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Mech, metal, mechanical, this elusive concept in strategy games. As the giants before me eloquently explained, the attribute 'mechanical', doesn't make it the mech we all know and love. Mech is something different. Mech is this slow-moving army that you don't move around on the map with. But rather, you decide in advance where you want to position it. It's very strong, but it can't just respond to threads you only then see coming, you have to look into the future, you have to respond before the thread was there. That's mech, siege tanks are mech, the fact that you can die to two carriers because you don't have Goliaths is mech, the fact that you can die to a recall due to no mines is mech. Hell, even losing all your slow moving retreating brood lords to surprise Vikings because you morphed all your corruptors away is one of the pains that comes with mech.
Vultures aren't mech though, let's be honest. Vultures aren't even Terran, their mines are mech, but the vulture itself: it's a Zerg unit that swarms like bees in a Terran army. Hellions, without the mines are even less mech. Having templar at expansions to feedback and storm drops? yeah, that's kind of mech I guess, at least since they removed Khaydarin Amulet. You can't really walk them there can you? That's the essence of mech, proaction rather than reaction, and being rewarded for your foresight with extreme cost-efficiency.
...and it's completely fundamentally detrimental to a well-functioning RTS
I will proceed to hide now while I elaborate on this. But seriously, the existence of mech is really bad for an RTS game, the existence of such a style.
In order for mech to function, mech units have to be insanely cost efficient when actually in position, else there would be no reason to ever use them with their immobility. Mech in that sense locks off an area to your opponent, it says 'you can't go here'. Now, this isn't bad per se. Area control, forcing your opponent to take a long way around therefore arriving later is a profound strategic concept, the issue is that mech in that sense can lock off a natural expansion to your opponent. Sieged up tanks on a high ground overlooking your natural guard you against pretty much any frontal assault, thereby promoting a very defensive style.
Is that wrong you might ask? I dare to answer yes. Ask yourself, what happens if both players play defensively? Nothing at all. What happens if one player plays aggressively and one player plays defensively? Something happens, a concentrated fight at the natural expansion of the defensive player. What happens if both players play aggressively? A lot is what happens then, a tug of war in the middle of, more drops and harassment since your armies aren't located close to your main, they are out on the map thereby leaving your main more vulnerable. To maximize the spectatorship value of an RTS, it should encourage players to be as aggressive as possible. Which is actually one of the reasons StarCraft in general has become such a spectator sport I would say. In most other RTS games, people play very defensively compared to StarCraft and NR15, don't come out of their base basically before 15 minutes into the game whereas in StarCraft it is very common to send your first couple units out on the map already. This generates action and excitement, it's a thing people want to see. If factory tech came before infantry tech in TvT and both players went mech, not a lot would happen in the first couple of... hours? of the game, especially if those unmechy bastardizations like hellions and vultures were removed.
Mech to the mechs
But I hear you say.. scream... 'Mech players move out in BW all the time!', and they do, but only for the existence of the Vulture. Let's redesign mech, let's make it stronger, better, slower: operate on that sucker, remove all the organic parts and make it even more mech. Let's take the battle hellion as a template. I'm going to be honest, I don't like the idea of it. I think both the hellion and the battle hellion are fine, but being able to transform between either is a bad idea. A unit that has the potential to ravage a mineral line shouldn't have a decent combat role. But that tirade aside. Let's fix this problem, let's make the transformation take really long and make the hellion ridiculously slow in battle mode. In a sense it now sieges and unsieges, we got mech, you have to be proactive with your transformation, not reactive, you can't just move it around in battle mode, you have to transform it into an RC car to move it around realistically. So you got mech, together with Widow Mines, let's also touch the Warhound, let's make its haywire hit only air. This is mech to the mechs, you have to be so proactive about everything, you have to anticipate every air switch, every attack. And yet, if mech was like this, would people ever move out to attack? I don't think so, there's just no incentive except some hellion harass. In order for the Hellion to do more than kill workers, it has to siege, you might lose it then and there. If you move out, he just counters with his more mobile army, the idea of Vultures is that they can poke and prod and then escape, no harm done.
Battle hellions in this form might be the ultimate answer to chargelots, except that they will never see one in their existence, they wouldn't go out and attack.
Death Browder's Dustin Balls, now with extra meat
Bringing us to another point: in order for mech to function, it must be weak in small armies, and strong in large armies. Assume it was in reverse, immobile units which are cost efficient in small groups and become less cost efficient once you get more of them. Your opponent basically has no way to force you to group your army against his grouped army, it would be very easy to position defensively, it would just be too powerful. This is why in all of StarCraft, units obey this one fundamental rule it seems: 'units that are mobile function well in small groups, units that are immobile function well in large groups'. Almost all short ranged units are very mobile, all long ranged units are very slow.
So, what does mech make attractive then? D-D-dea.... I'm not gonna say the forbidden word. Regardless, the only reason it doesn't end up that way is purely due to the threat of mobile units your opponent has, if you keep your mech army in one giant ball, you will get demolished by drops and harass of more mobile units of your opponent. In TvT, if the unmechy hellions and vultures were removed, I'd be interested to see what it ended up with. I'd go so far as to say it'd be one metal blob versus another metal blob. If he catches a part of your mech army with his entire mech army, it's GG, without vultures and hellions, there's just no reason ever to properly split it any more. The unmech in mech is what makes mech vs mech interesting.
