Forcefields are an ability with a simple rule and unlimited potential
All forcefields do is make an area on the ground unpathable and push units already there away. But forcefields have provided for some very emergent gameplay. They can be used for anything, in battles, cut retreat paths, sneaky ramp block warp prism tactics, luring someone in to their main with blink stalkers, thne blinking out and forcefielding the ramp, keeping dts out of your base while you tech to observer. Save a red nexus surrounded by lings by spamming forcefields around it. They can even be used to cancel nukes by pushing the ghost away you can't see.
Forcefields are pretty much the only ability that actually takes skill
We're all cynical about 'great emp', 'great storms', 'great fungals' while there's nothing that amazing about it. But actually getting a line of forcefields down in a half a second with zero overlap in the right position, that's actually pretty darn hard. Forcefields are an ability with a lot of degrees of success from a lot of overlap and gaps to no overlap at all and in the perfect position.
Forcefields do not do damage
Despite its enormous potential, they do not do damage, this means that forcefields do not stack and sentries are always going to need support, no matter how good forcefields are in the hands of a master, pure sentry, unlike pure infestor, just will never fly.
Forcefields bring finesse
Rather than just applying the sledgehammer, massing roaches and going for it. A forcefield-supported army has more finesse to it, the units are weak on their own but a zoning and divide and conquer strategy is used to in the end come out on top. Engagements are no longer about brute force but about very surgical partitioning and positioning.
Forcefields force engagements and micro to matter
Let's face it, without forcefields flanks would be bloody irrelevant against the protoss army. You'd just pushg your roaches up against it and they'd all fire anyway. Forcefields make flanks and positioning matter. Make terrain matter, make zoning out the army of the opponent to deny a good position or acquire a good position to fight in relevant. Every Zerg knows the horror of Protoss getting into that position at the third on Bel'Shir vestige. The solution: Don't let them get there, engage on favourable ground before they get there, it means you have to be mindful of the location of your army because forcefields make positioning and terran matter that much more.
Without forcefields, ZvP would simply be roach vs roach, micro and positioning would hardly matter any more, it would just be stalkers and immortals amoving into roaches and hydralisks for the most part.
Forcefields make engagements last longer
Forcefields reduce the collective dps of the enemy army, of course they make engagements take longer. In your typical PvZ 2base all in when it starts no one knows who's going to win, they can take super long, some up to 7 minutes and it's generally close until the end. It doesn't just come down to composition and numbers, it comes down to micro and positioning from both sides.
Forcefields create hype
How many times has the crowd gone wild over a 4 hp colossus surviving because forcefields blocked the marauders of from killing it? From MC just walking a sentry across the map to randomly forcefield a ramp and killa nexus with 2 zealots and a sentry? From 20 roaches being trapped inside forcefields gone down in a second by a master? As much as people say they hate them, they go wild when they are used in an oppressive manner.
Forcefields make map making stupid, because every map has to be designed in a way that protoss survives early with the help of FFs (because without them protoss is too weak) and at the same time that there are no real chokes or anything because then force fields are too powerful. That one reason makes forcefields suck, even though I agree that the ability itself in a game is kinda cool.
On January 13 2014 23:28 Ammanas wrote: Forcefields make map making stupid, because every map has to be designed in a way that protoss survives early with the help of FFs (because without them protoss is too weak) and at the same time that there are no real chokes or anything because then force fields are too powerful. That one reason makes forcefields suck, even though I agree that the ability itself in a game is kinda cool.
With the MSC almost no one FE with sentries, and while they help, they are not the only way of defense for protoss.
I don't mind forcefields OR warpgate per se, they just happened to combine into a race that resulted with terrible design and somewhat messed up fixes like the current state of Overcharge.
If those mechanics had been given to two separate races they would likely cause less problems/arguing imo.
edit: oh, and microing templar and ghosts takes shit tons of skill.
On January 13 2014 23:27 Velr wrote: Forcefields are one of the main reason Protoss feels „dumb“. The entire race had to be designed around this one spell (and warpgate).
This is bad and has been talked to dead in a miriad of other topics and blogs.
