EPTIn Defence of Mech - Page 3
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coZy
United States65 Posts
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NATO
United States459 Posts
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Bajsgrodan
Afghanistan408 Posts
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macncheezeplz
United States93 Posts
LESS MECHY: very versatile units that can deal damage as a stand alone army | ||
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IshinShishi
Japan6156 Posts
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FinalForm
United States450 Posts
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Clubmeh
United States22 Posts
As someone who never had the chance to play brood war seriously, my idea of mech was pretty much constructed purely off of what artosis had mentioned from time to time in his casts. I never really considered all the sacrifices that it makes, and more importantly, I suppose that blizzard never really considered the sacrifices that mech makes to be bone crushingly powerful in a straight up fight. I feel like every unit in sc2 seems really simple. There isn't anything that wows me. Vikings - "oh man, guess what we got here for you guys. THEY'RE ANTI-AIR, AND THEY CAN LAND AND SHOOT STUFF." It's far inferior to the complex tool that a vulture is. (and that's what units should be: tools, not simply hp bars that are assigned a certain damage amount in accordance to their supply and resource cost, and the only micro that they will ever be subject to is stutter step). Even units that have several spells & functions, namely the infestor, seem to be very poorly constructed. It feels like they just shoved it into the raider/support caster roll, instead of approaching the balance equation from the other side. Instead of asking, "what is a well upgraded high tech zerg army going to have problems with, and what tools will a truly great player need to solve those problems" they asked "does zerg have raiding capability if they don't go muta on lair tech? NOPE." "Okay, here's no upgrade burrow, and infested terran - FTFY average zerg player." The game has to be catered to the most brilliant, and skilled minds that participate in it - it's those players that we have learned to revere, and because of many of sc2's design flaws, those players are being deprived of the success that they deserve. Again, I didn't play much BW, but I know that Nada was a legend, and I ruted for him while he was still playing. Now it feels like if a player can execute somewhat well, then all the dominos will fall into place if they have all their roles filled. This leads to really unsatisfying games, and games that focus too much on things that impeded one's ability to acquire their races higher-end role fillers (and by this, I mean that sc2 feels like it focuses SO much on the early game and the mid game, and the only time we have truly compelling games is when both players enter the late game fairly unscathed.) Thanks for your post, this really opened my eyes to alot of the complexity that BW offered, and you point out the flaws in the new HOTS units spot-on. | ||
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larse
1611 Posts
Then TvT will basically become warhound + viking. I found it ridiculous when Dustin Browder said that "We add warhound because we want to introduce something to break the siege line stalemate". I doubt him even understand SC1 | ||
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markrevival
United States222 Posts
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Angel_
United States1617 Posts
I say that and immediately add that there are two other thoughts in my mind: 1. Certain races could not do certain things until other races STOPPED doing certain things. It's possible we can't see mech yet because of just what other people are doing, and maps. damn maps. 2. It's entirely possible that terran just haven't figured out the most fitting creative way to get there safely and do it. On a wild night theory I'd say the answer lies in NOT starting with tanks, but then somehow getting a higher tank count without doing a funny all in thats just giving the coupe-de-grace with tanks. Also, I don't understand why blizzard is wanting to have more mech...but at the same time nerfing mech because it's "boring to watch" (ie, not enough fast explosions) ALSO ALSO, I see the battle hellion entirely as a unit that makes BIO stronger...not one that actually helps mech much at all (relative to how much it helps bio not need to micro as much) | ||
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Archile
United States403 Posts
Do you think that a shortening of the hellion attack animation but not rate of fire would fix some problems with the hellion? (maybe reduce damage or something too, because that would be a big buff) Also, in WoL (and in HotS too, it seems) the best anti air for mech is the thor, although the widow mine could provide some good opprotunities, and the thor does very, very little base AA damage because of the splash. This means that larger, more powerful single units (such as the tempest, or even spreading out banshees/mutas) becomes very powerful. The best solution we have right now, before vikings are able to be produced in a good number (and even then, vikings kinda suck vs light) are marines. Do you think that this hurts mech? What do you think would be a good way to get around this? | ||
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eviltomahawk
United States11135 Posts