You... shall... not... pass!
But as I said, area control is a cool thing that adds strategy to the game. The point about mech is that it's the simplest area control ever except for mines, it just says 'You can't go here trololololol', take creep, it says 'You can't go here or I will see you and surround you with faster units.', take dts/lurkers, they say 'you can't go here without detection', take watchtowers, they say 'You can't go here or with your entire push or I will spot your all in, you have to send a marine up first to kill my marine holding it.'
...and family sticks together
But then again, despite Artosis' prophecies, mech is a dying breed in SC2. TvZ mech becomes less and less common as Zergs have figured out ways to deal with it. The last bastion of TvP mech, der Panzergeneral, has since been supply blocking himself while queuing up 5 Marines per Rax in the matchup. Mech is quite viable in TvT but where Mvp would go mech every game about a year ago, he has since diversified. Gumiho, the seemingly biggest proponent of mech TvT currently doesn't play mech, he just really likes hellions and makes tanks with it because they share upgrades it seems.So why is that so? One thing could honestly be the current map pool? A good mech map after all is small, doesn't have a lot of counter attack paths, doesn't have a lot of bases on it, is one of those 'three base turtle fest' maps. In short: The perfect mech map is an absolutely terrible map for all other matchups.
Say mech was the standard for Terran, imagine the constraints that map makers then had to live by to keep Terran from being ridiculously overpowered? I daresay Steppes of War is a pretty darn good mech map. Hell, your natural is even siegable from the low ground.
But of course, let's be reasonable, if mech was the standard, mech would be more powerful, thereby, in order to keep mech from being overpowered, maps would also have slightly more counter attack paths, be slightly larger etc. So who knows, maybe I'm just a disgruntled idiot with retarded arguments, Artosis said.
Igorrr, more tanks, more tanks
What I honestly think is pretty fundamental to a good RTS is that units have strengths and weakness, as to create a 'triangle' of rock, paper, scissors as far as units go. This serves to force players to think compositionally rather than just massing 'the best unit'. Now, I know all of you hate the word you order your beer at at the bar, but let's be honest, it exists, it exists in BW, it exists in WoL, and it's good that it exists in the end. So we got this situation, Tanks c****** Goons, Goons c****** Vults, Vults c****** Womanlots, Zealots c****** Tanks. This mechanic is pretty instrumental to the functioning of an RTS. If you make too many Tanks, you die to mass Zealot, make too many Vultures, you die too mass Dragoon, and vice versa for the other player. Of course this is all completely simplified and all you frothing people who want to get me fired from EG for using the C-word are right in that, but it illustrates the purpose well enough. It generates a need to compose.
Now, the point is, how do you make such a nice little circle with two 'mech armies'? Surely you can't just make four tanks which have different damage types to do that, that would be kind of boring and silly. You can I suppose take it to the skies. Goliaths do 'that thing' to Carriers, Carriers to Tanks, Tanks to Goons, Goons to Goliaths. This already makes it kind of more interesting, though as you see only one one race takes the skies, perhaps if wraiths took over from Goliaths in some way. But it becomes apparent that this still can't really work in a mirror matchup. Which is exactly what you get. The tank is the alpha and the omega of BW TvT, everything revolves around it, whoever has more tanks is usually ahead.
Now, that blasphemous less mechy game called WoL that they play on some isolated island called the foreign scene some-what solves this. Marauders counter (Rated R-18 now) tanks and hellions, Vikings counter marauders, marines counter Vikings, tanks and hellions counter marines. The Viking part may not be completely obvious but it's basically a case of that if you don't make enough Marines they just swoop in and kill all your Medivacs. It's crude, but you get what I mean. The point is, to do this mech has to be less than completely dominant. Which is I suppose kind of why bio vs mech TvT doesn't really feel like a mirror matchup all that much does it? The bio player plays much like a BW Protoss would.
There is no end to the wonders of mech
Mech isn't just good at winning though, it's also good at not losing. We've all been in the games, the Terran is all but defeated, he has no real army, no third, no map control, no way to stop you from taking the entire map. But he does have a good amount of tanks at a random chokepoint that happens to lead to your natural, some people call this 'area control', I call this 'the gateway drug to lifting all your buildings to be a jerk'. XvT games can go on for quite a while when the Terran has by all means already lost, but you can't finish it because of 'area control' before you get something like swarm, brood lords, recall, stasis... swarm hosts?
While there obviously should be some defender's advantage, for mech to succeed, it sort of needs to be able to at least hold off armies twice or trice as expensive when positioned in a nice choke, such as your natural, that's just a bit too much defenders advantage I feel.
You can fix stupid
Okay, so, as I said, What I consider one of the major problems with mech is the supreme defenders advantage it offers. So fix that? What if there were some units which were good against mech, but otherwise not really that good, they wouldn't be worth much of their investment in straight up combat but they will break those hyper defensive natural chokes. Say for instance you got siege range air units, maybe even make them combat tanks by forcing tanks to splash their own army if they don't unsiege? Or maybe make some kind of spellcaster that offers supreme mobility around it by teleporting units under itself or maybe have some kind of way of temporarily disabling tanks. Or I don't know, maybe some other caster which can make melee units practically invulnerable to ranged attacks in a certain area. Maybe some kind of huge arse melee ramming beast which doesn't care at all about tank splash and uses its melee attack to make tanks splash other tanks?