Every race is designed around its components. The entirety of Terran is obviously designed around the power of the mule, every Zerg unit has to be weaker because of larvae and queens. Zerg units' speed is designed around creep.
Protoss doesn't feel 'dumb' to me. People say the race is dirty and it can be very dirty but in that famous 'dirty' vid of Miwa I saw a lot of very well put together tactics. I'm sorry but luring someone into their main with stalkers, then blinking out and forcefielding the ramp isn't "dirty" in my opinion, it's tactically outplaying your opponent and a thing of beauty. A smart player when seeing that would split of 4 lings and move them to the front of the natural to kill any sentry that might try this, these are the kinds of responses and tactics that forcefields force and if you aren't aware enough of the possibility of this happening then it will happen to you.
On January 14 2014 00:08 Rorschach wrote: I think FF and warpgate are pretty damn awesome.
On the otherhand I think the MSC is a true bandaid unit. Just yet another spellcaster protoss is 100@ reliant on...
Don't really like msc in the current form, I said during the beta that it should be a macro mechanic, a gas mule that can target an assimilator for 50 energy every 90 seconds to make probes return 5 instead of 4 gas. That way forcing an overcharge or recall actually costs gas. Currently, forcing overcharges is something you should always do but all it does is forcing overcharges. Also, it's one unit so if you lose it when you shouldn't you don't have overcharge which is pretty important. Had a TvP today, protoss goes to scout with the mothership core but loses it and I walk across the map after that and kill my opponent with 8 marines, would've been held easily with overcharge and protoss obviously depended on that, but hey, lose your core and you can very well die to a reactive timing.
You are so wrong it hurts. FF is a shit mechanic indeed. 1st It limits micro and small scale skirmishes. On a strategic scale, the fact that it cuts off retreat paths, or creates ways to retreat is dumb, because this is a positional game, you should be punished for being out of position, however at the same time you shouldn't be punished to such an extent that you lose your entire army, and FF is the worst of both worlds here. It allows Protoss a sort of get out of jail card even though he should have been punished for being in a bad position, and it also heavily punishes an opponent that over commits by making him lose his entire army or significant chunks of it.
On a tactical scale its even worst, you can't stutter step out of it, you can't split out of it, you can't focus fire against it, the FF just throws all those options out the window. Spells like storm or EMP are a lot better, because it forces constant dynamic back and forth posturing, and you can still do something about them even when they land, however with FF, once it lands its over, you've likely lost those units or will take heavy damage while trying to evacuate them with medviacs or burrow.
Ever wonder why PvX matches are so dull and boring, with so much build time on all sides? Its because FF prevent players from being out on the map with small force of units and trying to jock for position, against FF you can't be out on the map, because one bad FF and you've lost your entire army, so you have to wait until you have stim + medivacs or a large enough force as zerg that it doesn't matter. FF slows the game down by at least 5 minutes if not more.
I also don't even want to touch on what effects it has had upon map making. All maps need to always have a certain size of corridors, chokes, ramps and a certain type of openness, or its just bad, either its too good for FF, or its very bad for it. As a result all maps are forced into a certain type of structure with very little room to work around.
Lastly, the fact that GW units have to be weaker, because of Warp in and FF, is not a + for the game. It doesn't make protoss a more interesting race, it just pidgeon holes them into certain strategies. Deathball on the one hand, because protoss units for the most part are so shitty they can only become cost efficient when fighting as a whole, and 2nd, all-ins, because FFs + WG at a time in the game where the opponent can't easily counter them with mass of units or tech, is super efficient. The net result is just bad, its boring and predictable.
Basically you are wrong about each and every point you make, and the worst thing is, you don't even realize it, you can't even fathom how bad FF are for this game, you genuinely believe they are good, which makes me lose faith in humanity, that such a flat out bad mechanic isn't evident to everyone.
I agree with all the points you made. When SC2 came out, I thought: man, what a great ability, I bet we'll see some creative stuff and crazy micro with this. However, it appears that force fields were ultimately bad for the game. With forcefields and defensive warp-ins against harassment, protoss has a large defender's advantage that leads to colossus deathball play. Also, I find it incredibly frustrating to send a zerg army against a protoss army and not get a single shot off. No matter how much of an army advantage you have, it is impossible to break a protoss's ramp while a single sentry is present. Compare this to blink stalkers: another ability with flexible applications in different situations and great micro potential. However, it doesn't break the game.
