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The latest HoTS battle report is now out and at this point it is very clear Blizzard simply does not understand unit roles. We're two years into Starcraft 2 now and the games big problems are really started to show up. HoTS should be a great chance for Blizzard to fix some of the larger issues with the game, and bring some excitement back to the fanbase at the same time. I firmly believe that the two biggest issues with the game right now are the macro mechanics and more importantly the roles Blizzard seems to think units should have. Blizzard seems to have confused the word "role" with "counter" and that is extremely problematic for the fun factor of the game.
Many units in starcraft 2 serve multiple roles, and some units just have one very specific role. Some of the best examples of units that are designed extremely well are mutalisks and stalkers. Muta's really only have one purpose, and that's harass. Muta's fulfill their role extremely well, they don't specifically counter anything but they do a great job against players going for slow immobile armies. They help the Zerg buy time to get the units they need to deal with the extremely tough Terran and Protoss armies. Stalkers function in a similar manner, but they have multiple roles. Stalkers are the anti air of the Protoss army, the main way Protoss takes map control early in the game and they make great mobile harass units with the blink upgrade. Stalkers and muta's (economy problems of sc2 aside) are rarely ever winning the game straight up with a frontal push but they do provide the game with some very interesting and fast paced gameplay variation. They do not require a very specific response unit to deal with, but they do require good positioning and good micro on both sides to be effective/as well as dealt with. Dealing with muta's for instance is not as simple and straightforward as making marines. You need to bring out a combination of missile turrets, marines and sometimes a thor or two to deal with the harass. Protoss also have many viable options, like blink stalkers, archons, templar, phoenix and photon cannons. If it wasn't for the extremely available gas resources in the game you wouldn't see those extremely large muta balls forcing base trades, so we'll leave that out of this discussion.
Some units however, have a very poor role. The Immortal is very straightforward for example. You build Immortals to deal with armored targets like Roaches and Tanks. The art of micro and positioning is completely lost here, Immortals just straight up rail Tanks no matter how well the Terran has positioned himself and 4 or 5 Immortals hiding behind some sentries, stalkers and zealots will kill any zerg trying to defend with roaches.
The worst example though is the Colossus. This bastard single handily ruins three matchups all by itself. The colossus kills everything on the ground (assuming it has a deathball protecting it) in all three matchups. It also requires a very specific response that if not met results in a lost game regardless of the micro skill of both players. The Colossus is supposed to have the role of the Protoss siege unit, but Blizzard missed the boat entirely on this one. If you want to deal with Colossus you need Vikings, and not just one or two you need to grab 7-14. The vikings don't even serve a purpose after the Colossus die making the problem even worse. There is no other option for Terran, it's Vikings or death. What about Zerg? The Zerg player needs to have Corrupters or they also die to the Colossus. The advantage for Zerg is that the Corrupters can be made into broodlords eventually, or just sacrificed entirely for a remax on something else much more easily than a Terran could sacrifice his vikings. Protoss needs to have Colossus for a war of the worlds style final battle, or they also die. The Colossus in no way serves it's purpose of a "cliff walking raider" or as a siege unit. The Colossus is Toxic to the entire game in so many ways that are not quire as obvious as well. Because the Colossus requires such strong anti-air to deal with, air units in general are way too strong at ripping the more versatile air units out of the sky reducing their effectiveness. Void Rays are garbage because Vikings need 9 range to deal with Colossus, and high damage. Corrupters could have more of a purpose than just straight anti air, and Vikings could be more useful on the ground if they didn't need to be so damn strong at dealing with Colossus.
I don't really want to get into specific units for HoTS but the so called roles for the new units are way too clearly defined. Vipers are clearly anti power unit, Warhounds are brutally efficient at killing mechanical units (to the point where Tanks will be useless) and Tempest will require Vikings to counter them. This is terrible design and we as players can't allow Blizzard to ruin sc2 this way. Units need to serve a role in an army, whether that be positional control (Tanks, Lurkers!!!!), raiders (Hellions), harass (Muta's, DT's, Hellions again) or part of the greater good in an army like Stalkers. Designed a unit with the purpose of dealing with a very specific situation or unit or going to be horrible for the future of sc2.
My writing skills are not the best, but hopefully my point came across well enough to be heard. I'll leave you with this paragraph. Starcraft 2 can be balanced, HoTS can be balanced but the playstyle of the entire came can not be changed after release. I don't enjoy watching the extremely long macro games because it's not a test of skill anymore. Players can make any tech they want, getting double upgrades isn't a greedy option it's the norm and switching tech is extremely easy. The things that are amazing to watch like very precise positional play is lost. Territory is not earned slowly it is taken in a rush by the player with the better army composition at the time. Games are not won and lost because one player slowly took control of a chunk of the map and eliminated the opponents economy. Games are won and lost because a player was slightly out of position with his deathball and lost all his mining in seconds to 8 marines in a dropship, 30 lings on a runby or a protoss deathball steam rolling his opponents army with a quick amove and the click of a storm or two.