Oh wait...
And this is exactly the issue, all these units are extremely high tier. This is one of the reason you can't just end it against mech if you are well ahead, you need to wait for your high tier anti mech units.
But I hear you say "Why not make them lower tier and be done with it?", well, you can't. For mech mever to be effective, you need to be able to mass it up, a half arsed not big mech army needs a choke to be cost efficient, it can never be engaged in the open. So the same defenders advantage that allows mech to not die, also allows mech to in fact come to birth. The reason these units are all high tier is that no one would ever go mech if siege breaking units existed earlier in the tech tree, you could easily get them, break that natural before T has a critical mass of tanks and just kill them. We see this in WoL TvP, the one matchup where mech is really not an option, P has 2 relatively mid tier units that can in fact do this, the immortal and the phoenix. Going mech TvP relies on completely taking your opponent by surprise, it could never be the standard because if it were, P would just kill T every time with standard immortal or phoenix timings. Immortals are just too cost efficient against tanks in small numbers, even in chokes. (Fun fact for those who don't know is that 200/200 tank actually beats 200/200 immortal, half of the immortals is already dead before the first one starts to fire.)
Blizzard, despite the flack they are getting, I am sure of actually consider these kinds of issues, which is probably why the Viper is hive tech and while the swarm host can set a lot of pressure onto tank lines, it can't actually kill them on its own. This is the major way it differs in from the brood lord despite people saying it's a ground brood lord. Broodlings land on top of siege tanks; locusts have to walk to them, sustaining massive fire while they are doing so and if you don't have enough they will die before getting there not causting friendly splash at all, they tank damage for say hydralisks to engage more properly.
Perfectly played mech should beat everything, except viewership records
Regardless, mech is still pretty enjoyable to watch, but for what reason? Let's just say that theoretically the perfect mech gets played, the mech player is in position everywhere, perfectly split tanks, mines everywhere, eventually he gets this super cost efficient army and goes to kill his opponent with it. Let's also assume that his opponent isn't completely daft, what would he do? Would he try to attack in all those perfectly defended positions and lose his entire army to the cost effectiveness of sieged tanks, mines, planetary fortresses... high templar in a choke? Nahh, not really. So what basically happens in theoretically perfectly played mech is absolutely nothing, no engagement, and eventually one player gets killed assuming mech is powerful enough to do that. Say it's not, say the mech player cannot in 200 supply split his army up to kill him and not die to the counter attack, that would be even worse, then he won't move out, the most epic stalemate ever. You can't attack him because he's perfectly defended, he can't attack you because in order to do that he has to give up that perfect defence.
What makes mech interesting to watch is imperfect mech play, mistakes, simple as that, openings the opponent of the mech player finds where he can attack into so that stuff actually happens. Which I would say is kind of a good thing for the spectator value of an RTS. Not to mention drawing new blood in, it might be interesting for the experienced to marvel at that perfect mech defence—though I'd imagine that eventually even Artosis gets bored of one player having the perfect mech defence, and another player being smart enough not to suicide his army into it—but for newer players who don't yet fully grasp the strategy, what they want to see is blood; they can't yet fully comprehend the reasoning behind the mech player not moving out out of fear of a counter and the other dude not attacking because his entire army will melt.
BW, WoL, they are interesting despite mech, not because of mech. They are interesting spectator sports because they are RTS games that promote aggression far more than other RTS games, it's why MOBA style games are interesting (to some, I SAID TO SOME), they encourage aggression. StarCraft sees aggression despite mech, and would see even more without mech. If all races were mech, and mech was true mech, and no vultures and hellions existed, not a darn thing would ever come to happen in either game. Mech just removes every piece of incentive to ever attack. Mech in BW was pretty good, but if and only because it wasn't true mech, the hellion watered it down to some kind of weird biomech with mechanical Hydralisks in it or something.
What I'm trying to say is I suppose, mech can be part of a good RTS game, but like ultralisks, you never go full mech. It's okay if some units are mech, though I would rather have that all races were given the capacity to just completely lock down their natural rather than just one. But in the end, you can't make a race's entire army mech. So enjoy your Tanks and Widow Mines in HotS, and use them in tandem with your unmechy Hellions and Warhounds. In the end, I feel like Templar defence against drops are probably the best form of mech, because they don't murder things that walk into them while you're looking away, they demand reflexes and minimap awareness to feedback the medivac and storm whatever comes out of it before it kills the templar.
  
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Look at this post (which your post is obviously related to): In Defense of Mech.
That post was a joy to read, due to having proper and fitting pictures interspersed with the text, videos showcasing important concepts etc.
Your post.. Is a wall of text.
Also, the small parts that I have bothered to read has fundamentally misunderstood the arguments made in the defense post.
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On August 21 2012 19:25 pettter wrote:Look at this post (which your post is obviously related to): In Defense of Mech. That post was a joy to read, due to having proper and fitting pictures interspersed with the text, videos showcasing important concepts etc. Your post.. Is a wall of text. I will always refuse to add any images or videos unless they are graphs that actually explain something that they explain better and concisely than text. Adding images for the sake of it is just a cheap trick to make your post appear like more than it really is, we all know what a brood lord or a vulture looks like, there's no need to add an image, you can easily google it if you're on one of the few people that doesn't.
It's a cheap trick honestly, and one I will never use out of principle, it's presentation over content, looks over substance.