I completely agree and was always thinking the same. The problem is that people just hate everything they lose to. Thus, every aspect of the game that can quickly turn the tides, is hated upon, because it is a visible thing to which people lost, while when there are lots of small stupid things, almost noobody whines about them, because it's not easy to connect the loss with them. Sadly, this is the reason why we are slowly losing everything interesting, because Blizzard listens (if reluctantly) to common bitching. I have said many times that I would prefer Blizzard to not to listen to the "community" in most aspects. Also, the whole mapmaking community is guilty, as they have created a "standard" to which they require everyone to adhere, (otherwise the map is "bad") which forbids creating maps where something is strong (ffs, tanks, blinkstalkers ...), thus killing any unusual gameplay.
In the end, everything converges to absolute blandness in the holy name of balance, where the only things that survive the endelss vawes of nerfs are the most uncotroversial, thus most boring.
On January 14 2014 00:32 opisska wrote: I completely agree and was always thinking the same. The problem is that people just hate everything they lose to. Thus, every aspect of the game that can quickly turn the tides, is hated upon, because it is a visible thing to which people lost, while when there are lots of small stupid things, almost noobody whines about them, because it's not easy to connect the loss with them. Sadly, this is the reason why we are slowly losing everything interesting, because Blizzard listens (if reluctantly) to common bitching. I have said many times that I would prefer Blizzard to not to listen to the "community" in most aspects. Also, the whole mapmaking community is guilty, as they have created a "standard" to which they require everyone to adhere, (otherwise the map is "bad") which forbids creating maps where something is strong (ffs, tanks, blinkstalkers ...), thus killing any unusual gameplay.
In the end, everything converges to absolute blandness in the holy name of balance, where the only things that survive the endelss vawes of nerfs are the most uncotroversial, thus most boring.
No, you are wrong. The map makers have no guilt in this, they genuinely can't create maps outside certain bounds because then the map will be broken, either in favor of or against Protoss, its that simple. And please make at least an effort to try to understand how bad the mechanic is before you post, it limits micro, its limits strategic options, and it limits certain kinds of gameplay.
Disagreeing with an opinion does not make it wrong.
I agree with some of the points made. I think forcefields can make for extremely entertaining games, strategies and engagements. They do however limit map design a lot which is probably the biggest downside to them.
The problem I have with forcefields is that I wish there was more that could be done in response. With Terran, at least, you can pick up the units with medivacs and micro them out that trap. With protoss it's expected that both players will eventually get an archon or colossus so that they can walk over FFs to save units or push up a ramp if they need to. But with zerg it's "oh, I got forcefielded? Guess I'm screwed". Unless you get burrow movement roaches or Ultras, there isn't really any micro you can do once you are forcefielded.
I dunno, watching pro level ZvP, if the zerg scouts everything and reacts correctly, it still feels like the result of the match hangs on the protoss player, but not so much the zerg player. If the protoss player has perfect micro, they win. If they make a mistake (like the incomplete forcefield wall a la Trap vs Soulkey) they lose. I'm trying to think of a pro ZvP with sentries where you could legitimately say "oh my god look at that amazing micro from the zerg." And I'm drawing a blank. Yeah, Jaedong's burrow vs Dear was sexy and all, but he just had to press the unburrow key.
I agree that sentries are pretty cool, but a matchup where one player can make awesome brilliant micro moves and the other player can't is a bit frustrating to watch. (And play for me, but I'm far from being pro so whatever). Granted, the correct solution to this is to give zerg units more microability rather than to nerf forcefield. I do like that Blizzard keeps buffing burrow movement, for instance; I'd like to see that be inexpensive/good enough that it shows up in more pro games.
come on it's a satire. i wonder why blizz keep sc2 dev team for so long. they are doing shitty for years, at least someone need to be responsible for changes.
