we disagree completly is that i, and the OP, do not consider a ball of robots (with some tanks if you will) to have anything to do with mech as a play style. What the OP means by mech, is not just units that have "mechanical" as one of the stats. This is why i said you can not have 3...4 completly different unit compositions and call all of them "mech".

Sure you have different builds that alow you to do different things: macro focused to get to 200/200 fast and steam roll the oponent, very harass based, etc. They all have to be Tank focused though.

Nothing wrong with having an army of robots going up and down the map (like some people play THOR/ hellion/ banshee). But lets not pretend that is pure terran mech...the way it playes out, it has more in common with bio or protoss then actual mech.

My personal fear for HOTS is that they will not try or even want to have a viable, tank-positioning based, mech be viable. They slaped a factory marauder, see that the new factory ball can beat the protoss ball, and call that a job well done.

BTW, by viable i mean at pro level. At my level i can play mech TvP (with PF walls, ST, etc) just fine. It's the pro scene where i don't want to see mech warriors dancing with the protoss death ball, and have Blizzard pleased that they made mech viable.


kk, awesome

I think part of my optimistic view is due to having experienced reading about blizzard implementing or suggesting stupid things in interviews or such, in which I think "ok that can't be something they're actually going to do" or "oh, it'll probably get removed after they test or discuss it more", and it happens. For example, anyone remember Slag Pits? It was described as a more macro version of metalopolis. What a joke, right? From this instance, we can see there are many different people working on different things, and the person writing that description probably didn't have a good understanding of the game or the team had bad communication.

I see what you mean, things like thor/hellion/banshee aren't mech like in BW. But while being similar to bio or protoss, it still is a little unique, because overall the bulk of the army (thors) are still slow. Instead of me thinking that it's not a true mech style, like in BW where tanks are essential to mech, I think of it as a bonus -- a new way to mech. While it doesn't have the iconic positioning factor in it, it is still a new style (strong, slow, but slightly more mobile than with a composition including tanks, though doesn't scale as well lategame because there is much less splash) which I would consider to be "part of mech".

However, if that is the only style they are promoting, then I have a problem. I guess that's what a lot of my first post was about, I was posting my thoughts on how different compositions would have their own place. I noticed that Blizzard has been trying to give each style more options (again, lategame zerg doesn't have to be deathball, it can be mobile but weaker in direct engagements now), the stargate tech of protoss is becoming more full and thus stargate openings should become at least slightly more viable, so from this, I assume that they are willing to do the same with mech as well -- the "bio units that are made from the factory" kind of style of warhound/hellion or thor/hellion/banshee etc. for a more aggressive, mobile style of mech, while those who want to play the more traditional style of mech (with tanks and more positioning) can do that as well.


On August 16 2012 23:35 Nazza wrote:
On August 16 2012 19:49 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
On August 16 2012 18:08 Nazza wrote:
Not really sure why Blizzard would think bio-mech is a good thing to have. It takes resources from two tech trees, and you need two different upgrade buildings for both. That just makes transitioning difficult/hard, as when the game goes on, you will have worser upgrades, or have to split upgrades between 2 different unit types. Of course, making support units from different tech trees are fine (such as ghosts in SC2/Vessels in BW), because you don't really need weapon/armor upgrades for them, but having a style that has a single focus is much stronger imo.


Actually I think it's almost the opposite of what you're describing.

First of all, when the OP says bio mech, I think he means marine tank, right? Although you could describe it as bio mech, it is still dominantly bio (most supply is bio units). A bio mech style would be more like something MKP did against July in that one GSL game on metropolis a few months back, where he upgraded both bio attack and mech attack and had an army of Marine Hellion Thor, or something like that. The standard marine/tank in TvZ today, though with its mech features (tanks, giving some sense of positional play), is still a dominantly bio style. The tanks are to support the marines. You don't upgrade go double armory upgrades, you go double ebay upgrades.

Anyways, these tanks and medivacs and vikings are support units, but still part of bio play. However, the game is balanced for these compositions. Do you see marine/tank doing badly in TvZ despite having to get more than 2 upgrades? This design is really awesome for SC2. Unlike in SC1, in which it was easier for you to stick to pure <insert tree here>, in SC2 you can choose to get a more diverse set of units. You can still play pure MMM in TvZ or TvT, but it is not the most common style, and as the game goes on, there is more and more incentive to start adding units from other trees (medivacs, then tanks, then possibly air units).