Also, the small parts that I have bothered to read has fundamentally misunderstood the arguments made in the defense post. I just used the wording as a play on it, I never intended to respond to that post and haven't done so anywhere, I'm just detailing the fundamental problems that mech has and the major game design concessions that have to made to the rest of the game to continue to make mech viable.
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You should be specific about what is a "perfect mech play " you lost me there. Seems like a response to in defense of mech although a poorly done one.
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On August 21 2012 19:34 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 19:25 pettter wrote:Look at this post (which your post is obviously related to): In Defense of Mech. That post was a joy to read, due to having proper and fitting pictures interspersed with the text, videos showcasing important concepts etc. Your post.. Is a wall of text. I will always refuse to add any images or videos unless they are graphs that actually explain something that they explain better and concisely than text. Adding images for the sake of it is just a cheap trick to make your post appear like more than it really is, we all know what a brood lord or a vulture looks like, there's no need to add an image, you can easily google it if you're on one of the few people that doesn't. It's a cheap trick honestly, and one I will never use out of principle, it's presentation over content, looks over substance. Show nested quote +Also, the small parts that I have bothered to read has fundamentally misunderstood the arguments made in the defense post. I just used the wording as a play on it, I never intended to respond to that post and haven't done so anywhere, I'm just detailing the fundamental problems that mech has and the major game design concessions that have to made to the rest of the game to continue to make mech viable.
You might want to get used to the fact that most people like presentation over content value. If you want to sell something, sell it at least right.
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You honestly like SC2 how it is now? It's incredibly easy compared to brood war. You literally 1A around the map with no fear until the engagement happens.
You make it sound incredibly easy for a mech player to defend every single thing on the map, perfectly engage, siege up in time, perfectly leap frog, have the right amount of AA, etc...
I think you're simplifying mech way too much. Also, the vulture is indeed mech. Mech is short for mechanical, aka units that are metal and such. Mech does not only encompass slow units, but fast units for positioning as well.
The vulture was a unit that forced positioning. You could threaten harrass with them forcing your opponent to not go somewhere, or to go somewhere, as well as lay mines on your flanks. Just because it is fast doesn't mean it's not a mech unit.
I dunno. Seems like you are just trying to make a cute trendy sarcastic argument against the other blog post "in defense of mech." People have very legitimate complaints about the warhound not being a "mech" unit because it's essentially a marauder reskinned that offers no space control or positional play but is simply a 1A unit.
Even the hellion offers space control, just like the vulture, because there is the threat that they can runby into the opponent's base. So yes, it's a mech unit as well.
Things like the viper cloud, the widow mine, and even the tempest are things that affect positioning in one way or another either through range, reducing the opponent's range, or forcing them to avoid a location or take damage. That's good for the game, because it raises the skill cap.
Will games take longer because of those things? You have zero sample size to say on that, games may in fact become shorter because of these mechanics because of people screwing up more, or players differentiating themselves more with these things. No one knows yet on that front, so calling bullshit that games will be longer, or "bad for viewership."
If anything, the game will be closer to brood war...and anyone here will tell you that's a good thing.
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On August 21 2012 19:34 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 19:25 pettter wrote:Look at this post (which your post is obviously related to): In Defense of Mech. That post was a joy to read, due to having proper and fitting pictures interspersed with the text, videos showcasing important concepts etc. Your post.. Is a wall of text. I will always refuse to add any images or videos unless they are graphs that actually explain something that they explain better and concisely than text. Adding images for the sake of it is just a cheap trick to make your post appear like more than it really is, we all know what a brood lord or a vulture looks like, there's no need to add an image, you can easily google it if you're on one of the few people that doesn't. It's a cheap trick honestly, and one I will never use out of principle, it's presentation over content, looks over substance. Show nested quote +Also, the small parts that I have bothered to read has fundamentally misunderstood the arguments made in the defense post. I just used the wording as a play on it, I never intended to respond to that post and haven't done so anywhere, I'm just detailing the fundamental problems that mech has and the major game design concessions that have to made to the rest of the game to continue to make mech viable.
People only want to read things that look interesting. A giant wall of text does not look interesting and if youre too stubborn to use these 'cheap tricks' then frankly nobody is going to read what youve written.
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I'll try to summarize what I got out of this post:
- True mech is a completely defensive style. Therefore, a true mech player never really attacks, but eventually advances forward enough to choke out the opponent. This style can create very slow and downright boring games.
- By necessity to be viable, perfectly played mech should never be beaten. Thus, players should head toward mech vs mech and since neither side can attack, no engagements happen in a theoretically perfect game, ever.
- The parts that made BW "mech" interesting were actually the non-mech parts (vulture harass) or the fact that the opponent was not going mech and was actively trying to circumvent mech.
- BW and SC2 have succeeded despite mech, not because of it.
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I have a few issues with what was written, but it was overall a good read. I disagree to a point, but not completely. I think mech has a place and can enhance a game, but it needs to have a limit. Each race needs to have the ability to drill a moderately defended mech position and come close to trading cost effectively. The key units to drill mech should be higher tier units. This allows for a defensive minded player to survive during the midgame, but requires that he extend out and take expansions otherwise his opponent who expands and techs up will be guaranteed the victory later. Essentially, it allows a better player to extend a game if he chooses and give himself more time to win rather than winning/losing on a single timing push that has a strong chance of success. However, he will always have to expand out (and probably harass to keep his opponent back) in order to win games, but this will spread his defenses thinner and allow a skilled opponent to drill a weak spot.