Bring back my high ground advantage, give me units that serve a real purpose and playstyle and stop giving gimmick units that require the counter unit. I don't want to instantly die because I don't have the correct counter unit. I don't want to die to fast paced tech switches. I don't want to die because my opponent landed a couple of skills that prevented me from using my units (I'm looking at you fungal and forcefield). I want to die because my opponent was more skillful, and created a positional advantage for himself. I want to die because my opponents control was better than mine. Most of all I want to die because my opponent was able to positional secure of a 5th base, that gave him access to that fifth gas that let him have enough templar to land enough storms to kill my main army while I failed to push away the small number of forces he was using to prevent my 5th from landing.
 
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Really insightful and well-thought-out post; I agree with you on everything 100%. I feel like Blizzard rushed HotS and forced a lot of the new units through design without really taking an in-depth look at modern play styles and how to fix current game mechanics that are, for lack of a better word, bad. Your last two paragraphs are absolutely spot-on and bring up points I've never really seen anyone talk about on TL before. I suggest everyone take a closer look at what you said in those two paragraphs and really think about what you're saying.
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I disagree. MY TWO CENTS INBOUND WHILE I WAIT FOR PIG IN IEM
As a Terran player, Colossus aren't as simple as 'have vikings = win (maybe), have no vikings = dead (probably)".
First up it changes your composition on the ground. You want more marauders and fewer marines vs colossus, and you need to know that quickly which requires you to scout and respond. Also, is he doing a 2 base colossus timing or is he taking a 3rd? Big Questions. Also means you have to delay your ghost tech too since they are rubbish vs colossus. Considering how Ghosts are basically 'good' vs every unit protoss has with EMP it's good that there's a big stupid unit that ghosts don't help you very much against.
And with engaging them, how are his Force fields? Can you abuse cliffs and pick away at as many colossus as possible before engaging? What's his anti air looking like? Can I snipe obs using vikings before cloaking in ghosts to EMP everything. Also, are you going tanks? Colossus can make tank pushes very difficult but without them Tanks can prove very troublesome for Protoss.
It's true that vikings and colossus aren't the most interesting units but there's a little bit more to it then I think most people consider.
As for the new HotS units, I think a lot of people are confused with the Warhound and they are mostly confused because they watched the TvP battle report and figured that Warhounds were just this extra mech unit. My opinion is that Warhounds are NOT going to be part of any serious pure mech composition. Consider how Mech functions now:
1) Tanks= smoosh everything when used properly. Struggle against flying units and individual tough units that either have loads of hp or barely splash (immortals, archons, thors, colossus, ultras)
2) Hellions = everything that a tank isn't, scouts harasses and buffers for tanks. Strong against workers and chafe Light units, weak against everything else.
3) Thors = can shoot flying units. Might not be very good at it but at least they can do it. Supposed to be strong against tough individual units with 250mm strike cannons but sadly that ability sees about as much use a a typewriter. They do large dps to a single target which the other units do not.
How does the warhound fit into this? It's a little fast but so what. It's got this nice anti mechanical missle and ok-ish single target DPS but why are you getting this over more tanks? Tanks do overall more damage to ground.
What I think the warhound is for is for bio players to go a little heavier, a bigger marauder basically. Imagine you're a terran and your maxed and it's TvP. There's not a lot of room to attack but you do want to use this really good economy you have. What units do you make? Everything else is rubbish and BC's too costly and hard to tech to (the first person to answer Ravens gets killed. Two times). Well now you've got these two new cool factory units the Warhound and the Battle Hellion. They seem really supply efficient and can go well with most terran bio compositions, just the thing to move into once you've got a huge economy and a turtling protoss you can't seem to touch.
But this is just my musings maybe I'm totally wrong idk.
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I stopped reading when you started whining about colossus for about 10 rows and started losing interest when you spoke about how muta is such a "great unit".
Blizzard might do wrong stuff from time to time, but if you cry about the colossus in 1 huge paragraph while making an abstract point it just stops me from taking your post seriously.
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great blog, my thoughts exactly. to hell with these hard counters. it makes every game look the same.
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agree with everything you say, and one comment on the TvP match up. A protoss can open either templar or collosus, but this isn't chosen due to scouting, the protoss can do either. It is then up to the terran to counter this with either vikings or ghosts, just to survive!, however if terran goes for quick ghosts for example, the protoss doesnt say, I NEED collosus or I NEED templar. going collosus would help true, but the toss can still stomp the terran without this decision.