On January 14 2014 00:26 Destructicon wrote: You are so wrong it hurts. FF is a shit mechanic indeed. [...] Basically you are wrong about each and every point you make, and the worst thing is, you don't even realize it, you can't even fathom how bad FF are for this game, you genuinely believe they are good, which makes me lose faith in humanity, that such a flat out bad mechanic isn't evident to everyone.
just because you disagree does not make his opinion wrong.
Some of the points you made are absolutely viable. However, you are exaggerating massively: in early game toss has almost no FFs available to just trap an entire army out on the map. That's actually one of the main reasons for the MsC: toss wasn't able to move out early game because of the weak GW units + the lack of mass FF to protect units.
Furthermore, FFs don't completely nullify micro, they actually also push the micro needed by other races (mostly Terrans though ) your units get partly trapped by some FFs? fly in a rescue medvac, pick them up and get them to safety.
for Zerg (which is by design more of a positional, flanking race than Terran) there at least is burrow movement to circumvent FF blocks.
On January 14 2014 00:26 Destructicon wrote: You are so wrong it hurts.
(...)
Basically you are wrong about each and every point you make, and the worst thing is, you don't even realize it, you can't even fathom how bad FF are for this game, you genuinely believe they are good, which makes me lose faith in humanity, that such a flat out bad mechanic isn't evident to everyone.
This is how you respond to a blog titled "Devil's Advocate"?
On January 14 2014 00:32 opisska wrote: I completely agree and was always thinking the same. The problem is that people just hate everything they lose to. Thus, every aspect of the game that can quickly turn the tides, is hated upon, because it is a visible thing to which people lost, while when there are lots of small stupid things, almost noobody whines about them, because it's not easy to connect the loss with them. Sadly, this is the reason why we are slowly losing everything interesting, because Blizzard listens (if reluctantly) to common bitching. I have said many times that I would prefer Blizzard to not to listen to the "community" in most aspects. Also, the whole mapmaking community is guilty, as they have created a "standard" to which they require everyone to adhere, (otherwise the map is "bad") which forbids creating maps where something is strong (ffs, tanks, blinkstalkers ...), thus killing any unusual gameplay.
In the end, everything converges to absolute blandness in the holy name of balance, where the only things that survive the endelss vawes of nerfs are the most uncotroversial, thus most boring.
No, you are wrong. The map makers have no guilt in this, they genuinely can't create maps outside certain bounds because then the map will be broken, either in favor of or against Protoss, its that simple. And please make at least an effort to try to understand how bad the mechanic is before you post, it limits micro, its limits strategic options, and it limits certain kinds of gameplay.
They genuinely believe that they can't make maps outside of a certain bounds is a more accurate way to put it. Whether it's truly the case or not can be debated.
Elegant solutions might emerge if maps that are thought to be imbalanced are forced onto players at high levels, since it forces them to confront the problems of the map. The ingenuity of the players able to handle those maps might allow for more variety in play styles, too.
I have never understood the "limits micro" argument, either when it's applied to FFs or to fungal in WoL. Splitting up units for optimal engagements on multiple flanks and treating caster energy as a resource to be efficiently burned off enhance micro and gameplay imo. Furthermore, with speedivacs and fast burrowing roaches, both the other races have micro techniques to salvage the situation after unfavorable FFs.
I wanted to see how games would play if forcefields could be destroyed by the opponent so a small group could be trapped while a large army could focus fire their way out of forcefield traps. Unfortunately enabling units to be able to target forcefields was beyond my map editing ability.
On January 14 2014 01:59 dvorakftw wrote: I wanted to see how games would play if forcefields could be destroyed by the opponent so a small group could be trapped while a large army could focus fire their way out of forcefield traps. Unfortunately enabling units to be able to target forcefields was beyond my map editing ability.
I've heard this idea a couple of times already and I would really like to know how this would play out. I think this has potential even so a lot of tweaking the Hp of FFs would be required.
