EPTBlizzard, oh Blizzard
In Defence of Mech - Page 16
| Blogs > Falling |
|
snailz
Croatia900 Posts
Blizzard, oh Blizzard | ||
|
Gben592
United Kingdom281 Posts
On August 18 2012 01:07 Falling wrote: Unless this guy starts becoming lead project designer for another RTS (he led WC, WCII, and Starcraft.) http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/ Send the guy a (nice) email ^^ I sent him an email asking if he's working on and RTS any time soon and hinting that he should, and he said that he's "currently taking some time off from doing active development work while I think about exactly what sort of game to make next. So thanks for the yes vote on an RTS, they're a lot of fun to make " | ||
|
Sephy90
United States1785 Posts
| ||
|
sluggaslamoo
Australia4494 Posts
On August 19 2012 16:13 Falling wrote: @RuiBaro. No. No mech is a just one example of what I eventually found unfun about SC2. I don't even play Terran in BW or SC2 (unless I'm off-racing.) But as a Protoss player, it was absolutely fun to play against mech. Terran may complain that Protoss was 1a2a3a, but competent Terran mech is hard to counter. So it's a fascinating puzzle to solve. It was also amazing to watch. Arguably one of the best match-ups to watch. As it stands, I grew to dislike my own race for a variety of reasons that are irrelevant to this thread. As for people disliking TvT trenchwarfare. The context of that was comparing only BW match-ups. And if you were to rank favourites the non-mirror match-ups were the clear favourites. TvT can take a long time, so some people didn't like those and ZvZ was super short and highly micro intensive so some people didn't like those. I personally found them all fascinating. But if mech is interesting in TvP and you want to get that, then you also need to get mech play working in TvT. But if you look at Fantasy's harass style in TvT, I think you'd be hard pressed to find people that don't find that interesting. And if your comparing positional chess play of mech play to roaming deathballs, I think mech play will be the favourite. For me, mech was boring until Fantasy, TurN and proxy Rax into 1 fact FE into late wraith came along. Now I think its awesome, because TvT is much more aggressive now and there are battles constantly and all over the place. Took a damn long time to get that way tho. Watching Flash and Fantasy play the same race against each other, but use the race in completely different ways is awesome. And that only happens when you don't have efficient 1a units. Its like Flash is playing Go (unit-territory influence, cutting off player territories, efficiently locking off territories), and Fantasy is playing Chess (aggressive unit positioning, center presence and trapping) in the same game. | ||
|
dvorakftw
681 Posts
On August 18 2012 19:31 Nazza wrote: SC2 has units like the marauder and the immortal, because Blizzard thinks units with hard counters are good and possibly/add variety. I would say that is what makes SC2 less exciting to watch than BW. It takes no skill to make a unit to fight another unit, but it takes skill to load up a shuttle and zealot bomb tanks. Zealot bombing tanks is good but doing the same with rine-rauder isn't? Yeah it's too bad tanks are so rare in SC2 TvP but then maybe if there were better cannon fodder from factories and something to counter the immortal hey'd be more viable. | ||
|
Xiphos
Canada7507 Posts
On August 20 2012 12:24 dvorakftw wrote: Zealot bombing tanks is good but doing the same with rine-rauder isn't? Yeah it's too bad tanks are so rare in SC2 TvP but then maybe if there were better cannon fodder from factories and something to counter the immortal hey'd be more viable. Its because Zealots are so, so vastly superior than their little cousins in SC2. And Tanks have been nerfed to oblivion in the game from its RTS predecessor. In BW, you also had Spider Mines that could potentially annihilate the entire battlefield a la Reach: | ||
|
sluggaslamoo
Australia4494 Posts
On August 20 2012 12:24 dvorakftw wrote: Zealot bombing tanks is good but doing the same with rine-rauder isn't? Yeah it's too bad tanks are so rare in SC2 TvP but then maybe if there were better cannon fodder from factories and something to counter the immortal hey'd be more viable. You don't bomb tanks with marine marauder really because of no overshoot and marines kill your medivacs, but also its much easier because medivacs are a given, getting the right timing to make a shuttle requires good gamesense. It means not getting an observer, and it means investing in robotics tech. Its much more efficient to stutter step into a tank line anyway unless there are a shitton of tanks, and whats worse is that clearing up a tank line with marine marauder usually ends in GG. At least in my experience anyway. | ||
|
Wampaibist
United States478 Posts
| ||
|
Markwerf
Netherlands3728 Posts