When you have that sort of relationship going, mech works out quite well. The complaint of the "In Defense of Mech" was a bit off base too, but it did figure out that warhounds will essentially remove mech-style from the game completely... just like immortals (and pretty much the whole protoss race) does. Mech does have it's place in making the game interesting. It should be a strong composition in the mid-game that helps a skilled player defend against timing pushes. It should allow a player to defend an area cost-efficiently in the late-game except against specific anti-mech high tier units backed by a strong army. In essence, it should be a strong way to play, but not a game-ender in the theoretically perfect game.
I also think you should revisit the idea of the necessity of "counters". When you have multiple resources, a unit can have no true counter and still be balanced. For example, a 6-supply unit could be better than or equal to any combination of 6-supply units in the game, but be very cost inefficient in minerals and gas. Therefore, the true counter to the unit could be to deny expansions and never let the opponent amass a huge army of that special unit. Alternatively, you could trade supply inefficiently against that unit, but be able to remake your army faster and wear down that army of counterless units.
When you have so many different resources at play (including time), things don't need to follow some basic rock-paper-scissors model.
sidenote to OP: you use enough flowery phrases to make the thing interesting, I don't know why you'd be against using pictures to make your post prettier. It has the same effect.
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On August 21 2012 20:37 avilo wrote:
You honestly like SC2 how it is now? Absolutely not, however, I would like it to go the other way, offer more highly mobile hit-and-run type units.
It's incredibly easy compared to brood war. You literally 1A around the map with no fear until the engagement happens That's an exaggeration and a.. figurative use of the word 'literal'.
You make it sound incredibly easy for a mech player to defend every single thing on the map, perfectly engage, siege up in time, perfectly leap frog, have the right amount of AA, etc... Not at all, I've been quite clear over the fact that mech is hard to properly execute and you always need to be proactive, and think ahead, however, in order to make mech viable so much more of the game needs to be sacrificed that could potentially be in it.
I think you're simplifying mech way too much. Also, the vulture is indeed mech. Mech is short for mechanical, aka units that are metal and such. Mech does not only encompass slow units, but fast units for positioning as well. Technically, yes, but for the purposes of this topic and the 'In defence of mech' topic, it's about an immobile but very powerful army that emphasizes proactive thinking.
The vulture was a unit that forced positioning. You could threaten harrass with them forcing your opponent to not go somewhere, or to go somewhere, as well as lay mines on your flanks. Just because it is fast doesn't mean it's not a mech unit. It's a matter of definition, it definitely didn't "feel" mech, it didn't even feel Terran honestly.
I dunno. Seems like you are just trying to make a cute trendy sarcastic argument against the other blog post "in defense of mech." People have very legitimate complaints about the warhound not being a "mech" unit because it's essentially a marauder reskinned that offers no space control or positional play but is simply a 1A unit. Now you contradict yourself, it's mechanical, therefore it's mech in your vocabulary?
Even the hellion offers space control, just like the vulture, because there is the threat that they can runby into the opponent's base. So yes, it's a mech unit as well. So do Zerglings. Mech is responding to such threats rather than executing them.
Things like the viper cloud, the widow mine, and even the tempest are things that affect positioning in one way or another either through range, reducing the opponent's range, or forcing them to avoid a location or take damage. That's good for the game, because it raises the skill cap.
Will games take longer because of those things? You have zero sample size to say on that, games may in fact become shorter because of these mechanics because of people screwing up more, or players differentiating themselves more with these things. No one knows yet on that front, so calling bullshit that games will be longer, or "bad for viewership." No one also knows if more mech gives more viewership in terms of empirical arguments, I'm making a rational argument as to why perfectly executed mech will lead to just a lot of posturing and no real engagements. Which in itself is honestly not bad to watch if you understand the strategy behind it. I remember someone looking over at my shoulder playing a game of SC2 where only one engagement happened that decided it and I tried to explain to her the depth that goes into the posturing and the constant threads we both exterted and the decisions we both made to not engage. However, it is very hard to understand for someone without experience in the game.
If anything, the game will be closer to brood war...and anyone here will tell you that's a good thing. Highly subjective, but yes, most people, incluiding myself, think that for a lot of things that's a better thing, not for all though.
On August 21 2012 20:24 Wortie wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 19:34 SiskosGoatee wrote:On August 21 2012 19:25 pettter wrote:Look at this post (which your post is obviously related to): In Defense of Mech. That post was a joy to read, due to having proper and fitting pictures interspersed with the text, videos showcasing important concepts etc. Your post.. Is a wall of text. I will always refuse to add any images or videos unless they are graphs that actually explain something that they explain better and concisely than text. Adding images for the sake of it is just a cheap trick to make your post appear like more than it really is, we all know what a brood lord or a vulture looks like, there's no need to add an image, you can easily google it if you're on one of the few people that doesn't. It's a cheap trick honestly, and one I will never use out of principle, it's presentation over content, looks over substance. Also, the small parts that I have bothered to read has fundamentally misunderstood the arguments made in the defense post. I just used the wording as a play on it, I never intended to respond to that post and haven't done so anywhere, I'm just detailing the fundamental problems that mech has and the major game design concessions that have to made to the rest of the game to continue to make mech viable. You might want to get used to the fact that most people like presentation over content value. If you want to sell something, sell it at least right.