On January 14 2014 00:32 opisska wrote: I completely agree and was always thinking the same. The problem is that people just hate everything they lose to. Thus, every aspect of the game that can quickly turn the tides, is hated upon, because it is a visible thing to which people lost, while when there are lots of small stupid things, almost noobody whines about them, because it's not easy to connect the loss with them. Sadly, this is the reason why we are slowly losing everything interesting, because Blizzard listens (if reluctantly) to common bitching. I have said many times that I would prefer Blizzard to not to listen to the "community" in most aspects. Also, the whole mapmaking community is guilty, as they have created a "standard" to which they require everyone to adhere, (otherwise the map is "bad") which forbids creating maps where something is strong (ffs, tanks, blinkstalkers ...), thus killing any unusual gameplay.
In the end, everything converges to absolute blandness in the holy name of balance, where the only things that survive the endelss vawes of nerfs are the most uncotroversial, thus most boring.
No, you are wrong. The map makers have no guilt in this, they genuinely can't create maps outside certain bounds because then the map will be broken, either in favor of or against Protoss, its that simple. And please make at least an effort to try to understand how bad the mechanic is before you post, it limits micro, its limits strategic options, and it limits certain kinds of gameplay.
They genuinely believe that they can't make maps outside of a certain bounds is a more accurate way to put it. Whether it's truly the case or not can be debated.
If you believe modern mapmakers, maps which were balanced 2 years ago had a 95% ZvP winrate because protoss can't ever win if you can't forcefield of your natural with 2 forcefields. It's in their head. People use to play games on maps like XNC and Metalopolis and it worked fine. These supposed restrictions only exist because people are too goddamn lazy to learn more than one build, there is nothing limiting in the game or in forcefields to map design.
You always see this, I remember at the end of WoL seeing some Zerg saying things like that ti is supposedly "impossible" for Zerg to win ZvP without a gasless third because that was everyone was doing, meanwhile Freaky was going 2base infestor into third every single ZvP and everyone knew he was doing it and he still kept winning with it. People said Hydralisks were completely useless vs Terran in WoL but Stephano proved them wrong, everyone called Hydras a "terrible unit" but Stephano randomly started using them and it worked. Just as everyone said that infestors were a "gimmick" that couldn't respond to drops but Stephano made it work.
People say that kind of stuff all too often and then someone randomly steps up and proves that it works. Hell, I've had many debates about Harstem on the viability of MMM in TvZ since mid WoL. I have always gone MMM TvZ in WoL and I still do in HotS, no tanks, no mines, and he kept saying it isn't viable, a progamer. Then MKP comes out of no-where and popularizes the style and he suddenly looks like a genius.
This one however takes the crown:
Random person on reddit suggesting that sensor towers might be the answer to blink all ins, gets called out on 'bronzelogic' and boom, next day in proleague someone randomly does it and wins with it. People, including progamers, will always continue to say that something doesn't work which they never tested simply because it isn't often used and when someone actually does it it turns out it does work and it revolutionizes the metagame.
On January 14 2014 00:26 Destructicon wrote: You are so wrong it hurts. FF is a shit mechanic indeed. 1st It limits micro and small scale skirmishes. On a strategic scale, the fact that it cuts off retreat paths, or creates ways to retreat is dumb, because this is a positional game, you should be punished for being out of position, however at the same time you shouldn't be punished to such an extent that you lose your entire army, and FF is the worst of both worlds here. It allows Protoss a sort of get out of jail card even though he should have been punished for being in a bad position, and it also heavily punishes an opponent that over commits by making him lose his entire army or significant chunks of it.
On a tactical scale its even worst, you can't stutter step out of it, you can't split out of it, you can't focus fire against it, the FF just throws all those options out the window. Spells like storm or EMP are a lot better, because it forces constant dynamic back and forth posturing, and you can still do something about them even when they land, however with FF, once it lands its over, you've likely lost those units or will take heavy damage while trying to evacuate them with medviacs or burrow.
Ever wonder why PvX matches are so dull and boring, with so much build time on all sides? Its because FF prevent players from being out on the map with small force of units and trying to jock for position, against FF you can't be out on the map, because one bad FF and you've lost your entire army, so you have to wait until you have stim + medivacs or a large enough force as zerg that it doesn't matter. FF slows the game down by at least 5 minutes if not more.