Terran with the marine as the core unit instead of the hellion is already too mobile. Mech is a game of positioning that can be fascinating but the tools required are indeed not there. I feel the pivotal problem for mech is the medivac. If you want drops you need them and they just work so much better with bio that that entire line is just better. Protoss is not really designed about mobility in sc2 either but rather brunt damage which means they can counter mech through straight up battles yet still have the extremely mobile stalker that's a problem for mech too. I just don't see it working out too well in hots, trying to make two completely different strats, MMM and pure mech both viable in TvP is really hard and probably not workable. Worst thing is even if they do get mech running it's looking to be really boring because the battlehellion isn't remotely as interesting as the vulture. Transformational units always suck in every game... It's not an interesting form of micro, it's a cheap counter many type of units thing which just doesn't work out in a fun way. The only fun transformational unit i've seen in a RTS was the VX in red alert, air to ground or ground to air formed an interesting combination. The viking and battehellion just suck in that respect. | ||
|
happyness
United States2400 Posts
| ||
|
moskonia
Israel1448 Posts
On August 21 2012 03:53 Markwerf wrote: mech in BW is awesome, I don't think mech in sc2 will ever come close though especially if they try to give it to terran. Terran with the marine as the core unit instead of the hellion is already too mobile. Mech is a game of positioning that can be fascinating but the tools required are indeed not there. I feel the pivotal problem for mech is the medivac. If you want drops you need them and they just work so much better with bio that that entire line is just better. Protoss is not really designed about mobility in sc2 either but rather brunt damage which means they can counter mech through straight up battles yet still have the extremely mobile stalker that's a problem for mech too. I just don't see it working out too well in hots, trying to make two completely different strats, MMM and pure mech both viable in TvP is really hard and probably not workable. Worst thing is even if they do get mech running it's looking to be really boring because the battlehellion isn't remotely as interesting as the vulture. Transformational units always suck in every game... It's not an interesting form of micro, it's a cheap counter many type of units thing which just doesn't work out in a fun way. The only fun transformational unit i've seen in a RTS was the VX in red alert, air to ground or ground to air formed an interesting combination. The viking and battehellion just suck in that respect. You forgot the tank as a transformable unit, after all it does transform from one mode to another. I think mech would be possible with terran using the widow mine and the PDD to zone areas and the siege tanks to guard the main locations, since PDD + widow mine with its 5 range means no unit until the colossus is able to attack into that choke (or suicide units 1 by 1 into the widow mines which would take some time and allow re positioning of the tanks). Harassing with the hellion and then coming back and making them into battle hellions to serve as meat shield for the tank would be the key to defending the Protoss deathball, and of course using PDD, which I think is the main thing people forget when talking about mech. PDD even though it comes from an air unit does not get affected by air upgrades so there is no reason not to include in the mech army. I think the tools have always been there, but maybe without mines it was not enough, but in HOTS I truly believe positional play of mech would be viable. | ||
|
AssyrianKing
Australia2111 Posts
On August 21 2012 09:36 happyness wrote: The tank needs to be raised to it's former glory. In the past it was nerfed for good reason because of the absolute shitty map pool (Steppes of War *shudder*) but now that we have a good map pool the tank can and should be powerful again. God please!!!!!! This is so true | ||
|
INTOtheVOID
United States225 Posts
 | ||
|
targ
Malaysia445 Posts
| ||
|
mostevil
United Kingdom611 Posts
It's a very misguided plan. I also think the craving for mech can be from a blind rather than reasoned love of broodwar at least from those prominent in the scene (most of whom were good in the broodwar days but not so much now). There's a lot of people in the community who think something because its what Day9/Artosis think. I'd argue some things about SC2 are actually improvements, if they can bring in some of the missing good elements from broodwar too then it should be happy days. Also whilst mech was good in broodwar generally, mech TvT's were usually quite hideous to watch. SC2's MarineTank vs MMM vs Mech situation can make for much prettier matches and I think they should try to build on that if anything. Additionally SC2's easier macro, hotkeying etc means the playstyle needs to be more micro and position intensive to have a reasonable skill cap, slow units that auto attack are definitely the wrong direction there. If the matches come down to "who built the best composition" I don't want to watch/play that. I hope they find a way to restore the tanks sieged damage output, it should be balancable with all the new toys toss and zerg are getting. The