I think this is important to understand, because many people will say "I want to be able to do pure mech, so please give us back goliaths so we don't need vikings!", but I do not think they have considered this before. SC2 is designed so that you can't go "pure bio" or "pure mech", but that does not make you weaker but instead helps terran scale lategame (ex: in TvZ, he may eventually max out on bio and vehicle attack upgrades, and thus start upgrading vehicle armor) and helps them to transition or diversify their composition even more (ex: in TvZ, once the terran has 3/3 bio and 3/3 mech, he can add more factories).

So this actually allows terran to transition easier, because you may already be, for example, upgrading +1 vehicle attack with your marine/tank composition TvZ.

If you look at BW mech, goliaths were already very good AA units. You didn't really need starport tech. You also don't need bio (ghosts) as you do in SC2 for EMPs. You could stay "pure mech". However, because of this, the game was balanced around that, and as a result, it was difficult for terran to transition.

Another thing to consider is that the air tech tree in SC2 is more complete, and it is common for mech players (especially for TvP and TvT) to add more and more air units, possibly transitioning into full out air (3/3 BCs with Viking/Ravens and some support Ghosts for HTs).


I don't really understand. It is good that Terran has to produce a different structure just to get vikings (a support unit) that also requires a different set of upgrades? A strategy that uses one set of units will have max upgrades for them sooner and more of that unit.

And it's not that goliaths were really good AA units, it's more like wraiths were really bad unless you had them as support units (just a few to sight for tanks) or they were massed (late gate TvT wraith transition). I'm imagining playing TvP without goliaths, and having to rely on a different tech tree to supply your anti-air (imagine vanilla starcraft lol).

It's more like, I have the problem with the viking doing what the goliath used to do... but it's an air unit. Shouldn't air units have their own mentality? Their own playstyle? When you go wraiths in TvP (lol hiya), what's the thing that wraiths can do that goliaths can't? Abuse mobility, cloak, and harass.


Ok so let's look at medivacs. In BW, if you wanted to heal, you could get the bio medics. However, now you have to get medivacs from the starport. I see what you are saying, that it is in a way weaker because bio upgrades don't effect the medivac. However, the game is balanced to be like that. It's balanced so that you don't need to upgrade your medivac armor. When they get BLs, you can get 0/0 vikings. Again, it's balanced to be like that. You can upgrade ship weapons if you want, that's up to you. It'll slightly diminish your viking count, but help you reach the full strength of the viking/air tech faster. If you look at marine tank, it's balanced so that even if you use tanks (instead of the recent tankless MMM styles), you are not behind because you are upgrading 3 things instead of 2.

Now, why does this make our lategame stronger, and help us transition? Because we are upgrading more than 2 things, and already have the production for other tech (tanks, vikings, etc.), we already have part of that tech ready (some upgrades done, some production facilities built). Back to my marine tank example, it's common for terrans to research double ebay and +1 vehicle attack. You could go tankless so that you can have a different style, but it's not exactly stronger (at least not significantly), just different -- even though you save money from the armory and not upgrading vehicle attack so that you can get a few more bio units out, it's not exactly better because tanks are designed (intentionally or uninentionally) to be able to support bio. Same thing with vikings, or ghosts for mech.

When we compare BW to SC2, it may seem like terran has it harder in SC2 because they have to get more units from different tech, and those support units don't have as many upgrades. But the design is different, as in BW in TvP for example, you would basically have to stick with pure mech. (And thanks for correcting me on goliaths, i joined BW late so i don't know it as well as others). You couldn't add wraiths to counter carriers instead of goliaths because goliaths were more effective (right?). So when we look at SC2, this diversification of our unit compositions actually helps give us more options. Another example is in TvP, if you go mech with tank/hellion. You start adding vikings and ghosts and upgrading air attack. Lategame, you will want more Ravens for PDD and perhaps even seeker missile, and then, while you have +3 attack vikings, why not transition into BCs? They already have half the upgrades, and the mech army serves as the tanks for the BCs anyways, so that armor isn't thaaat important yet.