I also don't even want to touch on what effects it has had upon map making. All maps need to always have a certain size of corridors, chokes, ramps and a certain type of openness, or its just bad, either its too good for FF, or its very bad for it. As a result all maps are forced into a certain type of structure with very little room to work around.
Lastly, the fact that GW units have to be weaker, because of Warp in and FF, is not a + for the game. It doesn't make protoss a more interesting race, it just pidgeon holes them into certain strategies. Deathball on the one hand, because protoss units for the most part are so shitty they can only become cost efficient when fighting as a whole, and 2nd, all-ins, because FFs + WG at a time in the game where the opponent can't easily counter them with mass of units or tech, is super efficient. The net result is just bad, its boring and predictable.
Basically you are wrong about each and every point you make, and the worst thing is, you don't even realize it, you can't even fathom how bad FF are for this game, you genuinely believe they are good, which makes me lose faith in humanity, that such a flat out bad mechanic isn't evident to everyone.
As a protoss player who has stopped playing SC2, I believe that forcefield is an ability that makes the game less entertaining than it could be if it had been designed without it. As it is, forcefield can't be removed from the game without completely destroying the balance unless it was 'replaced' by something (somehow) or if the game was redesigned to fill the hole. I'm not too hopeful.
Yes forcefield can be used intelligently, with finesse, and it can sometimes be nice. But it's also a cockblock and it feels like it. If SC2 is to be a spectator game, it shouldn't revolve too much around delaying battles and walls and other such boring stuff. Forcefields are nice when they surround a pack of banelings, not so nice when they block a ramp for 2 minutes straight, forcing the commentators to ramble about random bullshit.
That would be true if SC2 took place on completely open maps. It doesn't, however. One forcefield on a ramp wins entire games instantly, which is clearly a sign of broken design.
On January 14 2014 04:17 mechengineer123 wrote: That would be true if SC2 took place on completely open maps. It doesn't, however. One forcefield on a ramp wins entire games instantly, which is clearly a sign of broken design.
There are a lot of plays that unscouted and unprepared for lead to a win instantly. To me, that situation has very little to do with design and a lot to do with refining your scouting and play to respond appropriately.
If a Terran beats me with an unscouted surprise Banshee attack, I don't blame the Banshee's design. I work on scouting the Starport and preparing with detection and anti-air. It's an equally obnoxious way to lose, but it is clearly my fault for playing badly.
On January 14 2014 04:17 mechengineer123 wrote: That would be true if SC2 took place on completely open maps. It doesn't, however. One forcefield on a ramp wins entire games instantly, which is clearly a sign of broken design.
There are a lot of plays that unscouted and unprepared for lead to a win instantly. To me, that situation has very little to do with design and a lot to do with refining your scouting and play to respond appropriately.
If a Terran beats me with an unscouted surprise Banshee attack, I don't blame the Banshee's design. I work on scouting the Starport and preparing with detection and anti-air. It's an equally obnoxious way to lose, but it is clearly my fault for playing badly.
Well, yeah, but the warpprism + FF play is low-risk, high reward stuff, where a major fuckup from one side will mean the end of the game, whereas a counter from the other sides doesn't give him/her the edge. This is what make WP+FF play feel so stupid and 'unfair'. If the Z prepares, they don't die but, don't gain an advantage either - the P will fly in the base and see that the Z is prepared, fly away and warp-in at home. Whereas if they see that the Z in unprepared, they drop the sentries, warp-in zealots/stalkers and the game is over. There is little need for preparation, no need to build 8 gates off 2 bases, basically, little opportunity cost.
It is completely different from a 2-starport + techlab banshee all-in, where the T put all eggs in the banshee basket, and if you've prepared for it and deflect the attack, the T is going to have a tough time the rest of the game. 4-gate is the same - if you scout you'll likely hold it off, and the P is in a position. A strategy game should have a number of high-risk, high-reward tactics, but WP+FF ramps is low-risk and high-reward...
On January 14 2014 04:17 mechengineer123 wrote: That would be true if SC2 took place on completely open maps. It doesn't, however. One forcefield on a ramp wins entire games instantly, which is clearly a sign of broken design.