It sucks that due to the collosus, terran are forced to react to whatever protoss does while protoss does whatever the fuck they want. Not a balance issue but a deign issue.
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On August 16 2012 21:05 Aterons_toss wrote:
I stopped reading when you started whining about colossus for about 10 rows and started losing interest when you spoke about how muta is such a "great unit".
Blizzard might do wrong stuff from time to time, but if you cry about the colossus in 1 huge paragraph while making an abstract point it just stops me from taking your post seriously.
What a fucking lame excuse of a post.
People who write these "I stopped reading when..." posts should be warned or temp banned from TL... if you stopped reading the OP, you have no right to post anything, after all you didn't read the whole thing.
And yes, I agree with the OP, but in my personal view SC2 has problems since its beta, and up to today they haven't been fixed because either Blizzard can't see them, or they see it but they think it is working as intended and no matter what they won't change it. As I see it nowadays, Blizzard do intend on sticking to gimmicky units, they just don't want to admit it.
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On August 16 2012 23:28 fabiano wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2012 21:05 Aterons_toss wrote:
I stopped reading when you started whining about colossus for about 10 rows and started losing interest when you spoke about how muta is such a "great unit".
Blizzard might do wrong stuff from time to time, but if you cry about the colossus in 1 huge paragraph while making an abstract point it just stops me from taking your post seriously. What a fucking lame excuse of a post. People who write these "I stopped reading when..." posts should be warned or temp banned from TL... if you stopped reading the OP, you have no right to post anything, after all you didn't read the whole thing. And yes, I agree with the OP, but in my personal view SC2 has problems since its beta, and up to today they haven't been fixed because either Blizzard can't see them, or they see it but they think it is working as intended and no matter what they won't change it. As I see it nowadays, Blizzard do intend on sticking to gimmicky units, they just don't want to admit it.
Backseat moderator detected.
He raised a really important point that you should learn from. I don't care if you made the most brilliant speech in your life; if you make 1 or 2 completely retarded points inside, your whole speech is worthless. Look at politicians, why do you think their speeches are so elaborately crafted? Say 1 or 2 stupid things and media will pounce on them.
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Very well written.
Allthough I dont agree a 100% with everything (fast tech switches can be interesting), I can only encourage everyone to read this.
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Just read your post again Heh__ to see how illogical it is.
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It's perfectly fine, the one lacking logic is you.
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wrote:The worst example though is the Colossus. This bastard single handily ruins three matchups all by itself. The colossus kills everything on the ground (assuming it has a deathball protecting it) in all three matchups. It also requires a very specific response that if not met results in a lost game regardless of the micro skill of both players. !
i said this from beta day 1.
SC2 is already ruined in so many ways that blizzard should make a completely revamp of the game.
I simply cannot understand why they made so many wrong choices... the colossus is the perfect example of a boring,uninspired , overpowered unit with no place in a game like starcraft.
They copied it from war of the worlds and they forced protoss to use it.
Blizzard is not the same company of brood war , they ruined starcraft universe, they ruined diablo universe and finally people are feeling it. I wonder what is sc2 and diablo 3 server population now :D
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On August 17 2012 00:16 dragonsuper wrote:Show nested quote + wrote:The worst example though is the Colossus. This bastard single handily ruins three matchups all by itself. The colossus kills everything on the ground (assuming it has a deathball protecting it) in all three matchups. It also requires a very specific response that if not met results in a lost game regardless of the micro skill of both players. ! i said this from beta day 1. SC2 is already ruined in so many ways that blizzard should make a completely revamp of the game. I simply cannot understand why they made so many wrong choices... the colossus is the perfect example of a boring,uninspired , overpowered unit with no place in a game like starcraft. They copied it from war of the worlds and they forced protoss to use it. Blizzard is not the same company of brood war , they ruined starcraft universe, they ruined diablo universe and finally people are feeling it. I wonder what is sc2 and diablo 3 server population now :D
At least in Korea, it's abysmal.
Source: Gamenote
Total Online Gaming Rank- SC2 at #16, D3 at #20 for the week.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, LoL is #1.
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I think stuff like this was written even back in the Beta.
And nothing changed because these units are just r-e-t-a-r-d-e-d.
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On August 16 2012 19:24 Filter wrote:
The things that are amazing to watch like very precise positional play is lost. Territory is not earned slowly it is taken in a rush by the player with the better army composition at the time.
This pretty much sums my thoughts up. Many matchups play out like a seesaw, especially TvP. It's even worse now than it used to be in the beta or early patches, where tactics and strategy was more relevant. The game was even more volatile back then, though.