other races hots additions are looking good, but the clamour for more mech is leading to stupid decisions over at bliz HQ. And my random players heart is worried when all these dumb mech walkers dont hold their own all the Protoss and Zerg good stuff will be nerfed into the ground. You sir are a wise man. Although I'd argue you're a little bit too everything BW. While I hate the battle helion, you're not fully selling me on vultures. The helion might have some minor deficiencies against the vulture in micro in the very early game but it does fine in the raider role and has another anti mass light, specifically anti zergling role (inject, spreaded creep and SC2's smaller more closed maps make scoot and shoot kiting less viable). They could give it a spider mine upgrade easy enough if it's needed but on small chokey maps I worry about them being too strong. And bigger open maps hurts the poor protosses vs zerg, so they'd need something else too. | ||
|
Cheerio
Ukraine3178 Posts
This is more than a labelling issue talk about labelling. In your understanding everything that has legs is bio and everything that has wheels is mech. If you like bw so much is pure goliath with no tank not mech? You have a very weird narrow understanding of what mech "trully" is based on bw and when Blizzard adds more mech units you deny them mech status because there are no tanks in the composition? Seriously who said tanks are a must for "true" mech? You? So let me get the difinitions for you. Mech is a style of play where a vast majority of units are produced from factories. Your understanding of mech is just a variation of mech where the core unit of the mix is tank. You are basicly flaming Blizzard for adding diversity to mech and not making tank a must-have unit.And tanks are fine. Blizzard made a good job with their role because in bw you pretty much was forced to get tanks and get lots of them (except for tvz, but not because tanks are not good but because muts dominted the midgame and dark swarms dominated the lategame. And the reason zerg opted for those is well... tanks). P.S. Whatever, just go play bw. | ||
|
Sawamura
Malaysia7602 Posts
On August 21 2012 22:45 Cheerio wrote: talk about labelling. In your understanding everything that has legs is bio and everything that has wheels is mech. If you like bw so much is pure goliath with no tank not mech? You have a very weird narrow understanding of what mech "trully" is based on bw and when Blizzard adds more mech units you deny them mech status because there are no tanks in the composition? Seriously who said tanks are a must for "true" mech? You? So let me get the difinitions for you. Mech is a style of play where a vast majority of units are produced from factories. Your understanding of mech is just a variation of mech where the core unit of the mix is tank. You are basicly flaming Blizzard for adding diversity to mech and not making tank a must-have unit. And tanks are fine. Blizzard made a good job with their role because in bw you pretty much was forced to get tanks and get lots of them (except for tvz, but not because tanks are not good but because muts dominted the midgame and dark swarms dominated the lategame. And the reason zerg opted for those is well... tanks). P.S. Whatever, just go play bw. You have a very weird way of reading through out the whole thread of the op because no where did he says that it's not a mech just because it has legs . Edit : Since you forgotten about the op criteria of what a "Mech" is let me state for you again . So perhaps your asking, even if a unit originating from a factory does not necessarily make it mech play... What is Mech Play? 1) The Tank 2) Cannon Fodder 3) Raiders 4) Protection against Flanks/ Defence in Depth 5) Anti-Air Replace Anti Air with goliath and what do you get ? | ||
|
Zildjianeer
United States15 Posts
| ||
|
Cheerio
Ukraine3178 Posts
On August 21 2012 23:11 Sawamura wrote: Edit : Since you forgotten about the op criteria of what a "Mech" is let me state for you again . no i didnt forget: very weird narrow understanding of what mech "trully" is based on bw just because some style of play was very strong in bw doesnt mean it has to be ported to sc2. And that style is very onedimensional and has "tanks" written all over it. In general this thread is about only one issue, that tanks are not as good in sc2 as they were in bw. Sorry guys but it's not gonna change. | ||
|
Sawamura
Malaysia7602 Posts
On August 22 2012 00:25 Cheerio wrote: no i didnt forget: just because some style of play was very strong in bw doesnt mean it has to be ported to sc2. And that style is very onedimensional and has "tanks" written all over it. In general this thread is about only one issue, that tanks are not as good in sc2 as they were in bw. Sorry guys but it's not gonna change. Well there is more than one issue that is being address in this thread lack of mobile anti air unit, lack of map control units like spider mine, lack of powerful siege tank to control a choke with few units and also lack a mobile raider unit that is able to do damage provided that it is microed properly like the vultures. | ||
| ||