There are a lot of plays that unscouted and unprepared for lead to a win instantly. To me, that situation has very little to do with design and a lot to do with refining your scouting and play to respond appropriately.
If a Terran beats me with an unscouted surprise Banshee attack, I don't blame the Banshee's design. I work on scouting the Starport and preparing with detection and anti-air. It's an equally obnoxious way to lose, but it is clearly my fault for playing badly.
Well, yeah, but the warpprism + FF play is low-risk, high reward stuff, where a major fuckup from one side will mean the end of the game, whereas a counter from the other sides doesn't give him/her the edge. This is what make WP+FF play feel so stupid and 'unfair'. If the Z prepares, they don't die but, don't gain an advantage either - the P will fly in the base and see that the Z is prepared, fly away and warp-in at home. Whereas if they see that the Z in unprepared, they drop the sentries, warp-in zealots/stalkers and the game is over. There is little need for preparation, no need to build 8 gates off 2 bases, basically, little opportunity cost.
It is completely different from a 2-starport + techlab banshee all-in, where the T put all eggs in the banshee basket, and if you've prepared for it and deflect the attack, the T is going to have a tough time the rest of the game. 4-gate is the same - if you scout you'll likely hold it off, and the P is in a position. A strategy game should have a number of high-risk, high-reward tactics, but WP+FF ramps is low-risk and high-reward...
That exists for so many things though. If you don't have a zealot in the wall and lings sneak in that is pretty big damage. If there is a zealot as lings check it out it's no biggy, just send the lings back home to help in the battle. Same with various hellion strats, if Z isn't ready every drone will die but if Z is ready the game most certainly isn't over for T. A doom drop that is not expected kills 2 forges, a templar archives and a nexus, if stalkers are ready and expecting? Well, just boost in the other direction.
On January 14 2014 00:32 opisska wrote: I completely agree and was always thinking the same. The problem is that people just hate everything they lose to. Thus, every aspect of the game that can quickly turn the tides, is hated upon, because it is a visible thing to which people lost, while when there are lots of small stupid things, almost noobody whines about them, because it's not easy to connect the loss with them. Sadly, this is the reason why we are slowly losing everything interesting, because Blizzard listens (if reluctantly) to common bitching. I have said many times that I would prefer Blizzard to not to listen to the "community" in most aspects. Also, the whole mapmaking community is guilty, as they have created a "standard" to which they require everyone to adhere, (otherwise the map is "bad") which forbids creating maps where something is strong (ffs, tanks, blinkstalkers ...), thus killing any unusual gameplay.
In the end, everything converges to absolute blandness in the holy name of balance, where the only things that survive the endelss vawes of nerfs are the most uncotroversial, thus most boring.
No, you are wrong. The map makers have no guilt in this, they genuinely can't create maps outside certain bounds because then the map will be broken, either in favor of or against Protoss, its that simple. And please make at least an effort to try to understand how bad the mechanic is before you post, it limits micro, its limits strategic options, and it limits certain kinds of gameplay.
No I am not wrong. I was not around for professional BW but I played that game and understand it to some extend, so I can see that many Proleague maps, were clearly broken in favor or against some races, yet such maps were being created for many consecutive years and everybody liked it. In SC2 this is suddenly like the worst sin ever. Every map that doesn't lend itself well to standard play of any race is instantly droped to trash. Everyone whines about "mech not being viable", but the instant somebody makes a map with useful siege tank positions, it's labeled as "siege tank abuse" and the map is never played.
And please, don't use the argument "please learn about X before you post". It is a kind of personal attack when you try to put yourself in a superior position, because you allegedly "understand" the situation most, while this great understanding is just your opinion.
On January 14 2014 06:43 Entertaining wrote: I dont understand how everyone is in agreement that starcraft 2 sucks yet people still play it.
People rarely talk at length about good things, dude. Rather, people like to bitch, moan and complain. Hence, forums (especially like this one) where people like to talk about stuff tend to attract more of the complainers. The serial complainers on TL are a small part of the overall TL community itself a small part of the SC2 community. Don't fuss the whiners.