On August 14 2012 16:15 larse wrote: Warhound + battlehellion, and maybe the addition of marine and marauder to the composition will definitely make tank play useless in TvT. Today, even marauder play can sometimes shut down tank siege lines. With the addition of warhound. It's 100% predictable that tank siege lines will be basically countered by the composition of warhound and marauder. Then TvT will basically become warhound + viking. I found it ridiculous when Dustin Browder said that "We add warhound because we want to introduce something to break the siege line stalemate". I doubt him even understand SC1 I don't think tanks will end up being that useless in TvT. Current TvT doesn't really even have that many tank lines. Marine+Tank involves a lot of movement and repositioning of Marine+Tank balls. A player going pure mech vs bio plays the matchup like a BW TvP, building up a critical mass of tanks and slow pushing across the map with this mech deathball. I haven't really seen BW-esque tank lines in most games for a long time. Maps nowadays are so open that the only siege lines I see that do materialize are either through very defensive turtling or very offensive containing where the Siege Tank count is very concentrated and often coupled with a good amount of support from other units. A critical mass of Siege Tanks will still destroy anything that comes into range, even Warhounds if there is a meatshield of some sort defending the tanks. Tanks won't become obsolete; the anti-armor splash damage will still be very formidable as long as the anti-tank counters don't reach the tank ball. Although Marauders and Warhounds will demolish small to medium groups of Siege Tanks, a huge deathball with a good composition of supporting units can still be very formidable as it slow-pushes across the map. But that's my worry for HotS. We will see less tank lines and more tank balls. | ||
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Korelle
143 Posts
That neatly sums up the whole of Teamliquid.net when you think about it. User was temp banned for this post. | ||
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Azera
3800 Posts
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ShowTheLights
Korea (South)1676 Posts
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Shock710
Australia6097 Posts
1. It costs gas, gas u want to be spending on Tanks or more factorys and UPGRADES which are super important with units like Techs because of their high damage they get the most out of the upgrade, a marine gets +1 while in bw the Tank got +5 in siege mode, sure the % increase isnt bigger, but in bw it allowed tanks to two hit other tanks rather than 3 hit which WAS A HUGE DEAL. 2. It is built from the factory....its wasting production time for something that mech cant be spending time with, the rate of getting the mines EVEN if they were FREE is retarded, 1 vulture puts out 3 mines for only the cost of the vulture build time, the widow mine gives u 1 (i'm assuming the build times of vulture and mine are pretty close) it gives u ONE without the raider so the point is the widow mine is basically horrible compared to its bw counter part, i'm not saying OH SC2 sucks...BW IS THE BEST, i'm saying mech is just not viable with all the components that make mech MECH, such as the widow mine, the lower damage of the seige tank (which....omg if they increase the tank mode damage i will facepalm SOOO HARD) and things like the "warhound" when playing mech u rely on the seige tank's massive damage THATS why ur spending ur gas on it and on dropships (to kill OTHER TANKS, in tvt) because thats whats going to KILL them everything else should be support in minerals, aka turrets vultures, mines all supporting the tank without interfering with production and gas | ||
IMoperator
4476 Posts
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Byzantium
United States423 Posts
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vienna_k
Austria12 Posts
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Kreb
4834 Posts
It didnt really tie everything together towards the end. To me, it ended up being a discussion about labelling. Do we label something "mech" if its made out of the factory or do we label it "mech" because of its playstaly? Is it the origin or the playstyle which makes something "mech"? To you, its the latter. To most likely >95% of the people watching/playing SC2, its probably the former. I was kinda waiting for the end punchline where you conclude that: "Because of all this, it would be better if the game was changed in this direction". Or: "Because of all this, this unit over here is badly designed and should be changed/replaced to something doing this instead". But none of that came, and the conclusion confirmed (for better or worse) that it was indeed just a labelling discussion. This also meant that I didnt really see the connection back to concern 1) and 2), but only 3). Personally, Im not really against what you say. But its kind of an uninteresting discussion of what to call something imo. It would likely be better to find a new label to describe what you call "mech playstyle" (lets call it X-style for now) and another label to what you refer to as more bio-ish playstyle (Y-style). That was we could distinguish between a bio player playing Y-style, a mech player playing X-style, a mech player playing Y-style or a bio player playing X-style (impossible?). That way we cover both origin and playstyle. Edit: I will comment on your concern 2) though: Im pretty sure the reason they added Warhounds wasnt to crush mech. The two main roles of the warhound to me is 1): Breaking stalemates in mech TvT (or at least giving mech players a solid way of busting a tank line cost effectively) 2) Making mech more viable TvP. I cant say somewhere where Blizz specifically said the role of the warhound is this, but I know they have stated both 1) and 2) are desirable goals. And considering the properties of the warhound, it seems to be very likely thats the role of it. Also: A unit that is mech, but used to counter mech isnt counter-intuitive at all. Because if you have to go mech to beat mech, then you both (in a wierd way) encourage and discourage mech play. | ||
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