The current state of SC2 as compared to BW is more a game of "who knows the most timing pushes" and "who goes for tier 3 at the best timing" than who has the superior strategy, tactics and positioning.
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On August 16 2012 23:38 Heh_ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2012 23:28 fabiano wrote:On August 16 2012 21:05 Aterons_toss wrote:
I stopped reading when you started whining about colossus for about 10 rows and started losing interest when you spoke about how muta is such a "great unit".
Blizzard might do wrong stuff from time to time, but if you cry about the colossus in 1 huge paragraph while making an abstract point it just stops me from taking your post seriously. What a fucking lame excuse of a post. People who write these "I stopped reading when..." posts should be warned or temp banned from TL... if you stopped reading the OP, you have no right to post anything, after all you didn't read the whole thing. And yes, I agree with the OP, but in my personal view SC2 has problems since its beta, and up to today they haven't been fixed because either Blizzard can't see them, or they see it but they think it is working as intended and no matter what they won't change it. As I see it nowadays, Blizzard do intend on sticking to gimmicky units, they just don't want to admit it. Backseat moderator detected. He raised a really important point that you should learn from. I don't care if you made the most brilliant speech in your life; if you make 1 or 2 completely retarded points inside, your whole speech is worthless. Look at politicians, why do you think their speeches are so elaborately crafted? Say 1 or 2 stupid things and media will pounce on them.
Are you implying that the media of all beholders is anywhere near an adequate barometer of the worth of a speech?
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On August 16 2012 23:19 SpeCtor wrote:
agree with everything you say, and one comment on the TvP match up. A protoss can open either templar or collosus, but this isn't chosen due to scouting, the protoss can do either. It is then up to the terran to counter this with either vikings or ghosts, just to survive!, however if terran goes for quick ghosts for example, the protoss doesnt say, I NEED collosus or I NEED templar. going collosus would help true, but the toss can still stomp the terran without this decision.
It sucks that due to the collosus, terran are forced to react to whatever protoss does while protoss does whatever the fuck they want. Not a balance issue but a deign issue.
????
Some things in the game require a reaction and somethings do not.
I react to Protoss by making marine/marauder/starport in some way. Somethings in this game aren't responses, they are just things that you do because you want to do them.
And that's bullshit. When you're doing a basic 1 rax FE into 3 rax into medivacs there's not a lot of room for huge variations there but if you tell me that a build that plays well against that doesn't have to change anything at all against tank pushes or banshees then you don't really know anything about PvT (or you're Ray)
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I disagree with your assessment of almost everything.
Colossus doesn't wreck all matchups.
PvT - Many pro players don't even use Colossi, or if they do they use 1-2 and then switch to HTs.
PvZ - Makes hydras difficult to keep alive. Decent against roaches (but immortals are better). Most early to mid-games seem to end with the Roach v Stalker-Sentry-Immortal, or timing pushes before BL/Infestor. Late games have few to no colossi, and center around MShip/Templar/Archon vs. BL/Infestor.
PvP - Very few games go to multiple bases, but admittedly after expanding, your strategy more or less centers on how your Colossi are positioned and how many you have. Really though, most PvPs end from 1-base play.
Regarding your statement about "needing" Vikings to respond to Tempests,
1. You're jumping the gun a little bit. No one knows how tempests will fit into the game yet. Maybe you'll need Vikings. Maybe you'll be able to A-move with your Warhounds and ignore the Tempests (they only do 8 DPS). This is kind of the same way Roach pushes often beat early stargate play in ZvP. Maybe you'll need Vikings, but you don't know this yet.
2. 1 Tempest (300 gas) vs. 3-4 Vikings (225-300 gas). Who wins in a straight out fight? What about 1 Tempest vs. 12 marines (600 min vs. 300 min/300 gas)? You seem to think Tempests are good straight combat units like the Colossus - you're wrong about this. Look at its stats.
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Blizzard could remove almost all air units and the game would hardly suffer for it. In general, positioning is not as relevant with air versus air battles, yet the strongest way to combat mass carrier, colossus or brood lord armies is to use mass vikings, corruptors or void rays. All these units are kinda boring and one dimensional. (see your average TvZ, ZvP endgame) Furthermore, they reduce the strength of dropships, air harassment and air spell casters.
On the other hand, the tempest is a more interesting strategical unit compared to the carrier. The swarm host is a better incarnation of the brood lord concept. There are plenty of superior alternatives available for the role of the colossus if only Blizzard was brave enough to remove it. The corruptor could be replaced by the scourge pretty easily and the viking could be refashioned to be more of a goliath replacement that does not instantly gib all air units. The void ray has gone through so many incarnations and it's never been quite satisfactory. The raven is not as cool as the science vessel, and so on and so forth.
It's never going to happen though.
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EPT