Personally, I play SC2 because I really like the game. It is a well designed and well balanced game.
It may just be that quite a few other people feel the same way. They just don't post about it.
I hate forcefields so much. Forcefields + warpgate is the reason why protoss is a broken boring race to play against and watch (IN MY OBVIOUSLY BIASED OPINION)
Forcefield is not the problem, sentries are the problem because you can mass them early game and have them gather energy. It makes timing attacks with sentries very potent, yet they are fairly weak outside that timing window. And forcefields are pretty silly when you can cast so many of them.
Forcefields are bad because you can't do anything about them, period. The only counter is massive units, which don't come into play soon enough to make a difference. I'd go as far as saying they're the most frustrating part of playing Protoss - they prevent you from being able to attack Protoss by ground indefinitely, or slowly have your army destroyed without being able to do anything about it if you're defending. The only real answer to forcefields is to attack via air (including drops), but that's terrible design...
I agree with you on all points, but I still think forcefields are bad.
How, you ask? The problem isn't that forcefields are bad from the perspective of the user. They do indeed have a huge amount of skill and finesse, and they are a valuable asset that costs resources but does not do damage, slowing down combat and making it more tactical.
But all of that gets eaten by the simple fact that there is zero counterplay possible. The outcome of the forcefield is determined absolutely by the Protoss using them, and the other player has no way of interacting with that choice whatsoever.
Granted, it is possible for Massive units to instantly destroy forcefields. So it's not entirely correct that there is no counterplay possible. But that counterplay is only available if a player's army contains a Massive unit, and it is also really trivial counterplay which then completely obviates forcefield, again with no counterplay possible.
So what I would suggest is, what if forcefield were destructible? Give it a large amount of HP and perhaps a significant amount of armor, but if it takes more damage than it has HP, it disappears. Leave its duration as an additional limitation. The forcefield could easily be given enough HP and armor that a very small group of units won't be able to destroy it quickly, and it only lasts a certain amount of time anyway.
What this would do is create counterplay between the forcefield user and the player being forcefielded against. Yes, the forcefields block the path. But it is possible to attack the forcefield to try and break through. This pulls damage away from combat units, but could allow the other player to close to range despite the forcefields. Focus firing a hole in a forcefield line would then prompt a cast of another forcefield in its place.
With destructible forcefields, both sides have moves to make which will affect what both players do. Forcefield as it now stands is almost completely absolute, and there is nothing the other player can do.
Yeah, forcefields aren't so bad, though I definitely would prefer some (high)HP/neutral (no autoattacking) version of them, to get some form of interaction with them going.
Forcefields do necessitate more emphasis on positioning before fights and are hard to use well, but once the fight has started they kind of ruin the ability of the opponent to change the outcome of the fight. If force fields are good, all the opponent can do is focus fire specific units, they can't really move anywhere or do anything. If they're bad, the protoss gets run over easily.
On January 14 2014 06:43 Entertaining wrote: I dont understand how everyone is in agreement that starcraft 2 sucks yet people still play it.
People rarely talk at length about good things, dude. Rather, people like to bitch, moan and complain. Hence, forums (especially like this one) where people like to talk about stuff tend to attract more of the complainers. The serial complainers on TL are a small part of the overall TL community itself a small part of the SC2 community. Don't fuss the whiners.
Personally, I play SC2 because I really like the game. It is a well designed and well balanced game.
It may just be that quite a few other people feel the same way. They just don't post about it.
I don't think people criticize forcefields just because teamliquid is a forum. Dota 2 and BW don't have nearly the same proportion of "complainers." I think there's a reason for this: there is a large population of people that think SC2 could be greatly improved and they're active in saying so in the hope that Blizzard will change the game.
I can only speak for myself but the reason I post stuff like this is because I would enjoy SC2 more if they made changes I'm advocating. Maybe that's wishful thinking, but I don't do the same thing on the Dota 2 forums because I really like the way IceFrog handles the game.
EPT
) your units get partly trapped by some FFs? fly in a rescue medvac, pick them up and get them to safety.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Xtc5hGz.png)