Because of the synergy and forced variance in the kinds of compositions Terran needs or can use in SC2, I consider it actually a buff such that we can transition easier and have the option to have more diversified/flexible unit compositions (marine tank medivac viking in TvZ) or in some situations, choose a more homogenous composition (MM[M] in TvZ or TvT vs mech or the old Thor/Hellion style in TvZ, with or without tanks).


Actually Goliaths were great AA units against protoss + Show Spoiler +
(marines for zerg because mutas are small type, although there was a famous Boxer play were he blinded like 7 observers with medics optic flare before using cloaked wraiths on carriers)
. The real reason goliaths are good vs protoss carriers is because they have a +3 range upgrade to 8 with charon boosters to rival the carriers range and they scale extremely well with upgrades, 20 +4 for each, leading to Flash popularizing fast double amory for double ups to counter carriers. Goliaths are the best terran antiair for most cases, except for small type mutas for which the marines normal damage was better.


Exactly, with the Flash build, you had 2-1 upgrades, which could be used for your tanks/vultures, as well as goliaths if P chose to go carriers. Goliaths with upgrades were very strong, as was your ground force. You could still make support units (Vessels for detection to kill obs + to vs arbiters, dropships for harass), but you didn't need to spend too much resources on them.
No one ever remembers second place, eh? eh? GIVE ME COMMAND
U_G_L_Y
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
United States516 Posts
August 17 2012 00:22 GMT
#274
The warhound and viper make tank positioning and space controlling just as useless as it already is in TvP. Blizzard doesn't want "Mech." They want a game of only Nordic races in Age of Mythology. Build a lot of shit and do it faster than your opponent. Even the concept of the Odin, Mothership, and Leviathan were stolen directly from the Titans expansion.

It was a boring game.
iNviSible.yunO
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
Germany211 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-08-17 00:46:10
August 17 2012 00:44 GMT
#275
This is an awesome post.
Blizzard should read this.
There is a reason why sc2 - at least in some areas - isnt as interessting as broodwar. And if they really care to make sc2 the best rts ever, they need to implement this stuff. If i want to watch 2 deathballs/gigantic armies wipe each other out, i watch Troja. Not Starcraft.
Terrible terrible damage is cool. But its not the reason people enjoy rts games.

Period.
o.O''
moskonia
Profile Joined January 2011
Israel1448 Posts
August 17 2012 01:04 GMT
#276
You give some decent points, but your bias toward BW and your hate toward sc2 is leaking from the thread, try to hide it some more next time. Mech will be possible in hots, the widow mine + tanks + hellions will be good for sure, combine with some ravens and you got real positional play, where you position your mines, towers, tanks and PDD / auto turrets around your zone and you send hellions for runbys and maybe warhounds in drops (they would tear probes and scv's apart).

I really hate all these talk here in TL about how BW is so much better then SC2, really you can always just play the bw custom if you want bw with better graphics.
ZjiublingZ
Profile Joined September 2011
United Arab Emirates439 Posts
August 17 2012 02:59 GMT
#277
On August 17 2012 09:22 U_G_L_Y wrote:
The warhound and viper make tank positioning and space controlling just as useless as it already is in TvP. Blizzard doesn't want "Mech." They want a game of only Nordic races in Age of Mythology. Build a lot of shit and do it faster than your opponent. Even the concept of the Odin, Mothership, and Leviathan were stolen directly from the Titans expansion.

It was a boring game.


All the Viper does is, once the Zerg has Hive Tech, force the Terran to not just invest in control of the ground but control of the air as well. Before, Zerg had to go Brood Lords to do this. Which means they had to change the dynamic of their composition to simply force the Terran out of a pure anti-ground army (which in a maxed situation is far superior to a Zergs ground army). Now the Viper can actually serve a similar purpose without forcing you to change the dynamic of your army.
Streltsy
Profile Joined August 2010
Canada98 Posts
August 17 2012 03:25 GMT
#278
5/5,

But I have to ask, what is the point of articles like these? It's not as if Blizzard has ever listened to other well reasoned articles SC2 articles before.