On August 21 2012 20:39 solidbebe wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 19:34 SiskosGoatee wrote:On August 21 2012 19:25 pettter wrote:Look at this post (which your post is obviously related to): In Defense of Mech. That post was a joy to read, due to having proper and fitting pictures interspersed with the text, videos showcasing important concepts etc. Your post.. Is a wall of text. I will always refuse to add any images or videos unless they are graphs that actually explain something that they explain better and concisely than text. Adding images for the sake of it is just a cheap trick to make your post appear like more than it really is, we all know what a brood lord or a vulture looks like, there's no need to add an image, you can easily google it if you're on one of the few people that doesn't. It's a cheap trick honestly, and one I will never use out of principle, it's presentation over content, looks over substance. Also, the small parts that I have bothered to read has fundamentally misunderstood the arguments made in the defense post. I just used the wording as a play on it, I never intended to respond to that post and haven't done so anywhere, I'm just detailing the fundamental problems that mech has and the major game design concessions that have to made to the rest of the game to continue to make mech viable. People only want to read things that look interesting. A giant wall of text does not look interesting and if youre too stubborn to use these 'cheap tricks' then frankly nobody is going to read what youve written.
Listen gents, I'm not going to debate this philosophical/ideological issue here, that's offtopic. You can read the post in its entirety and decide to respond to the points it makes, or you can decide to not read it because I did minimal efforts for its presentation and move on, no one is forcing you to read it.
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On August 21 2012 20:47 RenSC2 wrote:
I'll try to summarize what I got out of this post:
- True mech is a completely defensive style. Therefore, a true mech player never really attacks, but eventually advances forward enough to choke out the opponent. This style can create very slow and downright boring games.
- By necessity to be viable, perfectly played mech should never be beaten. Thus, players should head toward mech vs mech and since neither side can attack, no engagements happen in a theoretically perfect game, ever.
- The parts that made BW "mech" interesting were actually the non-mech parts (vulture harass) or the fact that the opponent was not going mech and was actively trying to circumvent mech.
- BW and SC2 have succeeded despite mech, not because of it.
This is about the gist of the post for anyone who is wondering.
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I have a few issues with what was written, but it was overall a good read. I disagree to a point, but not completely. I think mech has a place and can enhance a game, but it needs to have a limit. Each race needs to have the ability to drill a moderately defended mech position and come close to trading cost effectively. The key units to drill mech should be higher tier units. This allows for a defensive minded player to survive during the midgame, but requires that he extend out and take expansions otherwise his opponent who expands and techs up will be guaranteed the victory later. Essentially, it allows a better player to extend a game if he chooses and give himself more time to win rather than winning/losing on a single timing push that has a strong chance of success. However, he will always have to expand out (and probably harass to keep his opponent back) in order to win games, but this will spread his defenses thinner and allow a skilled opponent to drill a weak spot.
Indeed, this is how it works now and I'm quite content with that. But as I said "true mech" does not exist in BW nor WoL, which is one of the things that makes this possible. If vultures were removed in order for mech to succeed tanks would have to be so much more powerful, and consequently so much more immobile that the game would become rather stale. True mech just won't work, you have to water it down.
When you have that sort of relationship going, mech works out quite well. The complaint of the "In Defense of Mech" was a bit off base too, but it did figure out that warhounds will essentially remove mech-style from the game completely... just like immortals (and pretty much the whole protoss race) does. Mech does have it's place in making the game interesting. It should be a strong composition in the mid-game that helps a skilled player defend against timing pushes. It should allow a player to defend an area cost-efficiently in the late-game except against specific anti-mech high tier units backed by a strong army. In essence, it should be a strong way to play, but not a game-ender in the theoretically perfect game. Well, I feel in this respect that 'mech units' can exist, as in, strong defensive units that are immobile, but it shouldn't be ever viable to make only those units. As I said, I consider templar defence against drop for instance a form of mech in a way, you have to proactively position them, they are extremely cost efficient but you can't really walk them to that location if you are already dropped.
Having mech units as part of the game is fine, but I don't think a full on "true mech" composition would ever work.
I also think you should revisit the idea of the necessity of "counters". When you have multiple resources, a unit can have no true counter and still be balanced. For example, a 6-supply unit could be better than or equal to any combination of 6-supply units in the game, but be very cost inefficient in minerals and gas. Therefore, the true counter to the unit could be to deny expansions and never let the opponent amass a huge army of that special unit. Alternatively, you could trade supply inefficiently against that unit, but be able to remake your army faster and wear down that army of counterless units I agree to some extend, anything which forces a certain thought into composition is fine, "counters" provide one such incentive. The problem is that without counters, mirror matchups will devulge very quickly into "Who has the most tanks/colossi/mutalisks wins' it's very hard to force a certain compositional incentive in mirror matchups without counters.
But I agree that the best part is if counters are dependent on situation and terrain, which they already sort of are, in the open, chargelot/archon will beat colossus based armies, but in a choke colossus based armies reign supreme.
When you have so many different resources at play (including time), things don't need to follow some basic rock-paper-scissors model.
sidenote to OP: you use enough flowery phrases to make the thing interesting Quite, but this is just the way I normally talk I suppose.