And let's not kid ourselves, Blizzard isn't going to give us 25mineral mines (x3 per 75min vulture) that do 125 damage or anything even remotely similar. It's also not going to give us 70 damage tanks and bring back high ground advantage. Apart those type of changes being extremely hard to balance (likely a large part of the reason why all units/abilities were toned down in SC2), they also go against Blizzard's design philosophy a lot of the time. Truth is they don't actually want to see mech play, because they think it's boring and frustrating to play against (they see mech as akin to campers in fps); or why do you else do you think WoL launched with units like the marauder and immortal?

While I loathe all these kids who never played BW coming here to talk about "bias" like the silly-geese that they are, they do make one excellent point: if you don't enjoy SC2, just stop playing it.
If you do enjoy it (but preferred BW) then you're just going to have to get over the shadow of BW because SC2 will never be BW. "That's just the way it is..."
Yoshi Kirishima
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
United States10378 Posts
August 17 2012 05:42 GMT
#279
On August 17 2012 12:25 Streltsy wrote:
5/5,

But I have to ask, what is the point of articles like these? It's not as if Blizzard has ever listened to other well reasoned articles SC2 articles before.

And let's not kid ourselves, Blizzard isn't going to give us 25mineral mines (x3 per 75min vulture) that do 125 damage or anything even remotely similar. It's also not going to give us 70 damage tanks and bring back high ground advantage. Apart those type of changes being extremely hard to balance (likely a large part of the reason why all units/abilities were toned down in SC2), they also go against Blizzard's design philosophy a lot of the time. Truth is they don't actually want to see mech play, because they think it's boring and frustrating to play against (they see mech as akin to campers in fps); or why do you else do you think WoL launched with units like the marauder and immortal?

While I loathe all these kids who never played BW coming here to talk about "bias" like the silly-geese that they are, they do make one excellent point: if you don't enjoy SC2, just stop playing it.
If you do enjoy it (but preferred BW) then you're just going to have to get over the shadow of BW because SC2 will never be BW. "That's just the way it is..."


Interesting point of view, i never considered that it might be because, despite many people enjoying to play (or I think moreso, watch) a MU with mech play, it can indeed be frustrating for many. Their mentioning of removing the siege tank when making SC2 and instead having Thor's strike canon do AOE damage supports this theory.

I remember in BW, it was extremely frustrating trying to play against mech especially because the controls were so old, and you could only select units in groups of 12 (12 lings at a time, really? not to mention you're really only selecting ~8-10 due to overlap).

In SC2 though I don't think it's nearly as frustrating, well partly it might just be because mech is overall weaker but... it is at least not as frustrating because you at least feel you have more control over the situation, and that if you get your army blown up, it's because you didn't approach the situation properly, rather than you weren't fast enough to box your army 20 times just to send it to attack the mech army.

I hope this isn't the reason though, cus mech play is awesome :D If they don't like mech play (and by they I mean the majority), I at least think/hope (because surely, some of the people working on SC2 must like mech play) tank-style mech will still be viable in LotV (I'm generally ok with the changes in HotS, except for some ridiculous things like the Oracle allowing protoss to harass/micro (lolwat?) and the warhound breaking stale tank lines).

Oh yeah, I guess the whole "warhound breaking tank lines" really shows they don't like mech at all ;; But why, then, does the factory tech tree seem to be so complete in WoL...? (Minus helpful support units like ghosts/vikings, but those necessities are present even for the bio and air tech trees)
Mid-master streaming MECH ONLY + commentary www.twitch.tv/yoshikirishima +++ "If all-in fails, all-in again."
Zrana
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United Kingdom698 Posts
August 17 2012 06:51 GMT
#280
I don't think the warhound will make mech unviable. If blizzard wanted to do that they could have just removed the siege tank and they wouldnt have added the widow mine. I think the warhound is just meant to make playing a bio-style against a mech-style a bit easier.

As far as i can tell, the situation in TvT at the moment is that mech played well is basically unbeatable. I love watching bio players try to out-flank, out-play and out-manouvre meching players but often they just get ripped to shreds. The warhound is probably the answer to that. If it is only slightly stronger than a marauder then it will just be mobilty (bio-like) against immobility (mech-like) which is fun to watch and play, but the mobility will be warhound/hellion instead of MMM.

At some number of tanks, warhounds will still be ripped apart, just like marauders currently are. Don't forget that a warhound/hellion army has no marines and so Raven PDD is very strong.
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