I don't know why you'd be against using pictures to make your post prettier. It has the same effect. Literally, the voices in my head don't allow me, I'm dead serious here.
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What I take away from this thread is that a hypothetical (or redefined) version of "mech" that has never existed in SC2 or BW is really bad and boring.
...OK? No one was arguing for that hypothetical version of mech. Everyone was arguing for the sort of mech that existed in BW and early SC2: Mech backed up by fast harass units.
This thread simply isn't relevant to anything people in the SC community were debating.
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On August 21 2012 21:20 TheKwas wrote:
What I take away from this thread is that a hypothetical (or redefined) version of "mech" that has never existed in SC2 or BW is really bad and boring.
...OK? No one was arguing for that hypothetical version of mech. Everyone was arguing for the sort of mech that existed in BW and early SC2: Mech backed up by fast harass units.
This thread simply isn't relevant to anything people in the SC community were debating. Yes and no, while some of the problems of "true mech" I outlined are not present in the semi mech that BW and WoL have. Some other problems and compromises still exist for even this type of mech to remain viable, such as a necessity to not go overboard with map sizes and counter attack lanes and the fact that mech still enables you to basically make your natural impervious until high tech units that can deal with it arrive for the opponent
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On August 21 2012 20:37 avilo wrote:
You honestly like SC2 how it is now? It's incredibly easy compared to brood war. You literally 1A around the map with no fear until the engagement happens.
If it's so easy why aren't you winning everything? Why hasn't anyone won everything consistently for a long period of time yet?
How "Difficult" a competitive game is, is just how good the best players are. You don't need to make the game harder till enough people can play it 100% perfectly that it's boring, as that is clearly not happening you shouldn't use the difficultly of the game as an argument.
As for the OP, I really like it, and have no problems with it having no pictures, well made arguments, however, I still think bio vs mech TvT is awesome to watch in sc2 atm, even if that is just because of the mech players mistakes.
EDIT: My initial post was too "insultly"
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On August 21 2012 22:53 Zealos wrote:
If it's so easy why aren't you winning anything? Are personal attacks like this really necessary? He's still a better player than most of the people on this forum, though I agree he can have a some-what overinflated ego regarding his own level of play.
I still think bio vs mech TvT is awesome to watch in sc2 atm, even if that is just because of the mech players mistakes. I agree, but also due to the hellions of course, hellion runbies are an essential part of the matchup. Perhaps Is should've been clearer in that I'm also sort of expressing that it isn't bad that a lot of units in a mech army aren't mech and people shouldn't be so afraid of the unmecny mech in HotS.
The fact that the battle hellion and the warhound exist will make tanks more viable in the end, as they share upgrades and infrastructure with them.
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On August 21 2012 23:01 SiskosGoatee wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 22:53 Zealos wrote:
If it's so easy why aren't you winning anything? Are personal attacks like this really necessary? He's still a better player than most of the people on this forum, though I agree he can have a some-what overinflated ego regarding his own level of play.
It's not even so much a personal insult. It could be applied to literally anyone. No person wins everything, but if the game was "Easy" then someone would have figured it all out by now and have an 80% winrate in every matchup consistently. I hate seeing this argument used all the time by people.
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- True mech is a completely defensive style. Therefore, a true mech player never really attacks, but eventually advances forward enough to choke out the opponent. This style can create very slow and downright boring games.
- By necessity to be viable, perfectly played mech should never be beaten. Thus, players should head toward mech vs mech and since neither side can attack, no engagements happen in a theoretically perfect game, ever.
- The parts that made BW "mech" interesting were actually the non-mech parts (vulture harass) or the fact that the opponent was not going mech and was actively trying to circumvent mech.
- BW and SC2 have succeeded despite mech, not because of it.
Actually no. Your definition of true mech, IMO, is wrong. According so, if one always goes true mech he should always be defeated. Because actually. the counter the your "perfectly play mech" is the same counter to defensive play. If a true perfect mech player never really attack, a perfect counter would expand the whole map and choke YOU out, not the other the way around. If you don't attack, they don't attack and expand, and you with an inferior army ( due to inferior econ) lose. Therefore, the above is not perfect mech, as it does not guarantee a win
That's where vulture harass come in. The harass prevent this scenario, as well as protecting your fire power. Thus, vultures is mech, as it compliment and makes mech more powerful ( as well as being a mech unit, because it cant be healed, ha ). A player with THIS perfect mech play, with perfect vulture harass, should win.
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On August 21 2012 23:19 Zealos wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 23:01 SiskosGoatee wrote:On August 21 2012 22:53 Zealos wrote:
If it's so easy why aren't you winning anything? Are personal attacks like this really necessary? He's still a better player than most of the people on this forum, though I agree he can have a some-what overinflated ego regarding his own level of play. It's not even so much a personal insult. It could be applied to literally anyone. No person wins everything, but if the game was "Easy" then someone would have figured it all out by now and have an 80% winrate in every matchup consistently. I hate seeing this argument used all the time by people. Well, the argument is to be seen in context. What's basically meant with it is that the mechanical skill ceiling of the game is lower, therefore, there is less mechanical difference between the average player and a pro and therefore the average player stands a greater shot beating a pro.
Which I think is kind of silly because no one is even close to the mechanical skill ceiling of either BW or WoL currently, the automaton 2000 gives us a nice indication of what mechanically flawless play may look like.
I guess what it comes down to is 'WoL rewards mechanical skill less than BW.', which I suppose is true. It becomes increasingly hard to beat players with mechanical skill alone in WoL. Some would say this is a good thing though, a very famous rivalry that people love to watch is Mvp versus MKP, pristine decision making versus pristine mechanics.
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no opinion here, i've learned enough not to comment on sc2 balance on TL regardless of the situation
thanks for the good read though, and on the no pictures thing, the [ big ] phrases make it easy enough to read.
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On August 21 2012 23:19 Zealos wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 23:01 SiskosGoatee wrote:On August 21 2012 22:53 Zealos wrote:
If it's so easy why aren't you winning anything? Are personal attacks like this really necessary? He's still a better player than most of the people on this forum, though I agree he can have a some-what overinflated ego regarding his own level of play. It's not even so much a personal insult. It could be applied to literally anyone. No person wins everything, but if the game was "Easy" then someone would have figured it all out by now and have an 80% winrate in every matchup consistently. I hate seeing this argument used all the time by people.
The term "the game is easy" is a misnomer that I too wish people would stop using. However, they are usually referring to the inability of a skilled player to separate himself from the masses. If a 1v1 game was actually easy (and balanced), nobody would hit 80% winrate, any competant player would hit 50% winrate against other competant players.
That brings me to the soft skill cap. The soft skill cap is the level at which further gains have very minimal effect. If you looked at practice-effort on the X axis and skill on the Y axis of a graph, you'd see the graph take a parabolic shape. The soft skill cap is the point on the curve where the graph really levels off (though the exact point can't really be defined). For example, if you put in 40 hours at the start of your SC2 career and your clone put in 140 hours in the same training environment, your clone would be vastly superior to you. However, if you put 2000 hours into SC2 and your clone put 2100 hours into SC2 with the same training environment, the difference in skill between you two would be much smaller.
The hard skill cap in SC2 is beyond human ability and will always allow a better player to differentiate himself slightly, but the soft skill cap seems to be (according to many TLers) considerably lower in SC2 than SCBW. This means that the super top players are very vulnerable to players who are weaker than them and their winrates converge towards 50%.
Certain strategies are much easier to execute than others. Playing for a simple timing push has a reasonably low soft cap. You can always micro slightly better (getting into the hard cap), but executing the micro at a professional level is not extremely difficult (hitting the soft cap) and further micro gains will barely show up during actual games... winrates get too close to 50%. This is where people start to look at SC2 as an easy game.
Taking a blob and using 1A is a low soft skill cap attack. You can always micro the blob better, but the basics of it are extremely easy. That is much different than a game of positional control using mech. When a higher soft skill cap strategy like positional mech play is defeated by (or on par with) lower skill cap strategies like deathballs, then you give good players no ability to differentiate themselves through skill. Thus, you have an "easy game".
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On August 21 2012 23:59 RenSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2012 23:19 Zealos wrote:On August 21 2012 23:01 SiskosGoatee wrote:On August 21 2012 22:53 Zealos wrote:
If it's so easy why aren't you winning anything? Are personal attacks like this really necessary? He's still a better player than most of the people on this forum, though I agree he can have a some-what overinflated ego regarding his own level of play. It's not even so much a personal insult. It could be applied to literally anyone. No person wins everything, but if the game was "Easy" then someone would have figured it all out by now and have an 80% winrate in every matchup consistently. I hate seeing this argument used all the time by people. The term "the game is easy" is a misnomer that I too wish people would stop using. However, they are usually referring to the inability of a skilled player to separate himself from the masses. If a 1v1 game was actually easy (and balanced), nobody would hit 80% winrate, any competant player would hit 50% winrate against other competant players. That brings me to the soft skill cap. The soft skill cap is the level at which further gains have very minimal effect. If you looked at practice-effort on the X axis and skill on the Y axis of a graph, you'd see the graph take a parabolic shape. The soft skill cap is the point on the curve where the graph really levels off (though the exact point can't really be defined). For example, if you put in 40 hours at the start of your SC2 career and your clone put in 140 hours in the same training environment, your clone would be vastly superior to you. However, if you put 2000 hours into SC2 and your clone put 2100 hours into SC2 with the same training environment, the difference in skill between you two would be much smaller. The hard skill cap in SC2 is beyond human ability and will always allow a better player to differentiate himself slightly, but the soft skill cap seems to be (according to many TLers) considerably lower in SC2 than SCBW. This means that the super top players are very vulnerable to players who are weaker than them and their winrates converge towards 50%. Certain strategies are much easier to execute than others. Playing for a simple timing push has a reasonably low soft cap. You can always micro slightly better (getting into the hard cap), but executing the micro at a professional level is not extremely difficult (hitting the soft cap) and further micro gains will barely show up during actual games... winrates get too close to 50%. This is where people start to look at SC2 as an easy game. Taking a blob and using 1A is a low soft skill cap attack. You can always micro the blob better, but the basics of it are extremely easy. That is much different than a game of positional control using mech. When a higher soft skill cap strategy like positional mech play is defeated by (or on par with) lower skill cap strategies like deathballs, then you give good players no ability to differentiate themselves through skill. Thus, you have an "easy game". Indeed, that is what a lot of people have been saying, but I'm not sure if it's statistically true. WoL seems to display about the same amount of people who manage to really differentiate themselves with ridiculous winrates as BW does.
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EPT
